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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BLACK OAK LEAVES, EL CAPITAN MEADOW, YOSEMTIE VALLEY 1983

John and I have been working on my next ebook, which is a collection of my Yosemite photographs.  This image is one of my favorite Yosemite images, but it has sadly languished in terms of printing it because the original film was lost about twenty years ago.  The Cibachrome lab I used lost it.  I never had a proper scan made of the film as high res film scanning was not commonly available back then.   And don’t get me started on “lost film” stories.  I have far too many…

However, I have an exhibit coming up this summer at The Ansel Adams Gallery from  7/07 to 8/17/2010 so this will be a golden opportunity to print and exhibit this image.  For the digital file shown here, I scanned an 8×10 Cibachrome.  Not an ideal method, but I can make a very clean 16×20 print from that file.

By the way, this photograph was made with my Wista 4×5 Metal Field Camera in January, 1983.

In my Yosemite: The Promise of Wildness book, I included this photo and wrote these words about the making of it:

“This young oak stands a few feet from the main road leaving Yosemite Valley.  Millions of visitors race by it each year.  Despite its incongruous location, the tree conveyed a sense of wildness to me.  I had had a bad day at work [The Ansel Adams Gallery] and was heading home.  Needing something to calm my frustrated disposition,  I stopped for a walk along the meadow’s edge.  Having had the time to slow down and relax, I looked up from my ruminations and was struck with the beauty of these leaves.  With my attitude adjustment complete, I exposed my favorite image of Yosemite!”

Enjoy,  Bill

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Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III__TS-E90mm f/2.8__1.5 sec at f / 13__ISO 100

I am posting one of the waterfall photographs that I took on Mother’s Day in Yosemite.  It was raining as I photographed.  Using my Tilt Shift lens, I exposed three frames that I later stitched together using Photoshop CS5.  You might also enjoy seeing other panos in my Panoramic Portfolio on my web site.

This weekend, I photographed my irises and fields of lupine.  Hope to post some of them soon!

Cheers,

Bill

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Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III__EF70-200mm f/2.8L USM__1/2 sec at f / 6.7__ISO 100

I continue to edit my Cally Lily images.  I made a few new Impressions of Light images.  Here is one of them.  Would love to hear your comments!

Cheers,   Bill

I haven’t had time to fully edit my Yosemite images from last weekend.  Soon, I hope!

Impressions of Light – Deluxe Edition

Impressions of Light – Digital Edition

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III__TS-E90mm f/2.8__f / 32__ISO 100

Here is another image in my new Cally Lily series, this one from the third day of this setup.  As with the previous image, this photograph was made with Photomatix, this time with seven exposures.  The morning sun is coming through my window from the upper left hand corner.  I first saw this lighting effect on the previous morning, unplanned and unexpected, but I was so revved up I blew the composition.  So I noted the time in the EXIF data and returned to try again the next morning.  I didn’t move the large blossom, but needed to create better spacing between it and the small flower.

John and I have been using Adobe Photoshop CS5 for about one week, including HDR Pro.  I think it has great potential but we haven’t fully explored it yet.  More on that later…

I look forward to your comments.  Let me know which one you prefer!

Cheers,

Bill

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Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III__EF50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro__10.0 sec at f / 27__ISO 100

This last weekend, I was mowing my grass (electric mower, not gas!).  I noticed a mushroom and picked it.  Then I plucked out the stem so I could photograph the radiating pattern.  I tried various framing options including full mushroom and black background, partial mushroom in the frame, and filling the frame with the pattern with no black background.  As I photographed, it occurred to me that the composition would work well in B&W.  It also occurred to me that I might print this very large someday, and that I wanted a square format.  So made two frames, one with top half filling my frame, and one with the bottom half, then used photomerge in PS4 to create a higher res, square framed image.  The lighting is from my office window.  The file size with adjustment layers is 334 MB.  Here it is!  Let me know your thoughts.

Cheers,   Bill

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Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III__TS-E90mmf/2.8+2x Extender__1.5 sec at f / 19__ISO 100

On Sunday morning, I discovered these great ice patterns in my bucket of landscape pebbles.  The “bucket” is a rectangular cement mixing bucket which I bought when I was building my waterfall feature on my back patio 9 years ago.  At the time, I noticed how vivid the stones were when wet, and started an ongoing series of the wet stone details.  Last year, I sold a 5×8 foot print of one of those!  Then, in winter I’ve noticed the bucket, filled with rainwater, will freeze over on cold, clear nights.  So now I also have a collection of ice pattern images!

If you are disappointed in learning that I didn’t make this image of a natural scene, I have my misgivings too.  For various reasons however, not least of which is that I am busy “surviving” in this economy and raising two children, this is where I find the most inspiration these days – in my back yard!

This photograph was made with my 90mm TS lens plus 2x Extender, camera turned horizontally, with front tilt near max to obtain full sharp across the ice.  I created five frames using the lens’s Shift function with incremental turns from far left to far, then stitched together with PS4’s Photomerge.  Even with the five background layers flattened, the final file is over 300MB.  Not quite as big as some of my 4×5 layered master files (which can be up to 1GB), but still very high res!  One has to enlarge the image in PS, or else print it at least 24″ to fully appreciate the intricate filigree patterns in the ice.

Other Bucket images:

Stones

Stones and Reflections

Painted bark eucalyptus, the Hana Coast, Island of Maui, Hawai

John and I have been working on more scans from my 4×5 film archive.  It has been rewarding to finally make use of these images, but also frustrating to see how many good images are languishing in my filing cabinets.  I have also been placing new images on my Facebook Fan page.  I look forward to your comments here or on the Fan Page!

Enjoy,  Bill

PS  On March 10th, my next 4-Week BetterPhoto.com begins!
Inspiring Nature Photography: The Essentials
Key Features:
• Landscape Photography: focusing on the main ingredients
• Regarding Light: how to recognize good lighting conditions
• Using the Frame: how to compose an effective landscape image
• The Magic Element: expressing and sharing emotions in your work
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Learn to use a fine quality of light.
How to apply interesting and dynamic image design.
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Red Maples and forest, autumn, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee

Here is another image from Monday morning.  I took seven frames, each one stop difference, and my assistant John assembled them using Lightroom and Photomatix’s Lightroom plugin (http://www.hdrsoft.com/).  This was taken with my Canon 16-35mm as the sun rose through the fog.  The tree behind the big oak were heavily tilted due to the convergence caused by aiming upward with 22mm of focal length!  I raced back to my car (yes, I should have had my camera bag next to me!) to get my 24mm Tilt Shift lens, which I used in the previously posted image.  To correct for the distortion of the trees, I asked John to straighten up the trees.  Instead of using Photoshop’s Lens Correction tool, he used the Crop tool, with Perspective box checked.  John writes about using this tool in this blog post, at the bottom of the page:  Breaking the Funk/Meditations on a Moment Blog.

Let me know if you have a favorite between the two Sunrise Fog images!

Bill

ONE ON ONE WORKSHOPS

The bark of a Gumbo Limbo tree, Everglades National Park, Florida

The bark of a Gumbo Limbo tree, Everglades National Park, Florida

Photographed in 1992 with a Wista 4×5 Field Camera

John and I continue our efforts to scan film in my files. Here is an old favorite, never scanned or printed before.  I must credit Eliot Porter for the inspiration as I first learned of this tree and its amazing bark from a photograph of his.

I am starting to develop an idea for a new portfolio that includes my more abstract details of nature.

The 4×5 film was scanned using my Epson Perfection V750 Pro.

Enjoy,   Bill

William Neill Portfolios