I have recently upgraded to Photoshop CS2. My primary reason was interest in doing a High Dynamic Range (HDR) image. So far, I have not actually tried such an image. I was recently reading this month’s Outdoor Photographer magazine. George Lepp shows an example of an HDR image from Hawaii. It is sunset at the beach with black lava rocks. He took 7 images each one-stop apart on exposure. The result is amazing.
Here is how to do an HDR image…
I just read an article about Photographer/Photo Illustrator David Julian. He has fascinating photo montages. His web site is a hoot with the various parts of the brain lit up for each section. He gives workshops on creativity which makes me curious. How do you teach creativity?
This is another photo from last month’s photo event in Hercules.
Tonite, I gave my talk on Photoshop Camera Raw. I got a little carried away on the write-up. Here is a link to the PDF (warning it is 3 mb so a dialup connection could take quite a while). I took a lot of material from Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS2 by Bruce Fraser.
This is the Bamboo forest at Hakone Gardens in Saratoga.
This weekend was the second and final weekend of my fine art digital printmaking course. This segement was taught by Michael Creedon (an instructor at the San Francisco Art Institute). Here are a few of the things that I learned.
This is another shot from my Hercules field trip. It reminds me of a folk art painting of a California poppy.
Last weekend and next weekend, I am attending a Digital Fine Art Printing class. The class is at the San Francisco Art Institute. The first weekend was taught by J. Holmes. Joseph Holmes is an expert at printing. I will try to post his teachings as I absorb them. Here are a few tips.
This is a follow-up to my write-up about my Photo San Francisco visit. After deciding on attending on Sunday, I noticed that there was a panel discussion about publishing your own photography book. There were four panelists…
Here are the points that I picked up…
Today, I drove up into the city to attend Photo San Francisco. I was a little nervous driving by myself because I am incapable of parallel parking. Fortunately, there was plenty of head-in parking available. The event was held at Fort Mason.
Here are the highlights of the show for me…
I am a subscriber to Lens Work Extended. I look forward to browsing through the portfolios and listening to the commentary by Brooks Jensen. The cover of this issue is a gorgeous black and white landscape by Stu Levy. However the extended version includes his portfolio of grid portraits. I found them mesmerizing. They are 20+ individual images forming a portrait of the person in their environment, usually an artist. In most, Stu can be seen lurking somewhere in the background. The best web images that I can find are too small to really appreciate but here is an idea. See grid portraits.
His grid images are fascinating and I think that I am going to try them in my landscape work just for fun.
After second workshop with Michael Seewald, I returned home with a refresher on the fundamentals of composition. I would describe Michael’s composition as restful flow. His images encourage the viewer’s eye to look around the image over and over again with places to rest that avoids visual confusion.
Photoshop Tip: To visualize the rule of thirds in Photoshop, use the Edit | Preferences | Guides, Grids & Slices command. Select gridline every 33.33% with 1 subdivision. Show the grids using the View | Show | Grid command. Now, your image (no matter how cropped) has a grid showing the rule of thirds.
Six Bridges Trail, Butano State Park, CA
I have been considering entering Critical Mass 2005. Critical Mass is a really interesting idea. You submit a portfolio of 10 images and anywhere from 50 to 200 industry “folks” review it. You do not receive any feedback but if your portfolio is highly rated it could become published or go on tour. Maybe more importantly, you may make a contact with someone interested in your work. I am undecided and the deadline is May 31st because I do not have a cohesive portfolio yet nor an artist’s statement.
My idea for a portfolio is my landscape work with the title “An Hour’s Drive”. The portfolio would show all the amazing locations within an hour’s drive from my home here in the San Francisco bay area.
DorothyPhoto 
