A Pleasant Evening

A Pleasant Evening

Photography is very much a game of planning and luck.  I planned to take this image back in March when I was at Badlands National Park, however I wasn't able to.  Some nights it was cloudy (many nights in the early evening) so I couldn't get it; other nights the moon would interfere and some nights I was socializing with my friends at the park or working on other projects.  I just couldn't get it to work out that I could get this shot.  Last night, however, that changed.

I went up to Fossil Trail area to start with my sunset shots and got what I could before the sun dropped down below the buttes.  I then went down towards where I was going to shoot this and started to talk with a sweet lass as the sun was setting.  It was rather nice to be sociable with someone since I've been spending a lot of my time here alone with my camera or computer.  She wanted to see some of the shots I lost since I still had low res photos on the iPad and I offered to help her do some star trail shots.  Sadly, we couldn't figure out how to turn off the noise reduction on long exposures for one camera and the other one was auto focus so wasn't happy with the darkness.  Did give her a couple tips on just some star shots so hopefully they turned out well for her.

She was a little worried she destroyed my shot with how some of the things were going, but as anyone can see, it didn't turn out too badly, not at all.  Plus, I greatly appreciated her joining me as it made for a much more pleasant evening as I would have just sat there watching Battlestar Galactica on my iPad and talking while looking at the stars was more enjoyable.

So, a big Thank You to the Polish lass who joined me, made the evening even better.

Automation in Photography

Today is a better day, temperature wise, here in South Dakota, but I decided to do some work on the pictures I've taken rather go into the park.  One, it is still hot for me and Two, I plan on doing some night shots again so why bother wearing myself out shooting all day and into the night?  I'm doing more of what I had originally intended to do back in the spring but for various reasons didn't.

Sunset at Badlands National Park

Over the years photography has moved to making things more and more automated.  First there became auto processors for our film and now with Adobe Lightroom (r) and Photoshope (r) you can automate many of your tasks as a photographer.  Want to set a blanket color adjustment across the board, easily done with a few clicks and bingo. Want to remove a pesky person from the image? Well, just select and hit delete and tell the software to be aware of the content and match it.  So many ways to automate things. 

Even the HDR software I use can go through a directory and process each image into it's HDR form and then process it into a form that we can use on the web. (Any HDR image on ANY website isn't a true HDR image, the web standards don't allow it for one and most monitors can display them properly.  You have to translate it into another format that can be properly displayed).  I don't use a lot of this though. I may have the HDR software create the HDR image and save it, but I go through each one and look at them to tweak them the way I want.

Moon Light shot at Badlands National Park

So, instead of letting my computer do all the work I have spent the day working on processing as many of the images as I can get done that I've taken so far.  I have several hundred tiff files that are ready to be brought into Photoshop to process into a final image and that will take a lot of work as I sift through them all, looking and deciding what to display and what to keep locked away on my hard drive.

Hence, why does it take me so long to process my images? Because I do it all myself.  I don't let the computer choose what is the look I want just like I don't let me camera choose what is the best aperture and shutter speed for a shot.  This is MY ART and not what some company thinks what it should look like.

Not a fan of hot weather....

Hot weather and I don't get along too well, actually, it's a trigger for my migraines, one of two that I know of actually.  It's really more the sun than the heat actually, but I still don't like the heat too much as I get too bloody hot and sweat a LOT.  So being here in South Dakota at the moment, to reshoot some images from Badlands National Park, is bloody uncomfortable!  It's been over 100 a couple days, up towards 110, and the other days it is still in the 90s.  Way too bloody hot for me! Would much rather it be in the 70s during the day, not lucky to be in the 70s at night!

Anyways, I have had a good night to get out and shoot, sadly only one good one and one that I could get some before the clouds came in.  During the one good night I spent from about 8:30 until 12:30 driving and shooting in the park, didn't get to everyplace I wanted for moonlight shots and hopefully I can get back out tonight though I couldn't start until nearly 9:30-10 tonight due to the time the moon rises.  So, if I can make it out, it will be another late night and I just can't get much sleep in the morning since other people are packing up and making noise starting around 6:30am :/

Anyways, here is a picture I took around Sheep Mountain Table as the moon was rising on a hot night. Due to a nice haze I didn't see many stars this night. :(

And here is another image from the better night.  I haven't really looked at any of the images from this night so this is actually grabbed by randomness (well, it was the first one in the directory for that day as I shot past midnight so a new directory was made for that day's shots.

Intro and Getting Ready

I recently drove my son to his college in Dallas and I was bored on that long drive home.  So what do I do? I use the window mount for my iPhone and it's front camera to record some videos of me talking.  Some of them are on specific pieces, some of them are on specific series or concepts and this one is just a little introduction.  There was no scripting to this so if it's confusing, that is why.  Kinda gives you an insight into how my mind jumps around, which is why I can make it as an artist ;) 

On Tuesday, August 27th, I will be heading back to Badlands National Park to reshoot some of the images that I lost when my hard drive crashed, plus shoot some new images, including one I had intended but never was able to get to.  Looking forward to going back and I will be attempting to do some posting when I'm not crashed from the lack of sleep or out shooting day and night.

Life's Challenges....

I have been silent for awhile, bad Steven.  I have several topics I need to write on, but we'll start with the bad.... very bad... well, quite devastating to me actually.

A major problem with shooting digital and being on the road, it can be expensive to keep multiple copies of the images.  I checked into online backups and it would be $3,000+/year for the amount of data I would need, plus you need to have internet access to upload the files.

Hard drives are fragile devices, they can and do break down.  I don't know if it is directly related to the flood in Thailand (which is where many companies have their manufacturing including Nikon, Seagate and Western Digital) or not, but I was recently told by two data recovery firms that they are seeing a 15%+ failure rate of new drives within the first year..... Anyways, not easy and still time consuming to make multiple copies if you are on the road, especially if you are camping in a tent.

So, if you haven't guessed by now, I plugged in my hard drive to back it up after returning home and it crashed on me.  I lost all but a couple days of images.  Thankfully, my Professional Photographers Association includes coverage for data loss and I'm talking with the lawyer who manages that trust, and there might be a solution that will let me go back out for a shorter time to take pictures again.  However, I've lost some fantastic and great images, they can never be recovered.... So so sad....

Glen Canyon NRA, Monument Valley and Natural Bridges NM

Today we started off visiting Glen Canyon National Recreation Area which is on Lake Powell. This is a gorgeous area to visit and I had no clue about it (I am sure there are many more that I have no clue about.) the reason for stopping here was Doctor Who as part of Series 6 was filmed there. I have so many pictures to convert to b/w as I didn't shoot a lot of film there. The striations in the rocks were fantastic to look at and this is a region that had a lot of geologic activity so the striations are at many different angles giving a lot of lines for your eyes to follow. Loved it!

We went to the Lone Rock area of the park. There was a cute fee collector with an accent and voice that I could lose myself listening to. Even my son liked it and told me I could date her, hahaha (laughing at his comment not at dating her) while it was a short visit I know I will go back there again to camp and get more shots. Just need to get access to a boat for a day and night. Would be ideal to have the money to rent a house boat for a couple days to explore around the lake and to get some great shots!

We also went over to Monument Valley due to Doctor Who. This is another gorgeous place, but depending on the state of the road you may want a vehicle with a higher clearance than my Sentra. We bottomed on rocks twice and decided it just wasn't worth it between that and the fact that you cannot take any pictures for commercial use or public exhibition without acquiring a permit before you arrive. At least in our National Parks if you are shooting landscapes and not paid to be there you do not need a permit. I've seen some worse than here. There is a place in Grand Rapids that not only do you need to pay big bucks for a permit, you need to pay $300 or 10% of sales, whichever is greater. I just didn't think it was worth my time right now.

We then drove to Natural Bridges National Monument. We did get there near sunset, which I thought would be great. However between the tall rocks surrounding the valley and the clouds, there wasn't much to get a shot of. The angles were all wrong. No problem, I wanted to do a star trail more as they're rarer to see. Damn clouds wouldn't behave so no shots. Plus the campground was full and the nearest place was 40 miles away.

Today will be better, today is Canyonlands NP and we will arrive soon (or we may have left already depending on if I have a signal to send this)

Pig Dig at Badlands National Park

In the early 90's a photographer discovered a bone in the ground and he did the right thing, he left it and reported it to the proper people. This discovery turned into a 15 year excavation where they collected 10,000+ specimens.

During my Artist in Residency position I was asked if I would be willing to take a of the Pig Dig site to be used on a new wayside sign. It ends up that the picture will be used on two 4'x6 signs, one at Fossil Trail and one on the Pig Dig trail that they are building in 2013 I was very happy and excited to get this shot for the park. Below is the full image I created, though it will be cropped down to the needed proportions.

The original image is 27" x 62" and I took 105 shots to create this picture. It took many hours to get it stitched together properly due to the fast moving clouds.

I looks forward to going back to the park and seeing the signs installed with my picture on them.