Inspiration

Inspiration - The process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, esp. to do something creative: "flashes of inspiration".

We can all use a little inspiration to push us out of our rut when it comes to the art of photography.  When I look back at my photos I see a theme that appeared years ago when I first started taking photos seriously. My photographic subjects tend to include mountains, lakes, streams and waterfalls.  I love the silky smooth look of long exposure photos of waterfalls.  I get up long before sunrise to get to a lake when the surface is smooth as glass and creates a mirror reflection of the landscape.  Mountains are just powerful and majestic.  I even have photos of mountains reflecting in small puddles of water in southern Utah deserts, which is not easy to find.

I will keep taking photos of these subjects because they are what I enjoy being near.  However, sometimes my theme feels a bit like a rut.   According to dictionary.com, a rut is "a fixed or established mode or procedure or course of life, usually dull or unpromising."  I need something that will mentally stimulate me to do something creative and push my photography out of that rut and into new areas.

I've found a few things that have helped me:

• Try some other areas of photography, such as sports, architecture, events, or abstract subjects.  I've done all of these and have learned something each time that helps me improve my skills as a photographer.
• Spend time with other photographers.  Go out with a friend or group that enjoys photography.  Everyone will have a slightly different style and will approach a subject differently.  I almost always find myself saying "why didn't I think to try that?" when shooting with others.  The best opportunity to get this experience is in a local camera club.
• Take a class.  I've found photography workshops have been the best investment when it comes to improving the quality of my photos.  When you're considering what photography equipment to upgrade, spend your money on the one between your ears.
• Study the work of other photographers.  Similar to shooting with others, looking at others photography and thinking about what makes their photos great is an easy way to be inspired.  There are several that I follow online including Ian Plant, Joseph Rossbach, Marc Adamus, David DuChemin and the photographer I admire most - Bill Fortney.

 I recently treated myself to a new book that I hope will provide some new inspiration - Ansel Adams in the National Parks: Photographs from America's Wild Places.  The other day June was telling our son Tim about the book and correctly identified Adams as my favorite photographer.  I'm hoping that by reading this book and studying the photos I'll be inspired to try some new things when I'm out.  I gave that a try yesterday.

While driving the Blue Ridge Parkways with my friend Harold Ross (see point #2 above) we contended with overcast skies, bare trees, brown and gray colors.  We were looking for opportunities to photograph trees in dense fog, horfrost on the trees, tunnels, waterfalls, etc.  We didn't have much luck on these subjects, but on one stop we were treated to some interesting combinations of mountain ridges and fog in the foothills below us.  I tried to apply some of what I saw in the latest addition to my library to these subjects.   Here's a few of my attempts.

Near the end of our adventure we drove into a foggy section.  By the time we got out and set up each of us got one or two shots before the fog blew out.  

I've got a lot of improvement that I need to work on in my photography.  I'll keep working on new ideas and staying out of the rut.

Where do you get your inspiration?

Good Idea Poorly Executed

"Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes."

- Oscar Wilde

Sometimes I come up with a good idea for a photograph.  Unfortunately, I don't always turn those good ideas into good photos.  

We were at Walnut Log Road on Reelfoot Lake for sunset on Friday and Sunday night last weekend.  It's a great place for sunset with plenty of Cypress trees in the water with the sun setting behind them making dramatic silhouettes.  The wind that had blown strong all weekend calmed down at sunset making the surface of the lake look like a mirror.  God blessed us with a beautiful painting across the sky and  I came home with 115 shots from Walnut Log Road on Friday night alone!  Some of my favorites from this trip are available viewing and purchase in the Reelfoot Lake Gallery.

I had both my cameras with me - the Canon 7D had a 300mm prime lens with a 1.4 teleconverter.  With the 7D's cropped sensor this is equivalent to a 672mm telephoto lens.   I also had a 17-40mm wide angle zoom on the Canon 5D.  In compact camera terms this is a 40x zoom range between the two camera/lens combinations.

Almost all the shots from Friday night were with the 5D/17-40 combination on a tripod to capture as much of the landscape and sunset as possible.  Here's one of those shots

This is was shot with a 32mm focal length.  It took 1.6 seconds at f/13, ISO 200.   I was hand holding a 2-stop graduated neutral density filter to darken the top half of the photo.  Normally hand holding a graduated neutral density filter (Grad) is not all that difficult.  This night I had to do it with gloves on and my had was still shaking from the cold.  This shot is what I came for and am pretty happy with the results.

However, an idea popped into my head to use the that long lens to isolate some of the tree branches with the sunset reflected in the lake behind it.   I picked the area on the left side of the cypress tree where the color went from yellow to rich dark orange.    In my mind I saw a very dramatic shot.  What I got was not what I envisioned.

I picked the wrong composition and ended up with an image that is too cluttered.

There are too many branches in this picture and there is nothing for the viewer's eye to settle on.   I could have made a better composition if I had pointed my lens a little to the left and isolated the branch that dips down from the rest.

I think it was a good idea but I rushed and didn't think through it.   The good news is I see what I should have done and if I get a similar opportunity and can remember what I learned I might come away with a good picture and not just a good idea.

Test Driving a Lens

June and I joined several other photographers this last weekend for a trek across Tennessee to Realfoot Lake State Park to take pictures of eagles, hawks, snow geese and other birds that winter around the lake each year.   This is perhaps the best opportunity to photograph eagles that doesn't involve traveling to Alaska or Northern Canada.  At one time there were about 200 nesting pairs around the lake.  Those of us on the trip agreed that the numbers appear to be less than that.

It takes about 8 hours to drive from Kingsport to Reelfoot Lake, which is a long road trip.   We might not get this opportunity again so I decided I needed some "better glass" (i.e. - more expensive lens) than what I had.  I have an older Sigma 80-400mm zoom that does pretty well in good "bright" light and on a tripod.   I decided I wanted a prime lens that would produce sharper images, was faster than the Sigma, and have enough "reach" to take shots of birds that might be a little ways away.   My lens of choice was a Canon 300mm f/4L.   To get a little more "reach" I wanted to use a 1.4x teleconverter, making the 300mm 420mm.   I have a cheap(er - it's all relative) teleconverter but putting a cheap teleconverter on an expensive lens gives you a longer lens that takes pictures like a cheap lens.  I needed the Canon version.   These two items sell for $1,376 and $499.  Ouch!

I had talked to people who had rented higher end lenses in the past with good results.  This was my opportunity to try out this lens and teleconverter without having to shell out a lot of cash.  After all, I wasn't sure the Canon would be that much better than the Sigma I already had.   I decided to rent from LensRentals.com.

The rental process was about as smooth as it can be.  The hardest step was deciding what to rent.  Once I made my decision I placed my order online specifying the day I wanted the lens delivered to my house and the day I would ship it back.   Simple.   FedEx delivered the lens right on time.

The lens and teleconverter were packed very well with material that made repacking for return shipping easy.   The gear looked like new and worked perfectly.  This morning I packed it back up in the original box, stuck the preprinted label on the box and dropped it at the FedEx authorized shipper in town.  The entire process was smooth and flawless. 

The one risk I was worried about did come to pass.  I now see how much better the Canon L prime lens is than my old Sigma zoom and I want to have my own copy.   This may end up costing me much more in the end. 

All these photos were made with the 300mm and 1.4TC combination on a Canon 7D.   Except for the owl, they were taken under overcast conditions.   The eagle on the nest was on a tripod.  All the others were handheld.

Knowing what I know now about shooting birds of prey at Reelfoot lake I think I would go with a longer lens.  The birds tended to be too far away for the 300/1.4x combination.  Maybe the Canon 400mm f/2.8L or the Canon 500mm f/4L.  They are big heavy lenses but it would have given me more reach, more light, and faster focusing.  

Is it real or is it Photoshop?

I recently saw an article on the 10 Myths About Photography by  Scott Bourne---Photo  Focus. 

Number 5 caught my attention - "If you do anything to a photo in Photoshop it's no longer a photo. Opinion - if it started its life in a camera it's a photo. Ansel Adams never used Photoshop, but he manipulated the Hell out of his pictures. There is no reality in photography. There never has been. It doesn't exist"

People ask me if I edit my photos.  The answer is yes.  I edit every photo I take.

A photograph is a two dimensional representation of a 3 dimensional world.   Photographers can arrange their composition to give more of a three dimensional feel but it's still on a flat screen or piece of paper.   They can make changes using Photoshop, Lightroom or other photo editing programs to make it look like it has depth.  They can also manipulate the photo to make it more pleasing.   How much editing is OK and where is the line?

Almost all digital photos have been manipulated. In fact, unless you take your photos in RAW mode, they have been manipulated by your camera before you see them.   By default cameras automatically adjust the color, sharpness, contrast, saturation, and possibly other photo settings.  This is done automatically, unless the camera has been set to store the images in RAW mode.  RAW images are uncompressed and unprocessed by the camera.  

The first version of this creek picture is the unprocessed RAW image.   It's not a bad photo but it lacks something and also has something I don't want.   The second version is edited in Adobe Lightroom to adjust to white space (color), vibrance (saturation), contrast, and sharpness.  I also darkened the trees at the top and darkened around the edges slightly.   These changes emphasize the flowing water and give the colors a little more pop.   In the original there was a twig sticking out of the water that was very distracting.   I used Photoshop Elements to digitally remove it.

Click the first image and you will get a window where you can go back and forth comparing the two versions.

If I had my camera on automatic it would have done some of these adjustments, such as white space, vibrance, contrast, and saturation, for me.   I prefer to turn off the automatic adjustments and adjust each one.

Here's another example of editing a RAW photo.   The first image is the unmanipulated copy and the second has been edited in Lightroom.   The color of the Bluettes is the edited version are more like what I saw.     I also darkened the corners and edges to draw the viewers eye to the center.

This third example is a bit more manipulated.   The first version is straight out of the camera and pretty dull.   This was a really cool scene but the camera didn't capture it the way I saw it.   I first cropped and straightened the image to make sure the barn is the obvious subject.  I also increased the clarity to draw the trees out of the fog and brightened the barn, also to draw attention to it.    The white balance and vibrance were also adjusted.  There was also some large white object to the right of the barn that was very distracting so I "removed it".

Which of these is more "real"?  The more important question is which is more interesting to look at?   The first may be closer to what was actually there, but I think the second is a more interesting photo.  Unless a photo is intended for documentary purposes, it usually can benefit from some manipulation.   The manipulation is what painters have done for centuries and in fact many of the guidelines used by photographers were first discovered by painters.   Photographers are artists and as artists can adjust a photo any way they feel will improve it.  

Post Processing Polarization

When I'm shooting outdoors I almost always have a polarizing filter on on my lens.  A polarizer is one of the most useful tools available for a landscape photographer.  It cuts the glare off water surfaces, windows, and other reflective surfaces.  It can cut the glare and darken leaves and flowers.  It gives a sky that rich blue color and makes clouds really pop.  The best part is the effect is adjustable.  Turn the filter to increase or decrease the polarization effect to get it the way you want it.  It's my favorite tool when shooting landscapes.

I don't use many other filters because you can simulate them when editing the images later, but a polarizer is not so easy to simulate.   If you have glare on water, windows, or leaves there's not much you can do about it after you take the photo.   It's always best to get the best image you can in camera and don't rely on post processing to fix problems later.

There is one polarizer effect that you can simulate in post processing and that's the blue skies.   I do this is Lightroom sometimes if for some reason I didn't have the polarizer on or didn't get the effect I was looking for.   I do this by using the Hue, Saturation, Luminance sliders.

I want to reduce the luminance (brightness) and increase the saturation of the blue part of the sky, without impacting other parts of the photo.   To do this I select Saturation and click the round target icon just under the word Hue.   I then use my mouse to click and hold in the blue part of the sky.  While holding the left mouse button down I drag the mouse up to increase the saturation of the color I clicked on.   You can manually move the blue slider but the color of the sky is often a combination of Blue, Aqua and even some other colors.  Using the target allows you to select the exact color combination you want to adjust.

Likewise, you can click the Luminance and repeat the process to reduce the brightness to get the effect you want.  Be sure to cluck the Done button when you're finished.

The two photos above are before and after I adjusted the saturation and luminance of the blue portion of the sky.   This pretty closely matches the effect you get from a polarizing filter.  Of course you might have problems with this technique if you have other blues in the photo that are close to the color of the sky.   I suggest trying this out.  Just be careful to not over do it.

If you have Nik Color Efex software you can get a similar effect using the Polarizer filter.   Here's the same photo with the polarizer applied in Nik Color Efex

The Nik software has a rotation slider simulating the effect of turning the polarizer filter to adjust the effect.  Again, be careful to not over do it.

These are a couple quick techniques to fix the sky if you didn't have a polarizer when you took the image.   Don't rely on this and other post processing adjustments.  Try to make the best photo possible when you take the shot.  You'll get consistently better photos every time.

Several people commented on my last post.  Thanks for letting me know what you think.  I love hearing from you and welcome questions or criticisms.   Let me know what you think and if you found this useful.

You Can't Always Get What You Want....

Saturday evening we were in Pigeon Forge for Wilderness Wildlife Week and had a little time to kill before meeting some friends for dinner.   The sky was starting to look a little interesting and there was a chance for a cool sunset.   The problem was I didn't know any places close by with a clear view of the west without the billboards, neon lights, The Titanic, or King Kong in the way.   The best chance to get the photos I wanted was Wears Valley.

We took some back roads to try and get up above the valley for a view of the sunset but didn't find anything we could get to from the road.   Time was running out and the sun waits for no one.

We had driven past this little white church right on Wears Valley Road many times over the years and always said we should stop and explore a bit.   The the sunset was turning into a bust as we drove on to Headrick Chapel.  According to wikipedia

"For most of the 19th century, funerals in Wears Valley were held at Headrick Cemetery, near the valley's western entrance. A large oak tree provided shelter for funeral-goers, although cold weather and rain often made apparent the need for a building in which to conduct indoor services. In 1902, according to local lore, the oak tree was destroyed by lightning, and in response, the residents erected Headrick Chapel on the cemetery's grounds. The chapel was shared by four Baptist and Methodist congregations, with funeral services having priority. The chapel's bell would ring once for every year of the deceased's life, a tradition still observed by the inhabitants of Wears Valley. In 2001, Headrick Chapel was placed on the National Register of Historic Places."

When we arrived I got my tripod out and started to set up when I realized I had forgotten the quick release plate needed to attach my camera to my tripod.   I always shoot on a tripod and now not only was there no sunset color in the sky I didn't have the equipment I thought I needed.  Things weren't turning out according to my plan.

We wandered around for a little while and took a few shots.  I even tried shooting through the dirty windows.  When we left for dinner I really didn't think I had anything worth keeping.   When we got home Sunday afternoon I discovered there were one or two that while not good enough to print, they were good enough to share.

Because there was little color in the sky or the flora and the chapel was basically white the images seemed to work best as back and white.  Some people don't like black and white.  Here's a color version for you.

I think there are a lot of cases where a monochrome image is a better choice than color.     Do you prefer color or black and white?

I didn't get the photos I thought I wanted but I had fun and learned a little about the Headrick Chapel in the process.   I have to keep reminding myself that God has places the photos out there for me to find, but it's his plan and not mine that will lead me there and I will find what I need.   I have to be open to plans that aren't mine.

"You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You get what you need"

  Mick Jagger

What a difference

This weekend I'm going to spend a day at Wilderness Wildlife Week in Pigeon Forge Tennessee.   This will be my forth trip to this fantastic event.   Started by Ken Jenkins 23 years ago this event is committed to the education and enjoyment of the public as to the wonders of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  It is 8 days filled with free and low cost programs, classes, and hikes including some great photography programs.   Check out the program on the website to pick out sessions you might want to attend.

There are a couple I highly recommend

Nature Photography Workshop: Kendall Chiles, Tom & Pat Cory, Daniel Dempster and Harold Stinnette 9:00 AM - 1:00 Saturday January 12.  I've attended this one before and am going again.   You would pay good money to go to a workshop led by any one of these professionals.   Getting 4 hours of instruction from all five for free is a deal not to be missed.  

Learning to See Photographically: Bill Fortney 2:30 - 3:30 PM Saturday January 12 and 10:30 - 11:30 AM on Sunday January 13.   You will never go wrong going to anything by Bill Fortney.   I have seen an earlier version of this program and will make sure I see it again.   I just can't get enough of Bill's instruction and inspiration.

If you go, get to the rooms early and get a seat.  They always fill up and people will stand along the sides and in the back.

The last time I was at WWW was 2011.   On Friday night that year it snowed and June and I got up early and skipped several of the programs to head into the park to play in the snow.   It wasn't easy finding a gate that was open and we almost got locked in when they closed the gate near Townsend.   This is a picture of the road to Tremont on January 8, 2011.  You can see there were no tire tracks on the road.  There were a few people down that road.   I'm not sure how long before they got out.

The  forecast high for this Saturday is 67.   Not much of a chance of snow this year.   That's OK.  That way I won't be tempted to skip the programs this year.