Photography~ From Pure Black and White to Fanciful to Simple and Textured its all good!

Black Friday....and I am working on file management! And if I keep finding files I have processed and decide to make a blog out of them I will never get it done! But I wanted to share a few shots from my November beach workshop and some thoughts on imagery. The opening image was shot late in the afternoon when the shadows are long and the sand glistens. There are so many options for  processing images it is almost mind boggling. I thought this simple scene would make an image that was perfect for a monochrome conversion. The scene lacked color, and a strong focal subject of interest but it had lots of great lines and contrast in textures and light. I left the shadows in at the top of the image because I liked them, I was torn on that decision, crop or not crop and could have easily cropped them off...but I chose to  leave them there....any thoughts??? The image was converted to black and white in Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 and Adobe CC.
The image below I used perspective crop and  straightened out the fence line where it meets the frame edge as well as cropping off the shadows at the top of the image. While I like the clarity of the image the first one I like better...although I can't exactly say why except I think the cropped version feels very  static to me.

In the spirit of play I always think about using the "swipeing" technique when I have a subject that lends itself. In the image above, the backlit beach fences were perfect as the light really defined their form. I pushed the colors in Adobe Camera Raw and added a little more motion using a  wave filter in Photoshop, then it made me smile!

......And when the light is sweet but the sky is bald think perfect for textures! Here I added two texture layers from FlyPaper Textures in Photoshop and added the sun with the desktop App LensFlare for Mac to make a more interesting image. Your comments and thoughts are always welcome and appreciated.
Oh and if you like Flypaper Textures when visiting their site, you can use the code KarenM at check out for a little discount on your texture purchases. OK back to file management!!

Longer... Ocean Exposures...

f-22 13 sec ISO 100 70-200 mm lens at 70mm

On my last full day by the ocean I spent the late afternoon playing with my Heliopan neutral density filter...trying to slow down what was a very gentle ocean to a dreamy wash of sea, shore and color. As the day faded into evening the eastern sky changed to a beautiful soft pastel color palette.

f-22 10 sec ISO 100 70-200mm lens at 70mm

I loved the way the water rolled over the sand bar that had formed by the surf line as the reflection of light from the sky added color when the surf drew back into the sea.

I really enjoyed using this filter and playing by the sea with my camera for one last time this year.
Next year I am offering a photography tour in the beautiful Palouse Region of Washington State.
If you might be interested Click on the link here for more information and registration.

Wishing everyone a very happy 

Thanksgiving and a Wonderful Holiday Season!

I am thankful for your past patronage!

Ocean Impressions~ Play is good!

When the sky is bald the surf is slow....its time to get creative! Usually the beach, at the change of seasons, delivers great skies and interesting surf but this past weekend was different. We had a big high pressure system sitting overhead and a westerly breeze. The sun rose bright on the horizon with only a few little clouds that looked like dust spots instead of clouds....but at least we were by the ocean and with our cameras!
After the sun rose in the early morning light, we were making images of the gentle surf and shells. Then the sea captured one of the shells. I had my high waders on but I could not see where it was swept away. Thinking it was gone forever, we continued shooting the waves and the other shell.
In the spirit of play, I decided to do something a little different. We have all done swipes, and we have all done in camera multiple exposures, (those that have that in camera feature) but how about a swiping multiple exposure?? So here they are! Fun, I enjoyed seeing the result with multiple horizon lines, which added a subtle graphic element, the stacked up surf when there was very little and a wash of colors in the palette that is the beach.
Standing in the surf with my camera hand held I set my aperture to f-22,  a shutter speed of 1/10 sec at ISO 50 on the D4. I set the multiple exposure menu to series so I could just keep making swipes instead of going into the menu after each image. I love that feature on my Nikon. Later that morning after begging for the sea to please return my shell, it was in deed tossed back on the shore about 20 feet away and I saw it roll in. I quickly ran and retrieved it from the shore! By 8:00 we were all hungry and we headed on to breakfast! It was a fun morning helping workshop participants make camera settings, understand their histograms and capture images by the sea.

Fall Impressions.......Swipes

Yesterday I taught two field workshops for my Johns Hopkins classes, one in the morning for DSLR shooters and one in the afternoon for iPhone shooters. Both sessions had talented beginning photographers. I am going to miss teaching next fall at Johns Hopkins as I am finally taking that long promised trip to New England in fall. All my years of working in retail management never allowed me to enjoy an extended vacation in fall in New England as, I was always tied to the "Store!"
When September came, even days off became hard to come by.  It's hard to believe but I have been doing the Hopkins gig now for 5 years...and the years are passing quickly, so with Hopkins blessings and a promise to return to teaching in spring 2015, I am taking next fall 2014 off for a few weeks of travel and personal shooting.
These are a few "swipes" I made yesterday while showing students how to use their cameras in this manner. They felt it was freeing and playful and so do I and play is good very good when it comes to photography! One could make swipes all day long with great subject matter that lends itself to swipes. The canopy of fall leaves was so thick that we could look up into the tree and swipe.

The shot below is one I  made while teaching students how to meter for back lit subjects...the campus is so pretty in fall and yesterday was a beautiful fall day! I will be teaching a day long High Dynamic Range Photography workshop in Frederick, Maryland for Capital Photography Center on November 16. Join me there for a day of shooting and processing......Click here for more info.
I will also be presenting Monday evening November 4 at the Digital Photography Club in Annapolis, if you are near by stop in! Click here for more information.