Habenero's Blog

Why Fine Art Photography

Rich@HabeneroPhoto.com (Habenero) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 17:02:00 GMT

I refer to myself as a Fine Art Photographer. Some people describe Fine Art Photography as a nude shot in monochrome. Another description that is bandied about is out of focus images of uninteresting subjects. Here in the Southwest, some gallery owners would describe Fine Art Photography as scenes reminiscent of the glorious past. None of those definitions fit my work. I shoot nudes that may be incorporated into other works, but monochrome nudes are not part of the portfolio I would publish. My out of focus works, I discard. The past I find interesting, but not interesting enough to devote much time for my art.

Art requires an ability to convey emotional impact of some sort, nostalgia, joy, sorrow, love, etc., many of my images have that impact to me. My camera records images that I later process into the works you can see. Where most people consider photographs to be truthful renditions of a scene, I do not. Images that I produce take advantage of the lie of omission all printed images have, so as to improve the likelihood that a specific emotion will be recalled or felt. In other words, I exploit the lie and sometimes embellish it because abstracts of some objects are more interesting to me.

Art photography is more personal than commercial photography. Either one exhibits the character and style of the photographer, but when the photograph is produced for a particular client, the photographer becomes limited to making a technically masterful work that the client must like. A Fine Art Photographer produces works primarily for his own gratification, if anyone else likes a piece well enough to buy it, all the better! The work I exhibit is not produced with any specific goal other than to please me. I am glad to show it and if you like it enough to want it hanging in your home, contact me or visit my sales sites at Fine Art America or Red Bubble.

Timelines

Rich@HabeneroPhoto.com (Habenero) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:42:00 GMT

I find my most creative time of day varies depending upon what I am doing. For instance;
     I write most of my blogs between 9:00 and 11:00 in the morning.
     Most of my photo shoots with models are set for 3:00 to 6;00 in the afternoon.
   The Majority of my photo editing is done after 8:00 at night and can go on until very early the next morning.
Photo editing is also determined by mood.
     Anger or frustration tends to make me create psychedelic work.
     Tension causes me to work using techniques that emphasize and isolate the subjects.
     When I am relaxed, I tend to pull up landscapes or my older shots.
     Sad times will find me going into my alien shots, as they tend to force smiles and change my mood.
Landscape shots or shots involving people in landscapes I prefer to shoot early morning or early evening. Studio shooting is determined by either client's or model's schedule. I actually will use my camera whenever I see something that piques my interest. I tend to not edit my images until at least 24 hours after a shoot, so that any excitement that may cloud my judgment has had a chance to subside. Editing is best done using fresh well rested eyes.
I plan a shoot about 24 to 48 hours before I have to take my camera out, unless models are involved. Models are wild cards in that unless they are shooting a concept I asked them to shoot, I have to wait until they arrive and see what their ideas and choice of wardrobe will permit. Shooting nudes is still a wild card in many ways as body type can be vastly different between similarly sized models based upon their fitness level and posture, but I do have a set concept for nude shoots that has usually been discussed at least 24 hours ahead of time. When traveling, the only planning done is for the logistics of getting to and from a destination and the time of day simply determines the direction the camera is likely to be pointing.

Retouch or Good Makeup Artist?

Rich@HabeneroPhoto.com (Habenero) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:38:00 GMT

If given a choice between having a good makeup artist on set or doing retouching in Gimp or Photoshop, which would you choose? My own choice is for a good makeup artist. Here's why;
     1. Retouching takes time, lots of it if you have a subject with problem skin, or VWUW (vain with unwanted wrinkles).
     2. It is much easier to hide unwanted features under a good quality makeup than it is to clone or brush it out in post processing.
     3. A good makeup artist will notice some things like out of place hairs, or an area that could use a bit of powder so time isn't wasted.
     4. Having a makeup artist on the set makes the photographer look more professional. It shows you care about your clients.

Photographing Art

Rich@HabeneroPhoto.com (Habenero) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:05:00 GMT

When photographing artwork, the single most important thing to remember is that a camera sees differently than your eye! If the plane of the camera (film or sensor location) is not parallel to the artwork being photographed, distortion will occur (whether you can live with it or not depends upon your desire to look professional). I find a tripod works best for keeping the art and camera correctly aligned. The light a camera records is not the same as the light we see. Film and digital sensors record light with considerably less sensitivity than our eyes. Our eyes compensate automatically for variations in color temperature, film does not, and when digital cameras are set to do this most of the time they will destroy the color rendition you took care to create.

For flat work like oils, acrylics, watercolors, etc., indirect light from the sun works best. North facing walls are great. most of the day. If you must light it indoors, be sure to use 4 equal wattage lights that are set at 45 degrees from the center of the piece. Set your camera's White balance in accordance with the type of light (incandescent, fluorescent, or LED), Do Not Mix The Type Of Light) or if using film be sure to use the correct type of film or the proper filter to compensate for the kind of lighting you chose.

Galleries want to see your art, not your framed art. Filling the frame is a must. To do this, you can move the camera to fill the frame, or use the camera's optical zoom feature to do so. If the camera has only a digital zoom, Do Not Use It. Digital zoom simply crops the image and you get less detail than you would have in the full sized image. Another thing to consider is that a wide angle lens when moved in close to an object tends to distort the image (straight lines often take on a curved look). You are almost always better off being about the mid distance of your zoom lens on most digital cameras.

Sculpture looks its best when the viewer can see the 3 dimensional aspects of it. Lighting sculpture requires one to use at least 2 and often 3 lights for best effect. The key light should be a bright and "small" source (gridded spot, bare bulb flash, etc.). It should cast a strong shadow. A fill light is used at about 1/2 the power of the key light, but it should be a much larger source (think large soft box, reflector, or umbrella). The purpose of the fill light is to lessen the strength of the shadow, not to eliminate it. If a third light is used, it is often set up to provide rim or edge lighting to the subject. This light pulls the subject out of the background. In all cases, the camera has to be set for the type of light that is used or you have to choose your film and filters accordingly.

To Batch Process, or Not

Rich@HabeneroPhoto.com (Habenero) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 19:12:00 GMT

In the days of film, photographers that were not shooting with large format cameras (4 x 6, 5 x 7, 8 x 10, or larger), had to use consistent lighting and exposure for the entire roll of film in order to ensure quality negatives to print from. With digital cameras, no consistency is required for, but it does help your work flow if you try to maintain at least some sense of order to your shooting. Shooting using similar exposure and lighting enables one to make your pictures more uniform. If you are doing event, wedding, or commercial work, this will save time.

Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom enable one to "batch process" large numbers of images in short time. Batch processing is not the best way to produce quality work, but it does help speed up the work. I tend to see batch processing as building the infrastructure to a housing development. You don't have to rely on it if you choose to live elsewhere, but when it is not there, you may find your car stuck in the mud. Batch processing is just another tool within Photoshop.

I do not batch process for color correction, sharpening, or creating my psychedelic work. I do batch process to add tags and key words to items that are going to be posted on the web.

Event Photography, recording an instant of time realistically or not!

Rich@HabeneroPhoto.com (Habenero) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:26:00 GMT

I've been shooting events. No real surprise there as the only events I don't like to shoot are weddings (I prefer to select people I am going to shoot, without the added pressure of a "mostly" once in a lifetime affair). When preparing to shoot an event, there are many things to consider:

    Venue - These range from huge outdoor areas to cramped rooms packed tightly with people. Many don't allow flash. Some require all people that have "pro gear" (more often than not pro gear is a camera with a big lens on it) to either be registered or have a media pass.

    Lighting - Light changes constantly out doors, but not nearly as much as some venues for dancing. In harsh sunlight, you need to use fill flash or try to shoot your subjects in areas of diffuse light. At low light level dances, even if the use of flash is permitted, you may want to use a high ISO to minimize the impact the flash will have on your subjects. Stoffen or Gary Fong filters used on your flash will give more diffuse light for most situations. Bounced flash is often used, but in order to use it well, you have to be aware of ceiling height (or bounce your light off of a white shirt (unless you can manage to get someone to hold a reflector). The lighting also determines your ISO and white balance choices.

    Type of Event - This dictates your lens, shutter speed, and where you will place yourself. Shooting sports from bleachers requires a longer lens than the dance floor at a nightclub. A fast shutter speed is not often necessary to capture a politician at a campaign rally, but is required if you want to catch the water spray as a diver enters a pool. If taking candid shots, you don't stand in the middle of the action.

    ISO choice - This can be forced upon you by the lighting or speed of the action. I sometimes choose my ISO because i want the overall feeling I am attempting to achieve to be something different. I tend to shoot Swing bands and dancers using a very high ISO so I can get noise that simulates film grain, the result of which is more reminiscent of the images from the 1940's.

Event photography for me is not simply recording an instant of time, it is making that moment's emotional impact a bit more easily felt. The above photo would not have the same impact had I shot and processed it to be a a color, non vignetted shot.

Pain, How I Cope

Rich@HabeneroPhoto.com (Habenero) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:34:00 GMT

Pain is one of the things most of us try to avoid or eliminate. There are many ways we can ease pain signals, drugs, meditation, distraction, etc., but none of these is 100% effective 100% of the time. In my experience, for some of the pains I have had, the amount of drug needed to make my pain tolerable usually would make it impossible to function mentally, while other pains were ignorable without medication of any kind.

If pain interferes with your sleep, by all means take what ever medication you need. But if you can get to sleep without taking pain medication, do not use it when you are awake. Anti inflammatory medication, or medications recommended by your doctor for treatment of your specific ailment are not to be avoided. I do not shun all drugs, but I do read enough about them to understand what they do, how they do it, and what to watch out for when taking them. I do not generally take medication just for handling pain. The only recreational drug I take is caffeine, which is found in my favorite drinks (the ones without it don't seem to be as enjoyable).

Pain signals often are telling us that part of your body is not functioning well and you need to stop doing something, or do something else to correct the problem. When I broke fingers playing volleyball, I often taped them to the good finger next to them and finished the game, as I had enough adrenaline flowing through my body to suppress the pain to the point where I could still function. It was only after the game that I would seek treatment, but I also never felt much pain from those breaks. I suspect that was because I had trained myself such that as long as I was actively taking steps to heal the problem I could turn off the pain receptors in my brain. It is not an easy thing to do and it doesn't work 100% of the time, but being drug free and in control makes it worth the effort.

Pain from Kidney Stones takes a lot more effort to control. Taking drugs may work for others, but once again, my own method is different. I start drinking water, about 1.5 liters an hour and I spend as much time as I can doing puzzles, reading books, or playing games on my computer to distract my mind from the passing of time and the stone. I found out long ago that washing the stone out of your system requires large quantities of water (in part to assist in dissolving the stone) to flush the remnants out of the body).

The pain that one experiences after surgery, is one I found requires drugs, for a short duration. Proper preparation before surgery can make the difference in how you handle your recovery. The fitter you can be prior to surgery, the better. Drugs are okay to use during the time you are confined to bed, but it is essential that you are able to monitor your pain signals in order to assist your therapists, any sharp pain signals stop the activity, whereas, an increase in the overall ache generally is expected and should not be used to halt activity. I found rather fast that relying on pain killers can result in over doing an activity and lead to far longer times in the hands of therapists (sadists) than one would desire (although I have had some therapists I liked). A clear mind is far more important in monitoring pain and is actually preferable to me than being pain free.

My knees have little to no cartilage left in them. I have received Synvisc injections, which have been beneficial for periods of as short as 3 weeks and as long as 3 months. The recommended interval between injections is 6 months, so I end up in pain for long periods of time in between the injections. I have found that alternating between Ibuprofen, nsaids, aspirin and acetaminophen work for a bit, (one week on each), but never come close to making the pain bearable. On days I have photo shoots, I have been known to mix nsaids and ibuprofen to relieve the stress my knees are going to be put through. I refuse to stop my activities, although I have been slowed down considerably, as doing so would cause a more sinister pain, depression. I have to wait until December before my next Synvisc injection, and I do not find the wait enjoyable.

Having Consistent Results Matters!

Rich@HabeneroPhoto.com (Habenero) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:55:00 GMT

Many people take pictures. Some take a lot of pictures. Most have at least one or 2 shots they consider great! Professional photographers need to have consistently good shots. A photographers portfolio should contain a strong opening image and a strong end image, but it is the consistency of the images between them that must be evaluated. If the difference in quality varies, you can't be sure of what you will get. You can almost bet on not getting the same results as the first and last picture in the portfolio.

By consistency, I do not mean the subject matter is the same. Contrast, Brightness, Color Correction, Focus, and Timing all contribute to creating an image. It is the manner in which the photographer shows his ability to produce results that reflect mastery of these elements that you need to see consistency. If you are hiring a photographer to shoot a sporting event, the work should consistently show an ability to capture subjects at an optimal time (just as the football leaves the hand of the quarterback, at the moment the ball hits the bat, etc.). Wedding photographers need to show consistent color balance over the 4 to 8 hours they shot even though the light varies. When the work is good and shows consistency, that's a photographer worthy of consideration.

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Over Crowded Events

Rich@HabeneroPhoto.com (Habenero) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:35:00 GMT

One of the worst things an event coordinator can do is allow too many photographers into their event! If an event is to be photographed well, all photographers must be working from the same script and not stray from their assignments. When lights are set up on a set, only the photographer working that set should be taking photographs! Having a bunch of idiots trying to crowd in and utilize a set can cause lights to be knocked out of position, shots to be missed, or have a light stand knocked over into a guest! Most strobe heads have a lot of high voltage energy that could ruin someone's evening (electrocutions are dangerous).

Another reason the set should be left in the hands of only one person is that his camera is set to give high quality images using his lights without any additional flash power. Having another flash go off when my shutter is open over exposes my shot and means retakes must be done. Time is money and should not be wasted redoing shots that should not have been interfered with in the first place. The weak power of point and shoot cameras are not a big problem, but the large flash units on prosumer cameras (cameras with features pros use on cameras used by people that think that the camera makes the picture) do interfere.

Then there is the problem of "jockeying for position, each of the invited idiots with cameras rushes to be at the "in" spot for taking pictures. This is not acceptable behavior, as it means that some guests are not going to be able to enjoy themselves because an insensitive person that happens to have a camera is blocking their view. Guests at charitable functions that are not having a good time tend to donate less! If you feel you need more than one photographer, assign duties and an area to each of them and do not let them stray from that assignment. When I work with other photographers, I do my best to not interfere in their shots.

Photographers Are a Dime a Dozen, But You Should Hire One For Important Occasions. and Buy Their Art!

Rich@HabeneroPhoto.com (Habenero) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 19:19:00 GMT

Cheap access to powerful camera equipment makes it so anybody that wants to call themselves a photographer does so. The big camera manufacturers, Nikon, Canon, Pentax, etc., have put a lot of effort into figuring out what and how most people shoot and their latest cameras are designed to enhance those aspects of photos. When a photo straight out of the camera looks good, the logical question follows, Why should I pay someone to take a picture I can do myself? Is there a reason to hire a photographer? Can't everyone with a good camera take great pictures?

You should never hire a photographer to take a picture you yourself could do! You do not hire a photographer because his camera is better than yours, it may not be. You do not hire a photographer just because you need someone to push the button on a camera. You hire a photographer that has a particular style of work you like. The artistic vision of a photographer is his knowledge of what his camera can do, what types of poses fit the occasion, and the kind of post processing he or his lab performs. Photographers look not only at the subject, but also at the details in the background, foreground, and middle ground and use their choices of white balance, ISO, shutter speed, f-stop, and sense of timing to create their shot. You hire a photographer because you like what they create out of a scene.

Equipment is not capable of compensating for mistakes like; the lamp post growing out of Uncle Bob's head, the garbage can just behind the banquet table, or the toilet seen in the mirror the bride is using to apply her makeup. Your photographer should see those things and adjust the shot to compensate (they will not be in his direct from camera shots). The most expensive camera when placed in the hands of a novice will produce pictures that look like they were shot by a novice. A good photographer, can take just about any camera and compose a shot that looks great.

The best photographers get great shots consistently right out of the camera, but will still have a bit of post processing done. Photoshop, Gimp or some other software will be used to ensure that skin tones will be correct in all shots, that minor blemishes not already concealed by makeup are hidden, and that the look of the images remains consistent. Be wary of any photographer that does not do any post production work.

Some photographers create works of art! Even if you know where a particular shot was done, and the time of day, you may not be able to capture a shot similar to the one done by a photographic master. Cameras set in "program" mode with auto white balance are by nature, going to give a good exposure for skin tones. Most great landscapes come out rather poorly when shot that way. Overly red or orange scenes throw off the camera's sensor, similarly, so will overly dark or overly light scenes. There is far more to taking a picture than pushing a button. If you see a photographic work that you like, buy it! If it is one of mine, I will gladly tell you how I created it! I assure you, since all photos tell lies (if only of omission), telling how I created the image you see is the only way you will find out the truth the image conveys!

Why Do Still Cameras Now Offer Video?

Rich@HabeneroPhoto.com (Habenero) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:58:00 GMT

That film has been largely replaced by digital sensors was no surprise to me. I shot film exclusively until June of 2007, but my darkroom went digital shortly after Adobe Photoshop version 4 was released. The advantage of being able to guarantee quality and consistency in printing made all the difference to me. I was no longer forced to breath in caustic fumes, or spend hours trying to achieve an effect that I was near impossible to reproduce (solarized color prints). Best of all, I no longer squinted when in normally lit rooms. My attitude and personality became more positive. I became more interested in the artistic aspects of photography and the ways cameras tell lies. But I digress from the topic.

Nikon, Canon, Pentax, etc., are producing SLRs with video. I find it a bit disturbing, but not because I don't like video. I consider my camera to be an important tool towards making my artwork. I buy lenses and bodies that enable me to create still images I enjoy. To that end, I do not need to nor do I want to pay for a feature that reduces the quality of the sensor image output in order to accommodate a television screen. If you think this will enable you to catch sports action better, it won't. A frame rate of 1/30th of a second or even 1/60th of a second means that unless you are extremely precise with your timing, Murphy's Law will ensure that the most critical moment will occur during the blanking interval. By knowing your camera's response time, observing the sport long enough to get a feel for the most dramatic moments, and a bit of the thing called luck (luck favors those who are prepared for it), you will get sots that are far better than most video camera frames.

I suspect that like cell phone manufacturers, these cameras are geared for the masses of consumers that like high tech gear, have money to burn, and aren't ever going to use the equipment to its max. Adding in features to computer software costs very little, thus making enormous profit. Video output from the sensor in the camera required changes in software, and eats up memory cards.

I want my tools to perform their tasks well. When I shoot video, I want to be able to shoot more than 5 minutes, I could use a cell phone to get that much time (granted, the quality would be reduced). The point I am trying to make is, There are high end video cameras that can record for much longer, but the still images from them are not as high quality as a still camera. It is better to buy the proper tools and do an excellent job. Top chefs do not use Swiss Army Knives in their food preparations, television shows are not shot using Blackberries, and you won't see any hybrid cars running in the Indy 500. My plea to camera manufacturers is to get on track and make improvements to your cameras, do not make the mistake of adding features that distract you from that goal!

Windows Update

Rich@HabeneroPhoto.com (Habenero) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:14:00 GMT

Of all the evil things Bill Gates unleashed upon the world, none is a frustrating as Windows Auto Update! Even when set to only to down load an update, there is no way to check the file and make sure that it will not deactivate or destroy an important driver for the computer you are using. I try to keep my computer safe from the evil world of the internet and use fire wall, anti virus, anti spam, pop up blocker software and regularly update them. My incoming and outgoing emails are filtered and checked to try to ensure my computer is safe. The only outside intrusions that get through are the ones officially sanctioned by Microsoft.

About every 3 months, Microsoft will have a vicious update that reorders, damages, or destroys a driver in my system. Sometimes I am able to find a new driver that repairs my computer, and sometimes I can't. The updates that cause the most insidious damage, are the ones that reorder the drivers. In my favorite system were 10 large hard drives each containing photographic images of a particular genre I produce. The motherboard had built in support for 4 IDE devices (DVD Burner and 3 hard drives including the boot drive were here), 4 SATA drives and the remaining drives were coming off of a PCI IDE card controller. Periodically, an update would come in from Microsoft that would tell my computer to boot off the SATA drive even though the computer's firmware boot order was CD/DVD drive (IDE0 slave), hard drive (IDE0 master). The only solution to this was to replace the Microsoft Windows XP Pro CD into the DVD drive, boot up and repair the Windows installation.

Service pack updates were the most dangerous ones I encountered, even more so when they re ordered the Microsoft updates they incorporated. It was a Service Pack 2 update that destroyed the sound on my Gigabyte motherboard because it reordered the load order for the sound driver, a solution to their original problem with the sound driver they chose to ignore! I bought an Asus motherboard in order to enjoy sound while working on my photography due to that lunacy.

The Asus board worked great for just over 2 years, with the ocassional burp from Windows Auto Update causing minor problems here and there, but I ws able to remedy most of those problems by uploading new drivers, saving them to a cd and installing them as soon as a problem warranted doing so. Then came a driver problem I couldn't ignore. my original Windows boot drive failed. I reinstalled windows onto a backup drive and thought I had a working system until the updates came through. Somewhere after Windows XP Pro Service Pack 3 got installed, the IDE controller chip on the ASUS started experiencing heat stress problems. It eventually failed to the point I couldn't get the system to recognize any drives.

I installed the drives into a new Intel motherboard which started to have similar problems. I wiped the C: drive and reloaded Windows XP Pro. I downloaded and installed the most up to date drivers for the system I could find. I then let Windows start updating. It took over 2 weeks to restore the system to a point that it is usable and stable. I have no further plans to update that computer again.

The rebuilding of this computer started to interfere with some photography deadlines so I ended up investing in a brand new computer with Windows Vista on it. The first service pack update took out my card reader. I had to install a new driver for it. It looks like a new nightmare is beginning!

JPEG, RAW, Getting it Right in the Camera!

Rich@HabeneroPhoto.com (Habenero) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 17:29:07 GMT

I often get to hear people say they don't need Photoshop because they "GET IT RIGHT IN THE CAMERA". When I do, I can be sure that it is most likely a novice, someone that does not shoot for a living, or a relative. Getting it right in the camera entails setting the camera to achieve the best possible exposure, the subject is properly lit, and the background is exactly what one desired. If all things are done to your ideal, you have it right in the camera. It does not imply that you do not need a photo editing program, because unless your pictures are going to be viewed in the camera back, some adjustment is in order. Shooting to get it right in the camera gives you a file (JPEG or RAW) that can be used "as is" or is easier to work with in your editing program. Mistakes made at the front end are not always salvageable, and should be avoided.

Very minor adjustments will be needed to make your images work on the web if your output JPEG file is set for SRBG. Color correction, contrast, saturation, and sharpening may or may not be needed to make the image its best. The program of choice for this can be made by your camera's manufacturer (Nikon, Canon, Pentax, etc.) in which case they may preconfigure the out going file for you in a way that makes an average picture look very good but average, or let you make a few minor changes which will improve that average looking picture. Any program that is putting out a file that is viewable on the web is creating a JPEG image as its final output. Earlier camera software let you output a TIF file, but they are for print making and not web use.

More advanced photographers tend to want more control over the final image and tend to use the more advanced programs ala Adobe Photoshop or Gimp. These programs allow manipulation over the full range of the camera's or scanner's sensory input , 12 to 14 bit depth resolution vs. the 8 bit of a JPEG image. The input file generally used for these adjustments is a RAW file. RAW files contain the full information the camera sensor recorded. Photographers that are used to shooting JPEGs often have a hard time when they start manipulating RAW files. This is because the sensor image has not had the benefit of the camera maker's tweaking applied and you have to start from a clean slate. JPEG images have not only had some tweaking applied, data has been thrown away in the creation of a JPEG image.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter whether you shoot in RAW or JPEG, provided you take time to learn the limits of your equipment and shoot to get it right in the camera!

To Create Better Pictures...

Rich@HabeneroPhoto.com (Habenero) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:35:00 GMT

The first step towards taking better pictures is to learn the limits of your camera. A camera records less of the field of view from the darkest dark to the lightest light than your eyes can see. When you make a print, even less of the recorded information is revealed. It is possible to create an illusion that your mind interprets as all of the scene it saw, but the reality of film or digital sensor is that a lie of omission is always produced on paper. Once you understand that your camera always is producing an image that lies, you will see the importance of controlling the light that strikes the sensor or film and post processing your images.

What makes some photographs stand out of the crowd, manipulation of the image. All the images created by the accepted masters of photography were created with manipulation with the majority of them done in post processing. Anyone that does not manipulate the image is not producing the best image possible from the recorded image. If the photographer is not manipulating the final image all it means is that all of his prints will be manipulated at the discretion of the lab technician doing the final printing, and the web images are the result of the camera manufacturer's idea of what the "ideal" result should be (and they generally strive for good skin tones as most cameras are sold to people that are going to use them for family pictures).

Manipulation of an image can be done prior to clicking the shutter button. Using reflectors or fill flash to soften shadows, flags and scrims to control the light that hits the scene, adding make up, body painting and shooting with UV light are all ways that manipulate the image the camera will see. Other ways include controlling the aperture to create bokeh or a tack sharp image, using shutter speed to stop action or create motion blur, and filters can be used to polarize the light hitting the shutter or myriad other uses. The more you can do in camera, the less work you have in post processing.

Post processing is where the old masters really stood out. Hand cutting masks for sharpening, dodging and burning parts of images, bleaching or blackening negatives, solarizing, and many other techniques were invented by them to produce images that told the story they wanted to reveal. They knew back then that an image was not true to what they saw. For many of them, the caustic chemicals used to produce their images, wreaked havoc on their health. We are extremely lucky that in our digital darkrooms, we are able to work safely and efficiently. I am much happier that I am able to use adjustment layers and create digital masks.

Try to remember that you can and should control the images you create.

Color Temperature, White Balance

Rich@HabeneroPhoto.com (Habenero) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:26:00 GMT

One adjustment that amateur photographers using digital equipment forget to set is the White balance. Unless you are shooting in Raw format, setting the white balance is extremely important!

The white balance sets the point at which the red, green, and blue sensors will maximize their output to create white. Our eyes adjust to different light levels automatically, camera makers try to emulate that using auto white balance. Using auto white balance to shoot indoor and outdoor wedding photos is going to mean that the skin tones will not remain consistent between shots due to the change in relationship between the ratios in the red, green and blue light mix that is needed to keep the white dress looking white in the varying light conditions. Differences in skin tone consistency are often more perceptible to us and locking the white balance makes at least one variable that causes them go away.

White Balance can be looked at as if it were color temperature. Bright sun is about 6,000 degrees K, incandescent lights are often 3,200 degrees K. Many cameras allow you to set the color temperature of your white point anywhere between 2,500 to 10,000 degrees K. My own preference when shooting (I shoot in Raw which means I can adjust this later should I choose) is to leave it at 5,000 degrees K. If you are not shooting in Raw mode, it should be set to accommodate the actual light you have on hand so as to let the camera create the best possible image for you.

Setting the white point temperature to a lower temperature increases the amount of blue in the final image. Jpeg shooters can use this adjustment to create a more dramatic sky in their landscapes. Shifting the color to a higher than normal setting increases the red, something that can create a better monochrome print at a later time. Look at your image and adjust your white balance to make what you see match what you want the image to be!

Why Outsourcing Customer Service Is Bad!

Rich@HabeneroPhoto.com (Habenero) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:09:00 GMT

I have had to reach customer service for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it works out, but more often than not it leaves me convinced that companies that outsource their customer service are doing a great deal of harm. When dealing with a technical problem, it is extremely important that all parties understand each other in order to expedite the solution to the problem. I have no major problem understanding some accented English, but I am more of an exception than many others who call them. I have called for assistance on some occasions where it became obvious within seconds that the person I made contact with was clearly not able to understand my American English (born and raised in New Jersey), and I did not understand their heavily accented English. That meant that the call would be a complete waste of my time and money! When that happens I try to get them to get me someone else with whom I will stand a better chance, often to no avail. That means I am either hung up upon, or have had to politely tell them I will try some other time and then hang up myself. Each call like that convinces me that I will NOT recommend that companies products to anyone else, because most of my friends are less tolerant of poor customer service than I am. Unfortunately, calls like that are increasingly common and because bean counters are listened to more than customers, there may not be a satisfactory resolution to the problem!

Even less well liked are the arrogant idiots that insist that they can correct a computer problem for you remotely (Microsoft's worst). I had the main hard drive go down on a computer I had built. It was no big deal to me, I would just reinstall Windows XP Pro on the new drive and figured that would solve the problem. BIG mistake. Over the years, Microsoft released updates to XP. From time to time these updates get bundled up into a service pack. The service pack 2 update that was first released worked ok with my mother board, but service pack 2 that was released 1 year later, did not. Although both service packs contained the same bundled updates with the newer one containing a few more, the order of the security upgrades was not kept the same. The order was of critical importance to the Realtek sound chips on my motherboard. I spent over 14 hours on the phone with Microsoft, and even allowed them to tinker with the installation, all to no avail. It was a good thing that I kept my important data hard drives off line, as the engineers in Bangalore kept disabling my main browser (Seamonkey), my preferred CD/DVD program (Nero) and never got the sound to return to my system once they installed service pack 2. They told me they had found someone on the Microsoft forum that had greatly detailed my problem and believed it contained the solution. When I pointed out to them that the author of the article was speaking to them on the phone, they tried to tell me I couldn't possibly had written it because it was under the name of Habenero, not Rich Henne. I then told them to look at the email address on their contact information and they hung up on me. There never was a solution to my problem, if I installed SP2 from an earlier date, Microsoft would upgrade to the newer version on the next upgrade date and wipe out the working sound once more. I ended up buying a new mother board and processor. Needless to say if Adobe ever makes a version of Photoshop that is Linux based, I would dump All Microsoft software in a heartbeat.

Customer service and support requires more than a thorough understanding of the product(s) a company has. It requires skillful communication that is clearly understood by the party requesting help. If a company outsources its customer service to save dollars, but does not screen the phone workers carefully, resentment of the company and its products will be the result. As you can see by my Microsoft experience, I have no love for their products and it stems from the first dealing I had with their foreign based customer support team. Their representative seemed to know most of the terms I used (not all), but the accent was difficult for me to understand and the number of times the computer needed to be rebooted would have been reduced by 75% had he taken time to listen to my problem instead of trying to follow a scripted response. I don't know if he used the script because he really didn't understand me or if he was required to do so, but either way the service was poor at best and took more than an hour of my time.

I've had good service from a US based Sprint customer service rep. I understood her Southern accent and she understood my Yankee one. As I described my problem to her, she responded with accurate information that took less than 4 minutes. The phone required one upgrade period that corrected 3 different problems at the same time.

I urge everybody that doesn't understand the customer service rep they are stuck with to take time to voice their concerns in writing to the company'

How I Got My ACL Repaired

Rich@HabeneroPhoto.com (Habenero) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 03:18:25 GMT

ACL Repair Rehabilitation Works

Tempe, Arizona, October 2, 1996 around 5:45 PM, I was on my bike traveling Eastbound on Guadalupe Road approaching its intersection with Hazleton Avenue. A van and a car fly past me (in the same direction)they are going at least 50 mph. I see my nemesis waiting to make a left turn from the west bound lane of Guadalupe. He is stopped. As the cars that passed me move past him, he starts to move. I stop pedaling the bike. He hesitates, I take this to indicate that he has seen me and resume pedaling at my top rate. I am hoping to get through the intersection before he starts again. The pulse of traffic coming up behind me sounds close by. Oh no, the driver of the Lincoln has decided to try and beat the pulse.

I have to decide what to do in less than a second. Swerving to the left into the traffic pulse is ruled out first, I'm not suicidal. Perhaps, a sliding right turn, no aside from the road rash, my legs would end up under his wheels and the bike would be totaled. I am left with ramming him.

I brake hard leaning in towards the car, my center of gravity kept low. If he has enough speed, the bike will be wiped out, but I'll be able to flip over his trunk and minimize my injuries. About 3.5 seconds from when started his turn, I impact with his car at its mid point with my front tire. There's no way to get overt he entire car now, so I brace myself and my left knee slams hard into the rear door. Pain shoots from my knee, my helmet hits the top of the door, and I fall backwards to the pavement.

Shock settles in very quickly, numbing my pain and allowing me to assess my damage. I know my knee is in bad shape. My rear view mirroris a few inches from my feet. I find almost no damage toanything except my left leg. My left hand has the knuckles scraped, butnothing else is wrong! I succeeded in minimizing my injuries.

Unfortunately, the injury to my knee was muchworse than I had anticipated. My wife, Sue, scolds me for riding mybike to work, and acts concerned. Insurance companies being what theyare, Iwas given very good advice from the urgent care center's doctor oncall. She tells me I'll need an MRI of the knee, and if I intend tocontinue riding my bike I should be sent to a sports medicinespecialist.

She isn't my primary care provider, and hechooses to ignore her advice, since his first goal is to save thecarrier money, not to let a woman doctor tell him what is best for apatient that had never been in his care prior to this case. It took him weeks, and I had to send several email letters to both the president of my health insurance, and noticeably copied were every news organization in the area, before the MRI is performed, and the same day he got the results, miraculously I was referred to an Orthopedic surgeon that specialized in sports medicine.

It's at this point I entered the care of Dr.Randall Hardison. I was told my anterior cruciate ligament had been partially torn. The injury was repairable through surgery, but I wasn't considered a viable candidate for the operation due to my age. At 43, a little over the halfway point by the actuarial tables for living, I would be left permanently disabled because some bean counter's statistics said it would be cheaper to teach me how to live with the injury than it would to fix the problem! Time to send out more letters!

Dr. Hardison and I decided to see what kind of recovery I was capable of achieving without getting the surgery. For six weeks, I went 3 times per week for physical therapy. I did exactly what the therapist asked of me, and my condition continued to deteriorate. The knee became more unstable at every session. Where I had been able to balance on my left leg for about 60 seconds (with a fair amount of pain) at the start of the therapy, by the end I was down to less than 15 seconds.

Something more radical would have to be done, or I faced losing all my favorite activities. I was being forced to give up playing volleyball, tennis, hiking, biking, kayaking, rafting, and I couldn't drive my car very well (it had a clutch). All parts of my life were affected.

The insurance carrier said a brace would be the next step, I felt it wasn't. Dr. Hardison and I talked it over and concluded that a brace would only get in my way, and would never be able to give me the ability to participate in my sports. A brace would have to be worn every day, for the rest of my life, in addition to limiting my activities, in order for me to have any kind of enjoyment. Surgery would have to be performed.

January 13, 1997 about 8:30, I entered the Desert Samaritan hospital for my ACL repair. I felt nervous, but glad to be there. All forms were signed and I waited in the staging area for Dr.Hardison to finish with his first patient of the day. The anesthesiologist injected me with Sodium Pentathol and Demerol; my head started spinning and then oblivion. I have no recollection of the operating room.

For those of you who are curious, but not squeamish, scroll down to see actual photographs of the operation that was done by Dr. Hardison.

I came to and noticed the sounds of machinery.I could hear a water circulator, and some mechanical device. I knew that my surgery was done. I felt very thirsty and soon I was given some water. I drifted off to sleep a while longer.

By 6:00 PM I felt as if I was starving.Since I hadn't had any solid food since breakfast on the 12th, this was not very surprising. Unfortunately, food and general anesthesia don't mix very well, and the after effects of the anesthesia won the first round. I would have to wait until breakfast on the 14th, in order to keep food inside of me.

Dr. Hardison makes his morning rounds before most people are awake. I was alert and ready for him when he came by about 6:00 AM. I wasn't quite ready for what he said; "I want you to do a leg raise for me." I did my best to comply. "Now I want you to bend your knee as much as you can." Once again, I did my best. The woman making rounds with him that morning seemed astonished at the result, and measured the amount of bend I was able to achieve. Even Iwas surprised. It was around 80 degrees. There was some pain, but nowhere near the amount I had anticipated.

Dr. Hardison was excited and happy. Here was a guy the insurance people had said was too old to get good results from the ACL repair, out performing most of his younger patients immediately after surgery. If I continued on in this way, I would be one for his record book.

I was given instruction in the use of crutches and told to walk placing some weight on my left leg as long as it didn't bring on a sharp pain. I was told to walk as often as I felt could, but not to over do it. Good advice, difficult to adhere to without knowing exactly what was meant of me. So I asked what overdoing it would be. "If you experience any sharp pain, stop immediately.If you still feel the pain 5 minutes after stopping, you over did it.Your goal should be to exercise without feeling any sharp pains." Dr.Hardison replied.

I was given an exercise guide, and a note that apatient had written concerning what I should expect to see. It started out saying "Day one, ouch, not much you can do except leg lifts for now. Do about 1,000 a day until you can walk without crutches." It seemed far fetched, but he must know something, so 1,000 a day would be my goal. With that, I was sent home.

Oh no, somethings not right. It said on the note, and Dr. Hardison had told me that a machine was to be sent home to circulate ice water through the bandage, and to keep my knee in motion when I wasn't exercising or walking. I was home for over an hour and neither machine had gotten there. Pain was starting to set in very hard.

I took a pain pill and waited some more.The motion machine arrived. No ice water machine. I put ice packs around my leg, no relief from the pain. I took another pain pill. Sue was now very worried, as I almost never take medicine for pain. She called to find out what had happened to the other machine. I need more ice, I can see my leg is swelling, and there is nothing I can do except put ice packs around the leg and wait. The pain is more than I have ever encountered and I am told that I can take one more painkiller, but would experience an overdose if I took any more than that within then ext 4 hours. It doesn't help! I try using the techniques for pain relief Susan and I had been taught when she was about to deliver our sons. I agree with her, they don't work very well!

At 5:00 the ice machine arrives, and input into immediate action. By 6:00, My pain is diminished. It's amazing how just cooling off the site of the surgery miraculously eases pain.The swelling also noticeably improves. The relief is such that I nod off from my near over dose.

Day 2, by keeping the leg in motion through the night, I am able to tolerate a bit of weight, but not as much as I had while in the hospital. I am able to get 1,000 leg raises done, and find that I can tolerate the pain better. I try to flex my ankle up and down, as that is supposed to aid in decreasing the swelling.

Day 3, in the morning, I take what I hope is my last pain pill. I know from past surgery on my elbows, that rehabilitation of any joint can only be done safely when medication for pain is absent. The leg lifts and the flexing of the ankle seem to go better.

Day 4, I make another mistake. I decided that I needed to take a shower. I prepare for entering it, and find that although I was able to unwrap all the bandages, and I can bend my knee a bit more than 90^o, I can't raise it from the floor to a height that allows entry to the tub. I washed off with a washcloth as best I could.

Day 5, I feel pretty good. It's a nice day, and I try taking a walk outside with my crutches. Life is good! I make it around my apartment building twice! No sharp pains were felt.I'm beginning to think the surgery has been worthwhile.

By the time I saw Dr. Hardison 8 days after surgery, I had increased my walking distance with crutches to about 1/4 mile. I still had felt no sharp pains, and was still doing about 1,000 leg lifts a day. He seemed elated with my progress, and a bit concerned, as the area he had removed the graft from was still too tender to remove the stitches. He decides to have me return in about a week, and then tells me, "If you want to recover fast, you'll have to get rid of the crutches. If you're up to it, I'd like to see you walk in to my office without crutches."

I continued exercising, and walking as much as I could. It seemed crazy, but by using the crutches less, the pain seemed to subside more. I had to ice my knee more often, but not to get rid of pain as much as it was to keep the swelling down. I found that no amount of exercise was too hard to do, as long as I adhered to the exercises given to me. Getting in the shower, took a lot of effort, as the movement required of my knee in bending to get over the edge of the tub was not among the ones listed for me to practice. I could do it,but it didn't feel too good.

On the 14th day after surgery, I put my crutches in the closet. I then went out for my walk. I got my first quarter mile lap completed, no problems! I started around the lake a second time, I heard someone walking behind me, I stepped off the path,and one of the elderly ladies walked past me (she used a walker). I started around behind her, but she was too fast for me to keep up with,what an embarrassment! She lapped me 2 more times, but I was now determined that even if she was faster, I was going to out last her! I walked for 4 laps longer than she did, making my walk 2.5 miles that day. When I reentered the apartment, I collapsed into the sofa and begged my wife for ice. She chastised me for overdoing it, but even shews proud of the distance I was now able to walk.

My next appointment with Dr. Hardison was on the 16th day after surgery. I walked into the waiting room and took my seat. When my name was called, I got up and walked towards the door.I got into the examining room and the nurse who had been looking at my chart suddenly realized I had no crutches. She started to scold me,when Dr. Hardison stopped her with the words, "That's my protocol! I want to see how well he does, and he's doing exactly what I told him to do." When he entered the room, he seemed very surprised that I had an excellent range of motion, and very little pain. If I continued to improve at this rate, I would be among those who made the fastest recovery, but I had to watch out as it was very easy at this point to tear the joint apart by doing the wrong kinds of things.

I looked at my new set of instructions,and asked questions about things on it I didn't understand. Physical therapy was scheduled so that my exercises could be introduced in proper form, and order. Range of motion was going to be more important at this stage of recovery than strength. You can increase strength at any time, but if you strengthen a joint that has limited motion, you can easily build up too much muscle mass to allow the joint to regain its full range of motion. So I did lots of stretches and used "baby weights". I felt very foolish going to the gym and using less weight than everybody else did, but I only have this one chance to regain my lifestyle and I was not going to let my pride ruin it.

I stuck to the schedule, and Melissa and jenny (my therapists) made sure my form was correct. When exercising,using the correct form is extremely important. Your goal is to train your muscles to do their job, and your recovery is dependent upon using the correct muscles in the correct order. With all the torture it seemed like they were having me put through, I knew that hard work at this time would pay off nicely when I was allowed back on my bike, or when I hike out to Sunrise Arch in the Fall. My favorite activity, at this time, came from going in the pool. All of the exercises I was doing in therapy were repeated in the water, but because water eliminated the weight and is cooler than body temperature, I didn't need to ice the knee after the pool workouts.

Every week, it seemed that progress was clearly being made. Melissa would increase the number of reps or the weight if I looked like the workout was going easy. The lazy me wanted to act like the knee was too sore, it was much harder to work at recovery than I had thought it would be. The truth was that I was motivated more by my desire to get back to being active at play, than I was lazy, so I struggled through the workouts. My knee wasn't really in pain from the activities, and I actually found that most of them were helpful.

Six weeks and a day after surgery,another visit to Dr. Hardison, my knee has shown tremendous progress. I am pleased with the results, and so is he. I am now able to walk faster than the old ladies, and I regularly am walking 3 miles or more. My range of motion is close to 125 degrees in my left knee. My right is 146. I'm given anew set of instructions (I am able to cut down to 200 leg raises per day), and told to keep up the good work. I am still told not to over do it, as the graft won't be healed well enough to stand up to any abuse no matter how minor. Just one more thing to talk about!

We are moving into a new house before my next visit with Dr. Hardison, and I am concerned as to what I will be able to do to aide my wife in this endeavor. She had to pack up 90% of our house when we moved out to Chandler, AZ from Trenton, NJ, and I don't want to have her repeat that much work again. Dr. Hardison's advice for me, "If it's at table height and you can lift it and carry it without pain, go ahead. Under no circumstances try to lift anything off of the floor. If you do this correctly, you can be riding your bike again on March 15th."

Had I heard him correctly, I can return to my bike by March 15th? I'll be able to feel wind in my face, and hear the chain as it rolls through the dérailleur? There's no way I'm going to lose this chance. I give my new instructions to Jenny. She tells me I'm in for a much tougher workout each time I come in, but that I'm probably going to like the last exercise. She's right on all counts, but I'm ready for anything (boy was I wrong)!

It's now time to work on the dreaded step exercises. None of the exercises prepares you for the step-downs. Theyare harder than everything else combined is. Melissa scolds me about my form,and the exercise doesn't get any easier with the right form. I'm asked to do 2 sets of 15 reps each. My knee starts to shake by the 20th one,and Melissa mercifully tells me to just do 5 more. Somehow, I made it through those, and determined to finish my set.

"I did it, now is it time for the ice?"I asked. "Not until you finish 10 minutes on the bike." She replied. I get to ride now, after 5 months I get to place my feet on pedals, I'm elated by the thought of using a bike after all this hell (so what if it won't get me anywhere)! I pedal the bike, imagining I'm out on the road with a cool breeze blowing across my face (it helped a lot to choose the one nearest the air conditioner's vent). I ride the stationary bike with a steady pace and wish the timer hadn't been set for such a small amount of time. When the timer bell rings, I continue to pedal until Melissa touches my hand and I am asked to go lay down and ice my knee. I nearly fell, as my knee still wanted to make my feet travel in the perfect circles of bike pedals, instead of the linear motion of walking. Sheepishly I allow her to assist me to the table. If a stationary bike could feel this good, I could hardly wait for the real thing!

The move to the new house went off without too many problems. I found that I could carry much more than expected, but I stayed true to Dr. Hardison's orders, and if it wasn't already at the specified height, I had Susan get it to that height for me. Movers took care of the furniture as planned, but I moved most of the smaller things.

I returned to work on March 14th. I chose to go for several reasons, not the least of which was that it was a payday. My boss was glad to have me back, and I was happy to be back.I still had limits on lifting things, and at least twice a day I climbed the stairs for exercise (seven floors up, 3 floors down and an elevator ride the rest of the way (as per Dr's orders). By returning on the Friday before Spring Break at ASU, I also avoided having lots of new work dumped upon myself (the general thought was I'd be out until after the break). I thus had plenty of time to continue exercising.What a life!

Saturday March 15th, dawn came and I woke my son and told him to get my bike ready to go. He pumped up the tires,and I checked the rest of it. I would be taking my first true ride since my accident. It also happened that most of the route would be the same as that fateful trip. Shortly after 9:00, I kissed Sue and started off with David, my oldest son. The plan was that if I had any trouble at all, we would either turn back, or call for assistance. With only 1 bridge that would have to be crossed twice (a minor rise that was considered verboten by the Doc.), there were no hills on this route.

As the wind hit my face, the sun warmed my back and my feet traveled in their perfect circles, I felt once again the joy of riding! Strangely, it was David who tired first, I guess teenagers are lazier these days. To think, my first ride in five and a half months was a 25 miler. The ACL repair must have been done right!

At my most recent visit, I have 146^oof motion in each knee. I have no difficulty walking or going upstairs. Swimming is a no problem sport! I'll follow the orders, for they have given me more freedom than my insurance carrier could have expected (even with my current limits I'm better off).

It's now been over 12 years since the surgery. My range of motion is equal. the strength of my left knee is about 98% of my right and I have no problem with regards to weather changes. Life is real good!

For those that would like to see photographs taken during my operation, continue scrolling down.

Photo's of My Own ACL Operation

As Mr. Spock says, "Fascinating!"

Left Knee

At the top is the Femur. At the bottom is the Tibia. In between them is the Meniscus.
The fold in the meniscus is indicative of a problem (possible tear?).

Where is the ACL?

The ACL should be attached to the area at the top right side of this photo.
Instead, the probe on left is in the substance of the torn ACL.

Preparing the graft

About 1/3 of the Patellar Tendon has been sliced lengthwise and pulled through the knee,
and after the notch is cleaned out and torn ACL fragments are removed,
it will become a new ACL.

Preparing the attachment point for the graft

My New ACL

It may not get to be a full strength joint,
but it is far better than any of the alternatives I faced!

Green Screen Tips

Rich@HabeneroPhoto.com (Habenero) — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 04:05:00 GMT

Replacing the background is done by isolating a foreground subject, often a person, and moving that object onto a new background. The effort in creating the selection can be made much easier by photographing the subject against a green or blue screen background. The technique has been used by the television industry for many years, they call it Chroma Key. The basic set up is a background that does not contain a color found in the foreground object you wish to relocate. You then can take the image into Photoshop, make a selection (noncontiguous) of the background, invert that selection and move the selection onto a new layer on the desired background. It sounds easy, and it is but there are a few things you should be looking out for when creating these images.

Look at the angle the light falls at in your desired background image. You will want to have your subject in the foreground have a similar shadow pattern (unless you want the image to look contrived).

Try to match up the color temperature of the foreground and background subjects. If you are using a sunset photo for the background, a pale white person would look out of place. You can correct the problem via gelling the lights, a filter on the camera, or an adjustment in Photoshop. Unless you are going for the surrealistic look to your finished image, this is necessary.

Sometimes the easiest way to light the green screen, is to simply make sure that your foreground lights do not fall onto it. In green screen photography, your goal in lighting the screen is consistency of light across the background. If no extra light hits the background, you are more than halfway to your goal. You will not have a problem with blow back (light from the background creating a halo effect on the foreground object) if your subject lights are brighter and neither they nor their shadows hit the background.

Packing for travel!

Rich@HabeneroPhoto.com (Habenero) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:59:00 GMT

Digital photography has made it much easier to travel as a photographer. I used to have to keep a couple of rolls of ISO 1600 film mixed in with a bag full of the lower speed film I planned to use just to ensure a hand inspection could possibly be obtained (it didn't always work). When packing for travel, here are a few things to keep in mind:

1: Digital camera and clothes MUST travel in separate bags. Lint from clothes is almost impossible to keep off of your camera's sensor if you made the mistake of putting clothes in the same bag as your camera. It is easier to keep your camera's sensor clean if you take the time to pack your camera sensibly. If it must travel with your clothes, at the very least put it in a sealed plastic bag.

2: Camera lenses and clothes should be kept separate! lens if you put it in a suitcase full of clothes. Similar to your camera, the lens is a magnet for lint. The only advantage is that your lens is far easier to clean.

3: Lighting equipment and stands can travel in a suitcase full of clothes. The caveat for doing this is that the flashes should be bagged and padded to prevent them from moving around too much. I use a carry on luggage to hold these items and use underwear and socks (in cloth bags) to cushion them.

4: You are permitted a carry on bag and a personal item. I carry my flashes, and accessories in one bag and my camera and lenses in another. I never check those items.

5: Your camera bag relies upon its padding to keep your equipment safely stowed. Cramming too many items with too little padding will damage things. One of the worst feelings you can have is taking out a lens and finding a scratch on it.

6: Batteries travel best if you take time to align them in a container that does not permit them to change their orientation or find a conductive path. A plastic bag filled with batteries does not fit this criteria.

Digital Photography vs. Digital Painting

Rich@HabeneroPhoto.com (Habenero) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 14:05:00 GMT

Is there a difference between creating a Digital Photograph and a Digitally Enhanced Painting? If so what is it? Are simple adjustments one makes in Photoshop to curves, saturation and sharpness all it takes to have your work classified as digitally enhanced, even though those are the same kinds of adjustments you had to learn to do in a darkroom just a few years ago? Here are my thoughts on the subject. The modern darkroom is now a computer using an image processing program.

A photograph, whether produced on film or on a digital sensor, starts its life as light rays that have created an image recorded in a camera which is reproduced on paper. A digitally enhanced painting starts its life in the mind and is rendered via strokes seen on a monitor, via drawing tools. They are entirely separate creations. One did not call the photos touched up by photographers "pen enhanced photos", nor did one call a photo of a painting a "camera enhanced painting".

All of my creations have started their life as light rays that struck film or sensor (mostly film). None of my work has been created solely through brush strokes. I do use brush strokes to create masks that hide parts of the layers used to modify my images or blend in the images used for a multiple exposure. Since those are the same kinds of strokes used in photo retouching, I do not consider them as creating a digitally enhanced painting out of my photographic images. My psychedelic images are created via curves manipulation in Photoshop now, but I started doing them via solarization and cross processing in a chemical darkroom a very long time ago.

I have watched friends create digitally enhanced paintings. They start off using an image or a blank canvas (the term for an area an image will be appearing in Photoshop is also canvas) that they then apply brush strokes with colors within layers to add their own elements to the scene. The end result may resemble some of my work, but the method used to create it is entirely different. I would consider the difference to be similar to the difference between mixed media, acrylic, water color, and oil painting.

Photography is an overall subtractive process that adds realism to an image. We reduce information to create an image that most people would swear is truthful. In this manner we are like a sculptor chiseling marble to release the spirit of the rock so all may enjoy its beauty. Digital painting is more like a person working with clay and wire to build an image that fits their vision. Both techniques may produce a very similar end product, but the method used is entirely different.

Do not try to call my work a digitally enhanced painting. I am not a digital painter! I am a photographer that uses the tools of my trade to create artistic visions to suit my fancy.