01-11-12 #18,791

This photo is the last photo I took in 2012. I was entralled by the fact that the bag of chips got puffy as our airplane reached altitude. It was taken with my iPhone and given what I was trying to capture, it is a failure. It was also the 18,791st photo I took last year.I am posting a throw-away photo today so I can talk about two things that are running through my head:First, this photo is obvious proof that every shutter click doesn't generally produce a gem. My rough calculation is that I might get something that is close to as good as it gets for me about once every 1000 times I take a photo. That's a ratio that isn't very good and which is no doubt one of the evils of the digital era of photography. I have been reading about Edward Weston and he was much more deliberate and calculating in his photography. I need to be more like him.Second, I accept Malcolm Gladwell's thesis in his book Outliers that what we call "genius" is often a combination of the right genes and the right environment. But you also need to add in 10,000 hours of concerted and guided practice. By my calculations, not including all of the time I spent teaching photography last year, I put about 800 hours into my craft in 2012 (including the production of this blog). Eight hundred hours equals twenty 40 hours work weeks.The reality is that by Gladwell's suggestion, I have several years to go before I have a chance of being a genius. Or at least really, really, really good. Do I have the will? Will I find the right teachers? And will I ever feel like I've reached some kind of peak or pinnacle?The answers to the first two questions are "Yes" and "I hope so." The answer to the last is "Probably not." I quoted the poet Robert Browning yesterday in my first year photography class: "A man's reach should exceed his grasp. Or what's a Heaven for?"But at least we strive. . . .

09-02-12 Camera Blur

I know enough about sports photography to know that this is no "money shot" because there is way too much blur. I'll leave sports photography to the sports pros.But I also know that if it's done right, blur can add a sense of motion and action to a photo and I think this photo is a good illustration of that. So, while this photo would never make the sports pages, it does make my blog. :-)For those who care, Watertown won the game. (1996 KiYi Days)Canon 5D 1/80s f/2.8 ISO1000 200mm

08-28-12 The Art of Seeing

So here's a variation on my themes from yesterday: spider webs and seeing. And here's a quote that every photographer should keep in mind:

"Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others."Jonathan Swift

Canon 5DIII 1/160s f/4.0 ISO200 100mm

08-14-12 Hand County, South Dakota

This is another HDR (high dynamic range) photo that is actually a combination of two photos. I'm not sure I like the dramatic "rays" that seem to be streaming to the ground from the clouds because I didn't see them when I took the photo. And they look a little unreal.But they are real. The HDR process only enhances and demonstrates what the camera "sees." As I was looking at this photo, wondering whether I should post it, it occurred to me that light is to a good camera what the high pitched dog whistle is to a dog: the camera and the dog perceive things much differently than humans do. And though cameras are tuned by humans to show us what humans normally see in terms of color, brightness and contrast, software processes allow us to see an alternate reality. In this case it is an HDR photo that shows us what shadows under clouds look like.On a side note, I took this photo where I did to pay homage to my mother- and father-in-law. Years ago they had a painting hanging over their couch that was a winter scene showing a prairie that was table flat and that stretched out to infinity. My mother-in-law said the picture reminded her of home, which was Hand County, South Dakota.Though it isn't winter yet in this scene, the landscape is certainly table flat.

07-24-12 Depth of Field

Watertown's Newest Photo Gallery

We are putting the finishing touches on the new student Photo/Media Program photo gallery at Lake Area Technical Institute. This is one of two walls of student photos. Tomorrow, the Governor of South Dakota comes to LATI to help dedicate the new wing of our campus and we are hoping he comes to admire the student photos.If you live in Watertown, you might consider coming to the LATI open house, which starts at 2:00 and ends at 6.

The Pantheon Redux

Yes, this is a repeat - and I'm not even on vacation. Why the repeat? Because I've been learning some new things about photo editing. In fact, I've made a video:

A Little Coffee

I took this quite a while ago using an iPad app I had read about called Photo Soft Box. You set any number of patterns on your iPad, find a dark room and an object that has interesting reflectivity and then take photos. I think it's pretty cool and a creative eye might find interesting things to do with this tool. Maybe sometime soon I'll give this app the time it deserves.

Things Unseen

I've said before and I'll probably say it again: photography has the power to force the viewer to see things that are often ignored. We ignore them because either we don't have the time, the inclination or the interest. Those of us who capture images might say that some people just don't have "the eye."I can tell you that I'm still learning to see and that I have a long ways to go. To see the lines, to see the color and ultimately to see the importance of objects is part of what I am learning. Maybe I could say that about life in general?Here is a single goose feather stuck in landscape rock at the Terry Redlin Center in Watertown, SD. Now that I've forced you to look at this, you might think "that's nothing special" or "there's no real color" or "where is the rest of the bird?" I look at it and see something I've never really seen before - the delicate structure of each part of the feather. When I look at this picture, I wonder how much beta testing went into this design before it actually worked?Sometimes a good photo will raise more question than it answers.