After the sun came up, we wandered across the campus looking for some, well, important attributes of modern civilization needed after drinking lots of coffee and water.  While heading that way, we came across the open colonnades of the lawn, and Roger got this shot.

I saw this unusual snow melt and knew there was a shot in there, while he scoffed at it.

Since we were still darn cold and it was breakfast time, we went over to the corner and had breakfast in an old style diner.  Great neon and we both shot it from different angles.

While walking down the alley, I spotted this smashed window and loved the lines and reflections.

Since we planned to stay down there a while and it was well before anything was going to be open, we went over to the Pedestrian Mall to shoot some more. It was ok, but we said, let’s go up to Monticello.  We got there before it opened and wandered around, shooting stuff, like this nice little still life from the museum store.

Didn’t quite make the tour though as 3 busloads of screaming middle school kids showed up and that was more than I needed to deal with.  Besides did I mention it was cold?  After that, it was time to head back to prepare for Friday night Trivia.  Half of us won.

So just get out and take your camera.  Have fun.

Although NASCAR tracks are probably the least restrictive of all the sporting venues, there are some rules.  You can bring in a backpack, but it is size-restricted and must be see-through.  You can buy these very fashionable backpacks from vendors outside the track for about $20.  I hang my camera around my neck and fill the backpack with a couple of lenses, batteries, and additional memory cards.  I carry in a monopod with my seatpad (no metal on the seatpads).  I get lots of looks from the security staff, but have never had any problems getting through.

Each track has seats where you can see the track unimpeded by the catch fence, but you’ll probably be up high and farther away than you’d like.  Bring the longest, fastest lenses you can get, so you can get photos down into the action.  The picture below is an official pointing to a missed lugnut.  This mistake cost Carl Edwards dearly.  My long lens caught it all.  This picture was published on a racing website.

If you are at a track the day before the race, you can get into see the sessions.  Since the drivers are in and out of the garage, adjusting their cars, you can get individual drivers by themselves on the track.  Many of the tracks have distinctive features that can tell your viewer exactly where the picture was taken.  Here’s an easy one since I lined up the car with the Martinsville sign between turns 3 and 4.

Last year, through a special arrangement, I got a press pass at Martinsville and went into the pit area.  The pass allowed me into the garage area for a different view of the race teams.  This is why we carry multiple lenses!  Switch to a wider angle lens and shoot away for photos that most fans can’t get.  Martinsville is a great track for photos because you can capture the entire track in your viewfinder.  The fans are friendly at every track I’ve visited, but especially at Martinsville.

If you go to a race, NASCAR or otherwise, make sure to set the fastest shutter speed possible to freeze the action.  Then use a slower speed to capture motion.  Try panning to keep the car in focus with a motion-blurred background.  And, generally, try all kinds of different techniques. See what I mean – there are pictures everywhere at the track.  Go, Tony Stewart!

The Family Snapshot Services

The days of dropping off a roll of film at the PhotoHut and picking up an envelope with the prints and negatives have gone the way of the 8-track.  In those days, once you took the picture you had little control over the output.  Now you can upload photos, perform some simple cropping and editing and get inexpensive prints.  Or more importantly, you can now share your photographs with people around the country and they can print them, themselves.  Perfect in the days of distributed families for keeping Grandma’s fridge covered with the latest pictures.

These sites allow you to control who sees the pictures and often require passwords to log in and see the albums.    They produce decent quality pictures and seem to be developing new products every day, such as mouse pads, blankets and coffee mugs with your photos on them.

http://www.snapfish.com/

http://www.shutterfly.com/nav/signedOutShare.sfly

http://www.costco.com/PhotoCenter/PhotoCenter.aspx?cat=2781&cm_re=1_en-_-Top_Right_Nav2-_-Top_photo&lang=en-US

The Social Media Sites

Everyone including us now has Facebook pages and they provide great opportunities to find and stay connected to friends, family and communities of interest.  Aside from the truly annoying things such as Farmville, these sites provide great tools to share pictures as well as commentary.  You can create albums as well as tag people in those photos.  The file sizes aren’t that big, but people need to understand that by posting their images there, they can come back to haunt you.    There have been lots of really false rumors that these sites “own” your pictures if you put them on line.  This is just flat out false.  Of course you have to properly mark and register your pictures if you want to have any chance of successful legal action, but according to the terms of use:

“We respect the intellectual property rights of others and we prohibit users from posting content that violates another party’s intellectual property rights. When we receive a proper claim of IP infringement, we promptly remove or disable access to the allegedly infringing content. We also terminate the accounts of repeat infringers in appropriate circumstances.”

www.facebook.com  Ubiquitous social media app where of course you now can find efcubed!

http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=935#!/pages/EFCubed/292255329028?ref=ts

 How is that for self referential?

www.myspace.com  Usage seems to be fading, but the original site for artists to share new music and find new fans

www.classmates.com  Organized by college and HS class, designed to answer the question, “Whatever happened to …?”

The Photography Sites

These are the places where people who are getting more serious about their pictures tend to go.  The pictures here cover every topic including stuff that is not appropriate for work.  Some of it is breathtakingly beautiful, some are just bad.

www.flickr.com  Flickr is a free service with limited storage and if you buy a Pro account, you get more features.  It does not allow commerce.

The pictures here cover every topic including stuff that is not appropriate for work.  Some of it is breathtakingly beautiful, some are just bad.  You can search by keywords or just randomly.  I keep many of my photos here.

There are groups out there who comb the site looking for pictures they like and inviting you to join.  I’ve been fortunate and had a couple selected

www.pbase.com  PBase is a pay service that allows you to create and customize your galleries.  Roger’s photos http://www.pbase.com/radjr, as well as our Fauquier Viewfinder Camera Club sites are there.  http://www.pbase.com/viewfinders

www.photo.net

This is the most serious of the photo sites, the photographs are generally top notch and you can get quality critiques if you request them.  It does have a lot of nudes, but the search window is designed to exclude them if that bothers you. 

Here is a link to one of my favorite artists  Barry Walthall.  He shoots colored ribbons and marbles—and they are unique and breathtaking. 

http://photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=352882

So go explore, find the site that suits your needs best and let us see some pictures.

Mark and I are both music junkies.  We tote IPods with enough tracks to listen 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for more than a month before you start to repeat any songs.  Yeah, that’s a little ridiculous….  I even used to play around with several instruments, on weekends with friends.  So, naturally, we like to shoot photos while we’re listening to the jam session, and we both contributed to the text and photos in this blog.

Neither of us have ever shot a big name concert – that takes hard-to-obtain passes.  At a big name concert, you usually get in place for three songs, in the pits jostling with other photographers, and no flash or, if you’re really lucky, backstage.  It is a daunting task to get anything that stands out, but the request list is always long.  There are several musicians whose concerts might be worth this chaos.

We shoot small shows and jam sessions, consisting mostly of acts that we or our friends know.  There is a rich tradition of bluegrass and eclectic folk music here in northern Virginia, and we’ve been known to partake.  There are many local places here to enjoy these and other music genres.  Almost all of the artists are approachable and are happy to let you shoot and sign model releases, especially if you send them pictures.  Several of them have used our pictures, with photo credits, on their band sites or their Facebook/Myspace pages.  Mark even did a CD cover for one band.  As musicians never have any money, this is a good trade.  Sometimes you can even trade digital images for digital music.

It is tough to get the richness and depth their music conveys onto an image.  Lots of times, the poses are just, well, repetitive.  Microphones obstruct the faces and instruments; weird and bad lighting is the norm; and you have to be careful not to antagonize the audience as you move around to get a better angle.  We both try to catch the musicians’ expressions as they really get into their music.  This usually nets you the best shots but means you will spend most of the concert with the camera stuck to your face.

Make sure you know the rules before you start snapping.  If you talk to the management and artists before the show, you will have a much easier time.  Many venues and musicians frown on flash use during a set.  Talk to the venue manager and the artist, so you don’t interfere with what they are trying to do.   It won’t help your reputation as a photographer if you get tossed out of the show. 

Outdoor concerts are the easiest because you usually have lots of light and more room to move around.  Since these tend to be smaller concerts, the rules are often less onerous.  The picture on the left is from the Kerrville Folk Festival, in Texas.  This is Don Gibson and Jim Ringer at the 1980 show where I met Townes Van Zandt and Nancy Griffith.  The shots in the center and on the right are the Woodshedders at the Leesburg, Va., courthouse concert, in 2008.  Microphones everywhere!

If you do this enough, you get a better feel for when to shoot the shots.  The next shot is from the Bangkok Blues in Falls Church, Va., a blues club with great Thai food.  We know the former owner and always get friendly support when we take shots there.  Even though there is another microphone, the lighting was awful, and Ace from the band, Jubal Kane, was wearing a weird purple suit, this is one of my favorite shots.  No flash; no tripod; long lens (70-200, f2.8); and Ace really wailing on his blues harp.  Great band!

Mark got a good one at the Watermelon Park Festival, in Round Hill, Va., of Melissa Wright on the mandolin.  She plays with the Acoustic Burgoo, and they even remark at her laughing at the end of songs.

Mark had a jam session at his house while I was off – working hard – on my photography in Aruba and Curacao.  This is good portrait, from that night in November, of Ken “Harney” Harnage.

Finally, I shot the last image at our favorite wine bar, The Iron Bridge Wine Company, just a couple of weeks ago.  This was the first time Tina Hughes played at the IBWC, and we had made previous arrangements with her and management to shoot a couple of shots.  I didn’t want to shoot too many because it’s a cozy environment, and I had to use flash to get anything of use.  I shot exactly 15 frames (a new low count for me).  Mark held the flash outside the bar and pointed it through the window, while I triggered it from our seat at the bar.  It’s a standard shot, but she likes it and that always makes it a good shot.

The main concern is light.  There is an over-abundance of light. It’s bouncing around the pretty little snowflakes and can fool the meter in your camera.  If you’re a point-and-shooter, see if you have a snow setting on your menu; they adjust the light and usually change the white balance.  DSLRs don’t have such settings, so you want to prepare before you head out.  You need to overexpose by .5 to 1.5 stops to get things right.  Once you set your exposure compensation to positive EVs, you should check the LCD to ensure you have things where you want them.  You can make further refinements in Lightroom, Aperture, or whatever you use for post-processing, but getting it right in the camera is always the best option.

As always, feel free to break rules that don’t fit the situation.  Let the highlights blow out if you feel it adds to your picture.  Here, I wanted to maximize the bright (obnoxiously bright) pink hat on Granddaughter2, so I let the light pour in.  You can see the yellow, reflecting from her hood, changing the pink to orangish.  I shot it this way on purpose.  This gives the photo a high key (very bright) effect.

In direct light, your camera may have a tendency to be a little bluish, especially in the shadows.  This is, again, pretty easy to adjust out.  If you’re shooting in RAW, you’ll be able to have the extra flexibility available there, but you can make some adjustments in JPG, as well.  For example, the picture on the left is from my film days.  After I digitized it, I noticed a distinctly blue cast to the photo.  I had to live with it in the film days, but not any more.  I fixed both of these photos in post.

Of course, sometimes the blue belongs.  Glaciers have a great blue color from the density of the ancient, pressure-packed snow.  This is another film image from my time in Alaska, courtesy of the US Army.  I plan another trip there, this summer.  To give you a feeling for the scale, that boat is 85 feet long.

Snow can be a good place to look for abstract shapes and forms.  The snow adds uniformity to the scene and can cover a lot of the distractions normally there.  Set a low shutter speed to catch the snowflakes blurred.

So don’t just sit inside when the snow hits.  Go out and have fun with your camera.  When you come back in, make sure you wipe it down with a soft cloth to remove any moisture.

The final shot is a gratuitous plug for son-in-laws who help out the wife’s old man.   Sure glad they showed up this weekend: they brought the grandkids; and I’m getting too lazy to shovel 30″ of snow.  Thanks!

PS.  If you’re on Facebook, you can become a fan of our blog at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/home.php?filter=pp.  We will soon have a link where you can purchase photos from both of us.  We’ll let you know when we have that in place.

Roger has been carrying the load for this blog for the last few months, as I have been reminded on a near daily basis.  Unfortunately, I have been off writing big proposals to try and get new business, thereby allowing me to continue my photography addiction.  Finally, I’ve caught a brief break and have recommenced my housekeeping chores including taking care of my camera. 

I often forget that the brains behind my camera is only partly me—yes Roger, a very small part, I’ll save you the trouble.  There is a lot of embedded software, called “firmware”  inside your cameras and the manufacturers are continually looking at how they can improve the operations of their systems.

We are all used to getting the updates for whatever image editing programs we are using, be it Photoshop Elements, or Adobe Lightroom.  You have to work a slight bit harder to update the firmware, but it is definitely an important part of being properly prepared as a photographer. 

For Nikon owners, you can go to  http://nikoneurope-en.custhelp.com/app/answers/list and select your camera model and computer operating system and follow the directions.   Nikon software has an A and a B side and you need to do both.   It involves using a blank memory card and your card reader to download the upgrades and they have step by step instructions on how to do it. 

For those CANON shooters head over to http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/controller?act=GetProductLineAct&productLineID=3 and dig around under your camera model. 

For me, here are just a few of the updates in the new software load

The following improvements have been made in version 1.10

- The Highlights playback display option has been moved from Display mode > Basic photo info > Highlights in the playback menu to Display mode > Detailed photo info > Highlights. 
- The size and color of “Demo” displayed in the monitor with playback when No memory card? in the Custom Settings is set to Enable release, have been modified. 
- The range of settings available for ISO sensitivity settings > ISO sensitivity auto control > Minimum shutter speed in the shooting menu has been increased from 1/250 – 1 s to 1/4000 – 1 s.
- When shooting in hand-held live view mode and the frame is magnified prior to autofocusing, operation has been modified so that display returns to the magnified display rather than full-frame display. 
- Images captured with Rotate tall, in the playback menu, set to On are not automatically rotated for display immediately after capture (image review).
- A Copyright information item has been added to the setup menu.  When Copyright information is enabled, the copyright symbol (©) is shown in the shooting info display. 

It also improves the display of GPS data, which is a topic that Roger can and does go on forever about. 

So, go check your manufacturers website and make sure the smart part of your camera is up to speed so you, the creative part can get the most out of your partnership.

Let’s talk about taking these kinds of images and getting something you’ll be happy with.   The key is planning because this photography exercise is challenging.  You’ve got fast moving subjects that are too busy trying not to drown to pose in the exact spot you want.  The lighting is bad, with bright highlights and deep shadows that will cause havoc with your exposure meter.  The best locations are down near the water, and it’s a wet, slippery place to be playing with expensive camera gear.  Sounds like fun, huh?  Well, it sure beats joining those loons in the plastic boats!

The easiest way to get sharp photos in this environment is to maximize your shutter speed.  Generally, this is 1/500th of a second or faster.  This shouldn’t be too difficult in the bright daylight.  If there are clouds or the shade is too deep where you want to shoot, you’ll need to bump up the ISO as high as you can without getting noisy images.  You do know where that is on your camera, right?  If not, take some practice shots prior to your arrival, steadily increasing the ISO until you see visible noise (random pixels of color and light) in your image.  Keep your ISO setting lower than your noise limit.  Since every camera has different low light capabilities, I can’t give you an exact number.  Your aperture setting depends on how much depth of field you want in your image.  I usually keep this setting in the mid-range.  You can open this up to get faster shutter speeds.  Your camera is ready.

The lighting problems can be extreme.  Trees line the banks, creating deep shade, in contrast to the bright sun bouncing light from the water, rocks, and bright kayaks.  There is dappled light coming through the leaves on the trees.  If you put your camera into a mode that allows automatic exposure settings (Program, Automatic, Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority), your camera’s meter will constantly change, making adjustments as you follow the kayaker through the course.  Many of these shots will be hopelessly flawed. I’ve found that shooting several test shots and varying my settings, allows me to find the best solution.  Then, I set those into my camera and leave it in Manual mode.

Location is always important.  Most rivers have several good locations to get the kind of shot you want.  You can get up high for look down at the river, like the shot on the left.  Move a little closer to the river to create an image that makes your viewer think “What a pleasant way to spend the day.”

To create the most exciting shots that convey the triumph, apprehension, and sheer looniness of this sport, you need to get down to the water.  Fill the frame with your subject.  Get the water behind them to show its menacing turbulence. A low shot makes the water look like a wall.  There were many times when my Wife, DaughterNumberTwo, and DaughterInLaw made it through the chute alive and upright.  Whew!

Shoot continuously to catch all the action.  Things are moving quickly, and you want to catch them at just the right moment.  (Dude, there are huge rocks under there!)

I loved those weeks down there with the family.  Lots of fun with my camera.  I even went down the river myself.  How’d I do?  Well….

In March (23-26), it’s time, once again, to wander down to Orlando for Photoshop World – an entire week of photography and post-processing fun.  There are two conventions every year.  The east coast is in the spring and usually rotates between Orlando and Boston.  The west coast version happens in the fall in Las Vegas.  The exhibition floor will be packed with great deals and new products.  The classrooms will be filled with lots of photography-related education.  There are several must-attend parties and discussions that occur throughout the week.  Yup, a regular photo-geek fest.  Here’s the link, so you can register now.

On the 23rd, we will be spending the day in a pre-con session with Joe McNally and Moose Peterson.  We’ve raved about Joe before.  He is an incredible photographer.  Moose is an extremely talented wildlife and landscape photographer.  This will be the highlight of the week for me.  Hope to see you in Orlando.

On a personal note, the post office delivered several of copies of The Guardian, newsletter for St. Mary’s Home for Disabled Children.  In October, I photographed their annual fund-raiser fun run in Virginia Beach and wrote a blog about it.  They used two of the pictures in their newsletter and gave me the photo credit for the pictures.  It’s always nice to start the year with a new photo credit.  You can support them by sending a donation here.  It only takes a few minutes to help them with their work.  If you haven’t given to a deserving community group yet, this is a good one to recognize.  I hope you can give them a hand.  We’ve been talking about how to start the new year off properly, and this is just another good idea.

Here is one of the pictures from the run.