Alcatraz
November 7th, 2009 | Author: albert
Everyone knows Alcatraz, it’s the old high security penitentiary on the island near San Francisco. It was where Al Capone was put in prison. The island is also famous due to films like "The Birdman from Alcatraz" and the more recent film "The Rock".
Today, the island is a tourist attraction, reachable by ferry. The ride takes about 30 minutes and you are free to roam the island. It is a great place for photography, with wonderful views of San Francisco, that is . . . if the weather cooperates.
I find it particularly good for HDR as I really like what the tonemapping process does to brick walls, concrete floors and the like. So here are a few different views of the place. A variety of applications were used, in particular: Topaz (a Photoshop plugin), PhotoMatix and Dynamic Photo HDR.
Posted in 
California Gold Rush
October 27th, 2009 | Author: albert
Here are some shots of Coloma, in California, the very location along the South Fork of the American River where James Marshall first found gold in 1848. This of course was the start of the famous Gold Rush of 1849.
This site was where John Sutter and James Marshall built a sawmill and re-directed the water from the river to power the mill. The water washed away sand and dirt, exposing the gold. The rest, as they say, is history.
Seen here are the sawmill and some details of the structure. The little building is Marshall’s first cabin.
Coloma is only about 45 minutes drive from Sacramento, where I live. It is a great place for an afternoon outing, a stroll and a picnic. One of the old buildings there used to house a cafe and served awesome coffee and peach pie, but it seems that budget cuts have not left this place unaffected and the park is in fact in danger of being closed altogether. Such a shame…
Exclusive Wine Tasting
October 25th, 2009 | Author: albert
This is the area to go taste Robert Mondavi’s exclusive wines. The open door leads into the cellar where the wines are poured and you can take your glass and wonder around the gardens. This is of course, Napa Valley, where outdoor activities are possible almost all year round.
Linda and I visited here mid October and the weather was nothing short of wonderful and a perfect day to go exploring the valley and vineyards. Some great photo opportunities too.
This shot is an HDR, comprises of 3 shots, each 2 stops apart.
Another shot comprised of 3 images is this next one. Linda and I were quite impressed as there is a photographer selling prints similar to this one, at $250 a pop, non framed. That is quite a lot of money for a photo, a good shot mind you, but we couldn’t help but wonder how many were actually sold at those prices.
Pow Wow – Indigenous music, dance, food and art
October 17th, 2009 | Author: albert
Attended a PowWow today, held in Auburn, California.
What a colorful event this is! While some tribes do not allow you to photograph them, many do and, with a bit of patience, you can be rewarded with beautifully vibrant pictures of Native Americans in traditional costume.
The music is basic, but with an amazingly catchy beat. It is hard to sit still and before you know it, your feet are tapping in sync and you start moving your head and body to the beat. A look around at the crowds and you see you are not alone with most people moving some part of their body to the beat. The main drummers were “Northern Eagle” and “Red Buffalo”
The event was organized by the Auburn Big Time Pow Wow Committee, celebrating Native American art and Culture.
Tribes represented included: Cree, Choctaw, Blackfeet, Miwok, Apache, Shawnee, Kiowa, Shoshone, Lakota and Aztec.
Picnic in the High Sierras – Overlooking Kings Canyon
October 15th, 2009 | Author: albert
Finally got around to looking at my Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon pictures, places I went to with my son Rens.
We found, quite by accident, this magnificent picnic spot, overlooking the Sierras and King Canyon.
As you can see, we sat on a rocky ledge with a magnificent view spread out in front of us. I could have sat there all day, just absorbing the splendor of this view.
Just to the left of the bushes you see here on the left side of the picture, was this view seen below.
The canyon you see just to the right of the tree is Kings Canyon. We didn’t actually go there that day, so it is still on the “to do one day” list.
This shot is an HDR comprising of three shots, –1, 0 +1 EV apart. The HDR treatment added extra drama to the sky.
Long forgotten
October 15th, 2009 | Author: albert
I just heard from a friend that the road to Bodie is closed due to snow. He was very disappointed as this probably means Bodie will be now closed until spring.
This inspired me to post some of my favorite shots of Bodie as I was there just a few weeks ago. As you can see from the blue sky, snow was the last thing one would expect to see just a few weeks later.
I really like this first shot, I couldn’t resist shooting through the old wagon wheel. I was lying on my belly for this one.
The second one is one of my favorites. I just love these old rusted cars. They just tell a story I find and I end up wondering who drove it, where they went in the car. Great to let your imagination run off.
Finding missing pictures and folders in Lightroom
October 11th, 2009 | Author: albert
One the issues that comes up most frequently in my Lightroom workshops is the “mysterious case of missing pictures”.
You know you have this issue when you see what is shown in the two pictures on the left:
A folder list with question marks and pictures that show the icon which also contains a question mark and a little icon that sort of looks like a computer chip.
When this happens, Lightroom has lost the connection between its database and the physical file that is your picture. In other words, Lightroom is expecting to see you pictures in a particular location, but the files are no longer there. Lightroom, not knowing what to do, will display the “?” indicating it is confused.
What is going on here? How did this happen, how do we prevent it from happening again and, most importantly, how do we fix it? Let’s look at all those questions.
What’s going on?
Most people have been used to using Adobe Bridge. Bridge is a “file browser”, you point it at a folder and it dutifully shows the contents of that folder. Lightroom does not quite work like that. To better understand how Lightroom works, think of your disk drive full of photos as being a large public library. Your pictures are the equivalent of books on shelves. The shelves would be equivalent to your folders and are labeled, just as your folders have names.
Now, in this environment, to find a book, you could walk the isles, looking for a shelf with the right label and when you find that, browse all the books on those shelves until you found the one you want. This would be the equivalent of opening Bridge, navigating to a folder of a particular name, opening that folder and browsing through all the photos until you find the one you want.
Another way of finding that book in the public library, is to go to the index, these days it is often a PC, and in the old days it would be a card system. You can search the index by title, by author, by publisher, by genre, etc. When you find the reference to the book you are looking for, the index will tell you what shelf that book is stored on.
This is exactly how Lightroom functions. The Lightroom Library Module is the equivalent of that in index. You look up your picture by keyword, or by camera, by date, etc and Lightroom knows where in your computer that photo is located.
So, now we can see what can go wrong. Imagine for a moment that someone in the public library wants to play a prank and moves books from one shelf to another shelf. You can imagine the havoc that can create when someone uses the index to find a book only to mystified when they cannot find the book on the designated shelf . . . because it is no longer there.
THIS is what has happened in your Lightroom setup when you see the two scenarios depicted in the screenshots at the start of this article! The images that Lightroom is referring to are no longer there. They have been moved. This typically happens when you go rearranging your folders within the Windows or Mac Finder environment. When you do that, you are the prankster that is confusing Lightroom. Usually, this happens when people purchase a new disk drive and move their folders full of picture onto that disk drive, believing that Lightroom will figure that out. Sadly, Lightroom is not that smart.
How to locate missing pictures and folders
Thankfully, there is a way of re-synchronizing Lightroom with your folders and images. You can do this on two levels: Individual pictures (one at a time) or whole folders (synchronizes all images in a folder in one hit). Which option you pick is up to you and depends somewhat on what you did when moving pictures. For example, if you moved a whole folder from your local drive to an external drive, you would re-sync using the “folder” option. If you moved a few individual images from one folder to another folder, you would choose the “individual picture” option.
Locating missing pictures
Make sure you are in the Library module. You should see thumbnails that display the icon representing missing images. As stated earlier, it looks like a little computer chip with a “?”.
Right-click the image that you want to re-locate and select the “Show in Explorer” Mac users will see “Show in Finder”.
This will bring up essentially an error message, but it offers the options to go locate the missing image. See the screenshot below.
Now click the “Locate” button and navigate to the new location where you put the file. Click “Choose” and Lightroom will be happy again.
Locate missing folders
If you moved a whole folder, don’t waste your time re-synching image-by-image as you can do this folder-by-folder which is much quicker.
This time we use the folder list, found on the left panel of the Library module. It will show a list of folders and the missing ones will be “grayed out” and will have that dreaded “?”. Simply right-click on the folder name you want to locate and select “Find Missing Folder”.
Now navigate to the new location you moved the folder to and select “choose”. Lightroom will ripple through the entire contents of that folder and re-synchronize its contents with its database, making everything work smoothly again. Do this for all missing folders.
That’s all there is to it!
On Fire!
October 8th, 2009 | Author: albert
Experimenting with a Photoshop Plugin I purchased some months ago. It is called Fractalius from a company called Redfield.
The effects are quite extraordinary and, as the name suggests, uses some funky fractal algorithms to create these effects. Several of the controls in Fractalius let you create and highlight lines, almost turning them into streaks of fire! This is the effect I used here and I really like the result. It is as if the sunflower is made of flames.
I have experimented enough so far to conclude that not all subjects will render pleasing results. In fact, some come out downright awful, so some trial and error is in order. It seems to work great though on things like flowers, probably because of the lines in the petals and symmetrical structure of your average, garden variety flower.
Sure is a fun way to exercise your creative streak.
How to shoot tethered using Lightroom
October 7th, 2009 | Author: albert
Few people realize that Lightroom can play an integral part in a tethered shooting workflow. In other words, you can connect your camera to your computer via a cable and have your shots immediately go to Lightroom rather than the camera’s memory card.
This setup can offer huge advantages. For starters, you can instantly see your shots on the large screen of the computer instead of the small LCD on the back of the camera, but it also saves time downloading images from your camera as the images are already in Lightroom.
So how do we do this?
Obviously, you first need a cable to connect your camera to your computer. You probably got one with the camera, it’s the same cable you use to download images from the camera. If you don’t have one, you can buy one from most computer and/or camera stores. Just check the connections in the computer (usually USB) and the camera (mini USB) and make sure you get one that is long enough for your setup.
You will need the software utility that “talks” to your camera. If you have Canon, that software is the EOS Utility which came for free with your camera. Unfortunately Nikon does not give their software away for free, you need to buy it. The software is called Nikon Camera Control Pro and you can get it at B&H for around $145. Here is the link
As I have a Canon, the following screenshots represents a Canon-specific setup.
In the Canon EOS Utility, you’ll need to identify the folder the EOS Utility will deposit the photos in. This is set up like in the screenshot below. I called this folder “incoming”.
Now we have completed the link between the computer and the camera.
Next is to setup Lightroom to watch this folder for incoming images. This is done in the Auto Import Settings under the FILE menu. First you need to “turn on” the Auto Import function, by selecting the first option, as seen here:
Then, you set it up in the Auto Import Settings . . . .
As you see below, I selected the “Incoming” folder as the folder to “watch”. That is exactly what Lightroom will do. It will sit there and monitor that folder waiting for anything to arrive. When you take a picture, the EOS Utility will save the picture into that folder where Lightroom will pick it up and process it, just like a normal IMPORT session.
The rest of the Auto Import Settings therefore look very similar to the normal Import settings. You specify a folder where you want Lightroom to put the image and you select the various other settings like presets and keywords.
Now you are all set!
Connect your camera to the computer, launch EOS Utility and Lightroom and shoot away. Every shot will be automatically imported into Lightroom.
Emerald Bay Sunrise
September 26th, 2009 | Author: albert
Emerald Bay is part of Lake Tahoe and is designated a National Natural Landmark for its brilliant panorama of mountain-building processes and glacier carved granite. It is found in the South West corner of Lake Tahoe and is an inlet that can freeze over in a severe winter due to its shallower water.
This is a location I’ve been wanting to shoot for a long time and finally got around to doing it. This was taken about 30 minutes before sunrise from a rocky ledge at Eagle Falls. My plan had been to get the gushing water of Eagle Falls in the foreground, but alas, it’s September and the falls were just a trickle. Besides, at this time of the morning, it was too dark to see anything in detail.
The island you see in the middle of the picture is called Fannette Island and is the only island found in Lake Tahoe
