When I switched over from film to digital, I retired my Singh-Ray Blue 'N Gold Polarizer. The results I was getting were just horrendous. I had read Darwin Wigget's article in Nature Photographers Online Magazine where he talks about the differences using the Blue 'N Gold Polarizer with digital, as opposed to film, capture and discusses shooting in RAW format while dropping the color temperature to the 2500 to 3200 K range during processing. I tried it but have to admit that I wasn't happy with the results. The filter stayed in retirement.
Recently, I came across Darwin's article reposted on the Singh-Ray blog here. It was a post with excerpts from the original article. But what got me interested was this "Editors Note" that appeared at the end of the blog post that was not contained in the original article:
Editor's note: By setting a "Custom White Balance" in the field with the Gold-N-Blue in place on the lens, virtually all digital SLR cameras can compensate for the magenta tint and display a correct image on the LCD. The color temperature and tint settings on the RAW file will be similar to what Darwin describes here, and should require minimal correction. Refer to your camera's manual for specific instructions on setting a Custom White Balance.
I decided it might just be worth a try. I took the filter with me on a local outing and used my Color-Right white balance tool.....but you can use Expo Disc or whatever custom white balance tool you have.....and took a shot with the tool in place. I was amazed to see just how intensely blue the light from the image was, and, when I used a custom white balance to make that image neutral, the subsequent shots with the filter in place came out just like in the old film days. So I guess the Blue 'N Gold will have to come out of retirement.
If you have a Blue 'N Gold filter that you have retired you might want to get it out and give this technique a try....it really works.
I have previously written about the workshop I attended with Nancy Rotenberg, Les Saucier and Don McGowan in Provincetown, Massachusetts. This is one of my favorite images from the trip, and one with a little story behind it.
Perhaps you are familiar with Chase Jarvis and his iPhone app for taking and sharing images, as well as his book The Best Camera Is The One That's With You: iPhone Photography by Chase Jarvis (Voices That Matter)
What I find far more interesting (since, for one thing, I don't own an iPhone) is Chase's website The Best Camera, where one can see a live feed of images being posted from people using his application. The volume of images is amazing....and even more amazing is the creativity behind a very large percentage of them. I have to admit, I don't think I am 'into' the phenomena myself, but it is interesting to watch it all happen.
I have not personally been particularly interested in video production and thus have not even used the video capability of my Canon 5D MKII as of yet. However, I read a very interesting article that was referenced on the Outback Photo website about the effect of anti-aliasing filters on HD video obtained via the current generation of dSLRs.
The article, entitled "Aliasing" is by Barry Green and can be found here. I found two aspects of the article quite interesting. The first was the detailed general discussion about aliasing and the artifacts it can introduce and the second was the discussion related to the fact that the type of anti-aliasing filters appropriate for high resolution digital still images and video are quite different. When both types of imaging are combined in a single camera body a compromise must be made with regards to the anti-aliasing filter (and the compromise has rightly been made to sacrifice the optimum video anti-aliasing filter in order to have the appropriate anti-aliasing for still images).
Besides being a well-written and extremely interesting article, it is also chock-full of real life video examples. It makes for some fascinating and enlightening reading.
In my post about my trip to Cuyahoga National Park, I mentioned that my friend Bob and I had picked out the locations we planned to photograph based on an article in Photograph America. I mentioned that Photograph America was a great publication, but that it was a topic for a different post……
So let me tell you about Photograph America. It is a quarterly newsletter put out by photographer Robert Hitchman. Hitchman travels the country on photo journeys and documents his experiences. This includes what he found worthwhile photographing, how to get around the location and often places to stay and where to eat economically. I find his descriptions of what to shoot the best aspect of the newsletter. If you are making a relatively short duration trip to a location, you can put together an essentially completely planned itinerary prior to actually going, so you don’t waste a good deal of time ‘wandering’.
Of course, that isn’t to say that you will find all of Hitchman’s choices perfect for you. For example, on the Cuyahoga trip, we found that we really weren’t all that ‘taken’ by one of Hitchman’s top locations to shoot in the park. But that wasn’t a big problem for several reasons. First of all, because we knew exactly where we were going we didn’t waste much time getting there, and were able to tell pretty quickly that the location didn’t hold as much interest for us as it did for Hitchman. We were then able to move on to the next location, which we found much more enjoyable to photograph.
In addition to subscribing, Hitchman also offers the opportunity to purchase back issues of the newsletter. You can either purchase them all or just the ones that are focused on a specific area of the country that you might be interested in.
I recommend Photograph America very highly to anyone who is interested in traveling to locations for nature photography. The newsletters are very detailed and extremely helpful in planning a photography trip. They are, however, somewhat more focused on the West and Southwest since that is where Hitchman lives. That isn’t to say there isn't coverage of the South, East or Midwest, there certainly is, though not as frequently or to as many locations as in the West. Subscriptions are now available in PDF as well as in print format.
I was very pleasantly and unexpectedly surprised to find that an image I had submitted to B&W Magazine many months back had been awarded a 'Silver Medal' in the Seascapes/Water category. This image is a black and white conversion from a photograph taken as part of my "Twin Jewels Project".
A few weeks back I went with my friend, lets call him Bob (mainly because that is his name), for a weekend of photographing at Cuyahoga National Park in Ohio, about two hours from my home. We had the 'photo ops' chosen because Photograph America had published an article on Cuyahoga (great publication, but that is a topic for another post). However, as it turned out we were a bit beyond the peak fall color we had come to photograph and, in addition, the weather was quite lousy.
The first day (Friday) it rained the whole time we were there, so we took the opportunity to scout out most of the sites we were thinking of going to. That actually was very helpful as it gave us an opportunity to prioritize where we wanted to shoot and gave us a sense of what areas would be best to photograph in different weather conditions.
We continued to have miserable conditions Saturday morning, as well as late afternoon and evening. However.....for a several hour window early on Saturday afternoon conditions were excellent. It was overcast (great for the waterfalls) and wet (great for saturating the colors,) and because of the rain the waterfalls had plenty of water to 'fall'.
It would appear that I have completed my 'rock project'....at least it feels that way. I have reached a point where I don't feel a drive (at least for now) to photograph any more rocks, and 'they' say that you will just know when your project is complete.
I have edited the series to 20 images that, to me, represent abstract landscapes within single stones. Some are landscapes as I imagine them from a usual Earthbound point of view and some are land formations as seen from far above.
I have renamed the project "Scene In Stone" and have also re-written the "Artist's Statement" as follows:
I have, on several occasions, had the opportunity to photograph the "red rock" formations found in the American Southwest. These landscapes are magnificent, but portraying their grandeur within a small two-dimensional image is always challenging. While photographing these rock formations, I found myself wondering what might be found if, instead of looking outward towards massive numbers of rocks arranged into a grand landscape, one peered inward, letting a single rock become the entire image.
What if instead of the rocks making up the landscape there were landscapes contained within each individual rock? What if there were rocks that contained shapes and patterns that were images in and of themselves?
As I began to look at rocks that were available from several different mining sources, I found that a truly unbelievable array of shapes, colors, and patterns could be found within them. In many instances, I was amazed to find that these patterns did, indeed, look just like miniature versions of the landscapes I was so used to photographing; images of the outside world that were reflected and indelibly etched into stone.
These "Scene In Stone" landscapes have been photographed using a technique called cross-polarization, which removes the glare from the surface of the cut stone, thus allowing the underlying texture and colors to show through.
Shrink yourself down and enjoy your walk through these imaginary landscapes!
So, I now invite you to view the 20 image project here.
Any comments (especially helpful criticism) regarding the images, statement, or project as a whole are welcome.
I recently had a very interesting insight into myself....or, more accurately, how I learn.
I have always been a 'book learner'. By that I mean that my most efficient way to learn something new has been to get a good book and sit down with it and digest it at my own speed, making sure that I understand everything as the lessons advance. That is how I learned Photoshop and that was the way I made it through various institutions of higher learning. That's not to say that lectures weren't important. But, in a pinch, I always felt that I could get most of what I needed out of the book with lectures and other multimedia highlighting what the most important and practical issues were.
Well, I surprised myself recently. Several months back, I bought a couple of Michael Reichmann's downloadable video tutorials from The Luminous Landscape. I did this in the hopes of learning something new, but also because I thought that a video with Reichmann and Jeff Schewe would be entertaining. And it was, but along the way I surprised myself by feeling that I was learning more than I thought I would.
With this insight, I pursued the idea that perhaps I didn't know as much about my process of learning as I thought I did. So I followed up on this by buying Brooks Jensen's workshop PDF and Folio tutorials on DVD and loved them. In fact, I previously reviewed the PDF tutorial. Once again, I learned a great deal....even more so from this tutorial as I really had no insight into how to make a PDF book prior to watching the DVD. I found the same to be true when I ordered an HDR training DVD from Kelby Training. I have another DVD from Tony Sweet coming in the mail.
I thought I knew the most efficient way that I was able to learn, but am glad that I ended trying out a new approach that is both enjoyable and effective. If you haven't tried learning from a multimedia DVD it just might be an unexpectedly worthwhile approach. It was for me.
I love rock and roll......do you? Well, if you love photography AND rock music then you owe it yourself to do two things:
1) Go over to The Candid Frame and listen to Ibarionex Perello's interview with Lynn Goldsmith, who is a premier "Rock Photographer" (though she is a wonderful photographer of many other subjects as well). The interview can be found here, though you will need to scroll down to the Oct 11 post to get it.
2) Buy Lynn's book, which Ibarionex discusses in the podcast, called PhotoDiary. The book is chock full of very entertaining stories about photography and rock personalities as well as great shots of your favorite musicians. And the best part.....I got the book for under $5 (yes, that's a 5 with no zero after it) shipping included. What a deal...and you can get a similar one at Abe's Books here.
ENJOY!
One more rock from my project finding landscapes in stone:
I am hoping to have my rock project finished within about two weeks. My goal is to have approximately 20 completed images, by which I mean having hard copy prints as well as the files for computer viewing. The unifying idea behind the project is 'landscapes within stone'--the discovery of landscapes that exist as microcosms within a slab of rock.
Today's post is one of the newer images that I have processed:
I recently wrote a post entitled "Trusting Photographs" , in which I mentioned a two part post called "Photography And Truth". In these blog installments, I wrote that I was surprised that there was an expectation on the part of many, if not most, viewers that fine art photography should depict ‘the truth’. In reality, there are decisions made by the photographer including focal length, in camera cropping, and shooting in RAW format (to name a few) that explain why most photographs are ‘untruthful’ to at least some degree.
I was recently looking at a highly regarded photography magazine when I read something that I found to be totally absurd and which reflects back on this whole issue of 'truth' in photography. I won't mention the magazine or the particular photographer, but suffice it to say that the photographer had his superb fine art portfolio published and, in an the accompanying article, says " I very seldom change the actual situation, I just make it more dramatic. I use Photoshop, I never use any plug-in to make the photos more dramatic."
I find this a self-contradictory absurdity on multiple levels. The situation isn't changed...just the degree of drama?? It's OK to use Photoshop, but not a Photoshop plug-in (which itself just uses adjustments available in Photoshop)???? Methinks you protest too much.
Can't we just agree that there is no crime in using Photoshop or Lightroom to make adjustments to fine art photographs in order to express our artistic vision? Can't we just disclose to the public that with todays RAW format adjustments have to be made to the out of camera image in order to restore it to what the scene looked like, and that any such restoration is significantly related to our memory and experience of the location? Photoshop and Lightroom (or similar image editing software) is simply an integral part of photography in the digital age. In my opinion, using them does not somehow denegrate a photograph. And, yes, I also think it is OK to use plug-ins!
It is hard for me to believe that I started this blog almost three years ago, in January of 2007. At that time, I really wasn't sure how long it would last. Surprisingly (to me), I now have written just over 300 posts, and plan to continue.
In thinking about bygone posts, I wondered what would be the most 'popular' one. That turned out to be very easy to find, at least if one gauges popularity by the number of comments a post receives. Frankly, I usually don't get all that many, with the usual number being 0 to5 ( bloggers love comments...so come on folks, feel free to write them). However, one post, believe it or not, has gotten 110 comments. In addition, my statistics counter tells me that it is also my most read one, with continual daily hits despite it being written back in September of 2007. The fact that it is still getting continual daily 'hits' despite its age tells me that Adobe still has a bit of work to do. Wondering which post it is? Check it out here.
I have previously written about my initial experiments with the digital zone plate process using my Lensbaby with the zone plate 'Optic Swap' insert. I continue to 'play' with it, looking for more images to include in my 'Dreamscapes ' portfolio.
One of my blog posts that I most enjoyed writing was entitled “Photography And Truth”, which can be read here and here. These posts ultimately turned into an essay that was published on Uwe Steinmuller’s Digital Outback Photography website. In the essay, I mentioned that I was surprised that there was an expectation on the part of many, if not most, viewers that fine art photography should depict ‘the truth’. In reality, there are decisions made by the photographer including focal length, in camera cropping, and shooting in RAW format (to name a few) that explain why most photographs are ‘untruthful’ to at least some degree.. However, there are journalistic standards that move a photograph more (but not necessarily totally) towards depicting the world as it truly is.
As the digital age progresses, there continues to be advancements in technology which allow for photographic 'doctoring' using methods that are increasingly subtle and difficult to detect. Interestingly, however, the concept of photographic manipulation is not a new one. In fact, such manipulations have been used since the earliest days of the medium.
One of the most famous photographic portraits of Abraham Lincoln was actually a composite image of Lincoln's head atop John Calhoun's body (ironic, given that Calhoun was a staunch supporter of slavery), done to give the president a more 'heroic' appearance.
In my last post entitled "Compliments", I wrote about people's responses to viewing photographs. Andy Ilachinski made a wonderful and insightful comment to that post. Because I really enjoyed Andy's words and since people don't always read the comments section, I thought I would put his response up as a post on and of itself.
Andy noted that:
What is the best compliment you feel you could receive about your work? Some candidates might be that your work is.....beautiful, gorgeous, looks like a painting, breathtaking....maybe even unusual or different.
I recently received an interesting compliment. I initially didn't think much about it, but, with further contemplation, I believe it is probably one of the finest comments I could have received. Let me preface this story by saying that those who know me or have been readers of this blog know that I am more apt to voice my uncertainties regarding the quality of my work than to report accolades. I decided to post this simply because of the insight that it gave me.
I happen to meet a woman I know that was looking at a photograph hanging in an office. It was a lovely sunset photo and, as one who mainly does nature photography, I certainly have taken my share of sunset photos, and this one was quite nice; in fact I told her that I would have been glad to have taken and displayed it. She responded by saying that, yes, it was a very pretty picture, but that "your pictures make me think".
Isn't that an interesting comment? Sure, documentary or photojournalistic photos should make you think, but I had never really contemplated that as being an attribute of nature photographs. I had mainly considered the mark of a successful nature photograph as making you 'feel' something. And yet, in retrospect, the fact that they should make you think, and that 'making you think' is an important attribute of nature photography is obvious. I had just never really thought about it that way.
Sometimes, an innocent comment can give important insight!
I continue to put my efforts into trying to complete a defined project. I was given some further insight today when I presented some of my rock images to a helpful reviewer at the Silver Eye Gallery. One insight that I was given is that the rock landscapes appear to be two separate but related groups....landscapes seen from a 'grounded' position and those seen from an aerial view. Thus, I think that I will have to have an adequate number of images in both groups to complete the project and am thus leaning towards 20-25 total, as opposed to 15-20.
Here is another image from the 'grounded' viewpoint:
I have posted before about my project photographing slabs of stone. I have been working on trying to complete this project. This particular rock reminded me of images I have seen of the Dakota 'Badlands'.
In my post about editing photographs from a trip, I mentioned that often images that are not stand alone 'best of' photos can still be important to a project because they impart to the viewer a feel for a certain area or location. This was the case for the Atwood-Higgins house, which is an early colonial homestead near Provincetown, on Cape Cod. Since I had mentioned the location, I thought I would show one of the photographs that is not all that special alone, but might well be an important contribution to a project related to the area.
One thing leads to another. I used to watch Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In regularly as a kid. Recently, Henry Gibson, one of the show's comedians, died, which got me thinking of that time in my life. This led to my remembering a book which I had recently bought but had not yet cracked open.
In one of the late Bill Jay's Endnotes columns which he wrote for LensWork, he mentioned, and recommended, a book by Ralph Hattersley entitled "Discover Your Self Through Photography". He mentioned that it is still as relevant today as it was when it was published, though it has a good bit of 60's lingo. Somehow, having Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In on the mind led me to have a peek at the book.
Initially published in 1971, it really is a wonderful book that is filled with ideas and exercises to help expand one's creativity through photography and is definitely worth reading. I personally find the occasional smattering of 60's language and ideas a bonus that tends to bring back memories, if only for a short while (and if they were there to start with). And to top it all off, the book can be had quite cheaply and contains many images by Jerry Uelsmann (who taught with Hattersley at the same institution).
One of the paragraphs in the book made me recognize that what we now call 'pixel-peeping' is not at all something new....the pixels may be new but the peeping goes back a long way. In his introduction to an exercise called 'Creative Destruction' (an exercise involving the exploration of purposefully breaking photographic rules), Hattersley says:
"One of the fascinations of photography is that it can be a subtle and demanding craft. No matter how much sensitivity and technique you pour into a photograph, it can still absorb more. This is a great challenge, of course. But it can lead to the hang-up (there's a bit of that 60's creeping in) of being overimpressed with craftsmanship at the expense of everything else. People who fall in this trap generally turn themselves into unhappy, nit-picking old maids (yikes, I don't think anyone would publish that terminology today) who are terrified of making technical mistakes. To avoid them, they conduct endless experiments with technical trivialities or ceaselessly repeat past technical triumphs."
That sure seems to me a reminder that pixel-peeping is nothing new and that our main goal in photographing should be to instill emotion into our pictures while still secondarily maintaining a backdrop of technical excellence.
After workshops I have been to in the past, I have tended to process and print a few choice images that seem to stand above the others. However, I typically have known which images these will be even before returning home. This, however, has led to a bad habit.
While I have typically keyworded the images from the weeklong workshops I have attended, I have not edited or rated them as a unified group in terms of overall quality. This has led to a situation where I have, from each trip, two or three 'best of' images printed while the others lie dormant and relegated to pleasant memories. It is difficult to revisit these, as they now exist as hundreds upon hundreds (or thousands upon thousands) of unedited images, making it difficult to resurrect the trip or a photo grouping that represents the workshop. Truth be told, the same situation exists with a good deal of the images I have made at home as well.
I have decided to put an end to this situation. Having the photographs keyworded but unedited as a group is not a good situation for the images or for the photographer. I believe it inhibits learning and progress. Picking just one or two 'best of' images from a trip doesn't allow you to have an overview of how you photograph. To see the overall 'big picture' of how you approach photographing a location can give helpful insights into how you think about making images and, more importantly, can give direction on how to get off the path on which you are most comfortable in order to become more creative and extend beyond your own comfort zone.
In addition, looking at a conglomerate of images to rate them will allow for the selection of photographs that might not be 'greatest hits' viewed in isolation, but which are important in the understanding and portrayal of a location. For example, on the workshop I just returned from, the group visited a location called the Atwood-Higgins house. This is a group of cottages that were built by some of the original settlers in the Provincetown region. They are locked (at least they were when we were there), so only exterior photographs could be taken. When looking for 'greatest hits' images, a photograph of an old and unusual door handle would not likely make the cut.....but it would be an image that would most certainly be in a grouping designed to transmit the feel of a visit to Cape Cod.
In short, taking time to cull down hundreds and hundreds of images to perhaps twenty or thirty that truly represent the best images from a trip and which stand together as a group that relates the 'story' of a location is an exercise which I am just beginning to understand the importance of. And I think the timing is just right for me to do this for the images from the Provincetown workshop I just attended.
Edit too soon and you run the risk of being overly sentimental. Wait too long and you lose the sense of place that you had experienced. I will ultimately go back (albeit quite late) and do the same for the photos from prior workshops, but tasks like this are best undertaken in small portions. If the scope is too large the work gets abandoned and never completed. So even if it delays other ideas that I wanted to pursue, I plan to give to the images I recently took the time they deserve.
I just returned from my yearly photography workshop with Nancy Rotenberg, Les Saucier, and Don McGowan. This particular workshop was held in Provincetown, Massachusetts on Cape Cod and, as expected, was another wonderful experience.
Why return to do workshops with the same instructors year after year? Simply put, it is because I don't believe anyone teaches a workshop with the same focus as they do. Sure, you will learn technique, digital processing etc, but that is not the foundation of their workshop experience. Rather, the emphasis is strongly on 'learning to see' , focusing creative energy, and using one's unique inner vision and heart to create images. Now, imagine doing that with 15-20 other terrific people who are also interested in the same thing. I have never been to one of Freeman Patterson's workshops, but imagine that there are a lot of similarities.....I guess it is therefore not surprising that he wrote the forward to Nancy's book "Photography and the Creative Life".
In the next week or two, even though I know it will delay some of my other projects, I plan to edit and post some of the images from this fantastic trip.
I have completed the second image in my "Botanical Blends" project and thus have accomplished half of my goal for the month. Of course, the goal does not merely reflect the number of images completed, as the images need to be of the appropriate quality as well. Artistic quality, however, is for the viewer to decide.
This particular image was made with a LensBaby.
Unfortunately, the small image size that Blogger displays makes it difficult to see the underlying blended texture in photographs where the texture is subtle. However, there is not much that I can do about that!
In my last post, I mentioned that I was going to specifically answer the questions I thought were important to consider when planning a photography project as they relate to my recently initiated "Botanical Blends" series.
However, before I do so I would like to add one more important concept to the planning stage of my project. This is likely important for anyone planning a project, but is particularly apropo for me, as I tend to spend too much time on any one image, making changes that I am sure no viewer will likely notice. This concept has to do with deadlines. I believe it is important to set a reasonable and achievable schedule for producing the project. This schedule will be different for everyone depending on their 'life circumstances' and available time to devote to the project. However, it does need to be achievable while allowing for completion of the project within a reasonable time period.
With that said, here are my personal answers, goals, and deadlines for "Botanical Blends":
Who is the intended audience?
For this project, given the subject matter, I define my audience widely. I believe it would include anyone with an interest in flowers and horticulture as well as nature. In addition, as a secondary audience I would include people that I work with and/or my patients, as I will likely have an opportunity to display prints at work and in my office.
How do I primarily intend to reach that audience?
The primary goal I hope to achieve is to have a display at a local botanical conservatory. Obviously, I can not be sure that the goal will be achieved as the decision to hang prints there is not one that I make. Thus, I need additional viable methods for getting the work seen. For this project, that would include hanging prints at work/office. In terms of other distribution methods for the project, I am considering a pdf publication (though I have not used InDesign or Acrobat before and thus this will have a fairly steep learning curve and will probably not be coincident in time with other distribution methods), as well as possibly making some 'give away' promotional type prints.
Are prints needed? How many? What size?
Since my primary, and at least one of my secondary methods of distributing the work is via display, prints will clearly be needed in larger sizes. My plan is to have prints matted and framed to 20x26 inches. Why that size? As I have made some flower images in the past, this size just looks right for display to me and I already have some frames in this size as well. It is also an efficient size, as it allows me to obtain two mats and backing boards from standard sized 32x40 matboard and foamboard. Given that I hope for a formal display in a conservatory, standard white matting might be best, but I still have not ruled out the possibility of black matting. The frames will be simple and relatively inexpensive standard, thin black metal.
The number of images needed is difficult to be certain of and obviously depends on how many worthy photographs I make. However, as an approximate goal I am contemplating 20-30.
What is my deadline?
This is a difficult question but, knowing myself, a very important one. As I mentioned above, the goal needs to be attainable but the project also needs to be completed in a reasonable period of time. In addition, I anticipate working on some other prints during this time and I suspect there may be some periods when I have very little time to spare because of work constraints.
I have come up with a deadline goal of four finished prints every month. I plan to aim for one print a week, but I know that there will be times when I am unable to work on the project and times when I will be able to devote more time than usual.....so it seems to me that a monthly goal will be more reasonable. If I keep to that deadline, I should have the project well in hand by 6 months.
I should add that I have many, many flower pictures that I have taken and not 'developed'. So the primary focus of project completion will be on the computer as opposed to actually taking the photographs. That said, it does take a good bit of time and experimentation to find a texture that works well with an image. Clearly, the starting point is an excellent botanical photograph, but that alone is not enough for what I am trying to do.
I decided to put this goal in writing in order to help me keep to it, and I will post images and my progress as I go along. Because the next month is going to be quite busy for me at work I am going to give myself a bit of leeway at the start and declare today as the formal start of the project even though I already have 1 1/2 images processed. By September 27th I therefore need to have completed four images.
After my last post entitled "Creative Paths.....Creative Accidents", Mike Mundy made a comment wondering about the final output/usage of the images I was making for my flower project (to which I have given the tentative title "Botanical Blends"). I believe Mike intended that to be more than a simple question, and rightly so! In fact, I had been thinking about writing a post regarding planning the project.
As one thinks about a potential photographic project, I think they need to have in mind a number of important questions:
Who is the intended audience (although sometimes the audience grows, there should still be a primary target group who you think would be interested in the images...this target audience can be defined in either a very broad or narrow way)?
How do you primarily intend to reach that audience? This might be through a show (again, broadly or narrowly defined....from a gallery or museum show to hanging images at a local coffee shop or even at work or in your home),a magazine, book, pdf, or even as give away prints.
What other distribution methods might assist in reaching the target audience as well as making it easier for people that might not be in the primary target audience to see the work if they find it interesting. This might include any of the previously mentioned methods.
Answering these questions before delving into a project is important for some very practical reasons. Knowing the answers can help with some very basic issues such as:
Approximately how many images should one's goal for the project be? The number needed for a gallery showing might be different from that needed to author a magazine article.
What size prints are needed? Again, this will differ based on where the images are being displayed and how they are being used.
Are prints even needed at all? Perhaps not, if the final project is a magazine article, pdf, or your website.
Do the prints need to be framed, and, if so, how? The location of a display might well effect whether one chooses classic white matting or not, how ornate or simple the frame should be, or if some type of display without frames might be possible. In addition, this will give some idea as to the cost (and time) one can expect to be associated with framing.
What other non-photographic skills might be needed? These might include the software skills needed for making a pdf, laying out a book, or making promotional items, as well as framing skills, artist bookbinding skills, calligraphy etc.
How might the project be marketed or advertised?
These are just a few of the more prominent questions that immediately come to mind (and I am sure there are more that can be asked), but which I believe are important to contemplate before proceeding with a project.
Having written a bit more than I had expected, I think I will leave for my next post the specific answers to these questions as they relate to my "Botanical Blends" project.
Just when I had been espousing previsualizing what you want an image to look like in Photoshop, I had a creative accident. As I previously posted, I have been playing with the idea of black and white flower photographs combined with various textures that have also been converted to black and white. After having made two such images, I was having trouble creating a third that resonated with me.
In trying to put together a third photo, I had already converted a flower photograph to black and white and was trying out different texture overlays. None seemed to 'work' well and so I was quickly trying out several more that I thought might go with the picture. I hadn't yet converted the texture I was working with to black and white and went to turn off the texture layer in Photoshop, as it didn't look like it would go well with the picture. Instead of clicking the icon to hide the texture layer I accidentally clicked on the icon to hide the black and white conversion layer targeting the flower.
Sure, the issue as to whether Robert Capa's famous photograph "Falling Soldier" was staged or not is an old one. But that doesn't make the controversy any less interesting.
I have always enjoyed taking pictures of wall murals. However, I have typically photographed only isolated small abstract portions of the murals. Usually these images have no hint of what the mural was actually a painting of and consist only of abstract splotches of paint that denote only color, tone, and shape.
When I was in Montreal about a year ago I saw a mural that I found interesting. However, instead of the usual abstract 'blotches' that I typically would take, I found myself drawn to a portion of the mural that was much larger than usual for me. It reminded me of Alice In Wonderland. A year later I still like it, though I am not quite sure why!
In my last post, entitled 'Too Many Choices', I mentioned that I was going to post a recent image that was a result of using experimentation to try to achieve a particular result that I already had in mind.
Photographs can be post-processed in a multitude of ways. High-key, low-key, highly saturated, black and white, tinted, duotone, combined with underlying textures.....and the list goes on and on. While the multitude of options certainly opens vast creative opportunities, it can also be daunting. It can be easy to become 'frozen' with indecision, in which case having all those choices actually becomes a hindrance.
As I was thinking about this issue, I realized that there is no 'right way' or 'wrong way' for an image to look. A photo can be successfully processed in any of many different ways and still look great within each different style. The trick is to know how you want it to look and, once that is accomplished, to be able to get the image to that endpoint.
I am not at all advocating that one should give up experimenting with different techniques. Such experimentation will build experience in order to help know what the options are when considering how you want an image to look. In fact, in my next post I plan to show an image that I made using just such experimentation. But I used the experimentation to try to figure out how to get to an end result that I already had in mind. Overall, it just seems to me, that, in order to avoid becoming 'lost' when starting on a creative journey, it is helpful to have at least some idea of what the ultimate destination might be.
OK, I know it's not exactly LensWork, but I do have to mention something when I get a photo published. The last few months I picked up a subscription to Shutterbug to read some of the software reviews etc and noticed their "Picture This!" monthly themed feature. So I sent in images for two months in a row since I happen to have had photos that fit the themes. The first theme for which I submitted an image was "Monochrome". I got my issue yesterday and there it was, along with the others they had chosen. Not the worlds biggest deal, but it is nice to see one's image in print!
It does seem like it has been a while since I posted any photographs. This image is one I have been working on from my series of rock abstracts. It was taken using cross-polarized strobe lighting with a 180mm macro plus 1.4x TC.
At the end of June I wrote a post about photographer Michael David Murphy's website "Unphotographable", which he calls a ‘catalog of exceptional mistakes. Photos never taken that weren't meant to be forgotten. Opportunities missed. Simple failures. Occasions when I wished I'd taken the picture, or not forgotten the camera, or had been brave enough to click the shutter.’
Sam Abell has some interesting thoughts about being without a camera when what might have been an interesting photograph is seen. He channels the 'anguish' of missing a shot into the energy needed to make yet better photographs.
As I have mentioned in prior posts, I am intrigued by the idea of the distribution of photographic images by PDF. I have now finished the instructional DVD by Brooks Jensen, who has really championed this idea. If anyone is considering producing a PDF photography book and does not have experience with digital documents, the DVD is an absolutely essential resource and I highly recommend it! It turns out that for someone that is not well versed in the use of the needed software there is a somewhat steep, but clearly surmountable, learning curve.
While I do think that the digital distribution of images opens a major chapter in the history of photography, I also believe the viewing experience, as it stands today, is lagging behind the production technology. I suspect that this lag has had a significant effect on its adaption.
I myself have purchased several PDF photography books and also downloaded several photography PDFs from various sites. However, I have to say that I have not fully viewed them and certainly not viewed them in the depth that I would read or examine a printed publication. Likewise, I find that I don't look forward to or regularly read on-line magazines the way I read those that I subscribe to and which I can hold.
I am not really sure why, but it is simply a fact that I just don't seem to give such publications the same attention that I do a printed book. I can think of several reasons for this:
1) It is hard to curl up in bed with a computer.
2) It seems harder to 'get into' the mindset of in depth analysis in front of a computer as opposed to a book, at least for me....perhaps this is related to my age of 51.
3) I tend to feel more rushed or in 'working mode' on a computer and tend to feel more relaxed and in 'free time mode' with a book.
Now, before attributing my feelings to being unable to adapt to new technology, realize that you are reading this on my electronic blog. If anything, I tend towards being a somewhat early adapter. For example, as it relates to digital media, I have an Amazon Kindle e-book reader. In fact, I have the most recently released version with enhanced PDF handling. It is magnificent for reading novels. In fact, for the novel reading experience, I prefer it to hard copy books.
But that same preference doesn't carry through for me when it comes to reading PDF photography publications. In fact, while I have the first 40 LensWork issues on my Kindle from a LensWork DVD I bought on e-Bay (great deal...I think it was something like 20 bucks), I don't find reading them this way to be an enjoyable experience and have largely given up doing so. I also subscribe to LensWork Extended and, while it is a marvelous production, I find I don't read/listen to each and every one of them like I do when it comes to reading the hard copy issues.
I suspect a good part of why I don't prefer reading PDF photography publications on the Kindle is that the technology is still not up to snuff for handling such material. It still doesn't display PDFs all that wonderfully and the resolution/tonality is not fully developed. And, of course, there is no color yet (though that is being worked on as well). As I mentioned, I find that reading them on the computer is simply not comfortable or terribly enjoyable.
In essence, I believe that, at this point in time, the technology related to delivery is ahead of the technology related to usage. However, I am heartened by what I read is currently under development......thin sheets of light bendable materials that one can use to 'curl up in bed with' and read digital media and other technologic 'wonders' in development. So, while I currently think that, at least for my usage, the ability to enjoy PDF publications is not quite 'there' yet, I do think that they are coming and will be here fairly soon. I hope that a few years from now I can enjoy digital media in the same way that I can enjoy a book.
I am wondering what others think and have experienced when it comes to interacting with digital photographic publications.
In my last post, I referenced a series of articles on the Luminous Landscape (here and here) which supplemented an even earlier post I had written about an article in Photo Techniques about the effects of diffraction when using sensors with high pixel densities.
In the comments section to yesterday's post, it was pointed out that I had missed another quite enlightening article on the subject by Ctein on The Online Photographer entitled "Why 80 Megapixels Just Won't Be Enough", which gives another viewpoint. Given that not everyone that drops by reads the comments, I thought it would be worthwhile to provide a front page link to that article as well. It is definitely worth reading the whole bunch of these, as well as the readers comments and author responses.
A bit of a short post today, but one that points out some interesting information. On June 12th, I wrote a post about an article that I had read in Photo Techniques Magazine about the role diffraction plays in digital imaging as it related to aperture and depth of field. That post can be read here.
As a supplement to that information, I would like to point out an on-line article written by Ray Maxwell entitled "Why Moore's Law Does Not Apply To Digital Photography", which was published on The Luminous Landscape website. In the article, Maxwell points out that for full frame 35mm sensors we are currently at the highest resolution or pixel density that can realistically be useful because of the diffraction properties of visible light. He also goes on to discuss, as was noted in the Photo Techniques article, that with the pixel size on the Canon 5D MkII sensor, diffraction limitations come into play by f11.
A very interesting and worthwhile read (that also contains some interesting links) and one that supplements and adds to the article I had previously mentioned.
Addenda: Between the time I wrote this post and put it on-line there has already been a rebuttal article written on The Luminous Landscape to the article I have been referencing. That article can be read here. You really have to read these....they provide interesting insights into where we are and where things might be heading.
This blog was recently featured on another photography blog called "Your Photo Tips", which is published by photographer Damien Franco. I hadn't heard of Damian's blog, but found it after Motivation was mentioned in a post of his.
Interesting, the way we come across things we hadn't known about. I was quite intrigued with Damien's blog and its wide variety of interesting topics. It has something for everyone and is one that is certainly worth keeping up with. I plan to read it regularly and added it to my "Favorite Blogs" list. So check it out, I think you will enjoy it!
In my March 19th, 2009 post regarding PDF publishing of photographic projects, I wrote the following :
"In Brooks Jensen's recent Lenswork podcast, which one can listen to here, he extols the virtues of using pdf format e-books to enable photographers to reach a wider audience, while avoiding the fiscal constraints that are associated with publishing a physical book. I was intrigued by this, though I wonder if the constraints are as strong as implied given the newer methods of self-publishing associated with print-on-demand services available from companies like Blurb.
Nonetheless, I found the idea interesting and tried to search around the internet a bit for information about designing and producing a pdf photography book. However, I found very little out there. Now, I know very little about using Adobe Acrobat and suspect that my inability to locate information on this subject may simply be that what is required is a good general book about how to use Acrobat, as opposed to special information on how to create pdf photography books.
So, I guess I am hoping that perhaps someone out there might be able to provide some good resource books or websites on the topic of how to use Acrobat to publish photographic e-books....or at least some place to start obtaining a bit of background knowledge. Anybody want to make suggestions???? "
Though I did get some helpful responses to my query as to resources, there was still a void as to where to start.....particularly if the aim was not so much to learn InDesign or Acrobat as much as to learn what was necessary in order to focus on the type of publishing that a photographer would do.
Well, Brooks Jensen does it again!! He recognized that there is a relative void of information in this niche and put together a very solid training DVD on where to start and how to proceed. The DVD is a direct extension of the workshop he began giving on this subject.
Knowing the quality of everything that comes out of LensWork, I decided to purchase the DVD. At $79 it is a bit steep, but once one receives it, sees the quality of the information, the extremely coherent presentation, and the uniqueness of the product I can say that it is well worth every cent!!! The DVD can be purchased here.
I haven't yet finished the DVD, but am far along into it. It has exactly the type of information I was looking for and clearly is able to get one started making PDFs without any further training. It is also able to point one in the right direction in regards to where to obtain more focused information, if needed. To be more specific, it is not an InDesign training program but tells you what aspects of InDesign you need to know and provides a nice detailed overview of these parts of the program. Perhaps even more importantly, it carefully reveiews how to structure and design a PDF presentation.
Perhaps I will have more to say once I finish the DVD in its entirety. But I can tell you this.....if you have any desire to consider self publishing a photographic PDF and don't have a strong background in how to get the job done, this is clearly a superb way to start. I couldn't have hoped for a better resource. Thanks Brooks!!!
I recently finished processing and printing the sixth image in my Dreamscapes series. I particularly like the ghostlike image behind the boy (though it may not show up that well in this small image format), which was caused by the child suddenly walking through the scene during the long exposure. I guess you can tell that it isn't a 'real' ghost because it also casts a shadow!
I suspect most people that have a passion for photography have at least a passing interest in the history of the medium and are probably aware of the different types of processes that have been used over time. Daguerreotypes, Ambrotypes, tintypes, carte-de-viste and many more. But have you ever seen any of these??? I never had.
I decided that it was worth my while (and a very small amount of cash) to own a small piece of history and experience some of these imaging processes for myself. So I took a trip over to e-Bay to see what was available. For about 20 bucks I bought 6 lovely tintypes (uncased), some with hand tinting, and 5 cabinet cards with the photographers name and location on the card as well as a few with the subjects handwritten name. They came in very nice shape and have a very interesting and unique appearance to them. It really is fascinating to hold these artifacts and see what photography looked like in its early years. It is also a bit eerie to see these subjects, now long deceased, staring at you from back in time.
These are not items that are eagerly sought after by high end collectors and this is reflected in their price. But I am very glad that I made these few purchases and plan to bid on a few examples of other historical photographic processes.
If the history of photography interests you, why not pick up a few samples from a bygone era for dirt cheap and take a trip back in time. It really is fascinating!
Several weeks ago, I wrote a series of posts (starting here) about my new Epson 7900.....my review was not particularly glowing because of a number of difficulties I was having with the machine. I suspect that I may well have left people with the opinion that I was not pleased with the printer and that I was sorry that I had purchased it. In fact, I received several e-mails from folks who were considering buying one. I thought I should write one final post to 'clear the air' about the machine and my personal experience.
It is true that I was quite dissatisfied with the printer as it originally functioned. I fully documented that in my original series. What I would like to make clear is that once I had the printhead changed (by an extremely knowledgeable and easy to deal with technician) and turned off the automatic nozzle check the machine has functioned perfectly.
Specifically:
I have always had difficulty in the warmer months with ink clogs. While I still do get them on occasion, I can say that I am getting fewer of them than I did with my 7600 and they seem to clear easily with just a single cleaning from the front panel. My problem with persistent clogs with green ink has totally resolved.
Since keeping the platen gap setting at normal, I am no longer getting the "zebra striping" that I described in my first series of posts. Why opening the platen gap wider seems to make things worse is not at all clear to me.
The output is absolutely lovely.
I really enjoy making prints on papers using the photo black ink. I also find soft proofing with these papers much easier than with matte papers.
I should mention that it does seem 'easier' to get 'mild' head strikes on the 7900 as compared to the 7600. I have to make sure that the paper is as flat as possible. With sheets I will gently bend them as needed before printing to get them to lie flat, and with rolls I will gently curl them in the opposite direction around a tube (a home made D-Roller) prior to printing. This may be because with the 7600 I kept the palten gap set to 'wide', which seems to cause problems with my 7900 and the papers I am currently using.
At this point I am very pleased with the printer and very glad to have bought it. In fact, I am thinking about selling the 7600. Do I wish that I hadn't had all my initial difficulty which necessitated two visits from a tech and replacement of the printhead? Sure. But I don't think that one can extrapolate from this single printer that there is a generalized problem. When it comes to technology I guess there will always be the occasional device that comes off the assembly line a bit out of whack.
One thing though, in several years, when the technology has jumped forward yet again, it is going to be very difficult to upgrade if Epson makes this beast any bigger or heavier!
Michael David Murphy doesn’t think so. In fact, he has his own website devoted to images that he experienced but did not have the opportunity to photograph. In his own words, his website called “Unphotographable” is a ‘catalog of exceptional mistakes. Photos never taken that weren't meant to be forgotten. Opportunities missed. Simple failures. Occasions when I wished I'd taken the picture, or not forgotten the camera, or had been brave enough to click the shutter.’
With his incredible descriptions the image can be clearly seen in our mind if not on paper. Perhaps the image is not lost.
I usually don’t post information about Photoshop techniques simply because there is an entire universe of websites dedicated to Photoshop that are run by folks who are far more Photoshop savvy than I could ever hope to be. However, every so often I run across a technique that I find really interesting and so, on those occasions, a post about it seems reasonable. Such is the case with High Pass Filtration. Please don’t consider this to be the definitive ‘how to’ regarding this technique but, rather, a jumping off point to look into it in a more sophisticated manner if it seems of interest to you.
The reason I found High Pass filtration interesting is that while ‘surfing the net’ I have occasionally come across images that seem to have a somewhat ‘enhanced’ sense of reality that gives them a very three dimensional appearance. The effect seems somewhat similar to the HDR effect, but tuned down. When I have followed discussions about such images the photographer will often say, when asked, that the image in question was not processed with HDR software.
So, it whet my interest when I ran across a technique which, by description, seemed to be one way to generate this effect. It is done by using the
At any rate, here is a way to use this technique in order to see if it will achieve a desirable effect (plus I made my own little addition to what I read). Once the image you are considering using it on is complete, duplicate the image and flatten it, but don’t sharpen it yet. Now the image consists of only a background layer. Duplicate this background layer twice and click the icons to turn these duplicate layers off, making them invisible. Now click back on the background layer to make it active and go to the Photoshop filters and choose
Perhaps the effect is too much? That is why I added the second duplicate layer (which is not visible at this point) on top of the others at the start of the technique. Click on that layer to now make it active and click on the icon to make it visible. The image now appears as it did before starting. But turn down the opacity of this topmost layer to let the filtered look come through and see how you like it.
A few comments:
1) I have only played around with this technique a bit and found that there are some images that it truly enhances and others that it totally destroys.
2) If an image is found that would benefit from this technique, the entire process can obviously be performed within the original file by duplicating the entire image and placing the entire image on a new layer and working from there.
4) It really is difficult to duplicate this effect with curves....I tried.
3) With the image size being so small, and with the effect being toned down with the topmost layer blogs don't really lend themselves to really demonstrating the effect well…..so, if it sounds interesting, play around with it on your own images and see what you think. With that in mind I am posting one example. The only difference between these two images was the High Pass filtration step.
Pre High Pass Filtration
Post High Pass Filtration
