Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III__EF70-200mm f/2.8L USM__10.0 sec at f / 32__ISO 100

Last week, I traveled with my family on a camping trip to the Bandon area of the Oregon coast.  It was cold and windy, which not unusual and a refreshing break from the heat here.  If you’ve been to my Facebook page, I’ve already posted a very foggy image from the first evening there.  The next two evenings, I was on the main Bandon beach, photographing in the wind and fog.  Heaven!

For the image above, I used a Singh Ray Vari-ND to get more blurring action.  There were some subtle tones in the sky, but the monochrome evening lent itself to Black and White. John O’Conner did a wonderful job of doing the conversion and bringing out the textures in the surf and rocks that I wanted to show.

In case you missed it, here is the image from the first session.  More to come from this trip!

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III__EF70-200mm f/2.8L USM__15.0 sec at f / 32__ISO 100

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

Check out my One on One Private Workshops

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III__EF70-200mm f/2.8L USM__2.0 sec at f / 32__ISO 100

Life is full of lessons.  When I went to Yosemite Valley a few weeks ago, as with every spring for 33 years, I tried to create a new dogwood images.  I alwaya gravitate to the same tree where I have made best dogwood images.  I call it my Home Tree.  I tried a few frames of this tree again, but realized that my past images were better.  So I moved on.  Upriver, near Pohono Bridge, I worked along the river bank, looking for a “dogwood and river rapids” image.  Here is one I made in 1988, but this season at this same location, the dogwood were too sparse:  Dogwoods on the Merced River, Yosemite Valley, Yosemite National Park, California 1988.  Again, I tried a few frames anyway then headed upstream to another location where I have rarely photographed.  Unfortunately, I was running short on time since I needed to meet up with my 9 year old son Ravi’s Yosemite field trip group.  The first composition I tried was the one below.  The branches were graceful and full of blossoms.  The wind was light and there was little movement in the branches.  The water was high so the river was mostly dark with a few curving breaks of whitewater.  I am pleased with the image, but it is not up there with my best.

Finally, I spotted a dogwood tree next to the river that had a broken branch dangling in the rapid water.  The blossoms danced to the movement of the river like so many dancing fairies.  My first instinct was to use a fast shutter speed, so that the dogwood would be sharp.  Even if I could freeze the action of the tree, the river rapids would look stiff and unnatural.  So I turned my aperture down to f/32 to see what kind of impressionistic effect I could capture by allowing the blossoms to dance their dance and for the river to blur softly in the background.  Since only parts of the whole branches were being shaken by the strongly flowing river, this image has an intriguing blend of sharpness and softness.  I feel that the BW treatment adds to the delicate effect.

Lesson:  I find it important to visit locations where I feel at home.  In this case, it was my dogwood Home Tree, and in general, the stretch of dogwood trees below Pohono Bridge.  But in order to continue my own creative growth, and to raise the bar on my work, I needs to push myself to seek new views, new angles.  Each time I hope to better my best!

Let me know your thoughts about these two images.

Cheers,   Bill

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III__EF70-200mm f/2.8L USM__1/3 sec at f / 32__ISO 200

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

One-on-One Workshops

Dogwood blooming, Yosemite National Park, California 2005

I have been busy with the “day to day” of running my business, including making new images.  I hope to post soon, so stay tuned!

This month’s Featured Print is “Dogwood blooming, Yosemite National Park, California 2005″ shown to the left.  I created this image five years ago.  My EXIF date shows that I was at 370mm.  It took a great deal of patience, and many frames, to get a sharp exposure since the branch was suspended over a very tumultuous Merced River!  I’ve printed and sold 20×30″ prints and the quality holds up very well.

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II__70.0-200.0 mm+2x Extender__1/5 sec at f / 13__ISO 100

This Special Edition image is an archival inkjet print, sized to 9″ x 6″ on Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk Paper, matted and mounted to 11″x14″ on archival museum board. The print will be initialed by me, not signed. The series will be unlimited in quantity andnumbered sequentially on the label.

With each collectible Special Edition released, you can build a fine art portfolio of my photographs at a very reasonable cost. And the best part…it’s only $40!

New Dogwood Featured Print

KInd regards,    Bill

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

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III__TS-E90mm f/2.8__1/180 sec at f / 2.8__ISO 400

New photo! I made this image yesterday evening.  My purple plums are just started blooming, so out comes the camera!  I used my Canon 90mm TS lens with two Canon 2x extenders.  It’s a bit like have a Lensbaby, and I could play around with focus point and blurring the background.  The image was made from two exposures blended – one “sharp” and the other complete soft focus.

Enjoy!   Bill

There are several purple plum images in my Impressions of Light ebook:  Impressions of Light.  Download it now for only $15.00.

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

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III__TS-E24mm f/3.5L__1/180 sec at f / 16__ISO 100

Yesterday we had a wonderful morning of fog after the night’s rain storm.  I have driven by this location many times in the past, made note of its potential, and finally got myself over there after the morning’s usual parental duties!  Unfortunately, I started out with the wrong lens so I lost some good light making the short dash back to my vehicle to grab my Canon 24mm Tilt Shift lens.  Happily, the fog was still great as I exposed this image.  The lens was shifted up to near its highest position to maintain proper perspective and avoid convergence of the trees.  Also, I positioned the sun so that it was mostly blocked by the tree, with just a tiny bit of light showing through my viewfinder.

Enjoy!   Bill

The William Neill Store

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III__EF70-200mm f/2.8L USM__1/2 sec at f / 9.5__ISO 100

Last week, I need to make a run to The Ansel Adams Gallery to deliver prints.  I timed the drive so I could check out Horsetail Falls at sunset.  There was some nice light early on, well before sunset, and then clouds came in so it looked like a bust.  But the water lit up nicely right at sunset.  Average light = average photo.

I have been photographing the falls since 1981, with a poster being published of my first session in 1988.  Wish I could find a jpg of it to share!  I’ll have to scan the film someday soon… There is a photo of Horsetail in my Yosemite: The Promise of Wildness book, too.  I have probably photographed it less than ten times since 1981, so you can tell I haven’t spent much time focused on this event.  I prefer to seek out more intimate views of Yosemite.  Still, it is amazing to me to see how many people are showing up to photograph it and it is a wonderful site to see and experience.   I remembering seeing the original Firefalls off of Glacier Point, but this natural event is much more appealing to me.

I made some other photos of the falls, earlier in the evening with shiny cliffs and no color in an attempt to come up a fresh perspective.  I haven’t decided if they are worth sharing yet…  Stay tuned!

AND, Happy Birthday Ansel!  Read my thoughts about him here:  Thoughts on Ansel.

Yosemite: The Promise of Wildness