Photoshop Optimized Computer III

With the background of Parts I and II of this series behind us, I thought it might be useful to discuss what components I personally picked for my "Photoshop Optimized Computer".

In the 'digital age', all of our processing is done on a computer and, for many, prints are made at home on an inkjet printer. For as much time as we spend out in the field, we likely spend as much time, or more, working on our images in the digital darkroom. For this reason I feel it would be foolish to spend money on cameras and lenses and not put forward the investment in a computer system that makes finishing the job efficient and pleasant. In short, I don't think it is wise to buy expensive equipment and mate that equipment with a computer that is underpowered and which makes the processing portion of image making an unpleasant experience. If you have waited and waited for a file to open in Photoshop or had your system crash while using a memory intensive plug-in, you know exactly what I mean. If one can afford to make the investment, a good computer system will make post-processing a much more pleasant and productive experience.

I don't mean to insinuate that one needs to go on a wild spending spree for a computer. In fact, as we shall see, some high end components are well worth buying but there are others, such as the graphics card, where pouring more money into a higher end card is not going to significantly enhance the Photoshop experience.

So, lets get down to particulars. What components did I choose for my new computer? Again, some of these choices are personal and I don't mean to imply that this is the best or only worthwhile configuration.....I just thought I would share my decisions and why I made them.

RAM: I'm starting here because I knew how much I wanted (12 GB) and the way to get to this amount at a reasonable price was to have 6 memory slots on the motherboard so that I could purchase 6 x 2GB as opposed to 3 x 4GB. RAM comes in several varieties and speed. I bought Kigston ValueRAM (DDR3-1333). While one can pay more for 'faster' RAM etc, I am not convinced it will make much difference for still image editing. It may well make a difference for gaming and video, but I am not planning to use the computer for much of either. Therefore, it seemed to me that this RAM would do the trick. Obviously, once one is over 4GB it makes no sense not to get a 64 bit OS in order to utilize it.

Motherboard: There were some limitations here, as any builder is only going to carry a limited number of makes and models. In order to get a 6 memory slot board I went with the Asus P6TD DDR3 motherboard.

Processor: I was originally planning for an Intel i5 750, which sits at a nice price/performance point. The i5's don't have hyperthreading but, to the best of my knowledge, Photoshop doesn't utilize hyperthreading at this point in time. Nonetheless, because of the motherboard choice, an i5 was not an option and I went for the arguably more powerful (and a bit more expensive) i7 920 (which is actually due to be replaced by the 930 soon) which does have hyperthreading. Perhaps in the future (I expect to use this system for at least 5 years) Photoshop will utilize hyperthreading.

Graphics Card: This is one component where, if one were building a computer for the express purpose of gaming, you could go hog wild and really drop a bundle on a high end video card. However, while one wants a reasonable video card, the best of the best is really a wasted resource if it is to be used for Photoshop alone (as opposed to gaming or video editing). For this reason I went mid-range with a Gigabyte GeForce 9600GT with 512 MB of video RAM.

Sound Card: This machine is for Photoshop and Lightroom primarily....I went with no dedicated sound card, just the motherboard sound processing.

RAID: A discussion of all the varieties of RAID is far beyond the scope of this blog. However, for the scratch disk, I did go with RAID 0 (as I had discussed in Part II of this series) using 7200 RPM disks. One worthwhile issue to touch on is the use of on-board RAID controlled by the motherboard vs a dedicated RAID controller card. Again, this goes beyond the scope of this blog, but suffice it to say that, based on what I was able to learn, having a separate RAID controller card is well worth the investment in order to remove the RAID function from the motherboard. I went with a two disk RAID 0 array and a RAID card. I had the two disk array partitioned into a smaller first volume for the scratch disk. This volume resides on the outer, faster portion of the disk while the remaining volume will be used to store files on which I am still working in order to allow rapid opening and saving of the file. When the processing of these images is completed, they will be moved to storage on a non-RAID hard drive given the increased risk of data loss if either of the disks in the array were to fail.

Hard Drives: As I mentioned, I went with two 7200 RPM disks for the RAID array. I also wanted a fast boot drive so that the computer would boot quickly and applications would also launch very fast. Though this was clearly a 'luxury item', I decided to go with a solid state disk (SSD) for the boot disk to hold the OS and applications. In addition, a Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black hard drive is to be used for storage. The motherboard and case will allow for the addition of 2 more disks, should the need arise.

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium

Monitor: Discussing this component of the system is really opening a can of worms. A quality monitor can be expensive, but is also a mission critical part of the digital imaging system. It is used to assess the image, process the image, soft proof the image etc. Clearly, a low quality monitor that is poorly calibrated and profiled can make producing high quality images and prints a nightmare. If one's budget allows, a high quality monitor together with a hardware calibration system is optimal. Some names to look into (and I don't mean to imply that these are the only worthwhile monitors) include Eizo, NEC, Apple, and Lacie.

Well, I hope that this series of three posts will be helpful to others that might be interested in putting together their own 'Photoshop Optimized Computer'.

Photoshop Optimized Computer II

For Part I of this series click here.

Let me begin Part II by explaining what I view as a 'Photoshop Optimized Computer'. Obviously that means a computer whose hardware/software is set up in a way which allows Photoshop to run in the most efficient and fastest way possible. But what special hardware or software is needed to allow this efficiency to occur? How is a 'Photoshop Optimized Computer' (I think maybe I should try to trademark that little phrase before someone else does) different from the standard computer you might pick up anywhere?

In order to answer this, we need to know a bit about how Photoshop itself works. More specifically, we need to know about the software's data handling strategy. Now, I need to point out that my 'day job' has nothing to do with computer programing.....so, if I make a mistake in any of these posts I would be more than happy to have someone out there correct me.

When one opens a file using Photoshop, the program puts the data into RAM. If there is not enough RAM to handle the file, or if in the process of editing the file by adding layers etc the file becomes so large that it doesn't fit into the available RAM, then Photoshop writes that data to a physical hard drive that it has set aside for itself known as the 'scratch disk'. The specific drive or drive volume that Photoshop uses for the scratch disk can be chosen in the Photoshop Preferences. It should be recognized that:

1) Not all the RAM in the computer can be devoted to Photoshop use, as some of it is needed for use by the OS (and 32 bit programs limit the amount of usable RAM to 4 GB).

2) Once the data file gets large enough to require Photoshop to write its data to a physical hard drive things move much slower since the speed at which data can be written to a physical drive is much, much slower than the speed at which it can be stored in RAM.

So what conclusions can be drawn from this information? Knowing that things move much faster when Photoshop has enough RAM to write to tells us that the more RAM the better. And then more! And to allow Photoshop to utilize all that RAM, it would be optimal to use a 64 bit OS in order to remove the 4 GB RAM limit that is imposed by a 32 bit OS.

However, no matter how much RAM is in the system, Photoshop still needs to use the scratch disk to some small degree, even if the file itself fits fully into RAM. For this reason the scratch disk should be optimized, even in systems with a good deal of RAM. How does one achieve this optimization? It can be done in two ways.

The first and most important way is to put the scratch disk on a separate physical drive from the OS (the Photoshop application itself can be installed on the OS boot drive...some say it is optimal to install it there, as opposed to on another drive). That way the drive head can read and write to the scratch disk without having to do anything else. If the scratch disk were on the same physical drive as the OS, that disk's read/write heads would be slowed down by having to perform both the scratch disk duty as well as the reading and writing that the OS requires, such as writing to the page file and other required duties (don't move your page file to the scratch disk....if you don't know what that means just forget about it, as it's not there unless you put it there yourself).

The second way to optimize the scratch disk is to not only put it on a separate physical disk from the OS, but also to make this separate disk as fast a disk as possible. Options thus include, going from slowest (worst) to fastest (best): 5400 RPM drive, 7200 RPM drive, fast 7200RPM drive (no, not a separate type but 'better' because of increased cache, number of microprocessors etc), 10,000 RPM Western Digital VelociRaptor (though many would argue that there are some 7200 RPM drives out there that function faster than the 10000 RPM VelociRaptor) and, finally, a RAID 0 array.

A RAID 0 array is simply using two disks that appear to the OS as a single larger disk. Data is written to the array by splitting it and having half of it go to one disk and half to the other. Therefore each physical disk has to write only half as much and they can both do it simultaneously since each disk has its own read/write head. If one of those two disks fail all the data from the file is lost and can't be reconstructed....but since the scratch disk data is used only temporarily while the file is being worked on.....who cares?

Notice I didn't include a solid state drive (SSD) in the list of options. Though an SSD would be superb for data storage, the OS, or use in a RAID array, the current feeling is that as a stand alone disk it is not optimal (in addition to its being very expensive) for use as the scratch disk. The reason for this is that, while SSDs have blazing fast read speeds, the current write speeds (except perhaps for the super premium Intel E series SSDs) are no faster, and possibly slower, than a fast hard drive. The important fact to recognize here is that, for a scratch disk, the write speeds are much more important than the read speeds. This, then, is what makes the SSD, at the current level of technology, perhaps a sub-optimal scratch disk....or at least a scratch disk that is no better than the current breed of hard drives but costing far more.

So, to sum up:

1) OS and Photoshop on the same drive

2) RAM and more RAM

3) 64 bit OS so that RAM constraints are removed

4) Scratch disk on a second physical disk that is separate from the OS boot disk and

5) Make that separate physical scratch disk a fast one, with a RAID 0 array being optimal.

Want to dig a little deeper? Try this article from the Adobe Knowledge Base or this one, which is exceptional, from Lloyd Chambers. Though the second one discusses performance on a Mac, the information it contains, for the most part, can be applied to a PC as well.

I should mention one caveat, and that is that in this discussion I am assuming that large files are going to be worked on. If you are just working with very small files all of this might not be necessary. But if you are starting with large files (I shoot in RAW format with a Canon 5D MKII) that you then edit with many layers, use smart objects etc....then this info is for you.

Photoshop Optimized Computer I

The time has come for a new computer. I built my current computer myself about 6 or more years ago, and it is showing its age. It crashes when I generate Photoshop files with more than one smart object layer and, when I work on large files, it is frequently unable to utilize certain plug-ins that are begging for more memory. Disk space is also quite low. When I built it, if I recall correctly, I was photographing with a Canon 10D. Equipment and file sizes have certainly changed quite a bit.

The process of building that computer was fun and very educational, as it really taught me about how computer systems work and how components interact with each other in terms of compatibility. However, as much as I enjoyed it, I decided that this time I would not build it myself, simply because of free time issues. After learning the things I did during my last build, one thing was quite clear to me: I wasn't going to buy a prefab, 'mass produced' computer from Dell etc. Having seen the importance of individual components, I wanted to be able to choose exactly what goes into the box and not simply get the hard drive du jour!

I thought it might be worthwhile to write a few posts about the process of thinking through the construction of what will be my new system. I believe that this will be quite apropos to this blog since the computer is being designed specifically with the main goal of being optimized for Photoshop, with other uses being secondary.

So lets begin. First, since this time I wasn't going to be doing the building myself, I had to find a custom computer builder. I was looking for an outfit that received outstanding reviews and referrals, had great customer service, and had components that I 'believed in'. Obviously, not every custom build company will carry every component out there and, while some components had to be chosen from what the builder stocked, I wanted to make sure that they stocked what I would have used myself for the most important components.

So, what company did I come up with that filled these criteria? These guys.....Puget Custom Computers. Though I have not yet put the final order in for the computer, I can say the following: they have great reviews and a very helpful website. And when they say they try to answer inquiries within 24 hours they aren't kidding. Once you save a potential configuration you can have it reviewed by someone at Puget and begin talking about it with them. I have been having a daily 'e-mail' conversation with the person helping me out and they couldn't be more helpful or responsive. I am actually going to be giving him a call tonight for some final help in ironing out the particulars.

Like anything else in life though, it helps for you to have some background knowledge before jumping into things. For that reason, before even starting this journey, I had to do some background research on the state of computer components today.....something I have not otherwise been following very carefully. What's cutting edge, what's mainstream, what's around the corner?

Finally, I had to see if anything had changed in regards to optimizing one's computer configuration for Photoshop and Lightroom use. As it turns out, not much really has changed in that regard since I last built my own computer. Nonetheless, I thought it might also be worthwhile to provide that information in one location, as it might be a useful resource for people thinking about this issue.

I think I will close here with probable plans for two or three more posts on this subject to cover, components, Photoshop optimization, and how I put it all together. Along the way, I will provide links to some really excellent websites that provided me with a good deal of my information.

Black And White Vision

I have always enjoyed black and white photography and the way that lines, shapes, and tones play such an important role in the image. Though I had a black and white darkroom when I was a kid, I hadn't done much black and white imaging recently because of the difficulty in making good B&W inkjet prints. Several years back, folks were setting up for black and white inkjet printing using third party inks with dedicated black and white print drivers etc. Many reported excellent results, others, well, not so much. Lately I have been experimenting with black and white printing again, as my Epson 7900 gives really superb black and white output.

One of the photography sites/communities which I enjoy perusing because of the extremely high quality imagery that can be found there is Fotoblur; and there is a good amount of black and white photography on the site.

As I was looking at some of the images by various photographers, I was struck again by how important tonality and simple graphic lines are to a black and white image; even more so, I believe, than for color images. In addition, somehow the 'magic' of black and white seems to be able to transform a scene into 'art' that would otherwise be bland in color. And part of the skill of making black and white images is the ability to visualize this transformation; to see, if you will, in black and white. I saw many beautiful images perusing Fotoblur yesterday, but the one that really drove home to me the ability of black and white to make 'art' out of what we might ordinarily walk by and not even glance at was this photograph by Linda Wride:

"Cubes"
Copyright Linda Wride

Check out the rest of Linda's compelling imagery here. She also has a website that features her botanicals.

Out Of The Mouths Of Babes.....

I recently decided to work on making some prints of images I had taken while on a workshop with Nancy Rotenberg on the Oregon coast. I found that one of the 8x10 proof images I made looked interesting. At first blush I thought it was nice, but only in a very commonplace sunset shot sort of way. However, the more I looked at the image the more I began to notice interesting subtleties that made the photograph more interesting to me. I liked the flare from the sun despite the fact that I am not usually a big fan of flare effects. I liked the dark and light linear lines the waves made and I liked the subtle silhouettes of the birds flying. However, most of all (and, unfortunately, this will not be evident in the small blog image) I enjoyed the subtlety of the fact that there are hundreds of seagull silhouettes on the sea stacks themselves and that they can be seen when one looks at the rocks more carefully. They are like a hidden treat if you take the time to look.

Haceda Beach
Copyright Howard Grill

My 15 year old son likes seeing my photos, though he is far more interested in sports than in art (which, I know, is totally as expected). So I was quite surprised when, as soon as I showed him the image, he said "It's cool.....I like it. You know there is really a lot going on in this picture". I swear that's what he said! Sometimes you get the unexpected. Or maybe I don't expect as much as I should; after all, there is probably a reason I show him my photos. He does seem to have a good feel for what works.

And then to top it all off I asked him if he thought that I should make the wave ripples on the right side of the picture a bit brighter. His reply was simply "Dad, I think sometimes you just over-analyze these pictures". Smart boy.

1.....2......3........

Now hear this. There are Lensworks blogs. And I do mean plural. Not one, not two, but three Lenswork blogs have just been introduced. Given the excellence of each and every LensWork 'product' that I have had the opportunity to read or view, I have no doubts that these will be blogs well worth reading regularly.


#1 Lenswork Technology Blog - In the words of Brooks Jenson, "random collection of thoughts, discoveries, explorations, hard-won experience, and — I fully anticipate — some technological failures and struggles as I wade through this world of technology and its use to create photographic artwork."

#2 "Ask Brooks" Blog - Not simply an ask a question to Brooks blog, as Brooks actively seeks reader partcipation and input to answer the questions.

#3 LensWork Vision Of The Heart Blog - An opportunity to more fully appreciate photographs. In Brooks own words "In this blog we will take a bit of time with an image to look at it more closely, to understand the photographer's point of view in their own words (transcribed from our LensWork Extended interviews), to savor the subtleties and enjoy a photograph to its full, well, or at least "fuller" potential."

I am definitely looking forward to reading and following these.

I'm A Photographer, Not A Terrorist

In the past, I have written a few posts about photographers rights which can be read here and here. I have also posted information about fashionable photographers rights wardrobe here. Who, after all, would want to be without their "I Am A Photographer, Not A Terrorist" tee shirt? Even I have one and I'm not known to be the most stylish guy in the world!

Having been personally and inappropriately asked to stop taking pictures in areas where it was clearly within my legal rights to do so, I am sensitized to this issue and always have my eyes open for similar happenings. Here is a fascinating story, published in The Independent, and entitled "Warning, Do Not Take This Picture" . It tells of repeated inappropriate limitations on public photographing that took place in England.

And finally, also based in England, an entire website devoted to the cause of not impinging on the right to take photographs. And what would the perfect name be for such a website....but of course, "I'm A Photographer Not A Terrorist". Don't miss the self portrait page of the site either. For those of you on Facebook, here is their Facebook page.

Although one might well argue that there are bigger problems in the world today, this issue is not a trivial one as it relates not only to the specific issue of photography but also to the bigger issue of rights in general.

Quick Quotes - Daryl Benson

"The moment you take the leap of understanding to realize you are not photographing a subject but are photographing light is when you have control over the medium."

Daryl Benson

Isn't it quite amazing how the same scene can look wonderful if the light is just right, but quite plain if it isn't?

Foggy Morning
Copyright Howard Grill

Daryl Benson's quote vividly reminded me of taking this photograph. This particular location can look quite amazing with mist and the right light. On this particular autumn morning the fog was just breaking up as the warm rays of sunrise started illuminating the scene. I had bever seen this location in Moraine State Park look quite like this. I really enjoyed photographing this as an 'intimate landscape'. However, if the light isn't right you would just walk right by and not give the spot a second look!

Show Work At Work

Most photographers/artists want an audience. As such, we generally try to get our work published, hung, sold, and shown on our websites. However, for the longest time, I ignored the most obvious and, perhaps, easiest way to show my work and obtain a larger audience. That is to say, I never showed my work at work. Sure, I had framed photos hanging in my office, but not in public spaces at my workplace.

It occurred to me that my workplace was potentially an excellent opportunity to have my work seen by more people than the inside of my office. So I decided to look into having it displayed in a public space. The long drab hallway outside my office seemed to be the perfect location. As some readers may know, I work in a hospital. What many of you might not know is that the levels of bureaucracy in a hospital can rival that of the federal government.

I initially asked permission from the administrator in charge of that particular hallway. He already knew my work and thought it would be a great idea. Hospitals being hospitals however, he had to 'bump up' the decision. After having the work reviewed by two vice presidents and agreeing not to hold the hospital liable if the pictures were stolen off the wall....up they went. I immediately started receiving comments from people who had no idea that I photographed.

Conclusion: the workplace can frequently offer a good opportunity to have one's work shown......so don't overlook it!

HDR

For the last few months, I have been trying to learn all I can about the HDR process before giving it an initial attempt on my own. Two video training CDs and two books later I think I have a handle on the process and how it works.

In my mind (as well as the minds of many others), there are two extremes to the process. On one end of the scale is the use of the process to deliver 'photo-realistic' results, and at the other end of the spectrum are results that have variably been called "comic-bookish", "illustrative", "surreal", or "hyper-realistic". Although my artistic tendency is to stay at the photo-realistic end of the spectrum, I am open minded and can see how, in some circumstances, a move towards the other end of the spectrum can likewise produce very interesting results. In the end, of course, the direction that one's artwork takes is totally up to the artist.

So I am posting my first foray into the HDR processing technique. I was attracted to this tree by the strong graphic lines of the limbs. Since the shape was what I was primarily drawn to, a black and white presentation seemed to be most appropriate. What I was hoping for here was a look that went just a bit beyond photo-realistic in order to give the tree a slightly surreal "spooky" look. The color images were processed in Photomatix and both converted to black and white and toned in Silver Efex Pro.

Tree I
Copyright Howard Grill

Quick Quotes: Michelangelo

"The greatest danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our goal"

Michelangelo

This seemed to me to be a great quote to start off the year with, particularly with a blog titled Motivation! Happy New Year to all.

Digital Blue 'N Gold

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.

Race Point Lighthouse

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.

Race Point Lighthouse
Copyright Howard Grill

A group of us took a hike out to a relatively small sand dune that had a good view of Race Point lighthouse. It was sunset and we were still relatively far from the lighthouse itself (this photo was taken with a Canon 400mm f5.6 lens). We were anxiously waiting (hoping) that the light would turn on, but it was starting to look like it was going to simply remain off for the evening. Our guide and instructor wisely decided that we should leave for the sake of safety, as it can be very hard to find one's way back among the dunes once it is dark.....they all look the same. I was the last one to pack up my equipment. Most people had started back and a buddy of mine had just scurried down the dune. I had my pack on and was just about to do the same when....the light in the lighthouse came on.

My friend Ken urged me to unpack quickly and take a quick shot or two and that he would wait and keep an eye on the folks going back so we wouldn't get lost. I don't think I ever unzipped the pack so quickly. I knew exactly how I wanted to frame the shot as I had already done the visualizing work sitting there with the 400mm lens and camera on the tripod waiting for the light to turn on. I plopped it on, focused, got off a few shots and was on my way in no time. Thanks Ken!

The Best Camera

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). I personally wasn't until I heard Ibarionex Perello's interview with him on The Candid Frame.

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.

Anti-Aliasing And Its Effect On HD Video

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.

Quick Quotes: Dan Winters

"Its amazing how many unbelievable photographs happened today that weren't recorded." Dan Winters

I was really taken by this quote which was part of an interview with photographer Dan Winters on The Candid Frame podcast. Dan was talking about developing the ability to really be able to see with a photographers eyes. I particularly like the quote because it speaks towards the ability to make meaningful photographs wherever you might live without having to travel to exotic locations.

Photograph America

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.

B&W

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".

"Fluidity"
Copyright Howard Grill

Cuyahoga

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'.

"Blue Hen Falls"
Copyright Howard Grill

I consider getting even one or two of what I feel are good shots a great success on a short weekend trip like this, especially to a place I hadn't been to before and so, without question, the trip was a definite hit. We plan to return to Cuyahoga in the spring.

Rock Project Complete

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.