My Digital Workflow
By far the most important part of my or any workflow is what happens before you get to your computer. If you eliminate the photographic errors and sins when you are taking the photo you won’t have to correct them later in your computer. (Now, if you don’t mind, take a moment and reread that last sentence. It is by far the most important part of the digital photography processes.) Optimizing capture will make your editing much easier and faster and your processing much, much more efficient and simpler.
Maine in December
We went to a couple lighthouses and harbors on the near coast and while the photos weren’t what we wanted they were still the best shots either one of us have of the lighthouses.
just a little note
I have added two new paragraphs to the bottom of the Portraits post above to provide details on the technical side of portrait photography.
The Secrets to taking Magnificent Portraits
I have been thinking about the portraits I have photographed lately…portraits of people that is. inally it dawned on me that the lens and light and technical aspects of my portrait photography weren’t nearly as important as the approach I took. And I mean that quite literally. My approach- how I presented myself and how I came up to the person (the angle I took)- in large part determined how successful I would be taking the pictures.
Just some thoughts
The workshop season is over once again- my 25th!- and I thought I would share some end of season lessons that seem to always come up on every workshop.
My 2011 Schedule
Here is my tentative schedule for 2011. I am pretty sure the dates are good but I still finalizing some of the arrangements so I don’t want to put it in stone quite yet. There is also a good possibility that I will add a few more workshops. I will put more information about each of these workshops and lots of pictures on my website soon.
Death Valley report
Last week I was in Death Valley National Park doing a workshop with my friend and digital guru, Scott Rouse. We had a great group of people and really nice weather and based on the pictures Scott and I saw during the critiques, our participants got some really nice shots. This is the first time in Death Valley that I felt really comfortable in the park, the first time I was able to evaluate the conventional photographic wisdom and do things differently and better. For instance, the west side of the dunes is the worst side to photograph yet it is the area that is always recommended. I don’t photograph on the workshops I lead. The participants are paying for me to pay attention to them not for me to pay attention to my photography. I don’t understand why anybody tolerates leaders who do their own photography on the participant’s dime. It is a workshop or a tour, not a subsidized photo shoot for the leader and yet leaders photograph on workshops and tours all the time. I don’t get it, it is the wrong way to conduct a workshop or tour. Here are two shots from the dunes that my students gave me to use for teaching. I can’t wait to go back and get my own shots.
More on High ISO Photography
If I need high shutter speeds and depth of field…lobster activity at a dock at dawn or dusk or an action shot in the barn when it is still dark outside…I will push the ISO to 3200 or even 6400. And why not? Sure the picture quality would be better if I shot at much lower ISOs but isn’t it better to get a shot you can still use than to get no shot?
Astonishing Quality High ISO
12,800 ISO! Really? High quality images? Can’t be! Now I have just finished a book on the men and women who lobster in the Gulf of Maine. I have a new Nikon D3s and I am shooting regularly at ISO 3200 and ISO 6400. No, really! And when I am pressed I will happily go to ISO 12,800!
The Fall color season in New England
Its been a funny year for fall color here in New England. We had unusually early red color in mid to late September that all fell to the ground the first few days of October with torrential rains. Then after lots of muddy yellows during the traditional peak (10/10-14) the color blossomed again in mid-October and stayed strong until the end of the third week. From talking to other photographers the same bi-modal pattern seems to have occurred in New Hampshire as well. In Acadia National Park the color was very good and on time this year. The reason for the drastically different color seasons seems to be the prolonged drought northern New England had in August and September that seems to have stressed the trees- the early color- and allowed fungus and other color diminishing pathogens to flourish. Southern New England got a couple of coastal late summer storms that eased the drought and prevented trees from being stressed. Understand I have nothing but observational evidence for this but it makes sense to me so I am sticking with this story! So yesterday, October 21, I went for a walk with the dogs up in the woods and found lots of color still lingering. The trees are now mostly yellow but the color remains strong making for very pretty late October walks. Surprisingly, there is a late burst of red in the woods as well from very late turning red maples. Red maples are usually the first tree to turn color in the fall but this year, perhaps due to our very warm September and October, many red maples turned color at the end of the season. Now the oaks and beeches are starting to turn color as well. I expect there to be good, photographable color in the valleys of Vermont and low in the forests until November 1. A very bizarre year but one we can expect as the seasonality of the seasons continues to be scrambled by the warming temperatures.