Rainy Days

We've been getting a lot of rain lately. It's at the point where the next person who tells me 'we need it' will get the response "no, we don't". I've been working on some images from several weeks ago using Lightroom, Photoshop and PostWorkShop 3. The Clivia above is the latest. I have modified it using the Topaz filter set and PostWorkShop in layers to create the texture. The original photo was made in our livingroom. The plant sits on a stand in front of a west window which was the only light source.

Our local Arts Council is having rainy days lately with their budget falling far short of expenses, a combination of increased costs and cutbacks in support from patrons. The county has stopped contributing at all and other sources of support have cut back severely. We're at the point where we may have to close our shop in Potsdam if we can't raise more money. To that end we are seeking donors, new members, setting up special events, whatever we can to make a buck.

The Council has a website at http://www.slcartscouncil.org/ . As you can see on the site the council does a lot of things in and for the community. As Beka, our director says "It is the arts that make us civilized". The council provides an outlet for local artists and craftworkers but also classes and other events and entertainment. If you are a resident of St. Lawrence county we would appreciate a donation or becoming a member which will also get you the newsletter of all the Council's doings. You can donate or join through the "Support Us" link on the website. If you don't live here but would like to donate/join anyway, we'd love to have your support.

Spring Flowers

I've been playing with PostWorkShop 3 again, this time with a  photo of some violets that I photographed last week on the Stone Valley Trails. The photo actually has several filters applied in layers to get the effect above, first in Photoshop using two different Topaz filters and then in PostWorkShop with two more. I don't see a lot of work being done with PostWorkShop and that is too bad in my opinion. Although most of the effects are way over the top for my taste you can tone them down by varying the opacity and blend mode just like layers in Photoshop.Used judiciously it is possible to get some very nice effects. I particularly like the engraving style layered over painting effects as I did with the image above. I like this photo even without the filters but I feel that they add a bit of interest that enhances it.

Remember that if you click on the image you will see a larger copy. Please respect my copyright and do not repost without my permission.

Sudden Spring

We have a sudden burst of spring in the North Country and I have been doing a lot of yard work. Friday I decided I needed a day off and drove South to the Adirondacks to relax, make some photos and see a new show opening in the Adirondack Artist Guild Gallery in Saranac Lake. My first stop, as is usually the case, was at Mountain Pond where the leaf buds were just beginning to open creating a multicolored haze on the deciduous trees over the pond. Spring color is often more varied, although less intense, than autumn color. It can run from silvery grey greens to yellow greens to orange and several shades of red. If you can find a vantage point overlooking a mountainside when the buds are at their fullest before opening it is quite a sight. I suspect that an experienced forester could inventory the trees by simply counting the tree tops of each hue.

I spent some time Both going and returning home, sitting on the shore watching the light play on the water and made a few exposures of the color and reflections..

The show, called The Wild, Wild West, was paintings by Sandra Hildreth that she made in her travels to western parks. I believe they represent her best work so far at least among her paintings that I've seen. If you are in Saranca Lake between now and May 28th I suggest you stop in the gallery and see her show. As always there is other work by the Guild members hung as well.

When I am just cruising for photos with nothing particular in mind I end up photographing a lot of roadside scenes and details like the image above. I didn't really see the "5" when I was shooting it but instantly saw it went I imported the photo as did Diane when I showed it to her. It was her first comment (without hint or prompting). I suggested that it might actually be an "S" for Supermoss but she's sure it's a "5".

The last photo of that day is this one of some evergreens (White Pines?) on an island near the Santa Clara bridge whose needles are turning orange, a bad sign that the trees are sick, perhaps dying. Aesthetically interesting but ecologically dismaying.

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Stone Valley Trails

I went to the Stone Valley Trails this afternoon to see if the Bloodroot were blooming yet. They are poking through the ground but are just mini missile shapes at this point, a white pointed tip wrapped tightly in the leaf that accompanies each bloom. With a few more days of warm weather we should have blooms. As long as I had my gear I wandered farther downstream on the East side of the river not expecting to get any good photos because the light was so harsh but it was just right for this back lit portrait of evergreens on a stone ridge island. I made several adjustments and then "simplified" the image with a filter. The result looks like a painting but it is a photograph.

After turning back below the last set of waterfalls I came on a young (college age) couple just off the trail. The guy was carving something in one of the trees. At first I thought I'd just pass but then I yelled at them to stop it. Carving things in trees is not something they should be doing. A tree is a living thing with enough challenges to survival without thoughtless people wounding them on a whim, giving insects and disease a opening to invade the tree. I'm sure they probably think I'm an old grouch but I prefer to think of myself more like the Lorax.

Canon 7D, 18-135 EFs lens.

Simplicity - The K.I.S.S. principle

Often when some thing catches our eye we make photographs that incorporate the element that attracted us but a whole lot more as well. Sometimes that happens because of the limitations of our equipment, we don't have a long enough lens to isolate the particular element we were attracted to and we can't reasonably get closer because that would change the perspective. Other times it is because we fail to clarify in our minds before making the photo exactly what we want to record. The photographs I like most, not just my own but others too, reduce the subject matter to its simple essence.

Yesterday I was in the Adirondacks to pick up some work from a show that just closed in Saranac Lake and I took a side trip to the Cascade Lakes where I made a number of photographs. Most were typical landscape views but this is one of the last things I spotted as I walked back to the car, a line of accumulated leaves along the edge of ice that was receding from the shore, both an interesting visual pattern and a simple symbol of the changing seasons. Despite having taken only one lens I was able to find a view through the foreground trees and isolate just the water, ice and leaves.

Canon 7D, 18-135mm EFs lens. The photo is copyrighted. Please play nice and respect my rights. If you want others to see it, refer them to the URL for this page.

File Size Question.

 A friend has gotten a pan stitching program and asked about the file size of stitched images. He says the software he got produces 6x17 files around 35MB and he wondered what my experience was with file size of stitched images. Below is my answer:

There's no simple answer on the file size question. The file size varies. The variables are the size/number of the individual frames and the file format. A series of three 18MP frames stitched will be bigger than three 10MP frames. Of course the three frame 18MP stitch also will print larger than a three frame 10MP image without loss of image quality. If you shoot RAW and save the resulting stitch to PSD or uncompressed TIFF you will end up with quite a large image. For example the original master file of this one...

is 1.39GB. No, that "G" is not a typo. Bear in mind this blog copy of the image is reduced from a working TIFF master file that was made from three horizontal 18MP frames, If I print the full size file at 240ppi it would be 53½x 14 inches. I don't crop to any specific aspect ratio until I print and I use layers to do my final adjustments. For master files I leave the layers intact and save to TIFF with LZW compression, a lossless format, in either Adobe RGB or RGB Pro color space. For printing I would make another copy which I might crop/downsize to specific dimensions, flatten and save to JPG or TIFF in the sRGB color space. Each of those changes can shrink the file size to one degree  or another. I have a copy in JPG format that is shrunk to print about 6½x24 inches. It is only 5.9MB. Add to that the fact that JPG files vary in size based on content. High detail images don't compress as much as low detail images even at the same compression setting, just because of the way JPG compression works. The short answer (if there is one) is that 35 MB files are somewhere in the ballpark for a 6:17 aspect ratio stitched image but we're talking about a very big ballpark with a lot of possibilities for being either much  larger or or much smaller depending on the choices you make. The 800x216 pixel copy (JPG compression at 10) above is under 2KB.

Some mornings...

One of Diane's Clivia plants. The stalk of blooms is just emerging from the base. Those nubs in the "V" below the single bloom are other buds. The stalk will push the entire flower head upward and in a few days there will be 6-8 blooms above the leaves. Some chilly spring mornings I feel like this, wanting to emerge but still hesitating between the covers. I had another photo I considered posting today, one of the ice from the freezing rain we had on Friday but I felt this one was more hopeful. Given everyone's impatience with lingering winter I thought hopeful was the better choice.

Canon 7d using a monopod for enough steadiness to allow a smaller f/stop (f/11). Natural light on our livingroom windowsill. Processed in Lightroom 4 with some local sharpening and a border added in Photoshop CS6. Remember that if you click on the image you will see a larger version.

Lensbaby Composer Pro Review

I returned the Lensbaby today and as promised here is a review of my experience with it. I rented the lens, a Lensbaby Composer Pro with the Sweet 35mm optic, from LensRentals.com. This is not going to be a review of LensRentals but I want to make clear that my comments are not influenced by either Lensbaby or Lens Rentals. Neither knew I planned to write a blog post about it nor was I given any consideration by either. I used the lens on my Canon 7D. I have already posted a couple of images in the prior two posts. 

The Lensbaby is a fully manual lens. It is unique in that it has a ball mechanism between the body mount and the optic allowing you to tilt it up, down or at any angle. It focuses sharply in the center but blurs progressively away from the "sweet spot". As you stop down the blurring effect is decreased. The only auto feature on your camera that will work with it is the TTL light meter. You have to focus manually and adjust the aperture manually.When you change the f/stop you may have to change the shutter speed manually to get correct exposure. Using it in Av (aperture value) mode I found that the camera usually, but not always, compensated correctly for f/stop changes. You also have to position of the "sweet Spot" manually, the area of sharp focus. That's where I ran into problems. I could see that there was a sharper area when looking through the view finder but I found it difficult  to position it precisely where I wanted because the blurring around the sweet spot did not appear (to me) as pronounced in the viewfinder as it did in the final image. Unfortunately the focus indicators on the 7D did not flash when focus was achieved. That would have helped both with getting correct focus and in determining exactly where the center of the sweet spot was. Sometimes I nailed it but others I missed as in the case of the image below of Robert who works in the local Arts Council gallery.

I wanted the center of the sweet spot in the area of his right eye and nose but instead it is centered on his right temple. I did better with Suzy (below)...

and even got good focus on her eyes. I shot several of Beka (the Arts Council director, below) but had trouble getting good focus on her eyes. They look pretty good in this small image but if you look at the full sized file her eyes aren't as sharp as I'd like.The plane of focus is about a half inch to an inch back of where it should have been and like in the photo of Robert the sweet spot is centered too far to the left (her right).

I'm sure the problems are mine not the lens. For starters my eyes aren't what they once were (oh, to be 20 again). I have floaters and other minor impairments which aren't a serious visual problem but may be contributing to my difficulty getting precise manual focus. At least that's my excuse. Where the sweet spot is properly placed and focused the lens is very sharp in that central area. I just had difficulty controlling it. Probably with practice I could improve my 'good' frames ratio but in the short time I had the lens I probably got less than 1 in 5 frames on average where it was in focus on the spot I wanted. Stopping down improved the focus (blurred areas were blurred less and the sweet spot was relatively larger) but it was also harder to place because it was less distinct.

I shot a few macros in the studio and noticed an interesting phenomenon in the highlights, a haloing effect on the pin heads as the image became more blurred at the edges. It only happened on this shot of a novelty pin sculpture thing.

So does the 'thumbs up' mean I'm going to rush out and buy a Lensbaby? No. It's an interesting lens and I might buy (or rent again) one at some point in the future but it doesn't fit well into my usual landscape photography. I could use one for flower photos (see the 2 prior posts). I shoot quite a lot of those. It is interesting for portraits which I plan to start doing more but there are other lenses I'd like more so acquiring one of these will be somewhere down the list. If you are younger than I with excellent vision and you like the effect this can be a really fun lens though. It does get a thumbs up from me but with the caution that if you aren't practiced shooting in manual mode with manual focus or your vision makes manual focus a problem, you will have a learning curve with this lens. Even if you are the tilt feature will take some getting used to.

Please to not repost these photos or any portion of this review without my permission.

I Hate April Fools Day

It seems like every April 1st at least half of all the blogs I follow, Facebook posts in my stream and emails in my in-box are lame attempts at tricking me into believing some preposterous story. I wish the tradition would just go away. It is not that I don't have a sense of humor. I follow the daily comics and believe that the best way to start a day is with a laugh and/or some beauty. It's just that most of what gets cast upon the water on April 1st really isn't funny so my offering is a photo in which I hope you will receive a dose of beauty, a Lensbaby image of Diane's Cliva which is beginning to bloom. No joke.

Rented Lens Pre-Review

Just a quick post to say I'm playing with a rented Lensbaby Composer Pro. I've been curious about the Lensbaby since they first came out but the need to manually hold the lens in focus while shooting with the early models nixed it for me. Then they came out with models that could hold focus (the Control Freak and the Composer) and I wondered if I'd use one enough to justify the cost. Time to rent one and see if it is really a useful tool for me. I have the lens for a week. Above is one of Diane's plants in bloom. Tomorrow I'll use it as part of a portrait session I'm doing. Later in the week I'll post a review and (maybe) my decision on whether I want to actually buy one.

Last Philly Post

This will round out my posts from our trip to Philadelphia for the annual flower show.  The photos in today's post are just general scenes that caught my eye in downtown Philly. Tourist shots if you will. I liked the geometry and contrast of old versus modern in the top photo. And who could resist a giant guitar?

The Gallery is set back from the street and there is a tree in the courtyard in front where there was flock of small birds. When a couple of them flew off they nearly ran into us.  

I spotted the "Hats Trimmed" sign while walking back to the convention center from Independence Park.

The last is a wall under the escalator in the conference center made of ceramic bowls, cups and spoons, the sort used in Chinese restaurants. The entire space under the escalator is filled like this, two wedge shaped walls and a rectangular one at the end. It is interesting but I can't help thinking the janitorial staff must hate it. I can't imagine what a pain it must be to keep dusted and I wonder how much stuff gets put into the bowls by people.

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The "Art" of History

I'm a history buff and one of the periods that fascinate me is the time around the American Revolution up through the War of 1812. Consequently I had to do a quick side tour of Independence National Park while in Philadelphia for the Flower Show and as a photographer I wanted to find images that somehow represent aspects of that period. The photo above was made in Carpenters' Hall. I looked up the Hall on the web and found that, despite being part of the Park, it is still owned to the present day by the Carpenters Guild, the oldest trade guild in America.

Carpenters' Hall was where the 1st Continental Congress met to discuss the colonies relations with England and eventually to declare our independence. As such it is the birthplace of the United States. The photo below is a detail of the tile floor and the one after is looking up through the staircase in the entry hall.

There are a number of historic buildings in Independence National Park and I had an opportunity to touch on only a few sites, one of which is the 2nd National Bank which appears in the photos below. Today the building serves as a gallery for portraits of the founders. I didn't have time to visit the gallery and contented myself with enjoying the edifice. One day I will have to return to tour the Park properly.

 All photos are copyrighted. Please do not re-post without permission.

Philadelphia Flower Show

We went on a bus tour Thursday to the Philadelphia Flower show. From a photographer's perspective it was a bit disappointing. The lighting in the exhibit area was on the harsh side, bright lights against a black ceiling, not at all diffused like natural light in a garden would be. Ironically the lighting in the vendors area was much better (more even) but I took no photos there. Some vendors had "No Photos" signs posted and I didn't ask the others. The photo above was up high, part of a larger display of arrangements. The background is black because it is the ceiling. I managed to find a viewpoint that didn't include any of the lights behind the arrangement.

I liked the pattern in this cacti and made a closeup of it from above. The trick with this photo was keep my shadow off the cacti while shooting from above.

The arrangement below was quite spectacular and made me think of the Mad Hatter's tea party. He and the Hare should be sitting in those chairs. And where is the chair for Alice?

For the last photo today here is a detail of a garden sculpture made from copper pipe and fittings. Overall it was about 5-6' tall in the shape of an egg. Given the price of copper these days I'd hesitate to put that in my garden. Someone would be likely to cart it off to sell for scrap. If you look closely you can see someone peering through from the other side (upper right).

I have two other sets of photos I'll post over the next couple of days, one of the National Park area and some general shots of downtown Philadelphia. As always the photos are here for you to enjoy but they are copyrighted so please play nice and respect my work, don't re-post it elsewhere. If you want to share them with your friends use the Facebook sharing link (upper left of this page) or copy and paste the URL in an email to them so that they can see them here.

Fame?

Earlier this week Michael Johnston (The Online Photographer) touched on the question of achieving fame as a photographer. He pointed out that even those who are famous are often known by a handful or even just one image. He suggested to become famous you needed to have and promote your "greatest hit(s)". He gave the example of Steve McCurry and his famous photo of the Afghan girl. He listed two other photographers that I didn't know and even when he posted the photos by them that he was thinking of, they didn't resonate with me. One I had never seen (or had completely forgotten) the other was familiar but unappealing and I didn't associate the photographer's name with it.

But I think Mike's onto something with the greatest hit thought. The difficulty is that one does not decide which of one's photographs is going to be a hit, others do. In order to be a hit I believe a photo has to touch something in the viewer, create an emotional response or, as Brooks Jensen of Lenswork says, tell a story. It is my experience that many people create such images, often accidentally. The reason they aren't "greatest hits"  in a wide audience is that unlike Steve McCurry's Afghan girl they don't get on the cover of a magazine, they don't get wide exposure. I suspect there are a lot of them sitting unknown in shoe boxes, family albums or hard drives. Such an example (IMO) is above. The simple gesture, the obvious pride of the dad telling his young daughter "look a the camera", a basic human experience distilled to its essence.

Not familiar with the work of Laura Currie? Don't feel bad. Very few are. She was my wife's great aunt and when she died we inherited her negatives. Now I'll be honest here, she was a seamstress, not a photographer and many of her photos are run of the mill snapshots made with a cheap box camera. She had a bad habit of tilting horizons in her landscapes but she also had momentary flashes of excellence, this photo of her brother with his first daughter being one. Ever since I first scanned it, it has stuck in my mind as firmly as any greatest hit by a truly famous photographer. So here's to Aunt Laura's greatest hit and her 15 minutes of belated fame. If you agree that it's a hit, leave a comment telling why.