I will be doing a presentation for the ASMP on March 21st on Lightroom 4 workflows and concepts at the Photographic Center Northwest in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. Should be a fun night of image editing, importing, exporting and socializing. The presentation is 2 hours from 7-9 with a little social mixer starting around 6:30. I am pretty excited to look at Photo Mechanic as a front end to Lightroom, catalogs and organization, exporting for storage and using the power of 32-bit files for awesome tonal range editing.

Space is limited so register now and hope to see you there.

http://asmp.org/education/event/info?id=566#.UT46YqvF2tv

I am teaching a class on organizing (and finding) your digital assets at the Photographic Center Northwest on the weekend of March 2-3 from 12-4 each day. If you are looking to get a handle on your digital photographs I encourage you to sign up there are still a few seats available. We will be looking on how to deal with all the storage options that are available and the pros and cons of each (local, offsite, cloud-based). We will be looking at using Lightroom, Photo Mechanic and other tools to help keep you organized and moving data around your various locations. Finally, we will be looking at some best practices for keeping those files intact both in the field and when you get back to the office.

The cost of the workshop is $175 and for members of PCNW it is $157.50.

Hope to see you there.

I have some new work on display in a show at the Photographic Center Northwest this month. The opening is on January 10th and if you are around then or in Seattle this month stop by to see the show. Some absolutely amazing work by the other members of the program.

On the opening at 5:00 Eirik Johnson and Jenny Riffle will be talking about their work. Both are way talented and worth the time to hear them speak about their work.

There is a huge hole in my heart and tears on my cheeks as Lori and I had to say good-bye to my best friend this week. Grady (aka the G-Bone) has been my constant companion for almost 12 years. His unrelenting love for life will never be forgotten. He got sick in early December and our world came to a complete halt–work, social, photography, everything came down to our love for him and his needs. Nothing else that mattered to us but taking care of him.

In the end, to him and to us, it didn’t matter what was wrong. What did matter is that we were spending our days and nights together. For Grady taking care of his flock (us and the cats) was his greatest joy. When we were all in the same room, he could relax knowing that his herding work was done. While each day brought us some hope, they also brought more realizations of just sick he was getting.

As he had always done for his almost 12 years, he made sure that I knew just how important it was to be happy and rejoice in the moments that life has to offer. Each trip out of the house was met with unbounded enthusiasm for the adventure that awaited. In some cases with was a trip to the park for a walk but in many cases it was a trip back to the vet as they ran test after test trying to figure out what was wrong. On one of his last days when I knew all he wanted to do was lay by the fire, he still rallied up the energy to get up as I walked through the door give me a big smile and bring me one of his favorite toys for us to play with by the fire.

That was truly one of his greatest gifts. He always, I mean always, had his eyes, heart and mind on what matters. At the end of day, we can make all the money in the world, live in big houses, drive nice cars, but Grady knew that it was love, friendship and doing what you love each and every day that matter most. Going for a walk with friends, eating a good meal, laying on your back telling stories, playing games and snuggling up to watch a movie (even a bad one) are the ways to spend a day.

He never got angry at anyone or anything. Life was a path that he was on and he knew that was to be enjoyed and experienced. His reactions to the world never got in the way of his enjoyment of life. He reminded me (all of us actually) that life is in the moments we experience. He was present for each and every one of his moments. He didn’t worry about tomorrow or last week, he didn’t even worry about right now. He was always in right now. The sights, smells, sounds, and love of the present. It is in that experience that I will now try to be like him. Sydney taught me the power of unconditional love, Bonzai the joy of being who you are, and Grady showed me life in the moment.

This is the last picture I took of Grady. He was at the vet’s office getting some pain treatments for his back. The process involved a light/laser that works sort of like acupuncture. We had to wear goofy glasses and so did Grady. As we looked at each other and laughed at our “hip glasses,” Grady again reminded us that in the moment even goofy is awesome. I have often times been asked about my favorite photographs (this will be one of them). A lot of them are of family and friends that never see the light of day, they are memories of places, events and people, but in this case I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate my deeply loved buddy than to celebrate his love of those moments.

I got sent an email this am from a good friend of mine who wanted to know if I wanted to hang out with a celebrity. Turns out his son was cast in a commercial for Black Rapid this holiday season. You can catch it here as he catches Santa.

So cold out

As the grey clouds begin there consumption the Pacific Northwest, the last of the leaves have fallen from most of the trees. As I wandered the streets with a camera, I realized that it was the sounds of the leaves at my feet rather than over my head that let me know Fall has given way to Winter.  The city of Seattle has changed. The emerald greens of summer and bright colors of Fall become distance memories as the short cloudy days of Winter creep into your soul.  While I look forward to snow, fireplaces and spiked hot cocoa, the changes in seasons always cause me to reflect and think about not just the changing of the seasons but the changes in me.  More to come on that later….

Here is the next collection of 10 books from my bookshelf project that started last week. Each of these books are from my bookshelf in my office that I have found as an amazing source of inspiration  support, or help over the years. While a lot of books I have purchased end up being one hit wonders, these books will be with me until the end as I learn more and more from them each time we sit down an share a cup of tea or coffee.

This massive retrospective of Lee Friedlander’s work is amazing. At 480 pages and over 750 photographs, Frielander is a companion to the show developed by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Lee’s ability to seemingly combine the random, disorganized and mundane into photographic stories that weave more complex tales than we initially experienced coming upon the scene. A great collection for anyone who is into street photography.

 
Andre Kertesz is one of the most amazing photographers I have seen. In this collection by Greenough, Gurbo and Kennel Andre Kertesz’s career is examined by looking at his simple, elegant and engrossing images of his early work in Europe and later after he moved to the US. His images are such a reflection of his experiences in life and so richly printed that it is easy to spend time looking at them again and again.

Ansel Adam’s Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs is a great way to experience the work of Ansel over the years. While this The Print, The Negative and The Camera help generations of photographers learn the technical side of photography, this book is a great balance between the art of Ansel and the technical aspects of his more iconic images. You can get more of a retrospective of his lifetime in his Ansel at 100 or other books, but hearing first hand about his experiences in shooting and creating the print make this book unique.

Birney Imes’ Juke Joint is just awesome. From his experiences growing up in the South, Birney photographs the juke joints and bars in the Mississippi delta and back country. Amazing color images of various bars, patrons and environments. Beautifully shot with a mastery of the light and color these images are some of the best color work I have seen in a long time. As an aside the cover for the album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road by Lucinda Williams is from this book.

Nick Brandt’s On This Earth: Photographs from East Africa looks at the animals of Africa in ways that few have ever seen. Photographed and printed with such intention, love and respect, it is so easy to see why Nick has become on of the most collected and influential photographers in recent years. There is little doubt after looking at Nick’s work that these smart, amazing and compassionate animals are every bit our equals and more in many ways. The intimacy from these images are only compounded by the fact that Nick was so close to the animals when photographing them without the use of telephoto lenses.

Editor Kristen Lubben work on Magnum Contact Sheets must have been an amazing adventure. I got turned on to this book by David duChemin and fell in love with it. Taken from 70 magnum photographers and over 120 contact sheets, we are given a glimpse into the photographers eye and editorial process for some of the most iconic photography. Such a great learning tool on so many levels from learning how to work a scene to make a great photo to the editing and selection process. So much can be learned from this book. Be warned that it is like 10 pounds, so ground ship it if you order online.

David Bayles and Ted Orland lay it all out in Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking. While not specifically about photography, it does talk a lot about the reasons why we don’t create art. There is lot of advice out there about just pick up a camera and shoot, but for most of us there are always blocks, holes in the road and stories we make up about why we can’t do our art. This book takes a look at those fears and what it take to overcome those demons so that us ordinary people can go about creating our art while leaving the hard stuff to Mozart and Bach.

John Szarkowski’s The Photographer’s Eye is a great introduction into the language of photography. Based in part on his work with the MOMA in the early 1960s, this book helps the audience and artist develop a consistent and accurate language about the nature of the imagery. Understanding that photographs are more than just the “thing” being photographed, he helps us better relate to the art of photography.

Stephen Shore’s' The Nature of Photographs: A Primer sits on my shelf right next to The Photographer’s Eye. Stephen’s examination into the nature of photographs and what makes them work beyond the basic notions and rules that are taught in photography schools. Rather than focusing on the subject as the primary focus, this book looks as the elements that make up the frame surrounding the subject. Those elements in combination with the subject allow for a critical analysis of photographs thus allowing the photographer to better understand the decisions behind the camera and how they help in telling compelling visual stories.

I picked up the book This Light of Ours: Activist Photographers of the Civil Rights Movement this year on a trip to Washington DC. The reason I included it here is that I have found myself looking at this book a lot. Unlike other photographs from the Civil Rights Movement that were mostly for press, these images were taken by people who lived the movement. Photographed more as a social justice documentary it looks at events that happened before I was born but continue to shape the world today. The power of the photography carries on today and reminds me that with all that is going on the world, you can make a difference with your camera if you are brave enough to pick it up and photograph what matters to you.

A mini projet developed as I am getting ready to paint my office and with the addition of new bookshelves in the house. As a result, I have had to move and organize the various photography books I have collected over the years. That got me thinking that I could share the ones that really seemed to matter to me. So, I am going to do three post over the next three weeks of the books that I find myself returning to over and over again that really seem to matter a lot to my work. Some are photography coffee table books, some are about art in general and other are just books that made a difference. So here is the first top 10 11 collection of books from the bookshelf (actually the floor until the paint dries).

David duChemin’s first book is still a must have for any photographer.
Within the Frame: The Journey of Photographic Vision is a easy to understand book that spends the core of its time helping you understand what actually matters when making great photographs. In the end, David leaves you understanding that learning more about your craft and spending less time on gear is a nobel goal.

Galen’s Inner Game of Outdoor Photogrpahy is an amazing collection of essays around the nature and meaning of photography. Focusing more on the internal conversations and dialogs on what matters, he is able to help the artist understand that it really is more about you as an artist than the gear you collect.

Moose Peterson’s Captured: Lessons from Behind the Lens of a Legendary Wildlife Photographer might be one of my favorite photography books I have read in the past couple of years. It is a book that looks not a techniques and how to steps but rather is a combination of introspection on an amazing career as well as a source of inspiration for living a life that matter to you. The story he tells of his and Sharon’s adventure is a great read.

Joel Sartore’s Rare: Portraits of America’s Endangered Species is an example of the power of photography. Joel’s work with photographing and capturing endangered creatures is beautiful and haunting. It also helps us understand the need and purpose of the Endangered Species Act.

Sam Abell’s The Life of a Photograph is a look into the process and nature of being a photographer from a master whose work and images in this collection span four decades.

John Paul Caponigro’s Process is a look into the processes that John Paul has been using and teaching over several years. By looking at the creative concepts that can help you be more creative with or without a camera, John Paul is able to help you push your creativity in new ways ultimately resulting in a more creative life.

Michael Freeman’s The Photographer’s Mind: Creative Thinking for Better Digital Photos is a great book that looks into the one thing that ultimately is responsible for the creation of a great image. The human mind. He talk about different ways to see the same scene, and how we can find our own story in our images.

Joe McNally’s The Moment It Clicks: Photography Secrets from One of the World’s Top Shooters is a wonderful read. Joe is a gifted writer who has had an amazing career as a photographer. His storytelling skills in combination with his amazing images make it hard to put the book down. The book is sort of a mix of how to and inspiration. In the end, you know that it is a photographers love of light that makes images great.

Robert Franks’ The Americans one of the most important bodies of work in the 20th century. Frank crossed the country photographing everyday Americana. From images that hinted a racial tensions to Americans’ love of  the lifestyle of mass consumption that started after WWII, he paints a interesting view of who were were and in many was still are.

Stephen Shore’s Uncommon Places is one of the most important fine art photographers of the late 20th century. Steven was able to indouce the use of color photography as a valid for of  fine art. In this book, his sense of color, line, space and context allowed him to show us the importance of the things in life that seem common but in ways that has us wonder about our relationship to our place in those common places.

Bruce Barnbaum’s great book The Art of Photography: An Approach to Personal Expression is a great resource to really understand the nature of photography particularly with regards to fine art black and white photography.

Don’t forget to vote. It matters. A lot.

I was looking back at some old images and came across this image of a orchid. I was just messing around with an orchid that was in the house, but as I got more and more into it. I started to think about how this image needed to be photographed in black and white. There is something cool about how Mother Nature works her magic on these amazing flowers that makes them fun to photograph. As I spent more time photographing, I just new that the final print of this image would be black and white image with lots of negative space that showed off the great textures of the flower.

That got me thinking about a question that I get asked a lot. What do I think about when I know that I am going to create a black and white image? While it isn’t always clear that an image is going to be black and white, there are few things that I do tend to look at when thinking in black and white. Rather than focus on specific subjects (like awesome clouds),  I thought I might talk more about the more general things I consider rather than the specific content.

When I look at black and white image visualization I try to pay close attention to the following:

I love when people are able to find unique ways to create art in the city. I was walking back to the hotel in Vancouver, BC and cut up through Yaletown and found this absolutely fun wall. Can’t wait to circle back and see the famous Pauls.

I am up in Vancouver, BC for a visit and workshop with David duChemin this weekend. I arrived in Vancouver a day early thinking I would take some time to photograph in and around the city. I opted to walk from the train station to my hotel to get a start on the photography project I had in mind. However this is the Pacific Northwest in October so it started to rain. Actually it started to pour huge buckets of rain. By the time I got to the hotel I was pretty wet with my jacket soaked through. So what can you do, I got the camera gear on the towels to dry and got some coffee and a nap to let the rain pass. Luckily I am an optimist so I figured the rain would lighten, and it would be a nice night to shoot with the wet pavement. My optimism paid off big time (sarcasm should be inserted here). That half full glass of water was now overflowing as the rain continued to pour.

I thought about staying in the hotel to walk some TV, but I sucked it up and heading out into the rain. I had to really rethink my shooting since it was so wet out and not only was my camera rain gear not with me but my heavy rain gear was also back in Seattle. I spent lots of times under the awnings around all the stores looking for some images to talk about the rain. I got really focused on the umbrellas as they were everywhere. So as the skies continued to open up and pour buckets I thought about happens when you get lemons. You make some lemonade out of the rain.

I was on the train from Seattle to Vancouver BC for the weekend. I was in the dinning car working on the computer when the train rounded a corner, and we could look back to the south. The clouds and sky colors were amazing. Reached over grabbed the camera off the seat next to me made two clicks and the train changed directions and it was gone. Just one of those moments that passes by in the blink of an eye.

Working on some images from a trip a few months ago to the Hoh rainforest over in the Olympic National Park. I spent a good chuck of my time in my film world in black and white and so I often times still come across scenes where I just know that I want to process the final image into that medium. In this case, I was up in the Hall of Moss and the light broke through the trees and fell across the moss of this nurse log. I loved the delicate balance of light on the plants against the dark background. Nature sure does have a way with her paintbrush.

I have started working on a new project that I think will end up mostly as a fine art portfolio of work. Lately I have become fascinated by people who spend time looking at cool stuff on a 4 in screen. They are creating and capturing movies and photos, but I have noticed that particularly with the video that they actually watch the event on the screen rather than taking it all in. The screen becomes the way to experience the event you are at.

I love the amount of video and image people capture with their cameras these days–makes finding subjects easy. I love that something I love is becoming more and more accessible and easy to do. And I think that is why the portfolio project is starting to take shape, I have found something we all do at one time or another and it is reshaping how we experience the world. I don’t know if we experience more or less by seeing it in 4 inches or not; but as a photographer, I think that is a pretty cool thing to participate, document and share.

For the past few months I have been working with the folks over at Different Office when our schedules align for some photography for their various stories. This story is from Swift Industries located in the Seattle neighborhood of Ballard. It is an amazing space and team of people. You have to love people who are doing what they love for a living. By letting me photograph the spaces, I am getting one step closer to that space myself.

For the past few years I have collected some of my favorite quotes when I am at Photoshop World. As in past years, I have mostly focused on the second day of the conference with the number of sessions and the art of digital photography there is just a lot happening on the second day to find great quotes. Although, I do have a few from the first day because there were just to many good quotes to pass up this year. Also as I looked over the quotes for the past few days it seems that overcoming mistakes and storytelling are big themes for me this year. Not sure that that means for me yet, but it is something to think about in the coming days and weeks.  So without further ado here are the quotes from day 2. Oh, but a special thanks to Jeff and Jessica for helping get a few quotes from some of the sessions I couldn’t attend.

Favorite Quotes from the Day at PSW

“It is about your relationships with people” – Lindsay Adler

“At the end of the day were are storytellers” – Joe McNally

“We fail more than we succeed, and we have to get comfortable with that…we have to continually adapt.” – Joe McNally

“Simple little things can make all the difference.” – Moose Peterson

“The more you are an expert the better your photos…do your homework” –Dave Black

“I love working at night you get the whole world to yourself.” –Scott Diussa

“Mistakes are really great” — Russell Brown

“An 8×10 from Wal-mart isn’t a print, it’s a placemant…you gotta give big prints.” –  Moose Peterson on give prints to pilots that he flies with

“I don’t know what is happening with that building on the right but it’s not good.” – Bryan Hughes

“When you are open the world is a big place.” — Jay Maisel

“You want to engage them (viewers) with the subject..and that starts the storytelling.” – Moose Peterson

“It’s in there somewhere.” — Dave Black after making shooting noises about filling the buffer rather than picking you moment.

“My favorite part of the histogram is the exclamation point in the corner basically saying you suck.” –Cliff Mautner

“We live in a world with 13 foot trolls who live in their moms basement.” – Scott Bourne in reference to trolls on social media.

“If you aren’t aware of your negative space, you’re not working with a full deck.” –Jay Maisel

“Life is theater in the round and you have to keep moving.” –Jay Maisel

“Carry a camera its a lot easier to take pictures.” – Jay Maisel

“Rejection is just an indication you’re knocking on the wrong door.” –Joel Grimes

“It’s fun to make pictures.” –Dave Black

“Continue to embrace your world in a child like way.” –Joe McNally

“Photography is a collection of mistakes on the way to a photograph.” – Joe McNally

“The world is an amazing place.” – Moose Peterson

As a person who loves quotes, I hope that you enjoyed these as much as I did.

Well, I jumped at the chance to do the NAPP Photo Safari again with Moose Peterson and Joe McNally at Photoshop World. We had the privilege of getting to work with the fine people of the Bonnie Springs Ranch. They are such wonderful people to get to spend time with again. They are willing to do pretty much anything that you ask and are great models. It takes someone special to work in front of dozens of photographers all clicking away at the same time.

Getting to revisit a location is an interesting opportunity that can really push you to shoot new and different things. I know that the first time it was pretty overwhelming the amount of things to photograph at Bonnie Springs. While this year was no different, I wanted to try a new approach. Once I learned where we were going I spent some time going back over the photos I took last time I was there. That way I could focus on shooting something different that before. As Moose and Joe point out, you have to push yourself to trying new things and being willing to see what happens behind the lens. With both of those concepts in mind, I spent some time figuring out what I most noticed on this visit that I didn’t remember last time. What I noticed was the cacti and the bugs. There seemed to be more flies than I remember and the prickly pears were bigger than I remember. So I made sure to spend some time photographing both of those since they were part of my story this year.

For the bug photo you see that was shot with my new macro lens and that was the closest I was able to get without him flying off into the distance. This click of the camera sent him off on a new adventure of his own. I really like the negative space in the image, and the tension in the bugs gesture. As for the cactus photo, I was able to find some cactus against the town church. I was also able to get a little bit of a star burst off the sun, but I was standing in a very awkward position and couldn’t stand up much more than I was. So as a result, didn’t get quit the starburst I wanted. All I could hear in my head was Moose asking me as they pulled me out of the cactus “what the heck were you thinking?”. Lucky for me that was a conversation in my head only.

This is my 3rd or 4th safari and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn a ton and have a great time getting to shoot with two of the best instructors out there.

On a side note, there was only one big part of the story that I left out. The heat. Being from Seattle, where we have hit the mid eighties for like a week, the 105 temperatures were hot and about killed me more than once.

I got checked in last night for Photoshop World 2012 (west coast edition), and my room this year at Mandalay Bay is on the 34th floor looking down the strip. So, I thought I would give a shot a making a little time lapse video from the hotel window last night. This video is over the course of about 2 hours when most people are doing crazy things and I am hanging out in my hotel room with the camera. Which depending on how you read could be a little creepy crazy

Next week I am heading out for my fifth Photoshop World Conference. When I first attended Photoshop World (PSW) I didn’t know anyone at all. I didn’t know hardly any of the instructors either. I really wanted to find some people that were creative, photographically minded and willing to share what they knew. In my research I came across PSW, and it looked like it would be a lot of fun that that I might get to learn a thing or two. All I knew was that it was in Vegas and they packed the schedule.

Something people are surprised to learn about me is that I am sort of shy around new people. I am not one to just approach people and introduce myself; but as I got to Las Vegas for the first conference, I promised myself that I would meet lots of people, try everything that Scott’s team offered and keep an open mind.

That first year, I did a pre-con with Ben Wilmore. I did Dinner with a Stranger. I did Midnight Madness. I did the expo and expo floor training (I also bought the Nik software suite on the expo floor). I attended a session in each time slot. I got to see Jay Maisel. I learned about Lightroom from Scott. I learned about following your passion from Moose. I learned that I don’t know anything about light after seeing McNally. I got to met the team from Adobe. I got to see RC teach about Photoshop. I got to learn who some guy named Vanelli was and why he shouldn’t have your cell phone number. I got to met a lot of great people who have since become friends. It was a crazy 3 and half days.

Two of the biggest things that happened that first year is that I mustard up the courage to introduce myself to John Paul Caponigro and thank him for all his help over the years. Of course, he didn’t know me from Adam since we hadn’t met. All of his help had been from his website and photographs over the years. He was so open and gracious and interested in listening to me talk. It was amazing. I have since taken several more workshops from him and consider him to be a great mentor and a friend. The second was to talk to Moose Peterson. I had followed Moose’s website from the time he switched from film to digital. He really helped me understand how to start my own integration of digital into my workflow. Moose was also so supportive and genuinely interested in what I had to talk about that I have continued that relationship with Moose since that day as well. He and Sharon have been so great to me over the years much like with JP, and I don’t know how to thank them for being nice to someone who was pretty nervous on that first trip down to the conference.

Because of that first year, I took a workshop from Moose and got a chance to met RC Concepcion. RC has been so great on photowalks, hangouts and a good friend. His photos that are in my office and remind me of the great times we have had over the years. He energy is infectious and he has always gone out of his way to say hi and keep me connected to the conference and other attendees. RC has introduced me to so many people that I can’t name them all. And in those connections from prior years, days or hours we keep talking, laughing and sharing.

So as this time of year approaches, I am often asked why keep coming back. I tell them that one of the biggest things about PSW is that it is not about cameras, technology and the latest versions of software. It is about people. I mean sure that is what we talk about and sit through classes about, but really it is about people sharing and getting to know each other. What I learned that first year was those people who are at the top of there game as instructors, photographers, attendees, vendors are all wanting to share and give of themselves to anyone who will stop and ask. From the top down Scott has worked with his team to make an action packed conference that is about people. So in a nut shell that is why I go to PSW, it is the peeps. They are awesome.  I have so many friends that I have met over the year that I can’t imagine finding them without PSW. So if you are PSW this year and it is your first time, find me or anyone and say hi and ask them to introduce you around.  You will be surprised by how excited everyone will be to get a chance to meet you.

Oh and there is another reason I go every year. On the second night of the conference there is the Art of Photography. (They call it he art of digital photography, but the digital seems unnecessary to me.) This is a session where some of the biggest names in photography show and tell about their work. At times you can hear a pin drop at the amazing work and other times you laugh and other times you cry. In the end you leave inspired at what is in front of you and the power of you and your camera. And for me in the end, the work as an artist is about people, community and the power of telling a story with a camera. And that is really why PSW works for me.

PS NAPP organization runs the conference. So the people giving you a badge, directions, working information booths all work for the Kelby organization. These people are so amazing that I am sure without them and their hard work none of this would be possible. THANK YOU to all of them.

I recently was in need of a lens for a trip and thought that I would give Borrow Lenses a try. I have spoken with them a few times at various conferences and found them to be very helpful and fun in person. So for this trip when I wanted to rent a Nikon 24mm f/1.4 lens for 5 days, I gave them a try.  Their website was super easy to use and it was able to show me the inventory and status of the lens I wanted on the days requested. It was nice to know that the lens was in fact available without having to contact customer service or complete an order to find out if there were any issues. The price was great and I could also get some insurance from them in the event something went wrong on my end. Once the order was placed, I got several emails about the status of my order including a reminder that it was shipping on time to meet my delivery date. A nice touch.

One other extra level of service that I appreciated was around credit card security. I had to make sure that my proper shipping addresses were on file with my credit card company. Borrow Lenses reaches out on initial orders to make sure that someone hasn’t had a card stolen and is about to be responsible for very expensive camera gear. A nice added touch of service for both of us.

The lens was ordered with two day shipping and showed up right on time. The lens was packed in a very well padded box that I was asked to use to return the lens when I was done. Inside the box was the return address label and some ride along marketing materials. The lens was stored in a plastic bag and was in great shape without any damage or marks.

The lens worked great and I was able to get it packed up and returned on time. I did get a final note from them letting me know that they have received the lens and all parts (caps, etc) in excellent condition. It was nice to know that nothing happened on transit and that they were happy with the way I treated the lens.

So if you are looking to rent a lens, body or other camera gear you should give Borrow Lenses a shot. They really did right by me.

I have been photographing Ruby Beach in the Olympic National park for a number of years. I first stopped at the beach on a drive down 101 after a visit to the Hoh Rainforest more than 10 years ago. It is well marked and a pretty easy hike. In fact, the walk to the beach is less than a 1/4 of a mile from the parking lot. It is also one of the most accessible beaches in the Olympic with sea stacks. The other locations do require a bit more of a hike, and even 2nd beach which is really easy to get to is closer to a mile.

I hiked this trail starting back with my little 35mm camera and have since shot it with every format possible from 8×10 to a holga to PS digital, camera phone and DSLR. Each time is a pretty different experience with the gear and the location. The constant tides and stream that feeds into Ruby are ever changing the rocks and drift wood. However, there is one constant with me and the Ruby there is never a sky around. I always get a marine layer no matter the time of year, if I am at Ruby at sunset there is nothing in the sky but gray low hanging clouds. Most of my friends won’t even go out with me anymore since they know what the weather will be like if I am going out there.

For this image from a trip in July with Ryan Turner, I used a big old stack of ND filters to give the ocean some time to build up some atmosphere and smokiness. The overall exposure is over 2mins. And the best part of that is given the bit of wind, amount of time and high tide moving in, I didn’t get my shoes wet for the first time in a long time. Maybe my luck is changing and the next time, I’ll get to play with the sky and some color.

On a recent trip to Weston Missouri, the family visited a local farm that we thought had a farmers market going on (it didn’t). Once we got up the driveway, we found a great barn with a little general store and an amazing reception hall attached to the back with what looked like the setup for an wedding later in the day. As the family wondered into the store, I spent some time wondering around the barn and surrounding areas of the farm. It was a great farm with loads of chickens, turkeys, goats and various other farm animals wondering about. You could see the recently cut hay out in one of the fields and lots of great flowers planted around the main house. As I stood there in the 100 degree heat, you could tell that the people who owned that land took a lot of pride in their farm. Everything was neat, clean and well organized. It was clear that there was as lot of hard work that had been done over the years, and you could see it was also a lot of love.

As I meandered about I came across these boots up on a porch of one of the buildings. they were old, well worn boots that looked like they had seen many of fine day on the farm. As I thought that of all the things I had come across that day, I felt those boots represented the dedication and hard work that had been put into the farm more than anything else. It reminded me of my favorite pair of boots and how much I love wearing them. I am sure that like my boots, with all they have seen, those boots have amazing stories to tell.

Image taken with my Nikon D700 and trust 24-70 f/2.8 lens.

Here is some additional work from my last trip to the wind farm. The primary purpose of this trip was to experiment with some night photography out on the farm for a project I have started. For me this type of night photography is interesting and presents its own unique set of challenges, many of which I learned by trial and error. Other times, I just found happy accidents that I plan to repeat in the future.

In the image below you can see one such happy accident. The red fingers that stick up out of the top and sides of the wind turbine are a result of a little red light so that you can see the towers in the dark. I imagine they are for low aircraft and the like. These lights flash on and off at set intervals. Depending on the length of the exposure and speed of the blades you can get just a few to dozens of red fingers reaching out into the sky. The first image that came up like this on the back of the camera had me thinking..”What in the hell is that?” And not 1/2 second after that was “Wow that is freaking cool!”

This happy accident of the red fingers was the result of working with what you have in front of you. When onsite, there are a few rules about how close and where you can be in relationship to the turbines. These rules in combination with it being really, really dark in uneven and rocky terrain has me not tromping out into the fields. So I was at the mercy of the wind direction. Had I had my initial choice, I would have had the nose of the turbine pointed at me in which case the red light would produce more of a catch light, but you learn to deal with what you are given and because of that I discover this very cool lighting pattern.

The above image is the same turbine with a flash. I had planned on light painting but forgot my big flashlights. So this turned into a bit of a onsite off camera flash workshop. I grabbed a flash out of the bag dialed in 1/8 power and started firing away. First thing I learned was how much light those little SB-900s will toss out into the complete darkness.  I quickly learned it is easy to over expose the white turbines so you have to dial back the lights more than you think. Also I needed to have a flag or snot of some type so that the spill onto the foreground didn’t really impact the look and feel of the shot. There is also work I need to do to find a good color balance on the strobes to get them to match the background more effectively which changes considerably with cloud cover. I also did a little work firing multiple pops off the flash which produced interesting results, but you need to really be in tune to the position and location of the blades if possible. If you don’t, they can appear in strange patterns and positions. All in all it was a great workshop on using flashes on turbines at night. Well worth the price of admissions and the instructor wasn’t half bad.

On this trip I forgot the most important tool in my nighttime tool kit–a big mag lite. Having a light to help you focus is priceless, and I had planned on light painting so I was really of of luck on both counts. So on the second day of the trip, we had to pick up a new flashlight for “the car” (justification where you can get it). On this night the smoke from the Travis Bridge fire was even more intense than the day before due to a shift in the wind. So when you shined the light out anywhere you got this great beam of light like a laser into the dark. The image below is me painting into the smoke that was floating overhead. Unlike the first image in the post, this image has a little change in the exposure and some really rapid movement of the flashlight  to avoid the beam. As a result boom–nebula.

This next photo is a little light painting on the wind turbine. I am still sorting out the color balance issues between the blue from the LED lights, brown smoke ,white and yellow ambient light and the color in the sky it is a lot to work with for a natural look but I think I am getting closer to understanding how I want to gel the lights next time out. Outside color, one of the biggest pieces of concern for me is the presence of the motion of the blades. Without sensing this motion, you end up just have a big pole in the night so I was pleased with the exposure of the blade speed in this image.

I have been asked a few times about the stars and my decision to keep them as point rather than star trails. I just imagined the shots as if they were quick frozen moments of time with the timelessness of the wind and infinite universe behind. So for this trip most of them were taking with faster exposures. With the movement of the earth  the stars to start to blur when you get longer exposures (~20-30+ seconds). It isn’t really noticable in smaller prints but in the larger prints you can see that the stars that look like pin points on the screen are actually little lines of light. This is fine if you going for that  look, but for these images I wanted to have as close to pin points of light as possible. So my friends over at Borrow Lenses were able to hook me up with a 24mm f/1.4 lens for my main camera body. My D700 produces workable images at ISO 1600. So the combination of a really shallow depth of field and a higher ISO got me down to 8-30 seconds on the average depending on what I was looking for in the image. It was a great tool to have on this trip

I spent the past weekend out at Puget Sound Energy’s Wild Horse Wind Farm with my good friend Mike. We have been out to the wind farm a few times (here and here) on our way to and from the Palouse but this was the first time that we made a trip specially for photographing the wind farm.

Since we had some extra time with this trip we got to know some of the people who worked at the visitor center and even took a tour of the facility. Along with the tour and information in the visitor center, I learned a lot about the power created at the wind farm.  The farm was expanded in 2009 and now houses 149 turbines and sits on a little over 10,000 acres of property. The facility is also home to the largest solar installation in the Northwest.  Some things that I found interesting about the solar energy system included:

• The facility houses 2,723 solar panels.
• Panels produce power even when it is cloudy (although they get like 300 days of sunshine a year)—50-70 percent of output when there is a high overcast but still really bright out and when it is a really dark overcast day (Seattle style) the output is still 5 to 10 percent.
• The solar power generated by the panels is enough to keep the wind farm self-sufficent so that all the power generated by the turbines is for the power grid.
• The smaller array but the visitor center provides all the power for the building.
• Some of the panels in the array were made in the State of Washington.

It was also really interesting to learn more about the wind turbines themselves. Each one houses its own weather station that allows them to act independently of each other so that they can maximize the wind as efficiently as possible.  Subtle shifts in the terrain can cause turbines that are side-by-side to have different wind speeds. As the winds shift and change each turbine is able to change the pitch on the blades to try an increase their efficiency in the wind. These small shifts are what allow the turbine to operate and generate power at speeds as low as 9 mph and as fast as 55 mph. Once the wind speed exceeds 55 mph the blades position themselves into the wind so that they no longer rotate to protect the equipment.

The other amazing fact we learned is that to keep the blades in balance they need to be with in 7-12 lbs of each other. While that might not sound like a lot, each blade weights in at a cool 7 tons or 14,000lbs. So when you have a tolerance of less than .00085 there is not a lot of room for error. These are amazing machines and it is great to be able to spend time learning about how they provide clean energy to the power grid.

Most of these images taken on this trip were after dark, I am working on an ongoing project with the wind farms and have wanted to get out to photograph them with the stars behind them. This trip was my first efforts to get out and photograph them after dark. It was very much a learning experience. This particular weekend was selected because of the new moon, however, in the future a partial moon would be nice to provide some ambient light to the turbines. Secondly, I learned a lot about how to light up the turbines with artificial lights, and I am sure on my next trip I’ll find a way to really get what I am looking for in the images. Even with the learning curve, I am happy with a few of the images from the weekend and I have the suitcase packed for short notice. My next set of images are with thunderstorms in the distance—oh and some more night work. The coyotes and rabbits are pretty good company at night.

I’ll be posting a few more of the night shots later in the week with some information on how I did the shots and what caused the various things you see in those photos.

All images taken on Nikon D700 with some very fast glass from borrow lenses and my own collection.

My amazing spouse  Lori Kane and her partner in crime Bas de Baar have released their new site Different Office. It is a site that is dedicated to people who have self-created, soul-satisfying work spaces. They have been working on collecting stories for a few weeks now and the first one is up and live.

I have been lucky to have the opportunity to work my photography into some the various stories that they are writing when my schedule allows. For the most part, it is a great experience of hearing from people who love what they do and love the space the work. It has been a great motivator for me and my photography goals. One of the biggest challenges is to try to find a way to photograph the work spaces in a way that really shows the passion, personality and heart of the person and the space.

I spend some time getting a tour of the space and then listen to the interview for a bit and then try to find the things that resonated with me in their stories and focusing in on what really lit them up during the tour. Then I try to photography in a way that captures that excitement. For me this has been interesting as  it has me pushed out of my comfort zone in some cases. I find that I push the point of view, processing, and artistic choices a little differently knowing that I am trying to capture not just what I find interesting, but also what relates to the person.

On a side note, my wife has a great sense of humor and I found this little nugget on the Different Office site.

I had the chance to spend this past weekend with great friends, some new and some old, discussing the nature of art and photography. As we gathered in the great little town of Port Townsend on the Washington peninsula, I wasn’t sure what would come of day long discussions of the nature of life the universe and everything–art related of course .

Many of the discussions were hazy only to become crystal clear and finally drifting back into the fog. But as I was reminded, this is the gift the universe gives the artist. The artist really has a job here that others don’t. Artist whether they be painters, writers, sculptors, photographers or finger painters spends time playing with this gift much as they did with a new train, doll or bike under the christmas tree. Then as those toys faded into memory, we find ourselves still deeply connected to those things. Hazy, washed out colors of old Kodachrome memories but emotionally as vivid as the day we saw a Red Rider BB gun under the tree.  We move in and out of these transitions from clarity to haze and back again because we know that is where the need to create lives. That is where our office desk and chair live, and art really does live in the space between.

And so in the spaces between clarity and haze, you can find yourself in a room with amazing people, amazing scotch, and amazing views out from the table and still go in circles feeling like you aren’t stepping forward. However, it is in those moments when you realize that going in a circle forwards, backwards, sideways, up and down all that the same time is something unique. And, in that universal mix of time and space is the rabbit hole. There are days I want to stay out of the rabbit hole and continue down the path of what I think life is but truth is my artist can’t. I have learned that my own way of being in the world is my own. I learned this from my parents, my mentors and my friends. My art by extension must be my own too.

I have learned as an artist that the challenge of being me is well….hard. The easy road is just that the road. It is paved with one route and few exits and on ramps, but it is easy. I often times drive the Interstate 5 of my life, but then I find myself not being able to get where I need to go. When I find that I need to explore those transitions and spaces between, they don’t ever happen at mile marker 174 next to the Shell station.

I was also wisely reminded that the times you create and leave the art behind. Whether it be 42 sculptures left for others to find and re-experience in ways they never thought they would or images from the daily events in your life that move others to understand the universal threads of children that tie parents together, you have to be true to you. You have to be true to your art. And integrity like this is really fucking hard.

So you might ask, did I learn anything this weekend since most of what I have written to this point seems to go in a circle. The short answer is this. I learned that sometimes what you leave behind for someone else is what matters. It might be a conversation with someone to help them understand something they were struggling with or something they might say to help me. But in the end, artist want to leave a trace. A trace of something behind in the world. To each and everyone from the weekend, feel free to create something new and cross that need off the list. And as for me, who knows that I up next in my work, but the camera is calling….

This past weekend while photographing for the Photographic Center Northwest’s Longshot event, I wandered over into the great neighborhood of Ballard in Seattle. One of my favorite outdoor stores (Second Ascent) was sponsoring a bicycle criterium race. The event was timed and with some fast riders so lots of laps. This was my first time (not my last as it was a blast), to photograph a bike race. Too much fun!!

While I road a bike back in college with a cycling club, I never really got serious about it but cycling has always held my interest. And while not an rabid fan, I do watch the Tour and growing up in Colorado we would spend some weekends in the summer hitting the local races as my buddy Mark was a rabid fan. All of those memories gave me an idea of what I what I thought I wanted to shoot as the race started.
Of course as with most things you learn, the gap between what you think you can do and what actually happens can be pretty wide. This experience was no different. I thought oh, I’ll go out and get on some corners and get some great shots of the pack, individual riders or small breakaways. I was pretty proud of myself looking at the back of the LCD at the race. Things were looking good. Then at home on the monitor at home…well…not so much. Of the hundreds of photographs I took, there were a FEW (ok maybe a few more than few) of out of focus, half a bike, missing tires, half of a helmet, bad light, bad backgrounds, or my favorite images with the guy at the back of the pack in focus and not anyone in the front. The experience reminded of my my days playing golf. It only took a few good ones to keep you coming back in the future.

So here are a couple of images from the race that show off my mad photo skills. I am between these two images below I almost have a full rider. What more could you want?

Hope that you enjoyed these, and I’m looking forward to my second bike race and post. Learning what to do better the second time is what it is all about. That is what makes photography so great. The more you shoot the more you learn and the better you get. 10,000 hours is just around the corner.

I recently had the opportunity to participate in a blind critique session. If you haven’t ever done one before you basically submit your work and a person or group of people provide feedback about the work. The interesting aspect of the process is that the feedback is done in isolation without any dialog between the critic and the artist. This was my first time to do any sort of blind critique so it was a learning experience for me. I have been in a lot of critiques and think it is a great way to move your work forward so I was looking forward to the experience. Let me say upfront that I think the experience was a good one since it really got me thinking about the work–which is the purpose of the process. If a critique doesn’t move your work forward that’s when you need to start to find new people to critique your work.

The image you see attached to this post is one of the images that was submitted. Now I had a few reasons for submitting it: 1) it is one of the images that I have printed more for  family and friends than others (doesn’t mean by any stretch that this is a sign of a quality image, but I found it interesting none the less as a criteria for a critique) 2) it is part of a larger body of work (an issue I believe that the root of my lesson learned on this type of work) 3) I had committed to trying something new with my work this year and felt this was a good place to start.

The image was shown and the gist of the critique was…This is just a photograph of someone else’s art and so there isn’t anything to say. It is just a snapshot of someone else work..moving on. While there are artist that do present work as new and novel via the direct copy of another (see the works of Sherrie Levine), my work with this image is completely different.

The image that you see is part of a larger body of work that is at its heart a collection of crowd-sourced street art. Did I photograph someone else’s art? ABSOLUTELY and SORT OF. I actually photographed a whole group of artist. The photograph isn’t an image of someones work directly.  It is an image of the amazing collection of flyers that are stapled to a telephone pole in my home town of Seattle. The flyers and posters get layered one on top of another creating the most awesome melting pot of color, texture and shape. Then as people walk by they rip, peel, tear, cover-up and replace things over any over again. Mother Nature takes a turn with a little rain, wind and sun.What you are left with is a street photographers dream. An infinite collection of ever changing  crowd sourced art. My little part is the photograph (and in the case of this image some composite work to get the layers the way I wanted them in the image which is made up of approximately 6-8 flyers from 2 images).  This image is just one from the collections of images that I am pulling together for a fine-art body of work on crowd sourced art. We walk by countless walls, telephone poles and bulletin boards with some amazing art and we never stop to notice. It is a great way for me to connect with the unintentional artist in all of us.

Now there are a lot of reactions one can have to a critique (from I suck to they suck to we all suck), and the reaction I got to this image is not the worst things I have heard about my work and won’t break into the top 10. So that being said, why take the time to explain all of this. I honestly believe that every critique can add value (some way more than others).  And that we should share what we learn so others can see how we as artist take that information and try to close the loop.

So as I walked away, I spent some time figuring out what to take away that can help me in the future with my work that is more conceptual in nature. In this case,  I think I should have submitted more images of the same material rather than just the one. What was missing was the context of other images to help tell the story. Standing on its own, you might pass over the image as just that a snapshot of another’s art. But with three, four or five, you might start to see context. I might have been able to get to a critique of the concept (which is what I really wanted and didn’t know at submission) along with the image (which I still think in the context of the body of work is interesting for a variety of reasons). When we often times give or receive a critique, we get the benefit of a dialog about the work. When we aren’t there, the work has to stand on its own. It has to tell its own story without us around to provide the artist statement. When the work is more conceptual in nature it often times will space and relationships to other images help to get the person to see the full story. Every image might tell a story, but sometimes they need each other to complete the book.

Sometimes when you stand on the shoulders of those who came before you, you can see farther than you ever thought possible. Standing on Weston Beach at Point Lobos forces you to ask a very big question. Do I want to see the world through my eyes or try to make my eyes see Westons, Adams, Baer, and countless others. You can’t help it. After all you are standing on Weston Beach. Some of the most iconic images from the most iconic photographers in the 20th century were created in and around Carmel. You can smell it in the air when you are down there. You can see the tones, shapes and images when you close your eyes.

So you are given a choice, can you find something of you in a place that inspired such great work or try to find and recreate their work. Can you dig deep to find your inspiration or do you settle for imitation. The work of those great West Coast photographers was inspiration not imitation. They didn’t stand on the rocks and record an exact imitation of what they saw in nature. They were moved and inspired to connect with nature and show something beyond what we see. Sometimes a rock is not a rock and a pepper is not a pepper.

So, I doubt the truth of imitation as the greatest form of flattery–it’s not. Inspiration is. When you look at your images, you should be able to see the difference.  If not, climb back on those shoulders and look off into the horizon and create me the picture only you can see.

I am continuing to work on my images from a recent trip to Washington D.C. One evening we headed down into Chinatown for some dinner and came to the intersection with the Friendship archway. According to the wonderful community over at wikipedia:

“The colorful, US$1 million work of public art includes seven roofs up to 60 feet high, 7000 tiles, and 272 painted dragons in the style of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.”

It is really quite a beautiful piece of work.

When we first walked up to the archway, I stood on the corner and photographed it much like everyone else was, but then it occurred to me the that I really wanted was the image taken from the middle of the street. So my buddy RC and I jumped out into the middle of the street and set the camera on continuous high and photographed like madmen. We took turns keeping an eye on the countdown for the crosswalk singles and at 3…2…1 we would grab the cameras and head over to the opposite side. This back and forth process continued for several rounds before dinner and a little after dinner.

What amazed me in the process was the excitement that can come from getting your heart racing knowing that DC traffic tolerance for pedestrians in the middle of the street is not exactly high. I am pretty sure that they might flip you off as they run over your body like a annoying speed bump in the parking lot of the local Wal-mart. And at the same time, the more time I spent shooting the more I could see in my head exactly what I wanted to get with my image. I was seeing it as a great black and white.

I’m not crazy so from the second I saw the arch I was planing on doing this great HDR image. This subject just calls out to be done as a bad ass HDR. But as I starred into the image, I knew that I was going to be processing the final image in black and white.  So I opened up an image and did a little work on getting the exposure balanced and ended up with a image that I really like of the archway. I am pretty sure that most people have a real great photo showing off the color, but I think mine really captured my mood and excitement of the light, the traffic and glow of this great work of art.

As for the second image in this post, it is an image that was taken right as I first got to the intersection. It was intended for use in a HDR series, but I just fell in love with the light all over again when I looked at the image in the darkroom. The sun was setting and the archway just lit up and glowed this amazing warm, golden light. While the construction on the left provides a serious distraction, I have included this image for two reasons. The first is that when light is good it really does stop us in our tracks. The golden glow and radiance of this piece of art really is amazing.  The second reason is that in the past, I might have settled for this image. It would have reminded me of my visit to Chinatown, the color and arch are cool, but the image isn’t really me and I would have been disappointed back home. However by continuing to work with a location and subject to find a way to express my experience, I was able to create a photo that still makes me happy for the click.

All images taken on a Nikon D700 with 24-70 F/2.8 on Lexar UDMA media.

It is the end of another great Photoshop World (PSW) conference, and I have been thinking over the past few days about what I would write for a show wrap up. The 2012 Spring event was held in Washington DC during the cherry blossom festival–such great timing by the NAPP organization. While this is my fourth time to attend a Photoshop World, it is my  first time to attend the event on the east coast. When you live in Seattle going to the east coast is a long flight, so I have always opted for Las Vegas in the past. With the show in DC this spring, I just couldn’t pass on come out to such a great location.

There are a lot of things to do at PSW, and it reminded me of my first visit to the Smithsonian Museum when I was in 8th grade. On that trip, the tour guide said that you couldn’t see everything the Museums had in their archives even you if you went everyday to the various museums when they were open. They just had too much stuff to see and there wan’t enough time to see everything. PSW is sort of like that. You think that you have a plan and enough time to see everything, but once it is over you realize there just wasn’t enough time for everything. To say that you have full days is an understatement. Between classes, photo walking, catching up with friends, meeting new friends, after hours events like tweet ups and Midnight Madness, you will be busy.

I started off with a pre-con the day before PSW with the amazing Moose Peterson and Joe McNally on their Photo Safari. Moose and team always do a great job of finding great locations and people to photograph. This year was a group of people who are Civil War reenactors. They were generous open and wonderful to photograph. Joe setup a location lighting studio and so we go to work on our McNally portraits. I now have a growing collection of images that Joe setup for us to photograph. While they will never be in a portfolio since it is Joe’s setup, it is great to have these photos and learn from Joe about he and why he sets up the lights the way he does. He really is a master of the language of light.

Moose was great and generous as always. He is willing to answering any question (except those about the D4 which he deferred to his friend Kevin ) or share one of his stories from adventures in photography. It helps keep everyone motivated and brainstorming new and better ways to photograph. I have over the years learned so much about photography and finding your passions in what you photograph from Moose that I know I’ll never be able to repay him for the kind words, encouragement and support. I never would have gotten to know Moose if we hadn’t meet over those first few PSW adventures. Reason enough alone to attend a PSW.

Once the conference got rolling, Scott and company treated us to a wonderful election theme for the keynote with negative campaign ads, a Tina Fey worthy Sarah Palin impersonator who could see the White House from her hotel room, to the selection of the Photoshop Parties candidate for President. Then Adobe showed us some of the great new things they have been up to over the past few years. While I am very impressed with some of the changes in Lightroom 4, they have some amazing work they are doing in Photoshop  CS6 on the desktop and Photoshop Touch on the tablet interfaces. The next few years are going to be amazing.

The classes were great as always. With the introduction of Lightroom 4 and Photoshop CS6, even older familiar classes seemed new and fresh. However, for me it is not the topics so much as it is the instructors. While I already talked about the amazing Moose and Joe. Scott Kelby has put together such an amazing collection of instructors for the conference. Learning from Gregory Heisler and Jay Maisel about how light moves us to what it means to be an artist from Joel Grimes to inspiration from Lindsay Adler and the impact of photography from Moose with his wildlife photography, it is hard to find the time to see everyone. I attended classes on techniques and marketing from John Paul Caponigro, RC Conception, Russell Brown, Julieane Kost, Jermey Cowart, Lesa Snider, Matt Kloskowski and a long list of other amazing presenters. As in the past, I found myself at the end of the day hearing about sessions I didn’t get to attend which set the seed for attending the next PSW. And of course there is always Midnight Madness, where they guarantee you won’t learn a thing about Photoshop…and they are right.

I think like many people, my initial attraction to Photoshop World was all about the education–a lot of it really fast. But now, it is less about the classes and more about the open, sharing and giving community that has developed at PSW. I really like that PSW is a chance to see and reconnect with people that I haven’t seen in a while. We get to catch-up, share, laugh, and learn together. Those connections extend though out the year with phone calls, trips to visit and lots of online back and forth. That community keeps me motivated and pushes me to be a better artist everyday.

At my first PSW four years ago, I came down to the event in Las Vegas without knowing anyone. When I came home, I had a few new friends and got a chance to meet many of the photographers whose work I had followed for years. The people where all amazing. The instructors were generous. The staff was absolutely awesome, and the people attending  PSW were fun, supportive and caring people. I knew after that first year that attending again would be a reoccurring event for me. It is one of the ways that I reconnect with old friends, see amazing works and recharge my inspiration. This year was no different. There are just amazing people at PSW across the board.

So in the end DC didn’t disappoint. I was able to say thanks again to all my mentors in person. Got to hang out and shoot with friends like RC, Pete, Ryan, Nicolesy, Brian x2, Julie, Johaness and Gary. There was time to meet new friends like Kathy, Rob, Mike, and lots of others who I’ll continue to connect with online and at the next PSW. So in the end, I had a great time again and am looking forward to Vegas in the fall. If you are attending be sure to look me up when you get into town. If you haven’t ever been you should give it a try. You can find out information about the conference here. Oh and in case you missed my collation of quotes from day 2 you can find those here.

It is sort of a tradition of mine to post out some of my favorite quotes I hear on day two of Photoshop World. You might wonder why I do this for the second day two of a multiple day conference, if not you can skip ahead to the quotes section below. First, the conference’s second day has the most sessions and number of classes which means more chances to interact with more people . Second, one of my favorite events is called the Art of Photography and that happens on the second night. This program is a panel of 10 of the best photographers sharing their work and passion for this great art. There is nothing technical presented in the program, it is to just meant to inspire and motivate each person in the room to go out and make the best work they can. The event is filled with absolutely amazing images and presentations so it is pretty easy to hear some great quotes. And finally, I think day two is when everyone gets in the groove. New friends have been made, and everyone is happy to share what they have learned.  So without any further ado, my favorite quotes from PSW 2012 East Coast edition.

Favorite Quotes from the Day

“It’s taking my photography to new heights” — Joe Glyda in taking about his work in aviation

“This image was taken at 12,800 ISO. Why? Because I didn’t know it was set at 12,800″ — Jay Maisel

“I have redefined in my own mind what I am defined as. I am now defined as an artist” –Joel Grimes

“Social media sites are the fishing nets for your commerce and the way to get them to your house (website/blog)” –RC Concepcion

“Impossible is just an opinion, and no is just a starting point” — Vincent Versace

“I prefer to treat all of nature as a sacred place” – John Paul Caponigro

“Light is the greatest influence on my work” —  Dave Black

“Sometimes four inches in light location can make or break an image” –Joel Grimes

“Listen to your lights” — Joe Glyda

“Love is one weapon that kills all evil” — via Jeremy Cowart from one of his photos taken during his work of Voices of Reconciliation in Rwanda

“The camera only sees what you give it. You can quote me on that.” –Gregory Heisler

“Today we have an opportunity to make a difference” — John Paul Caponigro

Moose Peterson was asked “What king of photography do you do?” his response “The best I can.”

“Light will always, always come forward in your images, but sometimes not.” –Jay Maisel

“Social media is about engagement and conversation. People show up when you do good things” –RC Concepcion

“Color is the enemy of shape and vice-versa.” — Jay Maisel

“We all need a kick in the butt to get out and create.” –Joel Grimes

“Shoot what you can’t help but shoot” –Gregory Heisler

Not a quote so much, but at the Art of Photography, Julieanne Kost showed her new work I loved the titles of her new bodies of work “Moments Given” “Moments Combined” and “Moments Alone”

“Can you tell someone how to be a better photographer. Yeah, move your ass” –Jay Maisel

Maybe it was just how I was listening, but there seemed to be a clear theme that emerged as the day progressed–great work that we connect with comes from people’s passion and not their technique. You can chase technique and trends, but at the end of the day your work has be a reflection of who you are and what matters to you.  Greg Heisler made a geat analogy that style is a like a fingerprint and techniques and trends are like gloves. We can all wear that same gloves, but your fingerprints are unique.  If all you do is wear gloves, you can’t leave any fingerprints.

I hope that you find some of these as inspiring as I do. I tried to select quotes that would mean something even if you weren’t in the work, or I just found them funny.

Today was the start of Photoshop World 2012 East Coast edition. As with the past several years, I came in early for a pre-conference with Moose Peterson and Joe McNally and their very fun photo safari. Like conferences past, Joe and Moose took some time to show some of their latest work and answer any questions we might have about photography, life as a photographer or life in general . This year I learned something new that I didn’t know about Joe. Joe knows that HDR really means Hot Dogs and Ribs.

Joe and Moose also had a couple of things that I will keep in mind with my shooting in the coming year. First Joe reminded us that “You are responsible for every pixel in the image.” I think this is is something that will really help remind me to check my corners, spend time with the composition and think for just a second more before creating the shot. Moose reminded us that “When you go click it is not a summary of your photographic experience, but rather your life’s experience” He advised us to keep this in mind as we create new work.

So you might wonder where we were off to this year. Well, they lined up a trip to the Sully Historic site in Virginia with a a troop of Civil War reenactment group. Even a long bus ride out of DC due to construction couldn’t dampen our spirits on they way out. I was one the bus with Joe and he was a gracious as ever sharing insights and tips on how to make the most of our visit.

Once we arrived, we came around a bend in the road and there was setup a group of tents and our models for the days events. The coolest part of our models is that they weren’t really models. They were a group of amazingly warm and wonderful people who  are an actual Civil War reenactment team that was willing to come out and share their experience of what they love to do with us.

Unlike some reenactment troops, our troop were character actors meaning they actually portrayed real people from the Civil War. They knew all about the persons life, events and participation in the Civil War. They dressed to the period and had the most wonderfully amazing costumes. It was like getting a real life history lesson from a person picked out of time.

Everyone we so supportive of our pointing cameras in their face and willing to do pretty much everything we asked them to do. They were great as we learned new ways to light and pose people. I only hope that we provided them a little entertainment as well. I won’t soon forget my trip to Sully and the generosity of Moose, Joe, the troop and my fellow precons. I wonder what Joe and Moose will have in store for the next precon Safari in Veags in September. If you are coming out to PSW in the fall, it would be worth your time to spend an afternoon with some of the best people around.

The images in the post are from the days event. I processed them in black and white and then toned them to look a little like a platinum print. All images were taken on a Nikon D700 with 14-24mm f/2.8 or 70-200mm f/2.8 lens on Lexar media. The interior is from one of the buildings at the historic site.

I am in Washington DC for a little vacation and the upcoming Photoshop World conference. Today was sort of a get on east coast time day and wandering around the National Mall kinda of day. The timing of the trip turned out to be great since most of the cherry blossoms are in bloom right now. The downside of this is of course the number of people. The path around the Jefferson Memorial was well…insane. There were people and cameras everywhere.

This sort of let me wondering about the uniqueness of each of the images I would be taking. Standing side-by-side with dozens if not hundreds of other photographers left me wondering, what about my experience can make the work become my own. Then as I stood there looking out over the water at Jefferson’s Memorial thinking about the words from the Declaration of Independence, the cool things in the Smithsonian and the wonder of the White House and the Capitol Building it hit me.

You see DC is one of the those cities that can make you realize just how cool your country is. And as I looked around at all the people gathered on the National Mall to see the memorials and the cherry blossoms, I realized that there is no way to not make a photo that reflects who I am. Just like the people around me, we are all unique and yet we all share in a common ground that is easy to see here in DC. It is this common ground what we walk on together that binds us over our difference. It is what makes us great as a country. We are all unique, we are special and we all have something to offer.

I am getting ready for Photoshop World 2012 in DC and was looking over some notes on the computer and came across a document with a big list of photography quotes. In the past, I have taken notes and posted some of my favorite quotes from the Photoshop World conference, and so I thought I would share a few of these in preparation next week.

“The meaning of quality in photography’s best pictures lies written in the language of vision. That language is learned by chance, not system.” – Walker Evans

The subconscious is a great thing when it come to creativity. The ego doesn’t seem to be able to operate in the subconscious so amazing things happen when it is given some time to play.  So with the ego passing judgement on other things in my life, my subconscious has been at play with something that is starting to look like a new collection of work. Because of all this background processing, I find that at times my creativity sometimes eludes my own understanding of what I am doing. I shoot lots of images that all seem to have no home other than in the to-be-determined-later collection. Then suddenly for no apparent reason, they suddenly start to gravitate towards one another. It is like watching little balls of mercury roll across a table. They have a strange attraction for each other slowing growing as they merge into each other before becoming a single pool. Images from different years, places, subjects start to vibrate around each other and join together.

In looking back, almost all of my projects start off as just background noise waiting to be discovered as something meaningful. Eventually the repetition and pinging of the connections gets to loud to ignore. It reminds me of the great scene in Contact where Jody Foster’s character first hears the sound of the communication from Vega. The sudden shock of being sure that you are hearing something other than just noise; and yet so unsure of what you have found that you get overwhelmed at the pure excitement of what is happening. Then the reality sets in and you know that  you have something real. You explode with energy, excitement and passion.

This tiny little seed of a project is starting to feel a little like that. I am starting to see a pinging that is hitting over and over again. These images that were taken apart in location and time all the sudden have a mutual respect for each other; and in my endeavor to be hella creative all the time, they are pushing me to look with intention at this work to see what develops.

I can’t say  much more about what is will become, because it is still just a distant signal from a far off place. But, it is getting louder. I can’t wait to head out with intention and see what develops.

I was recently asked by a friend of mine about an issue she was having in Lightroom 3 with her workflow. She had made the decision to convert her images to DNG files on import and wanted to use the feature in Lightroom’s import dialog box to make a backup copy of the original file at the same time to a different location. She also was using the rename file feature to make her photo file names more user friendly.

Her issue came about when she noticed that the renaming of the files worked just fine on the DNG files, but was ignored on the backup copy of the original file. The original file kept its original name. This resulted with her not being able to easily match up the original RAW file to DNG file if needed. I am sure that there were some reason for this, but if it was me listening to them all I would hear is blah blah blah. I can’t think of any reason good reason why the file name would need to stay intact to preserve the integrity of the non-converted RAW file.

In Lightroom 3, the workaround is to copy the images into the catalog with the backup and rename options selected. Then after the import is completed, you can convert the imported files to DNG. This will leave you with a DNG file and the backup original file with the same file name.

The good news is that this was fixed in Lightroom 4 and so if you want to import and convert to DNG, backup the original file and have the renaming apply to both files you can make it happen in the import process.