A New Try At Sharpening

 Recently, I listened to a video on YouTube done by Blake Rudis of F64 Academy.  In the video he went through a process of making the layers into a group, making the blend mode to be Linear Light, making the Fill slider to be at 30%, the desaturating the layer. He then used the High Pass filter, made a black mask and then brushed the areas that he wanted to be sharpened.

In this photograph, I sharpened the wood, and the water, but left the bushes alone.  I did not use the Blend If like he did.  I think that the picture turned out well.

If you have an interest in Photography, Meditation or Mindfulness, you are welcome to contact me and I would be very happy to set up a day and time for us to meet and talk about it. 

Tree Roots

 Scientist say that you can tell the age of a tree by the number of rings that are in the trunk of the tree after it is cut down.  I am not sure how many years of a tree's life each ring represents (I know that it is claimed that for each of our years, a dog's years is equal to seven).  

Through my meditation and mindfulness, I have discovered that tree roots have interesting patterns in them as well.  I am not sure how the appearance of rings happen.  Whether it is from people walking over them or the erosion of the ground, but sometimes I discover depressions in the roots and other times I discover rings.

That was the case with this picture, it appears that there are rings in this tree root.  I could it fascinating and decided to take a picture.

What do you discover on your walks?  If you would enjoy learning more about photography, meditation or mindfulness, you are welcome to write to me and I would be very happy to set up a date and time for us to meet.

Looking Forward To Black Friday

 I have seen several YouTubers that are saying that Sony will be releasing the Sony a7c shortly.  I am hoping that this is more than rumor because the price point is very close to what the a7III is selling for as well. What my hope is since the two cameras are nearly at the same price point, I am hoping that the a7III will come down in price.  If that is the case, I will get one.  I am currently shooting an a7 so going to the III, will be a nice increase in functionality.  Ohhhh, I know that I could get the II, but I don't feel that there is that much difference between the original and the II.  

Anyway, we will see what happens on Black Friday or close to there.

All Lives Matter -- Education Is The Key

It is often said that the reason history repeats itself is because we never learn from it.  During the period of May 31st and June 1st of 1921, the Tulsa Race Massacre happened in the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma.  According to Scott Ellsworth, who wrote on the Tulsa Race Riot in the Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History, "it was the single worst incident of racial violence in American History.  The incident destroyed the wealthiest black community in the United States called "Black Wall Street". 

So often when I listen to different programs and people talk, I often hear a form of the words, "I did not see people like me growing up".  When we look around, we can see people that are well educated African-American and Latino people who are well educated that look like us.  I think the problem is that we "discount" those people as being born with a "silver spoon" in their mouth. 

Personally, I think of people like James Brown from CBS Sports and moderator of the NFL Today, yes he went to Harvard, but he got there through basketball.  Loretta Lynch who became the Attorney General under former President Obama between 2015 to 2017, she graduated from Harvard Law School, but according to Wikipedia, her grandfather was a sharecropper who helped people move to the north to escape racial persecution.  Lonnie Bunch, who is the head of the Smithsonian Institution on Racial Tensions, his family was the only African Americans in their community of Belleview, New Jersey, his grandfather was a sharecropper who moved to Belleview, New Jersey and became on of the first black dentist in the region (according to Wikipedia) and since this blog is about photography, we can't forget about Ibarionex Perello, a photographer who is from the Dominican Republic and has been a photographer for over 25 years and is host of The Candid Frame.  There are others like Joseph Rosendo, who does the PBS show Travelscope, who is a Cuban immigrant, but became a travel journalist.  R C Concepcion, an Adobe certified instructor in Photoshop, Illustrator and Lightroom. 

All of these people worked their way up to the point that they are through education, either through school or being shown "The ropes".  Joseph Rosendo ends every show he does on Travelscope with a quote from Mark Twain, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow mindedness".  Many will tell you that it takes money to travel and the way that we obtain money in our lives is through education.  A person who has been well educated is easy to pick up, they speak differently.  You can tell their manner of speaking when they speak.

Lonnie Bunch was on The CBS Evening News with Nora O'Donnell on June 1, 2020 and he made several statements that really caught my attention.  He quoted Ella Baker, who was an African American Civil Rights Activist who said, "Until the killing of a black mother's son is considered as important as a white mother's son, we who believe in freedom cannot rest". 

This blog post is not only a call for better education of black and brown people but better education of everyone.  Look at the difference between what happened in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and what happened in Flint, Michigan where Chris Swanson, the Sheriff of Genesee County in Michigan when he laid down is baton and riot gear and walked with the people.  In Minneapolis, entire blocks were burned down, even an African American family who had invested their entire life savings had their store looted, burned down and people came in to take the money that was in the safe.  Yet, in Flint, they had a parade and not a single thing was damaged.  This was not the only incident that I saw on the news, their were stories in New York, Houston, Texas and other cities of the United States where officers took a knee with the protestors and calmed things down considerably.  Perhaps our police departments in this country can take a lesson from these people.

We need to educate our lawyers, our judges and all the way up the system including our legislature and our President.

The President even berated the nation's governors saying that if they were soft, they would be taken as jerks and people would get away with what they were doing.  Really?  Look what happened in Flint Michigan.  Nothing happened there.  Putting people in jail, does nothing.  If anything, it hampers people from obtaining an education.

One of the things that I would think would be part of that education system is to give people something to get excited about.  Besides being a photographer, I have also taught people about photography taking them all the way from informing them about what camera to buy, leaving it up to them to make a decision about what camera that they should buy, all the way to how to process their photographs that they take. 

I will admit that not everyone gets excited about photography, but everyone has something that they can get excited about if you find out what excites them.  The key is that we need to find out what it is that gets them excited.  It might be a flower, helping them to get their hands dirty transplanting flowers from one place to another can help.  Teaching them what happens from a seed to the bloom of the flower might excite them.  You just never know what it might be that excites them.  It has been said, "An idol mind is the Devil's workshop".  If we can make people's minds less idol, they will be consumed, they will have something to do and they will be off of the streets because they are doing something productive.  Perhaps, it will even stimulate our economy.

I have seen this in my classes that I teach.  I can show someone how to take a photograph and they will often say, "I wonder what would happen if I . . . (and you can fill in the blank)".  For me, that makes me very proud because my teaching is starting to sink in.  What helped?  Education, in my mind anyway.

Lonnie Bunch made a statement at the end of the interview with Nora O'Donnell on the CBS Evening News that was very pungent to me hearing it.  He said but I want to expand it some , "As a black or latino man in America, you are still breathing, but as a black or latino man in America, I wonder how long?"  My response to Mr. Bunch is, when everyone receives a quality education.  We need to elevate our education in our poorer neighborhoods to the elevation of the education in our more influential neighborhoods and find people who are willing to mentor and coach those in the more disadvantaged neighborhoods just like the people who are in the more advantaged neighborhoods.

Pushing On

While the Covid-19 pandemic pushes on, over one million cases have been reported in the United States, with over 1,600 cases in my county and over 2,000 in my immediate area.  Yet, the governor has partially opened the state, to commerce.  I am sorry, but this is scary to me.  Many businesses were boarded up during this time with lots of graffiti artist painted their graffiti on the boards.  Because of some of those businesses deciding to open up, many of the boards are coming down.  It seems like a waste of talent.  Why don't some of those businesses use the boards as part of their decor?  It could be that they don't want to be reminded of the times, but it is a piece of history.  Someone once said, "The reason that history repeats itself is because we don't learn from it".  Some have said that the world will not be the same after this and others have opined that perhaps we should not go back to the old ways.  Perhaps.

Focusing more on the positive, I have been listening to podcast and getting ideas for things that can help my process my photographs.  I created a preset for Lightroom, that I will use to process my photographs as I import them into Lightroom.  I also made a LUT (Look Up Table) for my colors and tones in Photoshop.  Both of those were inspired by listening to Blake Rudis' podcast on the Virtual Summit that Dave Cross put on.  Now all I can have all of my colors and tones can look the same throughout my photographs.  I am looking forward to using it on many if not all of my photographs.

I also listened to Dave Cross' podcast called "Talking Shop".  He made a suggestion about using two curves in Photoshop, one for darkening and one for lightening and then making an action to put the two curves on your layer stack.  I have been interested in trying to burn and dodge in Photoshop without using the burn and dodge tools.  It is my thought that with using a mask in Photoshop, making the mask black, then painting in white with my settings at 10% intervals for the brush and going over and over until I am satisfied with how the highlights and shadows look in my photograph.

If you think about it, every object that we see, has highlights and shadows.  Photographs are two dimensional objects having only a length and width.  It is putting highlights and shadows in your picture that helps it become three dimensional helping it to have depth.  Having the ability to dodge and burn will really help in my processing abilities.  I am looking forward to making the action and putting it in my library in Photoshop so that I can use it in my post processing.

I am itching to get outside and take pictures but I am doing my best not to dwell on the negative and focusing on the positive.  I hope that you are as well.

COVID-19 Continues

Grrrrrrrr COVID-19 still has me stuck at home.  I am still hoping that as some of the medical experts have said that heat of the summer will kill the virus.  Is it possible that many of these restrictions will be eased up?  In my state, some have, but then the city is still taking precautions since there are close to 1200 cases of the virus here.

I am a person that needs to get out.  This business of sitting at home is getting to me.  I still want to go places and see things that I haven't seen or really experienced yet.  Yet my camera is sitting in its bag gathering dust on my floor.

You might have noticed that I did not post last week.  That was because I was attending a Virtual Summit on Photoshop.  As per the typical summits or conferences, some of the instructors were very informative and others were just so so or down right not interesting.  One particular instructor that I enjoyed was Blake Rudis from https://f64academy.com/.  It was through him that I learned to do a LUT (look up table) to help with my post processing.  While, Blake uses Photoshop and Adobe Camera Raw to process his pictures, I am going to split his process putting the Adobe Camera Raw part into Lightroom as a Preset and the Photoshop part into its own LUT.  Then, when I import my image into Photoshop, I can use the LUT at the first action to get the proper tone and colors to begin my processing with.  I am excited to set this up and start using it and see what it does to my processing.

Someone else that I really enjoyed was Jack "Wow" Davis http://jackdavishowtowow.com/.  Jack took a step by step approach to using Lightroom for my iPad.  He really made it seem interesting to me and I have the feeling that it is something that I can use if I am at lunch and want to see how some of my pictures may look once I put them on my desktop computer.  Presently, I use my iPad to take panoramas, so I am looking forward to using it and getting over some of the wonder that I might have after I take a picture that I feel really good about.  As I tell many of the people that I interact with, "Everything looks good small".  It is when you get it larger that you start noticing the flaws.

Plans For The Future

Like many in the world, I am staying inside.  I have several of the health conditions that those I respect, say are the most critical conditions for being susceptible to this Coronavirus that we are all dealing with.  I am getting to go out to the grocery store once a week.  This week much of the world celebrates Easter Sunday.  The grocery store will be closed so I will need to go earlier in the week to get my groceries.

Since I am staying at home, I am enjoying a state of "Wanderlust", figuring places that I would like to go once all of this is over with.  Top on the list is Las Vegas.  I want to shoot along the canals of the Venetian Hotel.   I would enjoy shooting the fountains at the Bellagio Hotel (can i get a spot in the middle so I can get the curve of the hotel and the fountains in the middle)?  I would enjoy going to Seven Magic Mountains about one half hour south of The Strip, and of course there is the Grand Canyon about one and one half hours away from Las Vegas.  If I can leave early enough, there is the Hoover Dam along the way.

One thing that I think about is getting a hat.  I have seen a couple styles that I like, but I haven't found one that comes in the color that I want.  I have been thinking of a white hat so that it reflects the light and will keep my head cool, especially in the summertime.

So what have you been thinking about doing after we get the signal that we can go outside and enjoy our activities?  I would enjoy hearing your thoughts on the subject.  Leave a comment below.  You might inspire me for more activities to take on after we get our release from these "Stay in Place" orders that we have.

Until next time, stay healthy, stay well and most of all keep hoping for as a wise man once said, "Hope is the anchor of the soul".

Where Have I Been?

In looking back at my blog, my last post was December 2016.  Today is March of 2020, quite a long time.  In short, I have been busy doing nothing.

I had a lot of back issues.  I went through a lot of misdiagnosis of my problem.  I finally went to a pain management doctor and he referred me to a spine specialist.  This spine specialist diagnosed me with a combination of scoliosis and stenosis.  Much of my back naturally fused itself over the years, but I was having trouble with the L series in my back. For those of you that are not familiar with what different parts of the back do, the L series of vertebrae in your back control your legs.  I ended up having surgery in January of 2019 and today, I am actually walking around without the use of a cane or any other device to help me walk. 

I am back to being able to carrying my camera in a backpack type camera bag and I have gotten into mirrorless cameras.  Specifically, I was able to get a Sony a7 camera and I have gotten two lenses to shoot with and am doing very well using that.  Of course, I ended selling my Nikon camera and gear so that I could acquire my Sony, but overall, it has helped me to get out and start shooting again.

I hope to start posting on my blog on a regular, consistent basis.  Of course this Coronavirus pandemic has happened and so like many others, I am staying in so that I don't come down with it.  I am and will always deal with chronic depression, that is part of why I am a photographer and do what I do. 

I have taken some pictures, but I want to work on some processing skills while being forced to stay at home.  One of the techniques I want to work on is sharpening my photographs.  I have gotten a lot of comments about how great my textures are in my photographs, but like the person that I am, I am my own worst critic and feel that they can be better.  I also have changed my post processing routing and use much more Photoshop than I was.  I still put frames around all of my work, but have seen some other people that use frames and want to incorporate some of their ideas into my frames as well.

Until next time.  Stay healthy, stay well, and most of all keep shooting.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness:  "The practice of maintaining a nonjudgmental state of heightened or complete awareness of one's thoughts, emotions, or experiences on a moment to moment basis"  Merriam-Webster online dictionary www.merriam-webster.com.

Often, when we go into certain situations, we have preconceived notions or expectations about what we expect or want to happen.  In my article on meditation I stated that I often listen to music that contains the sounds of ocean waves, babbling brooks or even waterfalls and suggested that words to songs can "pollute my mind" and help me raise false expectations of what I want or expect to come away from a shoot with.

Susan Kanfer on the Photofocus website posted a picture of Zion National Park.  Given the same opportunity, many people would come away with just one picture from this opportunity, but Susan was able to discover five other pictures within the one picture that many of us would have taken.

In my previous post titled "A Christmas Walk At The Driskill Hotel, I talked of watching an inspirational video that gave me ideas of possible post processing ideas for pictures I wanted to take to accomplish my ideas.  When you go out shooting, it almost makes the shoot to be a sort of scavenger hunt for the opportunities that you seek and desire to accomplish the objectives you desire.

So what can we do to take pictures that show our heightened  or complete awareness of our thoughts, emotions or experiences that we are having when we take pictures?

First:  Walk slowly over your selected path.  Just as if you were looking for something that you might have lost, I often tell people, "Look up, look down and look from left to right, but look slowly."

Second:  Don't be so concerned with the total picture.  If you go to Google Search and search images of places that you would like to take pictures at, you can see plenty of those.  If you have Google Earth, you can literally see pictures that other people have taken of the places you want to go to.  What will make your pictures stand out is if you take selected images from that bigger picture.  Look for things such as water flowing over rocks, trees that are standing next to each other that perhaps have contrasting colors, perhaps green and yellow or red and either green or brown.  Don't be enchanted with a waterfall.  Again, there are plenty of pictures of those.  Instead look for the water cascading over what is causing the waterfall.  Perhaps you need to put your camera in a vertical position so that you can capture more of the falls.  Perhaps, you need a zoom lens on your camera and a tripod because you can't get close enough to that picture.  Many have suggested using a Neutral Density (ND) filter to make the water more milk like in appearance.  Also, try taking several pictures at a faster speed on your camera and then importing them into Photoshop as layers.  You will find that your vegetation is not blurry around your waterfall, especially if there was a wind, which often seems to happen.

Third:  Before you take your picture, think how you are going to process it.  I eluded to this about the waterfall.  How you are going to process your picture is very important to how you take it. Do you need just one picture or do you need several?  It is difficult to go back and try to take the same picture, especially if the place you took the picture is a long distance from you.  Besides that, the light is never the same because of the rotation of the Earth.  Remember the old phrase, "Better safe than sorry"?  It applies to photography as well.  It is far better to take more pictures and then discard the ones that you don't want to use when you post process than to go back and retake your picture again.

Fourth:  If something makes you happy, take a picture of it.  Life is filled with sorrowful moments. During those sorrowful moments it is often best to go back and reflect on those positive happy moments in your life.  You will find it puts a smile on your face.

There is a quote associated with Mark Twain (a.k.a. Samuel Clemons), "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness".  He went on to say, "And many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.  Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all of one's lifetime.

Happy shooting.

Christmas Walk At The Driskill Hotel

On Tuesday of this week, I had the opportunity to see a video put on by Topaz Labs and Harold Davis called, "A Homeopathic Approach to Adjustments".  I found it to be very inspirational.  One area that I really peaked my interest was where Harold took what seemed to be a "Cat's Eye" marble, photographed it and then brought a copy of the marble down below the shot, and put an object inside of the marble.  The two marbles were touching each other, but hat got me to thinking.

I went on a photowalk the next night and had thought of photographing a bulb on a Christmas tree and then putting a picture inside of it as one of my intentions of photographing that night.

In my travels, I went by the Driskill Hotel in Austin, Texas.  They had their tree up so I went inside to see it since it was in the middle of the lobby.  When I walked through the doors I heard a trio of two violins and a cello and walked toward the tree.  I looked closely at the tree and then I found my perfect opportunity.  I bulb that had many different facets to it.  I photographed it.  Then when I was getting ready to go out the doors that I came in, I turned around and photographed the tree.

When I went to post process my pictures, I could not help thinking about putting the tree inside of the bulb.  I had seen the technique done for clouds and other objects, so I thought I would try it for myself.  I learned a few things along the way, like I need to merge my layers before putting my frame around the picture, but it worked and I am happy with what I produced.

You will need to keep an eye out for the video as Topaz Labs has not put it out yet (they edit it to fit the youtube requirements).  I am sure if you go to youtube and search topaz labs harold davis and look for the video "A Homeopathic Approach to Adjustments", you will be able to see the video for yourself.

This is what I came out with

Meditation

Many are familiar with the many different forms of meditation that are out there.  Meditation is an essential part of Buddhism. Many meditate while doing yoga.  Still others, while maybe not realizing it meditate during the day.  Some refer to it as “Day dreaming”. 

I first leaned self hypnosis back in the late 1970s.  The person I learned it from told the class a statement that has stuck with me all of these years.  He said, "Many of us claim we don't have an extra minute in our day, but what is it that you do when you go to the bathroom?  Do you just stare at the wall?  It is a perfect time to do self hypnosis to build you up."

In 2009, I was introduced to meditation.  During that time, the members of the class and I experienced a period of silence where we put our feet flat on the floor, sat back in our chair and then closed our eyes.  We built our time up from five minutes to a period of twenty minutes.  Then the teacher would ask, "How was that?"  Each of the members of the class had a different experience during their period of meditation.

For me, meditation is not necessarily closing my eyes and going "Ummmmmmmm" while I am out in the world.  Far from it, my method is to listen to music with some noise cancelling headphones that help to separate me from the rest of the world.  I listen to music that has a lot of water in it.  Music that has sounds like ocean waves, babbling brooks or even waterfalls occupies a good portion of my playlist.  I also enjoy instrumental music from artist like Kenny G and others.  I find that music transports me away from what is going on around me.  In my mind, it must do something because I have noticed a trend of people that seem to run around with ear buds in their ear listening to something.  I have even heard disc jockeys and sports casters that have music of what to me sounds like a metal brush on a snare drum to help them speak in a rhythmic manner.

Have you ever wondered why we enjoy pictures that have water in them?  Could it be that our bodies are made up of approximately 70% water and as such, water brings peacefulness to us?  I think so, at least for me it does.

The next time you go out taking pictures, try listening to music that transports you to a different place.  You just might find that you make more interesting pictures.  I encourage you to share your experiences.

In my next article, I will write on mindfulness, the practice of maintaining a nonjudgmental state of heightened or complete awareness of one's thoughts, emotions or experiences on a moment to moment basis.

One Photo Focus Submission

If you are not aware of it, Stacy Fischer does an event every month called One Photo Focus on her blog Visual Venturing.  There are about thirty of us that participate in it (but I am sure others are welcome).

This month's submission came from Julie Powell.  Of course I put my own processing and creativity to work and came up with my submission.  I did my own processing workflow, but added a technique that I learned from Marty at Blue Lightening TV, of course I made some modifications of my own (that is called "artistic license").

I made my Gaussian Blur to be at 50 (instead of 9), then on the brush tool I had my opacity at 90% (rather than 50%), and on the vignette, I increased my pixel size to be 131 rather than 90 (just a personal preference).

The link for all of the submissions is here  http://wp.me/p14eaH-2md  If you like what you see and want to participate next month, I am sure Stacy would be more than happy to send you the photographs (you can do RAW or Jpeg) for you to submit

My Submission

                                                       

Julie Powell's Picture

Is that George Strait I hear in the background?

Well excuse me, but I think you took my chair . . .

Well, I like you too, but to tell you the truth, that wasn't my chair after all.
                                                                     

My Processing Workflow -- Part 1 Lightroom

From my experience most of us are visual learners.  If we watch someone and take notes through what they show us, we can learn, but it is much better when we put the methods that we are taught into practice and then repeat them over and over again.

Two primary teachers I have had are Jack "Wow" Davis and Mark S Johnson.  Jack Davis taught me about Lightroom and Mark Johnson taught me about using Photoshop. I took what I learned from each other them and then worked it into my own workflow.  Yes, I have learned techniques from other people like Blake Rudis, J.R. Rodriguez, Anthony Morganti and others, but this system works for me.

This will be a two part blog post separating my work in Lightroom from my work in Photoshop.  They are two different programs and some people may only desire to use Lightroom and not include Photoshop in their workflow. If you happen to be using Photoshop, Lightroom works very similar to Adobe Camera Raw (ACR).  For me Lightroom is less intimidating.

Once I have loaded my photographs into Lightroom (I use Lightroom to catalog my photographs rather than using Bridge which is part of Photoshop), I go way down to "Lens Corrections".  Check the boxes that say "Remove Chromatic Aberration" and "Enable Profiles Corrections".  Be sure to check your Histogram up at the top on the right hand side to see what the length of the lens you used was.  You might find that it is giving you the wrong lens.  Then go down to "Transform".  Here I select "Auto" but I also look at the picture as I might have to manually adjust my picture to get it the way I want.

Next I go to the top and crop my picture to the way I want it.  Then I go into the Basic panel and set my White Balance.  On a RAW Photograph, you have choices (just one of the reasons I shoot in RAW).  From there I adjust my Highlights and Shadows.  Most of the time you will find yourself pulling the slider to the left to reduce your highlights and to the right to open up your shadows.  It is important to make sure that you are not clipping your whites or blacks, but if you don't like what you are seeing you can always adjust them in Curves, when we get there.  Then go down to Clarity and adjust your Clarity.  You will see your photo sharpen right up.

Then adjust your Whites and Blacks. This might help some of your clipping, so it is why I don't adjust my Curves until I get there.  Then you can adjust your Vibrance. You will really see the colors come to life doing this.  From there I go into the Radial Filter.  Hold the Ctrl (on MAC the Command key) and double click on the picture.  You will see that you get a vignette. Make sure that "Invert Mask" is checked.  This will allow you to adjust what is inside the mask.  Most of the time all I adjust is the Clarity here, but you might need to make some other modifications  Remember you are the artist.  As Bob Ross would say, "It is your world, so present it the way you want."

So just a quick recap to this point:

Lens Corrections
Transform
     Auto
Crop Tool
Basic Panel
     White Balance
     Highlights/Shadows
     Clarity
     Whites/Blacks
     Vibrance/Vignette

Jack Davis calls this the "Wow Tango".

If you still need to fix your clipping for blacks and whites, go to Tone Curves and adjust the side of the curve on the left (for blacks) or the right (for whites).  Just push it straight up to adjust the blacks for clipping and straight down for the whites (you need to be in the point curve for this maneuver).  Once you get the triangles not to have white in the Histogram, you have done the job you need because we will make another adjustment in Photoshop.

Go into the HSL panel and adjust the colors to the way you want.  I start with the Luminance, then go to Hue and then to Saturation.

Then go into Detail and adjust your Sharpening (typically 71 is enough for me), Masking, then Luminance if I notice grain (a look that looks like someone took and threw a handful of sand across your image.) and then do the Detail for the Luminance and the Masking (just about the Masking slider).

That is my basic Lightroom workflow.  When I am finished in Lightroom, I right click on my picture, go to Edit In, and choose Photoshop and let the program transfer the program.  That way I keep my pictures from being destroyed by Photoshop.

Stay tuned for my workflow by Photoshop.

The Alamo Cenotpath

On a recent visit to San Antonio I went by the Alamo.  I had photographed the Cenotaph which according to the site www.exploresouthernhistory.com means "empty tomb".  Tradition claims that the Alamo Cenotaph marks the spot where the slain defenders of the Alamo were piled after the battle in 1836 and burned in the great funeral pyres.  Today the remains are located in a marble casket at San Fernando Cathedral (according to Google Maps about a 15 minute walk.

The Cenotaph is very close to zone vii on the zone system that was developed by Ansel Adams.  I shot this picture and then made it a high key photograph by following a video from Blue Lighting TV on youtube that you can find here  after doing my normal processing.  I feel this gives this image a very spiritual quality and one that is fitting for so many men that are considered heroes in the history of Texas.

My System

Have you ever sat and thought, that is an incredible picture, of a picture you are looking at?  If you investigate the person that took the photograph, you will find that they live in the area that they took the photograph.  Ohhh sure, there are people that are able to travel all over the world and take pictures of different subjects, but have you ever thought about how many pictures they took to get that one photograph they were proud enough to show?

I had the opportunity to go out with a photographer that had been photographing a particular area for over twenty years.  He has taken some amazing photographs over that time.  When I was traveling home, I thought about what I had observed while I was with him.  There were people that he knew that were also photographers and they would tell him that a particular bear was in an area with her cubs.  He would wait because he knew that there would be a flood of people going there, but he knew he would still get the pictures.  Many of the other photographers that I had read suggested limiting yourself to an area of fifty miles.

My situation is different.  I learned self hypnosis back in the 1970s.  I have been taking pictures since before the time that I learned self hypnosis.  Things never really came together for me until I went through something called "Active Cognitive Therapy".  That and a counselor telling me when I told him I was getting ready to retire helped me put everything together, self hypnosis, meditation, mindfulness and photography.

Most doctors recommend that you walk at least five miles every other day.  Since I am limited in my journeys because I am not able to drive, I decided that I would walk three miles.  Then by the time that I walk back to where I started, I have walked six miles total (beating the doctor's recommendation).   Most of my journeys are limited to streets.  I do mostly landscapes and architecture, but I focus on  abstracts, contrast, patterns and textures.  I often find myself doing all sorts of stretching exercises in order to get the point of view I want for the picture I am taking.  Things like getting on one knee, moving my arms zooming in and out with my legs instead of the lens on my camera and I could go on.

I drew a circle on a map of the area I wanted to photograph.  I then divided it up into six sections.  So one day I will go out, the next day I will process my pictures that I took, the third day I will go to another section and take pictures, on the fourth day I will process my pictures.  I continue on and it takes me roughly two weeks to make my way around the circle.  Perhaps, on one cycle you will work north and south streets, the next cycle you work east and west streets.  Perhaps there is a place of special interest to you and you can go by there and check it out.

You will want to go to places at different times so the light is different.  You will be surprised at how much of a difference the quality of light will be doing that.  Maybe you will hear of an event that will be happening in your area that you want to go to.  If it is your shooting day, don't fret over missing your area, go to it and pick up the area the next time you go out.

You will be surprised at how good you feel going out, taking pictures and enjoying your specific area of the world.

What Is A Contemplative Photograph?

Quite simply, a contemplative photograph is one that is taken with some thought in mind while taking the photograph.  Oftentimes, people will take a picture of something that stimulates their mind in a pleasing way so when they get home they will have a pleasant memory of their experience.

The contemplative photograph takes into account what direction the subject is facing?  Where is the sun in relation to your subject?  Do you want a shallow depth of field or do you want everything sharp?  What lens is the right lens to take the picture with?  So often we buy a camera with a kit lens and never take it off while there may be another lens that would work better for the situation and the subject.  Is the shutter speed you need for the depth of field you want sufficient for you to hand hold your camera or do you need to use a tripod?  If you forgot your tripod, do you need to increase the sensitivity of your sensor?  If you are shooting a sunrise, would a purple sky help?  Perhaps you need to use a filter to accomplish that. Where should you focus?  All of these questions go into the making of a contemplative photograph.  As you can easily see, much more goes into taking a contemplative photograph than just taking a simple snapshot.

One of the things I often do is to give myself assignments for a particular photograph that I want to take that day.  Sometimes their are lines in songs that I listen to that may stimulate my assignment, other times it might simply be to go out and photograph a particular color against a contrasting color.  You might feel that is too limiting, but we will talk about my system in another post.  Sometimes, I just listen to inspirational music and let my mind drift while I walk.  I will listen to music that has the ocean coming in, guitars that have a rhythm to them that I enjoy.  Sometimes a saxophone does the trick for me.  You have to make that decision for yourself.

My meditation and mindfulness does not stop when I take the photograph.  I think about how I am going to process my picture before I take it.  Sometimes the least suspecting photographs turn out awesome in post processing.