Taken in the backyard of my Aunt & Uncle’s place, barely two weeks ago:
HDR at Sunset, Vista
There are several pics in the whole series; this is only one of them. Color-wise, this is my favorite. The overall series is possibly my most successful HDR series to date, as far as sharpness and merging is concerned.
Let me introduce you to Photovision, a video magazine. I’ve subscribed to this for the last two years, initially because the price was right. I continue the subscription because it’s an excellent way to see how other photographers work.
It’s kinda like this: I tend to do mostly portraits, landscape, and light architecture, with some product shots thrown in for good measure. These videos put me in an excellent position to view baby photographers, senior photographers, and other specialists as they work. There is technique to learn (the picture below is based on some of their portraiture), as well as a great deal about business.
Interested in getting into the business? This is a good way to get started.
If you’re interested, they currently have their annual subscription on sale for $39 a year (that’s six 2-hour disks, one every other month). Regular price is $149 (I’ve never paid that, but I’m told it used to be common until their sponsors started picking up a lot of the tab), so it’s quite a discount.
For forty bucks, why not go for it? Go to their site and enter “PVFAN” as the special promo code.
Portrait, Inspired by some work in PhotoVision
Relevant disclaimer: if three people follow that link, I’ll get the next year’s subscription comped. So I do get something out of you signing up, but it’s something I’d happily pay for anyway.
Go ahead, figure this out
“… it ceases to have any interest.” I’m paraphrasing a quote that I read today, mostly because it touched a nerve. For me, this is somewhat true.
I think it’s an issue of mental stimulation. If you’re stimulated enough by a work to be fascinated, you relish in the various tales that it tells. I’m noticing that I tend to follow artists who aren’t easy to decipher as a result.
For example, David Epstein (NSFW), who I’ve followed for quite a while now. Sometimes it’s quirky humor, sometimes his work has surprising depth. Unless you’re looking at his candid street shots, there’s almost always something hidden for fun.
Sorry, you won’t see the best of his work unless you’re on Flickr and labeled as a “Friend.” But it’s great, trust me.
Museum of Art Entrance at Balboa Park
How’s that for an incendiary title? I suppose I should backtrack slightly and explain myself: during a recent trip to southern California, we stopped by Balboa Park. Great place, and it happened to have some wonderful things going on for children. Acrobats, stencil drawing (Persian-style) on tile, block-painting (very lithographic).
My daughter loved it all, so therefore I loved it.
Until we hit the SD MOA, that is. We were greeted at the door by a cheerful woman, welcoming us in. “Entry is free,” she informed us, “but no cameras and no drinks. You have to leave your bags at the front.” With this, she gestured to a side room where there was a check-in service. Click to continue »
Taken at the Alaska Botanical Garden:
Raindrop
It’s a combination of the lowered saturation and the extreme sharpness that makes it so… delicious to me. Using a new sharpening technique these days, think it’s helping – with some of the images.
A pic posted to Flickr this morning:
God Rays in the Morning
This summer has officially become a repeat of the summer of ’08. For those of us up here, it was “the summer that was not.” Rain, clouds, fairly cold… Technically a bit warmer than it was in 2008, but none of our typical summer beauty.
Nonetheless, beauty is to be found. This, in the dark spaces: a morning image, from on the way to work…
If there is a lesson in life, it is that you should always be prepared. For example, you should always take an extra oar or paddle with you if you’re going out on a boat. Otherwise, you may end up stranded on the far side of lake.
For example, you might be in a boat with an electric motor. In Alaska. And on a cold, rainy day. And end up having to swim the entire lenght to get back. Click to continue »
Trail closed, selective color
Or seconds, as the case may be. You may remember this post from a few days ago. It was also posted to my photostream on Flickr, where one of the comments expressed surprise that the selective coloring took no more than a few minutes relative to the rest of the image (total time was two hours).
The trick to getting the selective color so quickly was twofold:
To explain: if I were to do this quickly, without the editing out of distracting objects and fine-tuned sharpening, the steps to create this would boil down to:
Looking at it like this, you would think that I hand-painted each bit of color. This should take a lot of time, no? Well, doing it that way would take a lot of time.
I did it a better way. Remember that this is essentially a monochrome image. Mostly green, with some blue and some orange. That means we can almost safely use the Color Select tool in Photoshop to select the individual elements. The sign, for example:
Repeat for the blues.
How do you display images?
Take some time to check out the Epic Edits blog. Specifically the post on “10 Online Photography Portfolio No-No’s.” The subject is of interest to me for a couple of reasons: primarily, I’m (among other things) a wearer of many hats. One of those hats is Web Developer (a programmer, actually – but that spills into the realm of development and design), and just about everything on that list is something that I have done.
Deliberately? Willingly? No, not by a long shot – but that’s what the client wants, and that’s what the person writing the check gets.
Three of the items did make me think a bit, and I thought I’d expand on them here: Click to continue »
I mentioned recently that I watch videos on Kelby Training. The question then came up from a friend: “is it worth the money?”
I’m not sure, is the answer. A few cons, followed by pros.
Cons:
Pros:
Overall:
It’s kind of hard to say if it’s worth it. I’ve renewed for two years in a row & I expect to renew at least one more time. After three years, I may have learned enough so that the benefit just isn’t there. On the other hand, I thought that would be the case after one year, and I’m aiming at three now.
I do find that I tend to watch in spurts, or when I really need it (really, when I needed it two weeks prior, it seems). Three months no watchie, followed by a weekend glut of four lessons. And it’s always there when I need it.
Yeah, probably worth it. To me.