First, I got all lazy with Elizabeth Halford a few days ago when she waxed rhapsodically about flickr so I didn’t have to do it myself.

Now, my laziness is extended wonderfully because sometimes CIPB-blogger Stacy Hanna has written up a nice preview of the big opening for the Gathering Light show at the Picture This gallery in Peoria Heights on Friday night.

Now which one of you is going to come clean my house?

Alright – well in lieu of that, Doug and Eileen Leunig have indeed hung a wonderful show at Picture This and when you combine that with free munchies at an opening, can you really go wrong? I think not. Head over to Stacy’s blog to get all the details – and notice all the hard work she went through to sell it. I love it when that happens.

Oh the Internet…

I’ve been without the loving embrace of the Internet at home since last Wednesday night. My satellite Internet connection – tenuous on its best days – puked all over my computer the other night and I am… down. So I’ve sneaked up to my favorite hummus/wireless location in Peoria – where I’m going to squeeze in a few updates for a Monday morning. Then – then I will probably disappear again until Wednesday when the satellite repair dudes find me and rescue me from the black hole of Nointernetness.

So – how about this? The Peoria Flickr group is headed on a bit of a wild outing for their November Photowalk. It’s a trip down to Junk Yard heaven on Saturday, September 21 at 11:45am, as the group invades the scrap yard at the end of Clark Street on Peoria’s South Side. All the details are on the group page. Come one come all – but leave the kids at home for this one – and get ready to get dirty.

And I’ll mention it again – Doug and Eileen Leunig’s show up at Picture This Gallery in Peoria Heights: mindblowingly good. Wow. The official opening is this Friday – and while that’s always a good time – the show is hung now – so stop in and take a look.

The Peoria Art Guild’s Landscape class is going to explore Panoramas in more detail this week. Here’s two things to think about in case you were thinking about “How Can I Take a Better Pano?” First off, consider turning your camera 90 degrees. That’s right – take your panos VERTICALLY. You’ll get more in frame and cover yourself if you’re not perfectly level. A horizontal pano works fine – I just think a vertical one works better as you pan left-to-right. Here’s a second thought to improve your panos – and it has to do with footwork. Yeah seriously – footwork. Typically we point our feet in the direction of our first shot and we twist our body as we shoot the sequence. By the time we’ve gotten to the other end of the pano, we’re twisted quite a bit. This can actually pull you off level. Solve this by pointing your feet at the middle of the pano and twisting to one end before you start. The overall twist away from your feet is less – and you stay more level. It’s the little things ya know.

And consider this – a “do what I say not what I do” lesson. I shot an event for a client on Friday that left me regretting my strategy. The event was an all-day affair covering numerous locations. And by the time the day was done I had shot some 20GB of images – probably some 1,200 total files. I was sometimes deleting on the fly – so in the end I came back with about 900 files but man – I SHOT WAY TOO MUCH. Or at least I shot so much that it extended the edit session as I went through all the images yesterday. Digital has a lot of benefits obviously – and one of them is the incremental cost of the next shot. Just because it feels free doesn’t mean it is. Longer editing sessions and more storage “costs” add up. Sometimes it’s okay to shoot a little less. Once you have the shot consider moving on – and saving a little time. But just make you you DO have the shot.

Alright – I’m going back to the Dark Ages. By Internet – I miss you already.

Tagged: Doug Leunig, Panoramas, Peoria Flickr Group, Picture This Gallery ]]> http://escapesphoto.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/sneaking-in-where-i-can/feed/ 0 escapesphoto Tude in Focus http://escapesphoto.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/unique-photographic-opportunity/ http://escapesphoto.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/unique-photographic-opportunity/#comments Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:41:32 +0000 David Vernon http://escapesphoto.wordpress.com/?p=1362 ]]>

Well here’s your chance to try something different.

The Illinois State Cross Country Championships are this weekend. In Peoria – where they always are. Right here – and so accessible to YOU. If you have had a hankering to shoot a little sports, this is indeed a unique opportunity. Head over to Detweiller Park this Saturday where you can see no less then six races, hourly starting at 9am and “running” pretty much non-stop to about 2:30pm.  Each race (three classes – male and female) lasts about 20 minutes – and then you get 40 minutes between races to explore the very rich myriad of activities going on around these state championships.

There are a number of reasons to shoot this event. While you pay $10 per car for parking, the events themselves are free. Load a few shooters into one car and it’s downright cheap. There are almost a limitless number of places to photograph the runners (although I’m partial to the end of the long straightaway at the start of every race). And those runners pass by numerous times so you get lots of chances to perfect your techniques. The color – of all the uniforms and thousands of spectators – mixed in with the greens and fading leaves at Detweiller – make for some slick vistas.

Here’s a map for those of you who’ve been under the rock and aren’t sure where Detweiller Park is. And a course map gives you a feeling for where the runners are going to be. I personally always shoot the start and then take advantage of the timing to move toward Rt. 29 to get them passing in numerous places. The area along side Park Road, up towards the finish line, is usually packed with people (and I mean PACKED). Hustle a little to get a good spot. Most people are very accommodating to letting you sit under the rope to get your shot. The only warning: the course marshals are notoriously tough on folks crossing the course at times. Always try and know where you are and where you are going – or they’ll do it for you. But there are still almost a limitless number of places to shoot from.

I leave you with a series of images I’ve shot out there over the years…

Elizabeth Halford is a British portrait photographer from Hampshire, who specializes in children and families. And all of you here in Central Illinois (4,062 miles from the lovely little town of Hampshire) might be wondering something like “So what.” Well listen blokes – I want to thank Elizabeth Halford because she made my day just a little bit easier. Let me explain.

I think most of you know I’m a bit of an evangelist when it comes to the web site Flickr.com. Flickr hosts all of the images that appear on this blog (and many more) – and it has done a lot of other positive things for me as I try to promote photography in the Central Illinois region (hello Peoria Flickr group!). And yet I’m always somewhat slack-jawed when I hear someone say how they don’t know about/use/wonder at the marvel that is Flickr. I know they’re not a perfect website – but they get it right far more then they get it wrong and they’re also great promoters of all things photographic.

Now – let’s get back to England’s lovely Elizabeth Halford (maybe she’ll pay me a few quid everytime I mention her name?). Elizabeth was kind enough to write a great introductary article all about Flickr over at Digital Photography School. Kind of an everything-you’d-want-to-know primer on all the goodness that is Flickr. And because she’s written it – I DON’T HAVE TO DO IT MYSELF. And that – THAT – is why I want to thank Elizabeth Halford. She rocks. From 4,062 miles away.

So if you’ve wondered about flickr – go read her article at DPS and let the light shine on in. So thanks Elizabeth Halford of Hampshire, U.K. You’ve done good.

A few things of note upcoming at the Peoria Camera Club.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, November 3 – Suzette Boulais from Peoria’s ArtsPartners will be dropping by. She will be discussing the goals, and features of Arts Partners – a great supporter of all arts in Central Illinois. She will also explore how that organization and PCC can benefit each other. Suzette is a good and energetic presenter and is a real champion for the arts here in the River City. And she’s showing up at the PCC in what will be a VERY busy week for her.

This Saturday, November 7, from 9:00am till 4:00pm, the club will hold their annual Fall Workshop. Geared at studio photography – either traditional portraiture or still-life/table-top – the workshop gives photographers a chance to play with lots of different set-ups and to work with many models who will be on-hand.  It’s just $25 to participate. Get the details over at the Workshops portion of the website.

And on November 17, local photographer Barb Hoffman will be on-hand to review all of the entries in the PCC’s recent Urban Landscape competition. Barb knows her way around Urban Landscapes to be sure – and it would be worth just to hear her critique.

All meetings are held at the Immanuel Lutheran Church, 4911 N Knoxville Ave, located on the northwest corner of Knoxville and Glen Ave. Meetings run from 7:30pm to 9:30pm.

I’m taking the rest of the day off here again. I know. Again.

Head over to the Enjoy Illinois blog to see what clever words of wisdom I’m imparting over there about something familiar to Central Illinoisians. And if you head down toward Banner Marsh – over in Fulton County – you’ll no doubt eventually stumble across this silo.

Well here comes November. I think November is a month that often gets cheated. We’re in such a hurry to start the holiday shopping extravaganza that we often ignore this month – except perhaps for Thanksgiving. And the eleventh month has a lot going for it. The last full month of autumn, with lingering colors and surprisingly warm days on occasion. The crispness in the air, football on Thursdays, Tofurkey. Okay – not sure about Tofurkey.

This image was made in November of 2006 up at Illinois’ Matthiessen State Park in the Wishing Well. The park is where Lake Matthiessen water cascades down some 11 waterfalls over about a half-mile before joining the Vermillion River. A joy to see any month of the year.

Not to beat duChemin over the head (figuratively not literally) but as he says “Gear is Good, Vision is Better.”

No better proof of that then to check out the work of Australian teenager Leila Berney, who is just 17 years old, owns a Canon 400D (aka a Rebel XTi), does no Photoshop, and simply has an idea and style that reaches out. Her large gallery over at DeviantArt has a lot of variety – and is full of hits – and misses. But the thing of it is, she goes for it photographically speaking and while reaching stays true to herself. It doesn’t matter what camera you have or what your Photoshop secrets are. It matters that you take your camera with you and that you shoot what matters – to you. The old saying about “Dance Like No One is Watching” has a photographic equal: “Shoot Like No One Else Will See”. Shoot for you – and the rest will follow. Take a look at a few of Leila’s pieces:

Found via Alison Zavos on the Feature Shoot blog

And yet we must balance every “Vision is Better” rant with a “Gear is [Still] Good” mantra. We talk about how many frames per second we can get. Yo dude – 7fps? 8fps? 10fps? Raw? Well screw that. Check out what 1,000,000fps can do for you if you like to photograph bullets. In flight.

via John Nack

Oh – and check out this notion. So you wanna be a commercial photographer? I wouldn’t put the stress that high – I think it’s one of the greatest jobs out there.

I’ve been doing some thinking on the whole Raw vs. JPEG thing. But lets back up for a moment.

When I got my first Digital SLR (my old Nikon D70 – purchased about five years ago), I made the choice to shoot JPEGs. On one hand I didn’t have the experience, software, or wherewithal to move right into Nikon’s Raw. On the other hand, shooting in JPEG still produced good images that you could tweak somewhat in Photoshop. Of course when I look at a lot of the early images I shot in JPEG and worked over in Photoshop, I think I actually made them worse. But all kidding aside, they were good images that worked for what I was doing.

Then I attended one of the Spring Seminars that the Peoria Camera Club puts on – with Rick Sammon I believe – and he kept harping on why I, Dave Vernon, was not shooting in Raw. And he was right. By then I had a sense of what I wanted to do photographically and Raw was one way to achieve that. I got into Raw very deep and very fast and now – here in 2009 I couldn’t imagine shooting any other way. I’m certainly a Raw evangelist but … and here’s where it gets dangerous – I think I have an open mind when it comes to JPEG.

There’s nothing like teaching photography at the Peoria Art Guild to give me – as the teacher – an education. A lot of my students don’t give a rat’s rear end for Raw. They don’t – and they don’t give that same tush for doing any post-processing out of camera. Nope. So guess what? Yeah – Raw is an awful choice for them. Awful. They are built for JPEG and that’s really the only acceptable avenue. So my job isn’t to proselytize to them about Raw. My job is to shut my mouth and make sure they’re getting the most out of their JPEG shooting experience. And that’s what I do. But in doing that I’ve come back around to the plus of shooting JPEG. Let me expand on that a bit.

My typical workflow, for say, event photography, is to shoot it in Raw and then process it in Adobe Camera Raw. I’ll color correct, crop, and make minor adjustments to my selects – but I won’t ever take them into Photoshop. I’ll then use Camera Raw to essentially export JPEGs that I deliver to my customer. But why not shoot these in JPEG and save me a step or two?

I wax on to my JPEG shooters that one of the most important things you can do is take the time to set your camera up correctly before you shoot – so your picture control and white balance is spot on since changing it after the fact is made more difficult. And once you’ve done that – why not shoot in JPEG? Or at least Raw + JPEG if you’re chicken. Have you seen the options in your camera’s Retouch menu? In my Nikons, there is stuff like D-Lighting, red-eye correction, cropping, black-and-white, filter effects, and color balance. You also have Picture Control – where I can adjust sharpening, contrast, brightness, saturation and hue – before I shoot. And interestingly that’s what I’m going to do after the fact anyway in PS. So why not?

If what you do demands Raw – then great – Raw is a powerful format with lots of post-processing benefits. If not – consider if JPEG could work for you – and save you a ton of time. We’re all about getting the best image in camera anyway – so having an image in a final format in camera seems like it isn’t a bad idea. And if you don’t believe me – read this blog entry from Bob Krist – who has been known to shoot a frame or two for National Geographic. He’s come around to the same basic point-of-view.

And here’s a few minor JPEG trivia items for you to carry around all day.

• Even if you shoot Raw – your camera still makes a JPEG. It’s what you see on your LCD. That JPEG image is essentially embedded within the Raw file. If you want to get at it, there’s a nice little program to do that. Saves you from shooting in Raw + JPEG.
• We (probably) all know that JPEG is also a compression format which is not lossless. Every time you re-save a JPEG you’re throwing away a little bit of data. But if you want to edit a JPEG in some post-processing software go right ahead. Doing it once or twice won’t significantly alter your file’s quality. Doing it 600 times however…
• When you pick the “quality” of a JPEG file at saving time – you’re really allowing how much compression you want. I always tend to like about 70% – enough compression to save a little space without sacrificing much quality. That’s just me and you’re actual miles may vary.

And one other thought for you folks thinking about Raw. I had a student mention to me the other day that they couldn’t open their Raw file in Photoshop. If your Raw processor came out before your camera did, then this is probably the case. You need to make sure you have the latest update (or at least an update that included support for your camera) of your software that includes support for your camera. Every time the major camera manufacturers introduce a new model, Adobe is quick on the bandwagon to release an update to ACR to support that camera. Check your software’s Update function (usually under the Help menu) to see if there are any free updates available.

I love whimsical when it comes to travel photography. When we were passing through Lismore in Ireland a few years back, I noticed this plaque outside a public loo. Admittedly, the inside of the bathroom was pretty nice – albeit rather simple – but nice nevertheless (and I’m a little frightened I can remember it). I also love that they have a plaque even though they didn’t win. And what happened in 2003? What has to go wrong to make you slip down the list?

All of that is a lead-up to this. If you’ve ever done any travel photography, you know there’s a million things to consider when it comes to this topic. Consider the fact that I really debated for days over whether or not to take my tripod to Ireland (a debate that I wouldn’t have today – it goes everywhere with me). The tripod lost – I had my reasons – none of them good in retrospect – but I had my reasons. Come to think of it that was also the first trip on which my wife realized that travel is a French word meaning “wait for photographer”.

Well – Thom Hogan – who usually writes exhaustively on ALL things Nikon – has graced us with a nice new brand-neutral article on ALL things travel – as in what do you need to consider before you make the big trip. If you haven’t read Thom before – be forewarned - he’s very thorough. I’ve had trips shorter then this article – but you will be prepared.

…because you should see this too.

Photographer Cheryl Jacobs Nicolai launched her own blog back in May with an article she’d written years earlier. The first line – on style – has gotten a lot of play in the photography blogosphere in the last few days – and it should. It’s that good. Take a look at the specific quote, but then go over and read the whole article – it will probably have some influence on you as a photographer. Seriously. But still – start here – simply:

“Style is a voice, not a prop or an action. If you can buy it, borrow it, download it, or steal it, it is not a style. Don’t look outward for your style; look inward.”

Anything that is relevant to my personal style is driven by my passion for being out in nature. While I do numerous kinds of photography – it’s landscape shooting that always recharges my batteries and leaves me wanting more.  When I look inward, that’s what I see – and that’s what I try to translate into my work. Photographing at f/1.2 isn’t a style – it’s a technique. Photographing what the heart finds  - now that’s a style.

And hey – just to save a little space – entertain yourself briefly with this: 10 Fascinating Recently Discovered Photographs. Have a great day.

Let’s consider this a Twofer Tuesday, shall we? Let’s especially consider that since we have to fill space to once again force my list under the picture – all because I’m too cheap to make the picture smaller. It’s a tough life.

Anyway, we just got done – mere moments ago – listing five more photographers again. And since this isn’t a 10 More Photographers list, I had to make the tough choice to split this up or I could have done it all in one post. But compulsiveness has its price. And since we were discussing this in the Landscape Expedition class at the Art Guild – let me list five other landscape shooters who blow my mind (and we’re going to leave Ansel off the list – that’s a no-brainer). But if I had to make a list – I’d want these five folks on it:

• Jack Dykinga (www.dykinga.com)
• Carr Clifton (www.carrclifton.com)
• Tom Till (www.tomtill.com)
• David Muench (www.muenchphotography.com)
• Galen Rowell (www.mountainlight.com)

and because I can’t be counted on to count to five accurately, let’s throw in:

• Thomas Mangelsen (www.mangelsen.com)

Alright – that should hold you for a few days.

We’ve done this twice before, so it’s time for Part 3 of our little series “5 More Photographers” – where I highlight five shooters who a) I really like and b) who have websites we can point you at. We’re going in a few different directions today. The first two guys (Tim and Pouya) I discovered through other folks who pointed them out to me. The next two gals (Elizabeth and Laurie) are here because as we worked through a list of important landscape photographers in the current Peoria Art Guild Expedition class, we realized we needed to highlight more female landscape photographers. And the last dude (David) on the list is here because he’s here in Central Illinois and it’s about time we pointed you over to his website.

• Tim Mantoani (www.mantoani.com) - his Photographer’s Portraits are simply wonderful (via Scott Kelby)
• Pouya Dianat (www.pouyadianat.com) – a wonderful command of available light (thanks Joy Miller)
• Elizabeth Carmel (www.elizabethcarmel.com) – just wow with the landscapes
• Laurie Excell (laurieexcell.com) – wonderful teacher to boot
• David Zalaznik (www.davidzalaznik.com) – An absolutely fine Central Illinois landscape shooter

See you in Part IV – sooner then you think.

And still I think of y’all.

Just three items – kind of under the something new, something old, and something – well – something I think I mentioned but probably didn’t and I’m too lazy to search for it.

The new: Ms. Annie Leibovitz, apparently a portrait photographer from New York City, turned out a family portrait of a nice young couple and their two daughters from Washington D.C. Apparently it’s on the Internet now – and is getting a lot of attention. This woman isn’t too bad, but the dad could’ve put a jacket on. Is he really THAT busy?

The old: Deke McClelland – Photoshop Teacher of Yore – continues with his Photoshop Top 40. We’ve got 14 in the bag – and 26 to go – but if you haven’t checked in for a while, head over to lynda.com and see what’s going on. All nice videos on techniques we could all afford to do better.

The something – well: Syl Arena – a man with noticeably more hair then me – has been posted a nice long and yet readable series on “Lessons I Didn’t Learn In Photo School”. Amazingly, he has gotten to number 100 where it appears he stopping and selling them in book form. But you – gentle reader – can still see all 100 on Syl’s blog. And to be honest – only about 97 or 98 or worth anything.