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A new gallery: Maine Speedliting Images
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Posts in category Digital Photography Medium
Gallery: Maine Speedliting Images
Digital Photography: Maine Media Workshops and Speedliting with Syl Arena
Sorry I’ve been out of touch for the past few days, but I needed a vacation. I was only recently afforded the opportunity to take any time off of work and I can proudly say that for the first time in ten years, I was able to take some time off for personal and professional benefit. As a celebration, I was going to treat myself right so I started looking into photography workshops. I stumbled across a website for a Speedliting Course in Paso Robles, CA, the heart of California wine making country.
A little further research let me know that the same Speedliting class was being offered by the same instructor, in a little Multimedia College (digital video and photography) and all subjects related to… and this class fit my schedule.
So, a little prior coordination, reservations, travel plans and before long I was off. Travelling to a state I had never been to before, to join up with a group of fourteen other motivated Canonistas (Canon is one of the primary sponsors of these workshops), for a week full of learning how to craft, bend, color, hide and accentuate the light from those little four-inch flashes you see people putting on top of their cameras.
Nikon’s official name for the devices is Speedlight, Canon’s nomenclature is Speedlite, but the results, to the untrained eye are basically the same.
Now, I’m not a Nikon shooter, I shoot Canon, but the advantages and capabilities of Canon’s flash models and the clearly demonstrated to me that Canon has the superior camera flash system, and this past week I was introduced to many of the hidden capabilities of this system and I was taught how to apply a critical and discerning eye to how the flash used to supplement ambient light should be both flattering to the ambient or existing light and invisible to the untrained eye.
So, I got to spend a week in one of the most beautiful states in the Union, surrounded by 50 other people all looking to expand their expertise in their individual crafts, and looking for other ways to take their photography skills to the next level. With a supportive staff, incredible instruction and a student pool to both challenge and inspire you, I walked away from Maine Media Workshops with the knowledge I had gained both revolutionary knowledge and skills, and a group of friends who made the week an event of a lifetime. Thank you Maine Media Workshops and thank you Syl Arena.
If your’re interested, Maine Media Workshops is a joint venture with Maine media College located in the heart of one of the most amazing towns I’ve ever been to, the quaint and charming seaside village of Rockport Maine, immediately adjacent to the tourist mecca on the coast, Camden Maine. For more information on their school and activities, you can find more on the school here,
Maine Media College/Maine Media Workshops
And for more information on the many benefits of shooting with Speedlites or even shooting with Speedlights, you can find Syl’s book here.
Syl’s Book, Speedliter’s Handbook: Learning to Craft Light with Canon Speedlites
And yes…, the lobster was delicious. Thanks for asking.
Dewayne
Digital Photography: Random Photoshop Exceptionalism
Thanks for everyone’s concern and questions. There’s not much going on except waiting for more word on when the town’s going to open back up. The hardest part for most people seems to be finding things to do with the boredom. One of my favorite pastimes is to play around in Photoshop. There’s so much to do and so many options available, you never know what you’re going to learn next. The first thing to realize is image manipulation is far different from image editing, but the effects can be amazing!
Here is a cool link to one of my favorite “Image Manipulation” websites. Take a peek, I think you’ll find you’re impressed with some of the effects.
WebTabLab 85 Best Photoshop Manipulations
One of my all-time favorites is Worth1000, they host regular competitions for image editing and creation. Some of their most popular have been passed around the Internet as some of the best hoaxes of all time.
Remember this one?
Anyway, here’s their link, it’s good fun just to see what people are thinking up next.
Have a great day, everyone.
Dewayne
Digital Photography: Bugout Complete
Hey, wanna see some cool video? Click this link.
http://www.krqe.com/dpp/weather/wildfires/los-alamos-under-mandatory-evacuation
It’s Channel 13′s KRQE news video of the fire. I’ve grabbed a hotel in Santa Fe for a couple nights to see what’s going to come of the fire.
The best pictures I got I shot on Sunday night, but today I’m exhausted. I’ve just thrown three of the pix in. It was a pretty impressive wildfire.
The mandatory evacuation just started today at about 2:00pm Mountain. There really wasn’t much in the way of photo opportunity this afternoon, if you’ve ever been inside a lit cigarette when the smoker inhaled, that was about the extent of the visibility and the comfort of the thick, sooty air.
On the plus side… It looks like a couple days off work… And, it’s the first time I’ve ever been run out of town by folks who weren’t carrying tar, feathers or a rail…
Sonia, I now know what it means to have to be that selective in the books you want to take with you.
Have a great day, y’all. Enjoy.
Dewayne
Digital Photography, Beyond The Basics: Focus-Stacking
Today it’s time to step up and take the picture editing process, and your photography to the next level.
All picture editing software worth its salt uses a method of picture editing called layers. Layers are very simple to understand. Just like a cake with different flavors, rather than mixing the batter so you get one big sugary mess to cook up and let rise, the layers are ”baked” one at a time and then assembled with frosting in between.
If you are working with a layer, and you want to see some parts, but not others, then you apply a “mask” to hide some parts of that layer for more intrigue and mystery, sometimes adding spice to your picture.
Today is a real quick explanation of a technique that I learned recently to help overcome the limitations of the lens on the front of your camera.
When you take a landscape or scenic picture and you want to incorporate a part of the foreground closest to the lens, with the vast expanse of the beautiful scenery behind it, you can take two pictures on the same settings. One focused on the part of the picture in the front.
Now, take a second image with the rest of the image adjusted for a large depth-of-field, (remember? a large aperture number, small aperture opening.) So the rest of the background is in sharp focus. When you lay one of these images on top of the other in Photoshop, Elements, GIMP, Paint Shop Pro, or other layer-based editing software, you can hide or “mask” the background of one image combining it with the sharper parts of the other layer and save it as one picture. The results are open for you to explore.
The argument has been around for ages, what makes a real photograph. Isn’t Photoshop cheating? There are as many opinions on one side as the other. My take on the whole image editing debate is image editing can be a great tool, provided you don’t try and pass off a”Photoshopped” original as “untouched”.
Sound like a lot? It can be, but with nice and easy guided steps, you’ll be learning how to edit and enhance your own images in no time. Half the fun is in getting there.
Dewayne
