by RR Jr on March 10, 2010
Canon 1Ds Mk III, 1/100 sec, f/11, ISO 100, 40mm
I’m reading a new book by Tom Peters called “The Little Big Things“, and so far it’s making me think – long and hard about how I pursue Excellence. I often wonder why I obsess over seemingly small details in my work.
Sometimes it’s the framing of a composition and the constant adjustment of my tripod or ball head. There’s this uncomfortable gut feeling that immediately goes away when I know I have it right. I know I can crop or adjust the horizon line afterwards in Lightroom, but why when I know perfectly well what’s wrong?
Sometimes this pursuit keeps me from getting a good night sleep, and I just can’t stop thinking about a different adjustment or interpretation of a print I made the night before. Working late I sometimes grow tired and decide better to leave it for the next day. But somehow it stays in the back of my mind, working to find a solution to what I couldn’t see before. I know it can be better, and until I get there, something just eats away at me.
I’ve taught many workshops, and I’m fairly confident I know the material in my sleep, yet I can’t stop reviewing my notes and doing as much research as I can so that I can be as prepared as possible. What does it matter if I just taught the same workshop a week ago, I always feel I can do a better job in the future.
I’ve often taken frames apart and re-printed an image because I know the “performance” is better, due to practice and hard work. Perhaps no one would notice, especially if I’m exhibiting a print for the first time. But if I know it’s not as Excellent as I can make it, I can’t sell it – simple as that.
Doing the best work I can, and making it as Excellent as I can has always been a paramount motivator for me, and not a day goes by without me being grateful for that. Difficult, challenging, laborious, demanding, and many times frustrating are all aspects of my daily life as a photographer, but striving for Excellence gets me up every single day before sunrise without fail.
Are you pursuing Excellence of some kind in your daily life?
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by RR Jr on March 6, 2010
I’m getting ready to teach a Fine Art Printing Workshop in a few hours, so I thought I would share the mind map I use as an outline for everything I cover during the workshop. I’m a big user and believer in mind maps for laying out ideas, concepts, tasks, projects, business plans, marketing plans – basically anything that allows me to visualize ideas and thoughts. Ever since I started using them, I find I’m much more organized in the multitude of projects I have going on at any one time, and because I certainly prefer to visualize ideas, they work perfectly for my way of getting things done.
Below is the current mind map for the workshop – it certainly changes and evolves as I teach and learn from the workshops. It should give you a pretty good idea of what you’d learn in a workshop like this.
If you can’t see the mind map, here is a direct link.
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by RR Jr on March 4, 2010
Canon 1Ds Mk III, 65 sec @ f/14, ISO 100, 21mm, 10 stop ND filter
Though I was satisfied with the color version of this image, the black and white version feels much better to me for some reason. When deciding if an image works better in black and white, many suggest you ask if color adds anything to the image. Sometimes I prefer to ask if it takes something away. Perhaps two sides of the same coin, but in this case I felt it definitely did remove some of the mood the river had that morning . The shapes and forms are so strong here, that color distracts and complicates this composition, as you can see below.
Simplicity is one of the key elements I try to achieve in any image, and personally it can often be difficult given my attraction to detail and preference for wide angle lenses. Here I just wanted to soften the overall contrast in the scene by using a long exposure to create blurred cloud patterns as they moved across the sky – much like a flowing melody. I think this helps to balance the image from foreground to sky and convey some passage of time, as well as add a sense of calm and serenity. (On a technical note, I shot this in bulb mode and forgot to bring my remote shutter release, so having a very sturdy tripod and ball head payed off since I had to hold the shutter button down for 65 seconds and try not to shake the camera – not easy while you stand on slippery rocks in 20 degree temps!)
From a post-processing standpoint, I did the initial conversion in Lightroom, then used NIK Silver Efex Pro to make some minor tweaks and add some toning.
Original RAW capture
Final color version
In the end, I just went with how it felt at the time, and how best to describe that through my interpretation. I may think otherwise in the future, but that is what makes this journey so exciting for me. What do you think?
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by RR Jr on March 1, 2010
The March 2010 Free Desktop Wallpaper is now available for download. This image was made a few years ago while on a hike in the Highfalls Gorge area of the Adirondacks immediately following a light rainfall. Something magical happens in the forest when it rains, and I found the scene and feel both meditative and calming.
As always, thanks for your support and come closer to nature in the Adirondacks.
1920 x 1200
1680 x 1050
1280 x 800
1280 x 1024 (non wide-screen)
Instructions:
First determine your screen size. Your Current Resolution Is:
Then click on the link for the correct size. When the image opens in a new browser window, right click on the image and select “Set as Wallpaper” (on a Mac, select “Use Image as Desktop Picture”).
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by RR Jr on February 27, 2010
We’ve been buried with over 30″ of snow here in the Hudson Valley, as well as power and Internet outages, so I’m just getting back online and away from the shovel! I also had to cancel the Printing Workshop that was scheduled for today, but hopefully I can re-schedule asap to make sure all registered students are available for the new date.
Now to the title of the post, I came across an interesting article by David Pogue of the NY Times titled “Photoshop and Photography; When Is It Real?” which examines when a photograph crosses the line between “real” and “artificial”. This is an issue that is not new to photographers and I’ve discussed it here several times, most notably in an article about digital manipulation.
Pogue suggests we ask instead “what is reality”, a question I have always thought about in my own photography. I’ve always felt strongly that this issue of “reality” is both subjective and an integral part of the creative process for a landscape photographer. We each see, experience, interpret, and “feel” differently about reality, and it only makes sense that would make each of our images unique and different. Whether we allow ourselves to go “too far” with technology in our zeal to interpret our feelings is another mater entirely, and certainly becomes a part of a photographer’s credibility and style.
You can only ascertain this by looking at a photographer’s body of work, and not just a single image. Only then can you begin to make judgments about what a photographer values both in terms of his feelings about his subject matter, and how he chooses to convey those feelings. As for my own personal work, capturing moments that elicit the most dramatic and strongest emotional responses, and the challenge of achieving that, are central to both my motivation and reason for being in and around nature. Perhaps that isn’t ordinary reality, but it certainly is real for me, especially when it captures my eye and heart in a way that is forever special. I hope that we do not lose the essence of what photography is about, and instead focus all of our attention on the medium instead of the message.
Let me know what your thoughts are about “reality”? Do you think I am missing something?
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Canon 1Ds Mk III, 1/100 sec, f/11, ISO 100, 40mm
