Right In Your Own Backyard

Well, almost. A few days ago I set a task for myself in response to a blog by Bret Edge. Bumper sticker version: There are a lot of photographers out there that travel to exotic locations but a lot of us don't spend enough time photographinng close to home. I'm a prime example since only 2 of the last 10 shooting trips I've taken have been to locations in Colorado. So I decided to do something about it.

The Assignment: Within 10 days of the original blog I was tasked to create a blog postable image within 20 minutes of my home. It's been kind of cold and we got about 4 inches of snow overnight so with the assignment gnawing at my brain I grabbed the G10 and my new little tripod and headed out to run some errands and maybe locate a photo or two.

Now understand, I've been thinking this over for a few days...the location that is. My first thought was Castlewood Canyon for sunrise and, in fact, I woke up this morning about 5am and looked outside to see if there was going to be any semblance of color in the sunrise. What I saw was hopeless. Snow falling so thick I couldn't see the detail of the streetlight a few houses down the street. Back to bed for me.

I thought about taking a hike up Cherry Creek which runs about 200 yards behind my house and provides me with some nice views in the spring and summer when the cottonwoods are leafed out. But a quick hike upstream and downstream from the Cottonwood Drive bridge was a little disheartening. Lots of interesting compositions but the sky had cleared and presented me with a cloudless blue sky, the bane of a landscape photographer's existence.

Back to the car and more thoughts: Finally, Eureka! I've got it! Check out the old standby where I used to go to shoot senior portraits, bridal portraits, family portraits and even some landscape details. Let's just hope the waterfall isn't completely iced up. Got there in 5 minutes, hooked the G10 up to the ballhead, headed down the hill and was rewarded with the sight of water flowing around the boulders in the creek. Turned on the camera and got the error message that none of us ever wants to see: "No Memory Card." No problem, right? Wrong. The memory card I usually keep in the camera is sitting on my desk where I left it after downloading the Bosque images to the hard drive. No problem, there are more cards and they should be in the camera bag, right? Wrong.....I usually carry the G10 in my backpack with the DSLR and that's where the *(_*&&^ memory cards are. Back in the car, blaze home (thank goodness it's only 10 minutes and not some distant locale) grab the memory card wallet and blaze back to the location. Fortunately the light was still good and I was able to create the first image you see above. Now I can finish my errands so it's off to Wal Mart to buy dog food.

On the way I was driving past one of the parks where my son played baseball when he was 9 or 10 and happened to glance down the gulch that runs around the park and saw the snow covered rocks. Two decent images inn 20 minutes in completely different locations. I guess I don't need to travel too awfully far to find some things to photograph. No vacation time? No problem. Cloudless sky? No problem.

And the moral of the story? Well, I'll still keep traveling to build my stock files. In fact, I'm headed to Phoenix in 5 or 6 weeks to visit my daughter and will spend a few hours photographing in Lost Dutchman State Park. And in April I may be heading back to New Mexico to photograph Bisti Badlands with a fellow photographer. But ultimately, if I'm out of vacation days or just want to get out, there's a lot of subject matter....Right In My Own Backyard.

What's it Gonna Be?

The challenge has been issued, the guantlet thrown down, and I've accepted the assignment. Earlier today I responded to Bret Edge's post about Wanderlust. You can read it for yourself at http://bretedge.wordpress.com/ . I posted that only about 20% of the images in my photo files are from my home state of Colorado and Bret issued an assignment for me to create some images from Colorado before the end of February. Well me being me, I accepted the challenge but altered the terms: Sometime in the next 10 days I'm tasked to create a marketable image within 20 minutes drive time of my house. To quote the immortal Foghorn Leghorn.."Nice boy but he ain't too smart." But accept the assignment I did so now all I have to do is decide where to go with my trusty cameras.

Hmmm....within 20 minutes of home.....I wonder. Will it be Castlewood Canyon? I've seen some nice images from there recently and I drive past it every day on my way to work. How bout the wildlife 10 minutes away in Ponderosa Hills subdivision. I once counted 10 fox dens in a 5 square block area. Maybe a hike up the frozen creek 2oo yards from the house. I know the dogs like going there. Or maybe the 100 or so Canada Geese that overnight in the park behind the house. Who knows? I guess you'll just have to keep checking the blog to find out.

Do as I say, not as I do!

I must have heard that saying 10,000 times when I was a kid. It was very popular with my parents. Sadly, I guess I didn't learn a lot about that.

Later in life when I first began teaching Basic Photography I was relentless on my students when it came to composition. "Everyone in the world sees things horizontally at eye level. Get higher or lower...turn your camera vertical...BE CREATIVE!" Sounds simple right? Flash forward 25 years to the present. I was fortunate enough to win a fantastic door prize at the annual RMNP shindig. Denver Digital Imaging is going to print one of my images 24X36 for free and have it mounted on Dura Plaq also for free. I started thinking immediately what image will I choose and where will I put it in the house?

After an evening of looking around the house for an empty space and consulting with my interior decorator (my wife) I decided that the 2 prints hanging in the 32 inch wide cubbyhole over the fireplace have faded so badly after 22 years that they need to be replaced. There's a perfect location for a vertical image. Now the search begins for an image and that's when I came upon a disturbing trend. All of my images that I really LOVE and would like to have printed large are.....eye level horizontal! What the.......

Don't get me wrong, I love all my images and there are plenty of verticals to choose from but under careful scrutiny each of them is flawed somehow. A lot of them were shot with "average" lenses and while they work well as smaller prints they would never hold up to 24X36. I've got a file drawer full of 4X5 transparancies that would be wonderful but I don't currently have megabucks to get them properly scanned. So that takes care of plan A. No vertical image that I LOVE that will hold up to large printing.

So here I am, back to evaluating locations for a nice 24X36 HORIZONTAL print. I found a logical spot and now all that remains is to choose an image. AAarrrrrrrggggghhhhh! Ever wonder what it's like to spend 4 hours going through digital files looking at images? Who's got the migraine meds? But I managed to narrow the choices down to 6. Then to 3. Then to 2. And I finally made my decision, burned the image to cd, and headed for the lab. Care to guess which image I chose from the two above? I'll let you know in a couple weeks when I get the print back.

And by the way, I made a label to stick on the ballhead on my tripod that says, simply....DFV.

DON'T FORGET VERTICAL!

Your Favorite Place

Make no mistake about it: I love hanging out with photographers and talking about photography. There are always comments and questions. "Where have you shot recently?" "Where did you shoot that image?" "What lenses do you carry in your kit?" Stuff like that. Pretty innocuous for the most part right? But without fail there is always one question that starts the hamsters jogging on the wheels in my mind.

Last night I attended the Annual Shindig of Rocky Mountain Nature Photographers and had a great time. Good food, good beer (thanks Aleks) good conversation, and great photography speak. I saw some folks I hadn't seen since I left the photography biz 10 years ago and plunged into Corporate America, and connected with some new friends that I'd previously only known from reading their posts on the RMNP forum. I can definitely say that all were had by a good time.

But there I was, having a conversation with Richie V's lovely wife Veronica. We were talking about how we'd met in 2007 at Morraine Lake in Banff, Alberta, Canada. Small world, eh, when 3 people that live about 5 miles apart in Colorado have to get together in the mountains of Canada? We talked about trips I'd taken recently and trips Richie and Veronica had been on and she asked THE QUESTION!

"What's your favorite place to shoot?"

Wow....talk about thought provoking. Of course I came back with a smartass reply of "the next place I visit" but it did start me thinking about some of the places I've been fortunate enough to see with my cameras recently. Let's see....I could probably list 50 spots that I love to photograph but that would take all day and you'd all get bored before the end of the blog. But I could probably list the 4 top candidates for my favorite places to shoot.

The Pacific Northwest: I've been to the Northwest and Canada quite a few times recently. The Skagit Valley Tulip Festival in April has drawn me back repeatedly for the abundance of colorful photos and I've had some great photo days on Vancouver Island and on the BC mainland. I still need to photograph the Palouse region of Washington and the rain forest on the Olympic Penninsula. And I've never spent any time shooting on the Pacific coast of Washington and Oregon so the future trip possibilities are numerous. Yep, this is definitely a favorite.

New Mexico: Since Heather started going to school at ENMU in Roswell I've had the chance to photograph at White Sands, Taos, Santa Fe, and most recently, Bosque Del Apache. I'm in the planning stages of a trip to Bisti Badlands with Richie V in April and there are many more photos to be had at the places mentioned earlier. Another favorite.

Yellowstone: I love watching wildlife and Yellowstone is the American Serengeti. Undoubtedly the best place I've ever seen to view wildlife up to and including grizzly bears and wolves. There are also some wonderful memories there since it was the first National Park I visited with my parents back in the mid 60's. I made a shooting trip to Yellowstone in 2007 and came back with some great images but there are still many more to be had. I'm planning a pre-graduation trip there with Heather in May. She's been asking me to take her there and this seems to be an appropriate time. No way Yellowstone and Grand Teton aren't on my list of favorites.

Moab and Southeast Utah. I was there last in September 2009 for an 8 day shooting trip and it only served to reinforce how much I love photographing this part of the country. I could make 100 trips to this region and still not get all the images I'd like. Undoubtedly a favorite.

That's 4 and there are so many more. Grand Canyon, Lake Powell, anywhere in Colorado, and I'm even considering traveling to the Ozarks this fall for changing leaves. Where does it stop? More importantly, how do I choose just one? It's impossible!

So I guess my answer to Veronica wasn't so flip and smartass after all. My favorite place to shoot just may be the next place I visit. How bout you?

When Life gives you Lemons......

There's a phrase my old photo instructor used for photographs like this. He called them Happy Accidents. It's what happens when you totally blow a shot and the result is so bad it's good..or at least interesting.

So there I was at Bosque Del Apache for the first time. I rolled into Socorro, New Mexico around 3:30 pm on Sunday, dropped my wife off at the hotel, and headed south to scout the refuge and find my sunset shot and a location for sunrise on Monday. Photographically it was a great afternoon. I made some great images of the Sandhill Cranes in a couple of different locations and checked out the Flight Deck where I would be Monday morning to photograph the Blast Off of geese. All set, I got back to the hotel around 6:30 and we found a great place for supper where we had the best meal of this trip. There's more to that but it's another blog topic for another time. Back to the shoot.

Monday morning I pulled into the refuge about 6:15am which I felt would give me time to set up and capture the "magic light" that starts about 30 minutes before the sun breaks the horizon and catch the blast off at sunrise. My plan was to catch the fly out of the geese then hop in the car and head over to the crane pools for the crane fly out. (I'd been told they like to sleep in a bit more than the geese) I was in position to shoot, just waiting for the sun when the *)^%*) geese decided to ruin things by blasting off early. They left at least 20 minutes before I planned on shooting! Inconsiderate creatures!

So, Bill, how did you handle the situation? No sweat. I had my camera set up and pointed in the right direction so I hit the "on" switch and fired off a 10 shot burst. I knew it was too dark for anything to be even remotely in focus but I fired the shutter anyway. And what you see above is the result. Kinda quirky, kinda abstract. I like it. But there's no doubt it was the epitome of a Happy Accident.

Lets try this again

Last night I dashed off a blog entry after viewing a photo that had been converted to Black and White by an acquaintance of mine. I didn't give it a lot of thought and upon re-reading it today it seemed a little scattered and pointless. But it started my brain to working and took me down Memory Lane for a little while but mostly I started remembering the process of morphing from a guy with a camera to a photographer. And it was Black and White that did it.

I first got the urge to become a photographer when I saw a reproduction of Edward Weston's famous shot of a pepper. It was in an art book for a course my wife was taking at Denver University. The image had a quality that was like a painting. The tonal range was amazing and the composition was almost too simple to be true. But it was a striking image and pretty much changed the course of my life. Not long after that I bought my first "serious" camera and started shooting film but at that point I was just a snapshooter. You know the type....15 shots of everything in case someone or something in the scene breathed and slightly changed position. But when Judy finished school we packed up and headed west to the Glen Fishback School of Photography in Sacramento and from the first day Black and White photography took over my life.

I was taught the nuances of exposing and processing film to obtain the ultimate in quality negatives. We were taught how to distinguish a fine Black and White print from a photograph with no color. Kurt Fishback taught us how to see the world in Black and White. We started looking past colors and seeing patterns and textures, shapes and shadows. And then came the day...we made our first prints. Dropped the paper in a tray of Dektol and were amazed when the image magically appeared. To this day the rush is still the same when I upload images from a camera memory card to my computer and pop one open in Photoshop or Lightroom. It's like digital opium .

Eventually, through my own work and from jobs in photo labs in Denver, I became a darn good printer. In fact, I became one of the best printers I know but it took several years and 10,000 or 20,000 prints to get there. Now I'm in the same position with digital photography and digital printing. There's a pretty steep learning curve and at times I struggle which brings us to the point of this blog.

The generation of young photographers out there who have basically learned their craft digitally over the past few years is populated by some amazingly talented and creative folks. I'm constantly in awe of some of the images they create and that feeling keeps me going, striving to master the digital process. Seminars, books, dvd's, you name it, I've used it to advance my ability. And I feel a kinship now with the young guys who've learned to shoot in color and are now learning Black and White. The Nik SilverEffex software for converting images to black and white is fantastic. The range of controls they offer boggles the mind. But I can see a difference in images that are converted by old B&W warhorses like me and the newer generation and here's why.

The image at the top of this blog is one I converted from color to B&W using the Nik software. It's part of a series I shot in northern New Mexico which was inspired by a portfolio of images shot by another photographer friend of mine and printed in, you guessed it, Black and White. But here's the deal: I didn't look at the color images and say "Hey, I think that would be a nice B&W print." I searched out and shot the images in this series with the express intent of converting them to Black and White. I looked at the scenes and shot them in a manner that would best lend itself to B&W reproduction. I saw the images in Black and White before I came close to pressing the shutter button. I saw the textures and the shapes. I saw the relationships between shadows and highlights.

So all of you incredibly talented shooters out there who are starting to convert some images to Black and White, take a tip from an old D-76 sniffer: Approach the image from a backwards perspective. You can go through your files looking for images that "might look good in B&W" but it's worth a try to say to yourself "if I shoot this, how can I best portray it in Black and White." I think you may be surprised by the results.

Out with the 'Oughts

I guess it's appropriate to begin with this photo. This is the January photo from the 2010 Arizona Weather Calendar and guess what???? It's my image! My first highlight of 2010.

But its a new decade now...2009 is behind us and 2010 has dawned clear, bright, and cold. November and December were colder than average and so far January is looking to be colder than the average. Good thing we got this global warming thing going on otherwise it would be REALLY cold. Anyway, it's time to reflect on 2009 and look forward to 2010 so here goes.

2009 was a year of peaks and valleys for me and mine. I suppose every year could be viewed like that but it seemed more radical in '09. (read that as ought 9) The year started out with one of the most devastating valleys ever. My son, Chris, at age 22 was diagnosed with testicular cancer. And the kicker is that he was diagnosed by mistake. His regular chiropractor was out of the office and when the associate saw Chris he quickly determined that the issues weren't structural. He packed Chris off to the hospital and 8 hours later he had been selected, inspected, detected and had 1 less onion. The chemo he went through was not too terrible when referenced with some I've heard of but it wasn't a day at the beach for my boy. But he came through it successfully. Major valley but we are crawling up the other side towards the peak.

June was a good month. I was located and tracked down by a childhood friend that I hadn't seen or heard from in over 40 years and coerced into attending my 40th High School Reunion. And it was fantastic! I have been avoiding these things for a long long time thinking I didn't have a lot in common with these people when I knew them, what could we possibly have in common now? I've been kicking myself ever since for not doing this sooner.

Photographically speaking it was also peaks and valleys. I had a marvelous trip to Washington in April to photograph the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival.....again, and came away with a nice collection of images. On the valley side, my annual trip to Crested Butte in July to photograph wildflowers was not quite a bust but was significantly less successful than previous trips. I took the Murano on a road I shouldn't have and ripped one of the skid plates off the chassis. Next year..oops, this year, I'll have a truck to drive so off roading won't be so traumatic. More on that later.

September was an interesting month. Instead of heading to the Colorado mountains to photograph changing Aspen trees, I opted to head out to Southeast Utah since I haven't been there for a few years. I arranged to meet up with a couple of photo buddies and we had a grand time. I came home with a great collection of images and saw some things I hadn't seen before. Now the truck story:

I'm a truck guy...I freely admit it. And I've been going through truck withdrawal since wrecking my Ram 1500 nearly 4 years ago. The Murano has been a good vehicle and if I still had the truck I wouldn't have been able to continue to commute to Colorado Springs for work when gas was up around $4 a gallon. But the Murano isn't a truck. I've been teasing Judy for a while now, saying I was going to buy an old fixer upper truck to "haul stuff" with. Joking, but at least halfway seriously. Well, in late August, she said that Chris's Subaru was having engine issues and wasn't driveable so maybe it would be a good idea to buy a truck and let Chris drive it while he was getting the Subaru fixed. Of course I was cool and calm while the little man in my head was doing cartwheels and screaming at the top of his lungs. I sold some company stock to raise some money and started looking but didn't find one before my trip to Utah. I left, telling Judy and Chris to keep looking and call me if they found a truck. Sure enough, about 3 days into an 8 day trip I got a call...I'm now the proud owner of a 1989 Toyota 4X4 pickup. Peak, right? Hmmm....as we speak the truck is in the shop getting a new clutch and probably having some work done on the front suspension. My bargain truck just got about $1000 more expensive. Oh well....it's a truck and it's mine! Now all I need to do is figure out how to get Chris to fix the Subaru so I can have my truck.

In November I was able to use the last of my vacation days to visit Erin and her family in Phoenix. What a wonderful trip and dang, that grandaughter is amazing. Smart and beautiful...a great trip.

In December, Chris had to make a choice: His blood markers and subsequent exams showed that his cancer was maybe gone away but there were still some questions about some stuff in his abdomen. He had to decide if he was going to have surgery to find out what the spots were or if he would wait until February, have another CT scan and then maybe still have surgery. He had lost his job earlier and decided it might be good to have the surgery now and not have to explain to a new employer how he needed some time off in February so the surgery was done. 5 hours on the table....then 2 mights in the hospital before going home. The surgeon said the "lumps" were just scar tissue from the cancer and he was 99% certain they weren't cancerous so we all celebrated that.

December 23 I got an e-mail from Judy saying Chris was in the ER and would probably be admitted to the hospital. My worst fears weren't realized...the cancer wasn't back. But he had several blood clots including a big one in his leg that the doctors were concerned about. They kept him there overnight and he was able to cut a deal with the doctor to be released and we had a small family Christmas Eve at home which was what he wanted. He seems to be doing well now and the great news was he has been declared cancer free! Whoooooo Hoooooo...now just get rid of the clots and find a job.

So that's 2009. Peaks and valleys. But what of 2010? Well, I'm glad you asked because there may be some big doings afoot. Let's see.....

I'm starting with a photo trip to Bosque Del Apache which is one of the best spots in America to photograph migratory birds on their winter grounds. We'll drop Heather off at school in Roswell on Jan 16 then head over to the Bosque the next day for a couple short days of shooting before heading home.

Heather has been bugging me for years and I think this year is the year I'm taking her to Yellowstone, probably the week before Memorial Day. She's out of school for a break at that time and I was previously very successful photographically at that time a couple of years ago so we'll probably do that. Maybe Chris can come along too. That would be a grand trip.

What comes after that? Nobody knows but I'm sure it will be exciting. So strap in, the Oughts are out and it's a new decade. Let's have some adventure!