Craig Stocks Arts Fine Art Photography and Artwork Duplication Services in Peoria and Central Illinois
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.
June
Here's a photo from another session we did for potential sale as a stock photo. We set up several photos using Delavan's ambulance, a couple of EMTs and some family members as patients. Here, my father is "checked out" by EMT Chief Sean while EMT Kathy is using the radio. The ambulance was actually parked inside its garage at the time. There sure isn't much room inside the rig. To get this shot, I was hanging partly out the back doors.
When we were done, Sean approached me about setting up a web site for the Delavan Ambulance. It sure seems like a good idea, both as a way to help the EMTs stay informed and as a resource for recruiting. As a result, there is now a skeleton web site set up a www.delavanambulance.com. There isn't much there yet, but I'll start working on it soon.
June
I had a chance to go out to a job site with my son, Chris. He drills wells for geothermal heating and cooling - really cool work, but it's sure a dirty job. Chris and Danny (shown left to right below) have been working together for quite a while. Watching them work, it was obvious that they knew the job, and knew what each other would be doing each step of the way.
May
We had a nice trip to the Grand Canyon this past weekend. The weather started out great on Saturday, with lots of beautiful clouds decorating the sky. We loaded up the cameras and headed out along the trails, first a little ways down the Bright Angle trail into the canyon, and then along the Rim Trail that runs west from Grand Canyon Village. Unfortunately, the dark rain clouds moved in right behind the beautiful clouds, and we ended up in pouring rain, wind and even some hail. Once we were completely soaked, we made our way to a bus stop and got picked up by one of the shuttle buses. Sunday was better, mostly because we started earlier and left by early afternoon when the rain was starting again.
A trip to the Grand Canyon wouldn't be complete without a panorama to try to capture the whole scene. The small size here doesn't do it justice, so click on the image below to view a Zoomify version. When you zoom into the image, you can see the Colorado river in the middle of the canyon. Even though the river was a mile below us, it was so quiet that at times we could hear the rush of the rapids.
May
Deb and I made our last trip to the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument where I've been serving as the Artist in Residence. This has been an extraordinary experience for both of us. We've gained a ton of knowledge about the desert and its plants. But we've also learned a great deal about how our national parks work.
We had hoped to catch a good selection of organ pipe cacti blooming, but it's still a little too early for most of them. However, the saguaro are in full bloom. Nearly every on had crowns of buds or flowers. The one below caught Deb's eye as we drove past. Three of its five arms were twisted down toward the ground. To get this photo, I used a wide angle lens and held the camera less than one foot off the ground.
Over the next couple of weeks, we'll be wrapping up here in Phoenix, and starting our move to Boston. We do plan to visit a few more Arizona icons, including the Grand Canyon, Canyon de Chelly and Monument Valley.
Most people haven't heard of Canyon de Chelly (pronounced canyon de shay). It's billed as Arizona's second largest canyon. The National Park Service maintains a visitor center and roadways along the rim. But, the interior of the canyon is controlled by the local Navajo people. You must be accompanied by a Navajo guide in order to tour the interior of the canyon.
I've also updated my Arizona web gallery with this and other photos from the day.
May
This newest web gallery has a selection of photos from lots of different places. They are more or less in chronological order. The first part is mostly shots from the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, where I served as the Artist in Residence this spring. There are also a few photos from around Phoenix, such as the one shown below. Other locations are Death Valley National Park, Mono Lake (in California) and Sedona. The latest photos are from Chiricahua National Monument in south-east Arizona. As you can see in the photos, it has amazing rock formations created by thousands of years of erosions.
May
This is another post about Photoshop, and the importance of post-capture processing. The photo below is from my trip to Death Valley and Mono Lake. This particular shot was taken right around sunset at Mono Lake. More specifically, it was 8:03 PM. The camera was on a tripod, and I used a 10 second time exposure.
Since it was so late, the light was very blue. Actually, the main light source was the blue sky, which gives everything a blue cast. Our eyes and brains automatically compensate for colored light sources, but cameras are much more limited. So, this is what the camera saw, but it's not what I saw.
The second version (shown below) is the result of basic color balancing and cropping. Specifically, I adjusted the color balance, saturation and contrast. What we see is that there are actually two light sources. The orange glow of the sunset is lighting up the left side of the tufas, while the blue sky is illuminating the rest of the scene. That gives a beautiful warm and cool light color contrast.
But, there still isn't any detailed retouching. If you look at the sky, you'll see little black spots caused by dust spots on the sensor. So, the next step is into Photoshop for detailed retouching.
The photo below is the finished product. The biggest change was to crop and rescale the photo. Compare the two, and you'll see that the foreground was enlarged, and the whole photo was expanded from top to bottom. I've fine-tuned some of the colors, but the most important changes are in the details.
The 10 second exposure rendered the water as smooth, even though it was windy and there were lots of waves. In Photoshop, I add a surface blur filter to smooth the water even more. I removed the dust spots, and also cleaned up the foreground by removing some small rocks and sticks that were distracting. I also removed a rock that was sticking up on the right hand side. Lastly, I enhanced the reflections of the tufas.
The point is that photography doesn't end when you take the picture, or when you download it to your computer. The finished result depends as much on photo processing as it does the image capture. It was just as true "in the old days" but most photographers depended on an outside lab to do their processing, so it was out of sight.
May
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Today is Mother's Day, so it seems appropriate to recognize the mothers in my life. We all need mothers for obvious reasons, but their love and support is really what today is all about. |
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First of all, my own mother. And yes, I'll admit that she spoiled me. It could be because I was just so adorable that she couldn't resist. But I suspect the truth is that she just wanted the best she could provide for her children. She was always there to make sure we had swimming lessons, she took on Den Mother duties for Cub Scouts, drove me to the golf course every day during the summer for golf lessons, and the list goes on and on. As a child, I just never appreciated all that she was doing for me. One of her influences is my desire to be creative. She designs and creates beautiful custom jewelry, and has even taught some classes at the local shop. Be sure to check her web site at www.maxessoriesbywini.com. Thank you for being my mother. |
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I also want to recognize my wife and the mother of our children. Mothers and nurses seem have a lot in common, and Deb excels at both. She loves to support and nourish others. I think that's one of reasons she likes home health nursing - it's very personal. She seems to never tire of helping others, whether as a nurse, ambulance EMT, mother, grandmother, or wife. The phrase is overused, but I wouldn't be here without her. She supported me when we were newlyweds so that I could advance my education, and she is supporting me now as we're dabbling in new pursuits. I'm extremely thankful that she's in my life. Thank you for being my wife, and the mother of our children. |
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Our daughter, Cassie, is the mother of our three wonderful grandsons. It's really exciting to watch her devotion to her children. Between violin lessons, soccer, karate, Cub Scouts and camping, the boys keep her moving. I can't begin to count the number of times someone has commented about what a good mother she is. And, of course, the results are obvious in her children. I also want to say a special thank you to Cassie for helping coordinate things on the home front while were out exploring the world. I know it takes a lot of time, and we will be forever grateful. Thank you for being our daughter, and the mother of our grandchildren. |
May
I've now added a photo gallery with a few photos from my Death Valley trip. You can see it here.
Here's another photo from one of my favorite locations in Death Valley. This is an early morning shot from the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes which is about 1.5 miles east of Stovepipe Wells Village. To really see the texture, you need to be there right at sunrise or sunset. And, you need to venture out into the dunes, which are about 1/2 mile from the road. Some of the dunes are pretty tall, so it pays to keep track of where you parked. I actually carried my GPS with me so that I could walk directly back to the car.
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April
Deb and I went up to Sedona for the weekend to see the sights and do some hiking. The photo below shows Castle Rock on Saturday about an hour before sunset. We were lucky that the clouds moved in late in the afternoon, since they were pretty much all gone by the time the sun went down.
The red rock was a real change after the tan rocks around Phoenix. I think it was an optical illusion, but all of the greenery looked very blue to our eyes, but the color in the pictures looks normal.
In this day of Photoshop and digital manipulation, people always seem to wonder if what they're seeing was real, or the result of Photoshop trickery. It's a legitimate question, and one that's frequently not easy to answer. All photos are manipulated, some more than others. Even in the "old days" of film, each type of film had unique characteristics for color, saturation and contrast. The method of processing, and standard printing processes such as burning and dodging also changed the appearance of the final image.
Digital opens up many more options. But, even if you never use Photoshop, the camera is doing quite a bit of image processing. The sensors in digital cameras record the scene in a very drab rendition. The engineers who designed the camera also included programs in the camera to adjust the color, contrast, saturation and brightness. Many cameras have multiple processing settings where you can choose what type of processing to apply. The point is, just because it's "straight from the camera" doesn't mean it hasn't been processed or tweaked.
Most advanced amateur and professional photographers choose to set their digital camera to simply save the raw sensor data rather than processing the image inside the camera. Then they use a program like Photoshop to tweak the image to their own taste. Normally, they do both global and localized adjustments.
The image below is the raw image of Castle Rock the way the camera captured it. There are obvious differences between it an the finished image above, but the most noticeable difference is the much brighter foreground. That's the result of applying selective, localized adjustments.
Everyone has their own standard of what's acceptable as photography, and where you cross the line into photo-illustration. For me, my goal is to produce the best finished image that I'm capable of, and I'm comfortable using all of the tools available to get there. I've always felt that the darkroom was an integral part of producing photography, and that's still true today with a digital darkroom.
April
We had a nice visit from our daughter's family last week. All three grandsons received their Junior Ranger badges at the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, and then got badges at the Grand Canyon a few days later. The photo below shows Colton and Caden with their workbooks on the visitor center nature trail. Their favorite part of the visit, though, was swimming in the pool at the apartment complex.
I've also been continuing to enjoy the trails around our apartment. Last night, I went up the trail again to get an evening photo of the cactus along the trail with downtown Phoenix in the background. The photo below shows two of the results. I really like the juxtaposition of the cactus with the city lights in the background. These were both 30 second time exposures. The light on the foreground was from a small flashlight.
March
Deb and I hiked a new trail in the hills behind the apartment building. We found it gave a direct view of downtown Phoenix, nicely framed by the hills on either side. I just had to go back for a sunset photo. Click on the photo below for a larger version.
We also had a rare experience at the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. There is a natural spring which feeds a man-made pond along the very southern edge of the park. The area is closed to visitors due to concerns about illegal activity in the area. However, the resource management group had organized two days of work parties at the pond, and the interpretation group was able to tag along with visitor tours. The panoramic view below was taken from the north edge of the pond. Many thanks to park management, and Rangers Betty and Scott for the tour.
March
Our son, Christopher, came out to visit us for a few days. We spent a few days in the park, and Chris spent the time hiking and photographing the sights while I was tied up with other duties.. That's him in the above photo leaning over a cholla cactus to get a close-up of the blossoms. The panorama below was taken near the top of the Bull Pasture trail.
He got quite a few good photos. I didn't realize he had such a good eye for composition. You can see more of his photos here..
February
More pictures of flowers - this time Mexican Gold Poppies.
These poppies are blooming in lots of different places in the park right now, and they love to have their pictures taken. If you want to see more (and I'm sure you do) you should check out my new web gallery right here.
February
We went down to Tucson on Thursday to visit the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. It's a wonderful museum, with exhibits ranging from caves to bobcats. They also have a Raptor Free Flight show twice a day, where the birds (hawks, owls and ravens) fly freely between the trainers - and right over the audience. I was able to get a number of good animal photos, so I set up a second web gallery just for that. The link is right here. The first photo in the gallery was taken at the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument visitor center, there rest are from the Desert Museum.
The yellow flowers above were from our afternoon hike up the mountain. We're lucky to live right across the street from the North Mountain Park hiking trails. Unfortunately, the trails live up to their "mountain" park name. We're either getting in better shape, or just getting more determined, since we made it to the top of the mountain today.
February
If you read the Peoria Journal Star, you may have seen an article in the "Neighbors" section featuring a "Delavan Man.. ." Me. If you didn't see it, here's a link to the article. I was interviewed in early January, so it's taken a while for the story to make it into the paper.
Here's another photo from the park in Arizona. This little fellow (I believe it's a fellow) was hanging around the Visitor Center gorging himself on the nectar from the chuparosa plants.
February
Deb and I had a good weekend at the park. Besides going on a few hikes, it was a good opportunity to get to know more of the rangers and volunteers who keep the park going. The photo above shows a curve-billed thrasher (I believe) perched atop a cholla cactus. The photo was taken late in the day at the visitor center. The visitor center is the dark red block behind the saguaro cactus on the right side of the photo.
February
Well, the Arizona adventure continues. I've added a web gallery of photos from Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Actually, the last photo in the gallery is from the Phoenix Mountain Park hiking trail that's right across the street from our apartment.
The photo below is from the Arch Canyon trail. Even though it's the Sonoran Desert, it's amazing how green and lush it really is. During the next few weeks, the yellow Mexican Poppies and other wild flowers will be blooming, and some of the cacti will start blooming as well. Should be quite a sight!
February
We're beginning a whole new adventure this month. We're in Arizona where we're volunteering in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. It's a large park along the border dedicated to (you guessed it) the organ pipe cactus. The organ pipe cactus is similar to the large saguaro cactus, but the branches all come from the base.
The photo below shows both an organ pipe cactus and a cholla cactus bathed in the warm evening light just before sunset. It's amazing how lush this desert environment really is.
January
I had a couple of fun sessions on Friday. We started the day with the Pekin High School Orchestra. After we finished with the group shot, the musicians wanted to do a less formal pose. The picture below shows what happened next. You can see the entire gallery here.
We finished the day with a sitting for three teenagers. They hung in there for nearly two hours while we tried lots of different poses. The one below is one of my favorites.
December
It seems that I'm getting more and more requests to do image restoration work, especially combining older photos to include deceased relatives into more current pictures. Sometimes the pictures are such that it's reasonbly easy to combine them, but frequently they're so different that it's nearly impossible to create a believable composite. There's also the challenge of striking a balance between too realistic and too ghostly.
Below is an example from a recent customer (used with their permission).
December
Since returning from Jekyll Island, I've been so busy with sittings that I haven't had time to "play" with my photos from the trip. But, during a recent break in the action, I started experimenting with self-publishing using Lulu.comIt's a very easy to use on-line service that you can use to publish anything from books to calendars. I've created a calendar from the photos from Jekyll Island. You can see it here.
December
I've now retired after 30 years at Caterpillar. Well, actially semi-retired since I'm doing more and more photography work.
To celebrate my retirement, my father and I took a golfing trip to Jekyll Isand for the first week of December. We had great weather. Since sunrise and suset are not good times to play golf, I took my camera to the beach for some photography fun as well. You can see some of the photos here.
The photo below is the sunrise on the morning we left to head home.
October
We had quite a trip the past weekend. We went to Burlington, Iowa for the weekend along with my parents, my sister and brother-in-law. Why? My folks lived there for five years, and that's where I was born. It was a time of family remembrances - where they lived, worked and played.
As it turns out, the hospital where I was born has been turned into an office building, but the old maternity ward is now a restaurant with a gorgeous view of the Mississippi River. We ate supper there, and were lucky enough to have a booth along the window.
The photo below was taken from our booth. I simply set the camera on the window ledge and used a long exposure.
September
Our three grandsons (Caden, Colton and Chase) were here for the day on Saturday. They love playing in the woods, and kept themselves busy for quite a while working on the fort, digging a fire pit, climbing trees, and generally having a good time.
By the end of the day, they were pretty muddy, and I couldn't resist a quick stop in the studio before they hit the showers. I think the pictures also capture their individual personalities.
A few weeks ago, I posted a photo of a nearby corn field just before sunrise. Well, Hurricane Ike rolled through the Midwest last weekend and dropped about as much rain in two days as I've ever seen in Illinois. And, since the corn field is along the Mackinaw River, portions were flooded.
The picture below was taken just after the river crested. The day before, the lowest points of the fence were complete submerged. The photo is actually a composite of six individual frames that were merged in Photoshop to create the wide angle view.
If you know Deb and I, then you know that Deb is a volunteer on the Delavan Ambulance squad. They recently put their new ambulance into service, and the chief wanted a good picture of the new rig. He had just spent several hours getting it spiffed up for the Delavan Fall Festival parade and fireworks, so it was a good time. This is the final result, after a fair amount of retouching in Photoshop.
Compare it to the original image shown below. They were leaving to take the ambulance to the fireworks show, so it was still pretty early in the evening. The light inside the cab is from a radio-controlled flash I placed on the center console.
Actually, turning a daytime photo into night works pretty well for a vehicle. Had it been dark, we wouldn't have had the reflections that allow you see the shape and details on the ambulance. If you examine magazine and advertising photos of cars, you'll see reflections of large white light sources- and it's those reflections that allow us to see the shiny object. In this case, the sky was my light source.
August
As I was making coffee a few days ago, I realized that we had all the right ingredients for a gorgeous sunrise. I grabbed the camera and tripod and headed off to a nearby corn field. I wasn't disappointed.
July
My wife's niece, her husband and their new baby Jacob.
July brings one of summer's high points - the 4th of July. We have a tradition of getting together with my parents' neighbor's family - kind of an extended family reunion. It was our turn to host the get-together the year and we had nearly 40 people at our house.
Of course, you have to have fireworks on the 4th. And, if you're a photographer, you have to take pictures of the fireworks. The one below is one of my favorites. You can see more here or from my Gallery page.
Fireworks are easy to photograph if you know the trick. Simply put the camera on a tripod and set the exposure to leave the shutter open for 10 to 30 seconds or so. The streams of light do all the work. (By the way, you use the same technique for lightning. Since fireworks tend to be very yellow, you'll get better colors if you use a tungsten white balance rather than daylight or auto.
I also added two off-camera strobes to give the photos a little more dimension. In this photo, one of the strobes is behind the group of people on the right, and the second strobe is behind the folks on the left. I also added tungsten CTO gels to the flashes to balance the color of the flash to the color of the fireworks.
I didn't do much post processing in Photoshop. I cropped and adjusted the brightness and white balance, but that was about it. The only exception is the first photo which is actually a composite of two images.
June
We've started to branch out into video demonstrations of photo techniques. This is our first effort. What do you think?
May 25
It's time for another of the series on my toys - both old and new. This is my first real camera, A Kodak Instamatic 104. It's the first one I got specifically because I wanted to be a photographer.
The Instamatic 100 was introduced in 1963 and was a huge hit for Kodak. The camera was small, tough and very portable. It also introduced the new 126 format film. The negative was about the same size as 35mm, but was in an easy-to-load cartridge. The film advanced by ratcheting a thumb lever instead of turning a knob, so you couldn't advance the film too much or too little..
In 1965, Kodak had just come out with the new 104 version. The big improvement was the flash cube - four little flash bulbs inside a plastic and foil cube that rotated to a fresh bulb each time you advanced the film. You could say it was the world's first point-and-shoot camera.
Sitting behind the Instamatic is my current uber-camera, the Canon 1Ds Mark III. Photography has made a lot of progress in the last 43 years. Of course, you can't really compare the 1965 entry-level consumer camera to a modern professional digital SLR. But, pretty much any current digital point-and-shoot camera will produce results dramatically better pictures than the Instamatics from 1965.
About the picture. The photo above was taken in my studio. Both cameras are sitting on a sheet of Plexiglas resting on a black table. The background is gray paper lit with strobe with a blue gel. The main light on the cameras is a small strobe shooting through a white umbrella. The rest of the lighting comes from white reflectors surrounding the cameras to create the reflections. The final image is a blend of two exposures, one focused on the Instamatic and one focused on the Canon.
May 18
I carry a photo of Deb in my wallet. Every time I get out money or a credit card, I have her picture front and center. Recently, it was time to update the picture, so we did a quick head and shoulders photo in the studio.
Everyone's portraits can benefit from some retouching - even beautiful people. The bright lights in the studio (even with soft lighting) generally aren't very flattering. And with modern, high resolution digital camera, you can see every line and pore.
After a little retouching, the character of the person is still visible. And hopefully, the photo doesn't look artificial.
Check out the before and after below by rolling your mouse over the picture below. It's the result of fairly basic portrait retouching. Her skin is softened, and her eyes look brighter. I also added some diffusion so that her hair and shirt weren't competing for attention.
May 12
This post is a little bit of a departure from the past few. 32 years ago, Debbie and I asked our good friend Jim Mathews to take our engagement picture in the Pekin Park. (The clothes and hair styles scream 1975, even if I didn't tell you.) At the time, I was a staff photographer at the Pekin Daily Times, and Jim was the Chief Photographer. Last year we got the idea to go look for the same tree, and create the "after" version.
About the pictures. The "before" picture was taken on 2 1/4 format film with available light only. It was an overcast day with a little light rain. The print we've had hanging on the wall has faded quite a bit over the years, so this was scanned from the original negative. (If I hadn't had the negative, I could have scanned the print and restored the color in Photoshop.) The "after" picture was taken late in the day. While the light in the trees came from the setting sun, we were in a shadow. The main light was an umbrella strobe high and camera left. There were also two strobes behind us left and right to create the rim light effect.
May 3
This picture has a lot going on. In 1964 when I was a Cub Scout, I won 1st place in the Pine Wood Derby. And that's my grandson Chase (also a Cub Scout) with my winning car. Actually, my Dad won first place, since I never could have built the car without him. We spent hours cutting and sanding. Then we took the car and some lead weights to the grocery store to check the weight. We found the combination of lead weights plus car that was just below the maximum weight, then melted the lead and poured it into holes in the bottom of the car.
My two younger grandsons, Caden and Colton, are looking on from the background. The red car is actually a race car (Legends of Racing series, 1937 Chevy) that I converted into a roadster for the boys to play with. The original race car was powered by an 1100 cc Yamaha motorcycle engine, and was capable of 140 MPH. The converted car is powered by an old golf cart engine, and can only make about 20 MPH.
About the picture. It was taken with an extreme wide angle lens which created the exaggerated perspective. I also stretched the perspective further in Photoshop. The photo was taken a little before dusk. There were a total of four strobes used. One camera left bounced in an umbrella, and one camera right facing the race car. Both of those were gelled with a CTO gel to make the foreground warm, and the background blue. There were two other strobes, to the back left and right of the race car, to create highlights. I also used a split neutral density filter to darken the sky a little more. Other than stretching the perspective, very little was done in Photoshop.
April 30
It's been quite a while since I've posted an update. I've got a number of new images in the series. The subject of the next one is cars. The two Corvette toys in the foreground are Matchbox type toy cars from the late 1960s or early 1970s. Each one is about 1 1/2 to 2 inches long. The Corvette in the background is my grown-up toy. Though it's not visible, the license plate is CES TOY1.
Once again, this picture required some work. The two toy cars are sitting on a piece of clear Plexiglas which creates the reflections. They're on a table about 100 feet from the real car. I used a 200 mm telephoto lens which tends to compress the distance between the objects. Since the picture was taken at dusk, I also used some strobes to light up the toy cars and the Corvette.
April 6, 2008
I received some feedback from my mother. She thought of a few other things that she was equally happy to see end. She mentioned something about smelly chemicals in the basement darkroom, and the time a friend and I used the bathtub to develop some color slides. I really don't know why the bathtub episode would have been a bother. We didn't finish until 2:00 AM since we kept running out of hot water, and I'm pretty sure everyone else should have been in bed by then. (By the way, my mother creates fantastic jewelry - visit her web site at www.maxessoriesbywini.com.)
I promised the next in the series. Sometime in the early 1960s I received a really cool telescope for a present. It was solidly built with two extensions, and had a tripod. The magnification isn't marked on it, but it's probably about 2X magnification. Quite a bit has changed in 40+ years!
A little bit about this picture. It was taken on our back deck, about 9:30 PM a few days ago. And yes, those are really the stars that were there. I did blend two separate exposures - one for the stars and one for the telescopes. I also did some work in Photoshop to make the stars stand out more clearly.
April 1, 2008
I've never been able to decide if I'm flexible, or indecisive. I think the difference is one is the ability to consider new information, while the latter is the tendency to reconsider old information.
Either way, here's a different view of my Saf-T-Saw. I can't decide which I like better. Any comments?
March 31, 2008
I've started a series of photos that I call Toys and Tools. The idea was inspired by my very first power tool that I recently discovered in my parents' attic. It was called a Saf-T-Saw, and it was designed to cut out styrofoam designs. For the photo series, I've tried to capture both the toy, and the modern tool. In this case, a rather substantial table saw.
I don't remember for sure when I got the Saf-T-Saw, but probably sometime around 1960. I can clearly remember tracing onto styrofoam sheets, and then cutting out the design. I also recall that the styrofoam sawdust made quite a mess, so I'm sure my folks were glad when all the styrofoam was used up.
Since I said this was the start of a series, you can safely assume that I have other old toys that would love to pose alongside the real thing. Check back soon for the second installment.