On Photography

I displayed several large prints at an art show in Port Ludlow over the weekend. The ones I put on the wall ranged from 22x66 to 24x32. I also displayed some 15x20 prints laying flat on a table, as well as a few leaning against the wall at floor level. There's always at least two considerations for displaying work - Space available, and Lighting. Sadly, the lighting in the room I was assigned was dim. The amount of space was perhaps better suited to smaller prints but I really wanted to get peoples reactions to the larger prints I'd just finished.

Images on the Wall:







I also had a few images laying flat on a table and a few more leaning against the wall. I was a bit concerned about getting too cluttered but I think that was out weighted by my desire to see what people thought.

I think all of these images need a bit of size to really show the detail and give the impact I felt when I took them. Other images I think work better small such as this one

I've tried printing this in sizes between 6x9 and 15x20 - it really starts to loose any sort of intimacy when you get bigger than about 7.5x10

The first image of the Mesquite Dunes in Death Valley could have benefited from better lighting - there's a fair amount of detail in the foreground that get's lost in smaller prints and definitely got lost in the too dim light of the room.
Even so, it was very popular

There are several issues with trying to sell images this large - One is the cost. These are all mounted on a ridged backing with no borders, and have a clear satin laminate to protect the print - the laminate is so nice people don't even notice it's there until I point it out, and it does a wonderful job of protecting the print. This also allows the print to be hung with out any frame, and they sit off the wall by roughly 1/2" giving the image a floating quality. Another issue is the size itself - not everyone - has enough wall space to work with prints this large, and many of the homes that have the room, already have art in place, which means they have to like what I have enough to buy it and take down what they already have - that makes for even a bigger challenge.

Lots and lots of positive comments. Sadly - no sales.

Currently in Ridgecrest - Heading North again tomorrow. I think Death Valley for a couple of days, then I'm not sure - maybe Bodie. I'm still undecided about going out to the coast. I'll have to decide by the time I hit Reno.

One of the largest differences between darkroom printing and digital is that digital printing lowers the tendency toward reinterpreting the image. Once you’ve gotten one good print - there’s no real work required to get the next one. That’s not a bad thing - it’s not really a good thing either - it just is. Some artists will tell you "once you’re done with piece - let it go, move on". When I did darkroom work, that was harder to do than it is now. Every print was an opportunity to reinterpret. Now if I want to re-interpret an image, I have to go back into Photoshop. That tends to make me leave old work alone unless I figure out how to fix an issue that I could never get quite right but wasn’t bad enough to keep me from printing it anyway. The upside is I get more work done, rather than rework.

I recently purchased a couple of 4G 675x Hoodman Raw cards - not so much for speed but because I prefer to support local manufacturing over foreign manufacturing when I can (it's getting harder and harder to accomplish). I decided to pay the premium, hoping that the claims of longevity of the cards - something on the order of 5x the number of writes - would pay for the cards in the long (and I mean LONG) run. This is a decision that I was comfortable with but not one I'd expect others to make unless their philosophy matches mine.

We had some fog over the weekend and I decided to the the camera out and see if I could take advantage of it. After an hour or so of shooting I'd filled up the CF card I was using so I put in one of the new Hoodman cards and formatted it. I'd never seen a card format that fast in my life - amazing, right up until the camera told me it couldn't save the shot to the card! Naturally I tried to reformat, and do another shot. Same result. I tried the second Hoodman card and my digital back informed me it could not format the card. Obviously I had a problem.

I called Hoodman the next day, talked to a very polite receptionist who took a message. I was called back by tech support with in a hour, after 5 minutes she with out any prompting at all escalated the issue. About an hour later I was on the phone with Bob, who listed to my situation, suggested that he do some research and would get back to me, which he did. The upshot was that there are compatibility issues and that I probably needed a firmware update. For some reason - I'm not even sure why at this point I asked if they still had any of the older cards left - perhaps I was dreading a firmware update. Don't get me wrong, I've done literally hundreds of firmware updates on various products from computers, to printers, to Blu-ray players, game consoles, you name it - more often than not they work. But, every once in a blue moon they don't and it's never pretty.

In any case, we arranged a trade-in / upgrade where I sent in my new 4g cards and got older 16G cards for what I feel was a very reasonable price.

In short - Excellent customer service and a happy customer. Now if companies like HP and Sony could just figure out that happy customers are actually a good thing.

In the mean time, I decided to go ahead and tackle that firmware upgrade to the PhaseOne P45+ but that's another story.

I attended an APA (American Photographic Artists) seminar tonight on Social Media Marketing, - which sort of sounds like a Marketing Buzz Phrase. Technogeeks (of whom I am one) either create the Buzzword or turned it into an art form - it took Marketing to create the Buzz Phrase. What this was really about was the use of Social Network sites like Facebook, Twitter and Linked-In to help create brand recognition (another marketing phrase). What that means to me - is how do I use these "tools" to increase my audience for my artwork. Not necessarily to increase print sales - which would be really great - but at the minimum to get a larger audience for my work.

We had speakers from ChaseJarvis.com, Getty Images, POP (a marketing firm) and Zooppa - I learned a few things about linking these channels of information to maximize their effect on search engine ratings - like google. I got some ideas for things I might try, and I learned about a few things I don't want to do. I've got a lot to think about.

I always have to question how useful these seminars are before I decide which ones to go to, primarily because I live a Ferry Boat Ride, and about 1.5 - 2 hours away from where these things normally happen. There's a definite cost I'd not incur if I lived close to Seattle, in drive time, the cost of Ferry Tickets each way, and gas.

Usually I when the seminar wraps up I've got a pretty good notion if my time and money were well spent - in this case, I can only guess, but I think so....

I attended an ASMP seminar in Seattle over the weekend: The Fine Art of Digital Printing.

The presenters where John Paul Caponigro, and Mac Holbert and they make quite a team. The presentation was excellent.

We covered the Fine Art Workflow, and various techniques in Photoshop for working on images. They placed a real emphasis on the order of the layer stack and avoiding any destructive editing including cropping. The non-destructive crop looks interesting, and I suppose I'll start using it for the time being. There are of course downsides to some of these techniques, for example you don't want to print with the non-destructive crop as it will just print pure black for the cropped area. In order to print you'll need to perform the actual crop and save a print version. This is necessary if your using a product like Photokit Sharpener or Nik Define. Both of these output sharpeners are based on the final target and take printer type, media and size into consideration in determining the optimum sharpening. The end result is that the print file is only good for a single size and destination printer. If your printing multiple sizes you'll need multiple print files.

Others like having separate layers for Luminance, Hue, and Saturation curves using the blending modes are going to become standard for me. I suspect some of you already knew the benefits of using the blending modes of Luminosity, and Color (which is a combination of Hue and Saturation). But it was new to me as was John's technique of painting a spot on a new layer in black with Overlay blending mode and then dragging the spot around to see what the effect would be in different areas of the print, then repeating the process with white. When combined with setting the layer opacity you can get some very powerful effects very quickly.

Mac has a set of actions that are interesting - including the non-destructive crop, and a very nice mid-tone contrast adjustment layer on his website
http://www.rmacholbert.com

And John has a number of short articles on the digital workflow for fine art printing at his site
http://www.johnpualcaponigro.com

Check it out.

When I create a photograph it's always a blend of creativity, and mechanics. These stages always fall into the same order but the amount of time spent on any one stage can vary significantly.

Stage 1: The Inspiration - this is the point at which I decide I need to get the camera out of the bag. It's no guarantee if a useful image but this is where they all start. Some times it's the result of seeing something that gives me an idea, which in turn leads me to exploring for right spot. Sometimes it catching of glimpse of what might be the right spot for an as yet unimagined photograph. More often these days it's the result of thinking about a project and planning trips that can last an afternoon or a month.

Stage 2: Evaluating the light and subject. I tend to use little viewing squares, basically a sheet of thin plastic or a piece of matte board with holes in them, I have ones for 35mm, 645, 4x5 and various panoramic formats 1:2, 1:2.5 and 1:3. This lets me wander around the subject easily and locate the correct camera position. It will also help me select the correct lens, although sometimes I choose the lens first, if I want a wide angle view, that will change my basic camera position choices. I'll chose a telephoto view if I think a significant foreshortening will add impact.

Stage 3: This is essentially a mechanical process, setting up the camera determining the exposure, making minor adjustments to camera position. And then pressing the shutter. Having gone digital I pretty much always bracket unless the histogram fits with room to spare on each end - think low contrast scenes. Sometimes this turns into a waiting game where I will keep tripping the shutter and capturing images hoping for better light, or a better cloud position, a lull in the breeze, more rain, less rain - those elements of the photograph that only nature can really control, we just have to be patient enough to let it happen.

Stage 4: Importing to the computer. This may include Geotagging.

Stage 5: Editing. The process starts out being fairly mechanical as I edit out the images with flaws and make my determination of which of the images captured are worth working on.

Stage 6: Minor global adjustments in Lightroom or Capture One (or both). This is not so much a creative process as one based on a lot of experience. This will include adjusting the white balance, the exposure, fixing noise issues, correcting lens issue, straightening horizons, correcting perspectives that couldn't be done in camera, etc. Keywording, which I do because I think it might be useful at some point, I'm just not sure how.

Stage 7: Working on the image to maximize the impact of the image, this is by and large a creative process and involves a fair amount of experimentation, and repetition as I refine the image to achieve the best print I can manage. This also includes creating a title for the image, which can and does have an effect on how the image is perceived by others. Fairly often an image will be rejected at this point for failing to live up to my expectations.

Stage 8: Framing has a small but important creative element in finalizing the presentation but most of the time is spent in the mechanical process of trimming, matting, mounting and framing.


It think I can safely say I spend considerably more time on the mechanics of photography that on the creative side, but then, that's the nature of what is a technology driven art medium.

I've been toying with various ideas to let me get out and photograph. Since my most productive time is between September and April, this means dealing with some nasty weather. I also happen to really like snow, which means additional equipment needs.

My 08 Jeep 4dr Wrangler Rubicon already has a few modifications, most notably I've changed out the front and rear bumpers to add a winch to the front, and a swing out / locking tire carrier for the rear.


One of the features I like least about the wrangler is the rear cargo entry. The stock jeep has the tire mounted to the swinging tailgate - which has no positional locking, so if your on a slight or even not so slight side slope, the door either wants to swing open with a fair mount of weight, or it won't stay open. Pretty annoying. The locking swing helps with this as it lets me swing the tire out of the way and not have to worry about it coming back and hitting me from behind.




My current quandary was how to camp when most of the parks are closed to camping. Since everything is a trade-off in some way, I spent considerable time judging the pro's and cons of various methods.

1. Just give it up and stay in motels - (Way too expensive)
2. use my 2 man tent - well I've done this and it's not bad in the fall, but no fun in the summer or deep winter
3. Get a pop-up camp trailer - Kind of expensive, but nice - right up until it snows. I really have no desire to drag a trailer around in the snow.
4. Get a full camping trailer - same deal
5. Get a Truck and Camper - well that's about $80,000 I'm not going to spend
6. Get a Canvas Wall tent and wood stove - This actually is a pretty nice setup. You have a cot, a reasonably warm tent, in the winter, reasonably cool in the summer (they're white and have really big doors - and if you have power you can add a portable AC unit too. The down side is the setup time, and the need to be able to find a fairly large flat area to setup in.
7. A roof top tent.



While noticeably more expensive than a regular tent, they're cheaper than a trailer. You don't have to tow them. The bedding stays in place when you close it up. Your not on the cold wet ground with the bugs and pooling water from the flash flood. Oh sure there are downsides - you have to setup and take down every day if your going more than walking distance from your camp - but the Maggiolina tent takes less than a minute for each. It does require a fairly substantial roof rack but like I said - everything is a trade-off.



I can also get a changing room - useful if I'm going to stay in one spot for a bit as it provides cover for the ladder, and depending on how it's rigged possible a shower

So, I think this coming week I'll be off to purchase the rack and tent - hopefully it will work out as well as I think it might.

I recently offered two free prints to about 20 people. None of these people are photographers, and none of them are close friends - they are mostly people who work at three of my favorite hangouts. I've only know them from where they work. Out of those 20 people only 4 have bothered to pick the images they wanted - for FREE. I'm not quite sure what to make of this. I suppose it could be one or more of the following reasons:

1. Since it's free, perhaps they view it as something with no value and so, are not interested in taking the time necessary to pick the prints they wanted.

2. I have almost 300 images on my web site from which to choose, perhaps that's just too many for someone to wade though and make a selection of "my two favorites". Choices are hard for people.

3. I didn't put a deadline on the selection process so it's become a non-priority item, and while these 20 people actually want the prints, the process of choosing is a low priority.

4. They can't find an image that they want - even for free.

5. Since they're not framed, they don't really want to pick one and then have to get it framed.

6. It's photography and anyone can do photography; so who cares?

7. People don't really think of art on the web as ART it's just something pretty to look at on the screen for a few seconds and then they're done.

I sure there are other possible reasons. I've talked to a few people about it and the most common reason given is essentially: "Life is really hectic and I just keep forgetting", but then that might just be to save my feelings - hard to say. I don't resent the lack of effort on their part, but it is a bit depressing. Here's something that I truly BELIEVE will make them feel a bit better every time they see it hanging on their wall, and yet it's too difficult to make the time to choose. I suspect if I picked 20 photographers I'd have had much better luck. I did a similar experiment 3 years ago, but I had them choose one print from a notebook of prints and all they had to do was stick a post with their name on the print they wanted. I got 100% response, and they appeared to be all thrilled with the results. Three people actually bought additional prints, but then the Economy was in much better shape, and they only had 40 prints to choose from. So, is it that I asked them to choose from images on my web site? Is it that they're are too many choices? No Deadline? Again, hard to say - I suppose I could put together a much more controlled experiment but frankly I'd rather just spend that time doing photography.

In the current economy I have a very hard time selling prints, and an almost equally hard time giving them away; which makes me wonder why I don't just give it up. After about two months of thinking about it and almost deciding to sell all my camera gear, I realized that as much as I want people to be interested in my photography, I still do it more for myself than for my audience. So even if no one bothers to look at these images, I'm still driven to create them.

I may try this experiment again next year, only I'll hand them a stack of 10 or so prints, and ask them if they'd like to have one. I can then replace which ever print they picked and go on to the next person. I suspect I'll get at least 80% acceptance, perhaps even 100%. That will probably be my last giveaway, as much as I want people to enjoy my work, I'm already paying as much as I care to pay for the privilege.

I had hopes when the iPad was first rumored. Having decided that there was really minimal work I could do with image files while on the road I though perhaps the iPad would provide me with everything I needed and I could leave the laptop behind. Alas, no such luck. With out the ability to connect USB drives there is really no way to transfer images from CF cards. To use it as a Tethered control/monitor it would need to actually be a iTablet. Alas, that's not even close to what the iPad is.

From a photographers perspective, the iPad is a portfolio tool, a web browser, a mediocre email tool, and a book reader. With a bluetooth keyboard - it would make a pretty good email/blogging tool, then so does the laptop. Sure it does all the other stuff that an iPhone does, if you get the 3G version. You can use it as a Nav tool, and in that regard it's pretty cool - but a good Nav app costs another $100 bucks. At the moment it's probably the best portfolio sharing tool available. All the other picture viewers are in my opinion, too small to be worth bothering with. Since the full screen is used during display and the navigation is the most intuitive ever (your basic page flipping motion), you can hand your iPad to someone interested in your work and let them flip though at their own pace.

How much memory is enough for one of these? Well that depends. Assuming you provide images that are zoom-able (say 4 times the screen size) saved as a very high quality jpg, your looking at 2Mb per image. So, 1000 images (which is way too many for a portfolio) is 2GB. Then you can store books - which very between 50KB and maybe 20MB or so, most novels are pretty small 100-400KB. A technical book like "CSS: The Missing Manual" is about 12MB. So lets say you have 100 Technical Books at about 20MB each, and 2000 Novels at about 500K, so there goes another 3-4 GB. So what would you need more than 16GB for? Well apps, and music are really the only other things. At this point you probably don't want to put music on it, since you can't play music and use the picture viewer or web browser or what ever, at the same time - you need to wait for iPhone OS 4 for that. You can get a Camera Kit, that will allow you to transfer images from and SD card or a Camera USB port to directly to the iPad but that's not something I'm likely to do - when I transfer images off my 4GB and 8GB CF cards - I always create a backup - so that means two external drives attached to my laptop. And I don't show unedited work, so what would be the point? Apparently if you have the Camera kit, it for some reason allows you to connect a bluetooth keyboard (I'm still unclear why this would be). That said, 16GB is really quite a bit of memory for one of these devices. Once OS4 is available, you might which you had more, if you have a sizable music collection (which I do) - but then again, I have iPods, and an iPhone so, I still don't need to put music on the iPad.

iPad vs Kindle - both have advantages, I think the iPad is much nicer to use, it handles virtually every ebook format in existence via various apps. But, the back lit screen is harder on the eyes than the Kindle's eInk and all but impossible to read in direct sunlight. The Kindle on the other hand get's easier to read with brighter light, and a nice sunny day is about as perfect as it gets. I might give up the Kindle but not until I've used the iPad for a while. The battery life is another issue, I use my Kindle a lot 2-4 hours a day sometimes more, and I charge it up about once a week, sometimes less. With the iPad I'm hoping I can use my iPhone car charger. Although I still need additional outlets for battery chargers (camera & flashlight) as well as a USB charger for my Geo Tracker.

A definite maybe.

I've been using Epson Ultrasmooth Fine Art (UFA) for about 6 years now. I've tried a number of matte papers and never found one that had the blacks, smoothness of tone, and depth. With the recent addition of Baryta papers by a number of manufacturers I decided it was time to give these "glossy" papers a try. It's not that I'm unsatisfied with UFA. But it's a bit of a pain to work with, I've found that I need to brush off each sheet or a length of roll before I run it though the printer. This usually eliminates the dust which, with out this brushing, will eventually flake off leaving small paper white "dust" spots on the print. I'd like to avoid that step if possible because it's time consuming, and adds one more chance to damage the paper. Also, Epson for what ever reason is not good about keeping the cut sheets in stock.

I'd avoided glossy papers for various reasons - most had such severe bronzing that I could never bring myself to consider them, I've never been a big fan of luster papers, which oddly are far and away the most popular. Well maybe it's not that odd - I tend to be a bit of a contrarian when it comes selecting products. If everyone says it's so I immediately assume it's not. I suspect this is because there seems to be such a strong tendency toward accepting mediocre results at a lower cost (a whole other topic). Anyway, I decided that based on some samples I'd seen that perhaps the new crop of Baryta papers would provide a solution.

A Note on how I review papers:
I usually create a test print (a range of colors & gray scales), to make a quick judgment as to the relative color gamut and smoothness of gray transitions, but mostly I work from prints. I use a densitometer to see what the DMax black is - out of curiosity, but I don't bother to record this information because ultimately it makes no difference to me. What matters is how the final print is rendered. Does it have the depth, and emotion I'm striving for? Does it exhibit any faults that will ultimately make the print fall flat for me. So I print 3 or 4 B&W images, and 2-3 Color images and I hang them up and live with them for a while. As time goes on you start to see things that weren't apparent at first, you start seeing the subtle differences between the papers, and ultimately - hopefully you find one that makes the print sing.....
.......

I'm not a web addict, I use it for research, and shopping. I almost never just follow links to see where they go. That's due in more or less equal parts to: natural inclination, past experience, and focus.

I do occasionally browse around looking at photographers web sites. This is usually the result of researching something else photography related (sadly this is all to often equipment). I've noticed something that seems to be oddly common with photographers, either they don't say anything about their work, or they display titles, which more often than appear as "Untitled #1", "Untitled #87" or simply "Untitled".

I'm not sure if this is a sign of laziness, or a sign that the photographer doesn't spend time thinking about their own work. Abstracts are difficult, unless you treat them like an ink blot test, well even then they're difficult to title. My titles tend toward giving some hint of what made me photograph the scene. Sometimes I get lazy and title things with numbers, a venerable tradition but perhaps one that doesn't really tell the viewer anything. Generally though, the scene evoked a feeling and the feeling invoked a though that literally made me photograph it. Sometimes the emotion was warm and the though was fuzzy and the image was.... not nearly as good as it seemed at the time. Fuzzy thoughts do that.

A picture says a thousand words, the question is: What thousand words? As the photographer we have an opportunity to at least set the tone for the first paragraph. Each viewer will walk away with something a bit different, but I personally would rather they started walking in the direction I had intended when I made the image.

Well, it's been 10,200 miles on the motorcycle, 1500+ miles by car. I traveled though 29 states, a few of them more than once. I left home on Sept 9th, and returned home on November 30th - 9 days short of 3 months on the road. I took about two thousand photographs, and whittled that down to about 48 which I have yet to print so the total may get smaller yet. - It's always possible I'll find an image or three that I missed in the editing but all said and done - I have about 1 good image for every 2 days on the road. That's about 1/2 of what I was hopping for when I left.

I've decided to sell the bike - I may get another one some day but if I do it will be with the intention of just enjoying the ride and not worrying about camera gear (maybe a Canon G11 or similar).

This was a wonderful experience and I'm thrilled that I did it. I had a huge amount of fun, met some wonderful people, and got my first real view of a large portion of our country. I'm not sure if I hadn't had the bike that I would have done this trip at all. It's something I'd be more than willing to do again in a car, but I missed too much photography due to the bike to want to spend another 3 months that way.

So what's next? I'm looking at pop up trailers, something towable behind a car, I'm also still considering the idea of selling the house (possibly renting) and getting an RV - if I sell, then I'll probably start off by heading overseas first, before I tie my self to anything else here, other than a piece of property to build on. I know I'll want a house again at some point but 3 months didn't really dampen my desire to see the world, I didn't miss home so much as I missed a few of the comforts that I couldn't take with me - like a big screen for editing images, a printer, a music and movie system - all things that I can take with a trailer or RV. If I'm overseas I'll probably have to do with out again but maybe not for so long at a stretch. There are a few places that are on my must see list - and a lot on my want to see list.

Baring unforeseen changes, this coming year will be mostly working at home - getting the house ready to sell, finishing the work on the boat and getting that sold (or at least on the market) I'm going to see about getting down to 1 vehicle - although unless that's a truck, I'll probably end up with a camp trailer and a flat bed type utility trailer for helping with yard work, hauling etc. I wish I enjoyed driving trucks more than I do, it would make the choice easier.

Well it's been a while since my last update.

Nov 17: Day 68: (wow can that be right?)
Total Miles: 7600

A short ride today on interstate 40 from Santa Rosa NM to Flagstaff, the day started at about 34 degrees and eventually warmed up to a nice toasty 50........

Day 37: total miles 4480


I've been traveling on the bike for a bit over a month, and I've come to some conclusions.

First I really enjoy riding, although not quite as much when it's under 48 degrees and raining, and definitely not when it's close to freezing and it's mixed rain & snow – fortunately I wasn't on the road yesterday while that was going on, or I'd have had to stop pretty early and just give it up for the day.

People in CT follow way to close for my comfort. They also like to drive really fast – like 85 in a 60 zone.

It's much harder to do photography from a motorcycle than a car. .......