A Complexity of Humanities

Tips for Successful Flower Photography

2016-06-08T17:43:00.001-07:00

Now that Spring is here, it's time to start getting shots of all those beautiful flowers and other plants, whether they be in your yard, in the wilderness, or at your local Botanical Gardens. But before we start talking about how to do it, maybe it would be best to figure out exactly what type of photography you want to do.

Contemporary flower photography demands a pretty good list of gear. You'll need a tripod, a live-view camera, a macro lens or an extension tube, a remote shutter release, a reflector, focus stacking software, a telephoto lens and a wide angle lens. But do you really need all this stuff? The answer lies in what type of pictures you're trying to end up with. If you're like most photographers, you don't really know that until you start shooting, and you see a few that you like among the hundreds of shots you took. But I think it's a better idea to at least get a notion of the end result before you even go outside. That way, you'll save time and aggravation, in addition to ending up with kept shots that are better, and fewer wasted shots.

Most of the aforementioned gear, save the tripod, didn't exist for the first hundred years of photography. Yet people still took beautiful pictures of beautiful plants and flowers. Make no mistake, those shots didn't look anything like what you see today on Pinterest or in magazines.

Here's a shot from 1890, from an unknown photographer. Its color has been added manually, probably within a month of the original shot:

Flowers, 1890

Note how several rules of composition have been followed. Having the subject slightly offset, using a simple background, and adding foreground interest with a blurred depth of field, were applied back then the same way they are now.

The coloring gives it away as being vintage, but the subject could be contemporary. Taking this shot required nothing more expensive than a tripod. (Other than the camera, of course.)

Here's a shot a friend of mine, Greg Schlack, took in 1979, using a standard 50mm lens on a 35mm camera:

Greg Schlack, 1979

The color is very nice and natural, and it may take your eye a second to notice the oblivious honeybee, concentrating on his business. Greg took the time to focus on the honeybee, as well as to move the center of the flower to the left third of the frame. This placement does double duty, as it also allows the focal point to be in the center of the frame, yet still shift the overall interest to one side.

And here's a shot I took a couple of years ago, using the entire list of equipment from above:

I tried to accomplish some interesting lighting, but since I was so close I needed to rethink the composition rules for the flower as a whole. This shot has a very contemporary look, and would be very appropriate for many uses.

But it may not be the type of shot you're going for. The point is, you can go out in the field with a simple camera and some thought, and get shots that are just as good as anyone else could come up with, as long as you have a vision.

Will you be using these shots for wedding invitations that need a vintage look? You'll be better off going for the vintage look in camera style and composition, rather than just using an Instagram filter. That is, unless the bride-to-be is looking for "that vintage Instagram thing."

Are you trying to sell them to a magazine? In that case, get a macro lens and start going crazy.

Now let's get into a few tips.

The Tips, for Real This Time

1. Focus Everything Manually
Using autofocus can get you into some trouble in this context, as the camera most likely won't pick the same place to focus as you would if doing it yourself. The camera could very well focus on a blade of grass in the foreground, simply because it's trained to focus on the closest object. Or it may focus on the wrong leaf. This becomes very critical when shooting flowers, since the depth of field is so shallow, and focus is very hard to see on the LCD screen or through the viewfinder. Unless you're in complete control, you won't realize your misfortune until you're back home.

Using Live View and zooming the view in all the way will assist you in focusing manually. If you're outside, the flower will be moving even if you don't feel a breeze. If it moves too much, use a couple of clothespins with string tied to them. Clamp the flower stem in the slot of the clothespin so that the stem won't get damaged, and then tie the free end of the string to a more stable plant, or perhaps to a small stake you've brought with you. Do this with two clothespins in two opposing directions, and the flower will be much more stable. You've probably already thought of a couple other stabilizing methods, but don't damage the plant just for the sake of your shot.

2. Remember Composition
Try not to place the flower in the very middle of the shot, unless there's a specific (rare) reason why you would want to. Generally, the object of interest should be offset one direction or another If you're only an inch or two away, the entire frame will be filled, as in my shot above. In that case, you can still compose within those limitations, offsetting the center of the flower, or using light (or shadow) to frame the point of interest.

Most flower shots will be vertical, with a third or so being horizontal. Let the subject and the intended use dictate how you should shoot. This may make it more difficult to place the camera, but that's just the price one pays. You may want to leave some background space above the flower for text on a wedding invitation, or frame a flower vertically that really wanted to be horizontal, leaving a lot of space at the top because you know it's for the cover of a magazine. If you compose for the final use, the end result, with text over a blurred background for example, will look much better than a picture slapped onto an invitation with text on the blank paper.

Do whatever you want, but know why you're doing it.

For the background, of course it will be out of focus, but it may still be too distracting. Take some extra supplies to tie back other plants, and think about taking a sheet along, to drape over unwanted things that you can't get rid of.

3. Why Are You Shooting THIS Flower?
So you've looked over all the flowers and bushes in the location, and here's the one you've settled on. Why? And even more importantly, why should the viewer care? You'll want to highlight that reason so that everyone else will know why this one's so special. Maybe it's the way two leaves poke out away from the rest. If so, keep those in focus, and nothing else. It could be that the stamen look nice at an angle. Retain that angle when shooting. And speaking of angle, look around an entire flower before discounting it. Interesting shapes and shadows peek out when you look from an unusual angle. Get down on the ground and look up at the flowers, then get up on one knee and look at them at eye level. Your shots will automatically be more interesting than if you shoot from a standing position.

4. Take a Reflector
I generally prefer to shoot in a natural lighting environment, but that's not always possible. Much of the flower may be in shadow, and if you don't have a reflector with you, you would pass over an otherwise great shot. Don't let the little things deter you - you can put in some lighting by using a small to medium-sized reflector, giving the eye a very interesting focal point when the light appears to come from underneath the flower. You don't have to use it all the time, but have one with you.

5. Shoot With Manual Settings.
Obviously this isn't a requirement, if you're just out to have fun, or if you want to shoot two hundred flowers in a day. In those cases, don't hassle with settings. You should have the camera do it for you. But when you're going out specifically to get certain shots, and you want to concentrate on a handful of flowers, you'll be better off if you take full control. Keep the ISO low, between 50 and 250. White balance should be at daylight (or shade, if it's overcast), and left there for the whole shoot, so that it will be predictable when you go back for postproduction. If you're going to do any editing at all with the shot, use RAW instead of (or at least in addition to) JPEG. You'll have much more leeway before the shot deteriorates.

Experiment with aperture. Many people will tell you to keep it small by using a large number, like f/22, so that more of the flower is in focus at once. I tend to go the opposite direction, keeping it wide open by selecting a small f-stop number, like f/4.5. This will decrease depth of field, making the background more out of focus. The advantage of doing it this way is that the eye is forced to hone in on one small detail of the flower. But sometimes this technique requires focus stacking to get more of the subject in focus. Focus stacking means taking many shots of the same frame, each focused on a different sliver, and then combining them later.

As before, do it either way, but do it because you decided to for your own reasons.

Now stop reading about it, and get out there and start shooting!

Taking Pictures of 35mm Slides

2016-05-10T10:35:00.001-07:00

Many families with members over the age of 35 have 35mm slide collections, some of them quite vast. To keep these memories from being lost, most people send their slides out for scanning. In doing so, you have a choice; either pay someone a tremendous amount of money to do it, or do it cheaply and have them sent overseas. In tackling the Greg Schlack project, I didn't really find either option attractive, as there were more than 8,000 slides in the collection, and even doing it cheaply overseas would have resulted in spending more money than I was comfortable with.

So I did it myself, without a scanner.

To do it, you'll need a decent-quality (12MP or greater DSLR) 35mm digital camera, a 35mm slide projector, a macro lens, a tripod, and a couple of ND filters. Basically, you just take a picture of each slide. Big thanks go out to my good friend Dave for forcing me to document the process! Here's how to do it:

1. Set up the projector as though you're getting ready to project the slides. You'll want to be sure the glass lenses between the bulb and the slide are clean, so you might want to clean them before you set up. A scratch or smudge on one of the internal lenses will show in the final product as a dark blob. Important note: If you should happen to touch the bulb, be sure to REMOVE the bulb and clean it with alcohol. The oils on your fingers (even a tiny amount) will cause the bulb's glass to heat up at a different rate than the clean portion, and will cause a glass blister on the bulb or even an explosion. Either will burn out the bulb, and they're (relatively) expensive to replace. I can tell you all that from personal experience.

2. Remove the projector's front lens. This procedure varies from projector to projector, but will usually entail either tilting the focus knob up, which releases the lens, or in the case of less-expensive projectors, just rotate the focus knob until it pushes the lens out.

3. Using a tripod, position your camera so the macro lens points down the now-empty throat of the projector. The distance you'll need to use varies with the lens, and could be anywhere between six inches and 18 inches from where the slide will be. Be sure to get the lens as perpendicular (and not rotated, with relation to the slide!) as you possibly can to the internal mount for the slides. Having it off-axis will cause you to be in focus on one part of the slide, and out of focus on another part. You'll be able to see this error easily once you get to a computer (or wherever you're viewing the final result), so just do a few to start. Another sign of failure to be perpendicular is Keystoning, a term from the silent-film projection era when projectors were pointed upwards toward the wall. The top of the projected image was wider than the bottom. I suggest mounting your camera normally for ease of use, but you can also mount it upside-down to avoid one extra step later, which is turning your image upside down. More on that at the end...

3a. If your lens will focus to a maximum distance of only a few inches while in macro mode, you won't be able to use this method, as the slide will be about five inches inside the projector, and your lens won't be small enough to get inside that assembly.

4. The projector is bright, bright, bright! You'll probably need to expose as fast as your camera will allow, though the final settings will depend on your distance from the light source. I used ISO 100, F16, 1/4000, and still had to have two neutral density filters on the lens to let even less light in. I set white balance at a little cooler than daylight, but you can adjust it later if you're shooting in RAW, which you should be for this project.

5. Before putting the slide tray in place (making sure that inner ring is in place also!), blow air around the slides to remove dust. You can remove the dust in Photoshop, but doing it for a thousand slides will make you hate your life. Blow all the way around the tray. The advantage of the tray is that the compressed air can get around both sides of each slide during the blowing process. This will blow the dust into the air, so also blow over the top of the tray to try to keep that same dust from settling back into the tray. Don't go crazy - you can't get rid of all the airborne dust.

6. Turn the projector on, set the first slide, and work with the camera to get the entire slide in the frame, at the right exposure and focus. Some macro lenses will be better suited than others, only because of their magnification size. I suggest using a remote shutter release. The exposure is super fast, so you won't get a blur if you click the shutter button by hand, but it's possible you may move the camera just a bit when pressing down on the shutter, making your alignment a tad off. But doing that isn't a requirement, just an option.

7. Take your first picture, and set the next slide using the projector's control. Since the projector places the next slide in exactly the same place, you shouldn't need to readjust focus for each slide. I checked focus about every forty slides, but I'm not sure that was even necessary. When you've done a handful, stop and take them back to the computer to look at them for dust, Keystoning, and general and off-axis focus. If you use an image editing program, make a selection around the edges of the visual portion of the image. Looking at those perfectly straight selection lines will tell you right away if the slide is tilted or Keystoned. Make your camera/tripod adjustments if necessary, and try a batch again.

When you turn the projector off, make sure to leave the fan going for ten or fifteen minutes afterwards. It's amazing how much heat builds up inside those things, and the bulb will burn out more quickly if left to cool without the fan.

For me the most time-consuming part was putting them all in carousels, so I abandoned that portion of the idea pretty quickly. If yours are already there, then that's a huge timesaver. Having them in carousels will also orient them partially correct for taking their picture. The projector flips the image horizontally and vertically when projecting, so looking down the projector throat (essentially looking at the projection backwards) will reveal an image that is correctly oriented left-to-right, but is flipped vertically. This will need to be changed at the computer in one of several ways, but the easiest is to open Windows Explorer, navigate to the directory the images are in, and select them ALL. Then right-click, and select Rotate Image Clockwise. (It'll take a few seconds if you have many hundreds of images.) Then right-click again, and select the same item again. This will rotate all your images 180 degrees. You could also mount your camera upside down if you want, and eliminate that step. But doing that sort of freaks my brain out when shooting, so I'd rather do it later, and use the camera like I'm used to.

Since I abandoned using the carousels, I instead used the Kodak B40 Stack Loader, which allowed me to transfer stacks of slides at once from the metal trays they're stored in. This was much faster than loading them one by one into a carousel. I picked one up on Ebay for sixteen dollars.

If you've put your vertical slides in vertically for viewing, be aware that those will require a larger area to be photographed, so you'll want to have a compromise zoom amount to get more area than you would otherwise need. I had all my verticals horizontal, then rotated the images that should have been vertical in a batch on the computer after the whole process was done.

As you can tell, there's some post processing work to be done on each slide, but if you've been careful about your settings, you'll be able to set up an action to do the same thing to every slide, saving you hundreds of hours of work.

4 Tips for Travel Photography

2016-02-07T17:11:00.003-08:00

1. Go where people aren't.

You'll have plenty of opportunity to shoot the standard fare that everyone else shoots. But when you do that, find a spot where people aren't gathering, and get a shot that's fresh. Look for something no one else is looking at. Additionally, go to places that are more off the beaten path, to further inject your own signature into your shots.

2. Go when people aren't.

Having a person or two in your shot is great, to give a sense of size and scope. But too many people are a detriment, and waiting for the crowd to thin won't always work. Instead, go first thing in the morning or at the end of the day. It's surprising how few people are sightseeing during those times, and you may find that the lighting is better too. This may seem to fly in the face of something I've written before, about not caring so much about Golden Hour shots. That advice still stands, and is separate from this advice, because you're using the time of day for two advantages - one for crowd relief, and one for lighting. If it fits into your schedule, go ahead and do it. If it doesn't, then turn away from the crowds and find another shot. Simple. You're welcome to use the light to your advantage, just don't think you're limited to only that time.

3. Use a focal length you don't want to use.

If you were about to shoot long, walk up to the shot instead, look left and right, and come up with something totally different than you anticipated. If you were going wide, zoom in on something of interest. This tip is all about shifting your perspective, trying to tell a story you wouldn't have otherwise told.

4. Shoot life.

When traveling we tend to concentrate on landscapes and things. That's great! But expand yourself into the people who live where you're going, asking them if you can take their picture while they're doing something interesting, like going on about their life. They'll pretty much always say yes, and you'll have something more personal, that no one else on your Facebook feed will have. I think you'll find that people will be more interested in your shots as well.

4 Lies They're Telling You About Your Photography!

2016-02-07T17:09:00.001-08:00

With the explosion of the power of the Internet, not only is there more advice out there than you could possibly home to read in your lifetime, there will only be even more advice every dingle day. Ten years from now, you won't even know who to believe, assuming you know that today. Given those facts, it does seem a tad ironic that I'm going to refute that advice by giving you advice... over the Internet.

It's not my intention to make things confusing for the budding (or experienced) photographer. The whole point of photography, at least from the perspective of the person behind the lens, is to find something magical, pleasing, or somehow moving. To take a picture that will be memorable, for whatever reason. To capture a special moment, and transfer that emotion to the viewer. So whenever you read something confusing, or something that will make you stop enjoying taking pictures, ignore that piece of advice. You've got better things to do, like treasuring the moments around you as you explore new places. If enjoying those moments means you need to put down the camera, or even leave it at home, then do that. The experience of being in the moment is why you're alive; don't forsake that in favor of a bunch of little pictures.

So here are some ways people are lying to you, trying to get you to fit your pictures into their tiny world:

1. You should only take pictures during the "golden hour," which is when the sun is just a tiny bit on top of the horizon, either just before sunset, or just after sunrise.

Simply incorrect. There's no doubt that shots can look wonderful with that light, but it depends on what you're shooting, and the look you're trying to achieve. For example, the shot below was shot during Golden Hour:

Keystone at The Edge of Night

I was trying to catch the lights of nighttime skiing, but still get the detail of the trees, visible only during the day. As you can see, the shot is a disaster. There's no contrast, no shadows, and no interest. Here's another in the same series of ski area shots, this time from Breckenridge:

Breckenridge, 11:00 AM

This one was taken at about 11:00 in the morning on a cloudless day, when there were harsh shadows. This is easily the most popular shot I've ever taken, with incredible detail, contrast, and smooth lighting even under direct sunshine. Don't forget that even at Noon in Colorado, the Sun isn't directly overhead even in the middle of Summer, so you don't need to worry about straight overhead lighting. Your positioning relative to the subject will make much more difference.

Golden Hour is great. Use it when you can. But don't ever think the rest of the day (or night) is inferior.

2. Invest in a set of prime lenses, and zoom with your feet.

This one started because primes will generally give better image quality than zooms. But modern zoom lenses are so good and so versatile, you simply won't see any difference unless you're printing your images really, really big. But the larger factor in the demise of this myth is the fact that a shot done at 35mm will look completely different than the same framing at 100mm. It's beyond my understanding why any photographer would further this ridiculous myth. Let's do an experiment:

Below is a shot of a generic SUV (my current vehicle), shot from about sixty feet away, at 120mm:

120mm

Once I took that shot, I "zoomed with my feet" to about five feet from the car, and shot it again from the same elevation at 24mm:

24mm

You'll notice that the two shots are radically different! In the first shot the background has been brought into the frame by virtue of the longer lens. We can also isolate the focus of the subject more effectively with a zoom, which may or may not be desired. And that's what this boils down to - not that one way is inherently better than the other, but that you will need to decide what distance to pick, based on what you want out of the shot. The 120mm shot shows the true lines of the car, and makes it fit into its surroundings better. The 24mm shot gives the car more attitude, and draws your attention to it, even though the car takes up precisely the same width in both shots.

You want to zoom? Do it. Walk forward, and get a radically different shot? Do that. But the whole point of you making that choice is because you know the shots will be very different. We can't pretend that walking forward or back is any substitute for zooming.

3. Pros only use Manual Mode, so You Should Too.

In the studio, sure. There's no reason to use anything else. But Very few pros use Manual when doing travel, scenic, or motion shots. When you're in the wild, conditions vary dramatically and quickly, and you'll rarely have time to experiment, or use the meter. So instead of going completely Manual, use Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority. Aperture Priority lets you define the depth of field by setting your own aperture, and then the camera figures out how to achieve ISO and shutter speed within your parameters. Shutter priority, useful for reducing (or accenting) motion blur, lets you decide what shutter speed to use, and the camera figures out the rest. Leaving the camera on full automatic (or Program, for Canon users) is often frowned upon because of the reasoning that the camera may guess wrong under certain lighting conditions. But those exposure guesses would be wrong in both Shutter and Aperture Priority anyway, so if you're more comfortable letting the camera figure it all out, don't be afraid of that either. You'll miss a few shots, sure. About 3%. So stop worrying.

4. You should only take five lenses and two cameras on your trip.

Yes, I actually read a blog by a respected photographer who said he had lightened his kit to "just" five lenses and two cameras. When the day comes that you're being paid to fly somewhere and shoot something, you won't need anyone to tell you what gear you need. You'll know what's required for that shoot. But until that time, take TWO lenses AT THE MOST, and ONE camera. Your backup camera can be your iPhone, which has a better camera than it has any right to have anyway. Take a versatile zoom, and maybe a wide-angle. Or even just the versatile zoom, and then you only have to deal with one lens. Start concentrating on getting good shots, and you'll have a lot more fun.

Your mental power should be devoted to exploring for shots and enjoying your trip, not hassling with gear or waiting for light that may never come. You can wait for that light when you're taking a trip specifically for photography. Until then, learn to find the shot, and your future photographer self will thank you for that experience.

The Greg Schlack Project

2016-01-10T14:01:00.002-08:00

If you were in a band in Colorado in the 1980's or 1990's, you almost certainly were photographed by Greg Schlack. If you graduated high school in Boulder during that time, or up until 2010, the chances were pretty good that Greg shot your senior pictures.

Greg lived his entire life in the house he grew up in, so he was always easy to find, and a constant fixture around Boulder for several decades. He passed away suddenly in 2009, leaving behind a vast array of friends and clients who have missed him, his humor, and his positive disposition, tremendously.

And he left something else as well.

After his death, I was given his lifetime collection of 35mm slides. These weren't the slides he took for clients. These were slides he took while on his own adventures, which he had squirreled away haphazardly in shoeboxes, never brought out for anyone to see, save a mere handful of shots that he had enlarged and hung around his home. In all, there were over 10,000 transparencies, spanning almost forty years. Greg had begun the research into making the move to digital photography, but never got the opportunity to actually make the transition. So his entire body of work remained in the analog realm.

What a PORTION of the collection looked like before cataloging.
Only a handful of boxes were labeled.

I knew something needed to be done with these. they showed not only Greg's view of life in Colorado (and around the world), but also showed a unique window into other people's lives, and showed the heart of what it was like to live in Colorado in the 70's and 80's.

I spent several weeks sorting the slides chronologically, as that seemed to be the most useful sort. I then stored them all in slide drawers I bought through EBay, to prevent having them get scratched, dirty, and unorganized, as they had been for so many years already. It seemed like the next logical step would be to have them sent overseas to be scanned, so I tested a couple of different companies with two hundred slides each. I felt uncomfortable sending (potentially) so many slides around the world, but local companies would be way out of reach financially. While not expensive on a per-slide basis, the cost would definitely add up no matter who scanned them. I bought a scanner and tried scanning them myself, but it was cripplingly time-consuming, using over a minute per slide. With me not sure how to proceed, the slides sat for several years.

During cataloging

Durango and Silverton RR, circa 1976

During that time, I got the idea to start a Kickstarter campaign to help pay for the scanning, then turn the slides into an experimental film about Greg. This idea rolled around in my head for quite a while, trying to figure out how best to structure the payouts for backers, particularly regarding whether they would receive stills, copies of the DVD, director's commentary, or a combination of all the above. Trying to get all this organized in my head before starting the campaign caused me to not start the campaign.

But then recently, while in the middle of a completely separate glass slide restoration project, I happened across a forum post that mentioned a different method of scanning.

It involved these steps:

Get a slide projector and remove the lens.
Using a high-quality digital camera with a macro lens, point the camera down the throat of the projector and take a picture of each slide.

Colorado Plains, 1980

It was so obvious, I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of this previously! It had some big advantages over using a flatbed, namely quality and speed, and it would be very predictable, since the projector takes care of positioning each slide in exactly the same way.

Off to the races. I've been able to scan 9500 slides in less than ten days, and since my mother still had our family's slide projector, the only cost was the purchase of a slide stacker, to make the loading process faster. I had started by loading the carousel trays, which was plenty fast for the shooting process itself, but loading them and unloading them took a great deal of time. Even though the stacker only holds forty at a time, loading it is so fast that it really doesn't matter whether it holds forty or four hundred.

I'll show more examples in Part II, which I'll post once the film is put together.

A Handful of Memories from Union Station

2015-12-10T07:36:00.002-08:00

Union Station in Denver recently opened after a three-year renovation project costing $500 million. The new transportation hub is designed not only to be a center for travelers, but a gathering place for the neighborhood, with shops, a hotel, and restaurants. The hub currently serves about 15,000 users a day, with that total expected to rise to 200,000 by 2030.

The new facility is impressive, and much of the old facade was retained, keeping a piece of the tradition of the station that's been in place since 1881. Congratulations are in order to the design and working team for being able to mix the old and new. Here are a couple of samples of what it used to look like inside:

A Wall Sconce Keeps Watch over the Public Space. All of these fixtures are gone now.

The Cavernous Public Space in Union Station (Now home to shops and a common area)

Inevitably though, many things had to go. Not least among them was the underground tunnel system that train passengers had used for a hundred years to get to the various lines without having to cross over live tracks. Here's a view of the tunnels that I have reproduced as a one-of-a-kind aluminum print for a collector in Castle Rock:

Union Station Tunnel, Showing Tracks 2 through 8

Here are a couple more views, looking in the opposite direction:

Tunnel, Looking Toward Street Level

Mural in Tunnel, Showing Snow Removal Train on Trestle

The subway tile, deco fixtures and hand-painted mural aren't really in the style that would have been in keeping with the modernization of the building, and there wasn't enough room anyway for the new bus concourse. Here's how the concourse, in the same space as the train tunnels, looks just before opening:


Bus Concourse (Image courtesy CBS)

If you think this looks like the airport, you're not alone. People demand space, maneuverability, and convenience. They don't want to be too distracted by interesting details, or historical items they may have to read to understand. The new concourse is wonderfully utilitarian, and will be useful for far more than the old tunnel system.

But something of value was still lost.

And more than that was lost as well. The basement used to house two giant model train layouts, the more interesting of which was built on the site of the old jail underneath the station. After thirty-plus years of adjustment, building and maintenance, the Platte Valley & Western Model Railroad club had to move out. Here are two of several hundred pictures I took of the HO scale layout just before dismantling:

Train Layout Detail - Vista Car in Yard

Train Layout - Diesel Passes Under Trestle

I'll be contacting the current stewards of the layout, in hopes of working with them in their new space at White Fence Farms. I'm hopeful that a collection of these photographs will be available for perusal at White Fence Farms.

Movement is inevitable. It isn't always progress when that movement occurs, but if we can salvage some of the old in our ceaseless quest for the new, then we have to accept that we've made real progress.

All images copyright Craig Patterson, except where otherwise noted. All rights reserved. please contact me if you wish to use these photographs for any purpose whatsoever.

An Idea for a Christmas Present

2015-12-09T16:20:00.001-08:00

You're in trouble! You need to buy something!

I suggest you slow down for a minute, and do some real thinking about what that person wants. They've probably told you in some subtle way, though maybe you weren't listening at the time. Instead of coming up with another bauble to buy from Amazon, why not take a picture for them, and have it framed?

Slow down again. This won't be a picture of you, or a picture of the other person. Instead, find something to shoot that will actually mean something to them. You'll need to go back over some things they've said, or places you've been together, in order to find the clues. Let me give you an example of something that happened to me, so that you can start to recognize those clues.

The History
My father passed away about 25 years ago, and my mother's been living on her own every since. (Don't worry, she wouldn't have it any other way!) She lives in a mountain home with an absolutely wonderful view of the Colorado High Country, and it's the last home she'll ever live in. I grew up in that home, so I'm quite familiar with the view, and I also know how important it is to her.

Additionally, she misses my dad. She says she''s often dreamed of the two of them on airplanes, hers just behind his, off to find their next adventure.

Those two observations didn't at first seem to be related. But in pondering her views of her life and situation, I put together something in my head that I knew I had to shoot. You can do the same thing. Go back over some history you have with this person you want to create something for, and distill that history into a couple of important points. Don't worry, you don't have to ignore the rest of who they are! You'll have opportunities later to come up with other meaningful remembrances. For now, just use two, and then come up with a way incorporate them into a single photograph. It can be literal, but in my case, I constructed my desired photograph from three pictures, creating something that has never existed in real life. But you don't need to do that! You can use ONE picture, either somewhere outdoors, or constructed in a little free space in your apartment. The setting doesn't matter. What matters is the sentiment and content.

The first picture I used was a view from her house of the mountains. The second and third were of contrails I saw as as I stood on the deck of her home. The contrails weren't in the right place in the sky, so I needed to do some postproduction work.

Combining the three gave me this image:

Contrails in Evergreen, Colorado, with Mt. Evans in the background

It shows her and my dad, off on their next adventure as the sun sets, her just a bit behind him. Believe me, I know this picture doesn't mean much to you, my loyal reader. It's not supposed to. It needs to mean something that is specific to its recipient, and I promise you, she cries every time she looks at it on her wall. At that gave me a Merry Christmas.

Now go out there and start shooting!

Finding Care for Inpatient Rehab

2015-12-09T13:14:00.005-08:00

I should first mention that no organization can ever pay me to be featured in my blog or newsletter, nor can they give me any kind of incentive. I mention people and companies because I think they deserve the mention, and that's the only criteria, period.

Having a loved one experience health concerns is always troubling, and it doesn't help that the choices for assistance are so varied and overwhelming. How do you know who will do a good job, and which facilities should be avoided? In general, we have to trust the medical professionals that are supposed to know who's good and who's not for your local area.

Based on such a recommendation from the wonderful staff at University Hospital in Aurora, Colorado, my wife and I recently accepted, on my mother's behalf, the services of an organization called Advanced Health Care. They have many facilities around the U.S., and two in Colorado.

My mother had an injury that occurred several months ago, but was never diagnosed. It was suddenly made much worse about a month ago, when she was staying at our house to recuperate from an unrelated hospital stay. She's 84 as of this writing, and those of you who are in a similar position will understand that when it comes to pain management, there's nothing worse than seeing someone in horrible pain that you can do nothing about. And with no time to spare, it's also difficult to find someone who's trustworthy, as you don't have much time to research, and if you had researched previously, many of those providers are no longer available! Add to that the fact that there are many types of services, and you don't know which will need to be utilized at any given time, and you can get quickly overwhelmed.

After a stay to diagnose, University decided that she needed inpatient rehab, and suggested Advanced Health Care, who, as stated above, actually have many facilities around the nation. Although I can't be certain about the rest of their facilities, it seems quite probable that they're all of the same same high quality as their Aurora location. They specialize in inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation, and short-term nursing. All of their patients anticipate being able to leave, to a specific situation.

My mother was there for 20 days, and was consistently (and constantly) treated with respect, care, and friendship. Staff was never upset or impatient with her, and she grew to know them by name. The provided meals were dependably nutritious, but still fun to eat, and how much she ate was closely monitored without getting in her way. (It's often difficult to get the elderly to eat enough, so they were more concerned with getting her to eat more, than to restrict what she had.) All meals are served in the dining room (not a cafeteria, but more of a restaurant), so people do not get stuck forgotten in their rooms for days on end, as happens in some other facilities.

Rehab exercises were done in two sessions per day, with illustrated instructions given to her so she could continue her regimen after leaving the facility. The entire time, the focus was on getting her back home and independent, not on shoving her out the door for some other facility to deal with.

A social activity of some sort was planned every day, but attendance was not required. Anyone who felt up to it was welcome. Instructions on what she was allowed to do alone and what required assistance were very clear, and staff never ignored her when she needed some help.

And finally, no matter what facility you choose, you should look for one that accepts Medicare, because Medicare demands periodic inspections. The State does do some inspections, but they don't have enough money or trained staff to really do as thorough and demanding a job as Medicare does. Facilities that are not required to be inspected may be just fine, but with no one looking at them before you arrive, my personal belief is that you're asking for trouble. You are completely within your rights asking for the results of the latest Medicare inspection. If the facility has an excuse for not showing them to you, turn around and go anywhere else.

If your or your loved one's situation requires short-term assistance, I would strongly suggest that you call Advanced.

Something to Think About When Traveling by Car

2015-11-09T20:05:00.003-08:00

I just returned from the 2015 SEMA show in Vegas, the world's largest gathering of automotive professionals. Most people who come from around the country choose to fly, but I usually drive, as there are so many wonderful photographic opportunities along the way. Driving as much as I do increases the possibility of unfortunate happenings, but they can actually happen at any time, even for those who drive very little.

I had checked conditions on Vail pass, typically the most treacherous portion of the drive through Colorado on Interstate 70. The forecast was clear, as were the live webcams, so I figured I'd be just fine in my front wheel drive Elantra. I didn't bother to check the approaches to and from The Eisenhower Tunnel.

That was a mistake, though to be fair, many people would have taken that route anyway, rather than going North through Wyoming, or South through New Mexico.

A great deal of sand had been laid on the approach to the tunnel, so traffic was still going about 50mph even though it was snowing, and there was some snow on the road. Often, conditions will be different on the other side of the tunnel, as it's on the other side of the Continental Divide, but tonight that was not the case this fine evening. It was still snowing when I came out of the tunnel, and a great deal of sand had been put down here too, so everyone was still going about 50.

The unexpected part came as I was alongside another car. I heard a sudden, loud sound, much like a gunshot, followed by the sound of glass ricocheting around the passenger compartment. Immediately after, I felt a 50mph, 20 degree wind, and the unique crinkling sound of more glass, as it fell from the window over the plastic interior.

It took me a few seconds to realize that I hadn't been shot, that it was just a rock thrown up by the car next to me. It was very fortunate no one was with me, as we would surely have had to head to the closest emergency room. I was hit by some glass, but didn't get cut too badly. It wasn't long after that, that I realized I was in trouble, as I still had seven hundred miles to go, under potentially highly variable conditions. And that's where the preparation came in.

I pulled over as soon as I could reasonably do so, put on my coat and gloves, and started the process of sealing the former window with gaffer's tape. While certainly inconvenient, it certainly beat the alternative of driving in freezing cold temperatures with no jacket or gloves. Even without the tape, I still would have had a coat and gloves to wear, because I was prepared.

You should be prepared too, and with Winter coming, it's even more important. You should have a survival kit in your car at all times, because so many things can happen. Just one slip of the wheel, and you could be in a ravine overnight, or worse, for several days. It doesn't need to take up much space, either. Here's what I have in my kit:

Small backpack - everything should be able to fit in this backpack, so it's easy to keep everything together. And you can take it with you easily if you have to walk.
Jacket or coat
Plastic poncho
Hand warmers
Flashlight
Socks
Toilet paper
Whistle
Quarters
Small mirror
Matches
Gloves
Blanket
Sunblock
Folding knife, as long as it's legal in your state
Non-perishable food - several thousand calories, such as emergency protein bars, fruit rolls, tootsie rolls, beef jerky, and raisins. Replace it every year.
Tape - Gaffer's tape, which is like duct tape but doesn't leave a residue. It's expensive, so you can use duct tape instead, or even hose tape, but have something.
Compass - this one won't do you any good unless you know how to use it, so learn.
Band-Aids
Neosporin

Anything that can leak or melt should be in its own Ziploc baggie. And if you come up with other items you think you'll need, by all means put them in the backpack.

So why do you need all this if you have a cell phone? It's continually amazing to me how many back roads in the US, and even some stretches of Interstate, have literally NO cell service, despite what those ridiculous maps tell you. So you may not be able to use your phone if you get stuck, and even if you do, what about when it runs out? You need to be able to depend on yourself to get out of a jam on the road. If you're the kind of person who calls 911 if you get a flat tire, then you should really engage in some self-reflection.

Then again, the kind of person who thinks their cell phone will always save them is not the kind of person I'm trying to talk to. I doubt I'll be able to reach you.

The Tamron 150-600mm - Why I'm Not Buying it, But You Might

2015-10-09T08:14:00.001-07:00

Intro

I'm not going to be buying the Tamron 150-600mm superzoom. Since my reasons are my own alone, I'm going to give you the pluses and minuses, and let you decide for yourself. And I'm actually hopeful that my condemnation of the lens might actually cause you to buy it, since we're all looking for different things.

I read reviews of camera gear just like any other photographer, and some of them can be quite helpful. Others not so much. Sometimes I want to see specs, sometimes not, sometimes a user experience, sometimes I don't care, you get the idea. My interests are varied, depending on the gear and why I'm looking at it.

A quick note for ALL reviewers of ALL camera bodies and lenses, though: Stop including tiny sample images in your posts and reviews! They're absolutely worthless. It does no one any good to see a 35 Meg image shrunk to 1000 pixels wide, thinking that it tells us something about the camera or lens. If you're going to include images, then either crop them to 100% view, or include the full-resolution images behind a click. And even then, you MUST include a comparison image of something else in order for the image to mean anything at all.

Why Do This?

Since I don't really do gear reviews, one might wonder why I'm "reviewing" this lens in the first place. I've mentioned previously, and in almost every conversation I have with fellow photographers, that your gear doesn't really matter, so why bother caring now? The answer is that I will attempt to prove my assertion by looking at a piece of gear much more expensive than what I currently use. I approached the Tamron with an open mind; I was fully prepared to buy it to replace an aging lens I depend on every day.

The Baseline Lens

Nikon 100-300mm f/5.6 (Image courtesy Leicashop.com)

For landscapes, macro work, and even some automotive shoots, I currently use the Nikkor 100-300mm f/5.6 lens. It's completely manual in every way. It has no autofocus, no auto aperture, no image stabilization, no nothing. It's a piece of glass with two adjustment rings on it, one of which has two functions. Since you can't use the camera to help you control the way the lens works (and because it's an f/5.6 - very slow), it's practically impossible to use it for wildlife photography, and almost as difficult for motorsports. There is no lens profile in LightRoom or Adobe RAW, and Adobe will never make one. I bought it for $65 off of EBay about six years ago, and it had minor pitting internally, though it wasn't noticeable in the final image. Fast forward to today, and the pitting has gotten worse. Anything shot with an aperture smaller than f/8 (meaning higher numbers, up to f/32), has hundreds of dark blotches everywhere in the shot, making the lens useless except for f/8 and f/5.6. That makes the lens, in today's market, worth exactly nothing. And sometime in the near future, the pitting will increase to the point that I'll have to just throw it away.

But the shots it does take look extremely nice. The focus is good, the vignetting is controllable, and the distortion is smooth enough that I almost never even correct for it because it doesn't bother me, particularly when I combine 300 shots to make a panoramic image.

The Contender

Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 (Image courtesy Tamron)

This is Tamron's SuperZoom, the 150-600mm. Its f-stop capability varies between f/5 and f/6.3, depending on the zoom level. It has everything the Nikkor above doesn't have: camera-adjustable focus and aperture, a really good image stabilization system, and a tripod ring, so that it can sit on the tripod head with a heavy camera on the back and still be balanced. You can read plenty of other details about it everywhere else on the web if you want to, but that should really be enough talk about specs.

Lens-to-Lens Shot Comparison

Both of these shots were taken at 300mm, using the same f/8, 1/800, ISO 100 settings.


Nikkor 100-300mm, 100% crop from center of frame. f/8, 1/800, ISO100

Tamron 150-600mm, 100% crop from center of frame. f/8, 1/800, ISO100

For me, this is the most crucial test. Sometimes it's important to look for chromatic aberration, pincushioning, or any of a couple of dozen other behaviors, but these two lenses are fairly comparable in all those areas - not amazing, but actually quite good. So let's not waste time with that.

The Tamron took in a little more light (and thus, color intensity) at the same setting, which could be attributed to a number of things, not the least of which could be that the light changed during the minute I took to change lenses. So I'm not concerned with that either. What matters to me is sharpness. I've been looking for a newer lens that will give me more sharpness overall, so that my panoramas can be blown up even bigger. My current high score for a pano is twelve feet by forty-eight feet at a full 300 dpi.

It's clear that the Nikkor is sharper, discounting the portions of the Tamron image where there's motion blur.

The Good and The Bad

Here's what the Tamron has going for it:

1. Works much better with the camera, taking some responsibility away from me.
2. Much greater reach. I used all 600mm of it when shooting from a mile away, and was very pleased with the results.
3. Adobe has a lens profile for it, making it easy to correct in post.
4. A truly great Image Stabilization system, increasing the lens's usefulness and ease of focus even on a tripod. Getting stability at 600mm is no joke, no matter what kind of tripod you have.

Now on the Nikkor's side:

1. Better sharpness.
2. I already own it.

You can read everyone else's blog, where they will all say that lens sharpness isn't important, but technique is. Let's say that's completely true (and I do believe that the technique argument is completely true). If so, then why ever buy a new lens to replace one with the same zoom range you already own? After all, whatever my technique level, it would be the same level with both lenses. The only possible answers would be convenience and features.

The Tamron has wonderful new features that would make it more convenient for me to shoot. But that's going to have to be a tremendous amount of convenience to make me part with that kind of money. For me, the money can only be spent if the final product is better, which in this case, for what I shoot, it will not be.

If you shoot wildlife, motorsports, or celebrities, your shots will end up better with the Tamron. In my case, my shots will suffer. I'll just need to learn to live without the 600mm reach, and build my own lens profile for Photoshop. When the Nikkor finally fails, I'll just get another one from EBay.

Carnage on Larimer - 2015

2015-09-07T16:11:00.000-07:00

Carnage on Larimer is put on every year by Evil Souls Car Club of Colorado. The art portion, Graffiti on Larimer, is put on by Raul DeLaTorre, owner of Raquelitas Tortillas, Colorado's premier manufacturer of tortilla chips. Every day they produce over 25,000 POUNDS of tortillas! And as of fairly recently, their 24,000-square foot plant became 100% wind-powered! Raul has been very generous with me over the years, and I truly appreciate his kindness and excitement. His wife Mari shows tremendous patience as she cooks an enormous amount of food, provided absolutely free, for the show participants. And it's really tremendous food too. I'm surprised Raul doesn't weigh 500 pounds having such a wonderful cook around the house. She deserves much of the credit for the success of the show in general, and doesn't get enough recognition.

I've mentioned in a previous post why you should be going to this show, and this year's event was the perfect example. There is quite simply no other show where you'd be able to see a Chevy pickup with tractor seats welded to the bumper, sitting right next to a Ferrari 250 GTO. Bear witness, ye heathens, and rejoice:

That GTO's no trailer queen, either, It had a transponder on the windshield for E-470, our local toll road/speedway, and there were obvious signs it had been driven quite a bit. Hey, are there any fun people who go to this show? Why yes. Yes, there are:

As is always the case here, there are all kinds of people. All races, nationalities, cultures and ages appear alongside each other, just to have fun and be a big family. I suppose it seems odd that I picked the white people as an example of that, but I took their picture because they were quirky and obviously having fun.

But wait, you say, were there any Rat Rods? Um, yes. A ton. Here are a few:

Rat rods are reflections of the habits and predilections of their owners, most often with a wry sense of humor. That humor is evident here in the fan shroud made of license plates, as well as the grille made to look like teeth. That grille is what all owners of cars and trucks with that style of grille think of anyway, so why not just go for the gusto and make it obvious?

And there were Model A's, 30's, 40's and 50's classics as well. Like these:

This is really just another view of two of the rat rods, since I feel like they belong in both categories.

Mercs are a mainstay of every type of car show, sometimes mild, often wild, and always with a healthy dose of style.

How about 70's and 80's rides? Any of those? Well, yes.

You don't see too many early-70's Mustang convertibles anymore, much less with a flame job that obviously took a great deal of time to complete.

Even a kit car!

But with all that, surely there couldn't have been bikes too, could there?

Yes, there could.

And this is only about a third of the bikes that showed up. Here's a view of one portion of one block of the show as a whole:

So where was I in this show? I was in the Art section. Here's my booth:

I met a lot of new friends, and I can't wait to shoot their cars and bikes.

And here are a couple of booths of friends of mine, like Old School Alex:

Alex uses woodcutting as a base for his portraits, allowing him to make multiple identical copies of a completely analog process. he even uses the subtractive technique to allow for color printing from one block.

Also showing was Steve Haugen from Victory Illustration:

I've known Steve for several years, and he's the go-to guy for poster art for almost every event in Colorado. While his talent is well-known, it's worth noting that he's very unassuming, and is not impressed with himself, as so many artists are. A wonderful guy to hang around.

I'm very pleased to report that this was my most successful show EVER, and that includes art shows and every car show I've ever done. What a tremendous thrill, and a huge THANK YOU to Raul for inviting me back this year.

I hope to see YOU there in 2016!

Denver County Fair Post-Show Wrapup

2015-08-08T18:57:00.003-07:00

A HUGE Thank You to all of my new friends who dropped by my booth at last weekend's Denver County Fair at the National Western Complex!

I've never shown at the Denver County Fair previously, and it's still a young show, with 2015 being its 5-year anniversary. I admit I felt some trepidation when I started hearing about things like the Kitten Pavilion and Davey B. Gravey's Tiny Cinema. I'm used to art fairs, gallery showings, and other affairs where everything's quiet and subdued.

This was not that.

Thunder and cacophony abounded throughout the entire Complex, with contests, classes, dancers, bands and poetry readings coming from every available stage, and those stages were everywhere. There was a huge kid's area, the biggest model train setup I've ever seen outside of a permanent installation, food and diorama contests (sometimes in the same contest, with Peeps dioramas), an art gallery as big or bigger than any retail location, cosplay characters roaming the aisles, and none of that even touches on the vendor booths that were present.

Every imaginable type of booth was there, and then a bunch more you never dreamed could exist. Not only clothing, food, souvenirs and storm windows, but also fortune tellers, booths hawking other conventions, knives, sculpture, travel, and I don't even know what else. Local Legend Kenny Be had a booth too, offering giant prints of his utterly fantastic new Colorado Map.

My Booth at the Denver County Fair!

Other than meeting new people, the biggest highlight of the whole Fair for me was seeing the poetry reading contest, when one of the guys from Poetry on Demand was delivering a particularly dramatic reading during one of the contests on a nearby stage. His mic had some feedback, but instead of standing there waiting for someone to do something, he instead used that opportunity to put the mic in the stand, walk out to the front of the stage, and quite forcefully address his audience one-on-one, intimately and aggressively. It was so effective, he got the most rousing, cheering response of any reader that day, and it was very well-deserved. I don't know his name, but if anyone does, let me know and I'll update this entry. It was truly unforgettable.

In the end, it was far from ordinary. One might even say it was off-center. But it was a larger gathering than any of these individual groups would probably experience in Colorado. And despite (perhaps because of) the disparate nature of all the groups, everyone got along just great. There was no rivalry or territorialism, only fun, and people who came only for their specific interest still got to experience other cultural phenomena, and interact with people they would otherwise never see.

I had a great time, and if you did too, I invite you to go again next year.

See you then!

Ted Stevens Helps Me Prove It's Not Your Gear

2015-08-08T18:37:00.000-07:00

Longtime readers will recognize that I spend a great deal of time telling you that it's not what gear you own that's important, or how much, but what you do with it.

Today I start to show real-world examples of this being the case. To start off, I'll use Ted Stevens, who is currently traveling around the USA finding adventures to get into. Here's one of his pictures from Arches National Park, one of my two favorite places on the planet, highlighting Skyline Arch and the area around it.

Skyline Arch, taken by Ted Stevens

This is quite simply a wonderful shot. Here are the things that I find to be "right" about this shot:

The foreground - we see something of interest that catches our eye, and is in focus
The background - this is obviously of interest as well, and it's framed so that we can see the entire formation. Although it's mostly in focus, it doesn't need to be in perfect focus, as it would compete too much with the cactus, and make the image as a whole feel "flat."
It tricks the eye into looking at both the foreground and the background. While most people would be content to shoot only the Arch (and you can see thousands of examples of that kind of thinking on the Web with this very formation), Ted decided that highlighting the cactus, something usually overlooked in such a grandiose location, would be more interesting. But to hold our interest, he added Skyline Arch, so that we could judge both of them in context with each other. Neither one detracts from the other, they only add together.
The Sun is behind the Arch. I wouldn't have even thought to do this, but having the Arch in shade prevents it from drawing too much attention away from the cactus. We still see how majestic it is, enhanced by the oblique sun hitting portions of the Arch at an angle. mostly shadow, with a few highlights, but we still see the entire formation.
Objects of interest are scattered around the frame, following the Rule of Thirds, rather than being centered. The Rule of Thirds doesn't always need to be followed, but doing so is quite effective in this case.

Search for Arches Skyline Arch on Google, and look at what everyone else, even pro photographers, are shooting. Ted;s shot has given us more context than most other shots, showing Skyline Arch in its natural environment, rather than trying to show nothing but the Arch.

So what big full-frame camera and expensive lens did he use? Did he have to buy a special tripod to get so low? Was this shot 45 of 76 in trying to get the best shot?

No. He used an iPhone 6 on full auto mode, handheld. First try. Because he cared about what he was shooting, and took the time to get it right.

Now get out there and take some interesting shots!

Sigh... Another Waterfall Shot?

2015-08-07T06:48:00.000-07:00

I found an interesting entry in another photographer's blog, who shall remain nameless, talking about how he loved photographing waterfalls, but didn't do it too much because he hadn't figured out a way to make money doing it. It seems as though everyone has a camera, there are waterfalls everywhere, and people just don't want to buy a picture of something they see all the time.

The same can be said of so many photographs of nature in all its forms. There's an almost uncountable number of people taking pictures and putting them on the Web and Facebook, resulting in such viewer saturation that there's no reason to buy them. Why pay for a picture of Maroon Bells when you've seen a thousand views of it already?

It's an interesting problem for the professional photographer, and not many people have figured out how to get around it. No matter what you're shooting, no matter how long you waited for the shot, how much time you spent in the lab processing, no matter what nifty technique you used, you'll find an almost identical shot done by someone else, and it might be done better. Even if it's not as good, a professional knows that not many people can tell the difference, so it can still be a little deflating to see the sheer volume of like-minded people.

I didn't mention the photographer at the outset of this post, mostly because I didn't think his waterfall shot was all that great. There wasn't really anything wrong with it; the colors were very nice, he had spent some time processing it to make it look very sunny and pleasant. But it didn't speak to me at all.

Don't get me wrong, art is art if it speaks to someone. But in trying to start that conversation, any artist must first come up with a conversation that's meaningful to them. What I'm saying is, I would have deleted that picture, and tried to take another one that said something that was important to me. Only then can an artist communicate with someone else, and only at that point will money be made. If that particular photographer was thrilled with the shot he took, then more power to him. But I want to speak to people who are driven by different things.

So I'll put my money where my mouth is. Here's a picture I took of Bridalveil Falls in Yosemite earlier this year.

Bridalveil Falls, Yosemite

It speaks to me in a vintage, foreboding sort of way. It reminds me of the Hudson River School of painting, and is all the more interesting to me because it wasn't taken at the lookout point. It was taken at a spot where most people wouldn't even think to look up, much less try to frame a shot. To me, that helps make it more unique, and the lighting makes it timeless as well.

I'm interested in whether or not this picture speaks to you as a viewer on some emotional level. If it does, I'm willing to send you, absolutely free, a signed 8x10 print of this picture to hang in your home or office. Drop me an email, and I'll get it right off in the mail to you. I'll need your mailing address, obviously, so don't forget to include it. But I'm also going to put you on my once-a-month mailing list, if you're not already on it.

Have fun with whatever art you enjoy!

How I Created This Panorama with a Point and Shoot Camera

2015-06-29T09:31:00.001-07:00

In previous posts, I've talked directly and indirectly about how your gear doesn't matter. Don't be confused about I'm talking about - you definitely need some gear as a photographer, just like any other profession. You can only do a task when you have tools. But there's a difference between owning an oil filter wrench, and owning the latest osmium-infused, perfectly-balanced oil filter wrench that you just bought because you think the standard one isn't good enough for your new client's '67 GTO.

I took this panorama (Figure 1) of the Golden Gate Bridge with a Canon PowerShot.

Figure 1

I deliberately chose not to use any pro gear to prove this very point. Let's go step by step to see how you too can make a large-scale panorama in perfect focus with decidedly non-professional gear, and little or no software investment. We'll start with the hardware and software, progress into the shoot itself, collating the images, and finally get into postprocessing. By the time we're done, you'll see that, while it's easier to do this with a Hasselblad medium-format camera, it's not necessary. Don't worry - the process is much simpler than this wall of text makes it seem.

The Gear

Here's what you'll need to get started:

Hardware:
Canon PowerShot SX-280HS, or any other small digital camera.

Panorama Stitching Software (pick one):
Microsoft ICE (Free, and highly recommended)
Hugin (Free)

Other Software (Pick one):
Adobe Photoshop ($10 a month)
GIMP (Free)

You'll also need a computer on which to run those software packages. Judging by the fact that you're reading this, you most likely already have one.

Notice there's no tripod. We'll be covering this later, but don't worry. You won't have to prop the camera up against a doorframe. Now grab your camera and go find a suitable panorama spot. Let's get started.

The Shoot

If you shoot this entire scene as one photograph, then crop it to a desirable ratio in an image editing program, you won't have a suitable panorama in the end. It won't be of high enough resolution to print higher than about 2x8, depending on the camera you're using. Panoramas are built by taking a number of shots, one of each part of the scene, then stitching them together to form the whole picture. So with that in mind, we'll get the highest resolution pano by zooming in as much as we can (without using digital zoom - it's a lie), and starting the shoot that way. You should know your camera well enough to know when you've reached the maximum zoom allowed, without going over into digital zoom. Find the entry about it in the manual if you don't know. You'll probably get the best results using between 10x and 20x zoom, so keep that in mind if you have a camera like the Nikon P900, which has an absolutely insane 83x zoom.
How about exposure? We know that the most precise panoramas are best done with manual exposure, so that the camera doesn't guess a little differently between shots, and end up giving you some shots that are darker than others. This behavior comes to light most obviously when you're shooting superzoomed, getting sky in one image, only bridge in the next, and then only a boat sail in another one. The camera will guess differently for each of those types of shots, and that's not good. For this particular shoot, I decided that the different shots wouldn't be enough different in exposure to worry about, so I let the camera decide. I was also trying to keep it as simple as I reasonably could.
Now that you're zoomed in, you'll be taking shot number one in your panorama. Go to the upper left of your anticipated scene, and then move up and to the left a little more. This will give you some room to crop later, which you'll need because the shots never precisely line up, and they'll line up a little less when you're handheld. Always better to have too much in the scene and crop, than to have too little. Our finished cropped resolution will be the same as if you hadn't included the extra, so there's no penalty for overshooting when shooting a pano.
For that first shot, and every subsequent shot, take at least three frames in quick succession. Whether you have to simply hold the shutter release button down, or press it several times, will depend on your camera. You're taking at least three because we don't have a tripod, and we need to be sure we have at least one in perfect focus. Having three will help ensure that this will occur, provided you're not in high winds or riding in a car. (Figure 2.) If you want to take more than three, go for it.

Figure 2
Take overlapping shots, overlapping about a third of the scene between each shot. Usually you don't need this much overlap, but I try to always have too much, because if you have too little, all your effort will be wasted if the stitching software can't figure it out. Go from left to right, then come back to the left-hand side, overlapping about a third of the vertical from the first shot, and do the next row. You may only have two rows, or you may have more. It depends on the scene you're shooting, and your camera's ability to zoom. (Figure 3.) It's also possible to take the shots in vertical (portrait) orientation, but since the end result will be in landscape, I find it easier to mimic that layout when shooting. If you prefer the other way, go for it.

Figure 3
Once you've started shooting, do not stop until you're done. If you put the camera down, you'll never know exactly where you were, and getting distracted is also a sure way to have a cloud cover the sun, making you start over. I had 16 different shot positions for this panorama, with three of each position, making a total of 48 pictures.
After having taken all the shots, check them for focus by zooming in on the viewfinder. If they seem close, with one or two of each set in good focus, you're done. If they're all a jumbled mess, you might want to work on your handheld technique. Notice that I didn't say this was going to be a cakewalk, I said it was possible. It will take effort. You may have to start over and work a little harder.

If the shots look good, you're done in the field. Put all your gear in your shirt pocket, and let's go home and see what we can make out of this.

Processing

There isn't much in the way of processing, since you only have JPEGs. For what we're doing, processing will mean culling the junk away so that the best images are left.

Transfer all the images you shot onto the computer, so that you can look at them individually. If you have software that helps you do this, great. If not, you can use Windows Explorer to view the directory you just dumped them in, and you'll need to look at every one of them to pick the best-focused shot from each set of three. You're welcome to delete all the ones that fall short, leaving only one full set of well-focused images for use in creating the pano. More than likely, you have JPEGs that came out of the camera, as very few small cameras shoot in RAW. The JPEGs will have artifacts which we will remove later, so don't worry if you don't have RAW. Professionals will almost always use RAW, because it gives much greater latitude in editing, but we won't have to deal with that here. The tools you have will work just great.

No matter your organizational technique, make sure you have exactly one full set of images in a directory so that we can begin postprocessing. Don't have anything else in that directory.

PostProcessing

There are three basic steps here - doing the pano, fixing any issues with the result, and making the whole thing look pretty.

Open the pano software you chose, and follow the instructions to load the pictures you took. let the program do its work, and very quickly you'll be presented with the result. If you followed the instructions above, there shouldn't be any issue with what you see. If there's a missed spot, then you'll need to go out and do it again, learning from that mistake. If you know the shots are good, but the pano software shows oddities in the intersections between shots, then try other software. Even the free software is exceptionally good, but always try something else if you don't get satisfactory results.

The edges in the result of the pano software will look jagged, as in Figure 4. Don't worry - we'll take care of that later. Many pano software packages have the ability to straighten and crop images before they're saved. If the one you've chosen has that ability, go ahead and use it now. If not, wait until we open the image in an editor.

Figure 4
Save that image as a TIFF, or other high-quality lossless format. Don't use JPEG at this point - we've already lost some information by virtue of using that format to begin with, and recompressing it will only degrade the image further. Once the image has been saved, close the pano software.
The following steps are necessary for finalization of the image. I won't go into detail about exactly how to do it for a couple of reasons. First, the exact method varies between programs, whether you're using GIMP or Photoshop, and explaining each would take more time than we have here. Second, I encourage you to experiment with the program you choose, to help you learn it more thoroughly. I believe that's a great way to learn - get an outline, and fill it in by experimentation. So let's continue. Open the TIFF file in an image editor, and do these steps:
A. Straighten the image
B. Crop it to a meaningful ratio, say 3:1 or 4:1, taking care to frame the result in the most meaningful way.
C. Adjust levels so that blacks are all the way black, and white are all the way white. The camera most likely wasn't too good at this, so we need to fix it. you're welcome to move away from this rule and not have any full black or whites, or even blow out the black or whites. The final choice is up to your taste. But know the "rule," so that you know why you're breaking it.
D. Clone away any imperfections that bother you. These may include ghosting from the pano software, people, trees, or any other imperfections.
E. Remove the artifacts caused by the camera's JPEG compression. In a shot like this, the color range and brightness range is quite limited, because of the fog. This exacerbates the JPEG artifacts. The best way to do this is with noise reduction, provided you don't use so much that you lose detail. It can also be helpful to add a little noise to the image at the same time, reducing the eye's ability to see the imperfections. See Figure 5. You can tell that the result isn't perfect, but it's a darn sight better than what we started with.

Figure 5
The final step for me was adding a color gradient filter (black into brown into yellow) to change the feel from fog to sunset. Spend some time adjusting where the three colors fall in the brightness spectrum to get the best result. There's no rule here - whatever you feel is the most aesthetically pleasing is the right way to do it.

End Result

Final Panorama - Figure 6

The size of this image at 300 dpi is 10x40 inches, and if we print it at 150 dpi, still perfectly okay for a large panorama, we get 20x80 inches. How big your image is will depend on how many shots you took and the resolution of each shot.

Not only would I be proud to display this image, I'm actually selling it at shows right now.

And you can do the same thing!

Four Denver Car Shows You Might Otherwise Miss

2015-06-12T16:03:00.000-07:00

At some point in our journey of discovering the wonderful world of automobiles, most of us get tired of seeing ordinary cars with decals, and the same old treatment of the same old cars over and over... and over. Surely there must be more shows featuring more interesting cars, higher-quality builds, and an overall reason to come out and be excited.

The number of shows in Colorado is truly staggering. But because there are so many, they often tend to melt together into exercises in futility, at least if one's desire is to see something different. I don't mean to put down people's individual cars, so I won't mention any specific makes or models, but we've all seen way too many of certain cars, built using the same ideas as everyone else, showing not only little imagination, but also a level of skill that seems increasingly disappointing.

Let's see what else we can find. Here are a few shows that I feel have shown consistently that they have something unique to offer:

1. The Colorado English Motoring Conclave, September 19 and 20, 2015. Oak Park, 64th Place and Oak Street, Arvada. From what we see on the streets one might think there are only about a dozen British automobiles in the Denver area, but this show consistently pulls over 500 cars every year, and it's been going on for over thirty years. Many of these cars are taken out only two days a year - for this show. The attention to correctness and detail is often wonderful. You'll get to see cars you've previously only read about.

2. O'Reilly Auto Parts Creme de la Chrome Show, November 27 - 29, Colorado Convention Center, Denver. This show is famous for the incredibly high quality of entrants. It's also comfortable, being one of the few indoor shows in Colorado. Past shows have included Ridler and Great 8 winners, magazine cover cars, movie cars, and great examples of extremely rare rides from all periods of automotive history. Local builders know they have to work hard, since cars come here from all over the country, and they're not here to mess around. If you win Best of Show here (The Chrome Award), you've got bragging rights for the next decade.

3. Carnage on Larimer, August 29, Larimer Street in Denver between 30th and 33rd. Three blocks of pure fun, displaying street cruisers from several subcultures as one big family. And I do mean family. Everyone is welcomed here, and you can strike up a conversation with a perfect stranger just as though you were brothers. Here you'll gain a new appreciation for cars you don't see at mainstream shows. These cars reflect the personalities of their drivers, often with a wry and self-aware sense of humour. This is the true old-school spirit of hot rodding.

4. High Plains Raceway Open Lapping Days, Fridays and some Thursdays all Summer long,
93301 East US Highway 36, Deer Trail. Okay, so this isn't a car show per se, but it's the logical extension of appreciation. A great time, and a perfect way to actually legally race your own car on a real, race-used 2.5 mile long course. A professional, knowledgeable track staff and pits you can camp in (if you need to) combine with the adventure of racing with people just met, totaling up to an unforgettable experience. It'll be much more fun than when your cousin tried to race his Corolla down Lookout Mountain and ended up rolling it six times. Many car clubs also race here on the weekends, which should encourage you to join one with fellow owners. See their calendar for details.

Do you think I've shortchanged your favorite show? Let me know!

Why Your Gear Isn't Important

2015-06-07T16:28:00.000-07:00

Have you even seen a magnificent race car and thought "Wow, I'll bet that builder has a great socket set"? How about watching a quarterback win the Superbowl? Did you ever mention to anyone how meticulously the team must have chosen his mouth guard? Or maybe you've read a Steinbeck novel and thought how masterfully he maintained his typewriter.

Obviously, you've done none of these things, and neither has anyone else. But photography, along with any art or profession that deals with technologically advanced tools, is quite prone to having both its members and the public at large dependent on the thought that the gear makes the result.

It does not. It has not ever been that way, and it shall never be.

In every case, the skill of the artisan defines their worth. Now don't get me wrong, it's necessary to have tools. You can't take a telephoto shot without a telephoto lens. You can't replace spark plugs without a socket set, and you can't write a novel without a writing utensil of some kind. But to think that you must have a speech-to-text app, or a certain kind of pen, or specific software to format your layout before you can write your Great American Novel is not just a misplaced notion, it's detrimental to your being able to move forward with your work.

In the era of being able to use the Internet for instant communication, there are many crutches available for people trying to learn a craft. Discussion groups pop up daily for every conceivable profession, hobby, and interest. But when there tend to be instant answers, we tend to depend less on ourselves, and more on the supposed experience of others. It's somehow easier to ask a question and depend on the random ranting of a stranger than to find out for ourselves and retain that knowledge forever. For audio engineers, Gearslut.com is one of those crutches. For photographers, it's Photography-On-The.Net. Neophytes trying to gain a lifetime of knowledge and skill in one easy step, and plenty of people with a few years of their own experience ready and eager to make themselves look like professionals in front of their peers.

Almost invariably, new questions will result in an anonymous stranger saying that the new camera just purchased is junk, or that only by changing brands can true enlightenment be achieved. Anyone who uses Brand F of lens is obviously an amateur, when Brand K is the only tool Real Professionals(TM) ever use.

So let's get this out of the way right now: Brand Is Not Important. For photographers, whether you use Nikon, Canon, Sony, Hasselblad, Pentax or any other brand is absolutely, completely meaningless. That's certainly not a popular view, particularly when you see the most revered an in-demand photographers using Hasselblads almost exclusively. But you need to remember that they select their tools for very specific needs and purposes. When you're shooting for a billboard, maybe you need a $45,000 Hasselblad because you won't have to extrapolate pixels. Or maybe you won't need one when you get to that level. Maybe you'll like the way a different brand behaves in your hands. The point is that only YOU can decide, based on your specific direction. No one else can tell you that direction, and no one else knows your needs.

But your needs aren't based on what you think will make you better. They're based on what will make your job easier. No one looks at the nails a carpenter pounded in and says "Oh, he must have had a Stanley hammer!" So why do they say such ridiculous things when referring to a photograph or an audio recording? It's because the Democratization of technology has caused people to think they know something, when in fact they do not.

Here's a shot I took while in Uruguay. It was taken with a point-and-shoot Pentax Optio S6, with a crushing 6 Megapixels, before cropping. It's just a touch under 6MP after cropping:

The End of Time

A couple of years later, I ended up selling this shot, blown up to 20 by 24 inches, for full price to a customer who still displays it.

Let's look at another example, shot for Motorcycle Classics Magazine:

Gene Brown's Vincent HRD

This shoot was done with a Nikon D90, a seven-year old camera that shoots 12 Megapixels. Not only was this particular shot used for a full-page spread, editor Richard Backus said that this was one of the highest-quality shoots he had ever seen. While I'm proud of his comments, I'm not using them to tell you that I'm wonderful. I'm using them to tell you that you can get great shots no matter what camera you're using. Take a look at this contest for iPhone shots, and see how skillful these people are.

The masters of any craft had very little in the way of tools. They took their time in choosing them, but sometimes were forced to use poor tools by today's standards, even if those tools may have been the best available at the time. But often, they were some of the worst available, since that was all they could afford. And yet, they each decided to not be limited by them. Rather, they worked through and around those limitations.

If you do the same, you'll find yourself to be a much better artist.

Lazy is Better for Taking Good Photographs!

2015-05-10T15:20:00.000-07:00

One forgotten key

No matter how much or how little gear you have, you can instantly take better pictures, starting in the next ten seconds. Here's how to do it:

Only take a quarter of the pictures you're now taking.

That's all there is to it! With the advent of digital technology, cloud storage, quick editing and endless sharing possibilities, it's so tempting to take more and more that we tend to think not of quality, but of quantity, always hoping that at least one picture might end up better than the rest. When you decrease the shooting frequency, you force your brain to think more about what it is you're shooting, and how best to take advantage of lighting and composition. You don't even need to know lighting and composition rules - your brain will help you find the best picture of that waterfall if you know you'll only take one, instead of four. Or forty.

Will this help you take great pictures? Well, maybe. Let's use the reduction method as the first step. You'll never have great shots when you get home if all you do is spray and pray. In addition, you won't have enjoyed the trip if all you're doing is snapping pics, whether it's with an expensive camera or your phone. Enjoy your surroundings, and live your life.

Once you've decided to take fewer shots, try this as well: Try to take only ONE shot of any given object or view. No one wants to see ten shots of anything, and you'll find later on that they're not all that different from each other anyway. Taking those ten shots prevents you from thinking about the single best shot, and you'll probably end up missing it.

If you're at a car show, you don't need (or want) four angles of every car. Pick only the finest or most interesting cars, and take just one shot of each, finding a different angle each time. This will tell a different story for each car.

When taking pictures for posting on Facebook, remember that there are over 250 BILLION pictures on there, with over 350 million being added each and every day. You cannot compete for the attention of your friends by posting volumes. You'll have to do it with quality, and with small numbers.

No get out there and slow down your shooting!

Garden of the Gods

2015-02-25T14:00:00.000-08:00

As part of a much larger project, I just got back from a visit to Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. But I didn't go during the day - in fact, I went at 2:00 in the morning, trying to get the moonlight just right. I wasn't altogether successful, as even a tiny sliver of Moon was too much. Fortunately, I miscalculated how long the hike would take me, and I got to the hilltop before the Moon even came up.

But even before that happened, I took a shot on the roadway to the South of the main formations, looking North across the short side of one of them. As someone else's car drove in the distance, I got this shot:

As you can see, even at 2 in the morning, there's a great deal of light coming from the city. So much that it tends to block out most of the stars, as well as the ultimate goal of my shoot, the Milky Way. Every bit of light you see is from the city, as the Moon hadn't yet come up.

Having gotten that shot, my next task was to hike to the secondary location to try to get the Milky Way behind the main formations. Hiking with a bunch of camera gear and a 13 million candlepower lantern isn't all that easy, but I still made better time than I was hoping. I got to my scouted location just before the Moon rose, and got this shot, which just happened to have an eagle-shaped cloud looking like it was ready to land on Pike's Peak:

The brightest light, just above the eagle's wing, is Jupiter. Right after this shot was taken, the Moon started to come up, and ruined what little darkness was present. I hiked back down, never having used my huge lantern, and returned to the car to continue my journey to other locales that same night.

See you next time!

Shae and Jon

2015-02-18T11:09:00.005-08:00

Shae had been attending BYU-Idaho online from her original home in Idaho, but had been convinced by her sister and brother-in-law to come down to Colorado. Colorado has all the beauty and grandeur of Idaho, but throws in some civilization and sophistication to boot – what’s not to love? Well, it turns out that being Assistant Manager at a chain restaurant may not have so much to love, but everyone has to start somewhere, right?

It wasn’t long before Shae had seamlessly integrated herself into the local Colorado Mormon community, and met a number of great people at a movie night being hosted by one of the church members. Among those was Jon, a transplant from West Jordan, Utah. They immediately hit it off as friends, spending time getting to know each other during more church activities before the unmistakable spark of romance was felt.

For Thanksgiving, Jon and Shae went to her family home in Idaho, and then to his family home in Utah, where a plan was afoot. During a walk through Temple Square to an intimate gazebo, Jon proposed to Shae, presenting her with a ring exactly like one she had looked at dreamingly while window shopping.

Fast forward just two months, and the wedding plans are being put together! And Shea’s long since moved on from the restaurant job, in so many ways.

Based on the timeline we had available, I knew the timing for this shoot would be tight. One of their favorite places is Daniels Park just South of Denver, with which I’m quite familiar, so no scouting was necessary. We scheduled to go out right after her work day was over, but there was a slight delay when we needed to pick up crucial portions of one of her outfits.

We arrived at the Park just before Golden Hour, so we still had time to catch the light, but there was no time to go over what we wanted to do – only time to start shooting. Knowing that some variables might come into play, I had used the previous several days to plan out the shots we would need, so the session started right away.

I brought my full-frame camera and a 50mm prime lens as my primary, and left my backup crop-frame and several other lenses, along with two tripods and two 800WS radio strobes and stands, in the car. It would be a quick matter to go back and get them if needed, but none of it would weigh me down for what needed to be a fast-moving shoot.

And fast it was! We breezed through six locations before noticing that the light was now quickly disappearing. The Sun had just barely dipped below the horizon, giving us a perfect chance for some silhouettes before the color in the sky went away. I ran back to the car to get my backup camera and a 24-120mm lens, as I wanted to get farther away from Shae and John, to allow for more zooming in on the horizon. The rest of the shoot was spent switching between cameras to get different effects from the same poses.

Even Molli, Jon’s longhair Dachshund got involved, posing dutifully while being teased with bologna, and then resting quietly in John’s truck during the rest of the shoot. All in all, we accomplished a great deal in a short period of time. I never used my strobes, as the natural light was changing so quickly there was no time to get them set up, and they weren’t really necessary anyway with all the wonderful colors present during a Colorado sunset.

It’s a privilege to be a part of Shae and Jon’s world, and I’m so grateful that they chose me to help them remember one of the most significant turning points of their life together. I wish them all the best in their journey.

The 1968 Mustang GT500KR

2014-10-05T09:05:00.001-07:00

Being arguably the most popular muscle car in history, most aficionados will know that there were many high-performance badges bestowed upon the Mustang throughout its tenure. The more noticeable would be the Boss 302, Boss 429, GT350, and GT500. But there were other enumerations as well, labels which wouldn't make it so much into the popular vernacular. The GT350H is a good example, as it's more special than the GT350, but many people aren't that familiar with it.

Even more special than the GT350H is the Cobra GT500KR, a designation awarded only in 1968, though it was later resurrected in 2008 and 2009. The marque was so well-regarded that it took Carroll Shelby returning to the Ford fold to bring it back. During the decades that Ford destroyed the spirit of the Mustang, not even they dared call anything else a GT500KR than a real Shelby.

It was known as "The Ultimate Mustang," and the official literature claimed that the Cobra Jet 428 would put out 335 to 360 horsepower, but that was a ridiculous marketing ploy in order to be able to put a real racing engine into a production car.

The real number was certainly over 400 horses, with the engine being a hotrodded version of the previous Police Interceptor, with large ports and better exhaust. Ford was proud of its recent wins in 1966 and 1967 at Le Mans over Ferrari, and boasted with the term Cobra LeMans diecast into the valve covers.

Production was limited to 1,053 fastback GT500KRs, with only 530 being ordered as 4-speeds. Special Yellow was a very uncommon color, with only 44 being order with the WT6066 paint code. Only 10 had air conditioning. And finally, only one was sent to the SouthWest. This is that car, which has finally found its way into the hands of Brian Nielsen, and into our camera.

According to Autotraderclassics, the GT500KR is not only one of the most sought-after cars in history, it's so rare that most are trailer queens, living out their days in a hermetically sealed box, never feeling the wind on the open road. Not so this car. Brian does indeed drive it. We were not lucky enough to get permission to drive it ourselves though, so Brian can remain safe in the rarified air of being one of only a handful of people in the world who have had the experience of driving this legend.

Special thanks go out to him for allowing us to shoot it, and for the rare times when he agrees to show it. It's a wonderful example of the way we used to treat the experience of driving.

Chihuly at the Denver Botanic Gardens

2014-09-16T09:53:00.002-07:00

http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-nLnxW/

This summer is seeing a quite deserved Renaissance at the Denver Botanic Gardens, with the addition of dozens of glassworks by Dale Chihuly among the voluminous plant, tree, and flower exhibits. Over the past twenty years, the Gardens haven't expanded their space, but have tremendously expanded the variety and sheer numbers of plantings and exhibits. The entire area is now filled with flora not only that is native to the arid Mountain Desert region, but also heavily populated with varieties that are native to other parts of the country, even other parts of the world.

One of the larger displays, in front of the Greenhouse.

So it's only fitting that they find a way to increase attendance, and having Dale Chihuly bring a portion of his collection over is certainly the way to do it. Crowd sizes are staggering, bringing much-needed revenue to this facility. Open until the end of November 2014, the best time to see the display is early morning. By Noon or a little after, it's difficult to walk around the park, much less try to get undistrubed time looking at what's on offer.

Chihuly has many styles of glasswork, and a subset of them is represented here. The most prominent are glass spires of red, blue or yellow, strewn about native grasses like tall reeds. But the more interesting displays are when those grandiose installations are eschewed in favor of something a bit more subtle, if subtlety is even possible in a show like this.

Globes, fingers and spires of purple and blue trail out of a small boat.

The show is also open at night (under separate ticket prices), where some of the glass is lit externally, and some internally through neon lighting.

This installation in front of a waterfall is reminiscent of Chihuly's work on the ceiling at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, though of course that's only a small fraction of what's on display.

Come down and see it before it's gone - it's a popular traveling show, so it may never come back!

Arvada Vitality Alliance Benefit

2014-08-17T08:01:00.002-07:00

I was invited several weeks ago, to be a part of a fundraiser for a relatively new organization, the Arvada Vitality Alliance, or AVA for short. The AVA is dedicated to the furtherance of public art displays in Arvada Colorado. My first thought was "why would something like this be necessary?" I was certain that more than enough public funding would be available for any art installations around the city, much like so many other cities across the Front Range. But it turns out that's really not the case.

Public art is woefully underfunded in Colorado, as it has been for many decades. No matter which party is in power, expenditures for what are seen as frivolities either don't make it through the political process at all, or when they do, the funding has been severely restricted. This is short sighted for a couple of reasons.

First, public art creates an identity for the area. One has only to look at Paris, Egypt, New York, St. Louis, or a hundred other cities whose identities are forged specifically by their public art installations. I'm not talking about museums. The pieces you have in mind when thinking of these cities are giant, imposing, memorable artworks that will remain in your mind for the rest of your life. And when you do think of those pieces, you'll invariably think of the cities they live in. Having your home city spring into people's minds as they move through their lives is not only good for tourism, it's good for the cultural legacy of the city in general, helping ensure that successive generations stick around to continue the work their parents started.

Second is the return on investment, or ROI. The City of San Diego for example, found that in fiscal year 2011, for their $7 million investment in public arts, there was a resulting income increase of $170 million in outside spending, with two million visitors arriving specifically as a result of the Arts. It also found that 6,000 jobs were created as a result, and that out-of-town visitors who came for Arts events stayed an average of two days longer than the typical tourist, and spent twice as much.

This is pretty serious money, though blogger Smart City Memphis would disagree. SCM believes that talking about investment return shouldn't be on the table when Conservatives are in power. I can't imagine why that would be the case, and SCM doesn't offer any alternatives. Just that ROI shouldn't be brought up. To the contrary, ROI is precisely what Conservatives are begging to hear about. In a Governmental context, they don't care about aesthetics. Conservative dogma doesn't allow for that. It only responds to specific reasoning, which proponents of public funding (most often Liberals) have historically been weak at presenting. The public benefit of a public project needs to have a specific reason to be funded. Fortunately, Public Arts has all the firepower needed for such a discussion. Please be clear: I'm not attempting to create a split between Conservatives and Liberals, nor am I trying to promote one agenda over the other. Rather, I'm attempting to bring the two sides together for a common goal.

Barring the public funding aspect of the Arts, private donations are often brought in to supplement. The AVA exists for precisely that reason. Friday's event was a gala get-together and art auction presented in the Lamar Street Center space, often called Steel Affairs. This event, like most others at Lamar, had an automotive theme, showing off the cars of board members, active community members, and Larry Winkler, owner of of the center. The event was a great success, resulting in art sales, donations, and a wonderful time had by all who attended. Some of the rarest cars in the world were there to see, and attendees wove around them during the night.

One facet of Conservative mindset would be that this is the way to fund all public art - by private donation. This mindset may exist because it's believed that the donors somehow reap the benefits of their donation by getting something back in the form of ROI. They don't. They're donating because they believe in the cause, and for that reason alone, since they receive literally nothing back for their money. They're so sold on the concept of public art that they're willing to give their money away with no chance of profit, rather than see less public art installed.

They're stepping in, at their own expense, to try to supplement inadequate funding for something that benefits us all. True Conservatives and true Liberals alike know that the benefits of public Arts funding are tangible, and necessary for a thriving society. Let's all work together to achieve a goal that brings us all so many benefits.

My thanks go out to Ereka O'Hara for having me be a part of it. I hope to see you all there next year!

Failure is Inevitable in Landscape Photography

2014-07-29T10:21:00.000-07:00

There will be no sample pics in the post, because there aren't any to be had.

We've all done our best to deal with failure, and it certainly is frustrating. But to be able to keep going, every photographer must understand that failing is not just part of the job, it's most of the job, particularly with something as fickle as nature. Nature doesn't care about our timetable, and isn't remotely interested in whether we're present or not, prepared or not, or what our expectations are. A human being trying to figure out when the best shot will present itself is the very definition of hubris. The fact that we as photographers try to adapt to a virtually unknown and unknowable schedule leads to a lot of wasted shots and wasted time. But there simply is no other way, and getting used to it will make your life better.

This week I've been researching a specific shot that was requested by a client, to replace a landscape photograph in their home that's about 140 years old. She would like to have the same view, but taken today. It shouldn't be surprising that very little information about certain areas remains after that length of time, so it's been difficult not only finding out the photographer, but exactly where the shot was taken. The area is now quite built up, so it may end up being impossible to see the natural features that are so prominent in the original photograph. After using Google Earth to find some location candidates, I scheduled a trip to the area, which is in Southern Colorado.

The trip took a day, covering over 400 miles, and had to be scheduled so that I would be there late in the day. That's the only time the sun is in the right spot to illuminate the mountain peak, as it faces Northwest. Summer is also the only time the sun pulls far enough North that the right light could be achieved, and the weather needs to be taken into consideration as well. There should be some light, puffy clouds, but not enough to shade the mountain.

Weather.com and Weather Underground are my sources for forecasts, and I was assured by both, as late as an hour before I left, that there was zero percent chance of rain, and 7 percent cloud cover. Looked perfect. By the time I got within thirty miles of my destination, I could tell I was wasting my time. There was a huge wall of gray blocking the mountain and the town, but nothing anywhere else - just 95 degrees and blue sky on the entire trip so far. Within ten miles of the mountain, I started to see lightning on all sides, and another bank of storms lining up behind the current deluge. This wouldn't be an "interesting" storm that would play with the light and make for a once-in-a-lifetime shot. This was an all-encompassing wall of despair and wetness that would render all shadows and highlights moot, blanketing the entire area in complete shadow. I had come this far though, so there was no point in pouting about it. I continued on.

Through the rain, I found the two candidate spots, and could tell right away that they weren't the right locations. One of them didn't even afford a view of the peak, a small rise being the culprit. So at least I had gathered a little knowledge for my time. There was another majestic view of the peak with the town laid out below, which I knew in advance was not the right location, but I went up there anyway, since I had come this far. This view over the town was available by virtue of a high bluff, which just happened to have a huge sign and flagpole atop it. Even though it was raining and there was lightning everywhere, I went up the dirt road anyway, risking my life for a shot I couldn't take.

Knowing that it wasn't worth getting the regular camera out, I pulled out my point-and-shoot and grabbed a snapshot of the almost-black mountain overlooking the town. As the rain picked up even more, another car pulled up as I was leaving, with a family. I briefly noted to myself how stupid they were for coming up there during a lightning storm, but soon remembered my own idiocy, wished them well in my mind, and drove off.

So nine hours wasted so far, with nothing to show for it. But this was only one failed attempt. There may be several more before I get what I want for this shot, and every other photographer has been through the same thing many, many times. So don't get discouraged. You'll need to wait all day, fail, and then come back another day, or perhaps hike to one spot four times to get a shot like the great Wally Pacholka, or wait until the right time of year, only to miss out yet again. Keep going. It's not your failure, it simply a part of the process required. Be warned though, that after all that work, people will be even more likely to say it's a fake!

Anatomy of a Motorcyle Shoot - Part 1

2014-07-25T07:55:00.002-07:00

Many readers of this blog photograph cars as either their hobby or their trade. Shooting a motorcycle presents its own challenges though, so let's branch off the beaten path for a bit. We'll see how you can get wonderful shots with only a minimum of equipment, a fair amount of attention to detail and technique, a lot of time setting up, and a lot of time in postproduction.

The Circumstances

The bike in question is a 1952 Vincent Red and Black known as Hellboy, one of the finest bikes in the world, and certainly the finest of the 17 of these beauties ever built. Now that this bike has been shown, it's safe to put it up in this post. Its only show so far has been Keeneland Councours in Lexington KY, where it earned Best of Show. It's owned by Gene Brown, almost certainly the winningest collector the U.S. has ever seen. At this year's Quail Motorcycle Gathering alone, he was awarded Best of Show, First Place, and The Design and Style Award. He also won Best of Show as well as Best of Class, British 1901-1940, at the 2013 Del Mar Celebration of the Motorcycle with his 1932 Vincent, which I also had the pleasure of shooting last year. Gene travels a lot, and as such, when he gets home, he's not too keen on packing everything up to go somewhere just for a shoot. So believe me, when Gene calls, wanting you to come over to his place for a shoot, it's time for you to make it happen the way he wants it.

So instead of going for a location or a studio, I needed to pack up the essentials and do the shoot in his quite nondescript and unassuming garage. Since I needed to control reflections and lighting, we needed to make sure there was little sunlight, so we got started at 7:00 P.M.

What I Took

I'm a firm believer that all of the tools that I use are important to me, but not to my client, and probably not to you in most cases. Would you care what type of pencil your architect used? Or how many hammers your carpenter had? Certainly not, because how well either of them do their job is not defined by brand. It's defined by the proper tool and the proper expertise only. It's important that you have a hammer in your construction job. What's not important is how many hammers you have, or what brand they are (usually). So with that in mind, I'm sure the keen eye can tell what brand and model of seven-year old camera I use by looking at the first setup shot in the second part of this series. But I invite you to not care about that, and instead focus on technique and which tools get used in which circumstance. If you obsess over getting the latest camera every six months to make your shots better, this article is going to upset you, and you don't need that.

Camera

Okay, so the camera is an obvious choice. We'll definitely need that. I brought just one lens, and not even a prime. The surroundings of the garage will dictate how far away I get, and unless I have a set of six or eight primes, I probably won't have the right one for this distance anyway. My only non-special-effect primes are a 35mm and a 50mm, and I can't remember the last time I used them. As far as the rest of the actual camera gear, I brought a tripod, a geared head, and a radio remote trigger, so I don't have to touch the camera. And that's it.

You could get by with a ball head, but that makes it harder to make fine adjustments in shot alignment. Having said that, I've done plenty of shoots that way before, and no one was the wiser, except for me. You bring (and buy) the tools that YOU think will make your job easier. So which brand of geared head? Well, you could spend hours perusing photography forums and experimenting with rentals for months like some people do, or you could go an actual camera shop and actually try one or two for yourself, and then buy one and move on with your life. I use a Bogen/Manfrotto 410, which is an awesome head, but mine was bought used, and has a bent gear, so one of the axes is very difficult to turn. And yet, I use it anyway, because I have learned to work within my gear's limitations, instead of always buying new stuff. The client doesn't know and doesn't care whether the gear is bent, and I don't obsess over getting new heads. It doesn't slow me down in any appreciable way.

Lighting

No strobes. We don't want hot spots on the bike, since one of the uses will be for website promotion, and possibly builder promotion. They're looking for shots that will show off the bike, not the reflection of an umbrella in the gas tank. Any softbox less than five feet high will be too small for this shoot.

I ended up bringing a 10'X30' white sheet for backdrop, stands, crossbar and clamps for that sheet, several pieces of whiteboard for reflection, and a large softbox with a rolling stand. While most people use strobes inside these boxes,I don't need to do that, since I'm not working with human models most of the time. An easier setup for me is to use it as one big light, lighting the entire area to be photographed, rather than as a high-key background. To light it continuously I've built an LED lightbar that uses a 12V battery, and mounts on the rolling stand, inside the box. That way I don't have to depend on location power, and I don't have to buy expensive battery strobes.

Custom LED lightbar, 12V

Closeup of one portion of lightbar. Interested in plans? Let me know.

The wheeled stand is a necessity, so that I can position it at will, changing angles and height if necessary. I use a Fotodiox box for this, because it comes standard with a great stand, and because their people are much more friendly and helpful than the people at Lastolite. I've owned a Lastolite for several years, and I've noticed that it has not only yellowed over time, but its internal spring frame has also begun to sag, so that it can't stand up on its own. Since I didn't buy it with a frame, I contacted Lastolite to see if a rolling frame was available, and to see if there was something I could do about the internal frame. I received no response whatsoever. The Lastolite now sits in my studio, never to be used again. So this is one of those rare times when I'll encourage you, dear reader, to use one brand over another, simply because of my own experience. You're welcome to use whatever brand works for you.

Fotodiox has not paid me or given me anything at any discount.
Their great customer service earned them this very rare plug.

Wait, so that's it for gear? A camera, a lens, some sheets and a custom light? Yes, that's all I need, and everything works out just fine. If I had the luxury of bringing the bike to an all-white 60X40X20 studio with a Cyclorama and hanging lighting, the shoot (and postproduction) may have gone faster, but since I roll at the whim of my clients rather than the other way around, having such a studio would be, ultimately, an immense waste of money.

I also brought a large amount of spare gear in case something went wrong. But since nothing did, it doesn't seem relevant to this article to mention what spares I had. Bring spares for the unforeseen, for you will indeed see it one day. Even if you don't have the money for a spare body, you'd better be bringing some kind of camera to use if you drop your only body*. If you get caught because you broke something you only own one of, come up with a different way of shooting on the spot. That's part of your job. One very important note, though: DO NOT tell your client about your problem, or it will be held over you forever, even though there's nothing whatsoever wrong with the outcome. Their impression will be enough to pollute the result. Don't even tell them you had to bring out your spare camera body. They will ALWAYS think there's something inferior about what you present to them. This was a hard-earned lesson for me many years ago, and I've not forgotten it. You can read about this lesson in my previous post, Why You Shouldn't Tell Your Clients About Your Mistakes.

* - Some people will tell you that you're required to own two of everything, so you can always have spares. But no matter what your budget is, there will always be something you only have one of. Don't be intimidated by Internet know-it-alls (including me) telling you how inferior your gear and budget are. If you have a camera and skill, you'll be just fine.

Next up: Part 2 for the shoot itself.

Why You Shouldn't Tell Your Clients About Your Mistakes

2014-06-20T12:27:00.002-07:00

You're Not an Idiot

Well, I'm making an assumption I suppose, but you probably aren't. You know that you've practiced and honed your skill, brought along spares, planned the shoot, and generally done everything that a true craftsman is supposed to do. But inevitably, something will go wrong, whether it's on every shoot or just once in a while. Occasionally it's something you can fix with spares you've brought, and occasionally it's something you've done wrong that cannot be fixed later, like forgetting to refocus when you moved the camera four inches to the right. You casually zoom in on the LCD, only to discover that the shot you've spent an hour composing is now useless. How you handle that kind of thing is what will separate you from the rest of the pack.

Let's take a look at why you shouldn't tell your client what you just did.

You Seem Less Than Professional

First and foremost, your client isn't there to be your friend. They're there to have you do a service for them, and they expect it to be done to a certain level of professionalism, even if it's being done for free. You should be attempting to build yourself up beyond the point where it looks like you're making excuses. You and I know you're not making excuses when you say "just a moment, I broke one of my lenses, so I need to put another one on," but the client won't see it that way.

You're Not Drawing Them Into a Kinship, You're Alienating Them From Your Product

It's often assumed that the sharing of a potentially disastrous adventure will bring you and your client together, since they should be able to relate to what you're going through, and perhaps as a result you can both have a good laugh about it later on down the road.

They can't, and you won't.

All that ends up happening is that they will now feel like they made the wrong choice in hiring you, and they will feel that way from that point on. You will have no chance to "redeem yourself."

Their View of the Product Will Be Forever Tainted

Sure, they'll get their product, whether it's shots, a poster, or whatever, and they'll tell you it looks great. Or fine. Or okay. But it doesn't matter what they tell you, they're lying, either to you or to themselves. All they'll ever be able to think about when they see that shot is how much better they think it could have been had you been able to use your first lens, or both lights, or if they could only have used that other location that you forgot to ask permission for. They have just purchased a permanent reminder of something they think they don't want. And it has your name on it.

Crystallized With a Story

I know the above sounds somewhat extreme, but it happens all the time. Many years ago, I was recording a series of live dates with 28 bands from a famous venue in the mountains of Colorado, North of Boulder. Those recordings, done one band at a time over a period of almost a year, were to be released as a compilation with the venue's name on it, as promotion not only for the venue, but also for the bands who appeared there, since few of them had any label attention at that time. The venue, the bands, and the CD will not be named here, as I do not wish to appear disparaging about anyone in particular. It's the experience itself that's important.

I was recording with three 8-track digital machines synched together, using two 24-channel boards as input and monitoring. This was back in the days before a workstation could do all of that (in fact, no computer was involved), so it was by necessity a pretty complicated setup that needed to be broken down and moved a lot. During one evening, one of the machines refused to sync with the others, leaving us with only 16 usable tracks to record. I had other dates piling up behind this one, so it was a bit frustrating, thinking about when I would be able to either pull the deck apart, or be without it for service. But as far as the recording was concerned, it wasn't a big deal, since I was only planning on using 18 tracks total for this particular group.

So I combined two of the tracks into others - one tom went onto another tom track, and the hi-hat went onto the stereo overhead drum pair. Those of you who are familiar with the process will know that having this setup won't be a problem during mixdown, as long as I got the relative levels between the channels correct during recording. No problem.

During the first break, very relieved that I had solved the issue, I casually mentioned it in conversation with the band. Much to my surprise, they absolutely flipped out. They couldn't believe I could be so unprofessional, so uncaring about the music they were so carefully crafting on stage. And no, that's not an exaggeration. They informed me in very elevated language that I had just ruined their career, and given them a handicap that no one else on the album would have, thus possibly destroying their local reputation as well.

When it came time to mix, 27 out of 28 bands approved their first mixes. But this band was livid - everything was wrong, there was no "life" in the mix, and it was brought up many times in the several conversations about it that the obvious culprit was not having enough tracks. Through this whole process, I was very open with them, telling them that only two tracks had been reassigned, but that just didn't make any difference to them.

I added more reverb, pitch correction, compression, and doubling to their mix, as they requested. That second mix was still not good enough. So I did a third mix, editing out more performance mistakes, changing reverb and compression, and generally trying to give them a pop-oriented, highly produced mix that sounded very unlike something one would expect to hear from a Folk band. My protestations that it wouldn't sound like the other bands fell on unhearing ears. They were determined to get everything they possibly could out of the recording, whether the source material was there or not.

So finally, the third mix was approved, but that's not the end of the story. When the double album came out, they were disappointed yet again, because their tracks didn't sound like the other bands. Why yes, dear reader, I had indeed warned them about that exact scenario playing out, about how I wanted to capture the feel of the musicians for a live album, not go in and sand off all the live magic from a small club. But I had done just that, and spent several extra days in the studio (before we had recallable automation) giving them something I knew they didn't want, and would never have asked for in any other circumstance. That was another mistake I made.

Now we have a CD that is a self-fulfilling prophecy, though not for the reasons they think it is. Their tracks sound like an over-produced studio Folk melange of hypercompression and long reverb, damaging their reputation, just as they had foreseen, and it was my fault. Part of my fault was in trying to appease them during mixdown, because I should have realized it was simply impossible for anything about it to be what they now wanted it to be. I should have told them it was my production and my decision, and they had no say in it. But my personality won't allow that. I give in far too easily, to try to make my clients happy.

But mostly, it was definitely my fault for letting them know that one of my machines had gone down. Had I kept my big mouth shut in the first place, I would have saved myself three studio days and kept a client happy.

So What Do You Do When That Happens?

Here are a few basic guidelines I've come up with, but of course you're free to add your own:

1. Don't tell anybody anything.
If your client isn't there, no worries! No one will ever have to know, as long as you keep quiet about it later. If your client is present (and this includes any human being at the shoot, because they can always blab when talking to someone after the fact), keep them engaged in conversation about anything at all while you fix whatever you need to fix. Talk about the car or model you're shooting, and what your plans are for the shoot, as though you're telling them your secret methods that no one else knows about. While they think they're getting the inside scoop, you're figuring out how to use two lights instead of six. Or the location wall instead of the white backdrop you forgot. Or you have time to switch radio trigger systems, or even figure out how to use no triggers at all.

2. If they ask, deflect, deflect, deflect. Spin, spin, spin.
You don't have to lie to them. Well, usually. But you're going to need to think quickly. If they ask why you're changing lenses, tell them you were experimenting, but the other lens you have to pull out of the trunk will do this job better. That's certainly no lie if you just broke your primary lens!

If they notice you're not setting up as much stuff as you told them you were bringing, tell them these new lights will do a better job than the old junkers you had planned on bringing. Come up with a reason why you either had to change gear, or use less. Turn it into a positive. Keep in mind the mantra that "this other" gear will be better, and less gear will be better. Ansel Adams had one camera and no lights. You think you can do better with ten lights and four bodies? You may even literally come up with something better than you imagined, when you force yourself to think on your feet, to solve problems you weren't anticipating. The best music and art in human history was produced by working within economic limitations and seemingly random genre rules.

3. They may still know.
Yes, they may, if they're very savvy, and they're hands-on enough to know that no photographer would use a brick wall out of preference, rather than necessity, or a 55-gallon drum as a light stand. If they saw you break your lens, make sure they know it's fortunate that the cheaper one broke, since the good one's still in the case! That's certainly not a lie either, since your $1500 lens is now worth about $4 as a paperweight. Or when you have to ask them if they have a white sheet somewhere, and they ask you why you didn't bring enough, you can say "I just had a cool idea I've never thought of before, and I want to try it out today, here with you." If they can't come up with what you need, but they have something else, say "Oh, that's even better - let's use that!" You've turned a potentially disastrous PR nightmare into something the client will be bragging to his friends about as soon as you leave. They're part of a new experience, and suddenly they're excited to see what you come up with.

Now you'd better come up with it, even if they brought back a blue curtain instead of a white sheet. While you're setting up with the reduced gear level, start explaining in small pieces (don't be too verbose, or they'll get suspicious) why this will be better than having too much gear, and your impressed client will come along for the ride. This is your chance to either build your reputation and relationship with this client, or damage them both.

The Greatest Life on Earth

2014-06-01T15:59:00.002-07:00

(Note: This piece is made up of scraps from a book I was to write about life in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. The book now probably won't be written, but the story still needs to be told. This is a portion of it.)

It's been close to 130 years since the Ringling Brothers first started their circus. With this monstrous production almost the entire time has been the railroad train, thundering and grumbling down the parallel steelway, always on its way to the next magical destination, bringing with it a conglomeration of all types of stars, workers, trainers, families and corrallers from all walks of life all over the world.

Nowhere else on Earth does the storied Melting Pot take hold so forcefully, so mystically. And all in the name of Entertainment. This truly is the epitome, the very definition, of Show Business, and the strongest societal magnet of all for millions of young children over the last century-plus, dreaming of life on the road with what feels like an endless menagerie of exotic animals, seeing cities and towns they would never otherwise experience, and meeting wonderful new people every day of their lives.

With the advent of faster transportation and a faster society, the combined magic of train travel and the circus life has become much less mainstream in attitude and feel than in previous generations. But for those in the know, the life persists, and will continue to feed the nomad showman's soul in a way that is inescapable, unforgettable, and life-forming. Let's take a peek inside that life for just a second. Those big steel wheels are ready to roll.

The Train

There are actually TWO full train productions of the Circus, both travelling various parts of North America at any given time. The Barnum circus train is the only privately-owned train allowed on Amtrack tracks. The train carries every scrap of the show and all the people required to put it on, and it lumbers into town a day or two before the first scheduled performance. A trainyard spot is reserved for the community to park, since they need someplace to come back to every night after the show. So while the surroundings of the sleeping area are familiar, the homes of the showpeople and staff are constantly changing their surroundings. The level of welcome in what are working and busy trainyards varies, with everyone trying their best to get along in unfamiliar surroundings. This first shot shows a worker emptying trash bags that are hung outside the berth areas. There simply isn't room inside the train for them, and it's critically important that the trainyard not become a dump, out of respect for all parties involved. Note that satellite dish!

I'm lucky enough to have a good friend inside the circus: Jerome Giancola plays bass for Ringling Brothers, and has been on their roster for about two years. I met him when I owned a record label, auditioning players for an American Idol singer. Jerome has had a very interesting career, including not only session work, but also recording, playing on cruise ships, and a number of other interesting forays that are not too common in the Music Industry.

Even while on the road with Ringling, Jerome stays busy with other artists by recording tracks for them in his state-of-the-art studio, dining room, storage space/kitchen/bedroom, pictured here. Note the presence of the laptop, allowing him to record over previously-supplied multitracks, or even create all-new materials ready to be uploaded thousand of miles away for final album construction.

The Life

Once in town, every effort is made to keep life as normal as possible. Bikes are common, and are parked nearby so that grocery runs and sightseeing can be accomplished. The size of the accommodations varies depending on the person's job and seniority. Most of the performers bring their entire families with them, and get together for family activities during every possible moment of free time. After the show, I noticed a number families bringing their kids out to the stage floor to have them exercise while the parents practiced for the next night's routine. Many of these families have known nothing but the circus for generations, and not just with Ringling Brothers. Almost every nationality and race is represented, and many other circuses feed their talent into Ringling, with the inverse also being true.

Here Jerome (right) socializes with Geoff Fruchy, one of the managers of concessions, around midnight, when most of the activity happens around the train. There are many jobs within the traveling organization, from rigging, through electricians, booth staff, safety, train specialists, animal handlers and trainers, and the band, to say nothing of the performers. This truly is a city on wheels, with a gratifying and challenging variety of personalities and human experience that can be found nowhere else.

Without fail, every person I met during my all-too short visit was friendly, receptive, and happy to see me. And they were also very willing to share their stories. There's no room for that here, but I'm very hopeful that I'll be able to tell some more intimate recollections at a future time.

Here's a view from the same spot as our first, but this time taken late at night, after the show. I include it because there's a wonderful time of night in Show Business, when the crowd has gone home, you as the performer know you've done your job, and now it's time for some peace and quiet. Outside of Show Business, I've never experienced anything like the solitude and Universal Consciousness of being in a familiar, yet unfamiliar place, unwinding with friends and strangers. It's as though the rest of the Universe has completely stopped, and is allowing you some peace.

There's only one feeling that eclipses it, and that's the feeling you get when you pull out of one town, and sometime later on, whether it be hours or days, pull into the next. It's like you've given everything you are to one place, and are ready to move on. Maybe it's also that anything unpleasant that may have happened can now be put permanently in the rear view, looking forward only to better days. Then, when you pull into the next town, there's a wonderful feeling of hope and happiness at what might lay ahead. Of course, after you've been through enough cities and towns, you know it's not really true. But the feeling is there nonetheless. It's like a drug. Perhaps that's what keeps us a partially nomadic species; the hope of what's just around the corner.

As I mentioned above, there's much, much more to this story. You haven't met Jerome, nor any of the fascinating people he works with. Perhaps we can explore that more next time.

The Lost "Works" of Andy Warhol - an Exercise in Quotation Marks

2014-05-19T08:58:00.000-07:00

An interesting forensic project was completed late last year, culminating in the release of a documentary and exhibition this year at the Warhol Museum. It involved the recovery of a number of items saved on Amiga 1000 discs by Andy Warhol. A few of them had been thought to be lost, and the rest weren't even known until they were pulled off the discs and viewed. When I say "interesting," I don't mean it in the sense that I believe these are newly-recovered works of genius. Rather, I believe that this recovery has only further shown what a tremendous sham Warhol was, and that the public reaction to what has been found shows how fully modern society continues to hoodwink themselves into believing they've seen genius.

My interest was piqued by three of these files; a portrait of Debbie Harry (a perennial favorite subject of Warhol's), a detail from Botticelli's Venus Rising, and a pastiche of color that's more or less a self-portrait.

Debbie Harry's Portrait

Debbie Harry, courtesy Warhol Museum

This file was created on July 23rd, 1985 as part of a live demonstration of the capabilities of the then-just-released Amiga 1000. Out of necessity (and wisdom) it was a fairly simple setup, consisting of the Amiga with a camera connected to it, and the software Graphicraft (or by some reports, its big brother ProPaint) loaded on the computer. During the demo, all that occurred to create this portrait was that a still frame was taken of Ms. Harry and transferred automatically into Graphicraft, where Warhol used a fill tool to create some color regions.

The entire process took about a minute, from capture, through fill, to completion. There are many written accounts of this particular "work," as putative as the BBC and Salon, along with many others, with one word in common: Painting. Even though I'm not a painter, I find the use of this word offensive for two reasons. Obviously it wasn't physically painted, but that's not what really offends me. First, and the more obvious, there weren't any strokes of color using the mouse, no shading technique, no practice of any drawing craft, indeed not a single action or thought that could even remotely be construed as painting of any kind. There are many fine artists working in the computer medium whose work could, even in 1985, be considered "painting." Their practiced techniques and use of the tools available are in complete harmony with the word, despite not using real paint. I'm offended on their behalf.

Second, because pressing the term "painted" into use implies a practiced skill that doesn't exist in this case, its evocation unnecessarily elevates a simple sequence of steps into the lofty world of fine art, and drags its alleged perpetrator along for the ride, into a realm he is unworthy of populating. Continuing a charade that Warhol himself admitted to using, readers with only a passing familiarity with his work are haplessly deluded into thinking he was a painter.

A commentator during the Amiga unveiling proudly exclaimed that this type of thing had "never been done before." Except perhaps by the programmer, who built the flood fill tool for precisely that purpose, and undoubtedly used it precisely as Warhol did hundreds of times in testing and recreation.

The Three-Eyed Venus

Warhol's Venus, courtesy Warhol Museum

Botticelli's Venus, detail, in common use

At some point during his foray into the computer world, Warhol also saved an image of a detail of Botticelli's Venus. This was another piece found during the digital excavation process, and indeed it had never before been seen, as exclaimed by the archaeologists. (Skip ahead to the 14 minute mark.) But even more interesting is the original of the image. When I first saw it, prior to the release of the documentary, I immediately thought that he had scanned the image and done a simple copy and paste to get the extra eye. But overlaying Warhol's file onto other scans of Venus only proved that scanning or photography were not the techniques used. Regardless of any scaling, skewing or warping, there was simply no way this was a scan, or even an off-axis photograph . Wait just a minute - had I underestimated Warhol's talent after all? Had he gone so far as to reinterpret the image in his own painting hand, making some of the hairs different colors, and mutating the scale in each axis, actually creating a new work?

No. As was casually revealed in the above-referenced clip, Warhol simply took a piece of clipart from the existing Amiga library, copied and pasted an extra eye onto it, and is hailed as a genius and visionary. Sure, he never released it, or even signed it, and that's to his credit, even though some of his works are unsigned. The truly irksome facet of the entire exercise is the fashion in which the people viewing the file are so enamored by it. All credit is given to the person who used someone else's image, without so much as a fleeting thought about the person who actually painted it in the first place for the clipart collection. This is really the heart of the Warhol facade, as this same process is repeated over and over throughout his catalogue, giving praise to prints that are not only not one-of-a-kind works of art, but that are at their heart stolen from other people who took the time to create an image. If an image is re-purposed or appropriated, that's part of art, and always has been. But the process should be transformative, not imitative. Taking an image and passing it off as your own creation, when all you've done is a slight and simple modification, is dishonest.

A quick aside here: United States copyright law has held interesting exceptions for works of art under the umbrella of fair use, as opposed to those items meant for mass consumption, such as a poster. If a work is created that is either substantially similar to, or based substantially on, another work, then it is a copyright infringement, particularly if used for said mass consumption, and thus is not considered to be "fair use." However, if only a single work is made, and is thus a work of art, then a blanket exception is often granted, since the market for the original would not be affected, unless it is reasonably indistinguishable from the original. This partial reading of the concept of fair use is quite subject to the judge hearing the case, as in Cariou v. Prince, which was initially found in favor of the photographer whose work was appropriated. Upon appeal, the Second Circuit found in favor of the artist who "borrowed" Cariou's photographs. Cariou appealed, but was rejected. As many artists have found, trying to blur these lines will land you in some legal trouble in the modern world. Warhol wasn't particularly fond of one-of-a-kind originals, which he eschewed in favor of prints, each designed to be sold for a profit. That makes his works of that type much more infringing than they would have been had he made only a single work of art from each one.

Self-Portrait

Andy Warhol, courtesy Warhol Museum

This file was also never released in Warhol's lifetime, though unlike the preceding two, it is signed. I include this item as a juxtaposition to the previous two, because it displays an interesting curiosity and willingness to work with new ideas and textures, even if it is somewhat primitive. The background texture fills also give an odd 3-d effect to Warhol's face, enhancing the power of the image. To me, this is unquestionably the most important, and most interesting, work found in the Warhol Amiga archive.

Even at its most interesting, and most evocative of what Warhol would have tried to do with physical media if he could, this file is still primitive enough that it can only be considered noodling. That's not an insult to this piece - Warhol was indeed noodling with the Amiga, and was not able to spend enough time with it to bring out a technique that would have been very lasting. Instead, something was created that reflected the banality of the 1980's, though that was probably not his intent.

Some would say that the primitive nature of this piece was due to the primitive nature of the Amiga itself. After all, computer graphics were in their infancy, not yet having developed even to the point where the rest of the art world could even deride them. But that's a copout, as the tools cannot define the artist. If one wishes to see what a real artist did with Graphicraft, look no further than Jim Sachs, whose graphics work on the games Defender of the Crown and Centurion, Defender of Rome were done entirely with that program. Video gaming pioneer and creator RJ Mical (who also helped invent the Amiga computer) said of Sachs, "Jim Sachs, what a God he is," marvels Mical. "Jim Sachs is amazing. These days everyone sees graphics like that because there are a lot of really good computer graphics artists now, but back then, 20 years ago, it was astonishing to have someone that good."

The Enduring Mystery

There seems to be no end to the willing group hypnosis of the Warhol Effect. Even mainstay art critics can't seem to fathom the monster they've created. For example, Jonathan Jones, in his overview of the Amiga project, said these two things, in the very same article: "[Warhol] was our greatest visual prophet" and "[Warhol] made paintings on a production line, with assistants silkscreening found photographs onto canvas." The irony of those two statements juxtaposed together seems lost not only on Jones, but on the entire rest of the art world.

The Secret to Great Panning Shots

2014-03-25T19:49:00.002-07:00

I'll just go ahead and let the cat out of the bag right at the beginning: The secret to getting a great panning shot is that there's no secret. It takes practice, practice and more practice. Once you have the camera settings correct, the rest is just down to timing and finesse. Getting ready for your first motorsport event boils down to three things: Settings on the camera, thinking about your composition, and practicing movement.

1. The Settings

When doing a motion shot, the chances are you'll be either at a racetrack or on the street, and it will be daytime. In those conditions, Automatic settings will be too fast for you to get the right motion, so you'll need to either set everything yourself in Manual, or use Shutter Priority. Use Shutter Priority for now. Since we want to show blur, shutter speed is the most important factor. For racetracks, or wherever the cars are going over 100MPH, I'll usually start at 1/60 for medium-frame, and as I zoom closer to the car, I'll get up to 1/100. This is a guideline only and will require some experimentation, since the best-looking blur will need different shutter speeds, depending not only on how much of the frame is filled with the car, but also how fast the car is going, and your angle to the car. If a car is coming almost straight at you, you'll need to leave the shutter open longer, since you'll be moving the camera more slowly.

Focus is critical here. If your camera has a FAST autofocus, you can use that, but most cameras won't be able to keep up with the movement, so you'll need to adjust the focus manually as the car moves past your field of view. Give the autofocus a shot, but don't be surprised if you need to take over. This will take a lot of practice, so don't be discouraged at the number of OOF (out-of-focus) shots you take. You can fake it by being far away from the action and being focused on infinity while zooming way in, but keeping the car in frame will be more difficult.

2. Composition and Framing

Basics

Generally, the same guidelines (rule of thirds and angles of interest, among others) apply when shooting motion as when shooting still, but here you'll want to try to lead the viewer into thinking the car is literally in motion. To assist in this, you'll most often want to shoot with the back of the car near the edge of the frame, and the nose of the car near the middle of the frame. This helps the viewer realize that the car is moving forward, by forcing us to look ahead of the speeding car, and shows us that the action will soon be taking place to the front of the car. However, depending on the shot you're trying to portray, it may be just as valid to do the opposite; put the rear of the car in the center of the frame. This is very useful when showing a burnout, as it not only shows the smoke and rubber, but also tells our brain that the car is leaving the frame very quickly. Here, the interest is in what just happened, not what's about to. Just keep in mind the type of shot you want.

This shot gives the illusion
of motion, but the car does
get lost when the picture is
small, as it is here!

As You Get Better
The most interesting action shots of motorsports often won't have the whole car, or bike, in the frame. So try to concentrate on a portion of the car that promotes movement and power. That can be a corporate logo, the front showing the engine bay, the driver finessing through a curve, the front tire kissing the median strip, or a hundred other angles. Use your imagination! For bikes, try to show how hard the rider is working, which will be more evident while he's in the air, in the middle of a turn, or passing another rider.

You can also start introducing other elements into your shots, like the grandstand, pit area, other cars or riders, or even landmarks!

Using less of the car gives more of an impact.

3. Practicing Movement

This is where the practice comes in. You'll be moving the camera in order to keep the car still in the frame, which will allow it to remain in focus. Keep one elbow against your body to help out. Use your other hand to hold up the lens and move focus at the same time. And keep your finger on that shutter, firing off as many shots as you can. The days of film are long gone, so fill up that card while you're learning. It may not surprise you that the photographers shooting the most recent Olympics expected to shoot over 100,000 frames during the two weeks of games. So now it doesn't seem that bad to burn through a thousand shots in a few hours, does it?

Practice makes perfect, but don't be surprised if you don't get any usable shots the first time out. Even after a couple of days of practice with various angles, you still may have 90% garbage, 8 or 9% not-all-that-great, and 1 or 2% that's usable. That's fine! Your percentage will go up as you work harder.

What Have We Learned?

The most important lesson to take from this is that the settings will come easily, but the technique will not. You should come up with ways of making things easier for yourself, like using a tripod with a loosened collar or a monopod, but you shouldn't think that you can get wonderful shots the first time out. But if you work at it, you'll get to the point where you're confident enough in your abilities that you'll know you can get great shots at any event.

Four Tips for Selecting the Right Art

2014-02-19T11:59:00.000-08:00

I’ve been researching sites and blogs that talk about selecting art, and I find it both notable and depressing that only the tiniest percentage even mention what is by far the most important rule about art. The first consideration for most of them is color! Sure, color is important. But pick an artwork based on its color, and you’ll end up with a wall hanging that means nothing to you, and is disposable as soon as you replace your throw pillows. Instead, here’s your first rule:

Purchase a piece that speaks about something that is significant to you. Too many people simply pick something with a color that matches their curtains, and never get a chance to really live inside the piece. For me, that's a waste of a good wall, and that's why I make art that is specific to the buyer. If you own a '68 GTO, you've already put a great deal of time and money into it. You should be able to bring that effort, appreciation and history inside your home or business. It will truly be a representation of a piece of you, rather than something that doesn't speak about you or to you. And don’t worry about colors. If necessary, I’ll tint or radically change the colors to fit your existing decor.
Size matters. Size may not be important in some aspects of life, but it definitely is a deal-breaker for art. If you have a big, blank wall, you don’t want a single piece that’s 10”x10” sitting in the middle of it. By the same token, a small bedroom will not visually accept a work that covers the entire wall. If you have multiple pieces on one wall, try not to have them look random in size or position. They should look like you deliberately presented them that way, and the viewer should be able to pick up on that reasoning quickly. The presence of the artwork should be prominent, but not overwhelming. I can help you decide on the best size by projecting a sample onto the walls where the artwork will live. This will answer all size and color questions very quickly, and will be less time-consuming and less expensive than test prints.
Framing is important – if you need it! Since I work mostly on aluminum, many of my clients opt for no frame at all! The aluminum is floated ½” away from the wall, giving a sleek, modern look that integrates easily with the surroundings. But I also have several framing options, all of which share that same modern aesthetic for modern artwork. Another option with my work is to back the piece with smoked or translucent colored acrylic, which not only serves as a visual frame, but is also still separated from it, highlighting the artwork even more. A trend among photographers in the last decade or so has been to place a smallish photograph inside a huge frame, using an extremely large mat to separate the piece from the room and give it its own space. I believe that if you need to separate the piece that much, it didn’t belong in that room in the first place. If we decide on a framed print, I’ll encourage (but not demand) the use of a mat that’s three inches wide on each side at most. You should be enjoying the artwork, not the mat!
Light it! Okay, so technically you’ve already selected art you care about if we’re already talking about lighting. But it’s so important that it merits inclusion here. The indirect or overhead lighting you already have is great for a living room or shop, but it won’t show off the art. And showing it off, both to yourself and to your guests, is really the whole point. It also adds a level of detail to the whole room that’s really striking. The most common options are to use track lighting or a simple recessed aimable light. Either option isn’t all that expensive, and you may even be able to do it yourself. A Halogen bulb will be the most flattering. Use a flood if the light is closer than about six or eight feet, and a spotlight if the light is farther away. If I bring a projector to your location, I’ll also bring a quick example of how lighting will elevate the art of displaying art.

You’re not alone when it comes to being confused about art selection. Don’t be afraid to ask questions – that’s what I’m here for! If you’re not pleased with the art that’s in your home right now, I’d be willing to bet it’s because of point #1 above. Let’s talk about how to change your outlook on art!

Medium-Sized Artwork for a Medium-Sized Wall.
(Headlight assembly of a Ferrari 458 Italia)

Large Artworks for Large Walls!
(Lexus parking lights and off-road
truck undercarriage, respectively, from SEMA)