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Transitions: Part Two

By On · Add Comment · In HDR, Landscapes, Photography, Queenstown, Travel

On the topic of change, that is something I’ve been experiencing a lot of lately… What catches me off guard however, isn’t how the world is changing, thus directly affecting my life – but the changes within myself that adjust my perception of the world. While I wouldn’t go as far as to say I’ve “turned a corner”, there is something very different about how I think now compared to say, six months ago.

Since the topic of this blog has been photography since its creation, I will begin with sharing another photo – again from the Queenstown Photo-walk last December – and elaborate a little more on whats going on in my head when I think about myself behind the camera…

As I stated in the previous post, my perception of photography is undergoing somewhat of a transformation. I’m not at all inclined to stagnate my style and neglect artistic exploration. By that I mean I don’t want to be put in a fucking box. Unfortunately its not quite that simple, and if my experience in social media has taught me anything, its that one cannot judge their own success off the endless swarms of people willing to give nothing but positive feedback. I have a huge respect for those willing to cut the crap (cheers, Stefan & Codie) and be brutally honest – I’ve grown to crave this feedback for my own personal and professional development.

Recently I’ve become incredibly frustrated by what I consider to be baseless fanfare combined with an un-educatede appreciation for quality. I’m sick of those who produce crap that is swallowed up and regurgitated in the form of comments that sound like they come from a brainless sparrow. To be clear on what I mean by this, I have no problem whatsoever with those that appreciate artwork that is a little outside the scope of regular. My issue lies with those that produce utterly shit results and do it en masse as to block out any form of honest & constructive feedback.

Those who lower the overall standards compromise the integrity of industries and professions alike… I’m sorry, thats just what I believe.

Every passion I have in life revolves around a ‘perfectionist model’ – that is to say I do everything to the best of my ability. In many cases, if I can’t do it well, I won’t do it at all. If its a professional task, I will either gain the skill myself, or outsource the job to someone I consider capable. With that in mind, I understand that many won’t feel that I do as well as I’d like to – and given a clear line of communication, I would likely agree with them, hence my desire for honest & credible feedback.

So how does this all relate to photography? Well, in a nutshell it means I feel my results aren’t up to standard. I browse sites like 500px and wonder to myself “why am I not producing results like this?”. The only conclusion I can come up with is that I’m not applying myself as well as I could, and based on my model for perfection, I put my photography in the background and focus on things that I know I can do very well.

Despite temptations to put it on hold entirely, thats counter-productive. My investment in equipment and skill need not go wasted… And when the opportunity arrises to spend valuable time with mates behind the lens – I will always jump at the chance.

Dammnit!

Perhaps the universe just gave me a hint to stop writing before I shoot myself in the foot… I was in the middle of critiquing the user experience of a website when it crashed my browser and cause me to lose the second half of this post. Oh well. I’ll save these thoughts for another time.

Basically this post was about getting some thoughts out there and seeing if anyone agrees… Granted, many might find this harsh approach akin to a crusade, and in many ways I guess it is. I’m just formalizing a set of criteria that govern how I operate in the world. People can take it or leave it, I’m not forcing these opinions on anyone. Those who now me well understand that these thought processes enable me to do well in specific areas of life – cheers, Asperger syndrome…

Transitions: Part One

By On · 5 Comments · In HDR, Landscapes, Photography, Queenstown, Travel

It’s been well over a month since my last update. For whats its worth, I apologize for dropping off the radar with no explanation… I’ll get to why this happened in a little while, but first I’d like to share what will quite possibly be one of the last photos of its kind from me, taken just before christmas last year in Queenstown while I attended a local photo walk with peers & colleagues.

During this photo walk, our group of 30 or so made our way along the shores of Lake Wakatipu in the evening, before reaching the far end of the gardens peninsula just on sunset. This is where (despite the wind & difficult shooting conditions) several of us braved the water and set up our cameras to capture the evening light. Given this was taken in December, the sun was to set at the wonderful hour of 9pm – something I throughly enjoy during summer, as we can frequently be found enjoying the lake as late in the day as possible.

Alas, that was then, this is now. The mountains in Queenstown have had their first drop of snow, and the days are try short and cold. I can’t say I particularly enjoy winter, aside from the few days of solid blizzard we usually get when the season peaks. So, about these ‘transitions’… Its a little harsh to call this ‘the last of its kind’, but thats very much how I’m viewing things currently. As the title of this post suggests, I’m going through a series of changes (both personal and professional) that are really making me take a good hard look at life and how the various pieces of the puzzle fit together.

Fortunately, most of these changes are very positive in nature, and are somewhat the result of months of work & planning on my part. I won’t go into elaborate detail, but one thing I will highlight for this post is some of the new ways I’ve been looking at life;

I kind of feel like a switch has been flicked in my mind. Like I suddenly understand what it is I’m meant to be doing with myself. For the first time in a long time, I’m working towards solid goals and aspirations with some very clear objectives in mind – rather than simply taking life as to comes. There is always a very fine balance when it comes to this, but fortunately I’ve been able to find that rather easily and come to terms with this new outlook.

One of the first things I did this year was to write down a list of these goals and carry it with me. Interestingly enough, when I went to put this list of goals in my wallet I discovered another list that I had written for 2011… One that I had completely forgotten about. I unfolded this list and went through the items one by one, and with each line I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I had in fact achieved them without even trying. By osmosis, I had had a very productive and rewarding year, achieving all but one of the major steps I had planned for myself. I proudly ticked these items off, and filed the list away in a drawer.

So, now that I’m roughly half way into 2012, I’ve looked back and realized that I’ve indeed come a long way…

I now have a clearer picture than ever in terms of where I want to go.

That leads me, in conclusion, to my photography. I started this process in late 2010 as a new hobby that quickly became a passion. I met my good friend Trey Ratcliff in October of that year, and that single meeting sent me on an incredible journey of learning and self discovery. In 12 months, I doubled my social contacts and formed some incredibly rewarding relationships with new friends. Along the way, I refined my tastes and formed myself a particular style that seemed to please my audience…

As with all things in life, however, we encounter change. Like the peak and trough of a wave, my passion for photography recently fell into a bit of a slump – partially brought on by practical experiences in the field. Another change occurred when I stopped feeling sorry for myself as a result of this slump, and started applying my energy to other ares of my life that were expanding – this I will cover in part two of this post, when I take about some recent business endeavors.

To paraphrase my dad, I moved photography, or, more specifically, my feelings towards photography, out of my circle of control and into my circle of influence. And with that, I’ve come back full circle and once again feel the passion for going out and capturing what has always been my mission; the world through my eyes.

My eyes are changing, and with that in mind, so will my results.

I’m less willing than ever to accept results that don’t meet my expectations. I have a lot going on in life currently that take priority over blog posts like this, but so long as people want to read whats happening in my mind, I’m willing to share. I also plan on condensing my online presence and focusing my energy where it is most rewarding – this means I will likely disappear from a few social networks, but reappear on others – fortunately, Googling me still yields results that are all legitimate.

“The only constant is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be…”
— Isaac Asimov

This is cold comfort at times. I don’t like change. I don’t think anyone does. But I’d sooner work with these changes and move forward than ignore the potential for bigger, better and brighter things to come.

Bye for now, World.

Moonlit Waters at Rat Point

By On · Add Comment · In Astrophotography, Landscapes, Long Exposure, Photography, Queenstown, Travel, Tutorials

I’ve been wanting to revisit my passion for Astrophotography for quite a while now… In the past, I’ve taken photos of the stars both with and without the landscape in the foreground, but never felt I’d balanced it quite right or pulled off the effect I was after. This photo ticks most of those boxes, but sadly not all of them…

During the holidays, several of my friends were in town for the Christmas and New Year period, and we spent most of our nights either sitting behind my desk creating stuff, hunting or taking interesting photos. This was one such night, when myself and good friends Ciaran Jack and Nick Stone went on a dedicated astrophotography mission towards Glenorchy. As much as I enjoy spontaneous adventures, I do find it helpful to occasionally plan one’s evenings and have an objective in mind. Of course this planning can be completely derailed when you are all set to go and realize you have no memory cards on you… But never mind!

We spent over an hour framing this photo – running various test exposures using Ciaran’s 60D and my Canon 17-40mm f/4L – but as is the case with all astro photos, once you hit the shutter button all you can do is cross your fingers and hope for the best. This hoping is made worse by the fact that once the exposure is done, you have another hour or so to wait before the camera finishes a dark-frame noise reduction process that doubles the exposure time and damn near kills the battery. So in the future, I plan to carry a second body with me to effectively double my chances of a usable photo. In my experience, the ratio of usable astro photos to ones I throw out is roughly 5 to 1 – and thats a depressing number when you realize how many hours go into shots like this!

I’ve had a bit of trouble getting this photo to look half decent when exported as a JPEG from Lightroom and uploaded directly to Smugmug (where I host my originals for safe keeping). One issue with JPEGs is that they seem incompatible with subtle gradients in a clear blue sky… Normally a condition that is saved for the middle of the day – not 3am as is the case above ;-)

In the end I opted to compromise on the quality and upload the file manually while still keeping the original on Smugmug for safe keeping. You can view it at 100% by clicking here and check out all the goodies in the distant landscape – just a warming, this is a big image file and may take forever to load…

New Tutorial: Star Trails

I finished writing this last night… Its rather long, but thats my intention for this new breed of in-depth tutorial that go into elaborate detail. When I was learning this stuff, I made many mistakes through trial and error – mostly because I wasn’t able to find the sort of resources that outlined not only the process but the technical aspects of why you would do one thing and not the other, why you would use this aperture, this ISO, this exposure time.

I do my best to answer all those questions, and share my tips and techniques that result in photos like the one above… To read the tutorial, click the image below. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it!

 

The Mirror Lake at Jacks Point

By On · 6 Comments · In HDR, Landscapes, Photography, Queenstown, Travel

Another photo taken months ago with my good friend Will during his time in Queenstown… And another day where our lack of organization left us wishing we had left home sooner to capture what was to be an amazing, albeit brief sunset.

Another photo taken months ago with my good friend Will during his time in Queenstown... And another day where our lack of organization left us wishing we had left home sooner to capture what was to be an amazing, albeit brief sunset. Read more: http://edenbrackstone.com/2012/01/the-mirror-lake-at-jacks-point/

This scene was captured moments before the sun fell behind the terrain. We subsequently made out way up this small hill to overlook the lake, but were faced with the most obnoxious clouds that completely obscured the sun as it receded towards the horizon. The decision to put off driving up the hill sooner was brought around by this amazingly still body of water that we drove past… I was drawn in by the near perfect reflection, and the interesting double flare that has snuck its way into the final result – I had very intention to clone this out, but its obscurity and character grew on me and I changed my mind at the last minute!

Quick Tip — Snapshot your Photoshop documents!

In the Photoshop ‘Image’ menu you will find the magical ‘Apply Image…’ option.

At the request of a reader, here is a brief tutorial on how to create a ‘bookmark’ layer during your post processing workflow. I use this in every photo to record my progress, and to use the resulting layer as a base when applying filters like sharpening, noise reduction and color adjustments that affect the selected layer rather than the usual document-wide adjustments.

I have the following steps set up as an Action for quick access during editing… I’ll write about those another time, as I also rely on them heavily when it comes to laying up documents for print and such.

It’s quite simple really, fist make sure you create a new layer on top of your layers stack by pressing Command + Shift + N (or Ctrl + Shift + N if you haven’t yet made the switch to a Mac!). This is important, otherwise the new layer will override the layer you had selected previously!

Next, click on the ‘Image’ menu from within Photoshop, and then click ‘Apply Image’. The subsequent options should be set as follows:

Be sure the ‘Layer’ drop down is set to ‘Merged’ — This will take all the visible layers in your document and combine them into one. Also make sure the channel is set to RGB and the Invert box is not ticked (unless you want some whacky results!). Finally, be sure your ‘Blending Mode’ is set to ‘Normal’ and hit OK.

The correct settings for the ‘Apply Image’ window.
Make sure you do this on a new layer to avoid messing up your document!

All going well, the result will be a new layer on top of all your stack that is the sum of the layers below. Rename it appropriately to keep the document tidy, and then carry on editing!

On average, I’d say I make between 3 and 5 of these layers during a normal edit, depending on how complex it gets.

As I said earlier, I have the steps above linked to an Action that automatically carries the process out for me, and even names the layer “Combined” so I know where each one is.

Thats all from me tonight, I’m having a pretty busy week here and haven’t been able to keep up with all my commitments… Hence me making a rather rushed post at nearly 2am. If you liked this photo and the attached tutorial, I’d love to know about it! Please click here to leave me a comment, I really do enjoy hearing your thoughts and feedback.

The Sedimentary Sunset

By On · 8 Comments · In HDR, Landscapes, Photography, Queenstown, Travel

For me, photography is made up of equal parts solitude and social gathering. I’m often trying to find the perfect balance of these things…When I’m off taking photos on my own, I’m “in the zone” so to speak, and often have a very specific goal in mind. This was one such occasion, where I wanted to capture the evening rays in Queenstown in a way I hadn’t done before. I needed time to think this one through.

For me, photography is made up of equal parts solitude and social gathering. I'm often trying to find the perfect balance of these things...When I'm off taking photos on my own, I'm

On the other hand, I’m frequently inspired by those I take photos with. And find it interesting to watch people’s specific approach to a situation, both in terms of composition and post processing. It’s also a healthy way to offset my competitive nature by being collaborative instead! however, this photo was one of those one thats result from me grabbing my camera bag and going off on an adventure by myself. This excellent spot is right on the far point of the Kelvin Heights Peninsula, and is about as exposed to the elements as you can get! I was drawn in by the fierce sedimentary rock formations (hence the title of this post) and the framing they offered for the approaching sunset. I also decided on this photo for this week’s post for another reason…

Thoughts on High Dynamic Range

Quote of the day: “Bad HDR is like being slapped in the face by an angry rainbow…”

I’m not sure why I’ve gotten worked up about this, but I think its about time I got my thoughts out there… First of all, this photo is very much a stereotypical HDR shot. I say stereotypical for a few reasons, but mostly because its heavy on tonal contrast, texture, structure and has pretty surreal lighting. These are all elements that make the photo very difficult to capture given regular photography methodology. That being said, most of the photos I publish aren’t the sort of scenes that one would normally use brackets exposures to capture.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I use HDR to compliment the final result, rather than have it stand on its own and draw attention to itself.

This goes back to when I advised people to spend less time seeking a result in Photomatix and focus on recovering the result in Photoshop — For me, this ratio used to be about 3 to 1 in favor of Photoshop time… These days I’d confidently say its more like 100 to 1. If anything, producing a workable HDR photo is about anti-processing. It’s about getting the thing as close as possible to a ‘normal’ photo while still retaining the magic that HDR can give a scene:

  • Get the result from Photomatix
  • Throw it in Photoshop
  • Identify whats shit
  • Fix the thing

Unfortunately, the masses have grabbed HDR and used it as a means to produce interesting results without actually learning what works and doesn’t work. I was guilty of this a year ago, but I quickly learned that HDR is incredibly easy to do badly, and challenging to do well. So I decided to put the work in, and started to identify what needs to happen to produce ‘portfolio worthy’ shots. In a nutshell, I raised my standards. And this week I’ve found myself cringing at some of the results I’ve seen, wishing others would do the same.

In my view, High Dynamic Range is an art form, and deserves to be done well. I’d liken this to painting… Because it’s a well understood art, and has been around forever, the average person will be able to differentiate between a horrible painting and a good one – even between genres.

However, the typical response I see from the public when they see an average HDR photo for the first time is that of astonishment, because they have never seen anything like it. I’m talking about photos with more halos and noise that you can poke a stick at, photos where skin tones are ruined (children turned green for example), and where the colors are so overdone that you feel as if you’ve been slapped in the face by an angry rainbow. Sadly, these results are honestly so bad that they become good –  pleased don’t ask me to explain that one, I’ve got no idea how people can have such bad taste.

In a nutshell, I’m a bit saddened by the lack of appreciation HDR gets among the professional photography crowd, and I suspect this has something to do with the stigma associate with it. But that being said, there are many people out there doing a fine job… People like my friends Danny Xeero & Matt Chapman - there are many more, but these two immediately spring to mind because I know they put a great deal of thought into the aesthetics of what they produce.

Editing Breakdown

I’ll try and make this a regular section on future posts, for it seems people enjoy reading about how I arrive at my final edits. Doing a full tutorial for every photo would be incredibly time consuming, but given I make only one post per week, I can afford to write a few paragraphs about my layers panel:

Layers for ‘The Sedimentary Sunset’

The initial HDR photo was generated from 19 brackets stepping by 0.3EV – again I’ll get around to explaining why I do this in more detail down the track sometime, but in this case its was mainly due to the contrast in the scene. I had a hard enough time seeing both the sky and the rocks with my eyes, asking the camera to capture both of these in one frame would be an exercise in futility.

My first adjustment in this case was a simple Pro Contrast color tweak via Color Efex Pro. However, I backed off the color corrections in the plugin drastically, as I wanted to keep the warmth.

I immediately noticed the need to bring in an original to avoid the water looking like an absolute mess… Fortunately masking this in was incredibly easy, and as always I feathered the selection appropriately to avoid any harsh edges. You can’t see this in the screenshot, but from memory it was around 25 pixels.

Following this, I tweaked the curves and vibrance ever so slightly to correct the look and feel of the water relative to the rest of the frame – notice how these two layers are pinned to the original that has been masked in. I then applied sharpening to the rocks via a simple feathered selection that was then turned into a mask.

Next, I merged these layers and cleaned up a few areas before running yet another color adjustment over to clean up the distant mountains.

The final step was one I deliberately left until the end and that was to eliminate the chromatic aberrations that had appeared as a result of using my wide angle Canon 17-40mm… To do this, I duplicated the layer below and applied a Gaussian Blur of 3.5 pixels to the entire thing before changing this new layer’s blending mode to ‘Color’ — Try this trick at home, it works!

As per my usual practice, I reused the layer mask  from the sharpening as I needed the Chromatic Aberration reduction to cover the same areas – but specifically the rocks near the edges of the frame.

I’m working on several ways to get an ‘editing manual’ or sorts out to you guys… I think there is a bit of a gap in the market when it comes to basic yet effective techniques. I’ve developed a set of tools and practices that make my editing workflow very streamlined and contained – and I think people would enjoy reading about it.

If you’re one of those, please register your interest so when it comes time to make it available I can let you know! And please leave a comment below if you enjoyed this photo!

Evening Rays on Mount Nicolas

By On · 3 Comments · In Bobs Cove, HDR, Landscapes, Photography, Queenstown, Travel, Tutorials

This photo was actually taken months ago… But that being said, few of my shots see the light of day immediately after they are taken. It’s becoming common for some to sit in the “~Processing Directory” for an extended period of time. I revisit them several times, making subtle adjustments before finally arriving at a publishable result.

This photo was actually taken months ago… But that being said, few of my shots see the light of day immediately after they are taken. It's becoming common for some to sit in the

It’s also becoming common for me to be genuinely surprised by initial editing results following the shoot. Just goes to show you can’t rely on the LCD screen to give you a realistic representation when out in the field!

This weeks photo was taken from Bobs Cove in Queenstown, but looking across the lake towards Mount Nicolas… In late September I was at this wonderful bay celebrating the 30th birthday of a good friend. Photography was the secondary adjective, but towards the end of the evening I was treated to some spectacular cloud formations and wonderful light interacting with the landscape. So, I set aside my drink and got to work!

Editing Breakdown

Occasionally I’ll go into a little more detail as to how I arrive at a final result… I’m not sure if will become a regular thing, or if people even read what I write below, but I enjoy doing it. I’m really making this up as I go along – so if you like it, please let me know!

One of the most frequent questions I get when I show people my work is this:

“Do you use Photoshop?”

Every photographer (well, every decent one) uses Photoshop. It is a necessary tool when shooting in RAW. Even if you only make subtle adjustments within Lightroom or Aperture, you are still using the core components that Photoshop, and image editing in general, is based on. With that in mind, its still down to the user to manipulate the image to be more aesthetically pleasing and not overdo it with psychedelic adjustments.

I’d immagine most people reading this would be familiar with the above concept… But to summarize it for those who aren’t, think of Photoshop as a digital replacement for old-school imaging solutions. Certain lens filters have been made redundant by the move to digital, as have various developing techniques.

My thoughts on post processing are evolving constantly, and what I consider good practice now may not be in six months time. But one thing that has remained a solid rule for me is this:

Never add anything to the image that wasn’t there originally!

My core editing process is about reducing image defects and enhancing certain areas to arrive at a result that fits my consistent style. Take a look at this layers snapshot and how I’ve laid this document out.

My PSD files have a consistant layer order…

There are usually 3 specific phases to my post processing workflow after the initial HDR merge and subsequent export to Photoshop:

  • Basic Corrections; These include sharpening, selective noise reduction and chromatic aberration elimination (notice I reduce noise but eliminate CA – That should tell you a little about how I think of those two elements!)
  • Color/Contrast Enhancements; Here I’ll refer to one of my favorite pieces of software, Nik Color Efex Pro, and play with some sliders. This has replaced the old methodology of a simple S-curve or Levels layer – I just find the result much more pleasing.
  • Final Adjustments; This task usually occupies the top half of the layers stack, as in the screenshot to the left. Here I will reintroduce components from original brackets, recover blown out areas, fix overly saturated areas, apply selective masking and generally do anything I damn well please until the thing looks right!

In this specific case, the latter of these three phases involved little more than warming up the mountains (they have a tendency to go blue down here in NZ, I’m not sure why…) and desaturating the yellows in the sky.

As you can see from the ‘Clouds’ layer, I also brought in one of the original brackets to correct the exposure up there – HDR has a tendency to turn clouds dark due to the contrast in the scene.

All the other layers with obscure names are masked in or out according to where I need the adjustment to take place. You’ll notice I’m reusing the same mask over and over (inverted in some cases), and while I would normally deem this bad practice, in this case the photo is composed in a want hat allows me to do this and save a considerable amount of post processing time.

Normally I’d apply these masks manually, but this is one of those rare cases where I can get away with cheating!

To wrap up this ‘editing breakdown/rant’ I’ll give you a rare look at the 3 distinct stops an image takes on the way to being released… Please let me know if you enjoyed this photo by leaving a comment. If you have any specific questions regarding post processing or photography in general, drop me a line – I’m happy to give you my two cents worth!

Clockwise form top: Original ‘±0′ exposure from the 13-bracket series, initial HDR merge result pre-Photoshop, final result as published above.