Elk Cow and Calf in the Idaho Wilderness

The year is almost over. It’s not though. I love Christmas and usually do a fair amount of shooting in december, but around thanksgiving I start thinking about next year…. Becasue this year is almost over. Though it’s not over yet. Almost. Not quite. Will be shortly.

I’ve been looking at random photos in my “2009″ folder, as I look back through the year I’m happy to say I was able to do a lot of things I wanted to do, go places, shoot things. I’m happy to say that overall, my photos have gotten better. But it seems my todo list left for next year is longer rather than shorter. Next year, I believe, if I take off the months of February, April, May, July, August, September and  October… I may be able to shoot everything on my list, but something tells me that isn’t going to happen. Prioritization is in order. There are things, projects, that I want to try, new places I want to go, techniques that need tried and honed. It’s rather exciting really…

We’ve got a trip to Salmon at Christmas to see the family. Salmon is one of the most beautiful places in the world, so the camera is always handy, it’ll be a great no pressure photo trip and with that, 2009 will be over, done.

I’ve yet to plan anything major for 2010. Aside from a workshop myself and two friends, Johnny and David are organizing on January 16th, but beyond that it’s a blank page.

Speaking of blank pages, I am going to re-examine my website…  I’m asking it to do so much, that I end up not doing enough with it. I hope to roll out some structure changes around the first of the year that will make it easier for me to share my work as well as my tech and personal content without doing three separate websites. I’m constantly getting email and face to face comments (or even by proxy) about the photos I choose to post here and I realize I need to post more. So many of my photos I want to post just sit on my hard drive waiting for a blog post I can associate with them. I cant guarantee anything, but I’m gonna try my best to post the photos and let them speak for themselves without thinking I’ve got to comment everything. Though, google sure prefers I write about them

Post from: Zeb Palmer

Looking back…

Redfish Lake Moonscape (click image to see large)

I’ve said it more than once, I miss the darkroom. I’ve been wanting to pick up a new medium format camera and work black & white film again. I’d like to convert part of my studio into a darkroom and process the film myself, but considering my studio is really a bedroom and it’s already pulling double duty as my server/network room… It’s not gonna happen, though that didn’t stop me from looking around online at how much it cost me to get a medium format enlarger, or maybe a good medium format negative scanner. But putting a darkroom in my studio isn’t feasible. Hmm, the bathroom is pretty dark already… Though I doubt that’d receive a building permit from the wife.

I took this photo a couple weeks ago at Redfish lake, it was a test shot for a long exposure star trail photo. If you look REAL close, there is one star trail in this photo, but it was only a two or three minute test to get the mountains right and set a baseline for my exposure. Many of you have already seen my snow photos from this same trip, that storm popped over the mountains about 5 minutes after this was taken. Gotta love Idaho! The sun was over an hour past set, but twilight was back lighting the mountains, behind me a full moon was rising.  I knew my window between dark enough for stars and the moon coming up to ruin the shot was going to be very short. I was hoping for a twenty minute star trail shot between the two, but the clouds gathering on the other side of the mountain wouldn’t cooperate. By the time I got back to camp the snow had started. This photo was much of the inspiration for the now infamous tweet I posted about ‘being done with color.’ I realize this photo won’t impress everyone, you might not even like it. But for me, this photo came alive in post and I instantly fell in love with it, can’t wait to get a metallic print of it. Do leave a comment here or on flickr to let me know what you think.

Post from: Zeb Palmer

Moonscape: Redfish Lake

Jasper playing in the leaves

So today I made a post to twitter:

“apologies to my photo fans who like color. I’m tied of color, expect a month of black and white.”

Then I go out and take this photo…

I meant well, I really did. I love shooting black and white, there was a time that 99% of what I shot was black and white film, processed myself. These days I’m not sure I could tell a developer from a fixer, but still I miss the darkroom. In the past week or so it seems every photo I processed ended up black and white, or at least every photo I liked. After processing a photo which looked particularly good in black and white, to the point I instantly fell in love with it and want a canvas of it, I decided I was done with color… for a bit at least. I may post that photo next week, hopefully you’ll like it. Anyway, I publicly swore off color.

That is until we took Jasper on a walk on the greenbelt and stopped to play in the leaves. The sun was setting and one beam of light making it through the trees and hitting the ground below a beautiful sugar maple with deep red and orange leaves. Pulled out the 50 prime and got several great shots. I made mention of how great the colors looked with Jasper, and my wife mentioned that twitter post. You mean people actually read twitter? hmm. Maybe we’ll let this photo slide by. After all, does anything posted on twitter on the weekend actually count?

For the record, you will be seeing more black and white landscapes from me for the next few weeks. I have several I’d like to post.

Post from: Zeb Palmer

Swore off color

Snowy Beaver Pond

Sometimes I hate writing about my photos. But the photo alone counts for 1000 words right? So this post is really 1062 words instead of 62 words. Beaver pond near Stanley, Idaho. Taken a few weeks ago while I was camped up there for a planned long exposure star trail night shot. That really looks like great weather for star photography… Right?

Post from: Zeb Palmer

Beaver Pond in Snow

21 lomo

Jasper and I got the chance to spend some time in Stanley last weekend. I went up to take a chance on a planned photo. The weather did exactly what I expected it to, which meant I didn’t actually get the photo I wanted. I got the shot started but wasn’t able to complete it before the clouds rolled in. But, fresh snow is always good.

Post from: Zeb Palmer

Stanley road lomo

This one put on by Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance of Idaho. The contest “Reasons to Love Idaho”  requires to you trade your copyright for the chance of winning a Ipod.

“You must own the copyrights to any photos that you submit. Winners turn over copyright ownership of their winning photos to Farm Bureau Insurance Company.”    -FAQ

“Granting of Copyright and Acknowledgment of Right to Submit. A Contestant has the right to submit one or more photos for display in the Photo Gallery. By submitting a photo to the Photo Gallery, Contestant grants to FBM a perpetual non-exclusive, royalty-free and irrevocable right to place that photo in the Photo Gallery and to use, reproduce, copy, publish, display, distribute, adapt, modify or otherwise exploit that photo and to incorporate it in other works and to sell, license, or otherwise commercially utilize that photo.” -RULES

They could only make it worse by requiring you to sign up for a new account before they give you the ipod. I won’t give the contest the benifit of a link. If you want to read the rules yourself visit reasonstoloveidaho dot com.

No pro, or self respecting hobbyist will touch a contest like this, please share this info and ALWAYS READ CONTEST RULES. for more information, please check out my first post about bad photo contests.

Post from: Zeb Palmer

Reasons to Love Idaho – Farm Bureau’s rights grabbing photo contest

Sawtooth Lake (click image to see larger)

Been processing a few more photos from the Sawtooth Lake hike. This photo was actually from my second hike to the lake that week, when my Dad and I went up. I would really like to spend the night up there next year and do some predawn work around the lake; consider it added to the list.

Post from: Zeb Palmer

Sawtooth Lake Color Panorama

“Photographs and Articles submitted to the Idaho Statesmen and Idaho Camera shall become the property of Idaho Statesmen and Idaho Camera and may be reproduced and distributed in print, electronic, or other form for perpetuity.” source

If that doesn’t give you chills, you don’t value your work enough. For what it’s worth, that’s essentially all of the fine print, there is no link or reference to a “complete set of rules” or such. I realize that publications have to have a copyright release as part of their submission guidelines so they can print your photo in the paper or display it as a winner on their website. Some contests handle this gracefully, and I’ll participate. But many, if not most, grant themselves the right to sell prints and some, as in this case, claim to own the work. Perhaps, just perhaps, that’s not what they intended but rarely do court cases revolve on intent instead of what was written in the contract.

There are plenty of resources on the internet regarding photo contest and what to look for in the fine print of your local contests. It’s accepted they won’t send you back the print you sent in, and there will be language to that effect, that’s standard. You should expect to see language saying that you the photographer grant the company license or permission to print the photo as part of the photo contest. Read closely and be sure you can live with the “license” or “permission” you are granting. Stay far away from “own,” “become property,” “exclusive” and “perpetuity.” Always make that there is wording to the effect of: “the original photographer retains the copyright” For more information on photo contests and why many of them are bad, really, really, bad. Search google, there are plenty of rights grab stories out there. For further information about contests and photographers rights as well as examples of good and bad contests; visit: pro-imaging.org/content/view/164/161/

UPDATE:

Examples

VERY BAD: Costco Photo Contest
Good, specific rules: Maine.gov photo contest

More links: are yougambling with your copyright by entering that photography contest?

Another local, Bad photocontest. Farm Bureau of Idaho

Post from: Zeb Palmer

Idaho Statesman & Idaho Camera Photo Contest: read the fine print (of any contest)

Angie Stevens and The Mark – Boise Curb Cup 2009

I’ve been meaning to post this for a bit now. But we all know how things seem to come up, it’d been a crazy week and then came the holiday weekend. I had to put down the computer and step away from the internet for the last four days; it was nice.

Last week Joy and I went to the first annual Boise Curb Cup. I’m not sure there’s a good way to describe it, but imagine 130 different, some really different and all very random street performers gathering for a two hour competition. We didn’t hear about the event until the day before, one of my wife’s friends was going to be among the performers. But we were able to rearrange our schedule to see it.

Looking at a list of 130 entries and knowing that we had two hours that meant less than a minute per individual or group. That’s not counting getting stuck in a crowd, crossing streets etc. Yeah. not gonna happen. So somewhat randomly and based on name alone I circled 10 groups that I wanted to see, Joy added two that weren’t already on my list, together we marked a few more as 2nds.

I lived in New Orleans for three years, New Orleans is quite probably the Busking capital of the United States. For those of you not familiar with the term “Busking” (and didn’t click the link) Wikipedia: “Busking is the practice of performing in public places for tips and gratuities. People engaging in this practice are called buskers or street performers.”

There are street performers EVERYWHERE in New Orleans, but especially in the French Quarter, on the River Walk and a few other hot spots. They’re good too. Well, a lot of them are. Going to the Cafe Du Monde in the middle of the night while a guy is playing a saxophone. New Orleans is one of those places where, well, you just have to spend time there. Anyway, in New Orleans there is every type of street performer imaginable and some you wouldn’t. You’ll see some amazing acrobatics and break dancing, there’s a young tap dancer on every street, you’ll see people playing things you wouldn’t have thought could be musical instruments (i.e. saws and other construction tools), one of my favorites was the guy who always played the wine glasses in Jackson Square. More robots, statues, clowns and mimes than you can count. But get a block or two away from the tour bus stops and you could find some real music. You’d have full bands setup in the middle of a street just off the Quarter. But my favorites were usually the solo acts, occasionally the duos, but regardless simple. Trumpet, Sax, Trombone, Clarinet were popular for solo performers in New Orleans. I tell everyone I miss the food from New Orleans. And I do. No really, I REALLY miss the food. But I like Jazz and even New Orleans Jazz or Blues, so I miss the music too. I can find plenty of my Tennessee Bluegrass here in Idaho. But not so much jazz.

City of Trees Pipes and Drums – Boise Curb Cup 2009

We did make it by every group, stopping only at ones that were on our list or caught our attention. I have photos of 49 of the 129 groups, some we only stopped for a second or two, others we spent a few minutes. Wasn’t much time to listen to the music or watch very many tricks. There was quite a variety of performances, but I didn’t see a single trumpet, trombone, clarinet or sax, that was pretty disappointing. We did have a ton of bluegrass and other assorted acoustic groups. “Angie Stevens and The Mark” Angie is a friend of Joy’s and they had a banjo, I’ll stop to watch anyone pick a banjo, they were great, “Lonesome Band” had a great bluegrass (amplified) sound, “Out of Order” was all acoustic and too close to a loud band, but from what I could hear they sounded pretty good and were having fun.

Two of our favorites where right next to each other. Beltane, I’m not sure how to explain them based on the two songs I heard, but the performer list description says “Celtic Fusion Rock” so we’ll leave it at that. Chad Summervill was probably our all around favorite, he had the best stage presence of anyone we saw and a great sound. Another solo act we liked was that of Darian Renee.

"Eclektic~Ka" – Boise Curb Cup

Other interesting performances included; “Boise Breakers”, “Eclektic~Ka”, “Eleven”, “Steam Punk Side Show”, “Pug Daddy”, “Tic-Tactics” and “The City of Trees Pipes and Drums” (the Scottish blood in me has to stop for bag pipes).

We had a really good time, I wish we’d had more time to spend enjoying a few of the performances. And hehe, there were a few we wished we could have walked by faster I do hope that next year that Curb Cup returns, with a few improvements and please, someone with a woodwind or brass instrument. I can’t wait to put it on the calendar. It was a great mix of people, styles and performances. There were a few that wouldn’t have made it past the first audition of any Idol or Talent show, but most were worth listening to for a song, several I want to hear more of.

A few ideas for next year;
- make the event at least three hours, encourage the groups to take a short break each hour.
- don’t have as many performers around the water fountain, it got really bottled up there, especially on 8th between the arena and the Boise centre.
- have at least four token booths 1) water fountain 2) Basque block at 6th 3) 8th and Bannock 4) 8th and broad (one at each major entrance)
- don’t put an acoustic group next to a full band and or manage the sound level.
- Better Signage for group name/number

A few suggestions to performers for next year
- Don’t ignore your audience.
- Don’t ignore cameras
- Don’t make weird faces or poses for the camera
- Don’t stop playing/performing to pose for a camera
- Interact with and when possible acknowledge your audience. — as I said above Chad Summervill (singer/guitar) had the best stage presence of anyone we saw. He acknowledged his audience, interacted with them, acknowledged other performers around him and thanked each person who put a vote token in his bucket. That goes a long way to making one want to hang around and keep watching. There were one or two performers that sounded ok, but didn’t even make eye contact with their audience or in one case kept looking at the ground. I can get that performance off of an MP3 player. Smile, make eye contact, say hi. Darian Renee was another good example, pointed a camera at her, she smiled and sang right to the camera for a few shots.
- Be nice, don’t have your amp turned up to where we can’t hear an acoustic group four groups down from you.
- Don’t spill something dark on your light colored shirt before the cameras come around. Not all photogs are nice enough to clone out spilled coke in a quick shot

Overall, a great event. I look forward to it next year.

As you may suspect I took a few photos while we were at the Curb Cup, here’s a random selection — click on thumbnails to see larger w/ caption. Someone remind me next year to carry a very wide angle lens. Although I had a normal wide angle with me it stayed in the bag, I shot most of the day on a 200mm or my prime 50mm.

I did my best to tag the images correctly but if you notice an incorrect tag, let me know. If you were a performer and want to see more photos of you or your group, send me an email via the contact page and I’ll see what I have. Also, if you are a performer and will be doing a show/concert in the near future and would like me to photograph you at the event, contact me, I’m always in the mood for good music.

Post from: Zeb Palmer

Boise Curb Cup 2009

Sawtooth Lake – Black and White (click for larger)

Sawtooth lake is one of the prettiest places on earth, it’s the largest alpine lake in the Sawtooth Mountains and a pleasant 5 mile hike UP to it. I spent a couple of days there this summer, so this won’t be the last Sawtooth Lake area photo you’ll see.

Post from: Zeb Palmer

Sawtooth Lake