Photography by John Corney

Sunset Photos

2008-07-21T22:07:00.000-07:00

I spent this 4th July holiday weekend in the San Bernadino mountain range near Lake Arrowhead with a group of friends. The place we stayed at had a deck on the upper level that faced the north-west so we got a great view of the mid-summer sunset. I've just posted 3 sunset photos I took on the night of July 4th, and also started a sunset photo gallery that includes the one I used for the Sure to Rise series, "but sans-JC". See them all in the Sunset Photo Gallery.

Sure to Rise Series

2008-07-20T17:50:00.000-07:00

A lot of my friends are sure to get a giggle out of this series knowing of my Catholic background and now lapsed status. And who would have thought an excursion on Friday night to attempt some shots at the full moon rising over Irvine would lead to this. I went out at about 7:30pm to make sure I could find myself a spot to take my moon shots, and of course the sun was still setting, so hey, gotta take a photo of the sunset of course. So when I was looking at the sunset shots this afternoon I noticed the rays of the sun, and a good Catholic boy of course automatically sees visions from his past of resurrections and fiery hearts. So here we are with a series of photos with the resurrected Christ in a fiery sunset.

The "Sure to Rise" name comes from the marketing tag line for New Zealand baking powder maker, Edmonds. The company is a household name in New Zealand and famous for its Edmonds Cookery Book that can be found in the kitchens of probably almost every New Zealand home. The cover of the classic Edmond's cook book and the cans and packages of Edmonds baking powder all feature the sun's rays to give emphasis to the "sure to rise" qualities of the product.

So now you have the answer to the deep psychological mystery of this series of photos.

See the series at the Sure to Rise Slideshow

Greeting cards, prints, and custom framing are availabe for these photos from my Sure To Rise gallery at Imagekind

ExperienceLA - Issue 226 (Reinterpretations)

2008-07-17T17:33:00.000-07:00

Just a quick toot of the horn here. You might recall my recent photo series from LA's Union Station. I submitted one of the photos of Traxx Restaurant to the Experience LA group at Flickr and was "chuffed" to see in today's weekly Experience LA Newsletter that my photo was picked as "photo of the week".

Bryce Canyon Fantasy

2008-07-15T21:58:00.000-07:00

And now for something completely different. In this month's edition of Photoshop User Magazine, Bert Monroy gives a lesson on adding a starry sky to a photo. I thought I'd try it out for some fun and to learn some new tricks and used this photo of Bryce Canyon in Utah that I took a couple of years ago.

Bert is a master of digital art. I went to a training class given by him in LA last year and was just blown away by what the guy can do and as I felt overwhelmed by his mastery of Photoshop and the sheer volume of information he was passing out I kept thinking to myself "What the hell am I doing here"! Bert paints with Photoshop in the same way an artist paints with a brush. He only takes photos of his subject matter to act as aids to memory and for sketching his work; his "paintings" are made completely with Photoshop.

At the time I took his class he had not long finished his masterpiece of the Damen Station on the Blue Line of the Chicago Transit Authority (Damen can be seen on Bert Monroy's website). He told us that the months and months of painstaking work (about 2000 hours in all) that he put into this huge 40x120 inch digital painting left him feeling like he never wanted to do anything like that again.

Anyhow, my piece of fantasy art looks rather rudimentary, but it was fun and I learned some new things. (See larger version here)

If you want to learn more about using Photoshop, I recommend joining the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. As part of your membership you'll get the Photoshop User magazine, which is always jammed full with Photoshop lessons for beginners to advanced. Click here to join NAPP

Yellow Day Lilly

2008-07-06T21:01:00.000-07:00

I splurged on a new Canon 5D recently and took it with me to get some practice shots when I was walking my dog the other day . I spotted some yellow day lillies and took this shot.

Flower photo gallery

Unframed or framed prints of this photo of a yellow day lilly can be purchased through my gallery at ImageKind

Union Station Los Angeles

2008-06-30T23:01:00.000-07:00

Although the era when traveling by train was the main mode of transportation has passed, the Los Angeles Union Station is still a grand old place that seems to get some TLC. Opened in May 1939, the station is a great example of art deco architecture. Despite what people think of L.A. and that everyone gets around in a car, when I was there on Saturday afternoon there was a constant crowd of people coming and going to and from trains.

Los Angeles Union Station Slideshow

Read about Los Angeles Union Station at Wikipedia

Song Sparrow in Spring Wildflowers #2

2008-06-26T21:11:00.000-07:00

It was almost exactly a year ago that I did this post of a song sparrow singing his heart out in the wildflowers along the boardwalk at Moonstone Beach, Cambria, CA. I actually captured two photos of this little guy and just applied the "digital darkroom" techniques I have learned over the last 12 months through my membership with the National Association of Photoshop Professionals to that second photo which is the one you see here. I hope you like it. I personally love the colors in this photo. See this photo in the bird photo gallery.

Order prints of this or other bird photos through my gallery at ImageKind.

San Diego Zoo Wild Animal Park Animals

2008-06-25T23:35:00.000-07:00

I've been looking back over the photos I took at the San Diego Zoo Wild Animal Park this past spring and have been putting together a set of photos of the various animals at the park, both of the feathered and furry kind. Animals make such great subjects to photograph - for a start, they are a lot less critical of how they look in the photo than are people!

San Diego Zoo Animals Slide Show

Flamingo

2008-06-19T22:44:00.000-07:00

If you've ever seen flamingos anywhere you'll appreciate how fascinating they are to observe. They are forever bunched up in a crowd, bobbing and swaying their heads, skimming their upside-down beaks across the surface of the water in a swaying motion, or scrapping for territory with their nearest neighbor.

All this fascinating behavior, however, makes them pretty hard to photograph. There's always a lot of movement and it's hard to get just one of the scrawny buggers in the frame at a time. Case in point here. I had to do some major blurring and masking to remove the distraction of the head of the second bird in the background.

See this photo of a flamingo in the bird photo gallery

Fuchsia Photo Set

2008-06-16T23:14:00.001-07:00

When I was growing up my father was always a great fuchsia enthusiast. He had a backyard that was crammed full of about 60 different kinds of fuchsia. It's from my years of shadowing him in his garden as a kid that I learned my love of gardening myself. The funny thing is that I have never grown fuchsias - well until recently when I bought one with a gift voucher I got for my birthday. I should really know the name of this fuchsia as I recognize it as one that my dad definitely had in his garden. Anyhow, now that it's started to flower in my garden, I had to take a photo of it and made this set. I guess I know what I can give him for Christmas this year.

Fuchsia Flower Set Slideshow Gallery

Wedding Bells Ring for Carin and Teresa

2008-06-15T12:30:00.000-07:00

At 5pm this Monday, June 16th, gay marriage will become a reality in California. My friends Carin and Teresa are planning their wedding for August, and asked me if I could take some photos of them for their wedding invitation. I thought I'd share a handful of the photos I took of the happy couple. Congratulations on your big decision, Carin and Teresa!

If you are a gay or lesbian couple planning on getting married in California and would like me to assist with your photography needs, please send me an email.

Canon 5D on sale - Is a new model release around the corner

2008-06-13T19:21:00.000-07:00

The Canon 5D, which is considered to fall within the "professional" segment of the camera market, is currently being offered widely for less than $2000 (body only - previously sold for $3000), so the photography blogs are abuzz with speculation that Canon is about to release an update of the camera within the next few months and is now trying to clear inventory.

The 5D was released way back in August 2005 so is definitely due for an update. If it follows its big brother, the 1D, it will be called something like 5DII. So if you are in the market for a new camera and ready to move up to a "pro-level" camera, then you have a few options to consider. Decisions, Decisions!

For a start you could wait for the new release of the 5D, whatever it will be called, so that you don't miss out on any of the new bells and whistles. But of course you will need a bigger budget for that. It's obviously going to be at least $3000.

Or you could go for the recently-released Canon 40D, the high-end "pro-sumer" (professional at the consumer level...get it?) camera that is an exceptionally good camera available with lens kit for around $1500, or as a body-only deal for around $1,000.

Or you go for the 5D at around $2000. Why? The main thing you're going for is that the sensor in the 5D is a "full-format" sensor. The sensors in the 40D and Rebel series cameras are not full-sized sensors so your images in fact suffer from some cropping. This effect is more pronounced at the lower end of your lens' focal range. Just imagine the light coming through the lens and falling on the sensor but with the outer edges of the light being wider than the sensor itself. So with the 5D you get the full focal range of your lenses, as well as all exceptional technology of the camera itself.

Bodie Car Graveyard

2008-06-11T21:58:00.001-07:00

Although Bodie's heyday was in the 1880s, people lived there in modern times too up till the time it became one of California's state parks in 1962. So obviously this was well into the era of the automobile. There's a few rusting hulks laying about Bodie, such as these in this photo. The paint is long gone on these cars, but the bodies themselves appear to have only surface rust. They don't build them like they used to, do they! I remember when my dad bought his first Japanese-made car, and my grandfather making fun of him about how thin and light the metal was. I can hear him saying "What's this! A sardine can?"

Slide show of photos of Bodie State Historic Park

Original Photo Used for Bodie HDR Interpretation

2008-06-10T21:35:00.001-07:00

Michael Ziegler who keeps an eye on my posts, added a comment to the posting I did of an HDR interpretation of one of the photos I took at Bodie State Park in California, asking if I could post the original photo for comparison which I thought was a great idea, so here are the before and after photos side-by-side for you to see.

Mono Lake Photo Series

2008-06-09T18:56:00.000-07:00

Mono Lake, California, sits at the western edge of The Great Basin, the expansive drainage area that lies between the Rocky Mountains in the east, and the Sierra Nevada range in the west. All lakes from Salt Lake in Utah across to Mono Lake in the west have no outlet to the sea and over thousands of years as a result of evaporation have become highly concentrated in salts.

Despite the waters of Mono Lake being too alkaline to support fish life, the waters abound with brine shrimp and alkali fly pupa which support millions of migrating birds.

Limestone towers known as "tufa" rise from the lake, formed by freshwater springs percolating up into the lake. The calcium in the fresh water combines with the carbonate in the lake water to form the calcium carbonate from which the tufas form. If you've ever been in limestone caves with stalagmites, you will recognize them as essentially the same things but formed by different processes.

In the photos of Mono Lake that I have published, you will see nature's dramatic primary color palette composed of a bright green lake and bright blue sky. It was quite a sight! I also did several of them as sepia-toned photos. And right there to the west is the very edge of the Sierra Nevada range. What a place! Get in a visit if you can some day.

By the way, if the bottom of the photos are cut off on your computer screen, did you know that by pressing the F11 key on your computer keyboard, you can hide your browser menu bars and get to see more of the picutures. When you're done, just press the F11 key again to show you menu bars again. This works for Internet Explorer - I'm not sure if it works the same with other browers.

Slide Show of Photos of Mono Lake

Read more about Mono Lake

Cyclist

2008-06-04T20:25:00.000-07:00

If there's a crowd gathered, why not make the most of it? After all, what's a crowd for? This cyclist cruised by at last month's Long Beach Gay Pride parade making the most of the audience.

Action photo slide show

Bodie State Historic Park Sepia Photo Set

2008-06-02T20:39:00.001-07:00

All the photos I've posted of the ghost town of Bodie have beautiful bright blue skies, but if you saw some of the photos of Bodie in the museum at the park there's no blue sky to be seen of course. They are old black and white photos and in pretty bad condition. Anyhow, the subject matter seemed to suit some black and white interpretations on my part, so here are my Bodie photos in sepia.

In early photographic grayscale developing, sepia toning was achieved by replacing the metallic silver in the emulsion with a silver compound, such as silver sulfide. The resulting prints with their yellowish tone got the name "sepia" after the color of the sepia cuttlefish found in the English Channel. Because of the smell of silver sulphide, sepia toning was often referred to as "rotten egg" toning.

Slide show of Bodie sepia toned photo set

Sonora Pass Hwy 108 Photo Set

2008-06-01T22:01:00.001-07:00

On our recent trip to Yosemite, Bodie State Park and Mono Lake where also on our itinerary. They are both on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Range and easily accessible by crossing through Yosemite Valley and east over the Sierras via the Tioga Pass. However, since the Tioga Pass was still closed with snow from the past winter we had to skirt round Yosemite by going to the north of the park taking Highway 108 over the Sonora Pass. We were lucky here as the Sonora Pass had only just opened itself that weekend. Despite the extra time and miles added to our trip, we ended up not minding it at all as the scenery on the way was incredibly beautiful, starting with the Stanislaus National Forest and then the Sonora Pass itself. By time we got to the area of the pass it was late afternoon, the sun was getting low in the sky behind us, and the light was just perfect. We couldn't but make frequent stops to take photos.

I've posted a small set of them in the photo galleries.

Sonora Pass Hwy 108 Photo Slide Show Gallery

By the way, you might not have noticed that the url for my photo blog is now www.johncorney.com. Hopefully much easier for you to remember and type if you have to.

Storage Shed at the Standard Mill, Bodie State Historic Park

2008-05-28T22:49:00.000-07:00

The Standard Mill in Bodie State Historic Park, CA, used to process the silver and gold ore from the Standard Mine. Although still mostly intact, this area is closed off to visitors of the park as being "hazardous".

See The Storage Shed in the Bodie slide show gallery

Bodie HDR Interpretation

2008-05-24T17:39:00.000-07:00

HDR (high dynamic range) imaging is a fun thing to play around with. You are meant to start with a set of photos of the same shot taken at different exposures, but I find that I get nice effects as in the photo to the left by just taking one photo, using Photoshop RAW processor to create two new copies of the image with a -2 and a +2 exposure value, and then using them and the original image as a set of three to process as an HDR image. You have to use software such as Photoshop or other software programs available for sale to combine the images into one. The highlights of the image are formed using the highlights in the underexposed image, the shadows are formed using the shadows in the overexposed image, and then blended with the correctly exposed image. The outcome is greater detail across the entire dynamic range: shadows, through midtones, to highlights.

In this photo the distant mountains and clouds give a great effect, almost like "sumi-e" or ink drawings.

This and other photos of Bodie can be viewed in the Bodie slideshow gallery or the static html Bodie gallery.

Update: Michael Ziegler who keeps an eye on my photoblog posts, added a comment below asking if I could post the original photo which I thought was a great idea, so here it is:

Sister Lupita

2008-05-22T21:47:00.001-07:00

In name, dress, and antics, the "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence" are the personification of "theatrical camp". But it's serious business: Wikipedia states that the San Francisco order has raised and distributed over $1million to charities over the years. The first nuns of the order stepped out into public on the streets of San Francisco on Easter Sunday 1979.

According to the website for the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the Sisters' mission statement states:

The Sisters devote [themselves] to community service, ministry and outreach to those on the edges, and to promoting human rights, respect for diversity and spiritual enlightenment. The Sisters believe all people have a right to express their unique joy and beauty and use humor and irreverent wit to expose the forces of bigotry, complacency and guilt that chain the human spirit. The Sisters' state vows to promulgate universal joy and expiate stigmatic guilt while serving their respective communities.

My photo of the sister above was taken at this year's gay pride parade in Long Beach this past Sunday. See this Sister of Perpetual Indulgence in my People and Portraits gallery. And go here for a collection of photos from the 2008 Gay Pride Parade and festival in Long Beach.

P.S. Sr. Iona kindly shared below the identiy of this sister after my original post. The kind sister in this photo is Sr. Lupita from the L.A. Sisters of Pepetutal Indulgence.

Methodist Church Bodie Ghost Town

2008-05-19T20:23:00.000-07:00

The old Methodist church in Bodie is the only remaining church in the ghost town. It was built in 1882. The church was restored by E.J Clinton of San Francisco who held the final service here in 1932.

Since then the interior of the church has been badly vandalized, and the Ten Commandments painted on oilcloth which used to hang behind the pulpit has been stolen. So much for the 8th Commandment!

Slide show of photos of Bodie

Old Shell Oil Gas Pumps at Bodie Ghost Town

2008-05-19T19:56:00.000-07:00

These old Shell Oil gas pumps at Bodie stand out. It's not what you expect in a ghost town that had its heyday in the 1880s, but Bodie obviously limped along into the era of the automobile before the ghosts moved in. Because they are so "modern" they stand out and create a great juxtaposition against all the wood and brick.

Turned on by old gas pumps? Then also see this photo of an old "petrol" pump that I took on a trip to my hometown environs in New Zealand in 2007.

Bodie Ghost Town Slide Show