Organic Light Pan

About a month ago fellow photographer Guy Tal released his new eBook on digital photo processing titled “Creative Processing Techniques”.  I have been processing my photos in the digital darkroom using various software applications but eventually settling on Adobe Photoshop for almost 11 years.  I started using Photoshop when it was on its 6th release version.  The power and possibilities that Photoshop brings to the photo processing world are truly amazing.

There is one problem with Photoshop, it is a bear of a program to learn.  It has so many “bells and whistles” that it literally can take years to master the full extent of that software.  Photoshop is on its 12th release as Photoshop CS5, and to this day I still have only tapped into a fraction of what it is capable of as a graphics editing software package.  However for photography, the majority of what Photoshop can do is not really needed.  Photography has a pretty well defined workflow and mastering that workflow is tenable.  However understanding all the tools needed from within Photoshop and knowing how to apply them to digital photos is still a daunting task technically let alone creatively.

In addition to all these obstacles, the photographer of today trying to sell his or her fine art photographs faces an ignorant public that looks upon Photoshop and its use as some how adulterous when it comes to photography.   As if using that software somehow automatically makes a photograph “fake” but the software built into the run-of-the-mill digital camera that produces the small jpeg digital photos did not “fake” anything.  It is quite baffling trying to understand that position and because fine art photographers have a hard enough time as it is  selling their art.  They find themselves caught between being honest business men and women and producing moving artistic pieces and coming up with a variety of explanations of how they use Photoshop to produce photos that are “real”.  It’s a tricky game.

This is where Guy Tal’s new eBook comes to the rescue.  Guy makes no excuses about using Photoshop and likens digital photo processing using Photoshop to that of gourmet cooking.  I understand exactly where his analogy comes from and it makes perfect sense.  Ask people if they would rather eat a gourmet meal cooked fresh as it was ordered or a frozen microwaveable dinner and I’ll bet they would choose the gourmet meal, I would.  Guy puts forward the argument that no camera, no matter how sophisticated, can produce a final artistic rendition of the scene before it better than the artistic photographer him or her self.  The camera does not know what is in front of it, it can’t hear the wind in the trees, or smell the aromas floating on the breeze or even truly see the nuances in light that caught the photographers attention in the first place so how could canned algorithms in the camera render anything of what the artistic photographer wishes to convey?

Guy continues on and develops for the reader a framework in which the artistic photographer can asses the image captured in the camera for shortcomings that need to be addressed and a methodology of identifying how to bridge the gap between the shortcoming to what the photographer envisioned through what Guy terms Dynamic Visualization.  Every step of the process keeps the photographer and the workflow oriented and engaged toward the final vision of what the photo is supposed to be, all while allowing for that vision to change according to the photo itself.  As Guy points out, sometimes we start out with one idea in mind only to find that the photo falls short of conveying that vision with the path we initially embarked on but that if we are willing to allow ourselves to experiment we can discover the underlying power the photo had for us when first seen in the field.

Interwoven throughout the book, the creative and the technical go hand in hand.  Guy steps us through the technical tools that Photoshop provides photographers to creatively bring a photo to life.  Each tool and technique, simple or complex, is succinctly and clearly explained in easy to understand language.  With clear examples showing how each tool and technique works, the book takes a sometimes mysterious and confusing software program and makes it easy and understandable.

I have but one caveat.  Even though I have been using Photoshop for the past 11 years and am very comfortable with it and understand the tools and techniques, I did feel quite overwhelmed when I finished reading the book.  Not due to the book itself mind you, it was well done, but because I had read it in such a short time and did not try out each tool and technique directly with my own photos as I went through the book.  My recommendation:  Get the book, read through it, Slowly, and practice with your own images each step of the way.

Photoshop is not a software package that can be learned overnight.   It takes time and practice, and Guy Tal’s eBook, “Creative Processing Techniques” is a wonderful companion text introducing the process of producing photographs that will convey your personal vision.

You can purchase a copy for yourself at Guy’s online bookstore.  Click here to visit Guy Tal Photography and get your copy of this great book.

P.S. If you need a copy of Photoshop or need to upgrade to the latest version you can visit B&H Photo and Click Here for PC version or Click Here for Mac version of Photoshop.

We live in a world that moves so fast.  Everything is measured in mili.. no, microseconds, and nothing is ever fast enough.  Its nice to slow down, really slow down and just live at the speed of time.  It is amazing when we can slow down long enough to take a walk on a beach, watch the sun sink slowly on the western horizon, listening to the crashing waves and breathing the fresh salty air.

I did just that today.  With my kids in tow, we headed to the beach today.  It was beautiful.  I sat there doing nothing as my kids played in the surf taunting the waves and then running up-beach as the waves came crashing at them.  My youngest son stood on a small bluff of sand on the beach, partially silhouetted by the sun, and appeared to be a conductor of a symphony, and it looked like he was commanding the waves to do his bidding raising his hands as wave after wave came in.   All the while the others jumped and stomped in the foamy water as it approached and when a real big wave came in they ran for dear life!  It was simply amazing.

Photos you ask?  I thought about as I sat in the sand higher up and away from the water, but it was as if my bottom had been glued to the sand.  Everything was to perfect to spoil with the mechanized memory device known as a camera.  It came with us, but I just left it behind in the car.

In retrospect I think it would have  been nice to have captured the glee and momentary horror on children’s faces as they played, but at the time all I could muster myself to do was to say “Thank You God”.

Do something beautiful in the near future.

Something Beautiful

P.S. This above photo was taken exactly one month ago on a different beach.  I did not know it at the time, but it was taken for today’s post.  Funny how things fall in place.

Peace.

The drawing was held just a short time ago on Random.org.  If you sent in an email, or left with me at the open studio event you can go to the drawing page on random.org and type in your first and last name as it was given to me and verify that you were in the running.  You can verify your entry by clicking HERE and typing in your name in the entrant box.

The winner this year:  Julia O’Connell.

Julia is the winner of two studio sized matted prints of her choice.  Congratulation Julia and I await your reply with your choice of photos.  And a heartfelt thank you to all who participated.

Cameras are a wonderful tool for expressing your thoughts visually provided that you know how to get your camera to “say” what you want.  The most basic step in getting the camera to speak for you is making sure it captures the “correct” amount of light to convey whatever it is that you want to “say”.

To that end one must learn how to control the camera with regards to how much light is captured.

Try This:  Place your camera on a tripod.  Point the camera at something with a fairly uniform tone, like a fence or a lawn.  Zoom in so that only that tone is seen in the viewfinder.  Next change the camera’s capture mode to Manual, yes – Manual.  For some this might be daunting and downright scary.  But believe me your camera will not be harmed and furthermore, if you make a “mistake” you can just delete it.  However what we want to see here are the mistakes and learn from them.  You might need to consult your camera manual.

Now that you have the camera in manual mode, consult the camera manual and determine which buttons or wheels control the adjustment of the Aperture and Shutter.  I know for example on most Canon DSLR cameras, the aperture is controlled by the large thumb wheel in the middle of the back of the camera just to the right of the LCD and the shutter is controlled by the small finger wheel in the front of the camera just under the shutter release button.  On Nikon DSLR cameras, the aperture is controlled by a small finger wheel on the front of the camera just under the shutter release button  and the shutter is controlled by a similar wheel on the back of the camera at the top right, behind the shutter release button.

With the camera now on a tripod and in manual mode, adjust the aperture to its largest setting, i.e. the smallest f-number something like f4, f3.5 or f2, and set the shutter speed to its longest setting, for most cameras 30 seconds.

Now press the shutter release button, you will need to wait 30 seconds for the exposure to complete and then look at the LCD.  What do you see?  If everything went as described, you should see a completely white screen, and possibly blinking black to white.  This is extreme over-exposure.  In other words too much light got into the camera.

Now, start reducing the aperture size by dialing in larger f-numbers.  For example if you started out at f3.5 now go to f5.6 then f8, f11, f16, f22 and so on until you run out of f-stop settings.  Each time making that 30 second exposure and examining the LCD.  It is possible that even at the smallest aperture opening, like f22, with that 30 second shutter speed you won’t see much difference.

Now dial in the next shorter shutter speed, most likely 15 seconds and then make photos with increasing aperture sizes going from f22 back to f3.5 or whatever your maximum aperture is.  Examine your LCD each time.

Continue to repeat this with every shutter speed setting you have 8 seconds, 4 seconds, 2 seconds, 1 sec, 1/2 sec, etc.. until you reach the shortest shutter speed probably 1/2000 sec or 1/4000 sec.  At least one if not several aperture-shutter combinations will give you a photo that will resemble the uniform tone you have your camera pointed at.  In fact the photo that closely resembles that tone will probably be the one you like least as it will probably be not what you thought you “saw”.  A series of these photos that I made is shown below.  Oh, and for the record, I liked the f11 @ 1/60 sec exposure best, even though the camera indicated that it would have given me the f11 @ 1/125 sec exposure.

This is the first step to mastering your camera to convey what you want it to, learning how to take control of exposure.  To learn more about photography consider taking an Organic Light Photography Workshop.  You’ll learn more about exposure and a whole lot more.

The 2011 Organic Light Photography Open Studio starts today!  From 11 am to 5pm both Saturday and Sunday this weekend May 7-8 and for the next two weekends May 14-15 and May 21-22 I will have the photos and more on display and for sale.

All photos, posters and note cards are discounted during the open studio by 15%!

If you have been admiring one of my photos, then this is the time to make your purchase.  This sale only comes once a year!

Once again I am running the FREE Photo Giveaway Contest.  Just visit the Exhibit and leave me you name, address and email to enter the random drawing for 2 Studio Series Matted Photos of YOUR CHOICE!  The winner will be chosen randomly using Random.org.  Winner will be announced here on Organic Light Pan on Wednesday May 25th.

Good Luck and I hope to see you here at the studio.

Each year as winter approaches the world prepares itself to go dormant and fall asleep.  Trees lose their leaves and become only skeletons of what they were.  The land dry and hard awaits the rains that will make it supple once more and fertile for the seeds of the summer to finally take root.  In the winter, everything goes to sleep.

So too should we take a lesson from it and learn how to look inwards and take stock, find a respite, and let go of those things that drive us so that we can rejuvenate ourselves.

However, this past winter I did not see it in that light.  This past winter had to have been one of the least productive times I have ever had as a photographer. Had it not been for the new moon each month I do not think I would have even ventured out with the camera at all.   All the while I questioned my worth as a photographer as no matter what I looked at I could not see anything in such a way that appealed to me to make a photo of it.

Yet when I allowed my auto-pilot to take control, I found that great photos were still coming from me even if I could or would not see it.  ‘Washed’ was the only fruit that was harvested all winter.

Washed

I guess what I did not see happening was exactly what I needed.  I too had gone dormant for the winter.  I needed to take a creative time out to allow for new growth to emerge.

Spring entered and something sprung inside of me.  In early April, still thinking I was in my slump I geared up to go out to photograph the Moon of Jamad Al-Awwal.  Then just as I was about to leave, an emotional train wreck occurred that derailed my outing completely.  Without the time left in the day to make it to my quite place in the mountains to see and photograph the moon in peace, as I normally do, I had only enough time to walk down my street to an opening amongst the trees to see and make a record of my celestial friend the Moon.

Cradled

When I saw the moon just nestled there amongst those branches appearing safe and protected, something inside of me suddenly opened.  My heart saw everything anew and I felt that Spring had finally sprung in me.

The flowers were soon to be blooming and I could barely contain the excitement in me to be out there once again finding light and bringing it back for others to see as well.  The time had come and I made my trek in search of the wildflowers.  I visited all my old haunts to find that even though my spring had sprung this year, for the flowers they decided to take a year off.  I suppose they deserve time off as well.  With just under 1000 miles of driving this year in search of those elusive gems of color, I found only one patch that conveyed my sense of coming to life again.

I Can See For Miles

Standing there in Carrizo Plain I could see for miles.  The elation and disappointment coupled to move me in such a way as to not let the absence of flowers keep me from enjoying Spring and I gave up on the preconceived notion of finding wildflowers and I just went wild.  Photographing things for the shear joy of it.  My creative juices were flowing with such fervor that I did not know when to stop.

I returned home to lead a private workshop and I took my client to all my familiar spots in the Santa Cruz Mountains and along the San Mateo Coast.  I had no preconceived ideas of what I would find and I expected to just stand around most of the time directing my client at all the things that I had photographed more times than I can count without having the desire to do the same again.

The funny thing was that everything looked fresh and new, as if I had never seen them before.  I took more photos in that one day than I had in possibly the last six months!  I was seeing light in a very new way and I liked it.

Ladder of Light

Then the day came to a close and my elation was given a good stiff clocking to the jaw.  On a beach that I have worked on for years, among hard stone sculpted over the millennia I saw what Mother Earth wanted me to see.  Even though it was a spectacular day, with a slight sea breeze blowing, seagulls calling, the sound of crashing surf, the scent of the redwoods and the sounds of a babbling creek still fresh in my mind from earlier that morning, here was Mother Earth shedding one black tear.  A stark reminder that she is in pain.

Black Tear

Even though my creativity and vision came back to me this spring, Mother Earth did not let me forget why I make portraits of her: to remind others of just how fragile she is.  She also reminded me that she goes through cycles for a reason – so that growth can continue.  Down time, rebirth, growth, vigor and waning are all part of a precious cycle that we must adhere to as well if we are to grow.  We also must take heed in understanding that we do not make our own fate as that is in the hands of the Divine.  We cannot produce whatever it is that we preconceive in our minds and that sometimes we just need to be grateful for what is given and appreciate it as much if not more than what we originally wanted.  In the end, we will find that what we do come away with was much more valuable.

Enjoy the rest of Spring, it will be gone before we know it.

Peace.

It has been difficult for me in the last several weeks.  The new moon came and went, and even though I photographed it and made a beautiful composition of it I found it difficult to post anything about it.  I have been thinking quite a bit as well, and unfortunately returned to listening to the radio news and talk shows.  I really must learn to leave that nonsense, however I sometimes need to know what is happening in our world.  Let me tell you… what you hear is very depressing, so much so that it pushes me closer to being a cynic, which is never a good thing.

From the earthquake in Japan and the resulting nuclear catastrophe to the charlatans setting up fake aid organizations duping sincere folks wanting to help to the impending world contamination with radioactive iodine and cesium, the whole thing is infuriating.  We really can’t find better ways to boil water to turn turbines to spin generators to make electricity…really?

Then there is the unfolding war in Libya that is so unfortunate.   It is very frustrating.  But hey, call it support for the freedom fighters and everyone is on board.  Never mind that the citizens of Libya had free housing and free education and health care for everyone!  Now lets drop depleted uranium munitions there as well.  Argh!  We don’t have enough deformed war babies being born in the world.

But wait there’s more.

Let’s tax the poor and give the rich a tax-free pass so that we can turn our nation in to a dysfunctional third world country governed by an oligarchy rather than a democracy.  I could not believe this when I heard it. The top 1% of the U.S. population control 42% of the financial wealth! Huh?

And lets abolish Medicare and Medicaid so that our elders and children who can’t afford health care just vanish so we don’t have to worry about them anymore. And don’t even get me started on education.

Now I could go on and on venting about all that is wrong in the world but that would be wrong in and of itself because it does not do anything to constructively fix any of it.

So instead, in my longing for peace in our world, I asked myself what do we need to do so that we humans can be at peace with ourselves as well as with the world.

I think we need to foster 7 things in ourselves to see change take place in our world: Truth, Repentance, Resolve, Gratitude, Mortality, and Remembrance.

I expressed my thoughts with this short video.  I hope it will make a difference.

If you like it, please share it with your network of friends.  Maybe, just maybe it can affect a change.

Enjoy and as always, Peace!

We live in the age of information. Ask any question and the answer is literally at your finger tips no more than a few clicks away with any Google search. Not sure how to upgrade computer hardware? No problem someone out there in the virtual world has probably posted something somewhere that explains it. Need to learn how to cook sticky lemon chicken? Google those words and a list of various recipes along with the instructional video pops up ready for you to digest that information.  Can’t figure out why the check engine light is on in your car?  No problem, it is simple enough today to buy a computerized device that will probe your car’s computer and report to you with a code number that practically tells you the problem.  Don’t know how to fix that?  Just a click away and you will find the answer among the many discussion boards on car repair. Need an illustrated step-by-step procedure on how to do that?  Its available online as well.

Not so long ago this amount of information would have filled entire libraries and it would have taken someone trying to find the information I mention nearly a month’s time and maybe more.  Today it seems that anyone and everyone is his or her own teacher.  Everyone just relies on the “book knowledge” that they can find and they become their own Do-It-Yourself experts.  While there is nothing wrong with doing things for yourself, as I find great satisfaction in being self sufficient, learning through books alone is daunting and quite frustrating. New vocabulary and unfamiliar concepts can be quite confusing when first encountered in books.  Most books are not written for the ultra-novice and reading such books can bring more confusion to the subject than before opening the book.  In addition, most subjects rely on a foundation of many other subjects and knowledge of those is just as important to understanding what is being read. The notion that someone can become knowledgeable in a subject by simply reading a book borders on the absurd.

Teachers on the other hand are the keys that unlock what is written in books. Anyone can write a book that transmits the information that is contained within it. However there is no guarantee that what is written is correct or that it will even be understood the way the author had intended.  In all my years of education as a student I relied heavily on my teachers in spite of whatever textbook was used in the class.  The book was more of a reference or a place where additional notes taken from a teacher were placed such that the text made sense.  Their words, explanations, and examples were what formed my knowledge of a given subject, whether it was technical or spiritual in nature.

Learning through a teacher also imbues in a person gratitude for the knowledge that would have been very difficult to attain without a teacher and humility in the realization that no matter how much we learn, there are still many who know much more and that anything that was attained was only by the means of the ones who taught you.  An old Arabic proverb states that a man is founded upon his teachers.  And it was Sir Issac Newton who said If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.

Teachers facilitate the transmission of not just information but of knowledge. The difference between the two is that information is nothing more than a sequence of symbols that transmits a message while knowledge is expertise and skill that a person acquires through directed study, practice and experience.  The absence of knowledge, or ignorance, is a darkness that holds its possessor prisoner.  Not wealth, status or information can release the prisoner.  The only key that will allow a person to emerge from the darkness is knowledge obtained through a chain of transmitters each of which stood on the shoulders of greats before them and sat at their feet in the shade of their erudition.

Emergence

If you are a seeker of knowledge then find a teacher who can teach you what you want to learn and dispense with the folly of information for the wisdom afforded by true knowledge, even if you have to travel to the ends of the Earth to find it.

Peace.

The new moon is upon us once again.  As I write this post, it is about 6 hours before it will be visible in the western sky provided the sky is not cloudy.

Last month I photographed a new crescent moon that moved through the sky in varying light over a twenty minute period.  As elusive as the new crescent moon is in its own right, making it difficult to see,  some times the camera manges to pickup light that our eye just cannot perceive.

Pictured in the photo below is the new crescent moon of February 3rd, 2011 taken 10 minutes after the photo that was posted in the Rabi Al-Awwal Begins post.  It was a toss up for me as to which photo to actually post for that entry in the journal.  I chose the former due to its sharpness, as the photo below used a shutter speed that was a bit longer than I normally like to use and the moon blurred ever so slightly due its motion in the sky.

Ghost Moon

However, what fascinated me about this image was that after I had processed the RAW file, I could actually see the entire shadow of the moon in the sky.  There was just enough variation in the light from the moon to be recorded by the digital sensor.  Now this is not unique to digital cameras as I have recorded the shadowed moon on new moon nights before using film, however what is intriguing is the fact that my eyes could not see these subtle variations in the light.

Our eyes do not accumulate light the way a camera does.  As light enters our eyes the cones and rods on the retina become activated and immediately send their impulses down the optic nerve to our brain where in interpret what we “see”.

In contrast a camera opens its shutter to allow light to enter it.  The light hits a piece of film chemically treated to react to light, the longer the shutter is left open the more chemical grains on the surface of the film become activated and retain visual information.  The same is true with digital sensors however in this case the sensor is electrically active and starts to record light as charge build upset up when the photons of light cause current to flow through the micro-sized photo transistors on the digital chip.  The longer the shutter is left open the more charge is built up and interpreted as brighter light. In this manner the camera is able to “see” things in dim light that our eyes can never see.  As long as there is some visible light the camera can record it given enought time while the shutter is open.

Darkness has always been symbolic of mystery, the unknown and all that these ideas bring with them, like fear, terror, evil and so on.  And while there is nothing out there in the dark that does not exist in the day, our inability to see in the dark conjures up fear of the unknown.  Today however, with modern digital camera technology night time photographs have never been easier to make.  And for those brave enough to venture out into the darkness of night to make such photos, we can all marvel and rest assured, there are no monsters in the dark and to know that what we can’t see won’t hurt us.

Peace.

I will have more to say about this moon in the days to come.  It was an amazing sight to see this moon.  Not the youngest I have seen but certainly one of the thinest.  It marks the beginning of the third month in the Islamic Calendar, Rabi Al-Awwal and is also the month in which the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was born.  This year it also coincided with the beginning of the Chinese New Year.

Rabi Al-Awwal 1432

So Rabi Al-Awwal Mubarak to all my Muslim readers and Happy Chinese New Year to all my Asian readers.  It is a good time.

Peace.