Valley View

The photograph in the last post is of Tunnel View, the most iconic scene in Yosemite.  This photograph is of Valley View, or as many call it, Gates of the Valley.  The scene is framed by El Capitan on the left, Cathedral Rocks and Bridalveil Fall on the right.  This was shot as the sun was setting, casting a warm glow on both El Cap and Bridalveil.  The Merced River was moving too swiftly to get a mirror reflection, so I just focused on trying to frame a decent shot with something in the foreground.  People will seem to bother you when you’re lying flat on your stomach trying to compose a shot, won’t they?  First, some deranged woman who claims the National Park Service had sent her off on extended leave had to ask me what I was doing (Hmmmm.  Camera. Tripod. Remote release.  Yosemite.  What do you think, lady?).  Then there was a Chinese guy who bounded out of his car, ran right down to where I was perched to point at my camera and ask me what lens I was using.  He then ran back up to his car, grabbed about $5,000 worth of gear, and set up shop right next to me.  That used to make me mad, now it’s a little flattering. 

I continue to be impressed with the black-and-white conversion capabilities of Photoshop Lightroom CC.  Seriously solid.  I continue to be disappointed with how Lightroom sharpens images, though maybe I'm just not good at it.  I use Smart Sharpen in Photoshop CC.  EXIF for this image is f/11 for 1/60th of a second, ISO 100, +1/3 stop exposure compensation.

God's Playground

Yosemite Valley, to me, is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space.
   
    --Ansel Adams

For those who have graduated from confusing it with Yellowstone National Park, Yosemite National Park seems to quietly--but forcefully--beckon those who have never been there.  Located in northern California, Yosemite has long been on my list of must-see places.  No small part of this longing has to do with my interest in photography (dormant for a while, but recently renewed); one simply cannot think of landscape photography without thinking of Yosemite.  Some of it has to do with escaping the man-made and connecting with the God-made.  If I’m being honest, though, I think some part of me needed to go to Yosemite to be overwhelmed--to be brought down a few notches, and to be reminded that the granite will be around long after I’m not.

Our spring break trip to Yosemite was my 13-year-old daughter’s idea.  Back in January, she came in and asked me if I had any books on Yosemite.  I have two books by Ansel Adams, one more educational, one more pictorial.  I gave her the more educational of the two, and thought nothing else about it.  The next day, she announced that she wanted to go to Yosemite for spring break.  I offered no objection, and was secretly elated.  I spent the next few weeks learning about Yosemite.  Not necessarily the history of its existence, but more about the various locations in the park, where to go, where to stay, how to get there, how to photograph it.  I knew that we would arrive in daylight, that our hotel would be two miles from the south entrance of the park. (Be advised--it's still about 35 miles to Tunnel View from the entrance.)  The road we would take to the park would carry us directly to Tunnel View, the scene most people think of when they think of Yosemite Valley.  As luck (and airline schedules) would have it, I ended up at Tunnel View just before sunset on our first day.  I was ready to pop out of the tunnel and see this grand sight I’ve only seen in videos or photographs.  What I didn’t realize is that you first come around a bend in the road before you get to the tunnel, where you see a more compressed view of Yosemite Valley.  Unless you pull over, it’s a view that is gone shortly after it appears, leaving you with your mouth agape and your heart racing.   She's a tease, isn't she?
 
As you glide down the road and into the tunnel, your heartbeat increases with anticipation.  You know what’s coming next.  You’ve seen a glimpse of it just now, but nothing can really prepare you for what you see when you emerge from the tunnel.  Suddenly, one of the greatest landscapes in all the world is revealed to you.  More accomplished persons have uttered or penned eloquent descriptions of Yosemite Valley and the first impressions it generates.  It’s going to take some quiet time working through the photographs to cobble together the words that might describe my first impression of Yosemite Valley.  For now, though, consider the words of others.  First, Carl Pope, a former executive director of the Sierra Club: “It’s a place that you step into and you don’t know what’s going to happen.  It’s a place that can surprise you.  It’s a place where you’re small, but where being small is not a bad thing--where being small is actually a wonderful thing.”  Next, these words by William A. Turnage of the Ansel Adams Trust: “I don’t think there’s any place that hits you in the solar plexus the way the first time you come into Yosemite Valley.  It’s simply overwhelming. . . . It’s awesome.”
 
Over the next few days, we learned our way around the park and its amenities.  In many ways, the place truly is overwhelming, almost too much to take in, even given an entire week.  It’s probably similar to being given a $50,000 shopping spree in New York City or Chicago, but you have only 30 15 3 minutes to shop.  And it’s huge, this place.  The entire park is roughly the size of Rhode Island.  One downside to visiting in early spring is that pretty much all of the upper elevation places are inaccessible because the roads are closed from November until sometime in May.  Even though I had purchased Michael Frye’s book on photographing Yosemite well before the trip, I was at a loss as to where I should start.  As in writing, in photography sometimes you just have to start doing something.  Anything.  So that’s what I did.  Tunnel View.  Bridalveil Fall.  Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls.  El Capitan.  Half Dome.  Mirror Lake.  Tenaya Creek.  Mist Trail.  Vernal Fall.  North Dome.  Cathedral Rocks and Cathedral Spires.  Valley View.  I got a lot of the basic shots, and in the coming days I’ll post them here, with discussion of how I got the shot. 

Since I've mentioned Tunnel View, that's where I'll start.  This was taken the morning of our third day.  It had rained a good part of the afternoon before, and into the evening, before turning to a light dusting of snow.  The weather forecast showed the storm to be clearing out just around sunrise.  I had read that you really need some good clouds for a dramatic Tunnel View shot, so I got up early and headed to Tunnel View.  About 25 or so other people had the same idea, so we were all lined up with our cameras and our tripods and remote shutter releases.  It was a brisk 27 degrees, but once the sun cleared Cathedral Rocks (the formation just past Bridalveil Fall), it warmed up considerably.  I have countless shots of this scene still to work through, but this is one I really like.  ISO 100, Sigma 10-20 at 20mm, f/16 at 1/10 second.

Empty Chairs

I will always remember April 19, 1995.  On that day at 9:02 a.m., an explosion a bomb destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.  Until the attacks of September 11, 2001, this bombing remained the most destructive terrorist attack on U.S. soil.  I remember it for two reasons.  

The first, most immediately recognizable moment for me was the heightened level of security at the federal building in Fayetteville.  As part of my law clerk responsibilities, I often had to take documents to the federal building.  The afternoon of April 19th, you could not get within 2 blocks of the federal building in Fayetteville.  Secondly, a guy I knew from my hometown was in the Murrah building at the time and was killed in the explosion. 

This second reason is what made me get out of bed this past Sunday morning and drive to downtown Oklahoma City to visit the memorial.  We were in OKC for a dance competition in which my daughter and her dance company competed.  Those of you who have kids who are doing or have done this understand that 1) the venues are conveniently located near NOTHING; and 2) the event timings leave little room for free time.  I knew we would probably not be loading up to drive downtown to spend any significant time at the memorial and museum, but I was not going to leave town without going to this piece of hallowed ground and visiting The Field of Empty Chairs.

I got there about 7:30--about an hour later than planned.  But, I still had the place to myself.  Wearing dark glasses and a black skull cap, carrying a large camera bag and a tripod, it did not take long for a security guard to appear and make sure I was on the up-and-up.  We chatted.  He told me it was ok to walk among the chairs.  He showed me where the names of the bombing victims were engraved on the chairs.  He showed me the chair of Baylee Almon, the infant in the famous firefighter photograph (I'm not going to give it to you--go look for it).    I didn't have nearly enough time to do much of anything other than take in the site and take a few photographs.


The children's chairs are smaller than those of the adults.  If you have children, you instinctively get how poignant this is. 

Sunset on Summer

This photograph seems fitting for the end of summer.  Most of us who have kids are already back in school, and some of us are already looking forward to fall break.

This photograph was taken at The Dock in Lake Providence, Louisiana.  We stopped there for dinner on the way to Florida this summer.  Random mom and her young son.  The surprising thing about this photograph is that it was taken with my iPhone 4S.  I recently downloaded the Camera+ app, and used the Clarify tool to really make this image pop.  The only thing done outside of the iPhone was to pull it into Photoshop and straighten the horizon.  That's it.  Camera+ reports the EXIF as being ISO 64, 4.3mm, 1/356 at f/2.4  Weird numbers, but I was shocked at how good this turned out.The iPhone 4S camera is pretty good for a phone, and Camera+ seems to be a great little app--for $.99, you can't go wrong!

A Resurrection of Sorts

I've had two photography posts since the beginning of 2011.  Aside from that, I've pretty much been AWOL. I just haven't been inspired to get behind the lens.  About a month ago in Florida, I was asked by friends to take some obligatory ocean side portraits.  Veritable CF.  Foggy lenses.  Dirty lenses.  Fading light.  Rechargeable batteries that had forgotten how to hold a charge.  Panic.  Total fumble.

That whole fiasco experience kinda pissed me off.  A few years ago, I was working hard to develop my skills and a knowledge base.  You probably remember the little sign in the dentist's office when you were a kid:  "Ignore your teeth and they will go away."  Same thing with photography.  If you don't practice, the little nuances (hell, the big nuances, too) of running that little box-sized supercomputer will overcome you.  What to do?  Go shoot.  Anywhere.  Anything.  Push the button.

So I decided to challenge myself and do something I've always thought about doing--a one lens challenge.  Actually, to make the challenge more exacting, it needs to be limited to one focal length. Manual mode only.  So on the way to the Bentonville Farmers Market last Saturday morning, I grabbed my camera and stuck on my 50mm 1.8.  Sharp lens.  Fixed focal length.  Foot zoom.  With wife, daughter and dog in tow, shooting was not exactly convenient (and crepes--can't forget those).  But I got a great shot of my daughter with a dragonfly balloon, and got a few shots of 3 of the 4 members of a little high school group called Farmer & The Markets (they kinda reminded me of a Walk Off The Earth video).  I got a down the line shot with a shutter speed fast enough to freeze faces but slow enough that hands conveyed a send of motion.  It's one thing to know your camera and what all the buttons and dials do, but you should challenge yourself to tell a story, convey some motion, or have some direction and so I was pleased to pull off that shot (it took a few times to get the shutter speed right).  But I also got one of those all-purpose stock shots, imploring you to support your local musicians, and I like it because it conveys a sense of waiting and wanting.  Of course, as I sit here writing this, it occurs to me that had I shifted about 2 feet to the right, I could have included the open guitar case where people were tossing tip money for the guys.  That really would have been the prop to finish the shot.  Just because you have a bunch of nice pots doesn't mean you can cook. They'll be back and I'll try again.

50mm, 1/320 at f/2.8, ISO 100.  Conversion to B/W in Lightroom.

My Lightroom skills these days are about as poor as my camera skills.  I'm fairly pleased with the overall conversion, but need to get some of the blacks out of the music stand. 

I've seen some versions of this challenge talk about shooting an entire week or month with one lens.  Even as simple as it is, the 50 1.8 can be a little hard to get your head around when shooting on the fly, so while I don't know if an entire month is realistic, it's a good way to learn about perspective and composition.

Go support your local farmers markets and musicians.  Take your camera.

Vulnerability

I found myself in an uncertain situation last night. When I got home from work, I went to the mailbox and got the mail, which included a Priority Mail package for me. I opened the envelope to discover three New Customer packets from Verizon Wireless. As I looked through one of the packets, I found a “Customer Receipt” that indicated that I had opened 3 cell phone lines with Verizon on February 20^th. This not being the case, I immediately called Verizon and alerted their fraud department. In the process of doing this, I learned that the account had been opened with my social security number. I called the police (an officer later came to the house to interview me). I instituted fraud alerts with the credit reporting agencies. I tried to get my once-annually free credit report, only to learn that someone had already either got it or tried to get it the same day as the Verizon accounts were set up. This last little piece of information was perhaps a little more frightening than anything else.

So don’t think it can’t happen to you. Despite best practices, it most certainly can happen to you.

That feeling of vulnerability that comes with not knowing when the next shoe is going to fall is scary. But I’m over being frightened. Now I’m pissed. I don’t know who you are, but I am a patient man. I don’t know who you are, but I have a slow burn. I don’t know who you are, but I am Maximum Decimus Meridius. I don’t know who you are.

Not yet.

Soliloquy

This weekend at Wine Club, we will be presenting 6 wines from 4 of our favorite wineries from our May trip to Napa Valley. I got a little bored the other night and broke out some flashes, a shoot-through umbrella, a grid and some props to get this shot of the top of the capsule of a bottle of Flora Springs Sauvignon Blanc Soliloquy Vineyard Oakville 2009. We love Flora Springs. You should, too. Check them out here. Get some wine. Share the love.

Two speedlights at camera left. One high and shooting down through a shoot-through umbrella at 1/2 power. Second light is Justin clamped to a chair at 45 degrees, with a Honl grid, aimed pretty much at the capsule (which is the foil covering over the top of the wine bottle). White blanket background. I ran out of batteries or I would have splashed the background.

ISO 100
1/60 at f/11
Nikkor 70-300VR at 300, hand held.

Incidentally, the other wines are the 2009 Buehler Vineyards Chardonnay Russian River Valley, the 2009 Buehler Vinearyds Zinfandel, the 2007 Trespass Vineyard Cabernet Franc, the 1999 Flora Springs Trilogy, and the 2005 Taylor Family Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve.

Hello, blog. Long time, no see.

So it's been about 16 months since I've posted anything on here. Coming soon (relatively) will be a little recap of our recent trip to Napa Valley. Until then, here's a shot from high on a hill above Buehler Vinevards. I took four or five shots from the passenger seat of John Buehler's truck, and after about 30 seconds, he remarked, "What the hell are you doing, making a photograph or a painting?"

I think I've forgotten how to operate a camera. I'll blame it on the wine.

Gratuitous Waterfall Shot

Ok, last post was about finding something unique in landscape shooting. But what would a trip to a waterfall be without actually taking a shot of the waterfall? Here's a shot from Ann Falls back in January, taken while standing in the creek below the falls. Shot RAW, exposure adjustments and black and white conversion in Lightroom.

EXIF:

ISO 100
Nikon 18-135 at 28 mm
f/16 for 4 seconds

Snow Mushrooms

This past Wednesday, I ventured back out to Ann Falls (below the Lake Ann spillway in Bella Vista) to take some snow shots. I got out there around 3:30 or so. One side benefit of being a duck hunter is the fact that I have all the gear necessary for an adventure like this, such as neoprene waders and a heavy, wader-length, waterproof coat. Gloves help, too, but can be a bit of a hindrance trying to manipulate gear.

I am a huge fan of the British magazine Practical Photography. Earlier in the day, I was reading an article in a back issue about fine art photography. I pulled a piece of great advice from this article. Anybody can take the obligatory, wide-angle shot of a landscape scene. A more interesting shot comes from isolating smaller components of the landscape. With this in mind, I was on the lookout for interesting little "mini-landscapes" while slip-sliding through the stream to the base of the falls.

On-course management strategy in golf is to think your way through a hole in reverse, that is, from the green back to the tee. You see things differently. And so it was with the waterfall. Standing with my back to the falls and looking downstream, I spied a nifty snow and ice formation overhanging a large rock, just above the water. The whole formation resembled frozen snow mushrooms growing on a rock. I'm still working on this shot to bring out the texture of the snow, but that's proving to be a challenge in Lightroom, so I may have to resort to other measures. This is a black and white conversion with a light blue split tone applied to the highlights. The wisps in the background were created with a long shutter speed to turn the stream into cotton candy.

(Yes, I'm aware of the lens spots. I'll fix them. I just really like this shot and wanted to post it.)

EXIF:

Nikon D80
18-135mm lens at 44mm (with circular polarizer)
ISO 100
f/16
6 second exposure

Field Trip

During the snow and ice storm of 2009, I wanted to get out and take some shots, but trial prep prevented me from doing so. This week, I have vowed not to make the same mistake. I have my tripod and waders in the truck and I am by golly going to get some winter waterfall pictures this week (and with the temperatures being so cold this week, it's not like the snow is going to melt). So maybe late tomorrow I'm going to head to Ann Falls and/or Tanyard Creek. If you're inclined to tag along, let me know--I'm sure I'll go more than one day this week. You will absolutely need a tripod, although you may not absolutely need waders (I will be in the water, though). You will also need the ability to manually control the shutter speed of your camera. If you can't slow down the shutter speed to half a second or slower, you won't be able to get the cotton candy effect that make all those waterfall shots so dreamy.

More Than Animals

Wow. Here it is, November 1st. The card that is in my camera has pictures on it from April that I haven't imported. Summer is full of a lot of things. Heat. Rain. Vacations. Sports. My summer was full of work, and not at all full of photography.

We went to Tulsa for a quick day trip over Labor Day weekend. Hadley has a pretty short attention span for the zoo. Also, to get really decent shots of wildlife, you kinda need a 300mm or 400mm 4.0 lens with a teleconverter. A monopod is also helpful (I decided to leave mine in the truck). Fortunately, many zoos are more than animals. This was taken in a little lillypad somewhere along the way.

EXIF:

Nikon D80
18-135m lens at 135mm
ISO 400
1/800 sec. at f5.6

Black and white conversion, exposure tweaking, split toning and gratuitous vignetting in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.1.

Wine is Fine . . . .

Since Memorial Day, it seems as if the world has moved at full throttle (5 points to you if you picked up on the two Ozzy references in the first 17 words, including the title). How many pictures have I taken? Not many. How many real photographs have I made? Even fewer. The plan to take a side trip to Yosemite fell through (but the consolation prize was dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in Napa Valley). Case after case after hearing after hearing after client after client. The practice of law business of a law practice is a hell of a grind. I am now staring down the barrel of the next 3 months, and there doesn’t appear to be much of a break in sight. I’m not complaining; many people would beg to have a job to go to every day. I’m just drained of motivation.

One of my all-time favorite movies is The Shawshank Redemption. There’s a line in the movie where Andy says, “Get busy living, or get busy dying.” Somewhere near the time that line was uttered on a network television broadcast of that movie two weeks ago, Joelle Glaysher of Bentonville took her life. How she did it—although shocking—is not important. Why she did—none of it was worth dying over—is not critically relevant either. The first thing many people would say about Joelle after meeting her is that she was beautiful, and indeed she was a pretty woman. She was happy (not so much, it turns out), and she had the biggest smile in the room. I could go on. Seriously, she was just the All-American girl next door, and everybody loved her. To say I was shocked upon learning of her death would be the understatement of the year. This is the second unexpected death of a dear friend from high school in about 14 months. I guess that’s where we are now—no more weddings and babies and reunions. Is it really going to be the case that our own funerals are next on the list of life events? I hope not.

Suicide is an everyday occurrence. According to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control, for 2006 it was the eleventh leading cause of death in the United States, with one death occurring every 16 minutes. With more than 33,000 deaths annually in this country attributed to suicide, most of us surely know at least one person who has committed it. And for all who have succeeded, more have attempted it. Death is a part of life. We’ve all lost friends and family members, expectedly or not. We all are aware of the pain and grief that comes from losing a loved one. For me, I can right off think of four people I knew that took their own life. One was a friend of mine from church camp, who killed himself while we were freshmen in college. Two others were family friends of my wife’s family (one of whom I didn’t know well and the other a dear friend). And then Joelle.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about Joelle’s death is the aftermath. Two of her close friends practically radiated their pain and confusion. They were angry. They were frustrated that they couldn’t make sense of things. The mix of emotions I saw in their eyes was something I had never seen before. It’s hard to think of Joelle as a statistic, and because she was my friend she will never be one of the 33,000 who take their lives each year. But the truth probably is that she got busy dying long before two weeks ago. I’m sure that’s true of a lot of suicide victims (and if Blogger allowed footnotes I’d put one here to the effect of “Who, exactly, is a suicide 'victim'?"). I’ve pieced a few things together about what her burdens were, and then learned of a few other things that piled on in the days prior to her death. None of it was worthy of dying. I think I understand where she was—life as she perceived it was dragging her down. I don’t comprehend the despair, but I understand what motivates it.

Why is it so hard for us to get busy living, but so easy to get busy dying? I’m not sure I know the answer to that question. It’s very easy to get busy doing nothing. Being complacent—at work, in school, as a parent, as a spouse—is an American art form. Not really dying, but not really living, either. “Packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes.” (Another footnote here to say that I didn’t even think of the next line of that song until after I typed this one.) Some of you know I’m a fan of Atlanta-based photographer Zack Arias. I posted this previously, but his video “Transform” is a challenge to the lethargic. Watch it. If you’re not busy living, you’re just rotting away.

So get busy living.

Spiderwort

This was taken beneath Haley Falls, just prior to reaching Hawksbill Crag. I'm not quite sure why the anthers on these flowers are so blurry, but I'm guessing it's a combination of being within the minimum focusing distance of my 70-300VR and a little bit of a breeze. This is why I need a macro lens--another step backward would have resulted in an 80-foot tumble over the edge of a bluff.

Some guy scampered down to where I was and promptly proceeded to copy my composition. C'mon. Figure out yer own stinkin' composition.

EXIF: 70-300VR at 280mm, ISO 100, 1/30" at f/5.6.

Hiking to Hawksbill

I took a day off from work last Friday and went to Hawksbill Crag and The Glory Hole. The girls were in California on a trip they had planned for a couple of months. I had been planning this trip for the same couple of months. The original plan was that I’d hike around for the day, go to White Rock and get a cabin, and then do some more hiking on Saturday. Then, I saw that the Wakarusa Music Festival was going on, and decided that even if there was a cabin available I didn’t want to get near the traffic associated with a music festival. As it turns out, Saturday would have been out of the question; Friday was exhausting (in a good sort of way).

I have a tendency to be a night owl. I’d rather stay up late than get up early. For someone who also loves nature photography, that’s a bit of a problem. The night owl bug strikes especially when the girls are gone, and Thursday night was no exception. When the alarm went off at 4:30 a.m., I was hurting. I piddled around for 30 minutes, trying to wake up and packing some gear. I left the house around 5:00 a.m., and figured I’d better get some breakfast. Hello, Waffle House (my favorite). It took forever. I left Waffle House about 5:30 or so, and got to the parking area at the Hawksbill Crag trail head about 7:45, stopping only in east Springdale for gas and water. Interestingly, Willie Nelson has a line of bottled water. What could be more American than a hike in the woods with Willie Nelson? Besides, what do you think Willie puts in his water? Two bottles, please.

I could have made it out there more quickly, but the fog was pretty brutal heading out Hiway 412. By 7:45, the light was pretty harsh. By packing all my gear the night before, and by grabbing breakfast on the go, I could have been there at 6:45, which would have been better. Frankly, if I had to do it over again, I’d get there well before sunrise and hike in with a flashlight. Sunrise happened to be around 5:55 a.m. or so Friday morning. It took 45 minutes to hike to the Crag (in daylight), so I would have had to leave about 4:00 a.m. Yikes. Maybe I’ll rent the Cave Mountain Guest House next time. (Don’t laugh—it had a front porch and rocking chairs.) The scene at 8:30 when I got to the top of the Crag was breathtaking. The light sucked.

The hike in was easy enough. The only challenge was the occasional tree across the trail, but pretty simple otherwise. There are two trails—an upper trail and a lower trail. I understand the higher trail is shorter, but the lower trail is more scenic because it skirts the bluff. The trails are marked by little orange markers nailed to the trees. Just about when you think maybe you’ve gone too far and missed it, you see the Crag from a little landing about 35 yards away. The top of the rock itself doesn’t feel all that big. What’s hard to describe is how incredible the view is from the top. You are standing on outcropping of rock about 100 feet off the ground, surrounded by a vast expanse of forested mountains. The weather was perfect—sunny and still a little cool. So I just sat there for a while. I was the only soul out there. It was so peaceful. Earlier, I had updated my Facebook status to indicate that I was headed to the Crag, and it occurred to me to update it again upon my arrival. So, I grabbed my BlackBerry out of my backpack. The message it gave me was a not-so-subtle reminder about the point of this daytrip: “There is no data signal available.” In fact, I had no signal until about 3:30 that afternoon. Freedom from the digital leash! So, Willie Nelson and I sat up on Hawksbill Crag and shared some water.

As for the photograph, well the light was pretty well horrible, but I knew I had to take the obligatory shot of the Crag just to prove I’d been there. I went back to the little landing, put my camera on the tripod, and wrapped my camera strap around a nearby tree. (I can’t imagine telling my insurance agent that my camera broke because I set it up on the edge of a 100-foot drop-off unsecured—and then a bird landed on it and tipped it over.) Fired off a few shots, fiddled with the exposure, cursed myself for not getting there earlier, fiddled again, deleted most everything I shot, cursed some more. Then I remembered that big-ass heavy camera bag I brought with me, and grabbed a 3-stop graduated neutral density filter out of the bag, fitted it to my lens and set the bottom of the split at the bottom of sky. I was shooting pretty much right into the sun, so the circular polarizer would have done nothing as far as eliminating glare. Best I could manage under the circumstances. I shot this with a black and white conversion in mind, which was done in Lightroom 2.3. I haven’t worked on doing localized adjustments in LR, so I went to Photoshop Elements and dodged the Crag quite a bit and then burned back in a few edges. (After I typed this, I did make some localized adjustments in LR just for yucks.)

After that, I decided it would be cool to try and get a picture of myself on top of the Crag. Unfortunately, the longest shutter delay setting on my camera is 20 seconds, and the run to the Crag from where I was set up was about 23 seconds. In shooting some stuff at The Glory Hole, I figured out how to buy a few seconds (but you’ll have to wait for that post for the tip). After giving up, I headed back to Haley Falls and shot what little water there was and some little purple wildflowers—stay tuned for the next post.

First "Strobist" style outing

Many of you know that I'm a fan of Strobist, David Hobby's website dedicated to off-camera lighting techniques. In the past year, I have pulled together a modest collection of off-camera lighting equipment. I added two more flashes to the SB-600 I already had, I got two Cybersync receivers and a trigger. I got an umbrella and stand. I got some Justin clamps (love love love them) A couple of weeks ago, I ordered some gels, and they showed up Friday, just in time for Hadley's dance recital last Saturday at Arend Arts Center.

AAC is probably just like other fine arts venues of its caliber in terms of available light. It's dark. Even when the lights are up, it's dark. From last year's experience, I knew that I would be shooting at ISO 800 or above (yuck). I also knew that I'd be very limited with lens choices (I actually used every lens in the bag at some point, but the only fast lens I have is my 50mm 1.8). I knew that I was going to be catching action shots at about f5.6, and so I'd need either a high ISO or some light. A few days before the event, I got permission to hang some flashes in the little alcoves off the staircases leading up to the catwalk. I forget what these alcoves are called, but they are basically little closets where lights are hung. I was able to Justin clamp a flash to the rail in each alcove. I just wanted to color the light a little bit and use it as fill. I gelled each flash with a half-cut of CTO, and set the zoom for 50mm. Each flash was set on 1/2 power. (I later changed that and used full power, and next time I'll probably do that in conjunction with full cut CTO and a further zoom. Hell, might as well use all the light, huh?)

I learned a few lessons, some of which are worth thinking about even if you're not doing off-camera flash:

1. Use Exposure Compensation. The use of exposure compensation should not be overlooked. It's quick, it doesn't change your aperture or shutter speed, and you probably don't have to take you eye away from the viewfinder to do it. I knew this. Lots of stuff in McNally's new book about it. I forgot about it anyway until I was processing the images in Lightroom later that day. Idiot.

2. Bring a Flashlight. The lights in the stairwell up to the catwalk that were on when I was hanging my lights? Those went off during the rehearsal. I didn't think about that. If you're going to have to access stuff in dark places, bring a little flashlight or pen light or something, JICYFU (golfers who are familiar with the George Lucas (not the Star Wars George Lucas) tour yardage books will recognize the acronym for Just In Case You [Mess] Up). Or just in case you change your mind and want to change your flash settings. Sure makes the whole wireless i-TTL stuff seem very attractive.

3. Batteries Will Go Dead. When I couldn't figure out why my lights wouldn't trigger, I got worried. Turns out I had a dead transmitter battery. The receivers take AA. The transmitter takes a battery about the size of a quarter, so it's not like I could run to the corner C-Store. Nope. Had to go to Radio Shack.

Back to #2. A flashlight is also helpful JICYRFU (where the R stands for "Really"). Seriously, how hard can it be to check batteries in radio triggers? I mean, hell, you charge or change your flash batteries, right? One thing I hate about the first generation of Cybersync triggers is the test button sticks out too far and has a tendency to get pressed and then the thing stays on for an hour at a time, and if the triggers are in a case or bag or whatever, they have a tendency to get pushed more than you think, which drains the batteries. I had to replace batteries in one of the receivers in mid-rehearsal. And the stairwell was pitch black and I had a hard time finding the stairs, scraped my leg coming down, etc. So, take the batteries out of things you're not using all the time, check them before any extended use, and make sure you have spares of everything in your bag. Simple, right? Idiot.

4. Find a Different Place to Shoot. In The Moment it Clicks, McNally says to put your camera in a unique place, or words to that effect.  The point is to get your camera in a place that will enable you to take a unique shot. Unique from what? I suppose one answer is unique from other shots of the same subject. In McNally's case, that was up on the radio towers at the Empire State Building. In The Hot Shoe Diaries, it's dangling down in front of a fire truck. I think it also means putting your camera where everybody else's isn't. At the dress rehearsal, folks were just wondering around the auditorium taking pictures. When their kids were on stage, folks were crowding the stage. With my 70-300 I had a little more reach than most people (except for the guy with the Nikkor 400mm 2.8 in the back). I wanted to get closer. I wanted to get right in the middle of it. So, I hit the side curtains at stage right and got some closer pics. It's a shame that I didn't figure this out until the finale when everyone was on stage, because then I figured out that you could get behind the dancers and get cool shots pointing out into the audience with the flood lights shining down (but then I also caught my flashes triggering in the image--which was easy to fix by turning off the transmitter, and highlights from the stage floor reflections). Sometimes you can get away with this, sometimes you can't. Ultimately, the studio director came up to me to make sure that I was a dance dad and not some stalker. So, you can clear this sort of stuff before hand, or you can take a chance by not asking, just don't be really obvious about it.

5. Noise Reduction Software is Your Friend. Fast glass is very important to shooting in this type of venue, unless you have a new D300, D700 or D3 that has phenomenal high ISO performance. Older cameras will give you some noise. I start getting some noise at ISO 800, particularly against a dark background like I had for many of my shots. I downloaded a trial of Neat Image and I really like it. Other good choices are Noise Ninja and Noiseware. I'll check the others, but I was impressed by what I saw from Neat Image. I think NR software can really make a difference. Here's an example of a shot that would really benefit from some noise reduction. The demo of Neat Image will only treat an image 1024 pixels x 1024 pixels or smaller, so I resized this picture and ran it through the Neat Image processor with good results. This shot has a little noise reduction applied in Lightroom, but it really had little effect.

So there. It's been a month since my last confession post. I'm done for a while. But here's what's coming. In a few weeks, the girls are going to California and I'm going hiking. I'm going to hit up some of the waterfalls near the Buffalo River, and then probably some hiking near White Rock. Also, if things go according to plan, I may get to spend a few hours at Yosemite in July. So I'm hoping that the next few posts will have tons of photographs. Stay tuned.

Art Experience: Epilogue

Last Saturday night was the Art Experience gig. The whole day was a blur, and between that and a crazy day Sunday, I’ve managed to pelt myself with a bunch of random thoughts about my “coming out party” (as Judi Harrison called it). Time to clear my head and make some sense of it.

Picking the pieces for the show was easy. I knew that there would be at least one other photog at the show, and that she did mostly portraiture. I am more in to what I call “situational portraiture”–capturing the world around us and the people in it. I guess you could call it street photography or photojournalism or whatever, but that doesn’t really capture the nature photography part of what I like to do. Picking the sizes and framing options was excruciating. I wanted to be sure to have a lot of options. I settled on 4 nature pieces that were 10x15, linen textured, mounted on 2mm styrene, but not matted or framed; 2 pieces at 11x14 that were linen textured and mounted on 3/4" foam standout (similar to gatorfoam) ready for hanging; a 16x14 on 3/4" standout; the Zoom Zoom picture on a 20x30 gallery wrap canvas; the Warhol’s Chevy prints mounted on double-weight matboard, matted with white acid-free mats, and framed in flat black frames (I forget the dimensions); the three Faces of Hollywood prints 8x8 in large, brushed nickel frames with ivory matboards (again, I forget the dimensions); and 2 5x7's matted and framed. I ordered about half the photographs from Mpix and half from White House Custom Color (which I love for their standouts and textures). I ordered the two 5x7's from Mpix and tried their custom framing. I was pleased. Their frame selection is not too shabby and their turn around time is pretty quick, too. I had the rest of the framing done at Hobby Lobby. I picked the pre-fab frames (not the open-back ones) and the mats (they have surprisingly few acid-free boards on hand), they did the assembly. They messed up one of the Warhols, but they fixed it and they turned out quite nice. This being my first show, and with the economy being iffy, I didn’t want to invest a lot of money in framing.

Set up was Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. I got there about 10:00, thinking I’d be finished in about an hour. Ha. I walked out about 1:15 after two trips to Wal-Mart to get more table top easels. (A hint–those cheap little plate easels? They suck. Get the easels that have the flat horizontal cross-bar to put a picture on. Trust me.) One thing I was worried about was lighting. Once I got set up I knew I needed more light than what was going to be in the room. Fortunately, I was lined up on a wall with a 4-way outlet, so I brought a couple of lamps from the house and put them on either end of the front table. There was also a pillar out in front of the table with a 4-way outlet at the end of a conduit from the ceiling. I took a work light with a clamp and aluminum reflector and plugged it in and clamped it up about 7 feet up, pointed down onto the display. Rock and roll.

Showtime was 6:00 p.m. I had a ton of traffic, and met lots of fun people. It was really gratifying to share the stories behind the photographs with people who seemed genuinely interested to hear them. Being situated about 25 feet from the main bar didn’t hurt, either. At the end of the evening, I sold 4 pieces, gave out a lot of cards, answered a bunch of questions, gave out blog and flickr page addresses, was asked questions about what I had in my collection dealing with sustainability (I have obviously ignored my prior interest in stock photography–gotta fix that). I had no expectations, and came away with a wealth of information on the process of showing art. It was a great party.

I have a lot of people to thank. I’ll just go in order. First, I have to thank Judi Harrison for believing in me and my work. Were it not for her, I never would have known about this event. More than that, Judi is the person who pitched me to Jennifer Koon, the artist coordinator for Art Experience. Judi is a dear, dear friend and a wonderful artist in her own right, and she gently nudged (ok, shoved) me out of my comfort zone and into the semi-public eye. Next, I owe a big thanks to Jennifer Koon and the Art Experience committee people for taking a chance on me. I was up front in telling Jennifer that I had never done a show before and that I had no clue what to do. Undaunted, Jennifer invited me to be a presenting “artist with collection.” Jennifer and the Art Experience volunteers were at the artists’ disposal during setup. Really, a first-rate group of people to work with. Rex and Dalas Warr loaned me the easels I needed, without which I would have really been in a panic. Beth Cook at B La Rue loaned me some glass blocks and shelves to elevate things on the table and added a little personality to my tables. Many of you have offered your congratulations, encouragement and suggestions about what to show, and I greatly appreciate the input, support and encouragement you have given me; I have the greatest friends! Finally, and most importantly, my wife Julie has really been amazing about this whole project. In the early weeks, I had a lot of late nights trying to figure things out, and that meant many mornings of not getting up and hanging out with her (or just plain not getting up). She’s been very supportive and encouraging, which for me is very fulfilling. Despite having every right in the world, she has not complained at all about all the time and wheel-spinning I’ve spent on this endeavor. What else can I say? Thanks, babe.

After I hang up some of the remaining pieces on the walls around the house, I need to find a couple of galleries to hang some stuff in. Beth Cook has offered to let me hang some things in B La Rue, which I should have up in time for Art Walk. One of the artists suggested I look into Poor Richard's in Rogers, so the next time I’m down that way I’ll go look. Of course, now I need new material. Time to get out and shoot.

Two Chairs on Dock

We went to my cousin's cabin to celebrate my aunt's 70th birthday. In front of the cabin is a large pond with a dock. When the kids finished fishing, these chairs were left.

Warhol's Chevy

Here's a triptych I'm doing for Art Experience.