Photo by Jeff Ross
“When I am camera in hand, visiting beautiful places, photographing beautiful things, telling beautiful stories, I am filled with gratitude, joy, happiness, faith, compassion, love, purpose, optimism, empathy, and awe.”
Read the rest of this inspirational post at the link below:
The Reason I Still Love Photography by Scott Bourne
Mike Langford and Jackie Ranken, two professional photographers from New Zealand, share the reasons why they are so passionate about photography and why they find it so rewarding.
Mike Langford + Jackie Ranken from Untitled Film Works on Vimeo.
Below is the synopsis from the Vimeo page:
A look into the world and minds of award-winning photographers – Mike Langford and Jackie Ranken.
Shot in 4K amongst the breath-taking landscapes of the South Island of New Zealand.
Mike Langford: “I believe landscape photography is about a sense of place”
Mike’s passion is travel & landscape photography and travel book publishing with over 26 books to his name. “I believe landscape photography is about a sense of place, not just about what it looks like, but more about what it feels like.”
Jackie Ranken: “The on-going pursuit in finding new ways of seeing and exploring the landscape. My expertise as a landscape photographer began in 2001 with a series of images called “Arial Abstracts’. Black and white images made while upside down in a loop from my father’s antique bi-plane.”
I found the video below be very inspirational. Alison Wright is a photojournalist who, as she says, has made a career of running toward places most other people are running from.
If you like photojournalism or photography of people, I think you will find these stories and images fascinating; as I did. If You are a spiritual person, I think you will find the underlying theme of some of Ms. Wright’s work captivating.
Even if you decide this isn’t for you and you don’t want to watch any of this. may I suggest that you watch at least 90 seconds of the video starting at the 7:30 mark and ending at 9:00. While I am a skeptical person by nature, these types of experiences force me to keep my mind open even if it is just slightly ajar.
Published on May 27, 2013
After confronting her own mortality in a near-fatal bus crash, photographer Alison Wright dedicates her career to capturing the human spirit through her photographs and writing.
High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography often divides the photography community. A number of people dislike it and some do so passionately. Others love it and use it to its extreme and do so passionately. Then there are the moderates, like me, who use it in a realistic fashion to bring out the shadow details and to tone down the highlights.
Perhaps the greatest proponent of HDR photography and some might say the “founding father” of the technique, is Trey Ratcliff. I have been following Trey’s blog for years and I admire much of his work.
If you are interested in photography in general and HDR photography in particular, I know this TEDX talk by Trey Ratcliff will be of interest. He has a powerful, unique and often poignant story to tell. ALSO…watch the background as he uses many of his HDR photos to keep the audience’s attention.
From the YouTube Video Narrative…
“Many people may have artistic heroes. Trey, as a master of imagery is the creator of so many visuals that burn into our mind and particularly arrest our own notion of what is real. Trey meanders with us through important moments in his life, beginning with some difficulty and then realising in hindsight that sometimes you must ‘stumbl(e) into your own greatness’.”
In early May my wife and I visited Las Cruces, New Mexico to hike in the surrounding mountains. One area of focus was the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument which received this new federal designation about one year ago.
This (pictured above) was one of the first views after leaving the visitor center. Las Cruces is to the left of the picture from this vantage point. We had no idea how well we would come to know these particular hills over the next several days.
As we made our way toward the springs, wooden buildings that were erected in the late 1800s became visible. The fact that anything remains of them today considering weather, potential vandalism and the ravages of nature is remarkable enough.
I couldn’t help myself in rendering this section of fence in what I hope is an appropriate black and white setting to pay homage to the past.
The structures were part of Van Patten’s Mountain Camp which included a historic hotel. These wooden buildings served as the stables, chicken coop, etc. for the resort. The hotel operated until the 1920’s. This area is now under the care of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The buildings have been stabilized, but remain fragile on site exploration by the public is not permitted.
The Mountain Camp hotel was a two-story, 14-room facility with dining and recreation facilities. The rock was harvested from the canyon and used to build the hotel. The resort was popular enough that in 1906, 18 more rooms were added.
This is a view from the porch of what was most likely the main building.
This is a closer view of the stabilized, but still precarious rock and mud walls of the hotel.
The resort was sold in 1915 to Dr. Nathan Boyd, a native of Illinois, who used it as a tuberculosis sanatorium. The property underwent a series of sales subsequently and in 1988 came under the jurisdiction of the BLM.
ABOVE – Looking through the frame of what once was a window, we can see how time and nature are reclaiming the land as grass and weeds are now growing in a former interior space.
These relics of the past stand as sentinels of yesteryear while they sadly greet modern hikers and nature lovers.
Below is a picture of the “dripping spring” which was running this day and threw off a fine mist as we approached the man-made rock wall which I suspect served as a type of dam.
As we retraced our steps down the mountain trail towards the visitor center, we passed the stables again and I was drawn to this old fence post with rusted, yet quite functional bolts. If only it could talk!
We were treated to this vista of Las Cruces from near the junction of the Dripping Springs trail and the connecting path to Fillmore Canyon.
More of the New Mexico adventure will follow…
Readers of my blog may have noticed that I enjoy the outdoors, hiking, birding, etc. My wife and I were recently hiking in the recently created Organ Mountain-Desert Peaks National Monument in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
There were many excellent sightings that I hope to write about in the future, but for now I want to tell you about my very first attempt at creating a Panorama using Lightroom 6.
I have only been using LR for less than a year and I have been making progress in learning about the various tools. When LR 6 arrived with “built-in” panorama creation tools, I couldn’t wait to try it.
The Organ Mountains are very large and cannot be captured easily in one shot so I decided to create a Panorama.
I took the following seven pictures with hopes of being able to “stitch” them together using LR.
I wasn’t sure exactly how to accomplish this task so I searched online and found Julieanne Kost’s blog post about it. She is an excellent and gifted instructor. I have used several of her videos before. If you are interested, you can watch her video below:
I heard that when doing a panorama, one should have about a 30% overlap and although I wasn’t too exact about this, I took a guestimation as I captured the various pictures while moving my camera as level as I could across the distant view.
Here is the final result via a thumbnail-ish rendering.
You can see a large-sized image here at the link below:
Organ Mountains, Las Cruces, NM
The image needs a bit more editing, perhaps reducing the “noise” in the sky, etc., but I am pleased with my first attempt. Are you encouraged to try creating a panorama?
The video below is for a new television series, Tales by Light, which is intended to showcase photography and videography.
Below is the first paragraph from an article on PetaPixel describing this series:
“Want an incredible dose of photographic inspiration? Check out this newly-released 2-minute trailer for the new TV series Tales by Light, a new TV series that follows 5 top photographers as they take their cameras to the ends of the Earth — photographers who have an unquenchable desire to capture and share the wonders of this world with the rest of us.”
Read more about the series at the PetaPixel website – click here
Tales by Light Official Trailer HD from Untitled Film Works on Vimeo.
Can Photoshop be used as an overall Artshop?
Did you ever think that you could use Photoshop as an artist’s drawing program? And the good news is, you don’t have to start from scratch! This is an interesting video demonstrating how Bert Monroy uses Photoshop and Google Maps to create drawings of urban scenes. Could this open your mind to more creative ventures?
A few good photography quotes can be seen at link below. This is the one I liked best. To see the others, visit the linked site.
Photography, as a powerful medium…offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution.” – Ansel Adams