Wandering Around Arizona

• Nature Photography, Software Techniques

Wow, does time fly. I have been in Arizona for the last month enjoying the sun and working on non-shooting photo projects while parked in  my RV. It’s been great: t-shirts and flip flops for the last month. Not sure I ever got to do that this early in the year.

I have tried to get some photography done and finally got out last week as the flowers are showing up all over the place. Here is a no-name place north of the Kofa NWR in Western Arizona.The brittlebush has exploded in bloom.

Near Bouse

One technique I have been using a bunch is the focus stacking technique of focusing on the background for one shot and then focusing on the foreground for the next, then blending in Photoshop.

I Photographed This Beautiful Woman Last Night

• B&W, Portrait Photography, Software Techniques

Every once in a while I meet a great person and get all excited at the prospect of photographing them.

That happened the other night when I was teaching an Introduction to Portraiture at the Cascade Center of Photography in Bend, Oregon.

The school proprietors: Christian and Regula Heeb, had arranged this model for the workshop and when it was time to do some demos shots of her for the students to see lighting, I thought: “wow”, this is a very photogenic person.

After the workshop she stuck around for a few minutes and we shot a few more images and discussed more shoots in the future.

I used two large light boxes and then some skin softening in Portrait Professional before a B&W conversion in Topaz B&W Effects.

I’ve Been Working On The Railroad…with HDR

• B&W, Software Techniques

Grungy HDR is a lot of fun and once in awhile I have some free time (rare) to open images and just play. I took this shot in Nevada City Montana a few years ago after a workshop up there. It was one of many I shot in the NC area which is a gold mine (no pun intended) of historic buildings and artifacts from the mining days.

This old railroad car sat next to an old locomotive and a few other old cars. They were rusting and had peeling paint, and that makes them perfect for HDR or B&W with Sepia tone, or……? Let your imagination run wild.

The key to grungy HDR is Tone Mapping more than once and then what I have enjoyed doing is converting to B&W with Topaz B&W Effects and then using the Adjustment Brush to bring back color. What do you think?