More from the Studio

Here are a few images from a shoot I had at Emerald Ballet Studio's Open House last week.

How to be Creative & More Henry Coe

A Photo Editor

today gives us a one point summary on how to be creative. Amen Brother.

A case in point: an interesting take on Oscar celebrities from the New York Times Magazine (also from APE)...

Finally, here is a larger gallery from my Henry Coe Trip, including a series of landscape photographs (something I don't do much of) that capture some of the special beauty found in that great California State Park.

Have a great day.

Lightroom Previews & Henry Coe State Park

I get many questions from Lightroom users on what the 1:1 previews are and how they make your life easier. The theory is simple, and in today's Inside Lightroom blog, Michael Clark covers this with aplomb. In short: build them up front, don't wait later. I always build the 1:1 previews on import, which makes the process a lot longer, but you can do other things while it cranks away at them.

On the personal work front, I got back from San Jose yesterday (early as it turns out - I managed to get standby on a flight 6 hours before I was expected - which makes for a happy wife) and just started going thru my pictures from a weekend backpacking in Henry Coe State Park.

Henry Coe State Park is an wonderful place, located less than an hour from the Bay Area and consisting of more than 80 thousand acres of prime wilderness. I've been backpacking and hiking there since 2000 when I discovered it, and its come to be one of my favorite places to get away from the bustle of Silicon Valley.

The sad thing is, the Governor of that great state is proposing to shutter Henry Coe (along with 48 other state parks) as a cost saving measure. It really saddens me when we have billions of dollars to fight unnecessary wars and yet we can't adequately fund our state parks. Henry Coe really does not get used like it should by the nearby residents - people in that blighted place tend to sit in front of their bloody computers instead of getting outside and communing with nature. Its nice, because you get the park to yourself, but its also sad for obvious reasons.

So I really made an effort to get there after my weeks work and was richly rewarded. Henry Coe hiking is characterized by ups and downs. Mostly ups. The views are epic - rolling hills, old trees, expansive meadows and sweeping ridge-lines. The trails are punishing on the weak - they generally go straight up and down, as if switchbacks were anathema to those who settled the area.

Here are a few pictures from the trip that capture some of this majesty (gallery to come):

As an aside, I just put 8 more GB of Ram in my Mac. Yowsza! What an upgrade.

Supplication and DNG

Here is a humorous photo of a coworker and friend of mine supplicating before the oracle of print . Sometimes you gotta appeal to vanity to get something done. And it generally works. Suckas.

Just another day in the development of Lightroom...

Ok, so it was just a setup - a joke if you will - playing on the funny relationship designers and their engineering counterparts go thru daily to bring you good (and sometimes not so good) software.

Moving on to the question of DNG.

I get asked that a lot by photographers wondering why they should convert their proprietary raw files to Adobe's DNG standard. The answer is fairly easy: its free, its open and its archival. I convert all pictures (well at least the ones not coming native DNG from my M8) to DNG as part of the import process in Lightroom. It takes a bit of extra time, but it ensures your pictures will be readable in the future, which is the reason many important workflow gurus suggest likewise. On the Adobe Creative Suite podcast this week, Terry White covers this "To DNG or not to DNG" question...

So, in short, convert to DNG and be happy. Its self-contained, its archival and it saves you space, and if you are smart and do it as you import images, the process is automatic.

Liam

I finally got around to taking a few pictures off my M8 from a week or so ago and I was delighted to find a wonderful picture of Liam. After one of Aidan's tournament games - we'd gone to a restaurant to eat and the poor boy fell asleep waiting at the table for food. Such a cutie.

Note the blue dye and soccer paraphernalia - he was done to the nines in support of his brother.

In related news, we found out this week that my oldest son Aidan moved up to the B team for U-12, which makes him the only boy to move from the C team up. He's super proud and super excited to get going with a new season. We are a bit sad to be moving to a new team in some ways - we had a great experience with the previous group of kids/parents - and they will be missed.

So to all you BU-12 Blue people, congrats and thanks for a great season. Good luck with 2008.

Photoshop Elements -> CS3 for $299

Wow, didn't know this was in the offing, but it looks like Adobe is offering the full version of Photoshop CS3 for $299 for any Elements owners (apparently its for any version of Elements too).

Found on the Photography Bay blog.

Must be taken care of thru the Adobe store. The offer expires 2/29/08. Pretty good deal if you need Photoshop CS3 (a great upgrade to an already great program).

And yes, you need Lightroom as well. It makes you faster, smarter and more organized.

Portraits

I'm still in San Jose at a yearly company get together. Mostly in conference sessions or team meetings - but it is sunny outside and I look forward to getting out and hiking this weekend before heading back home.

I ran into an interesting 3 part discussion on the Epic Edits blog regarding Image Management - the author talks about Lightroom and other image management tools.

My wife got a new haircut this past weekend, and before I left, I had a chance to shoot a few pictures...

Creative Dance

Managed to get back into the dance studio for some pictures with EBT's Creative Dance class - with all my recent travel, my time shooting daily classes has been somewhat limited, so it was nice to get back in familiar turf.

Here are a few of my favorites.

This is a bit of a different take on a subject I've been working at for over a year. Like some brown tone with that?

I'm heading to San Jose for a big company shindig next week - might be a bit more sporadic with the updates.

Also, I took Chloe to PNB's Romeo et Juliette tonight. It was gorgeous. Beautiful. Go see it if you live in the area. Really missed having my camera - there was so much visually to take in.

Auditions - Take 2

My shoot went well yesterday - I'm quite happy with the pictures.

Here are a few of my favorites...






Outdoor Photographer just posted an online review of Lightroom that presents a short but sweet take on Lightroom's position in the marketplace. My favorite quote:

"Develop is a place where magic occurs. This module mimics Camera Raw in some ways, but it makes working on an image so much easier, effective and faster than Camera Raw. The right panel of adjustments includes the necessary controls to allow you to get the most from your core image processing."

Easier. Faster. Effective. Yup.

Leica M8 News

Leica has just announced a few interesting things at PMA (Photo Marketers Association) in Vegas. Very interesting.

Updated M8 firmware that, according to initial reviews in the field, solves once and for all the random-white balance problem in AWB mode. I shoot Raw and mostly in b/w so this hasn't bothered me, but it is a boon nonetheless. I've already installed the firmware and it seems to be working. Leica has released quite a few firmware updates, all painless, and all very good at fixing issues. Their support has been tremendous, as you'd expect from an expensive camera. As a side not, i don't see my Canon 40d doing any better than the pre-firmware AWB of the M8. Maybe its just me...

Leica M8 cameras are meant to be upgradable - as new technologies come along, they'll upgrade your M8 to keep pace. I really like this idea. Instead of going for the 3 year cycle of disposability, Leica is trying to make your investment last. This is something most Leica users have come to expect from the M-system - a camera that eschews the bells and whistles and remains eerily independent of fads. After all, an M is a photographer's camera that takes great pictures with a minimum of fuss (well, beyond the fuss of actually paying into the club that is). The first update, available this fall, will provide a new, quieter shutter (very needed, although they drop the top speed to 1/4000 instead of the current 1/8000), a new LCD made of tougher crystal somethingorother, any firmware updates needed, re-calibration and cleaning, door to door service and a new 2 year warrantee. It ain't cheap, but it will keep your M8 up to date. I'm looking forward to the subsequent update that adds all this and a new full frame sensor, dust cleaning etc. Not sure if I'll jump for this right away.

The tag line: A future Proof Investment.

Pretty cool.

Going for a Walk

Went for a walk at lunch today. I've been shooting so much client work that I've not spent as much time just walking and shooting - something I used to do quite a bit.

So at lunch today I stepped out and brought the Canon 40d with me (its not exactly a walk around camera like the M8, but its what I grabbed).

Here are a few of my favorites...





Tonight I have a shoot setup with a dancer at EBT - she got accepted to a couple of summer programs and needs a few more pictures to, ahem, seal the deal. She is a lot of fun to work with, so I expect some great things.

In the Lightroom world, David Ziser, a well known wedding photog and educator, posted a nice round up of a series of Lightroom tips he finds useful in his job. Some great stuff, and a good blog to follow for a professional perspective on the industry.

A Rogue's Weekend

I spent the last few days at an "Urban Survival Course" with some friends of mine in Portland, Or.

Every year a group of us do a wilderness survival course to keep our outdoor skills sharp - its a fun way to get together and do interesting things and we generally come away from these classes learning a few things about what it takes to be self-sufficient in the backwoods. Predictably this has generally involved building shelters, food acquisition and other primitive living skills. This year we switched gears and spent a few days learning about how one might survive in an urban environment gone awry. Among other things, we learned to hide, evade detection while moving and even some neo-nefarious skills like picking locks and escaping from handcuffs. I may never look at a Kwikset lock the same.

I participated in the class, but was also there to shoot pictures for the guy who runs the school. It was a complete blast, and here are some out-takes from the weekend's events for your perusal...

I've got a few shoots coming up this week and looking forward to being home for a week before heading south again for a company shindig.

In the Lightroom world, we just recently launched a community help system called "The Lightroom Learn Wiki" that aims to help users communicate and expand on the typical help system information. Sean McCormack has an interesting blog note on his Lightroom Blog regarding this new development. Should be interesting, so stop by and check it out.

The Veil is Parted

Looks like we parted the veil this past week. Scott Kelby visited San Jose and got an NDA'd look at Lightroom 2.0...

His response: …it’s going to make a lot of people very happy! (Myself included).

Just about a week ago, I stumbled upon Scott Kelby's wish-list for Lightroom 2.0 and forwarded it to the team for comment. Of course, we've been hard at work on Lightroom 2.0 for awhile now and we've done an incredible amount of research/work on where it needs to go. We take our customer's needs seriously and have our fingers in all kinds of places to make sure we are accurate and focused. Software development, for those of you not in the know, is an incredibly complex process and this team is the best I've seen at really doing the right thing, at the right time, for the right people. Nothing on the list was new, and certainly nothing hadn't been debated hotly in the last 6 months.

The upside to all of this is that it is a heady, wonderful time to be a photographer (as Scott points out in his blog today) and nowhere is it better than on the front lines developing software to make photographers more effective, efficient and their work shine more - all with less computerese and the peripheral crap for which the software world is famous. Man, I love my job.

Here is a post, from our own Tom Hogarty on the Lightroom Journal regarding this...

For those who want to put in their own two cents, use our feature submission form

We look at everything, and it never hurts to hear it again.

Aidan, Midfielder, at Season's End.

My son's soccer season ended yesterday.

They were finally bumped out of the quarter-finals in a closely contested match yesterday afternoon. I made it for the last 10 minutes, flying in from Prague just in time to see them go down 1/0. Too bad. My son had a great tournament - he works the midfield and did a great job of the things such should do - making plays and poking a few in when the defense wasn't on top of things.

Well, as it happens, this team's defense was always on top of things, and despite a great struggle, they couldn't complete before time ran out.

Regardless, the boys of EFC Blue did really well, considering things didn't go so well during the regular season. Apparently we are a tournament team. We went farther than expected and it was a fun ride.

In looking, Aidan had a great season, grew as a player and scored his fair share. His first year in premier club soccer was a success in our eyes.

So in celebration, I threw up the lights and coaxed my son into a few poses. Here are a few I really liked...

Further Lightroom Tutorials

I found an interesting link on Noisy Cameras today regarding an interesting set of Lightroom/Photoshop learning resources. It looks like photographer Steve Paxton might have some useful material to share. And it looks like he's based in Seattle.

Steve Paxton's Digital Image Processing Tutorials

I'll be looking over his workflow stuff on the plane ride home from Prague, and will give an update when i get back, but in the meantime, check it out and leave a comments if you have some thoughts...

As to training, thanks to all those who have contacted me about the Lightroom Bootcamp training sessions that I offer for photographers. I've booked several sessions as a result of a post on Seth Godin's blog and hope to be sharing some insights as I progress.

Just a note: the pricing for the sessions is currently at $150 for the first two hours. This introductory pricing will last only until January 31, so be quick if you want to score a super deal.

Also, please check out my series of pictures from Prague (Set 1) (Set 2) pictures...

Prague Day 2

Today was grand. I spent all day just wandering thru the meandering streets of Prague, and I can see why so many people rave about this wonderful city.

I woke up early and headed out on foot to explore the other side of the river. My hotel is on the big square in the center of town, and most of the tourist landmarks are within easy walking distance. I found the streets to be easy to navigate (much more like slot canyons with bars/cheesy souvenir shots than some cities I've been to) and I easily found myself walking across George's Bridge and to Praque castle where I (and about 30,000 other friends) enjoyed a wonderful day. The sun was out, and a slight wind in the morning only got chilly in the late afternoon. All around, great conditions for a itinerant photographer.

I did have an issue with my M8 - my first battery died way too early and by 4 PM I'd killed my second battery and was done. I was kicking myself for not bringing my charger with me as the restaurant I had lunch in had a plug right by my chair and I could have easily recharged during my meal. Doh! Ugh. I came back, recharged while downloading the memory cards and headed back for a bit of night shooting (its winter, the sun goes down by 4:30). That and when I went to put on my CV 15mm wide angle lens for a few shots I realized I'd left my screwmount adapter at home on my Canon 1.2. Ugh.

Regardless, a great day. I even got to see a great photographic exhibit with quite a few Sudek photos - someone who spent alot of his time wandering the city in similar circumstances. And don't forget Koudelka. What a history.

Here are my favorites from the day's shooting...

Getting ready to head back home - it is hard to be away from the family and I'm looking forward to seeing my kids tomorrow.

Cheers.

Prague

I arrived in Prague this morning and had a chance to explore some of the city before sun down. As I often do in new cities, I sat down with a map for a few minutes, planned a basic route for where I wanted to go and then headed out.

And, as I often do, I immediately went another route and ended up just meandering for hours in a maze of wonderful buildings and hoards of people. I had heard that Prague was quite touristy, and true enough, it was full of people jabbering in all languages. Lots of Germans, a few French and several parties of Brasilians. Its amazing what you can find just meandering about.

Here are a few photos from my walk...

I'm going to head to several big touristy spots tomorrow, including the Charles Bridge and Prague Castle.

Cheers...

Auf Wiedersehen Hamburg

I'm heading to Prague today - taking the train in a comfy couchette. I ended up late at the office last night, as evidenced by my walk home...

Walking back to the Hotel

Scott Kelby has an interesting post today on his blog regarding what he'd "Love to See in Lightroom 2.0". It was an interesting read, and given the amount of research we've done over the past year, few items surprised me.

Its great to work on a product that has such potential and its heartening to see lots of great feedback from our esteemed customers.

Scott Kelby's LIghtroom 2.0 Wishlist

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