Sidebar for News Package #4

Beginning in 1872 with the consecration of Yellowstone, The United States government has set aside certain lands to be national parks. Teddy Roosevelt said, “There is nothing so American as our national parks…. The fundamental idea behind the parks…is that the country belongs to the people; that it is in process of making for the enrichment of the lives of all of us.” In the last 25 years, the NPS has reported a modest 2% increase in recreational visits. In that same period of time, the population of the United States grew at a rate of about 30%. This may indicate that our society is actually losing interest in the parks. However, more recent numbers paint a more optimistic picture for the National Parks. After a negligible drop in 2008, recreational visits grew 4% in 2009. Yellowstone and Grand Teton are posting record years, although the wet spring has depressed attendance in 2011. Compare this with recession-era numbers for amusement parks, which took a 3% hit. It’s easy to fill in the blanks. As budgets tightened across the country, $80 day passes to Disneyland lost their appeal to working families. A visit to Grand Teton and Yellowstone costs $25 for the entire family, for an entire week.

 

Run away to the mountains right now! the weather’s great!

oh hey

It’s been a while since I’ve updated here, you should check out what I’m up to now!

Night and light

All of these were taken in my kitchen last night at midnight. There was almost no ambient light.

Canon SX120 f8.0  10″  ISO100

Edits: boosted greens and yellows in Ps Raw

I experimented quite a bit with this shot. There are 3 light sources; the range unit, a small LED flashlight illuminating the steam from behind, and a larger LED light off camera to the right. I would have liked to have showed a little more of the handle of the pan.

Canon SX120  f8.0  2.5″  ISO200

Edits: clarity, blacks, and contrast in Ps Raw.

This one was fun; I was going for kind of an atom shape. I rotated the camera in my hands, keeping it in each position for maybe a half of a second.

Canon SX120  f4.0  8″  ISO100

Edits: clarity, green and yellow boost in Ps Raw

This one was uncomfortable. With all 4 units on, the temperature was a little dramatic. Luckily the roommates were already in bed when i was shooting, or they might have been a little ticked. I was kind of afraid of damaging the lens but we came out alright.

The Tew.

I began this session by asking Ms. Tew what she had wanted to be when she was little. She replied, A Dentist!

Most kids are adverse to the practice of dentistry, but not Kriissa.

Floss, 31 May 2010, Rexburg ID

Canon SX120 F3.5, 1/60″ ISO400

Ahhh the Piece de Resistance… 31 May 2010, Rexburg Idaho

Canon SX120 F2.8 1/125″ ISO400

Edits: Levels

This is my favorite by far. It was pretty tough to get all the elements right, especially timing. I didn’t have an assistant to pull the curtain for me, so i set the timer and ran to do it myself. Krissa signaled me when to pull. It only took us four tries!

Born in the Wrong Decade, 31 May Rexburg Idaho

Canon SX120 F3.2 1/160 ISO 400

Edits: Cropping and Levels

This was a fun group picture. I’m the other model; I used the timer again. I gotta get me a remote.

If I could do this one again I would move the spotlight so our feet got the more dramatic light, since I had planned all along to crop the faces.

Shooting the Breeze, 31 May 2010 Rexburg Idaho

Canon SX120 F3.5, 1/50″ ISO400

Edits: Color Balance

After the Dentist shots, we took the rest with folk instruments, since that is a much more up-to-date interest for Krissa. It was really fun to use the stage lighting in the kirkham, but I found it kind of hard to set a good white balance since I had flourescent ambient lighting, a yellowish stage wash and a white spotlight. I really like using the hard-edged spot!

Enhancements, Color Replace and Color Match

Hannah in the Springtime, Salt Lake City UT, May 31 2010, Midday

Canon SX120 F3.5, 1/640″, ISO100

Edits:Color replace turning golden brown to bright yellow.

My goal here was to make the tennis racket match the scene better. While I was working with my threshold, I found that the color of the chair was close enough to get picked up. The shadowed part of the chair became a brighter, translucent hue, and also brought out a touch of texture. I liked it, and I kept it.

Hannah Grace, May 28 2010, Late afternoon, Ogden Utah.

Canon SX120 F4.0 1/125″ ISO100

Edits: History brush in screen mode on eyes, opacity at 20%, Saturation down and lightness up on teeth

The sky was stormy, which gave us great even lighting, but it turned out to be not so dramatic. Making her eyes pop really helped.

In the spotlight, Rexburg Idaho, 31 May 2010

Canon SX120, F2.8, 1/80″ ISO 400

Edits: Color Match with first portrait, fade at 20%

I love the splash of yellow that the Color Match tool gave me here.

the graduate

I fulfilled the last two assignments while covering my little sister’s graduation. In between classic portraits and shots of her many performances and parties, I found some time for a few fun, off-the wall grad portraits.

juxtaposition no. 1

After the ceremony (which was held at night), we dropped by a supermarket to grab some food. The market had cut a lot of lights to keep energy usage down, but the lights on the produce cooler were still on. I loved the color and the soft white light so i ran out to the car, grabbed my camera and we shot this completely ridiculous portrait.

Canon SX120 f2.8 1/80″ ISO200

no edits

summa cum laude

I thought it would be fun to show high school literally fading out of Megan’s life, but i didn’t want it to be a creepy ghost shot, so we chose kind of a jazzy pose.

Canon SX120,  F5.6  15″

no edits

editing in camera raw

Self Portrait With Graffiti, Mid afternoon 17 May

Canon SX120  F8.0  1/60″  Exposure comp -2.0  ISO80

Edits: In Photoshop RAW: Temperature -13, tint -8, Exposure +1.10, Brightness +40, Contrast +16, Clarity+38, Vibrance+51, Saturation +5, Greens +80, Aquas +100, Lens Vignetting -66, Saturation +24 adjustment brush on graffiti.

This was just a fun shot; I wasn’t intending to use it for anything. I set the camera on a small ledge between two train cars and used the timer. It turned out to be very fun to play with in raw because of all the bright colors. And because i’m vain and like looking at myself.

Pan-O-rama!

I Pari, Rigby Idaho, mid-afternoon 16 May 2010

Canon SX120, Four exposures, F 8.0  1/1000-1/640″  Exposure Comp -1.67  ISO80

Edits: Photomerge (auto), Level and vibrance adjustment layers, Brightness/contrast layer between exposures 2&3 to remove visible disparity

I’m a graffiti fan. I grew up in Boulder Colorado, where commissioned graffiti art is commonplace. When a train goes by covered in spraypaint, I don’t see the defaced property, I see an unusually vibrant form of art and identification.

Also, trains are wide. And panos are [usually] wide too.

bingo!

Dyti, Ririe Idaho, mid-afternoon 16 May 2010

Canon SX120, Three exposures, F8.0  1/1000-1/500″  Exposure Comp -0.33  ISO200

Edits- Photomerge [perspective] Levels and Vibrance Adj. Layers

I love the ability of a panorama to show the relative scale of an object and its environment. It’s one step closer to being there. This house seemed so lonely in the middle of a field, against a bright sky. A little exposure comp made the sky seem slightly stormy.

the glass ceiling

Canon SX120  F3.2  1/25″  ISO800

Edits: Color balance, blur tool on background

I saw a flock of peacocks this weekend, but unfortunately I had left my camera card in the computer at home. My recourse is an ancient elephant skull found in the Specimen Room in the Benson building.

Canon SX120 F2.8 1/1600″ ISO1600

Edits: none

I took the rest of these shots in the greenhouses, where some spectacular plants contrast with the dingy geometric shapes in the background. I experimented with a much higher ISO than i had been using, to try and emphasize the grit and grunge. In retrospect this would have better been accomplished in photoshop, where i could leave the plants alone and just grunge up the walls.

Canon SX120  F3.2  1/1600″ ISO80

Edits: Levels adjustment layer

I love the monotone feel here, which was accomplished by underexposing the shot and then compensating with Levels. I like the stark, closed-in feeling and the soft, even lighting from the cloudy sky and the foggy glass.

Canon SX120 F8 1/320″ ISO1600

Edits: cropping, Unsharp mask to emphasize high ISO

Since most of the shots I took played with the contrast between the organic and mechanical elements of the room, I decided to take a few where the focal point is part of the building, framed by organic shapes. This is my favorite.

non-destructive editing

You may have noticed that a lot of my pictures involve climbing. I work out at regional rock walls by the freeway, where i set routes. This is a creative process where i invent fun and interesting movement by restricting climbers to only a certain set of grips that form a path up the wall. I mark these paths with colored tape. For all intents and purposes, the rest of the holds on the wall do not exist.

For this shot I used two Adjustment layers, saturation and black and white. The saturation helped give me the bright orange that i was looking for. No mask on this layer. The B+W layer, needed one. To create the mask i used a lot of lasso tool and quick selection where i could. I like the idea, and i’m excited to try it on some better exposures.

For this one, the Sumi-e filter did some attractive things to the sky, but not so much for the barn or foreground. too much lost detail. So I used a gigantic (2500px) brush with the hardness at 0% to make a nice smooth transition from the masked to the unmasked portions.