Winter in May

It isn't but a short drive to find a winter wonderland. These photos were taken on the 24th of May, less than an hour from my front door. Snow can be difficult to photograph because it is easy to over-expose the snow to get proper exposure on the subject. This is where High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography comes in handy.

HDR allows for both highlights and shadows to be properly exposed for. So the trees are properly exposed while the snow is not overexposed.

That is where HDR truly shines.

I love how in these photographs there seems to be struggle between Winter refusing to let go and spring fighting to emerge.

It was an amazing and beautiful day.

Memorial Day Photo Adventure

Our friend and fellow photographer, Liz Smith, picked my wife and I up at 2:00 PM Memorial Day afternoon. We didn't stop moving until 8:00 that night. Exhausted, sick (still) and hungry enough to eat and horse and chase the rider, the photos were left unprocessed until now. 

Well, I am still sick, although after going to the doctors yesterday and this morning I am finally on Antibiotics and cough syrup with codiene so I can sleep at night. Today was my first and only down day this week and I plowed through the images both my wife and I captured.

First up is mine from the Iris Farm, which was our first stop.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Next up is a sample of my wife's photos from the Iris Farm.

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Now some samples images from me on our stop in at Dayton. 

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Here is the images from my wife from our stop in Dayton.

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Now, I get really angry with my wife, because she has a natural gift for photography and doesn't do much with it and it frustrates the hell out of me because she has a natural eye for it, but not the passion that I do. But I love her. When she does grab the camera and use it BAM!!!. She can't tell you the difference between an ISO and an F-Stop (she tells everyone that), but she has no problem putting the camera in Aperture priority and finding some of the most beautiful subjects to photograph.

 

Thanks Liz for getting out there. If it wasn't for you, we would have stayed home all day. 

 

An Afternoon Creating with Others

Yesterday afternoon I spent a few hours with Nathan Smith, Michael Conkey and Chris David. Only, for the most part, I wasn't shooting. I was the subject. The guys, plus Chris Sabato who was out of town for this shoot, are working together to deliver portraits for each other that communicate the essense of who each of us are... a project that originated with Nathan.

It was cold. It was dreary. It was amazing. It was fun. Spending time with these guys is always entertaining, educational and a huge collaborative super nova of creative energy. I didn't shoot much, since today I was the subject, but afterwards... I was sent loose and had a little fun with my camera.

The location is a building that looks like a abandoned warehouse, but in fact it is a working foundry. The owner, Jackie, was in this day and invited us in to look around. Jackie showed us around and told us stories about the foundry, which he started working at in 1964 and then purchased in the 80s. Jackie was a friendly man willing to take time out of his busy day to talk with us and show us around. 

I walked around capturing some HDR series of the interior for reference in planning a future shoot at the location.

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Since it was cold, Jackie fired up a natural gas torch for a little heat. Well, being the 12 year old that I am I was drawn to the fire like a moth to a flame but because I have a slightly bigger brain than a moth I stopped short of getting burned. I got some cool fire textures. One of the things that I love about photographing fire is that with every frame captured, fire is different. Fire is a living and breathing creature that is in a constant state of change. Fire is awesome!

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Also... check out my new watermarks for my images. I have developed eight new watermarks for lightroom. There is one for the right, left top and bottom of images in both light and dark versions.

Can't wait to see the results from Nathan, Chris and Michael. Thanks guys for the fun time. 

Lightroom Preset: Two HDR Presets

The first of the two presets is the HDR Natural preset. The image on the right is an HDR image after being processed in Photomatix 3.2.


When I am processing in Photomatix I tend to not play much with the HDR’s saturation levels because I, being a control freak, have and therefore exercise more control over the saturation levels in Lightroom, specifically the saturation of specific color channels.

And although I have a lot of dynamic range in this photo, it lacks any substantial color punch, a direct result of processing the flat looking raw files directly in Photomatix.

An so, in the image on the left, I have played with the saturation levels of the photograph and the result are strikingly different than the original. The yellows pop, not only in the sky, but in the water and the clouds take on an otherwise non-existent (in the original) purple hue, which is there, but subtle.


This is accomplished by using the HSL tool and making the following adjustments, plus a few other adjustments; SaturationAdjustmentAqua = 0, SaturationAdjustmentBlue = 0, SaturationAdjustmentGreen = 0, SaturationAdjustmentMagenta = 19, SaturationAdjustmentOrange = 38, SaturationAdjustmentPurple = 90, SaturationAdjustmentRed = 0, SaturationAdjustmentYellow = 50.

The other method of HDR is to produce a surreal, painterly or grunge look to the photograph. In the photo on the left, I processed it in Photomatix with that look and feel in mind, but again didn’t mess with the saturation in Photomatix because I am a control freak.


As a result the output from Photomatix was halfway to where I wanted the photo to be. So I began the process of tweaking with the photo in Lightroom. There were a tone of changes made to this photo to the look that I was looking for.

I made the following adjustments: Brightness = 51, ColorNoiseReductionDetail = 50, FillLight = 11, HighlightRecovery = 100, LuminanceAdjustmentAqua = 0, LuminanceAdjustmentBlue = -29, LuminanceAdjustmentGreen = -38, LuminanceAdjustmentMagenta = 0, LuminanceAdjustmentOrange = -8, LuminanceAdjustmentPurple = 0, LuminanceAdjustmentRed = 0, LuminanceAdjustmentYellow = -20, LuminanceNoiseReductionContrast = 0, LuminanceNoiseReductionDetail = 50, SaturationAdjustmentAqua = 0, SaturationAdjustmentBlue = 0, SaturationAdjustmentGreen = 0, SaturationAdjustmentMagenta = 0, SaturationAdjustmentOrange = 54, SaturationAdjustmentPurple = 0, SaturationAdjustmentRed = 0, SaturationAdjustmentYellow = 75 and Vibrance = 31.


The image on the right shows the results, which is exactly what I was looking for. And now you too can get this look to your photos, just download one or both of the presets below.

Download HDR Natural Here


Download HDR Surreal Here

To install the preset, copy the file in the zip (xxx.lrtemplate) to your Develop Presets folder on your computer. If you don't know where to find this folder, open Lightroom. Click on Edit menu and select Preferences. Click on the Presets tab and click the Show Lightroom Presets Folder... button.

Spinning Around The Merry-Go-Round of Life

Where did the summer go? I really do want to know.

Time apparently flies when you are having fun. Apparently time travels faster than the speed light when that fun involves a camera.

My whirlwind ride of a summer was much like spinning around the Merry-Go-Round of life.

It started with me jumping on. Our photo club does these regular shoots at the bridge. By regular, I mean that we shoot there one Friday a month like religion. We have been there seven or eight times and each time is a unique as a fingerprint and as fun as a circus. You have to know the members of my photo group to truly appreciate the "fun as a circus" analogy, but since you likely don't know them you'll have to trust me. We have main attractions, vendors that can feed just about any palette and even some side shows ( I won't use the word freaks because I do respect these people a lot).

Then the event circuit came to town. Starting with the World Beat Festival.

The World Beat Festival is a smörgåsbord of food, culture, food, creativity and art. Oh, and did I mention food?

This event kicks off the summer of fun here in lovely Salem, Oregon. So much to photograph and so little mental capacity to cover it all. But if you have A.D.D. like me, you will be in heaven.

I got a nearly a whole week off before the double-whammy.

 The morning of the 4th of July starts with a trip to the Willamette Mission State Park Civil War Reenactment.

This is a huge event put on by the Northwest Civil War Council. Over 1000 actors come to this event and boy do they put on one hell of show.

Generally this starts at 9:00AM and rolls on to 6:00PM. But this year I had to call it an early day. I shared a ride and my ride was ready to go, but I was too. See during the morning battle a large cannon, like the one on the left, fired really close to me and the concussion from the cannon shattered a filling in my mouth requiring a dental visit the following business day.

That night is the fireworks show down by the river. Of course to get the best seats in the house you need to arrive early to save your seat and then wait. Well the seat happens to be a concrete dock right on the river. Not the most comfortable place to sit for five hours, but as you can tell from the image on the right, the view makes it worth it.

The best part of this event is after long hot day in the sun, at the reenactment, you get to chill by the river and then get a great entertaining show. By chill I mean literally; this is Oregon after all. Temps go from 85 degrees down to 67 with a stiff breeze. So chill is an appropriate term. Yes, we brought blankets and jackets and yes we used them.

 Next up: Welcome to the Oregon Garden. This location is heaven for nature and landscape photographers.

A day here will mean several memory card worth of images to go through later. I think I ended up with over 100 keepers of the one thousand shots I took.

I know what you might be saying, only a ten percent keep to toss ratio. I was experimenting with a new lens and some unique angles; some of which worked and many of which did not.

Now enter the Mount Angel Abby Monastery. This is truly a place I could spent  a solid month at and still not capture a fraction of the photographic opportunities.

This is a photographer's Garden of Eden.

From vivid landscapes, to lush interiors, no matter what your photographic preference, the Abby can be your fix.

As you can tell by the photo on the right, textures, colors and views abound and this is only one photo.

If you get a chance to visit the Abby, do yourself a favor and ask the librarian to see the vault.

The vault has book from before American was even known to exist. Yes, I am not exaggerating this, one of the books was dated 1467 and they have some that are even older than that and they allow flashless photos to be taken.

Throw in a few more bridge shoots, an HDR class and some other fun photo group activities and you end up with a summer that is flying by.

The next thing you know it is August.

The next thing you know, it is my birthday.

Then off on vacation, my first break from work in seven months.

Vacation for me is about relaxing. It is not about having agendas, to-do lists nor is it having a list of places to go. I get enough of that from work.

For me vacation is about, much like the Peter Gibbons character's agenda in Office Space, doing absolutely nothing.

And absolutely nothing is what we did. We drove to the coast and for the most part stayed on the beach most of the days, in the hot tub most of the evenings and in the room each and every night. That was a true vacation. If life were just and kind, the roles of work and vacation would be reversed. We would work a few weeks a year and vacation the rest of the time. Oh what a wonderful world it would be.

 After vacation it is back to the daily grind of my day job and joys of my moonlighting gig.

I was afforded the opportunity to shoot some head shots for Bob Olin. We became reacquainted after years of not seeing each other after high school while I was shooting a civil war reenactment.

He is an actor and needed some head shots for the director of a new film he is working on. He gave me a shout via Facebook and we hooked up for a two hour shoot.

The photo on the left is one of the images I actually presented to him. Oh, and yes in case you are wondering, he signed a model release.

One would think that after a fun filled summer like this that I would be done. Oh no. Not me. I am a glutton for punishment that would be epic, even by hell's standards.

Two nights of night shoots, 9:00PM to 1:00AM. My photo group strikes again. I do love these people. Just to give you a idea of how active this group is, I did not attend 3 shooting events with the group during the summer, one of which was an overnight trip in Central Oregon.

 After this, photography activity starts to wane a bit, and this is a good thing.

I have two weeks left before I have to be prepared for a week long run at the Oregon State Fair.

Our group has stepped up to give presentations all but three days of the fair. I say our group, but alas I was the one who initiated the whole thing with the director of the fair.

So I have to prepare three presentations as well as manage the logistics of who needs to be where and when. It was chaotic, it was exhausting, but must of all, it was fun.

So now that I am looking at the calendar, I see that I am in the second week of September. One might think that things would slow down, eh; oh how wrong you would be.

I am now planning a photoshop workshop, I have scheduled and will be presenting a Lightroom 3 workshop in two weeks and I am booked to shoot a wedding on Halloween. Oh yeah, I have a shoot planned at the Oregon Zoo with my group.

Life is good. No it isn't. Life is great. Be careful stepping on that Merry-Go-Round, you never know when you are likely to have chance to get off. But enjoy that ride while it lasts because it might not come around again for a while.