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So, what have I been up to lately?
March
I thought I'd post an image in black and white for a change. I haven't posted many in B&W. I really do like B&W, but I don't tend to use it very often. I think it's a holdover from my early days when everything at the newspaper was black and white. In those days, color seemed like a true luxury.
This photo was taken while we were hiking along a stream in the Napa Valley last weekend. The flowing water is blurred due to the long (4 second) shutter speed, which gives it that cotton-candy look. The large rock is covered with green lichens, which is what originally drew me to the subject. In the color image, I like the color contrast between the bright green lichens and the cool blue of the sky reflecting in the water. I also like the image without color when it becomes about the texture and tone of the subjects.
Roll your mouse pointer over the image to see the color version. Which do you like best, and why?
March
During this time of year, the Napa Valley has their annual Mustard Festival. The point of the festival is the mustard plants that are grown between the rows in the vineyards. The purpose is to refresh the soil. The mustard plants compliment the grape plants and return needed nutrients to the soil. We expected to see sights like the vineyard shown above all along the valley. What we found was only a few of the vineyards had mustard growing, and lush scenes like this were rare.
We didn't stop at many of the wineries, and we were a little surprised that nearly all of them charge $10 to $25 for samples. But, at the end of the day we decided to head up into the mountains to one of the more remote wineries. We figured that at least we would have some great scenery.
We ended up at the Pope Valley Wines vineyard, and it was by far the best stop of the day. Not only did they offer complimentary tasting, they practically insisted we try everything. Then, the took us on a tour of the facility and explained the history of the area. If you're in the area, we highly recommend the trip into the Pope Valley.
February
Here's another photo from our outing last week. This one was taken from the Marin Headlands on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge. The wide angle view shows the entire north shore of the San Francisco peninsula. Alcatraz is visible on the left side of the frame, and downtown SF shows through the vertical cable supports on the bridge. Moving further to the right is the Presidio and Fort Point, which sit at the southern end of the bridge. Beaches line the shoreline extending from the end of the bridge to the right. The first is Bake Beach, which is also part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Surprisingly, it's also a clothing-optional beach at the north end.
February
It's been a while since my last post. The reason? My computer died and it's taken Dell almost two weeks to get it fixed. I was triple fortunate though. First of all, it was covered by warranty, so it didn't cost me anything but time. Second, it was some combination of the mother board, CPU or graphics card that died, so all of the data on the hard drive was safe. And thirdly, I had just finished running a backup about an hour earlier, so I felt confident that I would recover, no matter what. I certainly reinforces the importance of keeping current backups.
Of course, we've made good use of our time. We've been able to visit a number of local parks. One of our new favorites is Big Basin Redwoods State Park near Santa Cruz. It has about the only remaining giant redwoods south of San Francisco.
The photo below is (obviously) from San Francisco. it's actually along the bay near Fort Point, which is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. You can't really tell it from the photo, but I was only about 3 feet from the seagull. When I saw the seagull sitting on the column, this was the picture I envisioned. But, to get all of the background, I needed the extreme wide angle provided by my 14mm lens. And, with an extreme wide angle, I had to get close to the seagull to keep it from just being a dot. I walked slowly to the angle I wanted, and then slowly crept up closer and closer, taking frames as I went. Eventually, I got close, the bird posed, and Deb kept a watch for the occasional rogue wave.
January
After a week of one rain storm after another, we were blessed with fair weather for the weekend. We took advantage of the weather and drove down to the San Simeon area of Big Sur. Needless to say, the scenery is breathtaking. One of the highlights was Elephant Seal Vista. This is an parking area along Highway 1 that overlooks a beach that used by hundreds of elephant seals. They gather here in the winter and spring to rest, mate and give birth.
Click on the picture below to view the photo gallery including photos of the elephant seals and an assortment of birds.
I've also added a new tutorial describing how I use High Dynamic Range photography techniuqes for one of the images in the gallery.
January
Here's another photo from our visit to Bosque del Apache in New Mexico. I like the abstract simplicity of this shot. It was taken at dusk as the Sandhill cranes were flying in for the night. The cranes spend the day grazing in the fields throughout the park. At sunset, they fly back to one of the shallow wet areas for the night where they protect themselves from predators as they sleep standing in the water. Then, at sunrise, they fly out for another day of grazing.
The challenge with this photo is digital noise. Roll you mouse pointer over the image to see the before version.
Noise is most obvious when shooting in dark settings, such as indoors or late in the day. In the days of shooting film, we had to deal with grain in an image. Some people liked it, others dedicated their craft to avoiding it. The same is true with digital, it's somewhat a matter of taste.
In this image, I felt the noise was very distracting. The imge is about the birds and the peach to blue color gradation of the sky. The excessive noise became another subject competing for the viewers attention. Because the noise was so severe, I had to use a variety of techniques in Photoshop to smooth the sky, but I think it makes it a much stronger image.
January
I've set up a very small gallery with a few images from the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The first few are from last week when I went scouting in the Marin Headlands area. There had been reports of a bobcat around the stables, and there were frequent reports of coyotes. I was lucky and managed to find both of them, along with some quail.
The rest are from the Martin Luther King Day activities. The park scheduled a number of volunteer events, mostly cleanup and trail maintenence. I covered the activities at the Presidio. Unfortunately, the rain showed up in full force, and we even had a little hail. The foul weather didn't seem to slow anyone down, they just put on rain suits and went to work.
January
California here we come. We're now settled in our apartment in San jose and we're starting to explore the area. It's always exciting to start new jobs in a new area. Today, we'll locate Deb's work locations, and then go explore San Francisco and the Golden Gate area.
During the trip west, we decided to take an extra day for the trip and visited the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge near Socorro, New Mexico. What a place! It's managed as a wetland bird habitat and provides wintering grounds for tens of thousands of ducks, geese and sandhill cranes. We also spotted eagles, road runners, coyotes, deer and elk. You can see a small web gallery right here or by clicking on the photo below.
The last two photos in the gallery are from the Very Large Array Radio Telescope located 50 miles west of Socorro.
January
We had some late-night visitors in our front yard late on New Year's Day. As I waked past the kitchen window on my way to bed, I noticed a shadowy figure in the snow. At first I thought it was a large dog, but quickly realized it was a deer. I called Deb to come for a look, figuring that they would quickly scamper off. Instead, they moved closer to the house to some barberry bushes about 15 feet from the kitchen window.
Even with the full moon, it was hard to see more than just a silhouette. I grabbed the closest camera (a Canon G10) and tried grabbing a photo through the window. But, it just wasn't up to the challenge. The on-camera flash caused too much glare, and the full moon didn't provide enough light without the strobe.
I assumed they'd take off after the flash, but they completely ignored it and just kept munching on our shrubs. Realizing I had more time, I retrieved my "big" camera and set it up to trigger a flash remotely. Then we could hold the flash up to one window and take the pictures through a different one to light the deer and avoid glare. The biggest challenge was to focus - auto focus doesn't work in the dark. So, I had to focus as best I could, then check the photo on the LCD, and adjust the focus manually.
Sights like this are a big part of why we like living in the country. A few days ago, we had two foxes playing in the woods just beyond our driveway, and birds and squirrels are everywhere. As Deb said, we'll never walk past that kitchen window again without looking out to see who's looking back.
January
Well, it's a new year and our time at home in Illinois is drawing to a close. One of the highpoints for me was building a project with each of my three grandsons. They all enjoy being in the shop with me, so each one got to to choose a project. The oldest wanted some shelves for his video games. The youngest wanted to make a gun, and the third wanted to make a sword. Of course, he wanted a "real" sword made out of steel!
Now that the holidays are behind us, it's time to get back on the road. Deb's new assignment is in Santa Clara, California. (Santa Clara is just outside of San Jose, which is at the southern tip of the San Francisco Bay.) As always, she'll be doing home health nursing. I'll spend part time as a volunteer photographer for the National Park Service at the Golden Gate National Recreational Area, which includes a number of parks and historic sites, such as Alcatraz. I'll also be on the lookout for freelance photography and teaching opportunities.
December
Happy Holidays!
What a year this has been. Both Deb and I began new chapters in our lives when I retired at the end of 2008 and Deb began to work as a traveling nurse. During the first half of 2009 we were in Southern Arizona where Deb did home health nursing in the western Phoenix suburbs while I volunteered as the Artist in Residence at the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. The second half of the year took us to Boston where Deb had the opportunity to visit patients while surrounded by historic sites and I did freelance photography, teaching and consulting.
We've found we really like the travel nursing experience. It's a great way to see a part of the U.S. in enough depth to feel like you've really had the experience. At the same time, we both greatly enjoy the work we're doing. For me, it's an opportunity to return to my creative roots in photography. For Deb, even after more than 30 years of nursing, she's still gets excited when she can help someone. (That's why she serves as a volunteer EMT on the local rescue squad where we're home.)
I'd like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all of the visitors to my web site, and wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
By the way, I also added a quick tutorial describing how we take pictures of the two of us, using the photo from Martha's Vineyard as an example. You can see it here.
December
Photos from the Pekin Suzuki Strings 2009 Christmas Concert on now on-line. You can read more about the program and see the photos here.
December
It's vacation time. My father and I are in Jekyll Island, Georgia for what is becoming an annual golf outing. We've each been here a few times in the past, starting over 40 years ago when I was 15. We came again in the 80's when he retired, and again last year to celebrate my retirement.
The weather today was perfect with a high around 70. The forecast is calling for rain on Wednesday, but generally nice otherwise.
Besides golfing, I enjoy getting out for sunrise and sunset photo opportunities. The photo to the right was taken today along the north shore of the island.
I've set up a new web gallery with a selection of photos from Jekyll Island. You can see it here.
November
Our last weekend outing was to Martha's Vineyard. The island is just off the shore of Cape Cod, just a little south of Woods Hole. We took a ferry from Woods Hole to the island, and then used buses to get around. Since it was so late in the season, most of the shops were closed.
The photo below is at the lighthouse at Edgartown, which is along the south-east shore of Martha's Vineyard.
October
I've added another Photoshop before and after write-up on my Tutorials page. The topic this time is a sunset photo of Boston.
The photo below shows the skyline about 30 minutes earlier than the one in the tutorial.
October
It turns out that Boston is cranberry country. The headquarters for Ocean Spray is located about 20 miles south of Boston, and the area between Providence, RI and Cape Cod is full of farms. So Sunday, we headed off in search of a cranberry bog.
There are two harvesting methods, wet and dry. For wet harvesting, the field, or bog, is flooded with about two feet of water and machines are driven through the field to beat the berries off of the bush. The cranberries cooperate by floating to the surface. Then, the farmers use booms, floats, rakes and the wind to collect the berries to one point where they can be conveyed up into a truck.
The photo below shows two of the beating machines working a bog. You can see the floating berries in the foreground, and on the far side where the machines are working.
October
We're having a short stretch of good weather, so we went for a short hike around Walden Pond. When we stopped to photograph the cove in the photo below, we were joined by a Great Blue Heron. He (?) didn't seem to mind our presence as he slowly walked across. He was only about 6 feet in front of me, the wide-angle lens makes it look like he's farther away.
October
Ah, the Big Apple! Lots of things to see, lots of good food, and especially, lots of people. This past weekend we took the train from Boston to New York and spent a couple of days exploring Manhattan. We stayed at Times Square, walked several miles a day, and experienced the city like tourists - Madison Square Garden, the Empire State Building, Times Square, Central Park, Statue of LIberty, Ground Zero, Wall Street, the Brooklyn Bridge, Grand Central Station and Bryant Park.
A favorite stop was the visit to Ellis Island, which is adjacent to the Statue of Liberty island. The panorama below was taken from Ellis Island and is made up from 14 individual frames. It shows a 180 degree view from the Statue of Liberty on the right to the Manhattan skyline on the left.
I've also set up a slide show with some snapshots from the trip. You can see in here, or by clicking on the photo below.
October
Fall in New England! The colors around Boston are still pretty hit-and-miss, but the reports from the White Mountain area of New Hampshire said they were at their peak. Since we had an ideal weather forecast, I decided to take a quick trip yesterday to check it out. The reports were right. The peaks in the mountains (4000 to 6000 feet) were slightly past their peak, and the valley floor was at about about 70%. That meant the drive up the mountain, and the view from the peaks was fantastic.
Click on the photo below to see a slide show of some of the pics. It's not great photography, but it sure is beautiful scenery! Once again, it's set to Bach's "Air on the G String" performed by the US Air Force Orchestra.
October
I've been doing some work on my web site, and I've added a few new features.
Slide shows - I've been experimenting with a new product called SlideShow Pro for Lightroom. It has new templates for more elegant sideshows, which include music and motion. You can see two examples, one with a selection of Boston photos, and one from Arizona.
Links and sharing - Each page on my web site, and some of my newer web galleries, now have a "Send this page to a friend" link. This new feature will open a new form where you can send a link for that page or slide show to a friend. It's easy, simply enter both your and your friend's names and e-mail addresses.
September
If you haven't checked out my Photoshop Before and After posts lately, be sure to have a look. This time, it's all about eyes.
September
By the time we got to Woodstock.... well, we were about 40 years too late, but we finally made it. We visited the Catskills area of New York this past weekend, which included a visit to the Bethel, NY site of the 1969 festival. The photo below is a quick-and-dirty composite of Deb and I. (I took her picture, she took my picture, Photoshop did the rest.)
The hill behind us was the site of the concert. The stage was on the flat area behind me. You can see how the hill behind Deb makes a natural amphitheater. Just behind the camera position, there is a small monument marking the site.
40 years ago, this field was a muddy mess. Today, it's immaculately groomed and the site has been converted into the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. There's even a brand new museum celebrating the Woodstock festival.
But, it's not the same. It has a modern stage, concession stands, direction signs for traffic to avoid congestion, and huge parking lots. Of course, it also has a ticket office and appropriate fences and security to keep the casually curious from wandering onto private property. There are also lots of signs warning visitors that video, sound recording and photography aren't allowed, but you can take pictures of the field.
I guess the sprit of Woodstock left the area along with the musicians and hippies.
September
Update - My Photoshop before and after post a couple of weeks ago was a weekly award winner in the "How Adobe Photoshop CS4 Saved the Day" contest sponsored by Adobe and Layers Magazine.
September
I'm not very good at tooting my own horn. Over the years, I've tried to master the trait of humility. The trouble is, once you get really good at being humble, you can't go bragging about your humility. Oh well...
For the last four years, I've entered photos in the Morton, Illinois Pumpkin Festival Photo Contest. My main reason is for the nearly free publicity, but my photos have also placed pretty well over the years. My parents called last night to give me the results, and this was another good year.
This photo of a sunrise at Jekyll Island took third place in the Professional Division. It was taken last December when my dad and I took a golfing vacation.
This photo claimed the Best in Show award. It's from Antelope Canyon, which is a narrow, slot canyon just outside of Page, Arizona. Slot canyons are very narrow and deep washes that have been eroded over time. This one tends to be about 10 feet wide on average, and 30 to 40 feet deep. In some places, you can just barely squeeze through. The sunlight filtering down into the red sandstone creates beautiful shades of red that compliment the lines and contours. It was one of our favorite places.
September
After I did the head shots for Houston Bernard a few weeks ago, we played around with some other shots and ended up with the picture three posts down. Houston liked it so much, he wanted to update it with the members of his band, Bonfire Bandit. He also wanted to wear boots that were more fitting to the picture.
The photo below is one of the results. You can see the rest of the photos here. You'll notice that the version below has a different sky. The evening we did the shoot, the sky was mostly clouds. Since we were shooting in pretty deep shade on the east side of the building, we ended up with a plain white sky - not very interesting. I dropped in a photo of the sky taken from our apartment window a couple of days earlier.
September
I've started a new section on my web site to show more of my Photoshop before and after examples. The first post is now available here, and it tells the story of what I had to do in Photoshop to salvage the photo on the right.
Photoshop is one of those tools that can do a pretty good job really quickly. But, when you need a really good finished result, it can be pretty time consuming. When the end usage is low resolution, such as web or TV usage, it can be pretty simple. (Modern high definition TV is about the same resolution as a 4X6 print, so the resolution is not really all that high.) But, when you want something that can be printed as a 5X7 or larger, it gets a lot tougher.
August
We had a great trip to the Albany, New York area for a boat tour on the Erie Canal. We were actually in Waterford, NY, which is north of Albany and sits at the confluence of the Mohawk and Hudson rivers. Our boat captain and guide was Captain Powell (shown below), who owns the Erie-Champlain Canal Boat Company. In spite of the rain, we had a great time on the water.
We also did some hiking at the Peebles Island State Park in Waterford. The panorama view below was taken looking to the West up the Mohawk River. The buildings in the background are in Cohoes, which is known for Cohoes Falls, which block navigation further up the river. This portion of the Erie Canal was dug to bypass the falls and allow boat traffic to continue further up the river toward Lake Erie.
Click on the photo below to open a larger view in a new window. The larger version allows you to zoom in for a more detailed view, so you can explore the details that aren't visible in this smaller version.
August
Update - I've also posted a small web gallery with a sampling of photos from our session.
I had a fun photo shoot last night. Houston Bernard (a local model) needed a professional head shot, so we traded - I did his head shot and he did some modeling for me. Since he's also a musician, we did some fun guitar shots using the abandoned building next door as a backdrop. We had hoped to time the shoot to catch the reflected light patterns on the building, but we were a little too late. I ended up using a strobe to give the building a little more pop. The light on Houston comes from two more strobes positioned camera left and right to create the hard, cross lighting on him.
Houston really did a great job. It was amazing how he could transform from a calm, sophisticated executive look in his head shot, to the wild, jumping rocker with a guitar. But, I guess his ability to transform himself like that in front of the camera is why gets hired as a model.
August
Here I am playing with Photoshop again. I did a new head shot of myself, and wasn't sure which background worked the best. The five below are all the same frame. One is the original as it was shot. I used Photoshop to change the background on the other four. Which do you like best?
August
Vermont, maple syrup and covered bridges. This past weekend, we made our way up to Vermont, which is about a 2 hour drive from Boston. We saw a lot of the state, visited the Ben and Jerry's ice cream factory, bought some maple syrup, and found a few covered bridges. When it comes to beautiful states, Vermont is right up there near (or at) the top. Fantastic scenery, and it isn't even fall yet. I can't wait to see it when the leaves start turning red and gold!
Well, like I said, I really can't wait until Fall. Fortunately, I have Photoshop, so I don't have to wait. The version below has fake fall foliage, and I removed the power lines in the sky and added some overhanging branches to frame the subject. Some would say that's not a photograph, it's a faux-tograph.
August
I've just posted a new web gallery with pictures from the White Mountains in New Hampshire. Most of the photos were from the cog railway that we took to the top of Mount Washington. A cog railway is like a regular train with the addition of a third cogged track. The locomotive has an extra cog drive wheel that engages the cogged track so that it can push the train up the mountain.
Mount Washington is famous for having the worst weather in the world. It holds the record for the highest surface wind speed ever recorded - 231 MPH! It wasn't quite that windy when we took the trip, but it was still too windy and too cold for me.
You can see the pictures here.
August
If you've looked at my blog in the past, then you know I believe a photo isn't complete until it's been optimized in Photoshop. Occasionally, I like to post before and after versions.
The photo below was taken in the White Mountains in New Hampshire. Rain was starting to move in, so the sky was getting mostly gray. I liked the pond, and especially the reflections of the trees. All I had with me was the Canon G10, so I captured this image in raw mode. It has some obvious problems, the sky is way too bright and the rest is just muddy looking.
It's never going to be fine art, but It has potential to be a lot better. The first thing that need attention is the sky. Using the Adobe Camera Raw converter in Photoshop, I processed the raw image specifically for the sky, and opened the resulting image in Photoshop CS4. That brought out the blue areas, and some of the clouds, but much of the sky was completely blown out. To fix that, I added a blank layer and painted with a large brush in a way to darken just the white clouds.
Next, I went back to the Camera Raw converter and created a second version of the scene. This time, I optimized the settings for just the foreground, adjusting the color, contrast and saturation. I then loaded it into Photoshop as a second layer, along with the version with the improved sky.
Then, it's a simple matter of creating a layer mask so blend the two versions together. The end result is the best of both versions in one image. After cropping and leveling the horizon, it's done.
The end result below is much more true to what we saw. Like I said, it's not great art, but it's certainly better than it started.
July
I've started a Photo-A-Day web gallery where I will showcase some of my recent stock photography. My intent is to add a new photo every day.
July
We made a trip up to Maine to the Acadia National Park over the weekend. It's about a five hour drive from Boston, so we did end up spending quite a bit of time in the car. The weather was mixed - Saturday was beautiful, sunny with a few clouds moving in and out. Sunday was very foggy - and the fog turned into rain for the drive home.
The park covers about half of the island, and there are a few towns dotted around the rest of the island. The most famous town is Bar Harbor, which is just outside of the park on the east side of the island.
Bass Harbor is at the opposite corner on the south-west tip of the island. In general, the west side is less developed - and a lot less crowded.
The photo at the right is the Bass Harbor Point LIghthouse on Sunday morning. It's at the very southern tip of Mount Desert Island. The US Coast Guard maintains the light. In fact, a Coast Guard family lives in the cottage year round.
I'll try to get a web gallery of photos from Acadia online in the next few days.
July
We did a fun shoot the other day. Deb works with nurse who is an avid runner, so we asked if she'd be willing to model for some stock photos. The concept is to show an active, healthy lifestyle. As you can see, she's very photogenic, and did a great job as a model.
The two with black backgrounds were shot in the "studio" and the third photo was just outside our apartment building.
July
The photo below is a little different. I did it as a response to a web site that asked people to take a picture of food that would cause someone to go off their diet. For me, there's nothing like an Oreo in milk. But, since Oreos have a visible trademark, I shot this picture of a generic chocolate sandwich cookie. That way, I can list the photo for sale as a stock photo. (This photo and others are available from my portfolio at Shutterstock.com.)
The setup for the photo is pretty simple. The cookie is in a baking pan with about a 1/4 inch of milk. The lighting is from a 2 foot softbox above and behind so that you're seeing it reflected in the milk. The crossed lines are black gaffer tape on the front of the softbox so that it appears more like the reflection of a window.
July
Ii's been a while since I've posted an update. We've now completed our transition from Phoenix to Boston, and we're "enjoying" the change to cool, cloudy, rainy weather. It's quite a change from Phoenix. Unfortunately, we got out of the habit of checking the weather forecast, since it was always the same in Phoenix. We're having trouble remembering that Boston weather can change.
We had a great 4th of July. We went to downtown Boston, and were able to get into the Oval at the Esplanade for the free concert and fireworks. The concert featured the Boston Pops, and Neil Diamond. Since they only let the first 10,000 people into the Oval, we had to get there around 10:00 AM to get in. Once you get in, you get a wrist band so you can go in and out as you wish. The weather was perfect, the music was great, and the fireworks were spectacular!
The panorama below was taken from our vantage point. It was a better spot then it appears. We were on the far left side, so we had a pretty good view of the fireworks, and we were right by a sidewalk, so getting in and out was easy. We were about 1/4 of the way back, so we were pretty close to the stage.
June
While we were in Arizona, we realized that our combined experience might make an interesting magazine article. We approached Healthcare Traveler magazine, and they agreed. You can see the article on-line here. The photo below was used as the lead photo for the article, which starts on page 24 of the June 2009 issue.
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