civilized ku # 893-94 / ku # 837-38 ~ opportunity knocks but there is something unexpected at the door

Tree stump ~ in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Hedge ~ in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
River ice breakup ~ in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Vernal water ~ in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenYesterday was the first official day of Spring. Although things may be greening up in more southern climes, Winter is not quite willing to give up its hold, albeit rather tepid, on our neck of the woods.

For the most part, the weather situation is OK with me. My weather expectations have been set to not seeing any green for at least another couple weeks. Even then, I expect brown to be the dominate color and the color white to be a very minor and fast disappearing feature. However, in the interim, I will take picturing advantage of any days like yesterday - when a gray overcast and light dusting of snow creates a delicate lace-like landscape tapestry.

That said, I must confess that I should be posting a new single women picture today. However, yesterday, despite a great opportunity to make a new single women picture, I didn't do so. Events conspired to deny me the ability to act on the opportunity and, in the process, gave me a new insight into the single women project's raison d'être ....

The picture's accompanying this entry were made yesterday while I was out and about for the purpose of dropping off one of our cars to a body repair shop - the car's driver side rocker panel was ripped open, front to back, by a piece of metal on the road - and picking up a rental vehicle to drive while our car is in for repair. While at the car rental place, an interesting / single women photo target* immediately caught my eye. She was sitting alone waiting for something, car rental wise, to happen. At the time, there was enough other activity going on in the place (or so I thought) to mask, or at least not make readily apparent to my intended target, any picture making activity I might undertake.

ASIDE - FYI, it is an essential part of this project that the women I picture not be aware of my picturing activity or, if they are, that they still act "normally" and go about their regularly scheduled business at hand.

In any event, I was moving about and trying to blend in - just another car rental customer - when I noticed that my target was watching me as much as I was watching her. Every time I looked at her, she was looking at me and it was only a matter of time until the deal-killer transpired. That is to say, she smiled at me and I suspected, then and there, that the gig was up. That suspicion was confirmed a few minutes later when the entire place became devoid of people other than me and her - the rental clerks had all left the building to escort all the other customers to their rental vehicles, at which point she turned to me and began to comment on that classic ice-breaker subject, the weather (it and begun to snow).

Now, I should make it clear here that the target in question was a woman of rather attractive stature and I was not overly displeased that she had taken notice of me and had established a relationship beyond the eye-lock contact game. However, I was certain there would be no picturing relationship between us. Hey, win some, lose some.

Long story short, I had learned early that she was waiting (after returning a rental car) for someone from the rental place to give her a ride to somewhere, so, once we got past the weather talk, I offered to give her that ride. She said she would be delighted and, once I had my rental vehicle, off we went to her place of business, The Center for the Study of Canada (apparently we're keeping our eye on our neighbor to the north) at the State University of New York / Plattsburgh. The ride was (relatively) short and sweet, after which we both went about our respective business.

End of story.

However, upon reflecting upon the encounter, I came to the conclusion, single women picture wise, that I should be making and including some pictures in the series wherein the observed is looking directly at the camera (and me) to reflect at least a moment of mutual recognition. That's because what I had experienced was part and parcel of the voyeuristic nature behind my single women series - the latent desire for reciprocal response from the observed party. A response that is a kind of bonus payout - the chance to engage in a mutually playful and enjoyable bit of flirting.

IMO, a few pictures reflective of mutual recognition will make the voyeur story more complete and little less one-sided. Pictures of that interaction will recognize the sometime state of charged energy that such a situation can occasionally create.

*I do not consider the single women women solely as "photo-targets". Far from it. If you haven't previously, please read this and this for a better understanding regarding the motivations and intentions of my single women series.

ku # 836 ~ more picture making BS / on seeing

Dirty Spring snow ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenA few days ago, while link-jumping around the photo blog-o-sphere, I came across some more photo•dictum silly putty for and from the terminally unimaginative. The proffered photo•dictum was intended to address the subject of composition. It was stated that, when making a picture, one should ... Think first about light ... because ...

• A photograph is only as good as the light you use
• The subject is less important than the light that illuminates this subject
• The best subject in bad light does not make for a good photograph

These notions are pure unadulterated garbage.

I must confess, it is beyond my picturing comprehension to think that "the light" is more important than the referent in a picture. Of course, there could be examples where the light itself is the referent, say, pictures that are actually about light. After all, one of my favorite bodies of picturing work is Cape Light by Joel Meyerowitz (more pictures here).

Although, while the quality of light found on the Cape is certainly an important element in the Cape Light pictures and despite the body of work's name, "the light" is not more important than the referent in the Cape Light pictures. In fact, Meyerowitz was pursuing something much more "important" than just "the light" or, for that matter, just the referents depicted in his pictures ....

John Szarkowski has used the expression "nominal subject matter." I think that's perfect for my behavior here. I'm not really interested in gas stations or anything about gas stations. This happens to be an excuse for seeing. I don't care if it was a gas station or if this is a rubber raft or if this is a crappy little house. That's not my subject! This gas station isn't my subject. It's an excuse for a place to make a photograph. It's a place to stop and to be dazzled by. It's the quantity of information that's been revealed by the placement of these things together, by my happening to pass at that given moment when the sky turned orange and this thing turned green. It gives me a theater to act in for a few moments, to have perceptions in. why is it that the best poetry comes out of the most ordinary circumstances? You don't have to have extreme beauty to write beautifully. You don't have to have grand subject matter. I don't need the Parthenon. This little dinky bungalow is my Parthenon. It has scale; it has color; it has presence; it is real: I'm not trying to work with grandeur. I'm trying to work with ordinariness. I'm trying to find what spirits me away. Ordinary things. --- What did I say when I drove by those bungalows—something about the lives lived in them?

IMO, that's interesting stuff because what it attests to is the essence of good picture making - trying to find what spirits me/we/us/him/her/them away.

Now, it is quite possible that I am creating this entry as a cleansing potion of sorts. When it comes to discussing the medium of photography and it's picturing possibilities, the entry immediately preceding this one was a bit too how-ish (as opposed to why-ish) for my taste relative to the act of picturing. So it is within the realm of possibilities that I am trying to get that techno-taste out of my head.

But, that said, and back to my first topic - photo•dictum silly putty for and from the terminally unimaginative, what really gets me going about this kind of cliche-ridden "advice" is twofold: 1) the fact that thinking first about light really does, like thinking about anything during the act of picturing, get in the way of recognizing and responding to the intuitive / emotional experience of seeing, and, 2) what is implied by this wrongheaded photo•dictum is that there is good and bad light.

That notion is pure unadulterated garbage.

That said, the really insidious nature of this good light/bad light notion is that it is totally antithetical, not to mention limiting, to the act of seeing. Apparently, it ain't worth your time or effort to look at anything that is not bathed in "good" light. After all, as the author of this inane and specious "advice" states, "The best subject in bad light does not make for a good photograph."

That notion is pure unadulterated garbage.

FYI, take a look at the pictures on MORE ORIGINAL REFRIGERATOR ART - I have previously mentioned this blog - for what, IMO, are really good pictures created along the lines of John Szarkowsi's "nominal picture matter". The creator of these pictures, who chooses to remain rather anonymous and who does not make prints of his pictures - does not seem to be concerned with or pre-occupied by light and/or any particular referent matter. He seems to be, and I'm just guessing here, simply looking for "an excuse for seeing" and "a theater to act in for a few moments, to have perceptions in."

That said, his pictures are fully capable of "spiriting me away".

civilized ku # 892 ~ pay attention, cuz I'm only gonna say this once

Before • click to embiggen
During • click to embiggen
After Redbreast Pure Pot Still Irish Whiskey, Irish soda bread and whiskey soaked raisins• click to embiggenYesterday was St. Patrick's Day. There was still a lot of snow on the ground, so there were no snakes to drive out of the yard. Consequently, in order to honor St. Patrick, I purchased a bottle of pure pot still Irish whiskey (Redbreast Irish Whiskey) and then made some traditional (only 4 ingredients - flour, salt, baking soda, and buttermilk) Irish soda bread.

I also purchased some raisins and soaked them in the whiskey with the intent of adding them to the soda bread mix. However, that would have not been "traditional" so I decided to use them as a side dish. The 3 women in attendance at my little bake-fest (the wife kept trying to give me baking advice) liked the raisin side dish but they strongly recommended that I put them in the soda bread for Saturday evening's Irish dinner.

That said, I'm guessing that, as much as you'd like me to give you my Irish soda bread recipe, you'd really like it more if I got on with the before-during-and-after show so, from the top picture down ...

FYI, the picture was made (with ISO bracketing) on my kitchen countertop - the same place I make all of my decay pictures - with soft directional window light.

Before - this is how the picture looked after processing it in my RAW converter wherein I performed highlight recovery, modest de-saturation, very minor WB adjustment, a tick of highlight contrast adjustment (+), and my normal sharpening.

During - this picture is a screenshot made during, but near the completion of, my PS work on the picture. As you can see in the Layers Palette, I had made 4 layers of corrections / adjustments:

Layer 1 - to make this layer, I made a selection - Polygonal Lasso Tool with 200 pixel feather - of the countertop (to include the 2 crystal glasses and soda bread to the right of the whiskey bottle) and then made a layer of that selection.

Using Curves, I increased the contrast of the layer, then set the layer blending mode to Linear Burn and adjusted the layer opacity to 52%. I then used the H&S Palette to reduce the blue/cyan levels in the countertop on Layer 1 and the the Background layer. This layer, together with the H&S adjustment to the Background layer, brings this area of the picture into better color and density/tonal balance relative to the rest of the picture

Layer 2 - this layer was made from a selection - Polygonal Lasso Tool with 10 pixel feather - of the whiskey rocks. Layer blending was set to Multiply @ 100% opacity. This layer adds density to and emphasizes detail in the whiskey rocks.

Layer 3 - this layer was made from a selection - of the foreground glass (without the whiskey rocks) - that was dragged into the working file from my -1 stop ISO bracket image file. Layer blending was set to Normal @ 93% opacity. This layer adds density to and emphasizes detail in the glass.

Layer 4 - this layer was made from a selection - Polygonal Lasso Tool with 10 pixel feather - of the soda bread cross section. Layer blending was set to Screen with 55% opacity. The Curves tool was used to adjust for too much red and yellow and the H&S tool was used to further reduce the read and yellow content. This layer brings the soda bread cross section into much better color and tonal balance with the soda bread cross section on the right.

Background - after all of the above adjustments / corrections were made, using the H&S tool, I made slight global de-saturation and +contrast adjustments to this layer. To my eye and sensibilities, this adjustment brought the entire picture closer to "accurate"/"real" color and tonality.

At this point in the PS processing proceedings, I saved the file (using a new file name) - with all of the layers intact - as my corrections / adjustments master file.

The next step was to flatten the file (Merge Visible) and take a long look at the picture, looking at global and local color, density / tonal information for "accuracy"/"realism". As is often the case - relative to my camera sensor and RAW converter combination - I decided to globally de-saturate the yellow content. In this particular picture, I also de-saturated the red content in the raisins and made a small global increase in contrast.

This flattened file was also saved (once again using a new filename) as my final full-frame master file.

Next, it was crop to square and move on to my normal vignette and border procedure. When that was completed, I took another long hard look at the picture after which I decided yet another H&S adjustment was needed. In this case, I made an ever-so-slight global de-saturation. At that point, I judged the picture to be a "final". That is, as always, subject to further / future consideration.

So, there you have it, my St. Patrick's Day gift to you - a start to finish look at how and why I process my pictures*. For those who are interested, elapsed time, start to finish, was about 56 minutes. Never having timed myself before, I would have to guess that time to be a bit above average for most of my picture processing.

FYI, on a soda bread baking note, you may have noticed the cross cuts on the soda bread crust. For wannabe soda bread baking purists in the crowd, it should be noted that cutting a cross into the top (continuing down the sides) of the pre-baked dough is an essential step in the process. It is the only way I know of to insure that the fairies will be able to get out of the bread.

It is also well worth noting that this entry is a prime example of how hard I work for my Landscapist readers. Not only as evidenced by the length, detail, and care that went into making this entry but also by the fact, if you look closely at the entry picture, you can see that I made this early morning picture before I even put my pants on.

*it should be understood that many of the hard numbers, specifically Polygonal Lasso Tool feathering and opacity numbers, are relative to my file ppi numbers and my eye - I use selection tool feathering numbers based on how they work and look with my 300ppi master files. My layer opacity setting numbers are done by eye. That is to say, I move the opacity slider until it looks "right" to my eye and sensibilities.

If you decide to use some of the techniques mentioned here, it's up to you to figure out what numbers work best for you. The only general "rule" I can give for feathering #s is, if your file ppi is greater than 300ppi, in oder to achieve a similar look, you will need to increase the feathering #. Conversely, if your file ppi is less than 300ppi, you will need to decrease the feathering #. In either case, the amount of increase/decrease is up to you to determine.

civilized ku # 891 ~ ruin porn

Mill ruin ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenI have dipped into my archives to come up with the accompanying mill ruin picture.

FYI, in order to dig more detail out of the deep shadows (most noticeably under the stairs), I re-processed - RAW conversion and PS work - the file. Since I was not using the ISO bracket technique at the time this picture was made, I RAW-converted the file 3 separate times - "normal", +1-stop, and +2-stops . The 2-stop over file was used - select, copy, and paste - just for the under stairs detail enhancement. As to be expected, the +2-stop file did exhibit some noise and processing artifacts in the deep shadow area. However, due to the fact that, in the original scene, the area under the stairs was "murky" at best, a little PS noise reduction cleaned it up without any problems.

Once the image was assembled, I judged the "corrected" area under the stairs to be too light. Using Curves, I darkened it to what my eye and sensibility determined to be the proper murkiness. A few other localized adjustments and a global color de-saturation later, I had what I considered to be a "finished" product.

But, all of that said, that's not why I brought you here today. What has been on my mind as I have been viewing the on-going disaster in Japan is the fairly recently introduced notion of "ruin porn". As you might expect, a picture label that includes the word "porn" is meant as a pejorative, not as a compliment.

In the case of ruin porn, the nomenclature castigation is hurled at: 1) photojournalists who depict urban decay for emotional / political effect, while ignoring more positive signs of "well being" that, in many cases, are just out of the frame of urban ruin pictures. This complaint most often is sourced from politicians / residents in whose neighborhoods / cities the ruins are located, and, 2) picture makers in the art world who create stunningly beautiful ("horrible" beauty) pictures that tend to obfuscate, if not completely subvert the truly horrific human back-story of the depicted ruins.

Consider this by Bryan Finoki from his essay the anatomy of ruins:

Ruin porn is a war on memory, dislocating the political dynamics of ruin in favor of momentary sensations and lurid plots. The state of ruin is seen as exactly that: a condition rather than a continually unfolding process. In fact, ruins evolve over time; they are the result of construction as much as of destruction; they are forms that fluctuate as other processes transform the landscape. Decay is, in this sense, a political morphology, a timepiece for decoding the narratives of social failure, disentangling the relationship between initial crises and the “second crisis” of political fallout, gauging institutional rot. But architects and filmmakers, journalists and television producers, religious zealots and conspiracy theorists, novelists and video-game developers have all become mesmerized by the grandeur of ruins, submitting themselves to a state of aesthetic arrest; the apocalyptic image reigns supreme.

I will freely admit to being visually "mesmerized by the grandeur of ruins" but, that said, I have neither pictured ruins for journalism usage nor have I ever been afflicted by a "state of aesthetic arrest" in the making or viewing of natural (Katrina-esque) and/or manmade (Detriot-esque) ruins / decay.

As an example - I am unable to view ruin pictures, as visually stunning and people-less as they may be, made in Detroit (the epi-center of American ruin picturing making) without being deeply affected by the human story - suffering, death, greed, avarice, ignorance, ruined lives, et al - associated with the depicted ruins.

Despite the visual beauty and complexity of most of these pictures, I find them to be extremely emotionally and intellectually depressing. That's because I can not, under any circumstances, dis-associate them from what, in my mind, are signs of the decay and possible ruin of life in the good 'ole US of A. Ruin and decay that are intimately connected to the aforementioned greed, avarice, ignorance, and downright stupidity (individual, cultural, and political) that has been granted a virtual license to kill ("Death to America") in this country. As well as depressing, I find it very ironic that, in a cruel twist of fate, so many American citizens are doing a much better job of bringing "Death to America" than are our self-declared enemies.

All of that said, I can't help but believe, in the art world, there are many who are making plans to head to the latest ruins (or are already there) and, to be honest, I would very much like to be one of them. But, just because many of the resulting pictures may be visually "beautiful", that does not necessarily mean that intellectually and emotionally aware picture makers are "mesmerized" by the grandeur of ruins/decay nor that the intellectually and emotionally aware viewers of their pictures will be reduced to "state of aesthetic arrest".

Pictures of ruins/decay - photography and painting - have been with us for many millennia. Over time, these pictures have told and continue to tell us much about what came (and went) before - not just about the physical form of things but also, to the informed and imaginative viewer, about the human condition inexorably associated with the ruins in question. The best of these pictures meet the "greatest challenge to the photographer ... [to] express the inner significance through the outward form" (Beaumont Newhall), or, as Susan Sontag expressed, "The ultimate wisdom of the photographic image is to say, 'There is the surface. Now think - or rather feel, intuit - what is beyond it, what the reality must be like if it looks that way.'"

As is always the case, stupid is as stupid does and a picture will always be exactly what the aware and imaginative or, conversely, unaware and unimaginative viewer makes of it.

civilized ku # 890 ~ vision / craft / on seeing continued

Reflection ~ Au Sable Forks - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenlast Thursday's entry, decay # 42, raised a few points that require a bit of clarification, so ...

ISO bracketing is an in-camera capability - I don't have any idea which cameras have it and which don't - that creates 3 bracketed image files from 1 click of the shutter. I use this bracketing capability because, while making a picture, it does not require a tripod to insure precise registration between the bracketed image files - each bracketed image file is derived / created from the same "original" image file. And, in the case of subject motion, it is the only way to bracket without registration issues.

In some ways, in-camera ISO bracketing is similar to triple-processing a single RAW file - 1 stop under, normal, and 1 stop over, a technique that I use on occasion. However, it is not the same. Under and over processing runs the risk of increased noise and processing artifacts (shadow areas) and color problems (in "recovered" highlights), both of which can be avoided with ISO bracketing.

Color accuracy issues can not be solved by using a "pro level" camera. Every camera sensor together with its color engine (and all of the associated limitations thereof) produces its own idea of "pleasing" color in a fashion that is not completely dissimilar to that of different color film stocks, none of which are color accurate. Add to that fact the realization that every RAW converter produces image files with differing results (from identical files), the idea of color accuracy is a thorny one indeed.

Recommending Curve learning resources is not area in which I have any experience. That's simply because I never read a single book, attended a how-to seminar, or the like. However, I used the google and came up with 2 possibilities, one rather simple and easy to digest, and one a bit more expansive.

Reading either link will not make you an adept PS Curves user - that can only come from spending 100s of hours (or more) screwing around with the tool. That does not mean that everything you do or try to do with Curves will be crap until the day you are an "expert". It just means that the more you work it the more you'll come to understand the tool's possibilities and limits.

IMO, the best way to log those hours is to start with an image file that has room for improvement and process the living life out of it a hundred different ways to Sunday. A manifest beauty of the digital darkroom is the fact that you "destroy" / over-process a file and, assuming you do it on a copy, throw it away and start all over again. And, even in the midst of a processing frenzy, there is the magic of the history palate and the undo command - make as many "mistakes" as you like. In fact, make deliberate mistakes because, unlike real life, you can go back and do it over again, and again, and again, and again ... and you never have to say you're sorry.

When starting out with Curves, it is a good idea to make a copy layer of the image and process it (leaving the original layer untouched). This allows you to toggle the copy layer on and off in order to get a quick look at what you've done relative to the un-Curved layer. It's a great way to get instant feedback, every step of the way, on what you've done.

Sven W mentioned a book that "You could spend a year studying ...". IMO, that's exactly what's wrong with so many Photoshop tutorial books - they are more of an authorial ain't-I-smart tour de farce than they are a practical guide to getting things done. That's why I have avoided them like the plague.

However, way back in the early days (1991 / Mac IIci / Photoshop 2.0) when I first turned on computer, I did use one of Peachpit's Photoshop Visual Quickstart Guides. These guides are task based tutorials - no theory or long-winded overviews / bullshit, just simple easy to understand explanations, with lots of illustrations, about how to get specific PS tasks done.

decay # 42 ~ vision / craft / on seeing

Moldy pineapple and saran-wrapped sweet potato ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenIn yesterday's entry, civilized ku # 888, the idea of answering questions about specific pictures was introduced (again). That notion was advanced in light of the fact that answering questions about my general picturing making MO - both picturing and processing - would be difficult at best. However, there are a few thoughts to share relative to my general approach to picturing and processing.

1. I always picture in RAW format. Simply put, RAW provides the conscientious picture maker with the most information laden image file possible, to include dynamic range and color depth.

2. When picturing under "normal" conditions, I almost always use 1-stop ISO bracketing. This technique creates 3 files of the subject that cover a 3-stop range - ideally, 1-stop under, normal, and 1-stop over image files. This technique allows for a relatively simple cut-and-paste processing procedure that can "correct" or give images more shadow and/or highlight detail (if needed or desired).

3. When processing RAW files and the subsequent conversions in PhotoShop, I always aim to produce a file with the most realistic / natural / "clean" color and tonal range as possible. This often requires a fair amount of selective corrections / adjustments which means that I will select (isolate) specific colors and/or tonal range segments (highlights, shadows, midtones) and make independent corrections /adjustments to those areas of a picture - as opposed to making global/overall corrections / adjustments to the image file.

4. When processing RAW files and the subsequent conversions in PhotoShop, the single most important tool is Curves, used in conjunction with the Info Palette. If one is serious about good color and tonal corrections / adjustments, understanding the use of Curves is absolutely mandatory. There is no substitute.

The use of any color/contrast tool that employs sliders - Levels, Color Balance, Brightness/Contrast, Shadow/Highlight, et al - is strictly amateur night at the circus. Using sliders is like using a sledge hammer as opposed to a surgeon's laser scalpel, aka: Curves. The only slider-based tool I use is the Hue/Saturation palette and, FYI, I use H/S almost exclusively to desaturate selective color(s) as opposed to saturating them.

All of that said, virtually every one of my pictures you view here on this blog was made using some or all of the aforementioned techniques (+/- a few others). However, no 2 pictures are pictured / processed exactly alike. Each and every picture requires its own specific application of technique(s). There is no formula.

The only overarching canon / dictate employed in the making of my pictures is that which is specific to my eye and sensibilities. And those dictates are the result of decades of experience in the making of color pictures.

FYI, the decay picture above was made using all of the aforementioned tools / techniques. As always, they were employed to create an as-true-to-the-real representation of the subject as the medium and its apparatus will allow because in truth is beauty.

civilized ku # 889 ~ beauty - my picturing canon

Griffith Oil truck ~ Gabriels, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen

A photograph draws its beauty from the truth with which it is marked. For this very reason I refuse all the tricks of the trade and professional virtuosity which could make me betray my canon. As soon as I find a subject which interests me, I leave it to the lens to record truthfully. - Andre Kertesz

civilized ku # 888 ~ get specific

Mall entrance ~ Plattsburgh, NY • click to embiggenA week or so ago John Linn commented that the "depth of tonal quality you achieve in your photos is impressive". John then stated that "would like to know more" about - I am assuming - how I do it.

In hindsight, I hope that my (non) response, in which I turned the topic to my thoughts on making $$$ from answering such inquires via online and/or in-person workshops, didn't result in the perception that I was inclined to answer his request (or those of others) only if $$$ was involved. If I did create that impression, I sincerely apologize. That was not my intent.

In fact, I have been pondering a more direct response to that request. However, the more I have thought about it and continue to do so, the more perplexed I have become about how to do it. I mean, how can I begin to explain how 40+ years of picture making / darkroom, and digital processing experience equates to arriving at point where my pictures have the "depth of tonal quality" he sees in them?

Seriously. I am not trying to be flippant or evasive. So much of the technique I employ in making my pictures is so completely intuitive - that is to say, intuition that is the culmination of all of my picturing / processing experience. As the saying goes, I have "forgotten" all I know so I don't have to "think" about it.

That said, and I've stated this previously, if anyone has questions regarding any of my pictures, specific pictures as opposed to my general MO, I'll do my best (no $$$ required) to answer them.

Please feel free to ask away.