Wallpaper Wednesday - After the Storm

Download the 16x9 version

This week's free wallpaper is sunset on the farm. This shot was taken following a wonderful thunderstorm. It is available for download in the widescreen format only.

The Evolution of Water

This...

Evaporates into this....

Which falls as this...

Which melts into this...

Which collects into this...

Which escapes like this...

Which flows like this...

Which builds up to this...

Which falls like this...

Which mellows into this...

Which grows into this...

Which finally returns here...

And the cycle begins again.

Photography Retreat Part 4

Chris and Shawn Shooting the Misty Lake

 The Salem Digital Photo Group held their first annual photography retreat this fall. The retreat was held on the beautiful Oregon coast at the wonderful Camp Magruder, near Rockaway Beach, Oregon.

To recap, the first day started down on the beach for some beach scenes followed by an amazing sunset. Then late at night we went out to attempt a one hour exposure, which ended in a bust a little before 1:00 AM.

But that didn't stop the happy campers from rising early and heading down to the private lake for some early morning light and water shots.

After breakfast we went on a hike in the woods and then met back up for lunch. After lunch, we got to head to the archery range.

Rick's Bull's-Eye

Yup... that's right, the staff a Camp Magruder thought it was a good idea to take the cameras out of our hands and put bows and arrows in the camera's place.

Everyone took a few shots with both the bows and their cameras.

In the image on the right, Rick is showing off his impressive archery skills.

Melva's Bull's-Eye

 Melva in her last shot of the day nailed a bull's eye.

The archery was a nice mix in the activities for the day providing a little variety in the day's activities.

 My shot of the day, at the archery range was this shot of Tom drawing down on me.

It was shocking how eager everyone, not just Tom, was to point a loaded bow at me.

It was all in good fun, but in all seriousness, Tom and I keep clear and concise communication during this shot. I let him get the bow drawn back and indicate when he was steady. Then I would step in front of him, shoot a few frames and he would let me know when to move.

Tom would take a little rest and then we would set up and do it again.

 That evening, we headed down to the beach. We were running a little behind, and had to run down the beach to get to the point where the setting sun fell between these two rocks.

In doing so, I wasn't paying attention to where I was going and as I ran a little too close to a little camp fire with several people enjoying the beautiful evening on the beach, their dogs didn't like me running so close to their little camp. The dogs ran out and bit me twice on the legs. I stopped, raised my hands and waited. The dogs stopped and the owners came running, apologizing. I looked at the sun sitting on top of the water sad all was good and took off running. I had several hundred yards to cover before the sun dipped under the horizon. I got the shot and the bites didn't break the skin.

After a brief slide show which we invited the camp staff to, three of us wandered exhausted back down to the beach to try again for that elusive one hour exposure.

This time, with full batteries and no yahoos on the beach with their flashlights and no moon, we had success with the first try. Back to the cabin and in bead by 11:00 PM.

 The next morning after breakfast, we hit the lake again, for an hour cruise in rowboats.

In the image on the left, Rick and Shawn tootle around the lake stopping to take photos of geese, shorelines and reflections.

It was the last activity before we packed up and headed home... and it proved to be a great closer.

All in all the weekend was a huge success. Though we all got home exhausted, everyone took some beautiful photos, bonded as friends and learned something over the weekend.

Luck - The Good and the Bad

Sunset on the Water

Seneca, a first-century Roman philosopher, once said luck is when preparation meets opportunity. That is a great explanation of good luck. Bad luck on the other hand is the cause of one of two things; the lack of opportunity or the lack of preparation. 


I take ownership of my own luck, at least as much as I can. If I am not prepared it is my own fault. That's right, my fault.


If I know there is something that I want to photograph, I make sure sure to do what I can to make myself available to do it. 


Sometimes luck means I have to abandon something else that I want to do, like stay at home and have a quiet evening with my wife. But each and every time, luck requires me to say yes to opportunity when it comes knocking. 


And opportunity knocked on my door yesterday. And I said yes.

Faded Brillance

My friend, and fellow photographer, Liz Smith, called me up yesterday and asked me if I heard about the possible Aurora Borealis happening. I said, "No". 


She asked if I would be interested in going out and shooting it. I said definitely. It has been a goal of mine to just see an Aurora Borealis since I was a kid and learned about them. One of the biggest challenges has been my luck.


See I have spent my entire living at or below the 45th parallel, that is halfway between the North Pole and the Equator, in Oregon. As luck would have it, the Aurora Borealis don't dip down to the 45th parallel very often. 


Another bit of luck is the fact that I live in the state of Oregon. If you are not from around here, there tends to be considerably more overcast days than not here in Oregon. That is not a complaint, but simply an observation supporting my story of luck. I don't complain about the weather like so many others I know. I love cloudy skies during the day because cloudless skies are boring for a photographer.

Starry Sunset

To be an aspiring astrophotographer living in a perpetually overcast state like Oregon usually can be, is sort of bad luck. Being an aspiring astrophotographer looking to photograph the Aurora Borealis and living beneath the 45th parallel is a double tap to the bad side of luck. 


So when opportunity presents itself, even if it is only a thirty percent chance, I jump on it. Thirty percent was the chance that the  Aurora Borealis would be visible at the 45th parallel.


The skies were clear; opportunity. The sun had sent a sizable, M-Class, coronal mass ejection (CME) right at us; opportunity. I made myself available; prepared. I tracked the coming solar storm online; prepared. But alas the Aurora dream would remain such, a dream. 

The Aurora Borealis never made an appearance at the 45th parallel because the CME was not strong enough; no opportunity.


But I didn't let that take away from the beautiful evening and great company of my wife and Liz. 


We even had a surprise encounter with another photographer friend, Nathan Smith and his wife and son, Heather and Noah.


All of us made the best of the Aurora Borealis show, sans the Aurora Borealis, and had a great time and captured some amazing images of sky, both during and after sunset.

In the end the Aurora Borealis never made the opportunity available. But I made some beautiful photographs and shared a beautiful evening with some wonderful friends and my wife. It was a lucky day after all.


Are you prepared? If not; Why not?

Artist Versus Analyst

Following the Rule of Thirds

Let me preface the following statement with: this is not a post about how great a photographer I am. My ego is in healthy check. Now that I have said that I can say: I am generally a pretty good photographer. 

As a photographer and teacher of photography I preach the rules of photography. I preach about composition; the rule of thirds and filling the frame. I preach about exposure and the histogram. I preach about subjects needing to be interesting. I preach about light and shadow and how to make them work.

I also practice these things, some times to a point of my Analyst squashing my Artist. My artist asks what-if questions and my Analyst doesn't like what-if scenarios. My Analyst knows that 1 + 1 = 2 and that is not to be challenged, ever.

The image above was an attempt by the Analyst to make a technically good photograph. I followed the rule of thirds. The horizon is not in the center plane of the photograph. I properly exposed the subject. I did everything right. Yet the image lacks pop and impact. This image would not be able to move a turd with bulldozer, let alone move someone emotionally. I might as well have photographed a black cat in a black room with the lens cap on. If I were to post this by itself, it would have likely received a few obligatory comments, if that, but it definitely would not have moved anyone.

Following my Artist

Then there is this photograph to the right. The photograph breaks several of the rules mentioned above. Lets start with the composition. The horizon is on the center plane of the photograph. The subject, the sun, is dead center in the image. Rule of Third/Fill the Frame rule is thrown out the window.

Now let's talk about exposure. In relation to the rest of the image, the lower right corner is under exposed. This leaves a dead spot in the image technically speaking.

Technically speaking, this image is a train wreck. But from an artistic standpoint, this image moves people in spite of the rules. This photograph evokes an emotional response that the first photograph could not. Why? Because I allowed the scene to move me before I tried to capture it. My Artist saw what was beautiful about the scene and captured it shutting down my Analyst

So when I posted my Artist's photograph on social media sites it received more comments and "likes" than most of my images usually get. As a matter of fact, I had five "favorites" from complete strangers, people I don't follow or don't follow me, within fifteen seconds of posting it.

What makes one photograph work and the other not? The first photograph was a true attempt at capturing the scene of a setting sun. It was shot with a Nikon D200 using the 200mm lens with careful consideration on exposure and composition. It was edited using Adobe's Lightroom with some dodge and burn and noise reduction. A professional photograph from professional equipment.

The second image was made using my cell phone and an HDR app that anyone can buy for $3.49 from the Android App Store of your choice. The photo was edited on my phone using Instagram. Both photos were taken by the same photographer; me. So why the huge disparity between the two? Is a camera phone that much better than a Nikon DSLR? I have said it many times, it's not the camera that makes an image it's the photographer. The failure of the first was a result of my Analyst being in control and the success of the second was the difference between my Analyst and my Artist.

Trusting my artist

Sand Patterns

I think I know what happened; how my Analyst got in control at the start. When I first got to the scene I was thinking, location, shot lists, exposures and composition. I set up, pointed the lens, fired a frame or two recomposed, refocused, fire again. Rinse and repeat. I didn't let the scene talk to me and let me know what it was showing me. My Analyst doesn't see such things. I was focused on getting the specific shots I wanted or thought I should get given the rules of photography. I was hell bent to get "The Shot" even if the scene wasn't really showing me "The Shot". My Artist was buried in the world of technicalities.

I finally put my camera aside, unhappy with the results. Took in the breath-taking scene for several minutes. I saw what was happening; I wasn't seeing the sunset through the sun. I shut down my Analyst and my Artist came rising to the surface. I grabbed my phone, opened the HDR app and fired off three frames. I stuck my phone back in my pocket as the HDR app was processing the three image series. I grabbed my camera and walked back to the campfire we had on the beach to warm up. 

I put my camera away and sat on a log by the fire. I grabbed my phone, saved the resulting photograph and shared it via Instagram. I didn't dink around with lots of post processing and cropping and tweaking. The photograph didn't need much of anything to make it pop. The photograph captured exactly what my Artist saw in the scene. The photograph captured exactly what the scene made me feel when I finally stopped, shut down my Analyst and took the scene in while my Artist came to the forefront.

I walked away from this experience re-finding the value of not getting lost in the technical aspect of the process. I know the technical aspects of photography, so I need to let go of the Analyst in me more often. I need to allow my Artist to do the job an artist does best. In the end, I know how to use the tools and I know the rules, so my Artist knows how to use the tools and knows the rules. More importantly my Artist knows when to break the rules. I need to trust that more moving forward because when I do, my Artist truly shines.


How about you? When do you struggle between your Analyst and your Artist. Who usually wins? How do you overcome your Analyst? Share in the comment below.

Photogeddon - Day 5

What a difference a day can make. I was feeling rundown from a long week and not knowing how I was going to finish the day. I didn't even think about Photogeddon save for this morning when I grabbed my camera.

Then something changed. At 1:00PM, right after getting back from having some yummy BBQ, I got a twitter hit from Kubota Image Tools stating that I had won two passes to their SummitUP workshop in November. Well... needless to say, but I will say it anyway, I could barely stay in my chair. I was antsy the rest of the day.

But I was also inspired to go take photographs as a part of Photogeddon. So here I present to you, Photogeddon Day 5.

Sunset Looking East

Old Timer

Unsure

Long and Narrow

Spider Creeping In









Heaven and Hell

I have not posted in a while as I have been very busy. The above photo was taken over Chicago during a recent business trip. Photographed through the aircraft's window using a Kodak Z740 digital camera.

The Sun Setting

Taken a week ago at the beach using a Kodak 800 series digital camera.

Sunset Stop Line

This photo was taken in 2005 using a Kodak 800 series digital camera.

Sunset Over Clam Seas

This photo was taken using Nikon 35mm pocket camera and scanned in using an HP Scanner.

Blinding Storm

This photo was taken during my recent trip to Wisconsin. The sun was setting behind an approaching storm. This photo does not do the entire scene justice at all.

This photo was taken using a Kodak 800 series digital camera.

Twilight Sky

This photo was taken a the cusp of between when either Darkness or Light owned the sky. This is a personal favorite of mine. This photo was taken with Kodak 800 series digital camera from the back balcony of my apartment two years ago.

Enjoy this and all of the other art work I am posting up. If anything moves you in any way, please feel free to comment on it below. It is the only way I will know how some of this art work makes others feel.

Thanks.

Sunset Silhouette

This photo was taken in mid-February. A single person was on the beach admiring the sunset and ocean. The photo was taken with Kodak 800 series digital camera with no filters.

Sunset Silhouette

This photo of the Highway 101 Bridge at Beverly Beach was taken 15 minutes after sunset in late February 2007. Walking away from the beach, after my wife and I shot a few dozen picture on the beach, I turned around for last view of the beach and sunset and saw this inspiring view. I set up the tripod, mounted the camera and snapped several shots using different apature and f-stop settings. This one is my favorite of the series.

The photo was shot using a Kodak series 800 digital camera and tripod (to stablize the camera during the prolonged exposure).