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.

Matkatamiba Canyon mile 148

I wrote my last post about defining success during the interval that I teach a winter photography short course for Lifelong Learning. I talk a lot in class about what makes a successful photo outing and how that isn't the same as bagging a wall-hanger photo, especially early in one's photography experience.

I can tell who in my classes have been reading the on-line forums. They are the ones with the most anxiety about their gear. Read some of that nonsense and you'd come to believe that it's hopeless to make a good picture without a five figure investment in optics. I point out that I made this picture with a D70 and the kit lens, an outfit that has less features than any camera currently on the market. I'll make a few snide remarks about the "camera collectors" as I call them, people who spend way too much time reading specs, arguing on forums, but don't actually make pictures. Then we crack open our camera manuals (I make them bring them to class.--few of their covers have ever been creased by turning that first page) and learn how to turn on the histograms feature. The camera you know how to use is the best tool for the job, I say.

I recall an episode of a Julia Child series where she said to follow the recipe through the first time, then improvise from a position of strength. I find wisdom in that concept that extends far beyond the kitchen. Learn the rules: rule of thirds, never compose a line coming from the corner of a frame, don't put a subject in the bullseye of an image. Then break them, but deliberately and from a foundation of understanding, if it helps communicate my visual idea.

Experiments cost nothing in the field, if as beginning photographers we can give ourselves permission to fail in order to succeed. I think Julia summed it up for all sorts of creative endeavors: "The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you've got to have a what-the-hell attitude." Cultivating that attitude is a major part of my definition of success.

(D70, 18 mm, ISO ??, f6.3, 2.0 sec)

Here's a fun technique for shooting at the annual Christmas at Temple Square photowalk tomorrow, or for evenings out with friends and family during the holiday season. And best of all, besides the look, is that you can't do it on the tripod you really didn't want to carry anyway.

What's happening is the camera is making a very long exposure to get the streaks of ambient light, and at the very end, the flash fires to freeze the subject of the portrait. To do it, you need to change one or two settings on your camera. In the Nikon world, use aperture priority metering and set your flash options in camera to "Slow-rear-curtain sync." You may have to read the manual to set this in the menu, depending on the model. Make some test shot without the flash to see if the ambient light is being captured at the desired levels, then turn on the flash. Make some more test shots to see if the flash is filling the subject well. If it's not bright enough, move closer to your subject and see if that helps. In the Canon world, it's called second curtain sync, and that's the extreme limit of my Canon knowledge. Others at the Photowalk will be able to help out, I'm sure.

For the first picture, taken in 2004 with my first DSLR at the Olympic Cauldron Park on the University of Utah campus, I moved the camera around wildly, just trying to keep my subject in the frame.

Dancing in the streets (D700, 35mm, ISO 6400, f8, 1/6th second)

I made the second image in Lesbos, Greece, this summer at a friend's daughter's baptism party. The guests were literally dancing in the streets to traditional music. While they circled around me, I used the same technique, only this time I moved with the dancers to create the motion.

It seem to me that this style of portraiture to works best on really happy people.

P.S. Don't forget about the clothing drive at tomorrow's Photowalk. Together, we can help make a lot of folks a little happier this holiday season.

Side-by-side comparison an RGB image (left) and proof view in CMYK (right)

I put off the CMYK conversion for the Highway 89 project as long as I could. I got a good set up straight from the printer will print the book, and the process has been straightforward, if not tedious. Certainly not fun, with some of the compromises that CMYK necessarily forces.

RGB mode describes a process where red, green and blue light are added together, on your retina in fact, to create the yellow, cyan and magenta colors that fill in the rainbow. The CMYK process is subtractive: start with a white light source and use pigments to subtract light that reflects off the paper to your retina. The inks (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) do a fine job with most skin tones, but there's no way to use them to get a great royal blue. Pure greens, violets aren't so pure either. If I were printing a package and needed those colors, I would specify an extra printing of ink for each extra color, at a substantial cost. A cost beyond the dear future readers of the Highway 89 book.

Sometimes it helps just to know what is normal and what is impossible. Every color photographer who prints to CMYK goes through this horror of seeing colors transform from the wide gamut of what is digitally capturable to a narrower range of what is printable. There is some fiddling that can improve the initial CMYK conversion, but when it comes to the amazing Montana sky on a clear night in June, it's not going to look the same in a slide show as on the paper. Once the books are in people's hands, they won't see it, even if I do. What they will see will look dang good. And as I wave good-bye to that neon blue sky, I can only expect the joy of actual completion to book in hand will be more than fair recompense.

Today I finished the CMYKs for all 176 images and 9 maps. The project inches one step closer to four inks on paper.

Screen shot of my U.S. Highway 89 book

Progress, frustratingly slow, but progress nevertheless. I don't dare put a date on when it will go to press, but it is going. Here's a screen shot of the introductory spread for Chapter 8. I am very happy with how it is coming out.

There are 176 images in the book (as of today, may change tomorrow). In selecting images, I was grateful for some good advice I absorbed early on, and wished more times than I can say that I followed it more rigorously early in the project: once I have a cooperative subject and a good composition, to shoot it for a variety of crop formats. The image of Lower Yellowstone Falls, for example, I shot wide, so I could crop at an 8x10 format, and long, so I could use a 2x3. I have some that are horizontal. The rainbow lasts for only a few minutes, so it's important to have a plan to get all the different aspect ratios I might want later on.

I wasn't 100% consistent in shooting for completeness early on, and sometimes things are so fast moving, I only got one shot. Since I'm designing this book myself, I had the luxury of making my images fit to the text, but sometimes it would have been a lot easier to have a vertical image that would crop to the size I needed, rather than fitting the one I had, or settling for a horizontal one and redesigning a spread.

If I can't make a lot of shots, these days I am shooting wider, filling the shorter dimension of the frame, but leaving room for cropping on the long side since the 2x3 format is pretty restrictive. But if I can, I shoot lots of options. I get teased sometimes by other photographers for taking way more shots than others, but I have turned that old advice into hard-won experience, and a few extra electrons isn't going to hurt anyone.

As my friend Bruce Hucko says to me, "Drive on!" Just a few more mileposts to go.

P.S. If you want to get an email when this book is available, please visit my handy email email form to sign up.

Taken at the 2007 Temple Square photowalk

I, for one, am hoping for some wet weather for the December Photowalk because of the reflections of the lights in the wet concrete at Temple Square. The Highway 89 project has given me ample opportunity to work out a wet/cold weather practice for myself and my gear.

Before leaving the car:

I spread out a trash compactor bag on the seat where my camera bag rides. If you read nothing else, skip to the end to find out why. It could save you a from an optical disaster. Otherwise, venture forth.

Keep warm

1. Your mom was right: wear a hat. Preferably one that blocks wind. Even better if the brim flips out of the way so you can keep it on AND see through the viewfinder. A hat and the warmest, driest shoe/sock combination in your possession delivers you 90% of the way to comfortable in any weather. As for in between, I use the tried-and-true three layer method: inner wicking layer to keep dry*, thick middle layer to keep warm, outer layer to block wind and wet. No cotton, no denim, lots of fleece. It ain't a fashion show out there.
2. Gloves: Some people like the photographer's gloves, I wear some fingerless combo glove mittens I picked up at a truck stop in Wyoming. The price was right--I guess truckers don't spend disposable income like some photographers. At -25°F in Yellowstone I used inner glove liners under a waterproof glove topped by some mittens, stripping down the outer two layers as needed. At -25°F your exhaled breathe freezes into sparkling crystals. Tequila acquires an unctuous thickness. The vapor in Old Faithful's plume froths up into a voluminous cloud. I digress.

Lensbaby 1.0 remixed with files from Textorizer2

It's been a while since I launched the Textorizer programs, so long in fact that I had to relearn everything I once knew about it. I prevailed again.

I made the original image with my Lensbaby 1.0 on a Photowalk in December 2007. Today I made two Textorizer2 files using different font size settings. I placed both output EPS files over my original file, rasterized them. The EPS output files have a transparent background, so I used the files' transparency to make selections (In Photoshop, Control/Command click on a layer to select its transparency). I used one selection to fill the text over the sky with white, reducing the opacity to a low level. I filled the output file for the text on the tree with black, and used more complex masking to let the Lensbaby goodness shine through.

The hardest part of using Textorizer (after getting the programs running) is finding images that make pleasing patterns with various lengths of text strings. Trying to keep all the tools sharp in the digital toolbox takes some effort (and a few well-placed notes in the file) but it's fun to use them for some holiday decorating when the mood strikes.

Defiance House, courtesy Bruce Hucko

When I started working at my photography, I found plenty of technical resources to learn of metering, depth of field and focal length selection. When I wanted to improve my composition and framing, it was a different story. There was plenty of lore, hand-waving, a nod to the "rule of thirds" and the advice to "look at a lot of good photos," but little in practical tips I could use.

Moab-based photographer Bruce Hucko has a new book out chock full of photos I admire. Time Among the Ancients is his meditation on the mosaic of life as seen through the archeological sites of the Colorado Plateau. I know I like Bruce's compositions, but why?

Another look at the great aspencade of 2008 in Grand Teton National Park

My photographic life got simpler when I started wrapping a rubber band around each camera battery after I charged it. The rubber band necessarily comes off to go in the camera body, and stays off until recharged. Now I know on sight whether a battery is charged up. No thinking. I have enough to think about to make pictures I want to make.

He's roped before

Last week at the Triple Sage ranch horse competition, my aperture-priority metering was fluctuating as I tracked the rider around the arena. I quickly switched to manual metering, and pulled a "trick" out of my hat to check the exposure.

Sunrise at Bright Angel Point, Grand Canyon National Park

I scored a last-minute reservation at the North Rim for the last night of my tour through Arizona for the Highway 89 project. Not that I spent much time in the park - about 14 hours, from sunset ato sunrise. The monsoons dowsed me all the way from Phoenix to Cottonwood on Monday night, so I hoped for dramatic clouds and color at the North Rim the next day. It didn't happen, but how would I know if I weren't there? Besides, I never complain about a chance to be in our national parks, regardless of the photography outcomes.

Now I'm back from twelve days on the road, and unpacking is even less fun than packing. At home, I always store my lenses and bodies in a configuration to minimize dust on the camera sensors. Here's the theory: dust sticks to the sensor at least in part because of electrostatic forces generated when the camera is on. Turned off, the static will eventually discharge. I want the dust to fall off the sensor, so I let gravity help the cause by storing the camera body sensor-side down. Similarly, I stand my lenses upright on their rear caps so the dust can fall off the rear elements.

Before I repack the gear for the next trip, I use my Giotto Rocket blower to dust off the rear lens elements, caps, and the insides of the shutter box. Even on the road, sometimes I all need to do to clear the sensor is to leave it sensor-side down overnight and blow out the loose dust in the morning. Since I adopted this simple storage system, I need to clean my sensor with swabs much less frequently. Swabs aren't cheap, gravity is free. No complaints there either.

Chapel at San Xavier del Bac, Arizona

At our last Photowalk, we got to the Great Salt Lake almost 3 hours before sunset, which gave us some time to kill. We did so profitably, but it made for a long session by the time the light got really sweet. With the right tools, it's possible to consistently predict the cascade of sunset; we can calculate backwards to know just when to be on location. (That's one great thing about our Photowalking adventures - there's always something we will do better next time, but everyone has fun regardless.)

In December 2006, I photographed a spectacular instance of the atmospheric phenomen known as the Belt of Venus, the glowing pink color on the horizon in the opposite direction to the sun. The earth's shadow is the blue band below the pink layer. It showed up the day before in the same location, but the winds were gusting at 40 mph and I couldn't get a sharp image. Perhaps a proper meteorologist could describe the conditions that set it up (I'm guessing particulates or moisture in the air). I'm no weatherwoman, but I do know what time to look for it. I print out a custom sunrise/sunset calendar before any photography trip, and here's how.

Downtown dining, Salt Lake City

I read an article years ago in Outdoor Photographer about using a diffusion filter+warming filter+high ISO to get an interesting look for mid-day photography. Might have been a Bob Krist article, seems like the examples were from an Italy trip. The effect was sort of grainy, journalistic, but in color. I've adapted the technique for a night look I like, particulary in scenes with a lot of low-level point sources. Think Christmas lights. This D70 image was hand-held, high ISO, with a Cokin diffusion filter, and was one of my favorite images from the 2005 holiday season. I did some similar stuff last week on Photowalk. There are all sorts of DIY diffusion filter ideas out there, like old pantyhose or vaseline on an old haze filter, but yuck, who wants to carry grease in the camera bag? That's asking for a mess. This plastic rectangle comes in a nice little plastic box, can carry it around in my pocket even when I'm going light, just for effect. It can be pretty fun, once I get past the idea of taking thousands of dollars of optics out and purposely blurring that crisp image. A lot of fun, in fact.

Neon street scene outside the Montevista Hotel, Flagstaff, Arizona

I have been accused (in a friendly way) of holding back my best pictures from my recent trips, so here's one of my favorites from the Flagstaff advenutre.

I've learned something about how to photography neon in the past few months. I've worked out an effective (for me) method that begins, like almost all endeavors photographic: arrive early. I want the beautiful midnight blue color of the sky, and three dimensionality to the surroundings. If I wait until the sky is that actual color, the rest of the scene is too dark, and the neon will glow in a sea of black empty space where a neon sign porcelain background should appear.

Just at sunset, while the eastern sky has some pretty colors, I am setting up, camera facing east if the subject permits. Over the next few mintues, the colors will slide off to the west, and there may be a lot of sunset left behind me but the eastern sky will take on a middle blue-grey tone that gradually darkens to that pretty midnight color. This blue light happens even if the sky is completely covered in clouds.

I start shooting as soon as the transition from pink to blue starts. Raw files, a middling fstop, tripod. I will try to set up an HDR file, although I almost never have to use it. I just watch the highlight clipping in the histogram. There are always a magical few moments when the sky and the light from the neon is in balance. That's when I start shooting like mad, recomposing, moving around.

Then I switch to west-facing. Repeat same process. There may be enough time to relocate a new subject, if the east-west angles work for each. The blue light special doesn't last very long, so good scouting pays off if I need to set up somewhere else nearby.

Post-processing: I adjust the RAW files to bring up the midtones, and to adjust the white balance. I keep the D2X on the daylight setting, but 4750K is too warm for that time of night, so I drop it down quite a bit, maybe to 4000K. If I were shooting jpeg, I'd probably us the white balance for incandescent if I couldn't set it manually. I may also sandwich two images, one deeply underexposed, and mask in only the neon. That's what I did here, to give a little more crispness to the tubes.

The guy never went into the bar.