Pacific City

I hate to do it to the locals, but the world must know: Pacific City, Oregon is incredible. The beach is simply a wonderful place with incredible surf (point break characteristics?), and the most splendid tide pools on the planet, plus luscious dunes and caves and enormous rocks. 

I spent an afternoon there last week, and I can't wait to go back. I got to go make pictures for a wonderful family from Idaho, and everywhere I turned there was a great image waiting.

Highly recommended and totally worth whatever drive it takes to get you there.

Nikon D800, 105mm f/2.8 Macro VR lens, f/4, 1/1600s, ISO 100. Pacific City, Oregon's beach is stunning, and Lake Oswego is just a two hour drive away.

*Sigh*

It's just what I needed. A relief. A pleasure, really. I got to photograph F. and her new little L., today. She's just a month old, but look at all that hair. Thanks a bunch for a fun time making pictures, F.

Nikon D800, 105mm f/2.8 VR Macro lens, f/8, 1/200s, ISO 100.

Technical stuff. We made this picture on the side while making portraits for the Portland Urgent Care clinic where F. works. Effectively, that means I had the lights setup in a specific manner that helps ensure the portraits are all similar, which means I couldn't easily move it to make a piece of art for mother and daughter. 

I had a black backdrop, a small octabox up front, and a barebulb strobe with a reflector in the back. Without changing my light settings, I brought F. a little closer to the octa to wrap her and baby in a softer light (the closer, the softer). We made several frames here, but this was my favorite, shot with me on a chair so I could see from a little above.

"Just Got Home From Illinois..."

The Chicago Skyline from nearby Navy Pier. I love Nightscapes like this.

I've been waiting four years to title a post for this song...

See, I spent last week in Chicago, Illinois, at Skip Cohen University's Sumer Session where I studied with the best photographers in the world to better my craft and make new connections for my business. It was a lot of work, a lot of late nights, a lot new information, and lot of fun. Stick with me a minute, and I'll lead you through some of my favorite pictures I made during the week.

Started it all with a venture downtown with my pals Sherry and Mark. Starting with a deep dish pizza at Gino's East, we spent the whole night shooting downtown. As we were shooting nightscapes, we met a man who's a broker for an international realty firm...and he asked to see our pictures! Needless to say, running into him shaped our evening's pictures and we started focussing more on the buildings in the neighborhood. That image at the top is a panorama I made from the pier looking back at town.

That was late night number one, but the walking and the shooting and the Pizza made it all worthwhile.

Next day we headed downtown again, this time with more people and we planned to wrap it all up by shooting the fireworks over Navy Pier in the evening. We started on the Mag Mile, a huge shopping district. Obviously, we didn't really make it into any of the stores...not with half naked skateboarders walking the streets and enormous panhandlers who wouldn't take 'No' for an answer.

Seriously, I saw some interesting light falling in the reflections from a sky scraper and asked the guy with the board if I could make a quick portrait, and he obliged. Next thing I know, this dude is telling me he can take off his shirt and run down the street and make an awesome picture...and it'll only cost me three bucks! Unfortunately, I didn't have any cash, but he said that's ok, other people will see how awesome it is and want to take his picture too, so my picture would just be the seed for a little street performance boom. Well, unfortunately, I didn't have the right lens for that kind of work. That's ok, says he, I'll just do some pull ups right here, then...and then Sherry walked up and said, "Let's do it! Let's see what you got!" So, there's me, the Reluctant Photographer, and Sherry shooting this dude in the alley. It was fun, to say the least.

What started that whole little exchange was the light I saw on this flower...

Which I thought would look great on a person. So I turned to Bob Coates, who I found to be a fine photo walking companion and incredible instructor at SCU, and asked if I could make a quick picture. See, I tested the settings on Bob before the skateboarder with the hairdo walked by.

We continued down the Mile, found a real Chicago style hotdog, and this guy waiting for custom at the pub next door. When I talked with him about a picture, he gave me the thousand yard stare that all professional tourist handlers have learned to adopt.

Fortunately, this officer hadn't quite perfected the stare, but was obliging anyway as we listed to this other fellow perform on the corner. The Police are important on the street corners of the Mag Mile: people are so often stunned by the sites that they forget to pay attention to traffic.

\

Also, Carlos Danger was walking with me, but he couldn't seem to hold still for a portrait. After hotdogs we headed back over to the waterfront to make our way toward the fireworks, and of course we stopped at Millennium Park to photograph the Bean. It's quite a thing.

I taught a class on Lightroom myself the next day, and we had another wonderful pizza at Giordano's. Monday kicked off with our class time with the incredible instructors. I chose to learn with Suzette Allen, and she opened my eyes to lots of new tools I'll be using to make my pictures and video really sing. In fact, we photographed a family of singers in her class.

We all spent Monday evening at the hotel, but that doesn't mean we didn't stay up late! We had a great time making friends and making plans. My Tuesday class was with Ryan Schembri, Australia's photographer of the year, and a hugely decorated artist, and I had a wonderful time and learned some things that I have never seen before, and that's not common. I should explain, also, that at this conference I got to choose two instructors to spend the entire day with, and there were fewer than 20 people in each class. That's unheard of! These are people who usually speak to groups numbering in the thousands, and I'm on a first name basis with them now. Skip Cohen has really put together a wonderful program, and it's truly the best education on the planet in the Universe! 

NO photoshop work here--isn't that amazing?!?! I learned so many new things.

I can't wait for the next program. It's going to be amazing, and I'll be sure to let you know about it here. Finally, here's a little time lapse video I made at the Bean...

Ephraim Canyon

Nikon D800, 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII lens @78mm, f/9, 1/320s, ISO 400, Nik Silver Efex Pro2.

I'm here in Ephraim, Utah shooting for Utah State University. I do love to make a couple of 'extra' pictures when I get finished making portraits of students, grads, and deans. I think...yes, I'm pretty certain: I love my job.

Boys

NIkon D800, 105mm f/2.8 VR Micro Lens, f/4, 1/125, ISO 200. I love shooting on Collage Campuses, and am looking forward to exploring those in Lake Oswego.

I love photographing families. Look at these boys, and you know how that shoot went: lots of energy, lots of fun, and lots of running around and climbing in trees and hills. Really had a good time. I think even mom and dad had fun. 

I'm available to make pictures for your family, too!

Nikon D800, 105mm f/2.8 VR Micro Lens, f/8, 1/80s, ISO 400. These were the kind of kids who laugh when they're photographer is inflicting little bits of pain on himself...slapstick kinda stuff kept them laughing.

Nikon D800, 105mm f/2.8 VR Micro Lens, f/8, 1/125, ISO 400. Naturally, they behaved for mom...

Nikon D800, 105mm f/2.8 VR Micro Lens, f/8, 1/125s, ISO 400. But these laughs only came when the boys picked on dad a little bit. 

Greener Grass

You know that the grass is always greener on the other of the fence, right? "If only I could go to Yellowstone, then I could make some great pictures! Or the Grand Canyon! Oh, and Europe would really free me to create..."

Well, those places are wonderful, and I could doubtless find some wonderful (if commonplace) pictures. But I find that when I get out locally and really try to find inspiration on my side of the fence, those are the times that I find pictures that are not so commonplace and much more valuable to me. 

For this picture my family and a friend headed to the beach to beat the heat in Lake Oswego...little did we know that there was no heat at the coast. The air was 60, and the water was 50 (my elbows were numb, but I gotta take advantage!) and there was mist and clouds and beach fires adding a little something more to the atmosphere. All day long I couldn't take my eyes off of this tree at Indian Beach in Ecola State Park (which is one of the most beautiful places in the USA). It seemed like one standing on it's own and not suffering for it.

Nikon D7100, 50mm f/1.4 lens, f/8, 1/250s, ISO 400, Nik Silver Efex Pro 2. From Lake Oswego, it's only an hour or so to Ecola State Park.

Now for the geek speak.

This image is a much wider field of view than you could possibly get in a single frame with a DSLR and a 50mm lens, and that's on purpose. I know that my 50mm is wide enough to get everything in, but it's the perfect lens for landscape work because it's clear and sharp and has no distortion. In order to maximize these things, I shot this as a panorama-like image.

First, I found an exposure that let me have a little detail in the clouds and nice enough detail in the dark areas, too, and set those settings in manual mode. I chose f/8 for an aperture because I wanted to make sure that I had all the important things in focus, and f/8 on 50mm focussed that far away lets practically the whole world fall within the depth of field. So I focussed on the top of the tree (with the clouds as a backdrop I was sure it was focussed on the main tree and not something else) and switched to manual focus so it wouldn't change. Ideally, I'd have the camera on a tripod, but I was going light and fast and handheld, so I used a higher ISO to allow a fast shutter speed to freeze my shake.

I then turned the camera vertical and shot three frames along the bottom of the scene, overlapping 25%, then shot three more in a row for the middle, overlapping 25%, and one more row on top. In Lightroom I made adjustments to white balance and contrast to the center image, as well as color toning, then applied those same settings to all the other images in the grid (one click with the sync button). Then I selected all the images, and chose to merge them to a panorama in Photoshop. I made sure to click the vignette control option and pressed go. A few minutes later, after PS worked its magic, I had the composite. I hit save and cropped it in Lightroom, then opened it in Nik Silver Efex for the black and white conversion. Back in Lightroom I used my special Grape Dreamcicle toning for the slight bit of color you see. (let me know and I'll share the recipe). 

Today I just got a Gigapan Epic Pro, and it makes this sort of picture automatically and I can't wait to try it!

I sure enjoyed making it. It came out just as I envisioned while being pounded by the frigid surf.

Support Your Library

I love public buildings. Good architecture is hard to come by these days, but libraries often get a good dose of it, and the USU library is no exception. It's built with great light in mind, and I used to love going there with my clients to make use of it. For this image I took my class of Summer Citizens (visiting from Arizona and Texas) to the library to work with our wonderful model, A. Sunlight coming directly through a high window was shining on the white wall of the art exhibit in the atrium, and the reflection back onto A. was simply perfect. It's got a great direction, and since there's no light shining on the ground behind, she stands out against the simple background. Her simple black dress was just right for a black and white image. 

So, get out there, explore your public buildings and look for great light. It's time to put your tax dollars to work!

Nikon D800, 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 VR lens @135mm, f/5.6, 1/320s, ISO 800.

Doodling

Do you ever wake up at night with a dream of something you can do, something you can make? I do pretty frequently, especially when I'm getting ready for something or studying a new technique. Well this picture is part of a study to create the drawing I made below. If things go well, I may be able to make this one happen this week...

Nikon D800, 50mm f/1.4 lens, f/4, 1/30s, ISO 500.

I know you're going to ask (everyone does): Yes, I drew it. I did it on my iPad with Wacom's Paper App and Wacom's incredible stylus. It's a free app, it's incredibly good, and you can get it by clicking on this link. Hey, it helps keep me awake in Church; there are studies, you know, that doodlers pay better attention than apparently attentive individuals. I'm just sayin'. I used another page to do several sketches of the dancer to get the perspective just so. It's really a cool tool. 

MBA

K. is from Taiwan. In fact she's from a city I used to live in! She recently graduated from USU with an MBA, and she'll be returning to Taiwan to help run her father's factory. She's a pretty cool gal, and I was glad to make pictures with her. We used USU as our backdrop, since that's where she's spent the last several years. A favorite is that one with the lawn--see, they don't have big fields of soft green grass in Taiwan.

Nikon D800, 105mm f/2.8 Micro VR lens, f/4, 1/320s, ISO 400.

Nikon D800, 105mm f/2.8 Micro VR lens, f/4, 1/25s, ISO 1600.

Nikon D800, 105mm f/2.8 Micro VR lens, f/2.8, 1/4000, ISO 400.

Nikon D800, 105mm f/2.8 Micro VR lens, f/2.8, 1/200s, ISO 400.

Paradise

You know what Paradise is?

Well, for starters, it's a little town in the south end of Cache Valley where the mountains converge, and the hills roll on forever. It's very small, with barns and horses and stables and mountains and rivers and fowls and fine people. There's a picture to be made everywhere you look, and that's paradise, too.

But really, paradise is friends. It's Neil dropping you a line when he hears you're in town and inviting you to go shooting. It's driving and talking and debating where to shoot and wishing for better light and hoping the sun will come through the gap above the hills and razzing Mel for not making it and being happy just to get out and expose too many frames of trees in poor light. 

You should go; I highly recommend it.

Nikon D800, 14-24mm f/2.8 lens @19mm, f/8, 9 frame HDR, ISO 100, Nik HDR Efex Pro 2 & Silver Efex Pro 2.

Mother's Day II

Nikon D7000, 28-300 f/3.5-5.6 VR lens @ 68mm, f/9, 1/200s, ISO 100.

Mother's Day

Where would you be without your mom to laugh with you?

Nikon D800, 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII lens @150mm, f/3.2, 1/200s, ISO 100.

Nikon D800, 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII lens @150mm, f/3.2, 1/200s, ISO 100.