Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures

Making Photographs

2009-04-16T14:57:00.006-04:00

Yes, I know; I’ve been absent. Between getting ready for Savannah, processing images from there, preparing for our spring and summer workshops, I was snowed under. No different from anyone else, of course, but I had to let the blog rest for a couple of weeks.

We've Moved

As some of you already know, we've been posting over on WordPress.

Blogger has treated us well, but we will eventually be able to tie our blog directly into our website through WordPress.

So, for those of you loyal photographers who have subscribed to our blog, you can do so at the new location, too, by clicking on the RSS Feed icon on the right. It's also easier to post comments, as you don't have to be a member to comment.

We look forward to seeing you over there. This week's blog is about Making Photographs, not taking them.

Reminiscing

2009-03-29T22:11:00.002-04:00

I took a week off. Between visiting with friends in the Asheville area, preparing for our upcoming Savannah workshop, and redoing a lot of the website images, there just wasn’t time.

Reminiscing

Our visit was fun and brought up a lot of reminiscing and chatting about photography. Arnie and Michael go back a long way. They both started out at one of the Chicago papers during the era of civil rights, the infamous Democratic Convention and the Days of Rage, went on to LIFE, Time, and other magazines — Michael as a staff photographer, Arnie as a contract one — moving on to the corporate world while their kids were in school, and both changing lives and moving to North Carolina within a few years of one another. Michael returned to the area near where he grew up in the mountains, while Arnie and I moved not all that far from where his grandparents lived in the Triangle area.

Their life parallels are uncanny, and at times, really bizarre. One nearly bought the house the other ended up buying. Both have sons-in-law with the same first names and both of whom are in the food industry. I could go on…

While Michael’s friend Elizabeth was teaching an advanced writing seminar, we poured over many of Michael’s photographs. I heard comments from them such as, “Wow, we must have been standing just about shoulder to shoulder!” “What ever happened to…?” “Do you remember…?”

We talked shop. Michael had run tests to compare prints he had done from negatives with ones he had done from scans of those same negatives. We were amazed that the digital versions were so much sharper. We had all shot medium and large format before “going digital,” and we all marveled at how the clarity of digital has surpassed our low-ISO films of yesteryear.

There were discussions on digital workflow and programs we each used. We poured over what are now historic photographs. The faces of Louie, Bobby, and others were brought out from this or that box. There were old photographs of Michael and Elizabeth from when they knew each other back in the 60s.

One box held the series Michael did on a local Asheville artist who makes the most fantastical and comfortable furniture out of metal scraps. Many of these pieces adorn Michael’s loft, from the wrench chair with the back made of rollers that invited mimicking a bear rubbing his back on his favorite tree to the whimsical tables that often served as a platform for a piece of art.

As I was listening, I heard Arnie and Michael saying that they looked to the “now” in photography. That said, I heard their incredible pride in what they had done in the past. I have been after them both to make a show, a retrospective, a presentation of their past work. Yes, now is important, but contrary to what a lot of young photographers think, there is a lot of value in what came before.

Some of us “old farts” wonder about what happened to the appreciation of what went before us. Think about the great painters. They would apprentice, sit before a Rembrandt or Van Gogh or Chardin, and replicate what they saw on the canvas. This was not to stifle their creativity, rather get them to master the techniques that would lead to better showcasing their vision.

I often liken creativity like being a clown. Don’t laugh!

A clown has to learn how to do something “right” before he/she takes off and does an individual interpretation that makes us laugh. What they do evokes a response; it is effective, because they have learned from the masters.

Maybe I’m a snob, but in the art world, a lot of what I see is ho-hum. Sure, it is bigger, different, catches my eye, but it that a reason to like it? For me, not necessarily. Yes, there are many current photographers whose work I love. You can look at the links on our blog to see some of them.

For example, I love the work of Edward Curtis and J. Walker Evans, but I can look at the work of Stephen Wilkes and admire it just as much. I adore the work of Ernst Haas, but I am also drawn to that of Eric Meola with his use of color or Frans Lanting who took inspiration from Ernst’s The Creation in his Life, a Journey through Time. There are, of course, many other examples I could cite.

Going back to Arnie and our friend Michael, I look at both their work, current and past. Yes, they are both more interested in the present, but their past work has more than a lot of merit. They can both talk extensively on “the masters” and the history of photography, but, like Edward Weston, they both question their work as Weston did in his The Day Books of…

As artists, we all question our work, but there is a time to question and a time to be proud of what one has done in the past. There is a lot to be gleaned from the past, for in acknowledging the past, we can better move forward and grow as artists. We cannot create in a vacuum.

It is ironic that it takes knowing the past in order to present a fresh view. If you haven’t seen what has gone before, you cannot avoid clichés.

For us., it is wonderful when we can reminisce with someone with a comparable number of gray hairs. We’ve been through the proverbial wars, we’ve paid our dues, but we do look forward, ever striving to improve, to present a unique perspective.

We take off tomorrow for our first workshop of the 2009 season in Savannah. We are looking forward to meeting our participants, sharing what we know about photography, inspiring them to seek their own vision and unique perspective.

Make Your Dream Assignment

Many of you have received an e-mail from us regarding our effort to stay in the top 20 and preferably get into the top ten for a Dream Assignment contest. We have long had a dream of doing a photographic book on Beautiful Bourgogne (Burgundy), and we are asking everyone for help, not only to vote and comment but to pass the word on… and on… and on. The link is at http://www.BCphotoadventures.com/DreamAssignment.php.

If you want to be added to our newsletter list (we send them out about once a month), write us through the Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures contact page.

Comments from you are always encouraged and welcomed (please post below by clicking on the comments link next to Posted by TBC. Remember, you don’t need to be a Google member to do so; you may post anonymously.

If you wish to get notices when new articles are posted, look below this article and click on/in the appropriate box. Even if you choose not to do that, please share this blog and our website with your friends and relatives who love photography.

Meanwhile, check out our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures calendar of workshops, and if you are considering joining us, do as others have already done ... make your room reservations. You can always cancel later if necessary! We have added a Wish List section to our Calendar. Some of our alumni have expressed interested in our putting together workshops both in Spain and at Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Parks. If we get enough interest, we will add one or both to our schedule.

Photo Rut & Announcements

2009-03-16T21:23:00.015-04:00

This has been a week for family and friends. My younger daughter and eight-month-old grandson came for a nearly a week. After a visit with one of her friends in DC, we headed straight to the Outer Banks. The weather here was wonderful until the last day, when it blew like a bat out of the proverbial hell. Still, it was sunny, so we could not complain. It just wasn’t good weather for walking on the beach. We spent Friday morning at the Urgent Care clinic, as Hayden had a high fever. It turned out to be strep, quite unusual in such a young person, but we got the meds, and I have heard from his parents back in Colorado that he is quite recovered.

Photo Rut

A photographer friend wrote us recently, frustrated at being in a photo rut. I wrote him back the following:

“I have an exercise for you. Go out to some nearby location, and make one perfect image. This will force you to previsualize what you want from the image. You can compose and recompose, change your lens, your viewpoint, your intended treatment, but only make that one image. I think that sometime in the excitement of a location, we don't take the time to make that beautiful image.

“Before you go out, look at Rembrandt, Chardin, Edward Weston, John Sexton, Ernst Haas, Frans Lanting, Bob Krist, etc. and get inspiration.”

I can’t wait to see the results of some of these outings. Sometimes in this digital age, because we no longer have to hear chink-a-chink-a-chink-a-chink every time we click the shutter and worry about film and processing costs, it is easy to shoot too much. Arnie might disagree with this, but I think that if we all slow down and really think about the image we are going to create, we will end up with more winners and fewer ho-hums or losers. Of course, Arnie claims all of his are winners! Hmmm! For those of you who know him, you can just imagine the expression on his face when he delivers this line!

Marlboro Window, as I call this photograph, is the only one I did of this window. I studied it, then carefully composed. This is a photograph that has attracted a lot of favorable comments over the years. So has Wooden Grill towards the bottom, another case of one scene, one shot!

Exhibit Closing

On Friday, we had the closing reception for our photo exhibit in Durham, NC. Almost 40 people attended on a dark and stormy night, so we were really pleased with the turn-out.

Fine Art Photography Pages

Some of you who live too far away to see the show asked if we could post something. With this blog and our latest newsletter, we are launching our Fine Art pages with this official announcement. PayPal and shopping carts will come, hopefully in the next week or so! One never quite knows for sure on these things.

Speaking Engagement

We have also been asked by the Raleigh Academy of Chinese Language Photo Club to do a photo seminar. This group sponsors a lot of programs for the parents of their students as well as the public at large. We are quite pleased to have been invited as guest speakers! The program, Creativity and Seeking Your Own Vision, is Saturday morning, March 21, 2009, 9:30-11:00 a.m. at:

Room E300
Forest Hill Baptist Church
201 Dixie Trail
Raleigh, NC 27607

It is free and open to the public. We hope to see some of you there!

Make Your Dream Assignment

Many of you have received an e-mail from us regarding our effort to stay in the top 20 and preferably get into the top ten for a Dream Assignment contest. We have long had a dream of doing a photographic book on Beautiful Bourgogne (Burgundy), and we are asking everyone for help, not only to vote and comment but to pass the word on… and on… and on. The link is at http://www.BCphotoadventures.com/DreamAssignment.php.

Same Subject – Different Vision

2009-03-07T18:52:00.023-05:00

Many of you have received an e-mail from us regarding our effort to stay in the top 20 and preferably get into the top ten for a Dream Assignment contest. We have long had a dream of doing a photographic book on Beautiful Bourgogne (Burgundy), and we are asking everyone for help, not only to vote and comment but to pass the word on… and on… and on. The link is at http://www.BCphotoadventures.com/DreamAssignment.php.

Last week, I wrote about Same Place – Different View. One of our students thought it would be neat to see some students’ work using the same theme. Great idea, Sandy! Here it is! Please note, we have not tampered with the images; they are exactly as given to us in class. Some may not have had a chance to work on their final processing, but it is the approach and vision that counts here, not the finishing touch. Some may wonder why their versions of the scene were not included. We can’t include ones that weren’t submitted for the slide show, and we will not use ones that aren’t labeled with the photographers’ names! After all, we want to give due credit.

In the mountains of western Virginia, one of the places we have gone has a wonderful old snake fence, so popular in the early days of this area. Also known as Virginia fence, Virginia rail fence, or worm fence, these sturdy fences are seen following hillside contours. In this example, Don Simpson took the same shot and gave it two completely different treatments.

This one is a postarized rendition.

This one he calls "Snowy Field."

One of the places we visit in Maine is a lighthouse I have loved since I sailed these waters as a child on my dad’s wooden yawl. It is a great place for both our students and us, as it works in all weather, all times of day, all seasons. These photographs were all created the same late afternoon within 30 feet of each other.

Brad O’Connell set the low light on the lighthouse against a dark, forbidding sky.

Harry Goodman snuck a peak through the columns of the lightkeeper’s house.

Sandy Wittman turned her shot into a black-and-white view.

Out in the area around Moab, we saw two subjects, where through positioning or processing, the shot was given a different look.

Chuck Lovers used a bold palette to bring out the various colors in the rocks.

Dennis McCoy lowered his stance and set the rock off against the lighter background.

Several days later, we were in a location that does not offer a great choice in where one stands. Washer Woman is one of the subjects that people love to photograph.

Joe Demello shot a vertical and turned it into a gentle but effective black and white.

Bob Blum also turned his horizontal into a black and white, then gave it a neat blue cast.

There’s a place in northern New England that we love to take people. This is another one of those places I have known since I was a small child. It is a difficult place to photograph because of the dappled light that can make everything so spotty.

Jim Rowse set his waterfall in a surrounding of fall foliage.

Maria Goble used the swirling pattern of the leaves in the water to set off the waterfall.

We often give assignments during our workshops. One on the Outer Banks was to photograph a red pump. Simple assignment, but we were pleased at the variety of angles and treatments. Here are three.

Alain Roy used the late afternoon light and shadow to set off his version of the pump.

Jeff Chase gave it an almost human effect by having it peak up above a cistern.

Jim Comer concentrated on the pump’s base and handle and did some fun post-processing.

So always seek your own vision. Try to make your shot different from any others you have seen. Sometimes the difference is subtle; sometimes it is dramatic. It doesn’t make any difference as long as the shot reflects your unique vision.

Same Place - Different View

2009-03-02T06:28:00.021-05:00

It has been a busy week. I spent last weekend at a conference of leaders from our photo association, the American Society of Media Photographers, a world-wide association that has seen many famous photographers amongst its ranks. It was really wonderful to reconnect with old friends from 20 years ago — gleep, has it been that long? — and meet so many energetic new people.

I was lucky enough to participate in the first of these conferences, even run two early ones, eventually heading to the national level, then returning to the chapter level and attend a few more. Alas, there was a long hiatus when these conferences didn’t happen, so it was particularly great that some in our association remembered and pushed to revive them.

The exchange of ideas was phenomenal and very exciting. We all went home exhausted but energized. So, this week has been filled with processing all from the weekend so I can pass it on to our board and get others at the conference to share their notes. The blog, alas, had to take a back seat, especially since we are giving a talk this week.

One of the wonderful things about running workshops, is that groups invite you to come give a presentation. We have two in March — at the Capital City Camera Club and the Raleigh Academy of Chinese Language Photo Club. As passionate photographers, it is always fun for us to review images, compare, and brainstorm about what will make a good and inspiring slide show.

The subject for both of the March speaking engagements is Creativity & Seeking Your Own Vision. In our workshops, we always try to encourage participants to be creative and find their own eye and way of seeing and presenting subjects.

Some of you may remember in my article on Selecting a Photo Workshop where the two vans drove up the hill and belched forth a plethora of photographers who quickly set up their tripods, shoulder to shoulder and pointed their cameras down to the same farm. OK, maybe they got a shot, but it was the same shot every else did, and … ho-hummm … well, hardly our idea of seeking your own vision or using your creativity to get a unique shot!

You have heard us and others say that if you put a whole group of photographers in the same location, you will get a whole bunch of different shots. The question is, are they all variations of the same shot, or are they unique?

Here are a few examples of shots Arnie and I did. You can see that we each approached the subject or location creatively, and we definitely found our own vision. Sometimes, we stood in nearly the same place. Often, our approach was totally different. Sometimes, we are attracted to the same scene, but we envisioned it at a different time of day.

We hope you enjoy them, and we’re not saying which ones are whose! They are all from some of our workshop locations. Some have been juried into exhibits, some selected as featured photographs on photo websites, and some have won awards. You may recognize some from earlier blogs, but as Paul Harvey said, “…and now, the rest of the story.”

The Outer Banks

Maine Coast

Virginia

New England

Colorado

Arches, Canyonlands & Moab

Tripods & Heads

2009-02-19T12:50:00.010-05:00

International Exhibition

Before I start this week's blog, Arnie and I are really excited to report that two of our photographs were juried into Through A Lens: Contrasting Elements, an international exhibition to be hung in the Coastal Arts League Museum in Half Moon Bay, CA in April! We were told that there were 1,800 entries from 23 countries, and only 45 were accepted into the show! You have seen both of ours before:

Fence Dance

and

Old Relic

Fence Dance and Old Relic are both in our current show at the new Rigsbee Hall Gallery in Durham, NC. Since there are limited hours, we are having a closing reception on Friday, March 13, from 5-7 p.m. If any of you are in the area and would like to come, please let us know, and we'll send you directions. The entrance is a bit hard to find!

For those who will not be able to see our exhibit, we will be putting the images on the website sometime after March 13.

Now, to our subject for this week...

We are always amazed that people will spend thousands of dollars on a high-end camera and lenses, and skimp on their tripod and head. Having a substandard system for your camera and lenses is worse than having no tripod at all. We have seen cameras fall on rocks, go into the ocean, teeter off porches, and a host of other mishaps. Fortunately for our students, the cameras were OK, BUT — and this is a BIG BUT — they were really lucky!

Seeking Your Own Vision
with an Assortment of Tripods

We get questions all the time about what to buy. The first answer we give is, "Get the best you can afford." That is obviously a simplistic answer, so we'll delve further. First, weigh your camera and your heaviest lens. Add a few pounds in case you want to buy an even heavier lens later on. Both your tripod and head should be rated to handle that weight with a margin of safety of at least another couple of pounds! We generally recommend looking for something with a load capacity of at least 14 pounds.

Tripods

Carbon-fiber tripods are lighter and they are more expensive than the standard metal ones. That said, the prices are coming down every time you turn around.

There are features we like to see in a tripod, to wit:

Three-part legs for greater height adjustment and more compact length when collapsed;
Adjustable and reversible center column, preferably one that can also be taken out of its vertical position and put in horizontally;
A bubble level - not critical, but very useful for stitches (panoramas); and
Ease of use — if it doesn't work for you, you won't use it, and it is a waste of money.

Arnie has a carbon-fiber Gitzo that has served us well. Its newest iteration is the GT2530EX. We use his tripod on assignments, as it is lighter. After all, nothing taken on an airplane gets any cheaper these days! The current version comes in three- and four-section models.

I, on the other hand, love my Bogen-Manfrotto 458B Neotec Pro Photo Tripod. I am one of those people who invariably tries to turn the leg adjustments the wrong way. Guaranteed! On top of that, Arnie calls me "Goddesszilla" because of my strong hands. As you can imagine, I end up tightening the legs still further! It drives me nuts. Him, too!

When I saw one of my students with this one (see below), I had to have it. I want to lengthen the legs? I just pull them out! No levers, no twists, not a thing! I want to collapse them? I just push a button and apply a little pressure on that leg. I've finished my shot in that location, and I want to completely collapse the tripod? It is so slick; I just press the three buttons simultaneously, and push the tripod to the ground, step, rock, whatever, and ta-daaa, it is done!

Bogen-Manfrotto 458B

OK, it does weigh more than Arnie's, but I can handle it, especially since it comes with its own, built-in carrying strap.

Hint:
If you don't buy a tripod with a built-in, carrying strap, you may want to either buy or fashion one yourself.

There are some great values in the private-labeled tripods put out by the various big camera stores, Adorama, B&H, Calumet, etc. Some come with ball heads. Again, the critical element again is load capacity. Remember those stories above of cameras and lenses meeting with near disasters?

The quality of the house brands, at least on the ones we have seen, are certainly good, but they do not ultimately match the quality of the old stand-bys, Gitzo and Bogen-Manfrotto.

Hint:
When shooting with a lens with image stabilization, check the manual to see if it needs to be turned off while mounted on a tripod. Some do; some don't. If your lens is acting funny on a tripod, check it!

Hint:
Arnie and I carry our tripods over our shoulders with the cameras still mounted. For more comfort, we put some pipe insulating foam around the legs, secured with gaffer's tape — NOT duct tape. This is much cheaper than buying fancy custom tripod "tea cozies" from $30-60. We prefer our local hardware store's prices.

Ball Heads

Even more important than the tripod is the head. If your head does not securely hold your body and lens, it is useless. In today's world, 99% of experienced photographers use a ball head for good reason. It is just plain easier to use and more accurate for fine adjustments. Too often, we have seen students frustrated by their two-lever controls. Arnie and I have been using Ball heads since the 70s.

Today, there are some great Ball-head-and-mount systems on the market, and you really do "gets what you pays for" as the old saying goes. Things you may want to consider are:

Smoothness of movement;
Adjustable drag;
Secure clamping; and
Quick release plates rather than having to screw the camera onto the head.

Some systems even come with L brackets that enable you to quickly switch from horizontal to vertical mode.

If price is no object, We recommend that you look at The Really Right Stuff ball heads and quick-release L brackets. Another excellent system is made by Kirk.

If these are more than your budget's taste, study how they are made along with their features, and then find something within your budget that comes close, again, not losing sight of the weight capacity.

Hint:
When you are shooting with a longer lens with its own mount/tripod collar, always use that instead of the camera body, and you can just rotate the lens for horizontal or vertical views without detatching it.

So shop carefully, plan for the future. You'll end up spending less in the long run if you get the right combination at the onset.

Pricing Photography

2009-02-13T09:11:00.011-05:00

Last week, I wrote about the Value of Photography. This week, I'd like to give you an analogy that has worked for me ... the rental car comparison.

Don't laugh! They are not dissimilar. A client or editor or whatever says to you, "Hey, I paid for it, I own it."

"Ah, no, actually you paid for usage of that photograph."

And I go on to give this easy-to-understand explanation.

TBC: "You've rented a car in the past, right?"

CLIENT: "Ah, yuhhh."

TBC: "You rent a car for two days, and it costs you twice as much as one day, yes?"

CLIENT: "Yes."

TBC: "That's like paying for usage for a two-time usage rather than a one-time only.

"Now, if you rent a big van instead of a little economy number, it is also going to cost you more. Right?"

CLIENT: "Of course."

TBC: "That's like using a photograph full size rather than a quarter page or less in your publication or ad."

CLIENT: "Oh, I never thought of it that way."

"Taking that further, if you rent that sexy, vintage 'Vette, it's going to cost you a lot more per day than the little GEO."

CLIENT: "Of course."

TBC: "OK, that is akin to the difference between using an image for a national magazine with a huge circulation as opposed to your local newspaper.

"When you rent that car for five days, don't you usually get a break?"

CLIENT: "I would hope so."

TBC: "We agree, and that is why on multiple usage, we give our clients a break.

"So, let's go on with this analogy. When you get GPS, a ski rack for the back, or a car seat for your munchkin, that costs you an additional fee. If we have done a shot you want to use from a helicopter or that has a unique perspective not attained by others, it is also an extra, and thus, it is worth more, just as your GPS adds value to your car rental. Or if we have done a lot of work to put a panorama together, that is not your run-of-the-mill shot."

CLIENT: "Hmmm," as he/she begins to see where I am going.

TBC: "Now, you've paid that rental fee; you've used the car. Do you own it? No, the rental car company still owns it, just as we own the copyright to our photographs.

"See, it really isn't so different. We charge based on usage, just as the rental car company does.

"Now, let's see what usage you really need, not want, as we hate to see you pay for more than you actually need in the long run..."

Just about everyone has rented a car at one time or another, especially those who are interested in your photographs. That's why this has been such a successful analogy for us over the years.

One final item. You remember the phrase "a quarter page or less" that I used above? Most people who are knowledgable, set a quarter page as their bottom pricing. It costs more to prepare a submission than an eighth of a page would pay. No point losing money, as that doesn't pay for that new lens.

There is another point here, as noted in last week's blog, and that is that once a client underpays for usage, he/she has absolutely no incentive to pay more. After all, there is always some other schmuck out there who is willing to give away his/her photography. It is actually why a lot of photographers have gone out of business! They don't understand the value of photography nor how to price and negotiate.

Last week, there were some great links on pricing and the value of photography, so if you missed that blog, check it out.

We are having a preview this evening of a show we've hung in Durham, NC of some of our favorite images. The official opening has not yet been set, but for those of you who have already asked, we'll post it here or send out a mini newsletter to our list.

If you want to be added to our newsletter list (we send them out about once a month), write us through the Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures contact page.

Comments from you are always encouraged and welcomed (please post below by clicking on the comments link next to Posted by TBC. Remember, you don’t need to be a Google member to do so; you may post anonymously.

If you wish to get notices when new articles are posted, look below this article and click on/in the appropriate box. Even if you choose not to do that, please share this blog and our website with your friends and relatives who love photography.

Meanwhile, check out our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures calendar of workshops, and if you are considering joining us, do as others have already done ... make your room reservations. You can always cancel later if necessary! We have added a Wish List section to our Calendar. Some of our alumni have expressed interested in our putting together workshops both in Spain and at Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Parks. If we get enough interest, we will add one or both to our schedule.

The Value of Photography

2009-01-27T07:28:00.019-05:00

In our workshops, we always encourage talented people to insist on a fair price for "selling" their photos. Just because one is an "amateur" does not mean that a credit line is ample reward for a published photograph. There are many amateurs we know whose work is better than that of a number of professional photographers. Everyone should know that the copyright to any of their photographs is theirs at the click of the shutter which includes, among other things, the right to negotiate decent pricing for usage.

We were reminded recently of the thrill of the prospect of seeing your first photograph in print, hopefully with your credit line alongside. A friend of ours and one of our alumni produced a striking photograph that a large university wanted to pick up for use in next year's media guide, possibly on the cover, too. How exciting to have your work recognized in such a fashion!

Along with congratulations, I wrote back saying that any photograph worth publishing is worth commanding a fair price, whether produced by an amateur or a pro. An arresting photograph is an arresting photograph regardless of the source. Remember the expression, "A picture is worth a thousand words?"

Alas, Corporate America and publications are devaluing photography. They want to get more for less, yet I see no evidence of their lowering their advertising rates! They have one set of rules for themselves and another for the rest of us. It reminds me of little kids ... "What's mine's mine and what's yours is mine, too!"

There is a glut of royalty-free images out there.

I don't know about you, but "selling" our photographs for nothing does not pay for new equipment, nor does it put food on the table, cover health insurance, set aside money for the kids' college education, repair Old Betsy so she can keep going another year or so in this economy, buy a couple of movie tickets, ensure that the rent or mortgage is paid, et cetera.

Now the interesting thing here is that amateurs, whose work, as noted above, can be just as good or better than that of pros, don't see it that way. After all, they have a "real" job or are retired, and their photography is a serious hobby. They are covered for the health insurance, car, entertainment, housing, and their kids' education.

What they don't realize — and this is part of just about any seminar or lecture we have ever given — is that when they accept that great credit line for their photo in XYZ magazine, ad campaign, or college brochure, they are actually taking money away from pro photographers who have to make a living with their photography. Every time a magazine or corporation gets to use a photograph for a mere credit line, they figure they can do it again. Hey, why should they pay for good photography when they can get it for free? Hmmm. So, what happens the next time a pro has a great image that would be perfect?

"That's a beautiful photograph, and we'd love to use it. Of course, we'll give you a credit line."

"Excuse me? That credit line doesn't pay the bills."

Now in our book, this does not mean that amateurs should not have their work published. Any pro worth anything never objects to a terrific photo appearing in print ... as long as that photograph earned a fair usage fee. Again, if a photograph is worth publishing, it is worth commanding a fair price.

So, what is a fair price? There are good programs and websites out there:

NAPP, National Association of Press Photographers, has an excellent overview with links on the subject.
ASMP, American Society of Media Photographers, of which we are members, also gives a really good overview as well as suggested links to pricing guides.
Jim Pickerell has long been an advocate of fair pricing for photographs through his paperback Negotiating Stock Photo Prices until 2001 when he went to his on-line, subscription-based Pricing Photography.
Seth Resnick has also been a long-time advocate of fair prices for photography and has usage prices noted on his website; take a look.

There are, of course, many other resources, but these will get you started.

The photographs in this week's blog, by the way, have been valuable photographs with multiple usage sales for Arnie and me over the years. Not once did either of us settle for a credit line alone! Note that I used the terms "usage sales" and not "sales" that implies ownership after an exchange of money.

Next week, I'll publish my rental-car analogy for the value and pricing of photography!

We will be having a show of some of our favorite images starting next Saturday, Valentine's Day, at a gallery in Durham, North Carolina.

Comments from you are always encouraged and welcomed (please post below). Remember, you don’t need to be a Google member to do so. Just click on the “comments” link below and post anonymously.

If you wish to get notices when new articles are posted, look below this article and click on/in the appropriate box. Even if you choose not to do that, please share this blog and our website with your friends and relatives who love photography.

Meanwhile, check out our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures calendar of workshops, and if you are considering joining us, do as others have already done ... make your room reservations. You can always cancel later if necessary! We have added a Wish List section to our Calendar. Some of our alumni have expressed interested in our putting together workshops both in Spain and at Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Parks. If we get enough interest, we will add one or both to our schedule.

Lightroom Web Module

2009-01-22T07:59:00.011-05:00

Don't you love computer gremlins or the vagaries of the Internet? I thought I had published this blog first thing Friday morning.

"Don't you have a new blog?" Arnie asks me as I am headed out to lunch today with a friend for my Birthday.

"Yes, what do you mean?"

"Well it still says the 17th!" Ugh! Arghhh!

So, my apologies to all of you, and I shall make sure it goes through this time!

We've now taken through you all the other Lightroom modules. The last one is the Web module, the easiest one of the five. Again, we are only giving an overview, since there are great tutorials, books, and of course, our workshops to help you, but this may give you a few hints to help you along.

Many of the principles you have learned in the previous installments apply here, so this blog will be the shortest one in the series. You've already noticed similarities amongst the Lightroom modules. We have shown you how to navigate around the left and right panels, how to create your own templates, and how to update them. Again, we urge you to open your own copy of Lightroom to see more details than can be shown in the screen shots here.

The Lightroom Web module is an extremely powerful tool. It has numerous layouts and presentations that you can tweak to your satisfaction, from Flash or HTML slide shows, to interactive displays where you click on a thumbnail to see the larger version of an image, to an informal Picks from My Trip view.

Hint

In your User templates, select and continue to use the same basic colors that you use on your website or special page. This will reinforce your look.

Below are a couple of examples of web presentations I created from some basic Lightroom templates that I tweaked slightly to make them ours. Remember, I have done nothing other than my basic image adjustments. I have done no sharpening, no resizing, no borders, etc. Lightroom does that all for you! You will see that they carry the same color theme you saw in our slideshow presentations.

Lightroom Flash Gallery
Showing Thumbnails & File Name

Airtight PostcardViewer
4-Column Layout

Airtight PostcardViewer
Enlarged Image View with File Name on Image

For those who are not familiar with flash, Lightroom makes it easy to create these presentations. For the more sophisticated, you can integrate the code into your own website layout.

Hint

I always use the Preview in Browser button at the bottom of the panel. That way, you can make sure that you have gotten exactly what you want before Exporting (publishing) it through the button at the bottom of the right panel.

Hopefully this series of articles has shown you a few hints, given you some ideas of ways you can tweak your photos, shown you how to create your own templates, and in short, made Lightroom a little easier to use.

Next Week

Who knows what next week will bring? It rather depends upon what my fingers on the keyboard and whatever's in my head take me, and of course, you!

We love getting comments from you (please post below). Remember, you don’t need to be a Google member to do so. Just click on the “comments” link below and post anonymously.

If you wish to get notices when new articles are posted, look below this article and click on/in the appropriate box. Even if you choose not to do that, please share this blog and our website with your friends and relatives who love photography.

Meanwhile, check out our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures website, and if you are considering joining us, do as others have already done ... make your room reservations. You can always cancel later if necessary! We have added a Wish List section to our Calendar. Some of our alumni have expressed interested in our putting together workshops both in Spain and at Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Parks. If we get enough interest, we will add one or both to our schedule.

Lightroom Print Module

2009-01-18T14:27:00.019-05:00

We've addressed the basics of layout, imaging, and slide shows in Lightroom. Now, we'll move on to the Print module. Again, there are great tutorials, books, and of course, our workshops to help you, but this may give you a few hints to help you along.

For this series, if you have not already done so, we recommend that you open your own copy of Lightroom, preferably 2.2 which is the latest version at this writing, to see more details. The screen shots below each section of text will show you where to look and indicate what you might expect to find, but your own monitor will show you a larger view.

For most people, it is great to be able to print your photographs whether in contact sheets or regular prints.

The recent versions of Lightroom, now up to 2.2 as of this writing, have made tremendous strides in the Print module. Everyone's eye, taste, and sense of quality differs, but printing on archival Premium Luster papers with archival inksets works well on papers up to 13" x 19" Since our Epson printer doesn't take larger sizes, I cannot comment on those. Even if I could, we ultimately have to make these choices for ourselves.

Hint

When making test prints to experiment with resolution and sharpening, etc., don't waste paper and inks printing out a whole print; instead, take a 3.25" x 4.5" sample from a representative part of your photograph and use that in different modes to see what works best for you. I cut a letter-size sheet of my archival paper in half lengthwise, and print on that. By turning the paper 180 degrees, one can get a second print on that half, or four total out of the letter-size sheet.

For matte and other specialty papers, we still recommend printing out of CS with soft proofing. We give private printing workshops, so will not address that here.

Color Profiles

Successful printing depends upon the matching of printer, paper, and ink sets. This is where the ICC profiles come in. ICC stands for International Code Council that provides standards for many industries. The ICC profiles for your printer take into account the different possible matchings of the three elements above. An ICC profile for Epson Ultra Premium Photo Paper Luster will produce unacceptable results on Hahnemühle FineArt Baryta.

Since Lightroom uses ProColor RGB, you will need to download and install the most recent color profiles for your archival printer. Currently, Epson has them at a rather long URL. Heaven forbid that Epson would make it easy, but if you click on the above link (if you have an Epson printer), you then:

Find your printer and click on its link;
Click on Drivers & Downloads that, of course, make no mention of the critical ICC profiles;
Select Mac or Windows;
In the double box, you'll see reference to ICC profiles on which you'll click; and
You can finish and install from here.

Anytime you install a new or updated profile, you should restart your imaging program of choice. And while you're at it, it's not a bad idea to check and make sure your printer driver is the most recent one available.

Hint

If you are using Windows Vista and have an older printer, make sure you update to a Vista-compatible driver.

Layouts & Templates

As with the Slideshow module, you have to gather the images to be printed in the Library module, either from one folder or from a Collection you have created. In this first case, I'll do contact sheets from a portion of one of our assignments that reside in a single folder.

I then go to the Print module and decide which layout I wish to use. When I first created my templates, I started with one of Lightroom's Pre-sets and tweaked it for our purposes. You'll notice that I have the image file name show up and a 1-pixel "stroke" border around each image to set it off from the background. You'll also see that I selected all the photos in this folder and that at the size I have set up, there will be seven contact sheets total out of this part of the assignment.

Hint

Finding where to change the paper size is not as intuitive as I wish it were. In the left panel, click on Page Setup.... at the bottom. Be sure that in addition to the paper type and size, you select the right printer if you have more than one. Then click on your printer's Properties and make your selections as you normally would. If you have already saved your User Template, be sure to right-click on it and select the update option.

In the right panel, down at the bottom, make sure you select your proper printer profile instead of the default Managed by Printer. If you have not already used your printer profile, select Other.... and go from there.

Hint

In naming your templates, consider names that group like categories together. Compare my names to the Lightroom ones above them. See how easily I can pick mine out? All the contact sheets are together, etc.

Hint You'll also notice that I note the paper size after Print. That reminds me to make sure I have the correct size paper in the printer.

In the next scenario, let's pick several photos from different folders for different-sized prints as I recently did for our family and us.

Since the photos are already in a Collection, I don't have to return to Library module to find them. They are already there in the lower part of the left panel. I just select the ones I want to print out in, let's say, 5x7, then click on my Print Letter 5x7 template. You can see the various elements highlighted below

What you cannot see as well above is what appears in the upper left — both the layout and how many pages there will be, etc. as shown below.

I can then repeat the same process with different photographs and different User templates.

Hint

When you plan on printing photographs in different sizes, after tweaking them to your satisfaction, make virtual copies, then crop each to a different aspect ratio as explained in an earlier installment of this series.

Let's say I want to make a larger, 10x15 print. It's easy, and as always, the preview shows up.

See how the image totally fills that inner dark line? Sometimes, however, the image does not fill out the black outline as shown below.

This is a red flag telling me that I have either cropped inappropriately in the Develop module or as in this case, that I have selected the wrong virtual copy. Arghhh!

With the built-in preview, this is not a major drama. I have not wasted any expensive paper or ink. I simply select the other Virtual copy that is in the original, 2:3 aspect ratio. If I didn't hae a virtual copy as above, I would head back to the Develop module and correct the cropping there.

Hints

For smaller prints, you will probably be quite happy with a resolution of 240 pixels; for larger prints, you may want to try 300 or 360. Again, we always recommend that you test for yourselves, as we all have different tolerances and aesthetics.

When printing with archival paper and inksets, I allow the prints to dry/cure overnight before framing or stacking them. I prefer to be conservative on timing here.

Epson Hint

According to the folks at Epson, when you get a choice of Fine, Photo, and Best Photo, with their printers in the advanced print dialog, use Photo for prints up to 1440 x 720 pixels and Best Photo for those up to 5760 x 1440 pixels.

Final Lightroom Installment

In our last installment on Lightroom, we'll take a look at the Web module.

We love getting comments from you (please post below). Remember, you don’t need to be a Google member to do so. Just click on the “comments” link below and post anonymously.

If you wish to get notices when new articles are posted, look below this article and click on/in the appropriate box. Even if you choose not to do that, please share this blog and our website with your friends and relatives who love photography.

Meanwhile, check out our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures website, and if you are considering joining us, do as others have already done ... make your room reservations. You can always cancel later if necessary! We have added a Wish List section to our Calendar. Some of our alumni have expressed interested in our putting together workshops both in Spain and at Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Parks. If we get enough interest, we will set it/them up.

Lightroom Slideshow Module

2009-01-17T14:53:00.029-05:00

This week, we'll take a look at the Slideshow module. Again, there are tutorials, books, and our workshops for more in-depth instruction, so we'll continue with this series' overview coupled with a few hints.

As we suggested last week, open your own copy of Lightroom to see more details. The screen shots below each section of text will show you where to look and indicate what you might expect to find, but your own monitor will show you a larger view.

It is always fun to put together a slide show, whether for a family occasion, a business meeting, or a get-together of friends. But first, you need to gather the images for your show, and this is where Collections come in. Head back to your Library mode, and go to the first folder containing images you want.

Collections

This is the easiest way to gather images. Collections do not require a second copy of your images; they simply refer to the location where those images reside. This means, too, that you can gather images from different sources.

In our workshops, we put together a final slide show where everyone respectfully critiques the work shown before Arnie and I step in and add our input. It is the grand finale, and we like to make it look as sharp as the work that it contains and as fun as the time we have shared. This slide show represents the culmination of our time together and is eagerly awaited by all our participants.

For this example, I import the appropriate title slides from our BCPA Images folder into Lightroom. I don't need all the images in that folder imported, since some of them are masters, some logos, some graphics, etc. that I never need to tweak in Lightroom. It is good to remember, as noted in our blog series last fall on digital asset management, that Lightroom is an imaging program, not a robust cataloging program such as others out there. Also, as explained in that same series, we are importing thumbnails and the ability to work with images, not the physical images themselves. Again, refer back to that series for a full explanation.

I select the title slides that applied to the slide show I am going to create.

Then, I click on the plus (+) sign to the right of Collections in the lower part of the left panel. In the dialogue box that comes up, I type in a name for my new collection, check off the box labeled Include selected photos and click on Create.

You will now see in the image below that there is a Collection called Student Slideshow UT08 containing seven images, the number of the title slides selected.

Now, I head to another folder to select some student photographs. Normally, we have the students submit one photograph from each location, but for purposes of this blog, we'll select four from each student, then click on the photograph section of one, not the gray area around it, and drag the photographs into that same Collections folder. If we want to add some fun shots of students in the field, I repeat the process.

Slideshow Module

Now that I have created a Collection for the slide show, I head over to the Slideshow module. There, in the left panel, are some Lightroom Templates. They tend to bore me, as they are generic, but they can be a really good starting point for creating your own template. With that in mind, I head over to the right panel and tweak the settings to give my slide show the look I want.

Hints

For designing purposes, I uncheck the Slide Duration box in the right panel and select Play that, to my mind, is a much more accurate preview than Preview. In the screen capture below, Slide Duration is still checked. It should be noted here that you can run a slide show in automatic or manual mode.

Checking the box enables the automatic mode, but if you are going to discuss the images presented, you may want to leave the box unchecked and select the next slide by clicking on your keyboard right and left arrows. For automatic mode, I use a 1.5-second fade, as I find that the default of 2.5 seconds takes too long. Of course, this is all a matter of personal aesthetics.

Once I have everything the way I want it, I click on the plus (+) sign by Template Browser in the left panel.

A dialogue box comes up, and I type in my name for the new template, BCPA Slideshow, and press Create.

Ta-daaa! There it is under User Templates.

Hint

If you need to update your template later, first select it, make your changes, then right-click on it and select Update with Current Settings. Easier than the proverbial pie!

Exporting

One should remember that not everyone has Lightroom, so it's always a good idea to export your show in either as a JPG or PDF show, universally readable forms.

Next Installment

We'll look at the Print module in our next installment.

Meanwhile, we hope to see many of you at our workshops this year. We already have lots of sign-ups, including a good number of our alumni/ae. There are several discounts available. For more information, go to our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures website, and if you are considering joining us, do as others have already done ... make your room reservations. You can always cancel later if necessary! We have added a Wish List section to our Calendar. Some of our alumni have expressed interested in our putting together workshops both in Spain and at Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Parks. If we get enough interest, we will.

We love getting comments from you (please post below). Remember, you don’t need to be a Google member to do so. Just click on the “comments” link below and post anonymously.

If you wish to get notices when new articles are posted, look below this article and click on/in the appropriate box. Even if you choose not to do that, please share this blog and our website with your friends and relatives who love photography.

Tweaking Photographs in Lightroom—Part II

2009-01-09T09:01:00.025-05:00

Last week, we addressed some Basics in Lightroom. This week, we'll talk a little bit about the Develop module, remembering that this article will give you some hints, rather than a complete, in-depth how to. There are tutorials, books, and our workshops for that.

Because of the space limitations of a blog, we recommend that you open your own copy of Lightroom to see more detail. The screen captures below each section of text will show you where to look and indicate what you might expect to find.

Start off in Library Module

Before you start working on an image, you have to navigate to the proper folder (see highlighted folder below). You will notice that the folder contains 78 images, but only four show up. That's because we filtered Arnie's folder to show only the starred ones that he wanted to work on first. Usually in our workshops, we hear at least one panicked voice, because only a few of the images show up! If this happens to you, check your filtering! For those who have not yet read it, you may want to refer to our earlier, several-part blog on digital asset management that discusses, among other subjects, rating your images.

Filtering is a great tool and can be done by flags (that I do not happen to use), stars (my filtering of choice), and color labels that we use to differentiate between Arnie's personal work (blue), my personal work (yellow), and our assignment work that we do together (red, the prominent color in our Zann and Pinkerton Photography color scheme).

You notice in the screen shot below that "filter" is highlighted along with greater-than-or-equal-to one star.

Below the main part of the module in the lower left, you can see more information, including the fact that we are in light-table mode, have sorted by capture time, that the selected image has both a three-star rating and a blue label. You'll also note that 1 (image) is selected along with a notation of the folder and file name. If you mouse over one of the other images above — not the "slide" frame, but the image itself — after a second or so, a miniature pop-up window will appear, showing some basic information, including file name.

Work in Develop Module

Having selected the desired image folder, we head to the Develop module where we can actually tweak our images. As in last week's blog, you can see that there is the same look to the screen, and some of the same information top and bottom, depending on how you have set it up. As we noted last week, we are not going to do a complete how-to on getting the most out of your images, as we cover that in our workshops. Rather, this will help you navigate around Lightroom and give you a few hints.

In Develop, we selected an image. No, it is not out of focus; it is one of Arnie's reflection shots.

Over on the upper right of your screen, if every section is closed, the little triangles will point in instead of down.

Click on any of the category titles or little triangles to their right, and that section will expand to a lighter-gray box of options, and the little triangle will face down. Click again, and it will close, and the triangle will face left once again. Try it, and you'll see.

Let's get back to that row of tools in the upper, right-hand part of your screen noted below. Mouse over them, and a little pop-up will indicate what they are.

Click on one of them, the cropping tool, for example, and a box of options will appear. You will notice that the now-open box is darker than any of the open sections, but lighter than the borders.

Hint

In order to close any of these tools, you must click on it again so that it is no longer brighter than the others.

Crop Overlay

Having clicked on the Crop Overlay tool, you will notice in the main part of your screen that there is a crop overlay on your image.

One of the things that often flummoxes our students is the aspect ratio, determined by the little padlock show below.

Click it to toggle between locked and unlocked mode. When unlocked, you can change the aspect ratio, i.e. the relationship between the two dimensions, either by dragging the guides at the sides of corners of your image or by selecting an aspect ratio of your choice of making by clicking on the up/down arrows next to "Original." Remember that most DSLR, "35mm" cameras these days have a 2:3 ratio. Medium-format cameras have a 1:1 ratio.

Spot Removal

This can also be a clone tool, depending whether you click Clone or Heal. When you position your mouse over the offending area and click, a bold circle will appear. Do not click on that bold circle until you have moused over it; then click and drag it until you find an area that gives you the effect you desire in the non-bold circle.

Graduated Filter

When you click on this feature, you will see a host of things that can be used with this filter. There are two things that will help you. First, tiny motions to the left or right will produce large shifts in the angle of the filter. If you want an angled filter, be sure to start in the corner rather than one of the edges; otherwise, your filter will not extend into the corner.

Adjustment Brush

Aside from the plethora of effects you have at your disposal, pay attention to the size and feathering of your brush. This is the tool I use for dodging and burning. Using this tool will only make the adjustment once; in other words, if you go back and forth over one area, that will not increase the effect. To increase the effect in an area, turn off the tool, than back on again and brush again.

Basic Section

I am not one to generally use additional Contrast. Instead, I like to use a combination of Fill and Black. If you experiment, you will see that equal parts of Fill Light and Black do not cancel each other out. The first image below is as it looked when it was imported into Lightroom. Remember that what comes out of the camera usually needs some enhancement to realize your vision. The second image is after equal parts of Fill Light and Black were added. This does not mean that is the look that Arnie wanted, but it does illustrate that there is a difference after these adjustments rather than a wash.

You can see a definite difference between the two images above. When you import an image into Lightroom, you will see an automatic addition of 5 Black. As you can see below from the History that appears in the lower left of the screen, We simply added 10 to Fill Light, making it 10 and 10 to Black, making it 15.

Tone Curve

This section looks much like the one in any other imaging program. The nifty feature that Lightroom adds is the little bullseye in the upper left. Mouse over it, and you will see little up and down arrows pop up which are hints that, once the bullseye is active, you mouse up or mouse down to effect change. Click the bullseye to turn it on and again to turn it off when you are through making these adjustments.

Bullseye = Off

Bullseye = On

Once the Bullseye is turned on, click on an area that represents the tone you want to change, then drag up or down. Cool! Just don't forget to turn the Bullseye off when you are through!

HSL / Color / Greyscale

HSL stands for Hue, Saturation, and Luminance. Experiment with them all, but instead of adding a universal saturation in the Basic section, consider doing spot saturation (or hue change or luminance change) by using that little bullseye that works the same as the one in Tone Curve. We teach our students to go beyond what they want, then ease back to what pleases them. If you inch along away from the original, you will never know what might have been! Also, don't forget that you can also desaturate color.

Vignettes

A lot of users forget about the vignetting tool. This is an old traditional dark-room tool that is still very effective.

History

Don't like what you did? Just go over to the History and go back down however many steps you want and click. Ta-daaa, last steps undone!

Virtual Copy

Let's say you want to experiment with several treatments. Perhaps one will be a desaturation; one will be black and white; some will have different croppings. Again, this is not necessarily what Arnie wants to do with this image, but it illustrates the value of virtual copies. Simply right click on your image and select Create Virtual Copy about 2/3 down the list. Do it again for more virtual copies. I generally give my virtual copies a different designation so differentiate it from the original. Perhaps one star instead of the three on the original below here would clearly show up the difference.

Next Installment

We'll look at the Slideshow module in our next installment.

Meanwhile, we hope to see many of you at our workshops this year. We already have quite a few sign-ups, including a good number of our alumni/ae. There are several discounts available. For more information, go to our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures website, and if you are considering joining us, do as others have already done ... make your room reservations. You can always cancel later if necessary!

We love getting comments from you (please post below). Remember, you don’t need to be a Google member to do so. Just click on the “comments” link below and post anonymously.

If you wish to get notices when new articles are posted, look below this article and click on/in the appropriate box. Even if you choose not to do that, please share this blog and our website with your friends and relatives who love photography.

Tweaking Photographs in Lightroom—Part I

2009-01-02T23:10:00.023-05:00

There are a lot of subtleties in tweaking your photographs. Of course, the more you can get right in the camera, the better your image will ultimately be, but with Camera Raw, Lightroom, and other tools, you can bring out the best in your photographs. Remember, what comes out of your camera does not usually totally reflect what you saw when you were attracted to the scene.

The Basics

Let's start with a few basics. Lightroom 2.2, the version current as of this writing, is actually a very easy tool to use, and for those who do not want to go the extra route of layers and other more sophisticated imaging, it may see you through. Remember that Photoshop was created for graphic designers, while Lightroom was created by photographers for photographers. BIG difference!

I am not going to do a complete how-to, as that can be found in tutorials, books, and our workshops. In a number of installments, however, I'll try to address common areas of confusion as well as give you some hints that I use in processing my own images. Even far more sophisticated users than I have found some of my hints quite useful. Just use this as a guide and develop what works for you. If you try something, make virtual copies (we'll address this next week) and see how they compare.

Triangles that Control Panels

First, however, I'd like to start with one important basic, and that is the little triangles that control the various panels. These are found at the center of each edge of your Lightroom window. If they are inward-facing and dotted (see below), hover over them, and you will see the panels appear; mouse away from them, and the panels will disappear again. Click on them, and and the triangle will turn solid and face outwards, while the panels will stay visible. This is the before and after way the triangle looks.

Dotted = temporary

solid=permanent
Click on them again, and they will go back to hover mode. Try it, and you'll see what I mean. When people lose their panels, it is usually because they have clicked on the triangle by mistake, not knowing what that does.

Top Panel

I prefer to keep the top panel open, as it will show you the status bar of a task such as importing, exporting, or creating a contact sheet, etc.

Bottom Panel

The bottom panel is a matter of preference. I have seen lots of people on either side of this "door." Some prefer to leave it visible, whilst others prefer to mouse over it when needed.

What is useful, I find, is to check off some of the items that appear when you click on the triangle in the gray band just below your light table and next to the Sync Settings and Sync Metadata buttons on the right.

I check off View Modes, Sorting, Rating, Color Label, and Thumbnail Size. Some of these I implement through keystrokes, but I know I am in the minority here; most people are mousers. You may have different preferences, so add one item at a time and decide what works for you.

Lightroom Modules

As anyone can see, there are five modules, but the ones I use most, and the ones that I'll address first, are Library and Develop.

Library

Think of the Library module as your file cabinet. Quite simply, this is where you organize your files.

Library - Left Panel

In this panel, you import and export, remove, delete, or rename files, create collections of images from different folders that you can work on together without having to make extra copies of them, and several other tasks. That's all on the left side of your window. If it's not, check out that little triangle!

I find that newcomers get most confused when they import photographs in several stages as, for example, when they travel and download images daily. Lightroom defaults its viewing to Previous Import, so some people panic when they see Day 3 and wonder what happened to Days 1 and 2.

On the left, just scroll down to the appropriate folder, and ta-daaa, they are all there.

It should be repeated here that Lightroom is a like a browser. What you import into Lightroom is the thumbnails, any metadata, and the ability to tweak the latter. I addressed this more fully in an earlier article on Digital Asset Management- see Part II under the Lightroom section.

Library - Right Panel

On the right side of your window, you'll see the histogram, a Quick Develop mode (that I never use, but that is quite useful for many people), as well as the metadata information. Remember that metadata not only has camera shooting data, but your copyright information, descriptions, keywords, and a host of other labels. This is where you can fill in all this information.

Develop Module

The Develop module is your digital darkroom. It has come a long way, baby, since Lightroom was first launched. Each iteration produces more capabilities. The thing I like best about the Develop module is that I can do spot corrections, vignetting, and a host of other tweaks without having to save the image as a TIF or PSD file. You can also do this in Camera Raw, but exporting in Camera Raw, one has to do it in two stages, first open it in Photoshop, then export it. In Lightroom, however, you can do it directly in whatever size and resolution and sharpening mode that you want. Beautiful! I also prefer the Tone adjustment in Lightroom, as you can limit its range to avoid strange extremes. Finally — and this is another BIG difference from Camera Raw — you can export the file or print it in the exact size and resolution in one step.

Develop - Left Panel

The basic layout looks similar to the Library module, but in the left panel, there are some great Presets (you can also create your own), a Snapshot feature if you want to keep track of how your image looked at any step in the development process, and your History of each step you did to process an image. By mousing over each step of the way, you can see the result in the Navigator, as long, of course, as you use the Navigator feature.

Develop - Right Panel

The bulk of the tools available to you is gathered in the right panel. Scroll down and familiarize yourself with them. Generally, when working on an image, it is preferable to work in each section, top to bottom, before going on to the next. This is not to say that you can't jump back and forth, but Lightroom was designed for a logical work flow.

Next week, we'll get down to brass tacks and start using the Develop module.

Meanwhile, we hope to see many of you at our workshops this year. We already have quite a few sign-ups, including a good number of our alumni/ae. There are several discounts available. For more information, go to our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures website, and if you are considering joining us, do as others have already done ... make your room reservations. You can always cancel later if necessary!

We love getting comments from you (please post below). Remember, you don’t need to be a Google member to do so. Just click on the “comments” link below and post anonymously.

If you wish to get notices when new articles are posted, look below this article and click on/in the appropriate box. Even if you choose not to do that, please share this blog and our website with your friends and relatives who love photography.

A Celebration of Some 2008 Photographs - Part II

2008-12-27T07:29:00.035-05:00

Happy New Year with all good wishes that 2009 will bring some stability to our country and beyond.

Last week, I celebrated 2008 with a photograph from each of the first six months. This week, I share some from the second half of the year. Some you've seen before; some you have not. These are some of my favorites...

July: We went to a summer celebration of tomatoes near where we live. It was a festive day, with rows of a wide variety of Heirloom tomatoes laid out on long tables waiting to be sampled. After tasting, I wandered over to an old tobacco shed across from their studio. They had hung this old iron hub as a decorative touch. I liked the way it was suspended, looking like a star against a dark sky.

August: As some of you have read, we headed out a couple of days early for an assignment in Phoenix. I got up quite early one hot summer morning to catch the sunrise, but because the climb up the hillside was quite steep, I left my tripod in the car. When I crested the saddle, I saw this panorama, so hand held, I captured the makings of one of my first HDR panoramas.

September: The Southwest is one of my favorite places to photograph. We visited this location with our students, and while a couple who were with me were waiting for their shots, I saw the makings of what I hoped would be a stunning image. I had my tripod this time, so it was easier to compose the makings of another HDR panorama.

October: Arnie had gone off to another spot with most of our students, while I stayed behind with a couple who were still working on shots. After I helped them strengthen their compositions, I saw the potential for a great shot. Then everyone arrived! I did the shot, of course, then another when everyone left. As it turned out, I much prefer the one with people.

November: I always love photographing in this area of the Outer Banks. The skies are large and magnificent, and this old shack, perhaps a duck blind, tends to add a nice element to any of my compositions. I liked the simplicity of the scene and the subtle colors. The patch of grasses in the foreground added just that little something that set off the rest of the scene.

December: This was a month to catch up, not to photograph. It was rather a grizzly-gray month, and the weather wasn't particularly cooperative for taking out the camera. There were the holidays, gatherings with friends, packages to mail, phone calls to catch up with dear friends, and folders of images waiting to be processed. I did, however, manage take back ownership of my office. It had run wild during our travels, so it's a good feeling to have it organized and tidy, and an excellent way to start out the new year for me!

We hope to see many of you at our workshops this year. We already have quite a few sign-ups, including a good number of our alumni/ae. There are several discounts available. For more information, go to our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures website, and if you are considering joining us, do as others have already done ... make your room reservations. You can always cancel later if necessary!

We really look forward to getting comments from you (please post below). Remember, you don’t need to be a Google member to do so. Just click on the “comments” link below and post anonymously.

If you wish to get notices when new articles are posted, look below this article and click on/in the appropriate box. Even if you choose not to do that, please share this blog and our website with your friends and relatives who love photography.

A Celebration of Some 2008 Photographs - Part I

2008-12-26T22:33:00.016-05:00

I have done a lot of writing in this blog over the past year, so I thought I would take a couple of weeks and just celebrate some images. These represent an image a month for the first six months of 2008. Sometimes, I have several favorites, so it's hard to choose, but here they are, unfettered by an article, for you to enjoy...

January: We were down in Daytona Beach, recovering from crewing at the 24 Hours of Daytona. Back at our room, we looked out our door at the ocean, then straight down to the pool area. I liked the colors and patterns in this image.

February: After a job in Charleston, we headed out to one of the historic plantations where I found this Monet arrangement of blossoms in the swamp. This has been featured several times on the NANPA website.

March: We travel so much, we don't always get a chance to photograph while we are home. One day, Arnie and I were walking at Ayr Mount, an historical house about five minutes from us. The spring flowers were out, and I found these beautiful blossoms in the garden.

April: We were back in South Carolina for another job, and again, took time for ourselves afterwards. We visited a different area, and I was quite taken with the wonderful textures of the Cypress and algae with just a hint of spring color in the background.

May: I grew up sailing the coast of Maine, and lighthouses have always been favorites of mine, particularly this one that I have photographed more times than I could possibly count. Each time, the light is different. This photo is now part of my huge collection of doors and windows.

June: In France, in the heart of wonderful wine country, we visited this estate. I was struck by the way the manor suggested its presence in the pond reflections. The flowers seemed to artfully arrange themselves to lead the eye into the photograph

If you have any questions or comments, please post below. Remember, you don’t need to be a Google member to do so. Just click on the “comments” link below and post anonymously.

If you wish to get notices when new articles are posted, look below this article and click on/in the appropriate box. Even if you choose not to do that, please share this blog and our website with your friends and relatives who love photography.

For more information on our workshops, go to our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures website, and if you are considering joining us, do as others have already done, make your room reservations for 2009!

Photographing Safely

2008-12-14T12:18:00.023-05:00

OK, I admit it. I took a week off! With upcoming holidays, a busy year, I figured I would skip a week. No excuses! Now, I'm b-a-a-ack!

Sandy, a friend and one of our alumnae, asked an interesting question, "I see a lot of photographs taken in wilderness places or woods. I have found that I never feel safe alone in these places. There are a huge number of protected forest preserves here, but unless I can drive through, I don't go. It simple isn't safe. Once, I was even followed in my car."

This concern also applies to men photographing alone, as Sandy noted in some comments made in a recent seminar she attended.

Boy, as a woman who spent many years traveling alone in different parts of the world, this certainly struck a chord. My mother long ago learned to stop asking where I had gone, as it made her too nervous to hear the answers! I have been in the outdoors all my life. I have camped in the wilderness, as well as led trips north of the Arctic Circle down National Wild and Scenic Rivers. You can't get much wilder than that! I have also photographed in iffy areas of cities, traveled across continents alone. These are all things that can make mothers of experienced adult "children" nervous.

So, for those of us who love photographing outdoors, whether in the wilderness or the city, there are techniques one can use to keep you safer. You will note I said, "...safer," as there are no guarantees in life. That said, I am not going to let paranoia keep me from photographing in all the spots I love.

The easiest thing, of course, is to take someone along with you, a fellow photographer who understands your need to take what is to others an eternity photographing this or that.

That isn't always possible, as was the case in Alaska some years ago. The other photographer on the assignment was off shooting a wilderness cabin while I was gathering background scenics of the area. So, what does one do?

First, I trust my gut instincts. Don't laugh. You have to use your experience in life and feel what it tells you in certain situations. Haven't you ever felt that someone was looking at you at a party and turned around to find there was? That same feeling applies to the outdoors. If you get that feeling, pay attention to it. It may be a bear or a wolf, or it may be a person across a city street with ill intent.

If the woods in which you are photographing suddenly go quiet or get noisy, there is usually a reason. Jays, for example, are known for sounding warnings when there is approaching danger. Birds may suddenly stop singing, another possible warning sign. Be aware.

In the photograph above, I was very aware. There was bear scat up the wazoo, and the area was covered in juicy berries. I heard noises nearby, and since I knew there weren't people around, that left one alternative, and he or she was undoubtedly a lot larger than I! I started talking BIG.

"Hello, bears. I am LOTS of us," I announced, feelling that I was a character in a Winnie the Pooh (the original one, please) story. I repeated the sentence with variations while I changed my voice to give the impression I was several people.

"We are VERY big, but we'll be gone soon." It makes no difference what you say. Who besides you is going to know you sound like an idiot? Personally, I would rather sound like an idiot and be safe than have some bear bumble into my area because I was too quiet. And remember, it is really his area, not mine!

On one of my expeditions in Alaska, we were portaging our canoes around some rapids. My clients were practically tiptoeing, ludicrous in itself, as the idea of grown men tiptoeing while carrying heavy packs and a canoe is somewhat absurd. But, they were going as quietly as they could. I think they thought they would slip by the bears without their knowing. Yeah, right. And the bears don't have better hearing and senses than us mere mortals?

"Hey, guys! Remember what I said about making noise. We don't want to surprise the bears. Let them know we are here and there are LOTS of us. Sound BIG! Sound HUGE!" The guys took the hint and started a banter that got us all laughing. That in itself was good. No bear was going to be surprised by us; that's for sure.

I have always carried some mode of communication. In pre-cell-phone days, I had my CB in my car. Still do. It has helped me in numerous circumstances, from finding the next decent gas station, to hearing where the great mom-and-pop restaurant was where I could eat in peace. I even had an alternator go out on me returning from one long trip, and the CB got me help from a couple of truck drivers with a reputable company who were traveling in tandem and were a life-saver. I still have that original CB, although the mic and antenna are many times replaced.

Now, most of us have cell phones, but they don't do much good if the battery is about to run out or if it's in the car when you are outside. I have a car adapter so I can keep the phone charged. I don't know about your cell phone, but it seems that mine can go from three bars to no bars in what feels like a nanosecond. When I go out, I make sure I start out at full charge. I suppose I could also get an extra battery, but I keep trying to lighten my load, not add to it.

Sandy brought up and dismissed the idea of carrying a gun. As she wrote, "There have been incidents out West as well in national and state parks. Norm, a 'cowboy shooter', suggested I take a small gun, but he taught me that if you draw a gun you have to use it or the other person will take it away from you if you hesitate. That is not an option for me. I'm a good shot, but I am not willing to do that."

Norm is right, and I side with Sandy on that issue. My alternative was to carry pepper spray, also known as OC spray (from "Oleoresin Capsicum"), OC gas, and capsicum spray. Since different locations have different laws regarding pepper spray, it is best to check with the overseeing law-enforcement agency in the area you are planning to photograph or travel. And remember, it doesn't do you any good if it is inaccessible! And remember, too, that if you aren't careful, it can be used against you!

Another good tool is a simple whistle. A good, loud, whistle. The bear or wolf will undoubtedly turn tail, and in the case of a person who intends harm, he/she does not want an audience! Your voice is another tool, whether in the city, suburbs, or wilderness.

When you walk, walk with confidence. Neither animal nor human wants to contend with a fighter. There are easier pickings. So walk briskly with a long stride, swinging your arms. Men, put your wallets in a front pocket. Women, hug your purse under your armpit. Put the strap over your head and across the opposite shoulder.

And when you go out photographing alone, don't look like Joe Photographer. You know what I mean, the guy with at least two camera bodies slung over the vest with tons of pockets bulging with expensive lenses and other equipment. Travel light. Take a couple of zoom lenses rather than the full complement of primes. Get a plain black camera strap or take a permanent marking pen and black out the conspicuous brand name in on the strap.

When I am going to be in the city or populated areas, I carry my pared-down equipment in a simple, non-photographic backpack. I still have my old teal-colored, L.L. Bean backpack from the early 80's. The rattier, the better, as long as the straps are strong and secure. There are square pads you can get to protect your camera and lenses. Instead of using a full-blown tripod, use one of those little ones that you can carry in your pocket. They are about six inches long, not including the ball head.

If you are going to photograph near home, check with your local police or park ranger. They may know of things about which you are unaware. If they know you are going out to a certain remote area of the local park, they may cruise by more often. When I am in a new area in a town or city, I find a local policeman and ask, "Where should a woman photographer not travel alone?" It's straight-forward and is guaranteed to get a good response. Men can ask similar questions.

Some years ago, I was in The Big Easy for a photo meeting. Two of us found and were entranced by Piazza d'Italia. It was in a dubious part of the city, so we were discussing if it would be safe to return at night when the lights came on.

Fortuitously, a detective on his beat stopped by and got to chatting with us. When he heard what we had in mind, he said that it would not be at all safe, but that if we really wanted photos at night, he would return with us to make sure we were OK. We took him up on that offer, agreed on a time, and this is one of the shots I got!

A friend of ours was photographing in post-Katrina New Orleans in a tough section of town. He was gathering photographs for an exhibition on the X's that were painted on the abandoned buildings. These X's let officials know that the buildings had been checked and indicated the often-sad results of those inspections.

He was alone and felt nervous with a fancy camera and tripod. Arnie, who started out shooting for LIFE and Time during the Days of Rage and civil rights, said that it is always a good idea to bring people into your fold, to help them make the project theirs, too.

As Arnie told our friend, "Tell them that you are putting together an exhibition to let people know up north what you have gone through, how bad things are, so they can rally and bring down more help. With today's cameras, you can show them what you have been doing. Photograph them and ask them where you can e-mail them a copy; then do so..."

By doing this, you are showing that you aren't profiting by their misfortune, rather trying to bring additional and much-needed help to a very bad situation. You are being their friend.

Years ago, I was photographing alone in New York and ended up in Washington Square. This square had quite a reputation and was then probably not the best place for me to be photographing alone. Several people asked me what I was doing, and I told them I was recording the parks of New York for a project I was doing to celebrate the different areas of the city.

"Hey, mon, that be cool! I make sure no one bother you." He was tall and strong and could have easily beaten me to a pulp, or at the very least, absconded with my camera. I think I was safe, because I spoke with confidence and strength. I didn't show fear and was very matter of fact about what I was doing. Remember, don't act like a potential victim.

Another case was on that same trip. In the evening, I met up with Tertia, a childhood friend. We headed down to SoHo for drinks and dinner and lost track of time. Finally, we noticed that it was 1 a.m., and there weren't going to be any taxis around. The trip back to her apartment on the Upper East Side was on a graffiti-encrusted subway train that went through what were then some pretty tough sections of the city.

"Do you feel we are being observed, "Tertia muttered in a low voice.

I responded in kind, "We are, so we're going to bit by bit pick up our pace and walk with even more confidence. Think tall and think confident. And stick to the edge of the street. We don't want to walk close to the alleys and doorways." We both tended to walk briskly, anyway, so this wasn't difficult.

I guided our conversation to inconsequential topics, and we spoke in calm, strong voices, our purses firmly tucked into our armpits.

When we got down into the subway, we positioned ourselves by a pillar, facing each other so we could see behind and around each other. We were covered 360 degrees! I must say, that we were glad when we were back in her neighborhood!

If you are in a car and find you are being followed, there are a couple of options. First, call 911 and find out where the nearest police station is, then head toward it and let them know you are coming. That way, you don't lead someone to where you are living or staying, and the stalker will decide that this is an undesirable situation.

I once had an 18-wheeler play games on the highway, slowing down when I slowed down, speeding up when I did. I couldn't shake him, and he was right on my tail. Finally, as an exit came up, I formed my plan. First, I briskly accelerated, knowing he would, too. Then at the last minute, I veered off onto the exit. The big rig wasn't as nimble as my little VW and couldn't follow, and I headed for the nearest police station to report the incident.

The other very useful tool is your ability to read people. This is part of those gut instincts. Keep those antennae up. Watch the way people walk, act, look around them, dress, etc. When in doubt, remove yourself from the situation.

And finally, when you are photographing, always be aware. This is not the time to be the absent-minded professor! Yes, you want to compose that perfect photograph, but come up for air. Keep your ears open, too.

Some people take self-defense courses. I never have. I'm not saying that is good, but I am strong, and I am athletic. I figure that common sense, a clear head, an alert attitude, and the commitment to not be a victim are all assets.

That said, being aware can also allow you to experience things that you otherwise might miss, allow you to take chances you might otherwise have avoided. Some of you have read about my trek across Australia, including my wonderful invitation to go sailing along the Great Barrier Reef with people I had just met. I won't repeat the story here, but one evening, while we were enjoying some very fine wine on the deck of a gorgeous pearling lugger, I was treated to this scene in the harbor of beautiful sailboats lit up by the late-afternoon sun. Had I not followed my gut instincts and read my new-found friends, I might have gone back to the states and missed a wonderful week with people who became good friends.

If you have any questions or comments, please post below. Remember, you don’t need to be a Google member to do so. Just click on the “comments” link below and post anonymously.

For more information about our workshops, go to our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures website, and if you are considering joining us, do as others have already done, make your room reservations for 2009!

If you wish to get notices when new articles are posted, look below this article and click on/in the appropriate box. Even if you choose not to do that, please share this blog and our website with your friends and relatives who love photography.

Scouting for New Locations - Part II

2008-11-28T22:35:00.010-05:00

Last week, I shared some of my scouting stories, the first one, from the driver's seat of Monty, my dad's 1931 Ford Model A Roadster. Here are a few more vignettes of searching for interesting spots...

Sometimes, I am scouting for a particular scene, such as mist on the water or farms, but at other times, I may be scouting for color.

My mother, as some of you know, was a painter whose works are in private collections all over the country and beyond. I say "was," because her mind has played cruel tricks on her, and she is no longer able to paint as she did for so many years. She had a great eye for a scene and knowing when to leave something out of it, just as good photographers remember what attracted them to the scene, then simplify and isolate so that there is only one subject in the image.

Mum and I used to scout a lot together. We were attracted to the same scenes, and while we may have treated or composed them differently, we brought the same passion to our renditions of those scenes. Sometimes, she even used my photographs as inspiration for her paintings.

We were out one fall day, puttering around a new area we hadn't explored before. I looked for ridges on my maps, along with a combination of woods and open land, as that scenario suited both of us.

I found on the maps a long ridge that looked right, so we navigated to the road that traveled its length. We were in luck, as this is what we found.

The blush of late fall was extraordinary in the late-afternoon light. What set it all off, though, was an old apple tree, arty in its shape on a sloping pasture, with a fallen branch that led our eyes into the scene. I returned in winter to photograph the same scene, because it was one of those purple locations mention in Part I, but alas, someone had removed the branch. Hmmmph! How could they? Didn't they know how arty that fallen branch was? All kidding and reality aside, I do have this shot, however, that I call "Passing Season." It has appeared in books, sold as a fine-art print, and been admired in many a show.

A few years back, a good client sent us to Nova Scotia to photograph a huge operation they have there. We had some extra time, so went on up a few days early to photograph on our own. It was a nostalgia trip for me, as I had sailed the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia to help my dad bring back his sailboat after the Halifax Race, the lesser-known, bi-annual alternate to the famed Bermuda Race. Dad and his crew of childhood sailing buddies were exhausted from the lack of sleep that goes along with these long races, so he flew me up to Halifax for the post-race festivities and to act as first mate for the trip home. I had always wanted to return because of that amazing trip that was cut short before we ever crossed the Bay of Fundy.

When Arnie and I went up years later, we returned to some of the places I had seen on previous trips and explored additional ones, savoring the charming little fishing villages, traditional boat building, and dramatic coastline.

One of the places that was high on my list was a little fishing harbor just up from the infamous Cape Sable Island. Known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic, the shifting sands around Cape Sable Island hold the largest collection of shipwrecks in North America, over 350 recorded ones since 1583, and only once since 1947 and the advent of more sophisticated navigational equipment. No wonder. It is shrouded in fog about a third of the year, is on the track for most storms that head up or down the Atlantic coast, and is surrounded by shoals. Added to that, the confluence of three major currents — the Gulf Stream, the Labrador Current, and the Belle Isle Current — keeps the sands moving so that they can gobble up a shipwreck in a short period of time. Conversely, they have been known to spit a ship back up decades or even centuries later.

So why would I want to return to these trecherous waters? Simple — it was a place where we took refuge when we had engine problems in pea-soup fog on that return trip from the Halifax Race. In holds wonderful memories for me, but that is a story in itself, too long to share in this installment. I did, though, remember the fishing village as a great place to photograph, as it was a non-touristy, fishing village.

Of course, the village had grown since I was last there, and there were now a couple of harbors, but I looked at the maps, and remembering the route in to safety from the Atlantic, got us to the right location.

It was a somewhat grown-up version of the little harbor of my memory, and produced the same colorful fishing boats tied up to the piers in the fog. Some day, Arnie and I hope to do a workshop in Nova Scotia, and we were scouting with that in mind.

The Outer Banks are a thin strip of barrier islands off the North Carolina coast that I have known for decades. When I first visited and camped on them years ago, I was not scouting for locations; I was simply enjoying their wild beauty. When we starting holding workshops there, it was time to look at them with a different point of view and seek out great locations that would give our students a variety of subjects to photograph.

Over several trips, we went from one end of the Outer Banks to the other. I was always attracted to patterns in the sand dunes. Some areas tend to produce more interesting patterns than others, so we would stop the car here and there so I could scramble up the dunes to see what they produced away from the road.

The area where I found this "fish" has been a successful location for me in terms of images. Some of you may remember "Fence Dance" that I found a few feet from here. The fence is no longer dancing, the but changing patterns of the sand endure.

It has also been a great location for the hardier of our students who join me in this area instead of another, more-easily-reached one just back up the road where those who understandably wish to avoid the mountain-goat, steep climb go with Arnie.

I am not sure what next week will bring ... perhaps more of Nova Scotia. Time will tell!

So, scout, scout, scout. Look at the lay of the land, the way a location faces, the potential for subject matter. Check your DeLorme atlases and, if you have them, your top maps. Study the contours and use that information to find likely spots that will be good for you.

If you have any questions or comments, please post below. Remember, you don’t need to be a Google member to do so. Just click on the “comments” link below and post anonymously.

For more information on our websites, go to our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures website, and if you are considering joining us, do as others have already done, made their room reservations for 2009!

If you wish to get notices when new articles are posted, look below this article and click on/in the appropriate box. Even if you choose not to do that, please share this blog and our website with your friends and relatives who love photography.

Scouting for New Locations - Part I

2008-11-24T15:00:00.023-05:00

I've just completed a long, four-part series on Digital Asset Management. It's time for some shorter, more-anecdotal stories now, ones that will hopefully inspire you in a different way.

One of the fun things about photography is discovering new locations. I should actually say scouting for new locations, for while we often serendipitously discover new spots, the experienced seek them out.

For our workshops, we always look for new places to take our students. Our regular readers already know I am a fan of the DeLorme road atlases. I recently looked at their website and discovered that there are now atlases available for all 50 states, although four of the smaller states are combined into two atlases. With only five counties, Rhode Island is sensibly grouped with next-door Connecticut and little Delaware with its neighbor Maryland.

I have spent my life exploring and cruising the back roads of America, Canada, and beyond. I started out doing this in New Hampshire in Montague, my dad's 1931 Ford Model A Roadster. Monty, as we called him, was perfect for the rutted back roads near where I used to live. He sat high and afforded plenty of fresh air that was perfect for me in the heat of summer. What's more, he had a rumble seat to carry extra, like-minded explorers.

In those days, there were no DeLorme atlases, but there were top maps (OK, topo maps for some of you), and we had them for a good portion of the state around us.

Since I grew up sailing, my dad taught me three-point navigation, and while we didn't travel in Monty with our old Zenith short-wave radio, I was good at chart and map reading. It was on one of my early forays that I discovered these falls. This is yet another variation of a scene you may recognize from earlier blogs. In the old days, there was an apple tree that gracefully arched over the falls, but even though that tree is long gone, the waterfalls are still beautiful.

I went off to college, Monty was sold, and I eased into adulthood ... sort of! My passion for photography continued, and although I was not yet a pro, I sought out great locations, some in the wilderness, so they are not appropriate for our regularly-scheduled workshops. Still, they are places that speak to me after all these years.

The first one came out of my looking for a great location to photograph in the early-morning mists. I got up one June morning, long before sunrise, and drove north.

I headed up along one of my favorite rivers, looking for something to catch my eye. It did — with this scene looking up the river into the early-morning sun. This is a photograph that has been published a number of times.

Sometimes — and this was just such a case — the combination of atmosphere, temperature, and time of day do not replicate themselves. I returned to this location a number of times over the years, and I never saw the same effect again!

In September, a couple of years later, I explored another area that had intrigued me for some time. I didn't want to go there in the summer, as I would have to contend with the "madding crowd," so I waited until September. It was a glorious few days. The loons were rafting up in anticipation of their flight south. The trout fishing was perfect, and I had a couple of tasty meals that I prepared in a skillet over the open fire. Butter, dill, some fresh pepper and shallots gave the trout just the right flavor.

I did a lot of canoeing those few days, exploring different coves and areas of the quite-long lake. I had found the perfect campsite on a mossy bed that carpeted the ledge of a point on an island. There were enough small Balsam firs around to which I could tie everything down, since the moss wasn't exactly deep enough to properly secure a tent. The weather was perfect — warm during the day, and cool at night. I didn't need a fly. With my no-see-um-proof screening, I could look up at the Milky Way and shooting stars. It was glorious to one who loves the outdoors as I do.

The next morning, I woke up to the soulful, pre-dawn call of the loons. I crawled out of my toasty sleeping bag, rekindled the embers of my carefully-banked campfire, made myself a hot mocha, then went down on the rocks at the water's edge to call the loons in closer (don't laugh, I can imitate some of the loon calls as well as those of other animals.) It was beautiful looking up the lake, as dawn lightened the sky and the loons came closer.

Then the first rays of sun broke over the mountain at the lower end of the lake. I turned around, scrambled up the ledge to my campsite and grabbed my camera. This was why. This is a photograph that has sold many times, both as a stock photo and as a fine-art piece. This is the one that hangs by the desk in my office. It is called, quite simply, "Misty Islands."

I have returned to that location several times and gotten some great shots with canoes, camping, etc., but I have never been able to replicate this shot. Some of you may recognize it from one of our website galleries.

A few years later, a couple phoned me to arrange for a private workshop they wanted to do in New England. Coming from a different part of the country, they loved the farm scenes they had seen in New England calendars, one of which had been mine. Clearly, I needed to go out scouting for old farms that were new to my potpourri of locations.

I looked at the DeLorme atlases for New Hampshire and Vermont and my collection of top maps to determine where there was open land. Farms cannot exist in wooded areas! I found an area up north that potentially fit my criteria, and camera gear beside me on the passenger seat, I headed up that way.

I took in a few lesser, paved roads, went down this dirt road and that, and generally criss-crossed the area in a mostly-methodical manner. I say mostly methodical, because invariably, something down a road catches my eye and interrupts my covering an area in a logical manner.

Such was the case with this location. While I couldn't see the fence yet, I could see by the quality of light that there was open land just over the rise in the road beyond my view. Unbidden, Barney, my old trusty VW, backed up dutifully, and we turned into the road. The open sky that had caught my peripheral vision turned out to be the open land around this farm. What more could I have asked? Again, this is another shot you may recognize from one of the galleries on our website.

Next week, I'll share a few more stories about scouting. And if you have any questions or comments, please post below. Remember, you don’t need to be a Google member to do so. Just click on the “comments” link below and post anonymously.

For more information about our workshops, go to our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures website, and if you are considering joining us, do as others have already done, made their room reservations for 2009!

If you wish to get notices when new articles are posted, look below this article and click on/in the appropriate box. Even if you choose not to do that, please share this blog and our website with your friends and relatives who love photography.

Digital Asset Management – Part IV

2008-11-21T06:41:00.047-05:00

… or How to Cope in the Digital Age of Photography

The workshops are over for this year unless, of course, we get yet another private client. It has been a good year, and we have been really pleased with the work our students have produced and the strides they have made in their vision, techniques, and imaging skills in the small time span of a few days.

Last week, we photographed Papa MoJo's Roadhouse, a restaurant that often features live music. The owner, Mel Melton, a "harp" player in blues parlance, knew many people Arnie knew back in their Chicago days. The three of us also share local friends. It was definitely a case of small world showing up yet again.

We were excited to hear that Mel is going to be the lead-in act for B.B. King's performance at the Grand Opening of the new Durham Performing Arts Center at the end of November, quite a coup! His own restaurant, complete with sound boards, is shown here. The Cajun food is wonderful! We know; we ate there after the shoot. So for those of you who live close by, keep it in mind!

Organizing & Finding your Images

Meanwhile, as many of you know, we have been talking about Digital Asset Management. The final, and perhaps most important part, is organizing them so you can find them later. We have already discussed naming conventions, but what if you want to find that shot of Great Aunt Minnie taken several years ago, but you aren't sure exactly when ... or where?

That's easy ... IF you have done your homework!

Two of the most popular cataloging programs used by pros are iView Media Pro, now taken over by Bill Gates and called Expression Media 2, and Lightroom 2.1. None of these catalogs is limitless. Expression Media 2 claims capabilities of references of up to 128,000 files per catalog, and Peter Krogh, undisputed guru of digital asset management, mentions a limit of 2GB in his forum. Lightroom 2.1 claims a maximum of up to 100,000 files, but they freely admit that the capacity also is dependent upon your computer and its capabilities. When things start to get sluggish and slow down, it is probably past time to create a new catalog, regardless of what program you use!

These programs can tell you where your images are, even if you are not connected to the folders themselves. This works, because both programs have thumbnails for each image imported.

As to the size-limitation issue, there are ways around it, although nothing is perfect.

First, and I am not suggesting that you necessarily do this, I keep only the keepers in my catalogs. For example, if I do an HDR image, I save it as a TIF and give it the same file name as the last one in the series used to create it. I don't keep all the photos that made up that HDR image in the catalog except perhaps the one with the optimum exposure.

If I'm looking for a dock cleat on the Outer Banks, I know which folder to go to and will find the single images there, too! Similarly, if I have worked on a DNG file, that becomes a keeper. For me, I have no need to keep the "similars" in the catalog, since I know where they'll be.

I also break down my catalogs into types: Assignments-1, Landscapes-1, Abstracts-1, and People-1, for example. If I am searching for an image of the aforementioned Great Aunt Minnie, I know she won't be in the Landscapes or Abstracts files, unless she is abducted by aliens and is reduced to some abstract blob!

In that case, I probably won't have a photo of her anyway! If I have used her in an assignment, however, I only have to check two catalog categories, not four or more.

As one catalog fills up — note the original names contained "-1" — I'll create a second one with same file name followed by "-2".

So, I have reduced the size of the catalogs by:

Grouping similar subjects together in their own catalog
Keeping only the keepers in the catalog
Paying attention to the catalogs and not letting them get to the point of being sluggish

Remember, if another image becomes a keeper, it can easily be added to the appropriate catalog later.

And most important, you have all your images, even if you choose not put them all into your catalog(s).

Expression Media 2 or Adobe Lightroom 2.1?

There are, of course, no easy answers here, but then, who thought there would be? Frankly, I am waiting for the upcoming second edition of Peter Krogh's The DAM Book (due out in January of 2009) before I decide for sure. After all, he is the undisputed guru of digital asset management. I suspect, for several reasons, that I will continue with iView, albeit in its new guise as Expression Media 2. One should keep in mind that Media 2 is in the cataloging business, Lightroom isn't. Meanwhile, there are similarities and differences.

Adobe has great support, and once you have bought their products, as long as they are reasonably current, Adobe supports them without additional charge. Microsoft, on the other hand, is not as helpful in the help department, and their help is, in my mind, quite expensive. I just went to their support website and typed in several phrases, none of which came up with useful answers. I don't mind not having phone support if the website is useful, but in this case... There are other options, however, in useful forums where one can usually get information and help that is missing from software support websites.

On the plus side, Expression Media 2 has many more label colors than either Bridge or Lightroom. For me, it's also much easier and faster to find images in Media 2. In addition, Media 2 will catalog sound, video, pdf, and other files in addition to photo files.

The star rating system is the same for all, and while done slightly differently in each program, the principle is the same in all.

Lightroom shows the images as edited, but even if you save your metadata instructions to the files, Media 2 does not see or register them.

The bottom line is to try each out and see what makes sense for you. There are trial versions for both Lightroom 2.1 and Media 2. If you are a photographer who does not produce hundreds of thousands of images, Lightroom will probably work just fine for you. For those of us who have gazillions of photo files, Media 2 may be the better choice.

The Key to Making it all Work

The key to making it all work is metadata and the descriptions and keywords you place into it. I have developed a system that has worked for me for close to 30 years. Because I never know how people are going to search for an image, I tend to be thorough in my creating descriptions and keywords. I have sold a lot of stock — as in stock photos — over the years and part of that success, I believe, was and is due to my careful labeling.

That system I set up back in film days applies to your being able to find your own images, even if you never sell one little byte.

I use two-letter country codes which I get from ISO. Yes, this is the same ISO you see that indicates film speed. It stands for International Organization for Standardization that encompasses many different areas.

In my metadata descriptions, I start at the top (country) and head to the bottom (who what, etc.) For example, a recent label reads:

USA, NC, Outer Banks, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Roanoke Sound, Bodie Island, abandoned house on stilts ...

As you can see, it applies to both approaches to the same scene. For one, I have added "beyond grasses at sunset" and for the other, "in fog."

Under the keywords, I listed, not necessarily in order:

Bodie Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, color, national park, national seashore, NC, North Carolina, Outer Banks, panorama, Roanoke Sound, United States, United States of America, US, USA, shack ...

I think you get the picture! For many of you, this may well be overkill, but you can adapt these principles to your own needs.

Why Duplicate Your Photographs?

Time and time again, I see people duplicating their photographs, so they may essentially have two, five, even ten essentially-identical photographs, all hogging disk space.

There are several reasons I have heard for this, and I am not convinced that all the reasons are really valid in this age of updated programs.

The first makes a lot of sense to me. When one has worked extensively on an image in Photoshop, using layers and other tools not available in Lightroom 2.1, there is no choice. When you have spent a lot of time working on an image, why would you want to repeat all that effort? Similarly, when you create an HDR image using Photomatix (preferable by far over Photoshop), there is no choice. When you do a stitch (melding a string of photographs together to create a panorama), there is no choice. You have to save those images as a TIF or PSD.

With the new capabilities of Lightroom 2 and 2.1, however, I find that I do not often need to head into Photoshop for additional tweaking. I can dodge and burn, make selective adjustments in saturation, hue, and luminancce, change the color temperature, use the clone or heal tool, crop, straighten out a horizon, not to mention a host of other possibilities all in Lightroom. All those instructions go into the metadata which I carefully save to my DNG file, as discussed in an earlier installment of this article. So, I have one DNG file, rather than both DNG and TIF or PSD files.

I have already talked about treating a photograph in different ways, perhaps as a color photo as well as a couple of variations in black and white. With virtual copies, as previously discussed, I have my three variations without having to create more files, again saving on disk space. Examples of these were illustrated last week with the derelict boat hull. Here are two more examples, one from the original DNG and the other from a virtual copy that has been treated and cropped differently. Remember, that virtual copy doesn't take up any disk space!

A third example is the case of collections. Mary may want to file her photo of Great Aunt Minnie in the parent folder she created for that shoot. She may also make a real (not virtual) copy and put it into a Family Photos folder. She may make yet another copy for a Birthday Celebrations folder. Me? If it were my Great Aunt Minnie, I do not see the need for that. First, if I work on one of the images, I would have to work on the other two to match. I don't know about you, but adding needless time at the computer is not high on my list. I'd rather be out photographing!

A much easier solution is to create Catalog Sets in Media 2 or Collections in Lightroom. For this blog, I dragged photos of Alden, Tate, and Hayden into a Lightroom Collection called Family for Blog. If I chose, I could also drag them into another collection called Grandkids. In Media 2, I could have done the same using Catalog Sets. Remembering that the photos actually reside in their original folders, I can locate each of those photos three different ways:

In the original folder
In the Family for Blog collection
In the Grandkids collection

Think of these collections as library reference cards — in this case, one book or photo referenced several different ways. I can use these collections to gather photos from different folders for a family slide show. It's easy to do in these two programs, and I don't have to create duplicate files to accomplish the task. In fact, I worked straight from the DNG files.

Finally, I want to create and upload to Shutterfly some 4x6 photos from our recent trip out west for family to share. In Lightroom, for example, I have already created Export presets for 4x6 photos, one for print and another for web. Once I batch create those 4x6 photos and send them off, I have no need to keep them. They are so easy to do in Lightroom, and again, directly from the DNG files. These are from a preset I have created for the blog.

As you can gather, I like to streamline and keep it as simple as possible. It goes back to the old KISS theory!

Meanwhile, if you have thoughts or questions, please type away in the comments box below. You don’t need to be a Google member to do so. Just click on the “comments” link below and post anonymously.

For more information about us and our workshops, go to our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures website, and if you are considering joining us, do as others have already done, made their room reservations for 2009!

If you wish to get notices when new articles are posted, look below this article and click on/in the appropriate box. Even if you choose not to do that, please share this with your friends and relatives who love photography.

Digital Asset Management – Part III

2008-11-11T07:15:00.015-05:00

… or How to Cope in the Digital Age of Photography

It was a glorious morning on the Outer Banks as I began typing this installment of the blog. We were meeting our students at breakfast and heading down to Ocracoke, since we were supposed to get rain later in the week.

As I finished this article, adding recent shots from the Outer Banks, we had just returned from one of our favorite locations where we got some great photographs in the fog (I'll post a couple of those next time)! As we say on our website, Mother Nature has a mind of her own, and we try to photograph her in all of her moods.

Now, back to the article!

Photoshop vs. Lightroom

There are a couple of very big differences between Photoshop and Lightroom. Photoshop was created for graphic artists, and as such does not always intuitively meet the needs of photographers. Lightroom, on the other hand, was designed by photographers for photographers.

Photoshop can deal with layers, photo merging, and other more sophisticated aspects of imaging. That said, the breadth of other adjustments in Lightroom exceeds that allowed in Camera Raw. Any tweaks you make in Camera Raw in Photoshop stay with the image in the metadata, but if you have more adjustments to make than Camera Raw affords, you have to save your tweaked image as a PSD or TIF/TIFF file, doubling the room that files takes upon your computer because of essentially being there twice — once as a raw (DNG) file, and once as a PSD or TIF.

I personally love the additional tweaking capabilities in Lightroom's Develop module, since I rarely have to save a file as a PSD or TIF. I can usually achieve the effect I need in Lightroom without going to Layers. There are exceptions, of course. This is not one of them!

From Lightroom, I can also create sized and sharpened photographs for our website or for our kids on Shutterfly, or even for our workshop group shots. I can also create slide shows for the workshops or photo meetings and print out contact sheets for clients, to name just a few tasks. Now, I can even make decent prints from Lightroom, although for really large prints, Photoshop is probably the preferable program.

There is one really cool feature of Lightroom I love — the ability to make virtual copies. On this last workshop, we returned from one of my favorite locations for funky photographs and created yet another image of a derelict steel boat rotting at the edge of the harbor. First, I added some black as well as my other standard adjustments. I then added a few other tweaks to bring out the faded splendor of this relic, just as one might have done in the old darkroom days. I got looking at it and realized it might also make a great black and white.

Hmmm. Will this have a sepia tone or a slightly bluish cast to echo the deep blue of the sea that put the boat there? I made several virtual copies of the photo as I had processed it thus far, then experimented, giving each of the virtual copies a different black-and-white treatment. And I didn't have to save any of them as PSDs or TIFs! Here are two of the possibilities, and they have not yet been tweaked after simply selecting one of the Lightroom presets.

I should note here that in order to save items such as virtual copies, one really should save the photo and its virtual copies as a catalog that you can then import into your desktop when you get home, or visa versa if you are headed off on a trip.

Again, back up, back up, back up. The idea of trying to replicate all that work I did in post-processing is not appealing!

So, for your more advanced image tweakers, you will probably want Photoshop along with Lightroom, but for those of you who are new to the digital world, Lightroom is a great place to start. Who knows? You may never have want or need of Photoshop.

And for those who are already working with Lightroom, Lightroom 2.1 is a big improvement over Version 2 and a huge improvement over the original program.

In Part IV, I'll deal with finding all your photographs of Great Aunt Minnie taken over the years or all your vertical photographs of lighthouses across the country.

For more information about our workshops, go to our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures website.

If you wish to get notices when new articles are posted, look below this article and click on/in the appropriate box. Even if you choose not to do that, please share this with your friends and relatives who love photography.

Comments from you are always welcome. Many people write us privately, but it's fun for others to see the comments here. You don’t need to be a Google member to do so. Just click on the “comments” link below and post anonymously.

Digital Asset Management – Part II

2008-11-10T18:26:00.018-05:00

… or How to Cope in the Digital Age of Photography

We finished up our final scheduled workshop of the year, Lighthouses of the Outer Banks. It was another great group, and we got to welcome back some alumni/ae friends from past workshops. That’s one of the really neat things about our photo adventures; a number of our participants become personal friends, people with whom we keep in contact throughout the year.

I am typing this blog as we head back to the Outer Banks for a couple of private workshops. We look forward to finally meeting and working with these people whom I have started to get to know by phone and e-mail.

In my last blog, I wrote about the thinking, procedures, and steps I take to set up my system of handling my images. This is the first part of digital asset management. Are there other ways to do it? Absolutely. Each of us must find out what works for him/her. Even if you are an old hand at digital asset management, you may find some useful hints here. If you are new to this blog, I suggest starting with Part I of this article.

The images on this blog are eclectic. Some are “straight” images, some processed in Photoshop, some in Photomatix, and all with some element of Lightroom.

Importing Images onto Your Computer

OK, your folders are set up. You know your naming convention. Now it’s time to download those images, another way of saying “import them,” into your computer. Different programs have different dialogues, but the principles are the same:

Select the location of your card reader as the source of your images to download.
Browse to the folder you have already created for those images. Some people prefer to browse to the main folder (My Pictures, or some such) and create a new sub-folder for those images; I prefer not to do this, as I know I have not mistakenly duplicated a basic folder name by mistake. For example, in September, I had several folders starting with 20809 — 208091, 208092, 208093, etc. — so I don’t want to duplicate a project number (the last digit here) for my new images.
Select “Convert to DNG” — in these settings, I do not select “Imbed RAW file” on the assumption that if it works for Peter Krogh, celebrated guru of The DAM Book, it should work just fine for me.
Select “Save Copies to” or to the location where you keep your back-up files; I use the same folder name that I created above.
Apply your metadata template (see below).
Click on “Get Photos” or similar wording.
CHUGGA-chugga-CHUGGA-chugga-CHUGGA-chugga … Time to get something to drink or a bite to eat. Make a few phone calls. It’ll take a while!

When you are sure that all your images have been downloaded and backed up, then, and only then, put your card into your camera and reformat it right away. That way, you won’t risk downloading all those images another time.

Metadata Templates

What? You don’t have a metadata template? Don’t worry. You’re not alone by a long stretch. They are easy to create. And if you are comfortable with your template, skip to the next section.

Open up your Photoshop and create a 1” x 1” image at a resolution of 72 ppi.
Save it as a jpg/jpeg (name it Metadata[YourInitials] in a Masters folder or someplace you can easily find down the road. My file is called MetadataMTP.jpg.
Don’t close it.
Go to File/File Info.., and a dialogue box will pop up with XMP categories listed on the left.
Description
- Copyright status: Copyrighted
- Copyright Notice: Ours reads: © 2008 Zann and Pinkerton Photography. All Rights Reserved.
  N.B. There are only three legal forms of a copyright notice, and note the order of the elements:
  - © [Year] [Name] — © 2008 Margo Taussig Pinkerton
  - Copr. [Year] [Name] — Copr. 2008 Margo Taussig Pinkerton
  - Copyrighted [Year] [Name] — Copyrighted 2008 Margo Taussig Pinkerton
- The All Rights Reserved lets viewers know that you have retained (kept) all rights to this image.
- Copyright Info URL: this is where you type the page on your website (if any) that contains your copyright notice or statement. This will apply only to those of you who share or publish your images. For those who want an idea of what it might contain, go to http://www.BCphotoadventures.com/Copyright.php
IPTC Contact

Fill out almost all the fields here.
Your name (Creator) should appear as it does on your copyright notice
I don’t bother with the Title, on the assumption it would read: Chief, Cook, & Bottle Washer!

IPTC Status/li>
- Job Identifier: Here I put 208, as those are the first three digits of any folder I create in 2008.
Do NOT press OK yet!
In the upper-right-hand corner of the window, you will see a discreet little triangle that faces to the right; click on it.

Select “Save Metadata Template”
Choose a name such as Metadata[YourInitials] — mine reads MetadataMTP

Click “Save”
Click “OK” Your images are now on your computer, basic metadata imbedded, and all backed up.

Now what?

Cull, Cull, Cull

This is probably the hardest part of photography. As noted in Part I, there are two schools of thought, so I need not repeat them here. Whatever your approach, remember that out-of-focus photos are out of focus! They are not going to magically become sharp, so unless they are the only remembrance of a special moment or location, banish them from your computer!

The same applies to those way-way-way-too-dark or beyond-hope-too-light photos. They’ll just take up space. And we haven't even addressed those mega-pixels that really don't make a photograph. We should certainly experiment, and knowing that, we know that all experiments are not successes.

Renaming

After purging unwanted images from my computer, I am ready to rename my photos. Suggested naming conventions are discussed in Part I. It does bear repeating, however, that having a sequential name that ties in to the number of photos you have kept makes sense. If my folder contains 943 images, and my numbers go up to 952, something clearly is missing!

Post-Production

Now comes the fun part. It’s time to realize your vision in these photos. For those of you who have joined us in one of our photo adventures, you have heard such phrases as “Pre-visualize what you want,” “Don’t waste all those wonderful, expensive, little pixels you paid for,” “What attracted you to the scene,” and “Simplify and isolate.”

Did you succeed? Hopefully yes, in which case, post-production takes a lot less time.

Regardless of the program you used to import your photographs into a folder of your choosing on your computer, it is critical to understand what function the assorted programs serve. In all cases, they enable you to see the images in your various folders. All of these programs allow you to rename your photographs and add metadata such as job numbers, descriptions of photographs, key words, locations, etc. In all cases, if you uninstalled the programs, your images would still be on your computer. That said, there are important differences.

Since most people in our workshops are using Photoshop, Bridge, and Lightroom, I will address those, rather than Photoshop Elements or other, less-mainstream programs.

Bridge

This is very simply a browser. Just as you might use Mozilla Firefox or Microsoft Internet Explorer to view the potpourri of information on the Internet, you can use Bridge to view the wide selection of images on your computer. It shows you thumbnails of the images you have in your various folders. You don’t need to “import” your photos into Bridge for it to see your photographs.

Lightroom

When you “import” images into Lightroom, you are really importing the capability of processing your images. This includes tweaking your files by giving a set of instructions to your photograph through the metadata. You crop in Lightroom; the instruction for that cropping gets added to the metadata for that photo. You burn or dodge, and those instructions are added to the metadata for that image. You play with the saturation, and you guessed it, those instructions get added to the photograph’s metadata.

All these instructions reside within Lightroom, so that you can call upon them again when you open up Lightroom the next time. If, however, you choose to open up the image in Photoshop, those directions are not yet permanently attached to the photo.

Every time I make an adjustment to a photograph in Lightroom, I save those directions to the file itself by clicking in the menu bar at the top on Photo/Update DNG Previews & Metadata, and when the little status bar in the upper left has finished, I click on Photo/Save Metadata to File. This is assuming that you are still in the Develop module. Don’t ask my why, but there is a slightly different path in the Library module.

When I want to update a whole slew of images at once, I head over to the Library module, since the Develop module seems to handle only one update at a time. As I tweak my photos, I give them a one-star rating. That way, I can select all those images that I have just tweaked, and click on Metadata/Update DNG Preview & Metadata, and again, when the little status bar says it has finished that task, click on Metadata/Save Metadata to File.

If you are careful about this, you will never lose all that work you have done on your images. If you use Bridge, you will see your tweaks reflected in the thumbnails. In any event, when you have done work on your images, don’t forget to back up those files!

In Part III, I’ll talk about Photoshop vs. Lightroom, and in Part IV, I’ll discuss managing your files so that you can find those photos you have taken over the years of your Great Aunt Minnie or all your vertical images of lighthouses taken across the country.

For more information on our workshops, go to our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures website.

If you wish to get notices when new articles are posted, look below this article and click on/in the appropriate box. Even if you choose not to do that, please share this with your friends and relatives who love photography.

Comments from you are always welcome. Many people write us privately, but it's fun for others to see the comments here. You don’t need to be a Google member to do so. Just click on the “comments” link below and post anonymously.

Digital Asset Management – Part I

2008-10-29T09:33:00.023-04:00

… or How to Cope in the Digital Age of Photography

We're headed out to our final scheduled workshop of the year, Lighthouses of the Outer Banks. We look forward to another great group, including several alumni/ae friends.

As people in our workshops try to get a handle on organizing their photographs and coming up with a sensible and efficient work flow, we hear lots of confusion about where the images are stored and many questions about what to do about them so they can be found in the future. Speaking of which, all of the ones I included in this blog, I found really easily!

First, I will suggest (sacré bleu!) that there are some great programs that very inappropriately use the word “Import.” I prefer Camera Bits Photo Mechanic’s use of the work “ingest” much better, as I think it is far less confusing. That said, let’s start at the beginning, step by step. I’ll describe what I do.

There is no one right way. Just as there are probably four or five ways to accomplish any task on the computer, there are as many and more ways to cope with your images. You have to find what works best for you, but this may help those of you who are overwhelmed by the process or who want to refine their work flow.

When you import/download images from your card reader (never directly from your camera because of potential damage to same if the computer experiences a power surge), you are importing them into folders on your computer. You create those folders, probably in a folder called “My Pictures” or some such that the computer already had waiting for you when you bought it. Let’s start by setting up your system.

Folders in the File Cabinet

Think of “My Pictures” as a file cabinet. Within that file cabinet are file folders, in this case yours. Arnie’s and my folders are very simply named so that they will self-sort chronologically. The format I use is YYMMP-Very-Short-Description, or, for example, 08102-BCPA-NEpriv:

YY=two-digit year (08), or if you prefer, YYY=three-digit year (208) – are you really going to be around in 2108 or 2208?
MM=two-digit month (10)
P=number of project within that month (2, in this case)
- is an easy visual separation, but some people prefer an underscore (_) that is more universally accepted; I don't like it, since if it is involved in a link, the underscore becomes part of the underline in the link, so you don't know if there is a space there or an underscore!
BCPA lets me know this was a workshop
-NEpriv tells me it was a private one in New England

In two-photographer households where the images end up on the same computer, add an initial after the date string. In this case, for Arnie, his folder is almost the same, with the addition of an “A”, or 08102A-BCPA-NEpriv.

Sometimes, the folder name is very simple, such as last month’s 08099-KS. In all cases, note that because the year comes first, these files will always sort in order. The second project in September will come before the ninth project that month. Many pros use some variation on this system, and if it works for them, it will probably work for you.

Some people do sub-folders by day/date. I don’t, because all that information is in your file metadata, put there by the camera at the moment you click the shutter. If I am looking for a photograph of a vineyard I did three years ago in France, for example, I don’t care what day it was shot and certainly have no burning desire to wade through three weeks’ worth of folders to find what I’m seeking. Think about it. Twenty-one folders or one folder? Twenty-one folders or one folder??? Hmmm!

Image Files in the Folders

The first thing to remember in naming your image files is that there is a limit of 32 characters, including the extension, you know, that dot whatever (.dng or .jpg or .tif, etc.) that can be universally read by any computer. That leaves you with 28 characters to spend as you see fit.

Although computers are getting more universal as time passes, there are still some operating systems that do not like spaces, so I would suggest avoiding spaces in your names.

In naming our image files, I stick to an echo of the folder name, with a slight variation. We add ZAP- before our names, since we publish a lot, both on the Internet and elsewhere. That ZAP- sets our image apart from someone else’s who might use the same naming convention.

I also turn the year into three digits. This may be unusual, but I set up this convention back in the early 80’s when I turned pro, and it has worked for almost 30 years. 1998 became 198, as I figured there was little likelihood that I would live to see 2198, and 198 used one less character space than 1998.

Referring back to the 08099-KS folder above, my first image would be labeled ZAP-208-099-001-KS.dng. The hyphens aren’t necessary, but it is the convention I set up, and I can easily see the year, month, and “frame number”. In the case of two-photographers sharing the same computer, Arnie’s is ZAP-A208099001-KS.dng. At a quick glance, because one has an A and the other does not, and because one has hyphens and the other does not, I can see which are Arnie’s and which are mine. If that file ends up in a collection (more about this later), I can instantly see it was from Kansas.

Finally, and this is a subtlety, I always use lower case for the extension. That is another visual aid in quickly seeing where that photograph was made. Look at the difference between ZAP-208-099-001-KS.dng and ZAP-208-099-001-KS.DNG. See what I mean?

Camera Raw

Let me talk a little bit about camera raw versus JPG/JPEG. For those who don’t know, jpg is a PC extension, while jpeg is the one used by Mac. We shoot in camera raw quite simply because we want to take full advantage of what a digital image can offer, including very sophisticated post-processing. Camera raw gives you a much wider gamut (range of colors and tonality) than does jpg. JPGS/JPEGS are great for the Internet and e-mail (another form of using the Internet), or even for family snaps, but the gamut simply is not as great as with camera raw.

One of the potential downsides of camera raw, is that some of the top camera manufacturers no longer support their earliest versions of camera raw. In addition, none of them has guaranteed support of current and future versions down the road. Don’t panic! Adobe has made a twenty-year commitment to supporting their version of camera raw, DNG or Digital Negatives. They have a converter, downloadable at Adobe, for converting most manufacturers’ camera raw files into the DNG format.

What happens after 20 years? Realistically, if Adobe doesn’t want to have millions of photographers surrounding their headquarters with malevolent intent, they will give us the tools to translate our collective zigabytes of photographs into the next form, whatever that might be.

But what happens to your original files? DNG files have the same integrity as your original NEF or CR2, etc. files. You have the same gamut range, the same ability to perform the identical, sophisticated, post-processing tweaks on your image files. Personally, I don’t even keep our original NEF files once I make sure they have successfully been converted into DNG and backed up. Most of our compatriots take the same approach.

Importing/Downloading

OK, now that you have figured out what naming conventions will work for you, and you know that if you can, you really should shoot in camera raw, let’s get down to the first step, transferring your image files on your card to your computer. Remember, importing and downloading really mean the same thing. Either way, you are getting the digital images onto your computer.

If you don’t have a card reader, run, even gallop, don’t walk to your nearest supply house and buy a good one. As noted above, the camera manufacturers really advise against downloading directly from the camera for good reason. If your computer experiences a power surge or some other variation in power, for example, that could kill your camera. Believe me, a card reader is a hell of a lot cheaper than a new camera body!

There are various programs one can use to download or import your images, including Bridge that is included with Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom (version 2 is a vast improvement over 1), Adobe Photoshop Elements, iView MediaPro, etc. I happen to use Bridge CS3, as I think the sorting/culling feature is faster than in Lightroom 2. I also prefer it for renaming my files. Having said that, the other programs work just fine. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” as the old saying goes. Remember, you are importing your image files into a folder on your computer, not into the program itself. We’ll talk more about that later In Part II.

I noted above that we shoot in camera raw. That means, I need to convert them into DNGs. I do this when I download our image files. At the same time, I add basic metadata from a template I have already created, including copyright, contact information, project number (those first six numbers in the file name … 208099).

While the images are downloading and being converted, I can go inside, do some laundry, take care of a few dishes, catch up on some phone calls, even have a glass of wine!

Once the download is complete, I do some serious editing. There are two schools of thought on this one. Arnie keeps everything, as he quips with a mischevious smile in his eyes, “They are all masterpieces!” Me, I know when I shoot that the light got better, or that the person’s expressions improved, or that I found a better composition, so I tend to cull the earlier shots, keeping the later, better ones. When I say better composition, I am not including different variations that I like for a particular scene.

Sometimes, it is true, a photograph that doesn’t grab you today may be your favorite in five, ten years. That said, I personally have never missed any of the photographs I deleted. If I think there may be potential, I keep them.

After culling, I rename the photographs. That way, if one goes missing, I can instantly tell. If, say, a project goes up to “frame” number 982, and I select all my DNG files in that folder and see that only 973 files are there, I have reason to panic and had better find out what happened. Arghhh!

Post Production

In Part II, I’ll talk about those confusing elements of “importing” your digital photographs “into” your imaging programs. With our Lighthouses of the Outer Banks workshop starting on Thursday, and our practice of doing additional scouting for this and future years, it may or may not be published on Friday. I’ll try!

For more information about our workshops, go to our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures website.

If you wish to get notices when new articles are posted, look below this article and click on/in the appropriate box. Even if you choose not to do that, please share this with your friends and relatives who love photography.

Comments from you are always welcome. Many people write us privately, but it's fun for others to see the comments here. You don’t need to be a Google member to do so. Just click on the “comments” link below and post anonymously.

Creativity and Synergy

2008-10-16T21:01:00.022-04:00

As some of you know, it seems as though we have been on the road forever. Clearly, I was too busy at our New England Fall Foliage workshop to even post last week. Everyone left Sunday afternoon, and we had a private client come in Monday noon who just departed Thursday evening. While exhausting, it has at the same time been energizing.

One of the things we try to do as instructors is inspire vision and creativity, challenge people to go beyond what they thought they might achieve, and refine their composition and processing of images. In doing that, we gain as much inspiration from our students as we hope they do from us.

These past two weeks are cases in point. The New England Fall Foliage workshop was based in a small-town, lake-side cottage where I often played Gray Wolf growing up. With tables, comfy sofas, a fireplace, and the owner's family rogues' gallery, it is a setting to make people feel instantly at home. People pitch in from the onset, throwing another log on the fire, doing the dishes after our reception.

We head out the first afternoon to a pumpkin farm where I have been photographing literally for decades. The early 19th-century brick house has been in the family for generations. There is now a small herd of Devon cows on the property for the cheese operation that the owners have started. Pumpkins and gourds of all shapes, varieties, and sizes grace the front lawn. Sunflower heads can be seen in the trees and other unlikely spots. Payment is by the honor system with a tin can sitting on the farm stand that is decorated with small Indian corn tacked up along the roof line.

Before we get there, however, we get sidetracked at an old beaver pond I know well. Reflections, back-lit foliage, gentle grasses all catch the attention of our group. What was going to be a quick stop lasts over an hour! This is good; we are in no hurry.

At the pumpkin farm, we always enjoy watching our workshop participants start out. At first, some are tentative, but soon, everyone is finding subjects that interest them. One of our group invariably heads into the barn, followed soon by one or two others who notice and find something for themselves.

As we explain one technique or another to one or two of the participants, others gather to listen in, eager for more knowledge.

A cow stares back at us through her stanchion, then retreats to her private place. I moo at her, and, true to the species, she looks back out. Curious, they certainly are. A couple of our participants get their shots, using the line of stanchions as a diagonal element leading the eye into the picture.

One of our photographers is attracted by the green, crook-necked gourds. I pick one up and place it on the stoop in front of the mild shed's red door, then another, giving them a human attitude. I switch gourds to show that each has its own personality. He gets into it. Later in his photographs, I see that one is wearing a babushka, another a tie. Humor abounds.

Very early the next morning, we head to one of my favorite and little-known waterfalls. It is a location that is good in sunny or inclement weather. The different levels and variety of small pools provide interest for everyone with plenty of room to spread out. Before we scatter, though, Arnie and I talk about techniques to photograph water. I fire off a quick frame to show those who are interested how it might be done.

People are already sharing images on the backs of their cameras or through their view finders and getting input from their fellow photographers. They encourage each other and gain inspiration from what others have done.

Meanwhile, we float around, giving mini assignments, encouraging everyone while pushing for tighter, more effective composition, pointing out photographic possibilities, as well as answering questions.

After a while, we head for a nearby inn with birches and a view. It is another unscheduled, brief stop that ends up lasting close to two hours.

Some are getting hungry, so we pack up, have a picnic lunch down in the valley, and continue into the mountains. We are greeted by a bloat of tour buses (think of a bloat of hippopotami) belching forth leaf peepers. Our group is not happy seeing all these people.

"Don't worry," I say, "they'll all be gone before the light gets really good for us." Our group is not yet convinced.

These tour groups land at a location for 20 minutes, then blow the whistle to call the peepers back to their cushy chariots to "do" the next location. They also get hungry and want supper by 5:30 or so. That's perfect for us, and we start photographing in earnest. Arnie and I create a couple of images to inspire some of the participants to do their own versions.

The group is amazed that we can photograph after sunset. They are having a great time, but finally, it's time to find food. We stop at a restaurant on the way home and settle down into chairs and deep sofas around a big square table. There is a lot of laughing and kidding along with discussions on life and photography. Everyone is feeling good. They are pleased with the locations and the images they have made. They joke about the tour buses that turned out to not be a problem.

These have been two long days, so we take a break and start imaging around 8:00 the next morning. People get to “sleep in” to 7:00. Everyone pours over the images from the five locations we have visited thus far. Arnie calls everyone over to look at this or that photograph one of the participants has done showing a different point of view. One is an elegantly simple one of a few leaves on a branch done with a long lens and the background completely thrown out of focus. Over the next day or so, we see more people try that technique and produce beautiful images of their own. The synergy is wonderful.

Everyone gets so caught up in seeing what they and the others have done, that editing seems to bog down. Imaging clearly is not going to be done very much today! They don't even want to break for lunch, so people pull out granola bars, salsa and chips, and other munchies to stave off hunger. Our bowls of nuts and gorp are devoured.

It's time to load up the cars and head back to the mountains to another of my favorite locations. Everyone is so pumped up from yesterday that they can’t wait to get out and find more images. A couple of them disappear, and we don’t see them again until well after sunset. They are learning to see, and we already notice a big difference in their photographs. Their eyes have gotten stronger, the refining of their vision better. They are entranced with water and what it can do. They love the color of the foliage. We show them different possibilities. I am lucky enough to replicate a shot I did years ago on film.

The sun sets, and we are still out there, flashlights sometimes in hand to help focus. Our students are in their element. Stomachs occasionally rumble, but no one minds. Food is not a priority right now; we'll get there eventually. Finally, there really is no light left for what we want to do. Arnie and I get to do a couple of final shots. Same scene, different view, just as we tell our group. You can have ten people, all shooting the same scene, but the photographs will all be different.

We gather at a big table at a local restaurant and share the successes and challenges of the day. The spirit is wonderful, and we are having a great time. Friendships have been formed. The mood is upbeat in spite of the paucity of sleep, perhaps even because of it. After all, we have been doing what we all love — photographing beautiful landscapes, whether the broad view or close-ups.

I always say, "Remember what attracted you to the scene and make sure that is your only subject." Arnie adds, "Simplify and isolate." Our mantras are clearly taking hold.

Another early morning takes us to an oft-photographed farm. We arrive to find a gaggle of photographers from overseas who are taking advantage of the exchange rate against our US dollar.

"Quick," I quietly urge, "Go find your spots!"

Everyone scatters, and as the rising sun hits the foliage, it is magical, and we hear shutters clicking away.

The sun rises a bit more, and the gaggle departs; we stay for more wonderful images, the farm now "ours." We roam the hillside where we have gotten permission to photograph. In helping others, Arnie and I find images to illustrate back lighting, including high-key images.

We head down to the farm to see the owners and thank them by buying some maple syrup. We catch up a bit, as I have been photographing there, with permission, for years. We chat about those who come to photograph this beautiful place, tramp all over the place, don't leave anything in the donation can nor buy any maple syrup. They are not what I call house broken.

After a few hours of imaging, we drive to our afternoon locations, including a lovely dirt road with a canopy of foliage and a field with a view down into the valley. Everyone has so much fun with the foliage canopy, that we miss the late-afternoon light in the field and valley. Instead, we get a beautiful sky, and some learn that they can get brilliant foliage even after sunset.

We allow ourselves an easy last morning. One comes early to photograph down by the lake with the early-morning mists rising, ephemeral in their presentations. Others drift in for imaging. The wood stove exudes a cozy warmth. Another of our group brings in coffee and doughnuts. Everyone is looking forward to the group critique, asking others for input to help decide which images will go into the "slide" show.

Finally, everyone heads into the smaller living room and crowds around the large monitor to critique each other's favorites. They want to see what Arnie and I have done.

I laugh, "When have we had time to edit anything, let alone process it?"

They chuckle, knowing first hand how busy we have been helping them.

The mood is positive, and people are blown away and inspired by what they see others have done. There is a strong feeling of camaraderie and support. Participants are amazed at the positive reaction and input by their workshop mates, and Arnie and I are once again inspired by the work of our students.

Some people have to leave early, but they drag their heels, not wanting to leave this great group. Hugs abound, and everyone wants to make sure I send out all the e-mails so they can keep in touch. After all, we have spent five intensive days together. We are family. There is a bond.

A few stay after the workshop for questions and more input from us. We hate to see them all go. Not only is there synergy amongst the group, but for us, too. Again, they inspire us as we have hopefully inspired them.

It takes us several hours to pack up, clean the cottage, and head back to our digs. We enjoy a couple of hours outside in the late-afternoon sun, visiting with family and friends. After an early supper, we fall into bed, tired, but happy everyone did so well. The weather has been gorgeous, the fall colors have been intensified by a late frost, and the temperatures have been perfect. What more could one ask?

* * * * * * * * * *
Our private client arrives at noon the next day. She is enthusiastic, and we are instantly comfortable with one another. There is lots of laughter and gentle reminders of our Principles of Photography. An M.D., she is a quick study.

We return to some of the same spots we visited the previous week. The colors and light are different each time, so we always see it with a fresh eye. Her energy is boundless.

Because of her interests, we concentrate more on close-ups and details. We lend her our wide-angle lens for a different perspective, to force her to think more globally in her scenes. It's a challenge at first, but she has fun with it.

At the inn with the view and birches, we find ferns that have changed color dramatically since last week. I can't resist photographing them as our doctor friend works on an assignment we have given her using one of our long lenses.

We go to a Vermont village to explore. There's a covered bridge that Arnie photographs, showing the patterns of the construction echoed in the shadows.

I find a small branch of Corkbark Euonymous, splendid in its fall regalia, begging to be photographed.

The next day, we return to one of our mountain locations. The Columbus Day weekend is over, and the traffic is light. No bloat of buses. In fact, we nearly have the spot to ourselves. There is another assignment for a broad shot. Our new friend finds her vantage point on some well-scoured rocks, worn glassy smooth by centuries of ice during spring melt. We both find it hard to find a secure spot as I show her why and how to set up for an HDR (high dynamic range) photograph. Arnie is amused by our contortions and records it in true photojournalist style. And yes, you do see someone's bare feet beyond the tripod!

Dusk settles in, and we head up to the pond where the sky is brilliant. I come over the rise and see some bright leaves against the green of the pond. Fish swim just beneath the surface, causing riffles. Occasionally, they rise for a tasty bug and a ring of concentric circles forms. I photograph it to illustrate complimentary colors.

Inspired by a gorgeous shot our doctor does of a log in the liquid gold of the reflected sky, I find my own image. While the sun has set, a longer exposure enables us to capture the sky and the magic of light it produces.

It has been a long day, and the chill is setting in. We pack up everything and head to those same comfy sofas around the same square table. We bask in the glow of the creative spirit we share, sorry that tomorrow is our last day together for this workshop.

After such beautiful weather, it is supposed to rain, and in the middle of the night, I hear it start. It is a gentle rain, one that will intensify the colors without (pardon the pun) dampening our spirits. We start out at a nearby village with a covered bridge, but down in the valley, it is too somber for what we want.

"Let's head up the hill," I suggest, and where we were going to turn right, the name of the road on the left strikes a chord in my memory. Sure enough, I have been here before, albeit some years ago. The fog drifts in and out, and the colors are gorgeous. I do a demonstration on setting up for a stitched image. Arnie points her to some fungi on an old stump. I look for patterns in the misty foliage.

A couple of people who are driving by on the narrow dirt road stop to see what we are doing. We chat, and it is all very amiable and neighborly. A farmer on a tractor waves to us as he hauls a bush hog behind to cut the field above us.

It is time for a break, and we go back down to the village where we find some wonderful, freshly-baked muffins to go with our hot drinks — chocolate, coffee, and fresh apple cider. Our discussions are eclectic and fun.

After our hands have warmed up, we photograph the mill pond and falls from the covered bridge. Before we leave, however, to process images, we stop in to watch the glass blowers demonstrate their craft. There is a new design with a thin bead of glass wrapped around a champagne flute or goblet. It catches my eye as the artisans open the" glory hole" and unknowingly back light a sample flute.

The private workshop technically ends at noon, but no one is in a hurry to end the fun time we have been enjoying together. We finally end eight hours later. Synergy is a wonderful thing, whether shared among three or among ten or twelve. The inspiration it fosters sparks the creative juices in all of us.

That's something to remember as you go out and photograph. Go with someone else. It is not always good to photograph in a vacuum. One needs input and feedback. Our students get it from each other, and we get it from them. It's what keeps us all inspired.

Upcoming workshops: Lighthouses of the Outer Banks (NC) for 2008. We are adding three new workshops for 2009: April in Savannah, Canyon de Chelly, and Fall Aspens & Ghost Towns of Colorado. For more information, go to our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures website. Details on the latter two are not yet posted but will be soon. They will be scheduled on either side of Arches, Canyonlands, & Moab.

If you wish to get notices when new articles are posted, look below this article and click on/in the appropriate box. Even if you choose not to do that, please share this with your friends and relatives who love photography.

Comments from you are always welcome. Many people write us privately, but it's fun for others to see your comments here. You don’t need to be a Google member to do so. Just click on the “comments” link below and post anonymously.

On the Road...Still

2008-10-06T09:48:00.013-04:00

It has been a busy fall. After just shy of four weeks on the road and some 6,700-plus miles, we returned home on Tuesday night to find that MooseCat, our Maine Coon Cat, was actually still speaking to us. Usually, he greets us at the door, then after appropriate scratches, hellos, and treats, he gives us the cold shoulder, letting us know that he was not pleased with our absence. Of course, by the time we are in bed, so is he. It’s just one of those things that cats do. This time, he skipped the “hmph” bit and let us know he was happy to see us.

We had friends arrive the next evening who are moving down to our area, but their new house is still devoid of furniture, and they needed a bed and fun place to stay while they transplanted a car-full of perennials and shrubs they had crammed into their large SUV and brought down from New England.

These are friends who are very artistic. She is a quilter, knitter, master gardener, etc., while he loves photography. Whenever he comes to visit, we talk cars, politics, and photography. As another photographer who has had several exhibits of his work, he was eager to see what our students had produced in our Arches and Moab workshop, so I brought the laptop in from my office and ran our final slide show.

He was quite impressed with the students’ work, and he could see that each had found his own vision. As I indicated in last week’s blog, there weren’t any repeats of a scene. Sure, some were similar, but there were significant differences in composition, approach, and/or processing.

He was also interested in our latest photographs and our processing of them, including some HDR images. Most of the ones in this blog, he will be seeing for the first time; others he will recognize.

One photograph that caught our friend’s eye was what he called my “Olivia Parker” arch. Those who know Olivia Parker’s photographs will understand his label. One of the challenges of photographing oft-photographed subjects is making them different, making them one’s own. Here are two different versions of what I did at this one arch, including the “Olivia Parker” version.

It was interesting for me to note, that HDR can bring out colors that exist but that are lost to the naked eye at certain times of day, to wit my post-production of this image done mid-day. Is it as dramatic as a sunrise shot? No, but it still makes a good shot.

One of attractions about the Southwest is all the layers. In one of the locations we visited, I saw this different version of layers.

After the Arches & Moab workshop, while talking a walk up in the hills above my younger daughter’s house in Colorado, Arnie and I both saw a late-40s-ish, rusty car nestled among the rabbit bush and sagebrush. Its now-faded original green color contrasted wonderfully with the rusty tones of age. Miraculously, the chrome was in good condition, probably due to the dry climate. I can’t believe that neither Arnie nor I checked on the make and model, but we were so engrossed in the photographic possibilities that we never did look. We made a few photographs, knowing that we would have to return when the light was better. These are a couple of our shots that show two different approaches for the same subject (and we still never checked the make and model!)

Anytime we can spend time in Colorado, we find great images. My “Black Sky,” a photograph in our website gallery, is one that is familiar to some of you, is one. We are usually in Colorado for Turkey Day when many of the passes are closed. In September, we did not have these constraints, so we headed north to areas we usually cross-country ski. The Aspens and Cottonwoods were glorious in their luminous yellows, golds, and coppers. It was all a feast for the eye. We came upon a grove carpeted with back-lit ferns.

There were other areas where that magic of light produced different effects, from a river snaking through shadow patches down a valley to shadows on hillsides under an ominous sky.

My favorite shot from Colorado, though, is one my younger daughter and her husband have already requested to have framed to hang in their house. This is the only present they want!

As I type this, we are headed to New England, first to have a short visit with family and friends, then do run our New England Fall Foliage workshop followed by a three-day private photo workshop in the same area. It will be fun to be back in Northern New England where I spent the majority of my adult life in a small town started by my ancestors back in 1761.

I can’t wait to return to my old haunts, reconnect with the people who have given me permission to photograph on their property year after year, and enjoy the spectacular foliage that is unique to New England because of all the sugar maples and plethora of other hardwoods and conifers. Most of all, I look forward to the fun time we will have with our next crop of students, watching them grow, find their own vision, and start repeating the mantras we give them, adopting them as their own. Hopefully, we'll have time to make a few images of our own!

Remaining 2008 workshops: New England Fall Foliage (NH & VT); and Lighthouses of the Outer Banks (NC). For more information, including some of our 2009 offerings, go to the Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures website.

If you wish to get notices when new articles are posted, look below this article and click on/in the appropriate box. Even if you choose not to do that, please share this with your friends and relatives who love photography.

Comments from you are always welcome. Many people write us privately, but it's fun for others to see the comments here. You don’t need to be a Google member to do so. Just click on the “comments” link below and post anonymously.

Seeking Your Own Vision

2008-09-25T09:49:00.017-04:00

I apologize to you who follow this blog for not posting last week. There simply was not time. Running our workshops is intensive, as we want to give as much time to our participants as possible. As you might imagine, our days are long. We get up to take advantage of the gorgeous pre-dawn light as well as sunrise. After several hours of imaging back at our base, we head out again to enjoy the late-afternoon light, sunset, and again, that magical light that happens after sunset.

One of the things that is interesting in our workshops, is watching the changes in approach in our students. We try to show them that there is usually more to a scene than what first meets the eye. We want them to seek their own vision.

For those of you who have been following this blog, I wrote an article about Selecting a Photo Workshop in which I described one workshop we ran into where people spilled out of a couple of vans and set their tripods up right next to each other, all facing in the same direction. Hardly seeking your own vision!

We were proud of our students and the vision they found. We pushed them to do shots other than the pretty-postcard ones, to try to treat an oft-photographed scene in a different way, pointing out different possibilities.

And instead of standing eye level to the tripod, we encourage different vantage points. After all, a different viewpoint will catch the viewer's eye more than the standard, eye-level shot.

Even when two people are photographing essentially the same scene, their vantage points may be different.

And the interpretation of the scene may be quite different, to wit these ones from a different location by two different participants...

Or two from another location...

Part of each person's vision includes how he/she envisions an image processed. These three student treatments of the same scene, for example, are totally different...

Sometimes, in seeking one's own vision, one finds subjects that are not the obvious ones for the location...

This last shot, by the way, comes with a bit of a story. We were up at Delicate Arch, waiting for the light to get better. I had been encouraging the participants who had joined me to get down for a different view. Finally, one lowered his tripod, adjusted his position, and asked if I would mind moving to the left a tad.

"Or course, not," I said, followed quickly by, "Can you wait a minute? There's a raven heading straight toward me."

The raven in question landed about four feet away from me, obviously accustomed to people. I have a habit of talking to the animals. Just call me Eliza! I quorked at my new friend, and he quorked back. We did this for a while, and he was charming, lowering his head repeatedly and puffing out his ruff. I started making that knocking sound they do. He repeated, and we conversed back and forth for a good twenty minutes, much to the amusement of the crowd lining the ridge. Bit by bit, he inched closer to me, so he was finally a mere two feet from my feet. I kept hoping that wouldn't decide that my painted toe nails were worthy of inspection.

The raven got increasingly more insistent, until one kind-hearted soul tossed a piece of apple to him. He stayed with us for a good three-quarter of an hour and finally flew away.

Arnie and I actually got to photograph a little. Here is one of my different views, my vision.

So, when you go out photographing, think about what you want out of your image. How do you want to treat it? Is it going to be a color one or black and white? See it in your mind's eye. Seek your own vision.

Road Trip, Different Viewpoints

2008-09-12T11:57:00.012-04:00

In our workshops, we always say that each person brings a different view to a scene. If you have ten photographers interpreting a certain scene, you are more than likely going to get ten different views.

This happens with Arnie and me. I would hazard a guess that with the majority of couples, if one is a photographer, the other is not. If that is in fact true, Arnie and I are unusual. Two photographers, married, living together, and working together. And, we're still talking!

"For better, for worse, happily for lunch … but separate offices," is our motto!

Our work has changed since we melded our photography businesses. When we first joined forces well over ten years ago, my mother, a New England landscape painter who lived next door at the time, would point to a photograph and say, “Now, that’s Arnie’s,” or “I can tell that this one is yours.”

I remember the first time she looked at our shots from a just-completed assignment and pointed to one as being mine.

“Actually,” I said, “That one is Arnie’s.”

She looked surprised, but undaunted, selected one that was clearly Arnie’s.

“Uh, actually that’s mine.”

Arnie, having started out with LIFE and other editorial origins, traditionally shoots the broad view, while I usually seek the more intimate, close-up one. Now, however, we sometimes find that for a scene that I would traditionally shoot close-up, I’ll use a wider lens; at the same time, Arnie also reverses his usual mode of shooting and selects a zoom lens. It is interesting and not surprising. Artists working so closely together cannot help but influence each other and serve as inspiration for one another.

We always find it interesting to review each other’s images. Sometimes when one of us cannot make anything out of a potential scene, the other one will, such as this one of some interesting rocks:

As those of you know who follow this blog, we’re on a long, three-week road trip. The first leg took us from North Carolina to Boise, Idaho, with a detour down to part of Flaming Gorge in Wyoming and Utah. We didn’t have a lot of time to shoot because of our schedule. 1,100 miles the first day, another 800 the next, and 700 the third day. With both of us driving and getting a really early start in the morning, we can do this.

We did stop a couple of times the second day in Nebraska, as we were both attracted to the russet and golden colors of the fading corn stalks in contrast with the lush green of soy plants. We kept looking for the right scene where we could safely stop. Finally we found it.

“Stop!” I said.

“I can’t,” said Arnie, “We have a truck behind us.”

There was a place to turn around shortly, though, and we quickly returned to the spot.

The textures were wonderful, and each of us found something different to photograph from basically the same spot:

The corn rows, we treated in completely different ways. What's more, this was a case where Arnie and I reversed our usual modes of composition:

Our third day on the road, I really wanted to show Arnie Flaming Gorge. He had never seen it before, and it is one of my special places for photographing.

The first stop was in the reservoir area. We crossed a feeder river, and before we knew it, the car did a 180, and back we went. Both of us saw the same scene, but since Arnie got out first, he grabbed "my" spot, so I did the classic thing; I turned around. Here are our two scenes:

On the map, I saw a road that I thought might produce a shot or two, so we turned in. We both found a lot of photographs in this area, including the one used to illustrate where one person can sometimes find something that the other cannot. We both saw this tree. I lay down on the ground, gingerly avoiding the Prickly Pear cactus under the tree, while Arnie framed it with the rocks:

After stopping here, we headed down into the gorge area. The deep canyon walls in red contrasted with the green of the — what else — Green River. Again, we treated the essentially-same scene quite differently:

So, when you come to a workshop or go out shooting with a buddy or buddies, share your photographs. See what others did. It doesn't mean that you copy them, but we each have different eyes and can take inspiration from others.

We are next headed to Moab, Utah, for our Arches & Moab workshop. The next blog may be devoted to the scouting process. One never knows where my fingers will take me on the keyboard!

Upcoming workshops: Arches & Moab (UT); New England Fall Foliage (NH & VT); and Lighthouses of the Outer Banks (NC). For more information, go to our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures website. We also have spring listings, so check those out, too.

If you wish to get notices when new articles are posted, look below this article and click on/in the appropriate box. Even if you choose not to do that, please share this with your friends and relatives who love photography.

Comments from you are always welcome. Many people write us privately, but it's fun for others to see the comments here. You don’t need to be a Google member to do so. Just click on the “comments” link below and post anonymously.

HDR Can Be a Great Tool

2008-09-01T12:00:00.026-04:00

While I have seen HDR (High Dynamic Range) tools used with restraint, enhancing a photograph rather than overpowering it, I have seen it used more often to give everything the same value. Those of you who have taken our workshops know what I mean. Values are the lights, darks, and midtones that make any piece of artwork interesting. In fact, in photography, the dynamic range is a term used to express the ratio between the maximum and minimum black-and-white measurable light intensities. Whew! In other words, a photograph with a broad range of values represented has a high dynamic range; a high-key (very light) photograph, on the other hand, has a low dynamic range.

The new DSLR cameras give you somewhere around 7-8 f/stops of dynamic range, better than some of the old films, but still not as much as the human eye can discern. We see details in the highlights and shadows that the camera cannot quite capture. The great advantage of using HDR (High Dynamic Range) tools is to increase that dynamic range to somewhere closer to 10-11 f/stops.

We teach techniques in our workshops to lead the viewers' eyes into the image, not out of it. The danger in our minds is that too heavy a hand can put all the values on the same plane, thus confusing the eye. Where should one look, if there are no values to lead one into the photograph? Where is the drama? Remember, the eye goes to where the lightest light meets the darkest dark. If there are no real lights and no real darks, and if it is light on the edge of the frame where it may meet a dark background, that is not necessarily a good thing compositionally. Different people look for different effects, to be sure, but as photographers, rather than photo illustrators, it is something to keep in mind. I happen to be a photographer and not a photo illustrator, so I come at HDR with that bias.

As with any new technology in Photoshop, I did some experimenting for different effects that did not venture beyond the pale. I actually bought Photomatix that gets excellent reviews. Some reviewers have written, and I tend to agree, that some of the local contrast is lost in Photoshop CS3. Photomatix's tone mapping seems to prevent this from happening.

My very first HDR image was one of a Maine lighthouse. It is a place I have photographed often over the years, and a place to which I always return. How to give it that Sunday punch? It is a very white building against usually a very clear, blue sky, unless, of course, it's cloudy. It was late-afternoon sunny when I did my shots this spring with HDR in mind.

I have found that one does not always have to do seven or nine shots to come up with the input necessary to produce a good HDR image. This one was done with just three, seen below, with the middle one being the "correct" exposure. You'll notice that the shadows are in a different place in each of the images.

I ran the three through the Photomatix tone-mapping mill, did a couple of tweaks, then in the final image did a little bit of burning to make sure the edge wasn't too bright. This was the result...

It captures that late-afternoon look that I really like and brings out the detail in the window; yet, it stays within the bounds of photography rather than photo illustration.

The next one I did with one of Arnie's photographs. There was a stormy sky that had lots of detail, but when photographed, one had to expose for either the sky or the rocks. I suggested to Arnie that five exposures might work just fine. They follow, so you can see the challenges presented by the dark darks and the light lights. When the exposure works for the rocks, the sky is blown out; conversely, when the exposure is right to bring out detail in the sky, the rocks go black.

Again, using the tone mapping feature of Photomatix, I tweaked it a bit and ran the HDR. In the final image, because the trees were too light along the edge of the frame so that they drew our eyes out there, I did some vignetting through burning to achieve the effect we wanted...

As you can see, the sky gained a lot of drama, while the red of the rocks came through. Click here for a larger version of this and the lighthouse above.

One of my more recent images was from our August trip to Arizona. I got up really early one morning to hike part way up a local mountain. Because of the steep climb and the near-record temperatures, I didn't relish the idea of lugging up my tripod. I hadn't brought my monopod because of airline restrictions, so I decided to give my worn knees a break.

In stitching and in HDR, it really is much better if you use a tripod, but when I decided to hike up, I didn't even think of that with daytime temperatures close to 110 degrees. Once I reached the saddle of the mountain, however, I saw not only stitching possibilities, but HDR ones as well. There was a beautiful panorama, and the sun was producing what I call "ZOT light." I am sure you've seen it. Those rays of light that go ZOT down on the landscape. The Hudson River School painters were famous for using it.

The combination of the two elements was irresistible, so sans tripod, I decided to try it anyway. I've always been pretty steady, and I had nothing to lose.

I found a good spot where I could brace myself, yet rotate. I did a series of three exposures each of nine overlapping shots. One of the series is shown below.

I then took each exposure set and made a panorama, so that I ended up with three panoramas in three different exposures.

Then, because I didn't have my tripod, I had to go through a few more steps so that my new panoramas would work in Photomatix.

I have come up with a basic set of inputs that seem to work for me, so I ran the three new images through Photomatix with a tweak or two. Experimenting further, I decided to try the default setting which appears below the one processed with my settings. Larger versions may seen by clicking here.

Now you can see what I mean about HDR sometimes evening out the values so the photograph is not very interesting. The top one of these two, processed with "my" Photomatix settings, brings out the darks and lights. The bottom one above shows all the detail in the foreground and evens out the clouds so there is no drama. You'll notice that the top one actually gave some added definition to the clouds and ZOT light as compared to the lower one done with the default settings.

Now, compare the original, "correct" exposure to the HDR version:

Comments from you are always welcome. Many people write us privately, but it's fun for others to see the comments here. You don’t need to be a Google member to do so. Just click on the “comments” link below and post anonymously.

For those who missed it last week, we have uploaded a video with lots of photographs from Arnie, John, and me to our YouTube site called "People Portraits."

Remaining fall workshops: Arches & Moab (UT); New England Fall Foliage (NH & VT); and Lighthouses of the Outer Banks (NC). For more information, go to our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures website.

New spring workshop: April in Savannah (GA).

If you wish to get notices when new articles are posted, there are two ways to do it. See both options below, Subscribe to BCPA's Blog and Follow BCPA's Blog. Even if you choose not to do that, please share this with your friends and relatives who love photography.

Travel Portraits, Part II

2008-08-30T16:28:00.020-04:00

I took a week off from travel portraits for an article on Less Is More. Less is more also applies to portraits. After all, one does not want the surroundings to overshadow the subject, but to enhance the person and give him/her a sense of place. We have posted a new video on YouTube called simply, People Portraits. I hope you enjoy it!

Meanwhile, back to some people I have met and photographed along the way and the stories behind the images ...

On my first trip to Australia, I did some photography of wooden boats. Along the way, I ended up in the Adelaide Hills, the most unlikely place to build boats that were destined for the sea. Two hours away from salt water, there was a little lake near the boat yard. After admiring the work of the craftsmen, particularly a beautiful, one-woman, cedar-strip canoe, we all went down to the lake to test out the boats.

The only way for me to get the shot I wanted was from the water, so into the canoe I got. I paddled around a bit to enjoy its handling while my subject rigged the sailboat. This was not so much a portrait of the boat builder, as the boats themselves, the second one being represented by its bow in the foreground, and him as one of the builders.

I loved the way that the wood in "Adelaide Boats" was very orange, the opposite on the color wheel from the blue of the sky and its reflections in the water.

Arnie and I love cars and driving. I am particularly fond of antique cars. Whenever I see one, I make a bee line for it. We were in a little village in Provence during some sort of mid-week festival. Eventually, we discovered that it was a wedding. First, the couple get married in a civil ceremony, complete with champagne toasts afterwards. Then, they head to the church for the religious ceremony.

We got to talking to a handsome, elderly gentleman in his racing suit, cloth helmet, and goggles. The car was splendid, a Ballot, all decked out with flowers. After all, it was the "just-married" car that would take the couple to the reception.

As can happen when car people get together, one talks cars, racing, the history of cars, et cetera. This man had some wonderful experiences to relate, and we naturally wanted to photograph him. His face was so strong, yet kind and mischevious. And as Arnie noted as he was photographing our new friend, he did quite like the ladies. Arnie had a tough time getting him to look at Arnie and not me! But Arnie succeeded, to wit this portrait.

We were having so much fun photographing, and he was having such a good time sharing his love of cars with us, that he lost track of time. It wasn't until the church bells started pealing that he realized he had better scoot down and pick up the newlyweds. We helped him turn around in the tight shady parking area between the trees, and he was off, waving as he disappeared around the corner.

Back in the 50s and 60s, my radio alarm would go off at 6:54 and I would hear WBZ start my day. Carl De Suze, a popular DJ on the station, introduced Don Kent for the BZ Weather Forecast.

"This is WBZ, Radio 103 ... and now, Don Kent and the weather report."

Never formally trained, he always knew he wanted to be a weatherman. He started right out of high school, continued in the service during WWII, and eventually went to work for WBZ, the first commercially licensed radio station in the country.

Don had an uncanny way of predicting the weather and was more accurate than anyone I have heard since. Perhaps it was his gut instinct that helped where maps and reports don't feel the weather. So, when Arnie and I got a phone call to photograph Don Kent, I was really excited. I knew he had moved to New Hampshire some years ago, not too far from where we lived at the time. I had caught his forecasts on radio stations in his area when the static wasn't too bad.

We met him at his lovely old house, got a tour of his beautiful gardens, talked about the old names, including Carl, Dave Maynard, and Joe Green and the BZ Copter. He shared with us some of his history in the weather forecasting field. It was delightful, but we did have a portrait to do.

With his sense of humor, and his uncanny accuracy that flew in the face of many other weathermen, we wanted to do something humorous. What could be better than rain and sun at the same time? It actually echoed the unintentionally humorous forecasts of the first weatherman Don ever heard, E.B. Rideout, who had a fondness for spirits and whose forecasts went something along the lines of, "Well, it should be bright and sunny today ... unless, of course, the wind switches to the southeast, in which case, we may see some clouds. On the other hand..." Basically, E.B. covered all bases every day! Don never had to!

Don good naturedly stood holding an umbrella over his head, while one of us photographed and the other held a hose up high for unexpected rain. When we were all done, we stayed and visited some more. Don loves to talk, and since he is so interesting, it was a treat to listen, see some of his collections, and enjoy a lovely afternoon.

On a trip to Paris, I was wandering around in the Latin Quarter that was teeming with energy, music, smoke-filled bars, and all the ambience of Paris.

I saw a striking man, a real dude, and asked permission to photograph him. He had been standing the doorway to a bar, and while he was elegantly dressed, I had the feeling he was also the bouncer.

The mystery surrounding his shadowed face attracted me, along with the stylish way he handled his body. The white shoes, the white suit, the white hat all added to the mystery. He stood tall. Here was a man with style.

He wanted to strike a pose, but I asked him to remain as he was, one hand up on the door frame, the other in his pocket. The only thing I asked him to do was move his head a little this way or that to maintain the effect that had initially caught my attention. I call this portrait "Paris Dude."

A couple of years ago, we were in France, doing photography in the wine country of Bourgogne. We were told about a charming little stone village and we stopped to explore. It was, indeed, a photographer's delight.

We puttered about, poking our heads into wineries, and found one we really liked. We did the obligatory tasting, and got to chatting with the proprietor, his wife, and their daughter, Stephanie. They were delightful, and we ended up spending the afternoon there. I translated between English and French for them and Arnie.

There was a wonderful old stone sink, lots of antiques, lots of textures. We photographed the family, then papa (whom you'll see in the YouTube video), then Stephanie. She was a lovely young woman with a great sense of humor. While young, she was already in charge of some of the vineyards. And from the quality of the wine we tasted, she was doing an excellent job.

We wanted the portrait to reflect some of the textures that surrounded her and to take advantage of the natural fill light that the front door provided.

We saw Stephanie again this last trip, and the boyfriend she had started to go out with last time was now her husband, a vintner in his own right. They are expecting a child, and when Stephanie saw the prints I had made up for the family, she remarked, "Je suis si grosse!" or "I am so fat!"

I assured her she was as lovely as ever, and that I suspected that her husband didn't think she was fat at all. She smiled, just as she had in this portrait.

As noted above, we have uploaded a video with lots of photographs from Arnie, John, and me to our YouTube site called "People Portraits."

Upcoming workshops: Arches & Moab (UT); New England Fall Foliage (NH & VT); and Lighthouses of the Outer Banks (NC). For more information, go to our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures website.

If you wish to get notices when new articles are posted, go to the fourth bar in the top right part of this page, and click on the appropriate box. Even if you choose not to do that, please share this with your friends and relatives who love photography.

Comments from you are always welcome. Many people write us privately, but it's fun for others to see the comments here. You don’t need to be a Google member to do so. Just click on the “comments” link below and post anonymously.

Less Is More, or KISS

2008-08-19T12:39:00.016-04:00

Yes, I know I had planned on more portraits and their stories this week, but I got waylaid by making a video for YouTube on "Less Is More." I'll do more portraits another week, but meanwhile...

In our workshops, one of the things we stress is keeping the composition simple, whether a landscape, a close-up, or a detail.

I have always said, "Remember what attracted you to the scene and make sure it is your only subject."

Arnie's mantra is, "Simplify and isolate."

John reminds people, "KISS...you know, keep it simple, stupid." (No, no one's stupid here!)

A plein-air painter (one who paints outdoors from the scene in front of him/her) has the option of leaving out unattractive elements or ones that are not positioned in a good place, or even of moving an object to a better location. Sure, with Photoshop, we can do all these things, but I would much rather be outdoors making new photographs than stuck at my computer. What about you?

How do we do this? Simple. We carefully check what is in our viewfinder before we click the shutter. Analyze what you have. Is that element over on the edge really necessary? Isn't it really a second subject? Is there something that is drawing my eye out of the image instead of keeping it within?

Some people cast their eyes about, then click the shutter knowing there is something in there if one crops later. "Just Photoshop it," I hear.

"Arghhh!" I think to myself.

Instead, my response is, "Why would you want to waste all those wonderful, expensive, little pixels you paid for?"

In the photograph "Black Sky" above, the overall scene was a hillside with trees and fence posts painted golden by the low light of the late afternoon. I didn't want the fence posts, and there were too many trees for what I wanted. I kept working the composition until I found this one small patch of trees that set off the Payne's grey of the stormy sky. To me, it was elegantly simple, a case where less was definitely more.

I am pretty brutal about my composing and editing, so I only have a couple of examples of before and after to show you.

The first one was at an estate with wonderful arches, shadows, and shapes, all punctuated with wrought-iron lamps hanging from the arches.

There was a lot going on, and I wasn't pleased with the images I was making. Too busy. Too distracting. No focus. My poor eyes weren't being directed. I walked around for a bit, knowing I loved the lamps. Then it struck me...

Much stronger! I have the arches, shadows, shapes, and dappled light. And, I have one of the wrought-iron lamps setting it all off.

The second example was a scene that caught my eye through an open doorway that I was photographing. I realized that I had two subjects, one the doorway, the other the window beyond.

I know better. That would never do. I found it was the window that I really wanted, so I went inside and got permission to photograph. There was incredible rococo around the window, and the colors of round window itself were beautiful.

Guess what? Still not good. Two subjects — the patterns of the window and the intricate work on the walls surrounding it. Grrr!

Finally, my brain kicked into gear, and this is what I did. Simple. I didn't need the whole window to tell my story. What's more, by homing in on my subject, I could really let the colors and shapes come through.

Sometimes, one can make that elegantly simple shot the first time; sometimes it takes a few tries. When you find yourself in the latter situation, keep the series and look at the progression to see why the first image did not work and why the last one does. Apply that analysis to your next image.

Remember the KISS theory? Again, we aren't stupid, but the KISS theory works! Less is more!

As noted above, we have uploaded a video with lots of photographs from Arnie, John, and me to our YouTube site called "Keep It Simple."

Upcoming workshops: Arches & Moab (UT); New England Fall Foliage (NH & VT); and Lighthouses of the Outer Banks (NC). For more information, go to our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures website.

If you wish to get notices when new articles are posted, go to the fourth bar in the top right part of this page, and click on the appropriate box. Even if you choose not to do that, please share this with your friends and relatives who love photography.

Comments from you are always welcome. Many people write us privately, but it's fun for others to see the comments here. You don’t need to be a Google member to do so. Just click on the “comments” link below and post anonymously.

Travel Portraits, Part I

2008-08-15T11:10:00.020-04:00

For the past couple of weeks, I shared some of my favorite film landscapes and referred to some people I've met along the way. In our workshops, we concentrate on landscapes, but often, our participants photograph people, usually fellow students.

People can be put into a landscape or be a landscape in themselves. Composition is just as important in photographing people as it is any other subject. And anyone who comes to our workshops and wants to photograph people, remember, Arnie started out photographing with LIFE; John does beautiful studio work; and my portraits have been published widely. Now, to some photographs of people and the stories that go with them ...

Many years ago, I was given an assignment to do some travel photography on the coast of New Hampshire. For those who don't know, New Hampshire probably has the shortest coastline in captivity, a mere ten miles total! Like "Blue Railing" from last week's article, I was looking for quintessential material as well as the more common beach scenes, etc. The New Hampshire coast has quite a bit of variety, so I headed to one of the popular beach areas that had a combination of honkey tonk, beautiful curved beaches, and rocks.

When one thinks of any coastline, one thinks of families vacationing, relaxing, and exploring, particularly kids. There were some nice ledges at the water's edge that I figured could make a neutral, graphic background for whatever subjects I found.

Two kids with a lime-green pail were looking for goodies amongst the rocks. Their parents were nearby, so I chatted with them for a bit before telling them why I was there and asking permission to photograph what turned out to be twins, a girl and a boy.

As we were standing there, the children found a treasure and popped it into the bucket. We couldn't see what it was. I hot-footed it over, but they had the bucket opening facing them. I quickly found a pleasing composition with the patterns of the rocks running diagonally behind them, echoing their own positions. I waited, but they still had the bucket facing them.

Inspiration struck.

"What do you have there?"

They tipped the bucket toward me so I could see that it was a crab. They were looking at me, and while I got some great shots of their happy, smiling faces, it wasn't really the shot I wanted.

"Oh," I exclaimed with an intake of breath, "What's it doing?"

They looked down intently, and before they tipped the bucket back towards them, I was able to get this shot. I can't tell you how often it has been published!

Those of you who have been following this blog, know I have a history of traveling. This particular trip saw me heading down through the St. Vincent Grenadines (remember "Still Hulls" from last week?) You also read about Timothy, one of the model boat builders with his sculpted, muscular arms.

Having finished my photographs of the shop and the model boats, I asked Timothy if I might photograph him. He agreed, so I set about finding a suitable backdrop for him. His skin was so dark, and the boat was so white that I needed a place that would set both off.

Right around the shop, there was a lot of dark wood that would engulf and hide Timothy's striking presence. I was getting frustrated until I came around a corner and found a red door against a white, stucco wall. It was perfect. Neither Timothy nor the model boat would get lost. Timothy would stand out against the red and white, and the boat and its mast would look great against the white wall.

Timothy was great, as the position of the boat and mast was critical in the shot. I didn't want the mast vertical, yet I also didn't want it to get lost in the red door. Again, this photograph has been published many times.

I was photographing a spring festival on one of the Massachusetts islands. The daffodils were in bloom and provided a beautiful contrast to the weathered silver of the shingled houses and cottages. As I meandered on roads across the island, I came across a small greenhouse and flower stand. A man in a red plain flannel shirt was tending lush trays of pansies. It was irresistable. I stopped.

My flower vendor was quite shy and could not imagine why I would want to photograph him. He was even a bit embarrassed. I described what I envisioned, and after a big of gentle cajoling, he agreed. I asked him to stand in front of the greenhouse with his hanging pots inside offering a subtle bit of color.

His shy smile was engaging, and when he tipped the tray like this, I got the shot I wanted. Later, I sent him a copy of the photograph. Remember, this was in the days of film, so you didn't get to see what you had done until it came back from the lab. It has been oft published, and I hope he liked it as much as I did.

Last week, you also saw "Fence Laundry" and read the story behind that photograph in which I mentioned Dave. Chief Dave Beautiful Bald Eagle is a leader not only of his people, the Lakota Sioux, but at the time, he was also president of the Plains Indians. His grandfather was the great Chief White Bull of Little Big Horn fame. He worked tirelessly to promote the rights of native peoples and keep the young ones from getting into alcohol and drugs. He has also appeared in numerous films, including Dances with Wolves.

I was on one of my cross-country treks, when I met up with another traveler and his family. We had been taking turns in the lead on one of the northern highways. He had noticed my unusual turqoise jewelry. I had seen his dream catcher. They were headed to South Dakota and invited me to join them.

We arrived at a lodge, and I got to talking with Dave, not knowing anything about his accomplishments and fascinating history. He was a paratrooper and Indian codetalker (they used the various Sioux dialects that the enemy could not understand, let alone decode) during WW II, a professional dancer, a competitor in rodeos, a performer in a wild-west show in Europe, and an actor, all this in addition to what he has done in more recent decades.

Our conversation was animated, and when he said he was going to get up early and go for a walk, I asked him if he would like company or prefer to go alone. He said he would be happy for the company, so at four o'clock, we met and started across the plains. I asked what this or that plant was, and Dave said he wasn't much good at those names, but that his wife Josée, whom he kept saying I needed to meet, would. I remarked with delight on the backlit fox tails, the swaying of the grasses, and the wonderful smell of the fresh-cut hay or wild onions in the grass as we passed through.

"Hmmm," he would respond, sharing in my appreciation. I later found out that in the myriad of accidents he had in the rodeo and wild-west show, he had lost his sense of smell, but he was living it through my descriptions. He was enjoying the early-morning aromas of his people's land as I was.

I am always sensitive to cultures that generally avoid being on the lens side of the camera, so with a bit of respectful caution, I asked Dave if he would mind if I did his portrait. He looked so handsome in his hat and beautifully decorated leather vest. His face was wonderfully weathered and strong.

"Washte," he answered (it is good), "I would like that. Where do you want me?"

Much of Lakota land lies under the watchful of of Bear Butte, sacred not only to the Sioux, but the Northern Cheyenne, as well. The people hold their vision quests there, and to me, it is a magical and wondrous place. Every time I see Bear Butte, I see a sleeping giant, a kind spirit, eyes closed, resting for a bit.

"Let's go over by Bear Butte," I said, "That is, if it is alright to photograph it in the background."

"You are with me; it is fine."

It was the perfect backdrop for Dave in the gorgeous light of early morning. The sun glinted off the leather of his vest, it graced the grasslands behind him, and it gave wonderful definition to his face.

Since that time, I made more photographs of Dave, Josée and him together, their ranch at which I have been their guests, but this has always been my favorite. While I have used it, I have never offered it for sale. It is a personal portrait of a dear friend whom I rarely see. On the occasions we do see each other, we pick up where we left off. In fact, I just got off the phone with Josée, and we giggled and laughed and remembered as we did the last time we chatted some years back. Washte.

Next week, I’ll post a few more portraits and their stories. I still enjoy looking at these photographs and remembering what went into their making.

Upcoming workshops: Arches & Moab (UT); New England Fall Foliage (NH & VT); and Lighthouses of the Outer Banks (NC). For more information, go to our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures website.

If you wish to get notices when new articles are posted, go to the fourth bar in the top right part of this page, and click on the appropriate box. Even if you choose not to do that, please share this with your friends and relatives who love photography.

As always, we always love to get your comments. Many people write us privately, but it's fun for others to see the comments here. You don’t need to be a Google member to do so. Just click on the “comments” link below and post anonymously.

The Rest of the Story, Part II—with Apologies to Paul Harvey

2008-08-10T17:16:00.015-04:00

Last week, I relayed the stories behind some of my favorite photographs with the promise of more to come this week. An assignment in Phoenix (where it was 102-108) delayed this week's post, for which I apologize.

Quite a few years ago, I was photographing through the St. Vincent Grenadines, starting in St. Vincent and ending down in Mayreau (pronounced MY-row). There was so much to put on film, from La Souffriere, the active volcano in St. Vincent to the incredible snorkling off Mayreau. The food was wonderful, the beat of the calypso steel bands intoxicating, and the people charming.

I had stopped in Bequia (pronounced BECK-wee) for a few days. This island is famous not only for its sanctioned whaling, but for its wooden model boats. Sargeant Brothers Model Boat Shop hand crafts beautiful wooden boats that reflect Bequia's seafaring history. They are really greatl and fetch quite a fancy price. Being a fan of all wooden boats, particularly classic ones, I was intrigued. I went to the shop and found one of the model boat builders, a tall man with huge, muscular arms named Timothy, whom you'll meet next week. He said I could look around to my heart's content, and I was in heaven.

The boats were exquisite. The detail, from the oars to the boats' ribs to the coiled lines on the decks to the inlay work was so incredibly fine, that I was in awe. I asked questions, and Timothy showed me the different tools and finished models. When I asked to see some in process, he took me to a shed, where I was greeted by a beautiful still-life. The light was magical, gentle fill light that made the warm wood of the boats pop against the blue wall. Five hulls hung drying from nails driven into a shelf. A number of shells nested on the table below. I only made this one image in the shed. For me, it said it all. "Still Hulls" is its name.

Travels, as some of you have gathered by now, have taken me to many parts of the world. Alaska is certainly a world away from Bequia, and when a photographer friend called to say he needed a woman photographer to work on a job with him, someone who camped, canoed, knew the outdoors, and had her own equipment, I checked my frequent flyer miles, cashed some of them in, and took off. It was my first trip to Alaska, a place I had long wanted to visit.

We flew north of the Arctic Circle to a pristine lake just outside Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve in a deHavilland Beaver. Our pilot was a delightful 'Nam vet who had seen his share of dicey conditions. I felt totally comfortable with his piloting. We found we shared a love of Australia, and I had brought along some of my Bundy OP (Bundaberg Over Proof, a very bracing rum) that I shared as we talked about favorite places in Australia.

For me, it was ironic. Here I was in Alaska, talking about Australia while drinking some of its finest. My dad always said there were two last frontiers in this world — Australia and Alaska. Alas, he never got to see either before he died; so in a way, this was a trip for him, too.

We did tons of photography for the client, often using each other as models so we would not have to bother the regular guests at the wilderness lodge. It was towards the end of our week on this lake, and we needed to still get some hiking shots.

It was late afternoon, and with the steep hillsides dropping into the lake, the sun disappeared quickly. We took turns photographing and when we were done, headed back downhill. This was major bear country, and neither of us had any particular desire to meet Herr Bear in the dark!

We watched our footing in the tundra, making sure we didn't trip over a snag or step into a hole. Suddenly, I stopped and backed up. My peripheral vision had not failed me.

The colors were gorgeous. The curves of the shoreline were perfect. The reflections in the lake were magnificent. There were pinks, corals, lavenders, blues, and golds. I have never seen anything like it. I was able to compose a couple of shots before the ephemeral light faded. "Narvak Reflections" hangs on a number of collectors' walls. I can only help it gives them the same sense of peace and wonder it did me when I first saw it.

Taking another long leap a few years later, I was in Greece, photographing for a tour company. It really was a dream assignment, as I got to travel to a beautiful part of the world with some really interesting people who were the lecturers for the trip. One was a former ambassador to Greece; the other was his wife, the daughter of an earlier ambassador there. We hit it off, and had a great time together when we were not "on call."

After touring through some amazing historical places, including the site of the first Olympics, we went to Mykonos, probably one of the most famous of the Greek islands. Home to old windmills, it is charming and stunning with white buildings cascading down steep hills, blue accents, and gaily-painted boats tied up along the quay. It was a photographer's feast.

Part of my assignment was to come back with some "quintessentially Greek" photographs. I found many along the way, but the one that worked the best for me was this one. I was meandering amongst the back streets above the town, meeting people, and taking in the beauty of it all, when my eyes homed in on this simple scene. This was the ultimate case of "less is more." A blue railing against a white set of stairs. "Blue Railing" draws me back time and time again. To me, it is elegant. It, too, graces many people's houses.

On one of my many cross-country treks in a series of diesel VWs, I met Dave, a Lakota Sioux, a leader not only of his people, but at the time, president of the Plains Indians group. Grandson of a great shaman, I was in awe of him when we first met. You'll meet him next week, too, but that is another story.

A year or so later, I got a call from Dave, saying he was putting together a wagon train, and would I like to come. There were people who were willing to lend me a horse, so all I needed to do was bring my tent, food, etc. That was easy, since my garage at the time was filled largely with my skis and camping equipment, tents of assorted sizes, ThermaRest pads, good sleeping bags for various temperature ranges, cooking kits for different sized groups. Well, you get the picture.

We rode mostly through the Sioux Nation, our horses and wagons lined up in a curving ribbon. We spent a couple of nights on land "owned" by a white rancher. A serious alcoholic, he could still sit a horse like nobody I had ever seen before or have seen since, and I have seen quite a few veteran cowboys over the years. He held a reverence for the land and its Lakota history and told us that he was simply caretaker for it. He never thought of it as his land, only that he was holding it in trust, preserving the fire rings, trails, and remnants of a former Sioux presence. His young teen grandson was his foreman and had the same respect for the land and its history.

I set up my tent with a beautiful view of the rolling, grassy plains. There was a snow fence to protect the barns from the worst of the winter drifts, but I thought it was a perfect place to air and dry some towels. At some point, I went back to my tent to get something, and as I was exiting, this scene greeted me. The snow fence, complete with towels, snaked down the hill in the golden, late afternoon light, disappearing into the shadows below. It was stunning. I just did this one shot, "Fence Laundry."

Next week, I’ll share a few more of my film favorites and the stories that go with them. All of these photographs have been oft published, been juried into shows, hang on the walls of private collectors, and continue to give me pleasure every time I look at them and remember the rest of the story.

Upcoming workshops: Arches & Moab (UT); New England Fall Foliage (NH & VT); and Lighthouses of the Outer Banks (NC). For more information, go to our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures website.

If you wish to get notices when new articles are posted, go to the fourth bar in the top right part of this page, and click on the appropriate box. Please share this with your friends and relatives who love photography.

We always love to get comments. Many people write us privately, but it fun for others to see the comments here. You don’t need to be a Google member to do so. Just click on the “comments” link below.

The Rest of the Story, Part I … with Apologies to Paul Harvey

2008-07-31T12:39:00.014-04:00

I don’t know about you, but I have my favorites. Those photographs that stand the test of time and never bore me. I’ve been photographing since I was eight, and a good portion of that time was shooting film. In the beginning, it was 620 (precursor to 120) black and white; then I graduated to color. When I got my first 35mm camera at age 12, I started using Kodachrome 25. Later, when I turned pro, I moved to Fuji Velvia 50, over-exposing it by a third of a stop to keep it from being too harsh to my eye. I even convinced some National Geographic shooter friends of mine that it was great film. They had been died-in-the-wood, National Geographic Kodachrome 25ers.

Those days are pretty much gone. Most of the great labs in this country have folded or morphed into digital labs. The majority of people have a digital camera. It makes it so much easier to take pictures. But you know me, in our workshops, we keep talking about making photographs, not taking pictures and hoping you come out with something. And making photographs is something I’ve been doing for a long, l-o-n-g time!

All of my favorite photographs have a story, and I thought this week, I’d share a few of my ones from film days, starting with this one. “Misty Islands” is the view from one of my treasured camping spots, itself another island. I am sitting on the rocky ledge on a point. There is plenty of moss, soft ground cover, and well-placed saplings so that I can stake my tent and secure it against a sudden line squall.

I tend to get up early in the morning to enjoy the quiet of the lake. Well, maybe not quite, as I am prone to calling in the loons. Say what you may, but I can do a pretty good loon call. A loon answers my call, and we take turns making that crazy sound as he/she comes ever closer to my part of the island. Although I have photographed many loons over the years, for some reason, I never want to do so after I have called one in. To me, it seems like a betrayal.

My loon is now about 15 feet off the point, and after gliding around for a bit, squeezes in his feathers to remove the air and silently dives down for breakfast. I turn the other way to bask in the early sun and am greeted by this scene of the mists rising. It is magical, and I pick up my camera and find a pleasing overlapping of two islands. I no longer live in New England, so it has been a few years since I camped here. Hopefully, I'll get back there before too long.

“Porch of Lace” was only there in this state for a very brief amount of time. Just a few days. It was part of an old inn that was being refurbished to become what I believe was the second home of PC Connection in Marlow, NH. The stately old New England building had been scraped down to the bare wood. A primer coat had been applied. giving it the textured look you see. I loved the gingerbread on the porch and looked to find my composition. I finally found it in one window that was graced with Victorian lace curtains that echoed the shape of the gingerbread. It took careful composing, as I didn’t want the upper porch elements, nor did I want the paint buckets and drop clothes below. This was my shot. It has been a calendar cover, a greeting card, a photograph in ….

My mother was an artist who worked in oils, watercolors, pen and ink, and even etching. She was a member of some prestigious galleries, including the Copley Society in Boston. She always worked on simplifying her compositions, not recording exactly what she saw, but interpreting it. She and I would go off on scouting jaunts, she for subject matter, I for photographic fodder. We were attracted to the same scenes, so when, as we were chatting, Barney Oldfield, my little VW, suddenly stopped on a narrow dirt road, backed up, and stopped again — all on his own volition you understand — my mother instantly saw what I had seen out of my peripheral vision. “Passing Season” was just that, a moment in time when the colors were rich in the late-afternoon light, soon to morph into the next season, where the branch that had fallen actually added to the scene, where there was a subtle criss-crossing of hill lines. My mother now has dementia, and those days of traveling on back roads with her are gone, but every time I look at this photograph, I think of those wonderful trips, full of laughter and fun. In a sense, this photograph is for her, although she never ended up painting this scene.

In my travels, I have gone to New Orleans, that grand city that has seen devastation and more recently, renewed hope. It has one of the best photographic galleries anywhere, the A Gallery in the French Quarter. Arnie and I have gone in there and been shown the works of Edward Curtis, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Yousuf Karsh (he did a portrait of my Aunt Helen), Berenice Abbott, Margaret Bourke-White, Edward Steichen, and I could go on and on. It is a city that has inspired photographers forever, even during the terrible time after Katrina. I have always loved photographing there and was fortunate to find myself in this city for a national meeting of our photographic association (ASMP).

I always made it a point to get to these meetings a few days early and stay a day or so afterwards. As I rounded a corner, I was struck by this unlikely combination of reds and pinks. While I am not a smoker, it was compelling, and I had to photograph it ... “Marlboro Window.” You may have figured out that I love close-ups of doors, windows, architectural features, etc. This one was made for me and my camera!

Three years later, I returned to The Big Easy, again for a meeting, and took a friend to see “my” window. It wasn’t there, at least in its former splendor. The shop had changed; the displays, while undeniably healthier, were not nearly as photogenic. My brilliant window had turned into a drab, uninteresting scene. The city, however, gave me another surprise. I had seen this door on the previous trip, but it wasn’t the right combination of colors for my eyes. This time, it greeted me with its two black eyes and sad smile. Did “Big Easy Door” know what was to come?

So, the next time you go out and photograph, take your time, turn this way and that. Savor what is around you. See what grabs your attention; then make something of it; don't just record it. Hopefully, your image will tell its own story, but when you have a memory to add to it, it makes it that much better. Even if the viewer doesn't know, the image will convey that there is something more.

Next week, I’ll share a few more of my film favorites and the stories that go with them. All of these photographs have been oft published, been juried into shows, hang on the walls of private collectors, and continue to give me pleasure every time I look at them and remember the rest of the story.

Upcoming workshops: Arches & Moab (UT); New England Fall Foliage (NH & VT); and Lighthouses of the Outer Banks (NC). For more information, go to our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures website.

If you wish to get notices when new articles are posted, go to the fourth bar in the top right part of this page, and click on the appropriate box. Please share this with your friends and relatives who love photography.

We always love to get comments. Many people write us privately, but it fun for others to see the comments here. You don’t need to be a Google member to do so. Just click on the “comments” link below.

Creative Juices — The Color Yellow

2008-07-26T13:38:00.018-04:00

I have written about getting together with friends and like-minded photography souls either in a group or in a photo workshop, to pick up some inspiration and get feedback on your work. It’s also a great way to jump-start your creative juices.

In our area, there is a group of us, a sub group of our professional association, that gets together every three or four months to share the results of a photographic project we’ve chosen at the previous gathering. We had brainstormed, and I came up with the idea of having a color as the topic. We chose yellow, and over the next few months, I found myself looking not only for yellow subjects, but different ways of using the yellow.

We met at the studio of one of our group. Everyone brought something, and as we sipped and munched away, there was a lot of kidding, as one person admitted to not doing the assignment, thinking he couldn’t make it to the gathering. “Oh, &#@*,” he said that morning, “I can now go and I don’t have anything.” He found a lone yellow flower that he “planted” in a large green field. One very small, yellow flower in one very large, green field.

Another of the group didn't have anything either, but he thought of sunflowers and remembered a field near his house that had some. He drove up and down the road, and couldn’t find them. He was sure it was on that road, and he drove by again. Finally, something caught his eye. The missing sunflowers were, indeed, there, just residing on the other side of the road!

Our host decided to treat yellow another way. Instead of recording yellow, he picked three undeniably yellow objects: a lemon, a banana, and a summer squash and processed them in black and white with just a mere hint of yellow. A woman in the group had some yellow flowers that she shot in a dreamy style and put into a triptych. Another of our group did a shot of a little boy looking cross-eyed at a (dead) yellow butterfly on his nose.

Someone did a strong, graphic shot of the yellow lines on a road with some white paint dribbled here and there, as well as the bottom left portion of a yellow road sign with a yellow sports car that fortuitously streaked by in the distance.

I did a number of shots, all but one of them created during our spring and summer workshops.

The first workshop in the mountains of western Virginia gave us lots of subject matter with spring greens, gentle misty backgrounds, and of course, gorgeous cascades, but they aren’t yellow, so I couldn’t use them for this exercise! I did find an old tree one late afternoon in the misty distance with a yellow cast to it. Yellow flowers were more obvious, so I stayed away from them, working instead with students to help them see flowers in a different way.

Maine produced quite a bit of yellow. In our final scouting before the workshop, I found some lichen making a wonderful pattern across a dark rock. There were, of course, the yellow lobster pots, so the trick there was to present them in a way I had not seen before.

As I was reviewing some of my favorite vantage points at a lighthouse I know well, I was struck by a tidal pool nestled amongst the rocks, the slight ripples in the water highlighting the yellow.

There was the forsythia against a white fence, but I didn’t manage to isolate it to my satisfaction. I did, however, find another lobster pot, an old one with the paint peeling off. While it was not yellow per se, it was the yellow in it that set off the orange. If it had just been the orange against the Styrofoam, I don’t think it would have been nearly as interesting.

Back home, our gardens were in their spring prime. One of the lilies beckoned to me, and I isolated it against the background.

We returned to Maine for a private workshop with a family. Among other things, we had been showing them how to protect their equipment, many of the suggestions, photo hints that have appeared in this blog over the past months. I was working with the wife/mother when it started to rain. Her bag was at the other end of the pier, so I pulled one of those micro-fibre cloths out of my bag and laid it across the top of her camera. It didn’t impede her view, and it worked perfectly! As I was watching her compose her photograph, I realized I had another yellow shot.

In France, there seemed to be green, green, green … lush green vineyards! There were also the incredible roses, but they were various shades of pink and red. It’s not that there weren’t many other colors, too, but yellow was not part of the palette. Think of Monet. How much yellow do you see in many of his paintings?

We were driving along a back road before the start of our workshop, and stopped to photograph the workers in the field. No, no yellow there, just white lorries and people dressed in denim, white, and the occasional red. Then, a little camion pulled up and parked right by me. Beyond it were the vineyards, giving it a sense of place. Very French!

Towards the end of the workshop, we took our group to a lovely cheateau, previously described in an earlier blog. While we loved photographing the water lilies, I found a lone yellow lily pad nestled against two green friends.

As those of you know who follow this blog, we headed to Paris for a few days before heading home. At the market in Montparnasse, there were lots of bananas, but they defied being arranged as people picked among them to take home the best specimens. There were the gorgeous arrays of flowers, mostly pinks and lavenders and reds, until I found a display of Begonias and decided to use the yellow to lead the eye into the quintessential French “price tag.”

There was the yellow table cloth on the river boat (too far and not an interesting shot for the color yellow), the yellow striped musician’s shirt (too boring), the dog’s yellow collar (off and running), etc.

On our night shot from Pont des Arts, however, I was attracted to the warm, yellow light of the bridges. You may have seen the shot last week, and now you know partly why I made it!

It was a fun exercise. It’s one that in one form or another we have given some of our students over the years. For me, that’s one of the joys of teaching…helping students find their own creativity and different way of seeing.

Upcoming workshops: Arches & Moab (UT); New England Fall Foliage (NH & VT); and Lighthouses of the Outer Banks (NC). For more information, go to our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures website.

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