Last Saturday, I was at my son’s All Star soccer tournament in Madera, CA. In between games, I was walking around the park and found this tree trunk with great patterns. I used my iPhone 4s, and the quality of the captured file is stunning, surprising me even though I’ve had the phone since Oct. All post-processing was done in Lightroom 3.

ALSO:  I will be attending Photo LA on Sunday and part of Monday. My Impressions of Lights prints will be at the Susan Spiritus Gallery Booth B300. If you are in the area, come visit! http://www.photola.com/

I have just recently created a 2012 calendar using HP’s MagCloud.  Many of the images are newly created in the past year, so those of you that know my Impressions of Light ebook, you will see fresh new images!

I want to share this with you since many of us are exploring self-publishing options, and I’ve wanted to produce calendars for sale and gifts.  I found a well-designed template, so I simply added images and captions.  It was more work than I had hoped for as I haven’t used Adobe InDesign for awhile, but all said, it was worth the effort.  The quality of the reproductions is very good.  The size is based on 8.5×11 pages, so the open calendar is 17×11.  The only issue is getting the calendar to lay flat, but with a bit of back-folding, it works fine.  If you’ve wanted to make your own calendar, this is a good option.  Here are some screenshots of the layout below.

Oh and by the way, if you like the look of my calendar, they are for sale on the MagCloud web site for just $9.99:

Start out your New Year with William Neill’s Impressions of Light 2012 Calendar!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Bill

Enjoy, Bill

Sunbeam on waterfall, Sierra Nevada Foothills, California 2011

Sandhill Cranes landing at sunset, Consumnes River Preserve, California 2011

Yellow Orchids, 2011

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III__TS-E90mm f/2.8__1/30 sec at f / 22__ISO 200

Practice, practice…

I’ve been very frustrated lately because I haven’t been able to get out of the office and up to Yosemite for waterfalls, reflections in the meadow, corn lilies in the high country.  Fortunately, my water lilies are in bloom and I check them out every day.  We had an amazing rain storm Tuesday night and the next morning, and so I took a lunch break on my patio.  My water lilies had been washed clean and were gleaming with water drops.  I used my trusty 90mm Tilt Shift lens, making two frames to merge into this square composition using Photo Merge in Photoshop CS5.  The storm was starting to clear, with the sun on the edge of a cloud which gives this image a fresh and sparkling mood.

So when I finally get up to Yosemite Valley next week, I’ll have had recent practice.  Practice seeing every day, get your camera out whenever and wherever you get inspired, and be ready for the next opportunity.  Oh yes, and it might just happen in your back yard!

Enjoy,  Bill

William Neill’s Yosemite Volume One

William Neill's Yosemite: Volume One iPad App

William Neill’s Yosemite: Volume One iPad App

I am happy to announce that my first app for the iPad is now available in the iTunes Store! Check it out, and perhaps post a review if you buy it! Share with your FB or Twitter friends. To see more screenshots, visit my William Neill Photography Facebook page.

Here is a set of screenshots of the iPad app.  The ebook is an app version of my latest ebook: William Neill’s Yosemite: Volume One. Lots of cool interactivity, including connections to Facebook and Twitter. Anyone interested? It will cost only $4.99! Please share with your friends…

My app was made by Jim Goldstein. For more info on his App offerings: ePhotobook App Inquiry Form: http://www.jmg-galleries.com/blog/ipad-app/

Thanks, and Ride the Light!

Bill

William Neill’s Yosemite: Volume One iPad App

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III__EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM__1/15 sec at f / 16__ISO 400

Last week, I was in the Toronto area with my family for a wedding.  I brought along my camera and a few lenses in case I found inspiration.  Staying at our  family’s home,  I took a short walk about their property on a drizzly day.  I am not sure if these plants are hosta, or maybe veratrum, but I know I loved the patterns.  Does anyone know the common and/or latin name?

Thanks for reading my blog.  Stay tuned for new postings soon regarding a special Fine Print offer!  To ensure receiving info about my Fine Prints, ebooks, online workshops and more, be sure to sign up for my email newsletter.

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Enjoy, and let me know your comments about my latest image!

Bill

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III__EF70-200mm f/2.8L USM__1.5 sec at f / 22__ISO 100

For the past couple of months, I have been watching this calla plant growing in my living/dining room area.  The light comes through two different windows to light the leaves to various effect.  This past Sunday, I finally saw a composition worth setting up for.  I hung up my black piece of velvet on the wall behind these leaves.  I left my camera set up and made frames when I saw interesting light. I downloaded the images, looked at the new images, and was not particularly inspired by the results.

Yesterday, four days later, I looked at the images again with Lightroom.  Then it hit me that there was real potential here, made several adjustments to this image, including converting the image to BW.  Bingo!  I polished up the file this morning in Photoshop this morning.  Here is the result!

Enjoy,  Bill

For more of my BW work, see my Meditations in Monochrome ebook!

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III__TS-E90mm f/2.8__1/10 sec at f / 16__ISO 100

I have been watching my crop of sunflowers carefully now for several weeks, observing the flowers closely.  They say timing is everything, and yesterday morning I “harvested” this flower bringing it into my “studio” which in this case was the floor in my dining where there is great window light.   I am growing several species and wanted to catch this one while the strong spiral pattern was still visible.  All flowers are not created equal, so picking the right one is a highly selective process.

University of Cincinatti

This flower was placed in a cup full of water, and placed on top a piece of black velvet.  The lighting here is direct sunlight from one window.  The camera was aimed straight down at the flower.  I made two exposures using my Tilt Shift lens, first photographing one half and then shifting the lens to photograph the other half.  The two photos were merged using Photomerge in Photoshop CS5.

This approach gives me a square frame, which suits this round flower perfectly to me, and gives me a higher res file in case I need to do murals for my art consultant clients.   See photo one of my photos installed at the University of Cincinatti above.

Canon 90mm TS lens

If you haven’t used a TS lens before, I am attaching an iPhone snap I made showing the lateral, off axis shift that the lens can make.

I am also including another recent sunflower photo, made by the same technique.

Enjoy,

Bill

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III__TS-E90mm f/2.8__1/3 sec at f / 19__ISO 100

William Neill's Yosemite: Volume One

I am pleased to announce the publication of my latest ebook, William Neill’s Yosemite: Volume One. I have compiled 52 of my favorite images created using film cameras. The majority of the photographs were made with my 4×5 view camera, and the exposure dates range from 1977 to 2005. I have lived and photographed in the Yosemite area since 1977, and so it is rewarding to have finally produced a portfolio of my favorite images. The book was designed in Adobe InDesign with file sizes that have been optimized to preserve the high-resolution image files. The quality of the images vividly comes to life on the computer monitor and you can zoom in closely to examine details within each photograph.

William Neill’s Yosemite: Volume One is delivered as a PDF file. Each image is presented on a single page, and so is optimized for viewing the individual images clearly. When you click on each image, you will be taken to a secondary Photo Notes page that includes camera and lens info, my commentary on the making of each photograph, as well as notes on the location of where each image was made. The ebook also offers interaction between each image and the Photo Notes section at the back of the book. When viewing the Photographic Notes, simply click on the photograph’s thumbnail, and you are linked back to that image in the PDF.

Half Dome and Elm tree, winter, Yosemite National Park, California 1990

My new ebook can be easily viewed on an Apple iPad, iPod, iPhone or any other device that can view PDF’s using an excellent app called Good Reader. I have seen my ebooks on an iPad, and the quality of each image and text is excellent.

To purchase this Digital Edition book, visit my ebook store here:  William Neill’s Yosemite: Volume One.

Half Dome and Tenaya Canyon at sunset from Washburn Point, Yosemite National Park, California 1996

Black Oaks, Autumn, El Capitan Meadow, Yosemite Valley, Yosemite National Park, California 1984

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III__TS-E90mm f/2.8__6.0 sec at f / 22__ISO 100

I have a small pond adjacent to my backyard patio, and the lilies are in bloom!  I made this image on Sunday, using two frames stitched together in Photoshop CS5.  To fulfill my concept, I cut the flower, then placed it in a small bowl of water which in turn was placed on black velvet.  Aiming straight down, I “shifted” my Canon TS 90mm lens to include two halves of the flower in two separate exposures.  This techniques allows me to create a square format with Photomerge, which suits this flower shape to me.  It also gives me a bigger file:  PS Image Size reads this file as 206 MB.

Enjoy, and let me know your thoughts,   Bill

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