Ann-alog, a Pixel Remix, where Ann Torrence blogs about photographing for a book on U.S. Highway 89, the greatest road trip route in America. Photography tips, locations, trip reports, and real life.

Balanced Rock sunset

The real problem with the Moab Photo Symposium was that there simply was not enough time to do everything. I told the organizer, Bruce Hucko, that I wanted an "E" ticket to the party since I'd not been before, and even then, I missed out on way too much. I could have happily gone to every workshop, photographed at every sunrise and sunset.

The theme was "Bodies of Work, Bodies at Work" and we saw some fascinating projects- I especially enjoyed learning about Chris Conrad's night photography and ViviAnn Rose's hand-colored nudes. David Hiser, Jeff Foott and Tom Till gave three very different presentations on the life of a world-traveling photographer; Foott's talk illustrated the kinds of photos needed to illustrate an editorial piece, which was deeply interesting as I envision telling the Highway 89 story. It was interesting to hear three old-school film guys talk about their digital experiences, especially Till, who has been enjoying shooting with a DSLR after years of lugging around a 4x5 camera. Rory Tyler showed us petroglyphs he discovered-rarely do I meet someone with such a depth of passion for any topic as Rory has for rock art, not just of the southwest, but world-wide. Steve Traut made us all laugh, and I hope to see his work in Grand Junction sometime. I didn't get a chance to talk to Adriel Heisey until Sunday, which was a mistake because we have a lot of territory to discuss. His aerial work is tops. And I'm still pondering Brian Parkin's thoughts on working with galleries and how it applies to my work.

So I didn't get to go on up for any dawn shoots. The first day I was still practicing the first ten minutes of my talk; then I was scouting for my workshop. Not enough time! That's why I've already agreed to go back next year. Hope to see you there.

Dancers from Montezuma Creek Elementary School

The Festival of Cultures was going on in Moab last weekend at the same time as the Photo Symposium, but I did get out at the lunch break to see the Navajo dancers from Montezuma Creek Elementary School. So very cute. This is one of my favorite photos from their performance. I like how the feet, halfway off the edge of the stage, gives the sense of how excited they were to be performing.

Fleeting spring colors

Monthly progress report on those New Year's resolutions.

1. Get in shape Yet more excuses.
2. Baseline mammogram done, with a follow-up repeat and an ultrasound. They now have lots of pictures on file for next year's comparison. Apparently, being called back for a second look is very common, enough so that there is scientific literature on the medical consequences of so many healthy women being exposed to the stress of a call-back.
3. Find a publisher More queries are out right now. Waiting is hard.
4. Learn to ride a horse I met Barney. Fran put me in the saddle, and led him around the corral so I could see the world from the saddle. I'm signed up for a workshop on gentling wild horses next week. I need to find a place for lessons on pre-gentled horses.
5. Take more salsa lessons Done, but more of more would be (still) fun.
6. Install CS3 done.
7. Establish a systematic keywording workflow I updated this project last week. Ready to move this task to a higher priority, now that I'm back from Moab.
8. Launch snappola.com I'm exploring an Internet shopping cart right now.
9. Shoot the wedding dress remix still waiting for the snow to melt. Have a volunteer model for the project.
10. Make a Turducken Oh Millie?

Three completed, substantial progress on four more. And I went for a walk today. Progress, not perfection, is our motto. The year is only one third over.

Three separate shots with filtration as labeled, camera mounted firmly on tripod (click image to enlarge)

Two early morning trips to Temple Square, including our first "impromptu" Photowalk (yay Harley and Aaron for braving the alarm clock) have yielded some interesting data, if not pictures. Actually, some fine photos were made, but today's images belong more in the data category.

I've used the Cokin 840 Diffuser filter in the past as a remixing layer with some success (It's one layer in this Temple Square image, for example). In putting together this weekend's workshop for the Moab Photo Symposium, I acquired several new tricks for my bag, including one of Cokin's Pastel 087 filters. My group will be doing a Photowalk-esque walkabout during the workshop, and won't lack for photographic esoterica to experiment with.

The pictures on Cokin's site and printed materials don't real serve to show how different these two filters really are. The plain version was shot at f8.0 1/320th sec at ISO200, both of the filtered images at 1/200th sec. I'm not sure pastel is the right word for the 087 filter. It's more like "smear the light around and kill the contrast," which probably wouldn't translate to French very well. I made some images in the shade. Here the differences aren't nearly as striking.

Two separate shots with filtration as labeled, camera mounted firmly on tripod (click image to enlarge)

I haven't had a chance yet to see how the 087 works in night scenes. I'm usually not a fan of heavily diffused portraiture, but I think I'll do the experience. I am always much happier working with data than lore.

A fun part of these effects is that the gear is (relatively) inexpensive and lightweight. You can get the basics at any decent camera shop. The retail shops aren't likely to have everything in the Cokin catalog; I bought some of the more obscure ones from the Filter Connection. I've even outfitted my Canon G9 with a Lensmate filter mount so I don't have to the filters up to the lens, which is not exactly admirable technique, though it did work in a pinch.

The Pastel 2 087 has earned a spot in my camera bag, although it must keep company with two more new acquisitions I'll post about soon. What's your most unusual filter/gear in yours?

Ducky, Blue & yellow #2

I predicted that the Lightroom project would devolve into a horrendous sequence of upgrade mission-creep, and I was right. It's not Adobe's fault, by any means, but the getting ready to start has been incredibly time-consuming:

• Order the new LaCie Double Triple 1TB storage.
• Consolidate my camera downloads onto the 1TB from the various places I had stowed them while deciding what to buy.
• Discover the 1TB unit will not communicate through its 800 FW port. Ask LaCie to ship replacement first, they ignore/decline, but send SRO promptly.
• Tediously back up the 1TB to some LaCie bricks - 400 FW to USB is very slow.
• Make some DVDs for extra insurance.
• Send 1TB to LaCie.
• Take G5 in for runaway fan, instability, random instances of powering down during processor-heavy activity (read: open ACR file in DNGConverter and Photoshop). Diagnosis is not the fan; the G5 needs a new motherboard and/or logic board. Verify and accelerate daily back-ups while limping along temporarily.
• Copy all the files back to the replacement 1TB from the bricks. More tedium.
• Install LR 1.4.1 upgrade, which has been issued, retracted, reissued during this timeframe. Upgrade went smoothly.
• Create new catalog. Trivial.
• Import my starting list of keywords from Excel-generated tab-delimited list. I listed about 400 keywords before I decided that I had a workable structure. At this point, I think it will be easier to add new ones in Lightroom. Uploading keywords was straightforward.*
• Relabel the top-level keyword hierarchy words to begin with special characters for forced sorting.

So there it sits. Between now and Thursday, I probably won't actually do much importing of folders and keywording. Anyway, it might be a good idea to let some early adopters work through any potential kinks in 1.4.1.

In the meantime, as I was doing all the copying between drives and hunting stuff down for the Moab Photo Symposium, I found today's picture.

*For what it might be worth, here is my starting list of keywords in an Excel file. The logic is strictly matched to my own typical mental search pattern. Feedback always welcome, especially in the next few days, before I get fully committed to this list.

Links to previous posts on cataloing my archive with Lightroom: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.