A Way to Make Your Soul Grow

“If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.” 

― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

It's estimated that approximately 880 billion photographs will be uploaded to the internet this year alone. That's 126 photos for every human on the planet. We're drowning in a tsunami of digital photographs. It's clear now that the budding photographic artist hoping to have their work seen is up against impossible odds. Photographs that do garner wider attention tend to be either garish, shocking, or controversial in some way. Quiet photos that require time and contemplation, float by unnoticed in the collective photostream, like a single drop of water in a raging river. Now, more than ever, the only answer is to do the work solely for your own enjoyment and edification, or as Vonnegut so eloquently says, “to make your soul grow”. 

Natural Rock Garden, Study 1

Time’s Relentless Melt

“All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.”

– Susan Sontag

Putah Creek, Detail 4

The Light

"You will no doubt have heard the advice before, but it’s too easy to forget. We shouldn’t be taking photographs of objects but of the light. It’s the light that illuminates the object, that makes it attractive, captivating or simply ugly. You need to take control of the light to create a great image, but if you can’t, you need to select a subject to suit the light."

– Robin Whalley

Stormlight Over Wildflowers

From Silver Efex Back to Lightroom

Google/Nik's Silver Efex Pro is a popular application for processing black and white digital images. It includes a variety of film emulators and presets; unique editing tools such as dynamic brightness and soft contrast; and, a set of conventional (albeit limited) exposure and retouching tools. I've used it extensively over the past couple of years with generally good results.

Though I was mostly satisfied with the output I was getting from Silver Efex, there were times when I wanted more control over global contrast, micro-contrast, and sharpening. In Silver Efex, micro-contrast and edge sharpening are simultaneously manipulated by what is called the "structure" tool. Its functionality is similar to the structure tools in HDR applications. Increasing structure can add clarity and "punch", but it can also quickly introduce noise and banding in smooth gradients and areas of solid gray. This issue often forced a compromise between optimal clarity in detailed areas, and smooth transitions in areas of flat tone. Also, the global contrast controls in Silver Efex are not as sophisticated as those found in Photoshop and Lightroom. 

These issues with Silver Efex prompted me to go back and re-process some of my older images using only Lightroom 5.4. In the past I've mostly used Lightroom for RAW conversion and cataloguing, but with the newer versions becoming ever more powerful, I felt it was time for another look.

I think the results in the screenshots below speak for themselves. The image on the left in each set was processed 100% in Lightroom, the image on the right was converted from RAW in Lightroom and processed to completion in Silver Efex. The Lightroom image has much better mid-tone contrast and clarity, smoother transitions from gray to white, and overall it's just a richer, more subtly toned and detailed image.

Lightroom on left, Silver Efex on right (click to view full size).

Lightroom (on left) showing improved detail and micro-contrast (click to view full size)

Lightroom (on left) showing improved mid-tone contrast (click to view full size)

Lightroom (on left) showing smoother transitions from gray to white (click to view full size)

A single image does not provide a definitive answer to which application produces superior output, so I also re-processed a number of other images in Lightroom. In each case I ended up with similar results; the images processed in Lightroom showed cleaner details, smoother gradients, and improved contrast.

The takeaway? While I still feel Silver Efex is a decent tool for quick conversions, from here on out I'll be doing all of my black and white processing in Lightroom.

California Fine Art

I was pleased to learn that my print Summer Storm Over Fallen Oak was accepted into the California Fine Art exhibition at the 2014 California State Fair. Details as follows:

California Fine Art
July 11 – July 27, 2014
California State Fair
Cal Expo, Expo Center Building 7, Sacramento, CA
More Information →

Summer Storm Over Fallen Oak

New Tools, New Possibilities

Creativity and inspiration come from within the artist, but the tools determine much of the character of the finished artwork. Oil painters have their bristle brushes, canvas, and linseed oil; watercolorists have their sable brushes and handmade watercolor paper; relief printmakers have their wood blocks, carving knives, and brayers; and, photographers have their cameras, lenses, and software.

It could be argued that the camera and sensor are equivalent to the artist's canvas, and the lens is equivalent to the artist's paint and brushes. The characteristics of a particular paint and brush combination do more to determine the character of a painting than the canvas. Likewise, the characteristics of a particular lens do more to determine the character of a photograph than the camera and sensor.

My initial collection of three zoom lenses were chosen based upon my desire to develop a body of work documenting the open spaces near my studio in South Placer County, as well as the nearby counties within the northern third of the Central Valley of California. The set is well tailored to capturing everything from classic wide angle scenics to mid-distance vignettes.

The one missing piece has been a lens to capture intimate details of the landscape, from near-distance abstracts down to the macro level of small objects such as individual rocks and plants. To fill this gap, I've added a macro lens to my tool kit; the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 L Macro IS USM.

The Canon 100 L Macro is a pro level, mid-telephoto macro with 4-stop image stabilization, ultrasonic auto-focus, 1X maximum magnification (0.3 meter minimum focus distance), and extremely high image quality. This lens will enable me to drill down and document the environment on a more intimate level than in the past. I'm very excited about this!

You'll be seeing some of this new, more intimate imagery on the site this summer.

Wild Lupine, Pleasant Grove Open Space

In the Details

An overwhelming majority of photographs are now viewed on small screens. I don't know if anyone has the numbers, but I'm guessing that less than 1% end up as a print. Being a person that loves the Fine Print, this saddens me. Smartphones and computers are great, but the experience of viewing a photo on a small screen is nothing at all like looking at a large, detailed print, up close and in person.

Some photos are best viewed as large prints. Others work best in smaller sizes. Highly detailed images tend to work best as large prints, whereas high contrast images with stark compositions work best on small screens and in smaller print sizes. This may at least partially explain the popularity of simple, graphically punchy images on photo sharing sites such as Instagram, Tumblr, and 500px.

Michael Kenna is a highly regarded landscape photographer known for his high contrast, compositionally strong images. For over 25 years he has printed most of his images at 8" square. The images on his website are presented small as well. His work emphasizes abstract shapes, with little regard for surface detail or textures - perfect for displaying in smaller formats. 

My image Ferrari Ranch Wetlands, Study 2 (below) works best as a large print. Viewed at what is now the typical screen size (under 12") it doesn't have a lot to offer. The composition is static and the detail gets lost on a small screen. But, printed in gelatin silver at 20” square, the rich detail and subtle tones make for a totally different (and satisfying) viewing experience, particularly up close at “pixel peeping” distances. It clearly demonstrates the idea that images do best when displayed in their ideal medium and proper scale. 

Ferrari Ranch Wetlands, Study 2

Ferrari Ranch Wetlands, Study 2, Detail