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Archive for February, 2007

May the sea act swiftly…

Friday, February 23rd, 2007

“How sharper than a sermon’s truth it must have been for many human beings when they learned that bottle-nosed Dolphins may, in time, succeed battle-poised Man as the master species on earth. This prophecy is implicit in the findings of those scientists who have been studying, and interviewing, dolphins in laboratories. It neither alarms nor surprises me that Nature, whose patience with our self-destructive species is giving out, may have decided to make us, if not extinct, at least a secondary power among the mammals of this improbable planet.. As far back as 1933 I observed a school of dolphins (their schools increase as ours decline) romping, as we carelessly call it, alongside a cruise ship in the South Atlantic, and something told me that here was a creature, all gaiety, charm, and intelligence, that might one day come out of the boundless deep and show us how a world can be run by creatures dedicated not to the destruction of their species but to its preservation.” – James Thurber, 1961

I am so upset right now I don’t even know if I should be posting this. But I came across a video today that is extremely upsetting. It is footage of a dolphin slaughter in Japan. It is highly graphic, and saddening to no end. My only hope by sharing it with as many thousands of people that visit this blog is that it will enrage you as well and send a clear message.

Again, this is VERY upsetting footage, but please share it with as many people as you know.

Dolphin slaughter in Japan

Petition against it

And one of the organizations I have supported for years that actively fights this kind of madness..Sea Shepherd

p.s. (This has actually been going on for many, many years now – but I only recently came across this disturbing video)

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Posted in environment, oceans, wildlife | 14 Comments »

1980 Canyon in 110 format

Wednesday, February 21st, 2007

1980canyon.jpgI have heard a couple of interviews lately where the photographers were asked what was their first experience with photography, and a couple of them referred to cameras they played with as kids. It is probably a sign of those in my generation that many of us ended up with a 110 film format camera at some point. These were the long, rectangular – somewhat flat cameras where loading film was a press of a button and snapping in this little 110 film cartridge. Other older generations may refer to perhaps a Brownie as their first camera. All of these were pretty cheap – usually bought at a drugstore for about $20.00. It prompted me to do a little digging in my closet for something similar to share.

This particular image I happen to have in a photo album – it was from a family vacation ‘out west’ in 1980. I was twelve, and armed with one of these 110 cameras. Little did I realize how pictures would become such a large part of my life decades later, or the multitudes of equipment I would eventually come to acquire. It does make me wonder – was the seed planted way back then? I can’t say I had any real ambitions of being a photographer when I was 12 – it was just something that interested me – and certainly a way to capture moments of a family of 4 plus a dog packed into a Volkwagen Rabbit driving to California from Michigan. I find it interesting in this photo album I have kept all these years that hardly a single image in it is in focus! :) With a fixed focus camera like most of those little 110’s were – I must have had pretty shaky hands. But check out that classic ‘S’ curve in the composition – ha! I supopse some Photoshop work could be done on it to clean it up, restore some color, maybe even get some sharpness in it – but for many reasons – I think that would ruin it’s character.

Although I doubt I will be blowing this shot up to 36×36 to hang on my wall, it does perhaps hold more history and memories, and maybe even hidden inspiration when compared to those that already are there. And that makes me think about that perhaps it is not our technically best images that mean the most to us, but those with a connection to a particular place and time.

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Posted in landscape, nature photography | 4 Comments »

Seeing the light with Lightroom

Tuesday, February 20th, 2007

Adobe LightroomAt last, Adobe has released Lightroom this week. If you haven’t heard about this program yet, it is time to pay a little attention as it could change a lot of ways you work with your image collection. Adobe has done something a bit different in the development of this software, in that it has gone through a multitude of public beta versions before this production release at version 1.0. And with a public beta, you get a lot of enthusiastic feedback from A LOT of photographers. And it is particularly nice that this program was developed specifically for the needs of photographers, with key inputs from a lot of leaders in the digital imaging fields.

For me, I believe Lightroom is going to streamline my workflow quite a bit from downloading images from memory cards, sorting and editing, keywording, processing RAW images, and ultimately getting them to their final versions. Right now I use Nikon Transfer to download images from my flash cards, I then rough edit in Adobe Bridge, add keywords in Adobe Bridge, and then do image adjustments in Adobe Camera Raw and ultimately then in Photoshop. My images are organized in folders and sub-folders by subject matter, but I have had an increasing need to have them cross-referenced, keep track of which I have granted licensing rights to, print sales, and so forth. This requires use of a database and digital asset management (DAM). I originally tried IMatch, and found it to be a pretty good program, very powerful, but a bit cumbersome on the interface and very slow to import images. Then I tried IView MediaPro (3.1.2). A very nice program, considered by many to be the standard to beat for DAM. But, unfortunately, IVMP does not play nice with Network drives – and all my images are stored on a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device. It basically brings the program to a severe crawl unless you employ some cumbersome workarounds. I also didn’t like how you could not group similar keywords together – they are all alphabetical. Adobe Bridge was working for my keywording, but it is pretty slow when adding them to large files.

Lightroom addresses some areas for me for asset management, even though it is a youngster in this department with a lot of growth required to really catch up to competitors features. Keywording is a dream and fast. I can group keywords together – for example to keep all my bird species in one group – as opposed to alphabetical all over the entire list. Lightroom also has categories – where I can cross-reference images with similar features that may not be stored in the same folders on my network drive. I can also keep categories for licensed images, print sales, etc. Another pretty cool sorting feature is its Metadata browser, where I can sort images by the lens I used, the date/month they were shot, camera, etc – all automatically from data already stored within the image file by the camera.

So this addresses some of my primary needs nicely, and I haven’t really touched the heart of the program in its RAW file developing, print layout, and web gallery creators. I like the interface a lot – it is sleek, intuitive, and easy to use. Most of all, it makes me look forward to organizing my images and making it fun – not a chore. And that is worth its weight in gold if you ask me.

I’ll post now and then about my experiences with this great program, but there are many other blogs and forums out there to keep you up to date on FAQs, news, tips and techniques, tutorials and a growing number of power users for Adobe Lightroom. Heck, they are even creating an entire magazine about it from the folks over at NAPP. So it is worth checking out to see if it is for you. Adobe is offering 30 day trial downloads right now, and through April, a special pricing offer. So get in on the ground floor, this program will only continue to grow and offer more for photographers.

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Posted in Equipment notes, News & Tips, organization, software | 3 Comments »

Art vs. craft

Friday, February 16th, 2007

Peaceful morning Copyright Mark Graf grafphoto.com

There is an interesting discussion going on in the Radiant Vista forums about critiques and the art vs. craft of photography. I am sure similar discussions have taken place a thousand times over, and probably over centuries. Not that I want to regurgitate any of the discussion here, but it does make me think about defining when you cross that line back and forth. Such discussions are great for hearing other’s opinions and thoughts on the matter, but they don’t ever really come to some sort of final ‘resolution.’Â. Ã‚.  They do give those that follow such threads some things to think about as it applies to their own work.

Is there really any line at all? Do you see every image you make as some form of personal expression? How do images that you consider ‘art’ differ from the rest? I suppose someone could take a picture of a penny on a sidewalk and come up with an eloquent rationale for it.Â. Ã‚. Ã‚.  And we have all seen images like this – that are so personal to the creator that they are somewhat unaccessible to other viewers.Â.  And then, perhaps one image you consider more craft might be considered more art by a viewer?

If someone was standing right next to you to make a photograph, and had the same knowledge about the technical, same equipment,etc, etc – would they make the same image? Would that image then be considered more craft vs. art if they were the same? What is it about a particular image that has your personal touch on it? Is it your particular composition, technique or post-processing? Does it then all of the sudden become a work of art? I know I probably have some images on this site that no one else in the world has, but does that make them a form of personal expression? Some I think yes, others I wonder. With that rationale, the same could be said for images of your cat or dog, no one else in the world has them.Â.  Are those art?

All are questions that intrigue me, I wish I had some answers..

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Posted in art, nature photography, philosophy, wonder | 5 Comments »

Sandwich islands

Wednesday, February 14th, 2007

Kinda funny – I griped about hating the cold in the earlier post – but coming across this story about the Sandwich Islands made me want to book a trip tomorrow.Â.  This place looks just magical.Â.  In particular, I immediately fell in love with Maria Stenzel’s shot of the penguins on blue icebergs here.Â. Ã‚.  This image just has an incredible mood to it – it portrays the dramatic environment, but that blue ice just creates an incredibly calming effect, and obviously the penguins think so too.

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Posted in Destinations, Visit-worthy links, birds, nature photography, travels | Comments Off

Unrelated efforts

Tuesday, February 13th, 2007

Ice block on frozen lake Copyright Mark Graf grafphoto.com

It is kinda strange to think about that this image was made the same day as the previous post on bark. The two almost look like they were taken at opposite ends of the world. Sometimes you really don’t know what you are going to get on any particular outing.

I was up early in the morning this past Sunday as the forecast looked like there might be an interesting sky. It was darn cold – around 10 deg F with 20 mph ripping winds. That in itself tends to put a damper on my motivation. I really don’t like the cold. I don’t know how long I stayed in my car contemplating if I should go walk around, let alone out on the ice of the frozen lake. The sky wasn’t really turning out like I hoped it would.

But I did, heck I was up anyway. I don’t particularly like walking out on lake ice either. There are always crackles and creaks going on, no matter how thick the ice may be under your feet. There were a few dozen ice fisherman also up this morning (crazier than ice photography I think!!), but they were all congregated closer into the bay. I was nutty one hunting around for some simple foreground shape. Ice was piled up all along the shore, but it made the foreground look pretty cluttered. So this lonely ice block caught my eye – but it required me to go out on the frozen lake.

I played around with various angles while the light was coming up, and finally ended up on my belly – flat down on the ice in front of this thing with my wide angle lens. The wind was ripping, I was already feeling pre-frostbite in my cheeks, but I had to get my ice block picture. (Yeah, my eyes are rolling too!)

And the result – well – I think it’s an OK shot, certainly not due to lack of my persistance in trying to make something of the morning. I suppose the two images highlight the diversity in subject matter I like to shoot – it may be an ice block in the morning, some bark in the afternoon, and if I am lucky – perhaps that sneaky barred owl will show himself again.

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Posted in Michigan, landscape, nature photography | 4 Comments »

intrigued by bark

Monday, February 12th, 2007

tr8375.jpg

Bark..I am sure people walk by it every day and don’t pay any attention to it. After all – it’s bark. And yesterday while I was patiently waiting for a Barred Owl to come into view, I found myself drawn in by the patterns on these red pines. I happen to be a fan of bark, mostly these peely, flaking kinds. And interesting enough, I found myself photographing this bark with a 500 f4 lens with a 1.4X teleconverter on it (the setup primarily for the owl.) And this was probably the ONLY way to photograph these patterns because they were fairly high up on the trees – about 20 feet or so. The lower sections of the trees were the more ‘typical’ pine bark appearance and not nearly as interesting.

A couple passers by had asked what I was photographing. I had to give them the more intriguing answer of ‘I am looking for a Barred Owl.’ Little did they know what really intrigued me..

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Posted in abstracts, art, macro, nature photography | 3 Comments »

Archival backup media

Wednesday, February 7th, 2007

I came across this link recently that I thought I would share.Â. Ã‚.  It is an article and following interesting discussion about archival optical media – ie. DVD/CD’s and how it is worth paying close attention to the type you buy, the manufacturer, and even the format.Â. Ã‚.  With all the DVD formats out there, I didn’t know that DVD+R is an inherently more stable format than the others.

I don’t use optical media for backup anymore, but do still have quite a few slide scans stored on gold MAM-A CD’s that I need to migrate over to my network drives. Â.  They just aren’t practical when trying to backup large file – you end up with hundreds of disks.Â.  Just think about the chore to have to restore from all of those! Â.  But a lot of people still do use them if it suits their workflow. Â.  Sometimes it is a good idea to have backups in a variety of forms…uber-redundancy can’t be that bad.

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Posted in Equipment notes, Photo Tips | 2 Comments »

Nicole Rowell Ryan interviewed by Sierra Club

Monday, February 5th, 2007

A nice interview was recently done by Sierra Club Radio of Nicole Rowell Ryan, the late Galen Rowell’s daughter.Â. Ã‚.  She discusses some of Galen’s favorite images and some of his insights he passed onto her about seeing better images.Â. Ã‚.  So check it out – especially if you have been a longtime fan of Galen’s work, like most of us have.Â. Ã‚.  You can find it at this link – or search for Sierra Club on ITunes.

The Sierra Club is also publishing a retrospective of Galen’s work which I will be sure to pick up soon.Â.  It sounds like it will have some great stories about Galen.

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Posted in nature photography | 2 Comments »

Blog updates, enhancements

Sunday, February 4th, 2007

Canvasbacks in flight Copyright Mark Graf grafphoto.comWordpress rocks. I have just updated to the latest version 2.1 – which was pretty painless. I had to do some cleanup in my sidebar because of manual tweaks I was doing – but now that they have implemented link categories – I can now group my links how I have always wanted them to be. I am still exploring some of the new features in this ‘minor’ update.

I have also implemented the Lightbox plugin, which I think is a pretty nice feature for displaying images. Just click on the thumbnail in this post and you will see it go into action! I am a bit torn whether I like them full sized within the blog post or as thumbnails. So some of the images I have posted previously now have this enhancement. This plugin requires you to manually add “rel=”lightbox”" to your image tags though, which is a bit cumbersome, I wish this could be done automatically.

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Posted in blog, website news | 6 Comments »