Paper Testing and June Wallpaper

When I bought my new printer late last year one of the things I intended to do early on was to try out a number of papers and eventually settle on one or two that I really liked and learn how to make the best possible prints from those papers. I spent the last several months working with some Lexjet paper I got "free" with my printer along with several papers I had laying around the house. My "go-to" paper has been Crane's MuseoMAX paper. I originally discovered MuseoMAX paper from print guru Gary Kerr at Fine Art Impressions, who used it on a couple of custom prints he made for me. It's a very nice paper, with a smooth matte surface that holds sharpness and color like a glossy paper. The best of both worlds in many ways.

Over this past winter I took a fine art printing class from Les Saucier, who had recently begun using Hahnemuhle's Fine Art Baryta paper. In his class I made a print of my own using this paper, which I found to be very nice. I had also read about a new paper from Canson called Canson Infinity Baryta Photographique that was said to be very nice. A few articles placed it higher than the Hahnemuhle in terms of print quality. So I ordered some 8.5x11 sheets of the Hahnemuhle and the Canson and proceeded to make test prints on all the paper in my storage cabinet. I must say that - despite my relatively basic knowledge of the art of printing - the Canson paper blows me away. Amazing shadow detail, all the way to the deepest blacks, excellent color and sharpness, and a nice white surface that really makes for a fine print.

I'm still going to use the MuseoMAX as well, as I like the matte surface and warm tone of that paper for certain photographs, but the the Canson is my new favorite. I just ordered a bunch of it from Shades of Paper and can't wait to start making prints with it. Great stuff! Once I've had some time with it I'll start thinking about custom profiles.

It's a day early, but here is the June wallpaper calendar for those of you who collect it. The Place to Be in June is Roan Mountain, and this is an image from last year's visit there. A beautiful blue sky and lovely rhododendron make a great representation of June in the Southeast. Enjoy!

Looking at Good Prints

This afternoon Kathy & I visited The Light Factory in Charlotte to view their current exhibition entitled Group f64 and the Modernist Vision, which includes original prints from Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Willard Van Dyke, Brett Weston and Ansel Adams. I've seen some of these prints before, but never tire of seeing them again and again. One of the things that The Light Factory is doing with this exhibit is offering personalized tours of the exhibit with Chief Curator Dennis Kiel. I organized a group tour with Dennis and offered it up to our nature photography group, figuring that an opportunity to learn something about the history of photography - particularly of this era of photography that has been so influential - with someone so knowledgeable as Dennis Kiel would be an opportunity no one would want to miss. Suffice it to say that I grossly overestimated the level of interest. After some cajoling and persuasion I did manage to attract 9 people, including myself, and I think those who attended are nearly as serious about their photography as I am and enjoyed the tour very much.

I'm continually amazed that for all people like to talk about their photography, and how serious people say they are about photography, that there is a general lack of interest in seeing work that is so important to the history of photography. This may sound silly to some, but just standing in front of some of this work brought tears to my eyes, it is so beautiful. No matter how many reproductions you have seen and how good they might have been, there is no substitute to seeing work of the masters in person. And to have the tour narrated by an expert in the field really appealed to me. Most of the others in our group seemed to think so as well, although after an hour and a half most people had reached the limits of their ADD. I could have stayed another couple of hours!

As I have written here previously I am currently on a personal mission to learn more and more about the history of photography, and am simultaneously trying to develop my printing skills. I have a long way to go on both, but seeing work like this is so inspirational and motivating that I want to do more and more. I'll never be an Edward Weston or Ansel Adams, but learning what really good prints look like and experiencing them firsthand gives me a much stronger foundation upon which to base my own work. All of a sudden I see things in my own prints that I want to go back and re-do. It certainly gives me something more to work with on future work. I can't get enough of this stuff!

Lightroom Workshop This Saturday - October 3, 2009

I am teaching a Lightroom workshop this coming Saturday, October 3 at the Charlotte REI store. The class will begin at noon and end approximately 4:30PM. I will be covering all aspects of Lightroom, from basics to more advance topics.

See the attached flyer for details.

Why People Photograph II

I just finished reading issue #83 of Lenswork, which is a tribute to Bill Jay who passed away earlier this year. The issue is a compilation of Jay's End Notes column which has been one of my favorite reasons to subscribe to the magazine. I admit to being one of those folks who would read End Notes first.

Needless to say, a magazine devoted solely to writings of Bill Jay has a number of gems, but this one made me stop and re-read a number of times, as it echoes my own thoughts on why I love to do what I do:

There are some things you know but you don’t know that you know them – and then you do.

An earnest psychologist friend, for years puzzled by my devotion to photography, recently asked, “Why do you photograph?” The question held no trace of disapproval; it was a sincere desire to understand my motive for what to him seemed like an inconsequential act. I prattled on for some time, increasingly self-aware that my words were empty, not untruthful, merely similarly inconsequential. I felt uneasy.

Then I went out photographing. At the first sight of a potential picture my spirits lifted and I knew what I should/could have said if he had been with me:

“Look,” I would say, “This is life. It is everywhere, and it is here for the taking. I am alive and I know this, now, in a more profound way than when I am doing anything else. These sights are ephemeral, fleeting treasures that have been offered to me and to me alone. No other person in the history of the world, anywhere in all of time and space, has been granted this gift to be here and in my place. And I am privileged, through the camera, to take this moment away with me. That is why I photograph.”

Bill Jay
1940-2009

The photo is a recent gift I found on the Torrence Creek Greenway, about 1/4 mile from my house.

Slideshow Test

Please bear with me while I test out a site called Issuu that will allow me to embed presentations on my blog. This is only a test....

Open publication - Free publishing - More photograph

Priorities

In my last post I mentioned how much progress I have been making on a lot of my goals, so I thought I might elaborate a bit on what those goals are and what has been keeping me busy. I still won't be able to get into the details in this post, but I'll lay things out in a little more detail here and try to outline some of the specific activities in future posts.

Being a glass-half-full kind of guy, I have been trying to use my time to my best advantage, and have developed what I call a three-pronged approach. I have every hope of jumping back into a banking job soon, so I have made a list of things that I want to accomplish so if I end up with only a few more weeks off I can feel like the time was well spent. Understandably a lot of my activities have been centered on photography, since that is my passion, but also being a realist I know that there are other things to take care of as well. My activities have centered around the main topics of (1) finding a new job, (2) catching up on and furthering my photography and (3) taking care of me.

As far as finding a new job, I have set up a list of contacts and have been working them regularly. I set up a system of checking websites and applying for jobs I find there, and I have been working any contacts of contacts I come across. Once my severance runs out I'll have to jump on the Unemployment bandwagon, and there will be a certain amount of work associated with that. Like everything I do, I go 100% on the job search stuff in the time I have allotted for it. I have a system and a routine and I do it. Nothing scientific, but in this economy there isn't a lot of point trying to spend more than a few hours a week trying to find banking jobs, because there aren't a lot of new ones being posted and there are more productive things to do than check the same websites 5 times a day. Chances are whatever job I land won't come from surfing websites anyway, so while it's something you "have to do" the contacts are the most likely source of success.

I've had photography goals for a long time, and have developed a pretty elaborate system for laying them out and keeping track of my progress. When I was working a Day Job I really had to be careful to not try and accomplish too many things, because it is tough to do as a part-time venture. Despite the fact that I was putting a lot of time into it I was often frustrated by all the things I wanted to do that I didn't have time to do while working a full time job. The main thing holding me back has been that there is barely enough time for taking and processing photos, let alone all the business things that you really need to do in order to have a successful photography business. What has amazed me over the last several weeks is how little time I have actually spent taking and processing photos! I've been networking, I put together a submission for a juried art show, I'm working on another submission for another art show, I've submitted a number of images to various magazines (many of them successful!) and have for the first time registered my images with the Copyright Office. I'm writing an article/tutorial on how to use Lightroom to prepare images for copyright registration, I have a couple of critique/review sessions coming up with pro photographers, and I'm in the process of developing a marketing and business plan for a photography business in the event that the banking thing doesn't work out. I'm working with our local REI store on doing a paid workshop on Lightroom & Digital Workflow, am leading an outing for our local CNPA chapter for this fall and I am looking to expand my marketing of my stock portfolio and magazine submissions. I want to work on my writing and am hoping to take some writing classes at the local community college. Oh yeah, I also need to take and process more images and write more on my blog!

The "taking care of me" part is not just me personally, but taking over some of the things at home so Kathy doesn't feel like I am just sitting at home "playing photographer." I have been walking every day - 45 minutes or 1.5/2 miles, working on getting some long-overdue maintenance projects done around the house, running errands, making phone calls and generally taking a lot of the burden off of Kathy since she is gone all day. It's hard on her and I have been trying to ease the load as much as I can. The nice thing is that since I don't have to spend all evening working on my photo stuff, I can be with her and we can do things that are relaxing instead of trying to play catch up.

In a nutshell, that's where I am and what I have been doing. I've got a lot on the calendar for this week and am hoping for some more progress. As I process more images I'll have some fresh ones to post, but in the mean time I'll keep digging into the archives!

Another Quote

I guess I'm into quotes lately. Maybe it's because of all this time I have for deep thinking. Yikes.

Don McGowan is a nature photographer, best known for his work in the Smokies. He's also one of my 'heros.' He's a deep-thinking, passionately creative photographer. Don publishes a sometimes-monthly newsletter called "A Song For The Asking," and in his February 2009 newsletter spends a lot of time discussing principals from Eric Maisel's Coaching the Artist Within. There are 12 skills in all, and I think I just need to get the book and read it, but it is in Don's discussion of the second skill which he refers to as "passionately making meaning" that hit me like another brick between the eyes:

"“Regardless of whether or not the universe is meaningful, of whether my odds of succeeding are long or short, of everything at both the existential level and at the practical level, I am going to intentionally make meaning.” What this amounts to is saying to yourself that you’re not going to wait on the universe to announce to you what you should do; you are going to decide, based on your own best understanding of truth and reality, how you will matter."

Hmmm?

Wow

Jay Maisel is the guest blogger on Scott Kelby's blog today. A portion that I find especially compelling is here:

When we shoot we should savor what goes on in front of us, allow things to develop, anticipate things, not be in such a hurry to move on to see how much more we can see quickly and superficially. It’s all there, if we take our time and look, things have a way of happening in front of you. Standing still is also a good way of covering things; just let the world come to you. To paraphrase an old cliché – Don’t do something, just stand there. Be patient.

Read the whole thing here....

Lessons I Didn’t Learn In Photo School

Syl Arena was recently the guest poster on Scott Kelby's blog and wrote an amazing article that everyone who pretends or intends to be a photographer needs to read. He promises that this is the first of a series to appear on his own blog every Wednesday. If they are as compelling as the first dozen it will be a real treat. If I were to choose just one to quote here I would (and did) pick this one:

7. Learning to create photographs that “look” like your world should be only a milestone – not the destination.
Embrace the fact that cameras see differently than humans. Accept that, even today, state-of-the-art tools and technology fall short of reproducing the entire gamut of human vision. The reality is that photography cannot perfectly record or portray the world as we experience it. Yet, this is typically the goal of most neophyte photographers. They measure the “goodness” of their photos by how closely the images match what the shooter experienced. If this is you, with time and practice, you’ll come to understand that your photos will seldom (if ever) match your reality. When that awareness comes, celebrate! You’ve finally reached the true starting line on your journey as a photographer. What lies ahead is the exploration of how you can create photographs that express rather than represent.

Read It!

Clarification

Since I don't know who-all reads my blog I don't know who-all read my previous post and wondered what the who-all I was talking about. Most followers know that my day job is with a large financial institution in town. Most people also know that this is not the best of times to be working for a financial institution. Well, this past Friday I got to experience first-hand the way that financial institutions "build shareholder value" by reducing the quantity of what in better times is often referred to as "our greatest resource." Boogers said "sayonara," gave me a little severance package and a pat on the head and said "thanks."

Now the good news is that, within 30 minutes of getting my notice I had applied for a position doing almost exactly the same thing for the same customers in the same market segment but with a different product serviced by an area where they are hiring. Gotta love big business - why they can't say "we gotta give somebody up, you need somebody, let's make a deal" is beyond me but that's bidness. Found out today that I've been selected for the interview process, which means they think I'm worth talking to. Best part is that I already know the people I'll be interviewing with and they know me, they're great folks that I'd love to work for, and even if I have to take a cut in pay it's still better than zero. So hopefully things will work out, maybe I end up with a little paid vacation, conveniently the week of the CNPA Annual Meeting here in Charlotte, which I was already planning to be off for. Whatever happens, we'll be fine.

Update 3/5/09: I didn't get the job. But we're still going to be OK. Maybe better than OK!

The photo is something else I borrowed from William Neill. The artsy term is "Triptych" and I think that's pretty nice so that's what I call mine. Collection of three (hence the name) images from our recent adventure to Hilton Head.

A Productive Year

Considering that I started out the year planning to take it easy on picture taking in order to get something done other than add to my ever-increasing backlog of image processing, I still managed to burn almost 10,000 images this year! For people who spend a lot more time pressing the button than I do that's a busy week, but for me that's a BUNCH!

For the last couple of years I have been keeping a list of goals that I wanted to accomplish. My goals for 2008 set a pretty high bar for someone who does this part-time and for fun while trying to have a somewhat normal life and pay sufficient attention to my lovely companion, assistant and steadying influence (that would be Kathy). Despite all the distractions of Real Life I managed to get some things done:

(1) I created and distributed to potential clients a list of my existing stock inventory.
(2) I started and regularly updated my photo blog,
(3) I totally revamped my website and kept it updated with my best and most recent work. MAJOR BIGGIE and thanks Neon Sky!
(4) I finally put together a group of my Greenway images for a public show. Yeah, it was just a show at a local art-in-the-park show but it was a START.
(5) I prepared and presented a talk on Digital Workflow with Lightroom to our local CNPA chapter.
(6) I had two images published in one new publication (Blue Ridge Country)

The two unfinished biggies from 2008 that I had just moved to the top of the list for 2009 were (1) to finally get around to sending some of my images into a local stock agency and to (2) develop a process for registering my copyrights. Welllll, just this weekend and just under the wire, I started working on that stock agency project. I now have on my desk a stack of 10 DVDs, containing about 2600 of my images from 2004 to today. They'll go to the agency on Monday, and that will cross one more thing off my list for 2008. I now have a process in place using Smart Collections in Lightroom to automatically put new images into a folder for future submissions.

According to my calculations I've processed about 1000 of those 10000 images and have another 1500 or so "picks" to process or toss, so I still have my work cut out for me. But there's still a lot of winter to go!

Two Years?

This must be the time of year I think about starting something new, like this blog (what time of year do I actually get to finish something?). It's been almost two years to the day since I created this thing, and here I am. What happened to last year? Who knows?

Anyway, I finally finished processing my images from last fall. It was a bunch - thank goodness for Lightroom! My next big hurdle is updating my website since my "New Work" section has images from our Kentucky trip in September 2006. Yikies! More to come on that, but my goal is to have it done by the end of March, so we'll see how industrious I am.