Nine Days Across the Outback: An Introduction

In September, I took a trip to Australia for some business, and under orders from friends & management, took some vacation time. (As a chronic workaholic, my former manager has a Facebook group). Per my general rule, I am a lover of civilization. Walls, a roof, kitchens (with gas stoves), soft beds, delicious food, fine wines, air conditioning -- these are to me what the simple ability to live in a city was to the medieval Germans. One might lose these things in a tragedy, or possibly some sort of Mad-Max style collapse, but giving them up voluntarily?

I'm dubious.

Balancing these misgivings was my unhealthy desire to go to interesting places and photograph interesting things. So there I was in Australia, with a d700 and a Crumpler bag full of lenses, so I did the only sensible thing: signed up for an overland tour of the Outback!

My friends and I traveled from Uluru, in the center of Australia, north to Alice Springs, along the Stuart Highway, then north to Darwin and Kakadu National Park -- a nine day trip of over 1200 kilometers. Along the way, I took a few photos...

This brings me to this post. I'm going to be posting one photo from my Outback trip every day for the next nine days. I'll pick a photo that I think I learned a lesson from, demonstrates a technique I found it very helpful to understand, or just, looks pretty, and then write about it here.

Before I start, here's a bonus photo:



I got this from the top of Sydney Tower, one of those taller-than-every-other-building buildings in Sydney. The good news: They let you bring SLRs up there. The bad news: They don't let you bring a tripod (and probably no monopod). They did let me bring my Crumpler bag though, which was good enough to give me a lot of fun options for shooting the city. I had a big problem, though, which was how to stabilize the camera enough for a nearly one second exposure. The high ISO on the d700 is good, but it's not enough to get the exposure I wanted for the cityscape (I would have ended up with window lights, but no detail on buildings or the streets).

The solution? They had a row of those pay-a-coin-and-look-through-the-scope dealies all around the edges of the observation room. I put the camera on one of those, locked it into place, and *bam*! Instant ad hoc tripod.

Election Day

It's not about right versus left, nor liberal versus conservative. It's not about tax breaks or increases. It's not about slogans, clothes, or handshakes. It's about people... living their lives, both rich and poor, separate individuals with a future that is intertwined at so many levels that we'd rather not openly admit it.

I've tried to consider arguments on both sides of the aisle. On one hand, what a person works for, what they earn, ought not be taken from them and given to another. Yet at the same time, I can no more so ignore the cries of people who suffer from sickness when relief is available but financially out of reach. I can sympathize with the dreams and ambitions of an entrepreneur setting out on an uncertain path, gambling everything on the hope of a better life for his or her family. And I am saddened for those who share this dream, but are never provided with the means and ability to embark on the journey for it.

As long as I can remember, I have felt empty when I see our place in the world. We can do better. I've seen the people of our country demonstrate kindness to strangers during Katrina, I've seen limitless compassion and prayers after 9/11, and I've seen our soldiers' courageous fight for justice in a world so cloaked in despair.

However, despite these examples, we are failing. When genocide threatens entire regions of the earth, how dare we sit back and say we've done enough? When the arguments once used to persecute minorities are being resurrected to target people based on their orientation, why do so many stay silent?

Government can't provide solutions for all these problems, but you can.

Today is election day in the United States, and this is our chance to do better. Stand up, vote! I am not writing to say that you should vote for one particular candidate. However I am writing to remind you that there is more at stake than taxes and war. For the first time in recent memory, I feel that the election isn't between the lesser of two evils. I think there is a genuine opportunity at hand to make the world a better place, for both Democrats and Republicans, for both rich and poor, for the right and the left. We can make America better, we can make the world better. Today, we have the unique opportunity to stand up, cast off lingering doubt, ignore the fear that has been the companion of politics for the past 8 years, and be counted among those who will do better, for no reason other than because we want to and because we recognize that we have to.

Please, go vote!

Musical Light

A group of us went up to Yosemite and the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains this past weekend. We manged to spend some time in Yosemite Valley, Tioga Pass, Mammoth Lakes, Devil's Postpile, Mono Lake, and Bodie. Brandon and I are still editing our photos, but I did manage to get this one shot of Tenaya Lake while driving across Tioga Pass. We had been driving since about 5 AM and I realized we were going to make it completely across the pass before sunset. Now since I was travelling with family and not everyone was a photog, the idea of pulling over and waiting an hour so we could catch sunset on Tenaya Lake seemed like a nonstarter. So considering I was exhausted, I pulled over and said I needed a power nap. I got to sleep for a good 40 minutes and then we continued on our drive. We came up on Tenaya Lake and we saw this sky and reflection. I pulled over, jumped out of the car, and started firing away. Totally worth the tiny little white lie. (I really was tired, though, so it's the truth with an ulterior motive).





The second day of our trip the sky was boring, just a bright blue dome, devoid of clouds. I found it hard to get inspired, I knew there were potential shots all around me, but nothing seemed to click. I pulled out my iPhone and started listening to U2's Beautiful Day (one of my favorite songs). A few minutes after turning on the music, I started noticing things I was missing before, and got quite a few good shots. So my question to you is this: Have you ever used music to help you get inspired while taking photos? What's on your inspiration playlist?

Printing Your Photos for Fame and Fortune

I've become addicted with getting copies of my favorite photos printed out.  I recently bought the ColorVision Spyder2 Express monitor calibrator.  I must say, it's awesome.  My monitor has never looked better and the prints I get (when I print using the appropriate printer profiles) is just fantastic.

I do all my regular 8x12 printing at Costco, because they quality is great and the price is right!  On top of that, Costco has printer/paper ICC profiles available for nearly all of their in store photo labs.  Proof your shots in Photoshop, convert them to the appropriate printer profile, and then take them to the store on a thumb drive.  Go through the process as you normally would selecting your prints on the little kiosk.  When you go to pay for your order, tell them you have color corrected your own photos and that (if applicable) they should be printed out on a particular machine.  They'll do the rest!  (Note: Some Costcos have more than one printer, and quite often only one has a profile available for it.  Make sure they print on that machine!)

Given all the extra steps of using the correct printer profiles and a calibrated monitor, I've noticed that virtually all of my prints were a little dark.  I was perplexed as to what could be responsible for this.  Turns out, the genius of all things Photoshop, Scott Kelby, had this same problem.  In his book, Photoshop CS3 Book for Digital Photographers, he gave a tip out on how to compensate for this darkness.  This method works perfectly for me, so I highly suggest you try it if you have the same problem.

1. Starting with the image you want to print in Photoshop, make sure the image is flat.  That is to say, make sure it has only 1 layer.
2. Press Control-J on the PC or Command-J on the Mac to duplicate the single layer.
3. Change the blending mode for the new layer to screen.
4. Then adjust the opacity of this layer to somewhere between 20% and 30%.  Scott suggested 20%, I find 25% works well for me.

That's it!  Now flatten the image again, and go print!  The image will look bright on your computer monitor, but remember, when it get's printed, it's going to be darker, so it will balance out.  Make sure you don't brighten your originals!  When getting a photo ready to be printed, I always work off of a copy!  Be safe!

Hoover Dam

While in Las Vegas last week, Brandon, Cem, Andrea, and I made our way over to Hoover Dam.  We were about 3 minutes late for the dam tour, and they wouldn't let us in because the dam security folks had shut down the X-ray machines and metal detectors..  (Sorry, I'll try really hard not to make another dam joke.  Dam it!)

So we decided to walk along the top of the dam and salvage the trip.  The dam was impressive, though I feel strange that it didn't give me the same sense of awe that Niagara Falls or Yosemite Valley did.  I guess maybe because it was man made?  In fact after flagging the 1200 pics I took in Las Vegas as picks or rejects, I realized I only had a few pictures from Hoover Dam that I actually liked.  Furthremore, none where of the dam proper.  I had pictures of Lake Meade behind the dam, I had pictures of the river continuing at the base of the dam, but no pictures of the giant hunk of white concrete that is Hoover Dam itself.

The most interesting thing at Hoover Dam, in my opinion, is the amount of 1930's art deco signage and statues.  On the Nevada side of the dam is a memorial to those men and women who built the dam and to those who lost their lives during its' construction.  The ground is covered with a star chart so that future civilizations might know the significance of the location and be able to approximate when and why it was built.  The American flag is guarded by two giant art deco winged statues.  I found this memorial to be more inspiring than the dam itself.  It's of these statues that I want to share a photo.  Brandon says it's perhaps the best picture I've ever taken, and I might have to agree with him.

Portrait Professional

I've seen Portrait Professional being advertised in various publications for quite a long time.  I gave it a try the other day and was absolutely blown away.  Prior to using it I thought it was just a general, blur the skin plugin, but in reality, it's sooo much more.  It actually builds a wire frame over a person's face and adjusts their features (shape of eyes, the nose, double chin) to make them more symmetric and subtle where necessary.  (Yes, it smoothes out the skin, but it does so without making it look like a Barbie doll.)  These are all techniques professional retouchers do manually in Photoshop, but Portrait Professional makes them easy for non-Photoshop wizards to do in under 3 minutes!!  It's quite amazing how much better people look when their neck is just a little bit longer. :-)  Go ahead, try out their free demo, it's amazing!

As a special gift for our readers, anthropics, the folks behind Portrait Professional, have given us a 10% discount code to share with our readers.  When placing your order, use the code discd6 to take 10% off!

Vegas Baby! uhm Travel Photography

Yup, I was in Hawaii for 8 days, now I'm in Vegas for 7. Got here today and didn't get to do much shooting. It's too tempting to just pull the camera out on the strip and start clicking away. Not exactly going to get a lot of keepers like that, so I had to do some research first. :-)



Since I seem to travel to some random places for work fairly regularly, most of my trips are for 2-3 days with lots of work things scheduled. How do I find time for shooting? Well, thankfully, the best times to shoot are way before and way after work. However, how about location scouting? How do I find places to go take some shots without having much time to explore? Here are some of my tricks:

• If there is a local camera shop (Ritz or Wolf don't count), stop by and ask for advice. I've found local staff are all to happy to give an out of towner a tip or two.
• Check Flickr, Panoramio, or Photo.net. On Flickr and Photo.net there are groups with discussion forums where lots of people before you have asked the same questions. Go learn from their mistakes and/or failures. Panoramio's photos are accessible from Google Earth, but that deserves its own bullet.
• Google Earth is perhaps the coolest tool for photographers in unfamiliar territory! The newest version supports showing terrain maps in 3D so you can get a good idea of what you'll see from what locations. Also, it has a sunlight simulator!!! This is an absolutely amazing feature that will show you the intensity of sunlight in certain areas. Are you going to be in a valley? Want to know what areas will get the last bit of sunlight? Google Earth can do that for you. Google Earth also links to Panoramio to pull in travel photos and make them easy to view from Earth's 3D interface. Very cool!
• When you get to a new place, go hunt down a Borders or a Barnes & Noble. Virtually every bookstore I've ever been in has an entire section dedicated to local interest. Within this section you'll usually find several photography books full of great shots of the region. Skim these books, take notes on interesting locations, and go see what you can find. Can you make it better? Did you see the potential for an interesting composition that wasn't in the book. You may go to the same spot, but you can make the shot your own! (Having just gotten to Vegas today, this is how I now know that the roof level of the McCarran Internation Airport short term parking garage has an amazing night view of the strip.)

I hope some of these suggestions are helpful to you. I'm going to go wander around the casino with my camera. (Oh, one last bit of advice, check with local security people in advance if photography is ok, best not to end up in that very big desert out there.)

..mike