Random Thoughts of a Photographer

A Photographer and Artist

2013-05-15T07:36:00.001-07:00

After many posts in this blog over the last year I have started to discuss with my readers the new direction of my craft.

Royal Palms Entrance

For the past several months I have seen my craft evolve into one that delves more into the artsy side of fine art with my more passionate path being to utilize the years I have spent as a photographer and translate that talent into one that evolves into the fine art side of art. I plan to start with my photographs as a core and then to "artify" (is that a word?) the image in Corel Painter 12 and Photoshop before I produce it as a canvas wrap or mounted medium and then to enhance the new product with gels or acrylic paint to provide dimension and touchable art.

The image to the right shows an example of this new art form. The original photograph was an HDR capture that merged three images with different exposure levels that captured the full dynamic range of the interior and exterior of the iconic 1920's built resort in central Phoenix. The resulting image was processed in Photoshop to add brush strokes and intensified colors that was then mounted on a finished oak board. Transparent acrylic gel was then added over the top to bring out the edges and structure of the ironwork, foliage and brick steps leading through the door.

Minolta Maxum 7000i (Film)

How did I get to this stage of my burgeoning art career? As many of you know I have spent twenty plus years taking photographs.

Starting out with film and my beloved Minolta Maxum 7000i camera. I captured images and brought them back to my home darkroom even delving into color processing for a while.

Canon Digital Rebel (300D)

As the years passed I soon found myself acquiring the first successful consumer digital camera, the Canon Digital Rebel. This is the camera that provided for the capture of thousands of images of nature in Arizona, New Mexico and California. Many of the art subjects that you see today in my blog or displayed at my studio were captured with this 6.3 megapixel digital camera.
As my craft grew and my knowledge increased I soon added the next generation of camera to my tool box, the Canon EOS T1i, a 15.1 megapixel screamer that provided a larger platform of pixels that soon was viewed in framed photographs that I was showing around the area.

Several years later I added the Canon EOS 7D, a prosumer level camera (18 megapixel) that provided a platform for me to capture both my beloved nature shots but also included the ability to shoot (and get paid for) sports shots of local teams, Major League Baseball and soon to shoot for MaxPreps, a division of CBS Sports. All of these camera bodies were followed with a progression of lens to shoot from wide angel to telephoto. I also acquired a studio full of lighting products to augment the outdoor shooting.

Canon EOS Rebel T1i

I still shoot with Canon 7D with the Canon T1i as a backup.

This progression of digital hardware tools was paralleled with many of the top software tools being introduced including Photoshop (now at the CS6 level), Photoshop Elements, Corel Painter 12 and a ton of plug-ins for all of the software including OnOne Software Perfect Photo Suite (now at version 7), Topaz Labs Photoshop plug-ins and a ton of single purpose plug-ins that I use every day in my post processing of images.

Canon EOS 7D

All of this post lays out the past and present, but it does not lay out the future as I see it down the road. That will follow in the next post next week.

Below are some affiliate links for some of the products mentioned in this post including a book that talks about the new digital art techniques now available.

Lightroom 5 Beta - A Boon for Photographers

2013-04-24T08:14:00.003-07:00

I recently downloaded the Lightroom 5 public beta from Adobe Labs and have been working with it for a couple a weeks. There are some new features that elevate Lightroom into a new editing space and in many cases will eliminate the need to process first in Lightroom and then move the images over to Photoshop for final post processing. A really great in-depth review can be found at http://www.dpreview.com/articles/1304150010/lightroom-5-public-beta-whats-new

The first major feature improvement is the advanced healing brush. In Lightroom 4 the healing brush was limited to a variable sized circle and could emulate some"healing brush" features of Photoshop but not all. In Lightroom 5 the advanced healing brush is a true brush that can paint an area to be healed or cloned. While it is not quite as good as the Photoshop version it will certainly do the job in the majority of cases and for the majority of users.

The next really great feature is the Radial Gradient Filter. This is a brush-like feature that you can select an area to adjust with new exposure, clarity, shadows and highlights (to name a few). This means you can select an area to re-light in your image and to emphasize (or de-emphasize) in your photo. And it is not limited to one area, but you can select multiple areas to adjust. I don't think I can really see all the purposes that can be used with this feature.

As an example I have processed a black and white photo that I have displayed in my fine art collection. The first photo shows the final result that portrays a scene in the mountains near Payson, Arizona with a rising moon and with the setting sun spotlighting the stark cliff in the middile of the image and white rocks along the small stream in the foreground.

The second image below is a marked up version of the image with four areas circled in red. These four areas were processed with the Radial Filter feature in Lightroom 5 Beta. Area #4 was de-emphasized with less exposure and softened shadows, clarity and contrast. The options available for adjustment are shown to the left along with the button to select the Radial Gradient Filter tool. The other areas were treated to more exposure and varying amounts of other settings in order to bring the eye of the viewer to the center of the image and to the more luminescent moon.

As you can see the number of adjustments available is incredible and will provide an infinite amount of creativity to the photographer in interpreting an image in their viewpoint.

The last major feature that I want to review is the Upright Tool. The Lightroom 5 beta introduces an automated perspective correction and leveling tool called Upright, and is a great feature for pros that shoot architectural photos and those like me that may shoot a scene at a weird angle that distorts the perspective of an image.

An example of this is a recent photo that I took of one side of my booth at the Art is Alive festival in Surprise, Arizona. As you can see the verticals and horizontal lines are, well not vertical or horizontal. Prior to Lightroom 5 beta I would have to take this shot into Photoshop to straighten it out. But now I have this slick feature that does the straightening almost automatically.

Located in the Basic tab of the Lens Corrections panel, Upright offers four options, all of which adapt intelligently by analyzing the scene. 'Level' searches for horizontal lines that are slanted and straightens them. 'Vertical' duplicates this effect but corrects for off-axis vertical lines as well. 'Full', as its name suggests, attempts to correct for any perspective or alignment issues and is easily the most aggressive of the options here. The Auto button similarly corrects for these, but takes a much more conservative approach, striking a balance between corrections and aspect ratio.

I start by checking the Enable Profile Corrections box. This allows its algorithms to take into account the specific lens characteristics that you used for the shot. You can still use Upright on unsupported lenses, but it's best to enable these profile corrections where possible. I also place a check mark in the Constrain Crop box in order to eliminate white space around the image.

I have found that trying each of the four options allows me to choose the type of correction that is best for each image. The result is this image, to the right that I used the "Auto" variation to get, what I thought was the best result.

I could imagine using the Upright Tool on any image that is out of alignment.

This completes my review, but there are many other new features in the Lightroom 5 public beta and I can't wait until the released version is available for purchase.

The Lightroom 5 public beta can be downloaded here: https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?sdid=KFENU&e=labs_lightroom5 . Keep in mind this is a beta and should not be used for production images and you will have to maintain two Lightroom catalogs. Check out the system requirements to make sure your computer will support the beta version.

Here is an affiliate link to my favorite book about Lightroom 4 (the old version, not the one reviewed above). I'm sure Scott Kelby will be releasing an update to the book when the new Lightroom 5 starts shipping.

Honoring Those that helped build Surprise

2013-03-14T02:23:00.000-07:00


Mark Coronado with Hall of Fame honorees Bill Pupo (right) and Brenda Deshzo

I had the opportunity to take a few photos yesterday as the City of Surprise added two people to the Surprise Stadium Hall of Fame. Honored this year were Bill Pupo and the late Al Deshazo (accepting Brenda Deshazo).

Bill Pupo was City Manager when the Surprise Recreation complex was built and Al Deshazo was Assisting City Manager and responsible for the departments building the complex. Deshazo passed away on January 25th, 2003. Accepting the award was Al's wife Brenda. Many of the friends and family of the honorees were on hand for the ceremony.

As many of you know I was hired as the first Chief Information Officer / IT Director of the City in 2001. My first day on the job I was taken out to the middle of the desert by Jerry Huston and told that we were standing on home plate and my first job was to get the wiring and technology to this site. The picture above was shot by me standing very close to that home plate in the now finished Surprise Stadium, Spring Training home of the Texas Rangers and Kansas City Royals.

Below are some images from Spring Training in Surprise, Arizona.

Autographs

Autographs on top of the dugout

Grounds Crew before the game

The National Anthem

A couple of books about Spring Training:

Ah - Spring Training in Arizona

2013-02-25T18:50:00.002-08:00

I've been waiting for it and now it is here - Cactus League Spring Training. Thanks to the great people that run Surprise Stadium; Mark Coronado, Tara Combs and Jim Mallon, I am able to photograph Major League Baseball in the Cactus League. The season started up this week and I got some shots of the Cactus League Luncheon and parts of the first game between the Texas Rangers and the Kansas City Royals.

KC's Billy Butler breaking the first bat of the season

The Cactus League Luncheon, hosted by Cactus League President, Mark Coronado featured stories of MLB by Hall of Famer, George Brett and pitching phenom Gregg Maddux.

George Brett

The Cactus League is a tremendous economic engine for Arizona. The fun of Spring Training in Arizona is the ability to get close to the field and see the action in a relaxed atmosphere (at least for the fans, not the players trying to make the team).

The games have all the features of regular season games with pre-game events, the singing of the National Anthem and, of course, the nine innings of Major League Baseball when every team starts at 0 wins and 0 losses and look forward to the World Series next fall.

Kansas City Royals lined up for the National Anthem

Signing Autographs

KC Mascot

Sundancer's Charity gives out scholarships before game

ArtWalk on Dysart - February 23

2013-02-21T00:58:00.001-08:00

Check out my large 20" x 30" canvas "Mountain Fog"

You are invited to the ArtWalk on Dysart from 9 am to 2 pm at the WHAM Art Center (next to the Post Office near the intersection of Grand and Dysart). I will have my studio set up with over 25 of my framed and ready to hang photographs and art products. I will be exhibiting some of my newest fine art pieces with all new prices.

See some of my art in progress with acrylic painting over canvas Giclée photographs. On my easel I will have my new experimental rendition of "Chiricahua Vistas":

You can also see the art of over 30 local artists with large and small art pieces on display with mixed media, acrylic, clay art, fantastic gourd carvings and some of the best art in the Valley of the Sun.

Hand of God

White Sands Sunrise

Preparing for the Symphony

2013-01-18T17:07:00.001-08:00

I have been asked to exhibit in the lobby of the Valley Vista Performing Arts Center for a production of the West Valley Symphony "Mozart and More" next Sunday. Their will be several of the WHAM artists that are exhibiting before and after the symphony. This show is for about 2-3 hours and will display 4-6 of my fine art images and they will be for sale to the patrons of symphony.

Butterfly on Yellow

It is very interesting about the process that is used to present these small art shows. We did not have a lot of time to prepare for this and I had to choose several of my art products that were ready to show. They needed to be framed or otherwise "ready-to-hang" and I just had to prepare some name and price tags for this specific show.

Some of the pieces I am showing several of my more popular images. The first two are art images that I have created on canvas with a narrow floater black frame.

Quarter Horse Visions

The rest of my images are traditional photographs that I have been showing for the past year.

These include a black and white image called Payson Moonrise:

The next image I am exhibiting is one of my popular Sedona Arizona photographs called "Courthouse Butte".

I will also be showing my newest large photograph titled "White Sands Sunrise":

If you want to see the exhibition you are welcome to attend. The art show is free to attend, the symphony requires a ticket. The show will be running on Sunday, January 20, 2013 from 2 PM to 4 PM.

A Wonderful Christmas

2012-12-30T21:03:00.002-08:00

Ah, I'm now back home after a wonderful Christmas with our dear friends in Santa Barbara, California. This is an annual pilgrimage that we make at Christmas time to visit and catch up with our friends and their delightful kids that are now in college and so grown up.

I made a decision to not take my camera on this trip and just "veg" out with my iPad and read a few novels--my definition of a great vacation is measured by the number of novels I finish. But, you know just when you think you can get get away Mother Nature shows up and displays a visual image so spectacular that I could not pass it up.

A rare double rainbow appeared in advance of a small rain shower just as the sun was getting low on the horizon. You know that "Golden Hour" that we always look for in our photography. So I grabbed my wife's small point and shoot and aimed it at the fantastic scene in our friends backyard. Her camera is a very good Canon Powershot A590 IS that takes great pictures.

Here is what I saw (after stiching four frames into a panorama with Photoshop CS6.

Rainbow over Santa Barbara

This photo was taken at ISO 80, 1/500th sec and f/4.0. The four frames were processed as a panorama in Photoshop CS6. Below is a link to a book that talks about the techniques of multiple frame shots in Photoshop.

Temporary Title Change for my Blog

2012-12-05T01:44:00.001-08:00

In celebration of my new ventures into the art world I have made some temporary changes to the name and header of my blog. As you can see, it is now called "Random Thoughts of an Artist." Don't worry, I will revert it back to "Random Thoughts of a Photographer" in a couple of weeks.

I have been spending more and more time transforming some of my photographs into fine art objects. It all starts with a photograph.

Take this photograph from a recent trip to White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. I had stayed in Alamogordo, New Mexico and got up early to enter the National Monument about thirty minutes before sunrise.

I was rewarded on that morning with a spectacular sunrise of those beautiful oranges and yellows flowing over the horizon with brilliant blue sky peeking through the clouds in the background.

My goal, in order to transform the photograph into an artists rendering, was to re-process the photo through several Photoshop plug-ins and to utilize the Photoshop brushes and art tools to hand color and create impressionistic oil paintings.

As a traditional oil on canvas artist I wanted to overly saturate the colors of rising sun by flowing more oranges into the sky. I also wanted to bring out more of whites in the sand dunes rather than the blueish tint of the pre-dawn color temperature.

As an artist I seized the opportunity to intensify the shadows and the unique waves of the white gypsum sand.

The painting can be output to a wide format Epsom signature paper or it can be outsourced to create a spectacular canvas gallery wrap to provide a standout from the wall as it is hung in a gallery.

As my my new temporary blog title illustrates I am continuing to learn about digital artistic techniques that have been offered in books and videos available on line today. I love to look at artist blog sites online and one that bears mention is my friend Bill Ives art blog at Art and Photography Blog .

I have been expanding my knowledge through video offerings on Lynda.com and Kelby Training. Books are other vehicles I use to to expand my knowledge base. There are lots of products available on Amazon that I have listed below as affiliate links. If you want to learn more about the techniques of transforming your photography into fine art I can strongly recommend the Bert Monroy book available below.

Amazon.com Widgets

The Haunting Beauty of White Sands National Monument

2012-11-10T12:24:00.004-08:00

White Sands National Monument is a remarkable geologic formation that can be seen from space. The glistening white sands of New Mexico consist of giant wave-like dunes of gypsum sand engulfing 275 square miles of desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico.

I was recently traveling in the New Mexico area and stayed in Alamogordo in order to take photographs of White Sands at dawn and in the early morning. The gates opened at 7 AM and that gave me a few minutes to drive into the dunes over a designated road. I passed several other photographers unloading their gear for their photo shoot. I traveled about a half mile further and staked out a location that had a minimum of footprints, a smattering of vegetation for compositional purposes and an eastern orientation to be pointed toward the rising sun. Check out the National Park Service's White Sands web site for information about the park hours and the rare times the Monument is closed for missile testing on the nearby White Sands Missile Range.

White Sands right before sunrise

I had visited White Sands years ago with my parents, but I did not remember the vast expanse of pristine sand dunes with wind washed ripples. As the sky blossomed into a golden yellow I started snapping photos and moving around to get properly composed shots with something in the foreground.

Sunrise over White Sands

As the sun peeked over the horizon I was greeted with an amazing palette of blues, yellows and rolling dunes of white sand.

Vegetation in the "Transition Zone"

Several more frames were captured while looking to the Northwest over the dunes during the "Golden Hour" of the morning. The Golden Hour in photography is the light in the hour around sunrise and sunset that provides the best quality of light. It is characterized by a golden hue and is created by a low angle of the sun on the horizon that blue spectrum of light and enhances the reddish tones of the sunlight.

White Sands looking Northwest

The link below leads to the book "Mastering Landscape Photography" by Alain Briot that has photos from his workshops at White Sands. His web site at: www.beautiful-landscape.com/ has information about his books and workshops. I have read his book on Marketing Fine Art Photography and can highly recommend it.

Marley Park Pawstume Parade 2012

2012-10-29T02:17:00.000-07:00

Here is a special slide show of last Saturday's Marley Park pet parade:

Bulldog Bowl-One of the top high school venues in the Nation

2012-10-17T18:31:00.001-07:00

A long time ago I graduated from high school in a little town called Artesia, New Mexico. I believe the town had a population of 10,000 then and around 11,000 now. Last week I attended my 50th high school reunion and had a chance to see many of my former football teammates and others in the class of 1962.

While there I had the opportunity to tour their pride and joy, the Bulldog Bowl. The bowl was built in 1967 and has been upgraded since. The "pro-style" bowl arena seats 6,500 and usually full on home game Friday nights. To say that the town is "football crazy" ala Friday Night Lights is an understatement. As the home town of Oklahoma Sooner Landry Jones the teams have won 27 state championships since 1957.

Bulldog Bowl Panorama by Randy Jackson

To the right you can see the new electronic scoreboard that can play game highlights or welcome some old run-down alumni back home.

The turf is artificial grass and was donated by a local oilman that is giving back to his community. As you can see above there is a modern multistory press box that includes an elevator rising to the media area, the suites and the videotaping platform.

One of the "regular" suites

The photo to the left shows one of the "regular" suites that is as large as the suites in the Arizona Diamondbacks stadium. Two televisions grace the ends of the suite and facilities for food service are included (sorry, no alcohol in a high school stadium).

Below, you can see the "owners" suite that is utilized by Artesia oilman Mack Chase during home games. Chase was a former Artesia High graduate and Bulldog football player that makes good on his promises to his home town community.

The ultra plush VIP suite at the Bulldog Bowl

Note the leather covered chairs emblazoned with the orange Bulldog logo.

Just in case you think that all this generosity is only aimed at star football players, think again. Mack Chase, through the families Mack Chase Foundation started a scholarship program in 2007 that awards full scholarships to Artesia High School graduates that maintain a 3.0 grade point average. This is ANY graduate, not just athletes, and they work with New Mexico and West Texas colleges and universities to maintain and match funds for the entire higher education period. The Chase Foundation has donated in excess of $ 5.2 million for the scholarships. The community of Artesia New Mexico is proud to be supported by such a great benefactor.

Filling my "Bucket LIst": Bosque del Apache

2012-09-24T20:56:00.002-07:00

In early October of 2012 I am planning a trip to New Mexico for my 50th High School Reunion (there, I've said it, I'm officially OLD). Since I am flying into El Paso I looked on the map and discovered that about 50 miles north of my planned route is the iconic Bosque del Apache.


Early Dawn-Another Perspective on Bosque del Apache by Sam Antonio Photography

Licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

This is the mecca of bird photography in the United States. Every year from October to February, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge is home to thousands of migrating sandhill cranes and snow geese for the winter. Located near Socorro, New Mexico and a little over two hours drive North of El Paso, Texas, Bosque del Apache is a location that will provide the opportunity of a lifetime and will stretch my photography skills to the limits.

Blast Off at Bosque del Apache by Howard Ignatius
Licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Hundreds of great photographers come to Bosque each winter to seek the great photographs of thousands of sandhill crane and snow geese rising as one in the glow of a New Mexico sunrise.

The photos above and to the right are just two of those I found on Flickr that have preceeded me to the Bosque. If only I can capture a little of what they have seen on cold early dawn on the grounds of the 44,300 acres of farms, wetlands and designated wilderness in Southwestern New Mexico.

I end with a short video from one of the masters of photography Rick Sammon (you have probably seen his books). His images of Bosque del Apache are one of the reasons it has come up on my bucket list of locations I must photograph. I just hope that there is not any snow on the ground in October when I am there.

Simple and Cheap Desktop Easel

2012-09-08T05:00:00.000-07:00

I suddenly found myself in need of a small desktop-style easel to display my prints and art work in an upcoming show. I have several of those little easels--some were metal and some wood and I paid around $10 or so for each. Sometimes I use small commercial easels designed to display commemorative plates. But I did not have enough easels for this event and didn't want to rush downtown to buy some easels that would be used two or three times a year. I started looking around the house to see what I had laying around to make an easel with. This is what I created:

Front Side

The white back side is a piece of left-over mat (the hole knocked out when I cut an 11" by 14" mat). I used gaffer tape to create a trough on the bottom made out of scraps of black foam board. It's very simple and very functional.

Back Side

The back of the easel is a quasi triangle cut from the same black foam board and fastened with black gaffer tape.

The disassembled parts are shown in the next photo.

Parts List and notes

The triangle is cut out and affixed to the back of the 8x10 mat board with gaffer tape. This stand also folds flat for transport.

The bottom trough is butted together and taped with the gaffer tape.

That's pretty much it. I told you it was simple.

Detail of trough parts

Folded back stand for storage or transport

The cost is probably less than $ 1.00 if you use new stuff. It's a couple of pennies if you do what I did and use scrap that is laying around the house.

Below are some links to parts mentioned in this post. I have used the Foam Board cutter and it is a lot easier and cleaner than using an Exacto Knife. You can also pick these items up at a local craft store.

Pictures of the week

2012-09-02T20:29:00.001-07:00

As I start to photograph games in the area I am announcing today the top photos from games this week. The photos selected are those that I think represented positive aspects of each game whether the team represented won or lost. These photos may not depict the turning point of a game, but rather an instance that form and function came together on the particular play that resulted in a score or a run or a tackle that represented the best that these student athletes could do.

Both of this weeks photos of the week are from games between Willow Canyon and Valley Vista.

Gang Tackle

The first photo of the week was from the varsity game played Friday, August 31 on the Willow Canyon field in Surprise. Valley Vista upset the Willow Canyon Wildcats by a score of 27-10.

In this photo titled "Gang Tackle", Wildcat Tim Mesic and Collin Donahue wrap up Valley Vista's Corey Brown with Chris Nangle and Adonis Hernandez grabbing a handful of the prolific runner. Monsoon players Angel Acuna (68) and Deon Brown (58) are also in the shot.

Oomph!

The second photo titled "Oomph!" (is that a word?) is from the Wednesday, August 29th freshmen game at Willow Canyon. The freshmen Wildcats defeated the cross-town Valley Vista Monsoon with a swarming defensive effort.

Wildcat Freshman Hayden Dunn drives a solid shoulder into an unidentified Valley Vista runner lifting him off the ground. Wildcats Mike Wilson and Ben Baltzell rush to assist Hayden although it looks like he has things in control.

I photograph football games in the Surprise area. So I will be shooting Willow Canyon, Valley Vista, Dysart and Shadow Ridge.

Bonus Photos from Varsity game between Willow Canyon and Valley Vista 8/31/12

Flying Low

Breaking Through

Another great shot from the Varsity game was this one showing Wildcat Mitchell Carpenter (13) playing his "dive bomber" routine to bring down the Monsoon's Corey Brown. Wildcat Deon Goodwin (36) and Monsoon's Issiah Padilla (85) are also in the shot.

This last images shows Valley Vista's Dalvin Richardson breaking through a hole in the line with Willow's Austin Henige trying to bring him down. Wildcat's Marcus Williams (80) and Adonis Hernandez (75) and Monsoon Jesse Gonzales (51) are in the shot.

All photos from both games, Varsity and Freshmen are available for purchase at www.randyjacksonimages.com/sports.

Books on Amazon about high school football:

Great new photography video

2012-08-25T20:58:00.002-07:00

One of the masters of photography, Trey Ratcliff, has created a 30 minute introduction to getting started in photography.

A great book by Trey Ratcliff on HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography:

My Photo Picked up by the Arizona Republic

2012-08-18T08:37:00.000-07:00

The Arizona Republic has selected one of my photos for inclusion in a story on their web site. Reporter Robert Obert included my photo in his pictorial series "Arizona's Top 10 high school kickers - 2012. The link to the slideshow is: www.azcentral.com/photo/sports/highschools/23107

The image was taken in last years AIA Division I State Championship Game between Chandler Hamilton and Desert Vista at University of Phoenix Stadium (home of the Arizona Cardinals). Daniel Wichman, kicker for Chandler Hamilton is ranked #2 kicker in Arizona in the pre-season story. Desert Vista broke Hamilton's 53 game winning streak to win the state championship.

Some great books on sports photography:

Mounting harware for picture Frames

2012-07-21T18:19:00.002-07:00

I don't know about you, but it took me forever to figure out a good way to hang picture frames. Most galleries and art exhibitions want you to use wire hangers in order to fit with their hanging systems. I started out trying twisted wire and spent months puncturing little holes in my fingers trying to twist the ends.

Well this is what I came up with. I use plastic coated steel wire between a pair of Heavy Duty Single Hole D Ring / Triangle Strap Hangers. The plastic coated wire is 18 gauge (1.2mm) that I buy at Ace Hardware. I bought the D-Rings and screws on Ebay.

The biggest mystery was how to attach the wire and make it easy to install and safe to be able to hold the weight of the picture frame. I discovered something called an Aluminum Double Ferrule Sleeve. On Ebay they were found as supplies for trapping snares. OK, that kind of disgusts me, but I'm not using them for that purpose. This is what they look like. They are a soft alluminum with two holes drilled in them that just fits the 18 gauge wire I mentioned above.

So you loop the wire through the D-Ring placing one side of the wire before the ring and the other side making a closed loop after you smash the ferrule sleeve with a hammer. Trust me, the wire is not going to slip out of this connector. Here is what a connection looks like with a couple of ferrules on the side.

You can also get the wire, D-Rings and ferrules on Amazon (see links below).

You can see what the back of one of my finished frames looks like with the hanger in place. The wire is rated at 25# safe work load.

This photo also shows the dust cover (made with common Kraft paper) that I glue down with adhesive tape that I get at Michael's craft store. It's call ATG tape and also comes in dispensers.

It's pretty simple, but it took me some time to find all the parts and to develop an easy to install work flow.

I have placed a widget from Amazon at the bottom of this post with links to all of the products I mentioned. Do note (as it says at the bottom of my post) that I do get a small commission from Amazon if you buy something after clicking on one of these links. You will not pay more by clicking on the link and, as I mentioned in my post, you can also find many of these parts at other vendors such as Ace Hardware, Michael's Craft Store and on EBay.

I also found Kraft paper at Amazon. I wish I would have purchased it there this is a lot cheaper than I paid and is the perfect width (18").

Shooting the Sky

2012-07-10T09:09:00.000-07:00

It's a beautiful morning here in Arizona (waiting for the blistering 113° temperature later in the day). I got out early this morning to shoot the sky. This is an exercise that I do occasionally to add to my library of sky shots to use in my photos.

Exterior shot with sky replaced

Morning Arizona Sky with moon

Have you ever taken a shot that is great except for the washed out sky in the background? This is the time when you need a shot of the sky to mask into your photo to make it look a lot better. Trust me, do you think all those beautiful shots of homes in architectural magazines were shot with the perfect sky you see in them now. Sure some of them were shot with the amazing sky and clouds, but some have had a replaced sky.

Here in Arizona we are lucky to have amazing cloud patterns on all parts of the horizon in our monsoon (seasonal storms) season. Before the sun burns off all the clouds and right after the sun comes up or right before it goes down I can get some great shots to add to my library.

I got started with a sky folder by downloading the public domain sky shots at http://lohrman.com/PFREskies/index.html. Thanks to Larry Lohrman for his great blog "Photography for Real Estate". Many of these shots are from the Norwegian sky. PFRE is one of my "go to" blogs for knowledge about shooting for the real estate market.

Check out http://fstoppers.com/how-to-photograph-and-light-interiors-mike-kelley for a great article and fantastic photograph at FStoppers.com on "The Anatomy of a Luxury Interior Shot". Mike Kelly is one of the masters of architectural photography.

Norwegian Sunset

Need a sunset shot, I've got some:

Now you know some of my secrets. Wait, if I blog about my secrets they are not secrets any more. I believe that the more tips and tricks I can impart to my fellow photographers the better we all will be in our craft.

My favorite books on Amazon about photographing for real estate

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All Told - The life and times of Leroy Neiman

2012-06-22T11:41:00.000-07:00

Many followers of this blog know that I have recently started creating what I call "Photo Escapes"--a fusion of photography and art. When I first blogged about this, I mentioned that the technique is reminiscent of LeRoy Neiman's iconic sports art. Much to my surprise and delight, I was contacted by the Neiman organization letting me know that the 91-year-old had just published his autobiography and they asked if I would read it and write a review on my blog. Of course I will!

My first memories of LeRoy Neiman are from the pages of Playboy magazine--and, yes, I actually did read the articles! I was so taken with the bold, saturated colors and brush strokes in his paintings that illustrated almost tangible strength, speed and power. When I began creating my "Photo Escapes", I wanted to attempt, in small part, to mimic some of the LeRoy Neiman style that had captured my attention so long ago on the pages of Playboy magazine. Commenting on my piece, Quarter Horse Visions, Neiman's publicist told me that "[my art] was very much inspired by LeRoy Neiman and to know that you are inspired, moved and appreciative of his work is an honor to [Mr. Neiman]".

After reading his autobiography, All Told, My Art and Life Among Athletes, Playboys, Bunnies and Provocateurs, I learned that Neiman was described as "one of the most recognizable contemporary artists in the world. He was a principle contributor to Playboy for years, who covered the Playboy beat 'Man at His Leisure,' who was chronicler and confidant of Muhammad Ali (and artist to all of sports!) and who was hailed as the man who 'defined a century in vibrating color'.”

His book tells an amazing life story of the man who painted the "...vibrant and boisterous scenarios of man at play." With an art education from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIS), he eschewed the art establishment by marrying fine art to popular art in his brilliantly colored, energetic depitions of sports, celebrities, America at play and famous locations. He is often remembered as the artist who broke barriers between fine art and popular art in the 1960s.

Much of my interest centered around Neiman's horse racing art. In the late 1950s, he was such a frequent visitor to Hialeah Race Track that the owner provided a cottage for him on the far turn of the track. This proximity to the track provided him with unfettered access and he truly got a feel for the interactions of the people (jockeys, owners, fans and even maintenance workers) and the horses that won or lost on the track.

When Neiman sketched the horse track, he did so with a deep understanding of the people involved in the sport and their passion for it. The colors he used to create his art were always vibrant and powerful. It was often the colors, themselves, that drew you into the painting causing you to feel the speed and power of the race.

LeRoy Neiman believed that the success of his art, as witnessed by its popularity with the common man, was far more important than the number of paintings hanging in a great gallery. He described himself as "a scrappy Depression kid with a voracious curiosity, a dose of irreverence, a talent for drawing and a knack for wrangling himself into places he didn't belong."

Along with so many, I was saddened to learn of LeRoy Neiman's passing just this week on June 20, 2012. I am honored and humbled to know that he enjoyed my image, "Quarter Horse Visions" and I can only hope that, as I continue on my own artistic journey, my endeavors might follow his example, in smallest part, and enjoy even a fraction of the success that was his.

Update July 10, 2012: After LeRoy Neiman's death it was not certain that his web page, Facebook page and Tumblr page would remain in force. I was told this week that they would. The Tumblr page is called "Find the Art in your Life" and is an invitation for artists to submit their work and encourage artists in their craft. My art piece displayed above is still featured on that site at: http://bit.ly/findtheart and I am honored and encouraged in my nascent artistic pursuits.

* All quotes from the book:
Neiman, L (June,2012). All Told, My Art and Life Among Athletes, Playboys, Bunnies and Provocateurs. Guilford, CT. Lyons Press

A New Direction in my Art

2012-06-15T05:30:00.000-07:00

As you know I have spent years taking photos, posting them and talking about them. Recently, as I was spending more and more of my time on my Fine Art side of photography I ran across a tutorial by Deke McClelland on Lynda.com where he has a series of short tutorial on things photographically (called Deke's Techniques). One of those tutorials was a technique to create an ink drawing from a photograph. This prompted me to try a variation of that on a couple of my photographs.

This is my first try at the new technique:

This piece is called "Quarterhorse Visions". It is based on a photograph I took in about 2008 at Ruidoso Downs race track in the beautiful mountains of New Mexico. I was fascinated by the bright colors of the jockey's silks and the "coluors" of the race horse owners.

While I will keep my step by step technique a secret I used many layers in Photoshop and used several third-party plug-ins (including Topaz and OnOneSoftware modules). As a finishing touch I did some hand coloring to simplify the created rendition. The final product reminded me somewhat of the style of horse racing art of LeRoy Neiman (not that anything that I do could come close to the iconic art of Neiman, arguably the world’s most recognizable contemporary artist)

I'm pretty pleased with how it works and it displays quite well on fine art paper when printed. What do you think?

How to Schedule a Facebook Post

2012-06-04T14:03:00.000-07:00

Well, I don't know about you, but I never have enough time to keep up with my social media obligations. I have Twitter to keep up with, I have LinkedIn, I have this blog and I have Facebook. On this blog I can write several articles and schedule them over the next several days or weeks. But, until recently I could not schedule a Facebook post.

Facebook has just recently (without much fanfare) rolled out the ability to schedule a post. It is so simple that I missed it and had to go to my research department (Google) to find out how. As I said, it is really simple. Here is a sample post that I captured off my screen of a Facebook post dialog:

All you have to do is click on the small blue clock on the the lower left corner. You will then get a dialog that asks for the Year, the Month, the Day and then the Minute. If you select a date before the time now it will post it immediately. I think you can go out six months. By the way the button that says "Post" changes to "Schedule" when you enter a date. You don't have to worry about time zones because Facebook will place the post in the proper time zone.

One gotcha is that if you enter the text of the post and then click to upload a photo or video you will lose you date and have to start over (or least that is what happened to me).

Capturing Intensity

2012-05-11T17:18:00.000-07:00

The best photographs in sports are those that capture the intensity of the game. When I look through my photographs I can select several that show that maximum intensity.

You can see that intensity in my 2009 photo of all-time tennis great Andre Agassi during a match at the Surprise Tennis Center. Agassi had just released his autobiography and had returned to tennis in what they call the senior circuit. The temperature was fairly warm in Surprise that year and Agassi was really sweating.

I really like this photo because it shows those amazingly powerful arms as he follows the ball with his eyes and prepares to return the serve will the power of his golden years.

Another shot from the professional ranks is Todd Martin as he defeats Agassi in the 2009 Cancer Treatment Center of America tournament. Martin is an all time favorite in Arizona and he has continued to return to Surprise for several more Cancer Treatment Center of America tournaments.

In this shot I was positioned on a bench on the floor of the court almost even with net. This gave me a fairly low angle to take this round of photos. Martin throughout his career was known for his aggressive rushing the net style of play. On this play I caught the ball just before Todd and racket arrived. It is amazing how they hit these net shots and then have to recover and reposition themselves for the return volley.

But the women can be just as intense as the men in professional tennis. Below you can see Monica Puig, winner of the $ 25,000 ITF Pro Circuit event in 2011.

Monica was 17 years old at that time and was one of the most intense young people I have photographed. She had to fight through four days of matches with higher seeded and more experienced players. She had an amazing reach as seen in this photo.

Here I was positioned above a small grassy area opposite from the main seating area of the arena. This gave me a great angle to look down on the action.

Once more the photograph documents the stretch and the intensity of returning the serve.

But is not only tennis that portrays intensity but almost all sports at any level of play from the small fries that are playing flag football to their bigger cousins that are scoring touchdowns and hitting the balls over the fence in baseball and softball. You can see in my blog many examples of those players and I hope to be able to publish even more sports intensity in the years to come.

This is why I love photography. Where can you go to see scenes like this and be able to capture them for all time.

Marketing for photographers

2012-04-18T13:52:00.000-07:00

One of the areas that is my weakest is marketing. Like a lot of creatives I don't have a natural ability to toot my own horn and ask for the sale (contrary for how it looks in this blog). All my marketing is force fed. By that I mean that I have to force myself to market my products. Some people are just natural marketers. I know several photographers that are quite successful, but in my opinion their products are not nearly as good as many of my friends and my own products. Perhaps that is because I spend most of my time improving my craft and little of it tooting that horn I mentioned earlier.

In that light what have I done lately on the marketing front. One thing that I am most proud of was suggested by one of the local coaches and he asked if I could create a banner to be mounted as his stadium honoring his high school seniors.

The photo to the right is one of Willow Canyon seniors Alex Marshall posing in front of the poster as it is mounted in the stands. The photo below shows all three players posing in front of the banners as they were installed.

I salute Willow Canyon softball coach Donnie Tizzano for thinking this up. Of course, I had to create a design and that was a little more work than I expected. What is cool, is that this poster can be sized from 24" by 36" (or larger) down to 8 x 10 or 5 x 7 just by tweaking the proportions.

I will show you a couple of versions that I am working on for the various schools around my city.

The following is the first template I made:

It started as the larger banner. As you can see in all the templates to follow the framework is pretty standard to create. I made approximately half of the page into a color that matches one of the team colors. That is fairly easy to do by using the eyedropper in Photoshop and sampling the color from the girls jersey. The you use the paint bucket to create the whole layer. I then use the rectangle tool to draw a selection around the right hand side and press delete and presto you have a blank 1/2 of a page. Note that the poster and the banner of Alex are using different ration formats with the one on the right being formatted as an 8 x 10.

I then used the circle tool to create a wave form and filled it in with silver color (and using the circle tool offset I chopped off some of the filled area leaving a swooping silver circle. I then used the transform tools to push it into a shape that I wanted. Experiment with that, its fun and sometimes frustrating. Then you place the lettering the way you want it. On some of the templates I added a grunge layer to provide some texture to the colored layers (use the overlay mode).

As you can see, each of these templates is just a variation on the first one using some different shapes and sizes.

After I create the basic template I just fill the right hand side with a photo from the action shots I have taken.

And yes, you can create the template in a horizontal format to fit other photos you have. The one below fits a landscape shot much better and the other template requires a portrait format.

Maybe I will try to learn a new skill and create a video showing how I created these templates. Oh, maybe not, that sounds like too much work.

My last words to you are to just "do it" (Nike talk). You can probably be just as creative as I am (and probably better). So, just try it. You will break it a couple of times, but eventually you will come up with something that sells.

If you click on the above links I will get a small commission (no extra charge for you). Always remember, just because I sponsor links on my site that does not mean that I will hesitate to tell you about any deficiencies in a product.

Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8 OS lens Review

2012-03-31T11:09:00.000-07:00

For the last week I have been shooting with the Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8 lens in several softball and baseball matches in Arizona. I am reasonably impressed.

While the lens is fairly heavy (around 6 lbs) it is still only half the weight of the Canon 400mm (at 15 lbs). And it is about 1/3 of the price of the Canon. The Sigma lens is the only lens in this class of 120 to 300mm in a zoom configuration. I like a zoom lens more for sports in order to vary the framing of the shots that I can get on the field.

Now I am not going to say that it has a sharper images than the Canon-it is the acknowledged leader

In other reviews there was some discussion on the ability of the lens to auto focus fast enough for sports. I can say that I did not see a great problem in the 3,000 plus frames that I shot. Sure, there was an occasional missed focus search, but it was usually because I did not find the subject correctly in the viewfinder.

Here is a shot in a high school baseball game at 300mm, 1,200/sec at f/4.0. I was shooting with a Canon 7D from a position in front of the dug out. My camera and lens were mounted on a carbon fiber monopod.

All in all, the Sigma 120-300mm lens is a contender in the sports shooting world.

Lightroom 4 released

2012-03-13T03:29:00.002-07:00

Adobe Lightroom 4 is now shipping to the public. I have been talking about Lightroom 4 Beta for some time now. You have heard about the improved Develop module functions. Now that the regular release candidate is released everyone can purchase or upgrade to the new version.

The most amazing feature is the newly released price. The full version was formerly $299 and is now $ 149.00. And the upgrade price is now $ 79.

If you click on the above links I will get small commission (no extra charge for you). Always remember, just because I sponsor links on my site that does not mean that I will hesitate to tell you about any deficiencies in a product.