You never know what's going to be a hit....

A couple of my past favorite images actually wound up being the most commented on at the Meet and Greet last night at California Wine and Cheese. I'll be showing there another 2 weeks, if you want to go see it do so. If you would like to meet and discuss the work let me know as I am minutes away and able to take the time.

Thanks to all who came to support, old friends (Ruth and Coop), New friends (Will), old coworkers and new found artist pals. It was fun. The conversation about the art of photography vs the technical stuff was fun...thanks Coop.

The best part for me still is talking with people about what I do and learning what struck a cord with them. My series using a couple of different techniques to pay homage to the old Dutch Masters and their wonderful skies didn't escape anyone.

The surprise was that the group from Bodie still strike a cord with so many people. Natural lighting and capturing old building in their state of "arrested decay" has been something I've always enjoyed doing especially when I can convey its prior joi de vivre and human connection. (I have to admit the term "arrested decay" was coined by Will's friend who joined him on the Gold Line bike ride to the event but worth using, including as a tag). Nice to know something I do strikes a cord with so many especially when it's something I like doing.

Anyway, its another busy day in the space behind the garage. A few things to prep and get ready for tonight's Art Walk sponsored by the Monrovia Art Festival Association from 6:30 to 9:30 on Myrtle Avenue in the heart of Old Town. Map here.

Anyway enjoy "Henhouse Eggs" and "Final Game Done".

Just a little sampling of what I have on show at the California Wine and Cheese shop here in Monrovia. The piece is a watercolor photograph titled "Pietra Blanca Lighthouse".

The artist "Meet and Greet" will take place Friday August 24, 2007, 5:30PM - 8:30PM. Tell the owner Tom Duggan or his bartender that you are there for the art and they will have available a specially priced Red or White wine for you.

California Wine and Cheese is a new business here in Monrovia that fills a gap missing in adult oriented evenings out since the Wine of the Month Club closed down its tasting room. They specialize in as the name implies the unique wine and cheeses of California. It's quite the deal, they have "flights" of usually 4-6 wines from a particular, grape, region or vintner available for purchase. Tom and his staff tell you about the wine, what makes it special and how to detect the difference. And to satisfy the tummy as well as the pallet they offer up cheese platters tailored to your "flight" so you learn about that kind of paring. It makes for a terrific night now...now if we can get them to come up with a dessert offering to finish the flight it would be perfect.

Apologies for the lack of new stuff to entertain but the last couple of weeks have been murder around here between weather and migraine triggers.

I got strung up today...in that good happy kinda way!

I finally got installed at the California Wine and Cheese today. A bit later than planned but that was outside the control of myself and the owner Tom Dugan. It was due to our waiting for the museum style "arakawa" hanging system to arrive. Its there and set up which makes installations so very easy.

All that said...I wound up bringing along a piece that Tom liked and noted on his site the following: "We do not know which works he has chosen, but my favorite on his blog site is "Seine Dusk." Just incredible colors. " Well Tom if you read this am glad to have accommodated, even if by accident for you as it is a piece I like too. I thank you as well for giving me a chance to showcase my work in your establishment!

Most of the pieces have been here and maybe even shown as a work in progress on my flickr page. I can't say that I have any new pieces to debut as those were done the end of July at the Art Walk. What I am bringing is a range of work illustrating from traditional photographs, into HDR and into my more impressionistic watercolor photographs.

The catalog:

"Rose Blossom" - photograph

"Game Over, Bodie Hotel" - photograph

"Henhouse Eggs" - photograph/digital art

"Bodie Blue Window" - photograph/digital art

"Chapel of St John the Evangelist" - HDR Photograph

"Desert Sunrise" - watercolor photograph

"Pietra Blanca Lighthouse" - watercolor photograph

"Siene Dusk" - HDR watercolor photograph

"Not James Dean" - HDR photograph

"Old Faithful" - HDR Photograph

Now for the fun stuff, the reception is set for Friday August 24, 2007. As soon as I have the details I'll let you know more but we are looking at something like a 5-9PM to catch all the after work crowd. I also understand one of the local wineries based in Sierra Madre may have a representative there that night so this could make for a lot more fun.

If you want a personal notecard with the details leave me a not with your email addy or snail mail!

Tonemapping isn't just for HDR

While researching the HDR and Tonemapping I stumbled across a rather interesting flickr group. Interesting if not belligerent, in my not so humble opinion, regarding tonemapping of single shot images and displaying the same in their group. It is their group, but sheesh.... Their deal is landscapes only, never HDR which is created by blending multiple exposures of the same frame.

Interesting concept, the tonemapping of single exposures that is to say. Their results in many ways move into the surreal as well. It certainly has its place with portraits and documenting the human condition as much as it does in doing landscapes. Maybe better than HDR as you don't have to worry about a person moving and losing your registration, not that I don't use that to my advantage at times. Just variations on the possibilities.

They have a brief discussion and the photos posted to this group are worked in Photomatix from a RAW file as part of the conversion process to tiff or jpeg for final working. This is different than using Adobe Photoshop CS2 highlight/shadow tool and the results are pretty amazing.

Today was one of those days where I had enough of the task stuff like filing, errand running, mounting and sleeving prints and I just wanted to experiment.

I had several images shot while taking one of the Thames River boats from Greenwich to London that were shot late in the day. I shot raw using the metered average exposure. Problem with that is late in the day you have very long shadows with extreme contrast. The large amounts of sky and reflections of the same off the water wounded up exposing them beautifully but left the shadows very dark. I couldn't shoot them with HDR as the between the forward motion of the boat and the rocking would have yielded frames too far apart to ever register successfully for an HDR image. I wasn't too happy with the results and as such never did much with them. Until now.

The before and after exposures below are the original frame converted to jpeg and sized for here. It had no corrections done and serves as the base image for comparison. The image below is the tonemapped version of the same RAW file. I used Photomatix Tonemapping to accomplish that task. Note there is detail across the board in the shadow areas, much cleaner color yet the sky has its own luminosity that helps the whole image work. Different perspective of Big Ben and certainly much nicer too look at. (Can you tell what time it was when I took the picture?)

Regardless, enjoy the picture and I highly recommend taking one of the commuter ferry's while in London to soak in more of the city and of course get you to Greenwich to see all that is there to explore. More leisurely than the train, but more colorful given your captains are not tour guides and give you a much better and crustier version of the history as you float along.

Actually, I probably overdid it this last week getting ready for the Art Walk and for being hung at the California Wine and Cheese shop here in good old Monrovia this coming weekend. I suspect its my old "friend" CFS raising its ugly head but I'll shake it off quick. Have too...I have to hang Saturday.

Isn't the take on the Hollywood sign a riot! I can't take credit for finding the sight. My blog pal Julia from blogging.la posted it on metroblogging this morning. Have fun with the sign am off to get some dinner done and off to bed early today. You can make your own HERE!

Art Walk Premiering....HDR and other explorations
It's crunch time here in the space behind the garage. All those images I've worked on the last few months have to be printed, matted/mounted and ready for a show this weekend at the MAFA Art Walk this weekend here in Old Town Monrovia.

This show I'm going to be showing primarily my HDR work as it has been the focus of much of what I have been exploring the last few months. I've blathered on about it quite a bit, and to my pleasant surprise what I have done so far with it has been well received by viewers and collectors. Can't be too far off the mark and certainly something I will continue to work with as it gives me tremendous satisfaction. Just nice to get some reactions from time to time.

The image here is one of the ones I will be premiering that night. It is different from the others in that its intentionally taken down the extreme path to be very impressionistic much like the entire movement in painting early in the last century. The others being shown are very real or surreal but not as painterly as this one.

"Siene Dusk" was shot just as the sun dipped below the horizon our first evening in Paris this spring. I shot it from the Pont de Bir Hakeim near La Tour Eiffel (Eiffel Tower...now you have had your French lesson for the day). I shot it with HDR in mind which means 3 bracketed exposures. I used Photomatix to generate the HDR file from the 3 raw files the camera generated. I used Photomatix as well to do the tone mapping as I prefer it to the version bundled with CS2. Once the tonemapping was done I converted it down to an 8 bit file, worked with color, fine tuned shadows, ran it through the virtual photographer and some arty filters to get this impressionistic view.

I will be at the Paint N Play Studio and Gallery that night as I am one of their featured artists that night. PnP will also be hosting an artists reception, open to the public and FREE concurrent to the art walk. Please feel free to stop in and chat with me!

The details on the art walk.

Monrovia Art Festival Association Art Walk

July 28, 2007 6:30Pm to 9:30PM

400-500 Block South Myrtle Avenue, Monrovia, CA 91016

Watch Metroblogging for the full blog on the entire Art Walk that is set to run 10AM Friday.

Love the detail preservation in HDR...

"Chapel of St John the Evangelist", Tower of London 4/9/07

For your enjoyment another installment on the European vacation shot RAW with HDR in mind this last spring. It is the Chapel of St John the Evangelist within the main tower at the center of the complex named the White Tower that dates back to the first millennium. The Chapel is on the first floor and is considered to be one of the most perfect examples of Norman architecture in all of London.

At the time I saw the chapel I knew it would benefit from HDR's ability to preserve details across a wide spectrum of light intensity. For this image I opted to use only 2 exposures choosing to allow some rich blacks void of most detail to add to the romantic view of the chapel. After the HDR file was generated with Photomatix the same programs tone mapping option was used to condense the final file into one a printer and monitor can reproduce. I opted to go very natural as well rather than the surreal. After that I cleaned up the color balance with CS2 and did the final adjustments with Virtual Photographer.

Why do I bring this up now you may ask? Well Paint n Play gallery here in Monrovia has a customer who wanted a companion piece to the "Abandoned Church Paris" that I blogged about here before. Actually they've been quite popular and I will have additional pieces for sale and display at the coming Art Walk on July 28th from 6-9PM on Myrtle Avenue in Old Town Monrovia.

It's Old Timey Postcard Time

"Sour Lake"

"Old Faithful"

"Dragons Mouth"

"Old Faithful Wide View"

Working with HDR is fun. In a way the 3 RAW files needed to produce the HDR File for tonemapping isn't that much different than the way the early Kodachromes were deconstructed into color separations and reassembled for printing in magazines. The National Geographic was the first of the publications to use this technology to bring to us all the world had to offer in beautiful saturated color.

With the opening of Route 66 and the increased automobile ownership lead to the roadtrip family vacation. How else better to share with those left behind the amazing things you saw and tell them about your trip than to drop them a postcard.

Early postcards had wonderfully overly exaggerated colors and saturation. Today's project was to take HDR generated files, tonemap them to exaggerate things, then took it a step further with virtual photographer. So here you go, 4 examples or variations on the postcard theme.

Stark realism....HDR keeps the details clean

"Cody Sunset", Cody, Wyoming

"Fallen Soldiers" Big Horn County, Montana

"Custer National Cemetery" Big Horn County, Montana

Here we go shots taken at the Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument and Custer National Cemetery. Pretty impressive, Col Custer sure had an ego and overestimated his own abilities which lead to the massacre by the Indians who were trying to protect their freedoms on their own land. (Not trying to be political here, but for the Indians from the Lakota and Cheyenne tribes this was an attempt to preserve their way of life outside the reservation system). More info can be gathered also from the official National Park System here.

And with that note...on July 5th we left Little Big Horn and ended the day in Cody in time to watch a storm develop over Yellowstone as the sunset.

All of these were shot with an ultrawide angle lens, bracketed with HDR in mind. The RAW files were combined into HDR files with the aid of Photomatix and adjusted with the Tonemapping plug in for CS2. The final images were created with the aid of Virtual Photographer.

Sunsets and HDR, too good to be true in controlling demons.

"Amber Waves" Sheridan, WY

"Under the Thunderhead" Sheridan, WY

"Just Before Sunset" Sheridan, WY

"Gathering Storm", Sheridan, WY

I got a rare treat, well rare for this California guy, while in Wyoming over the July 4th Holiday. We have 3 kinds of sky in the summer, "June Gloom" or overcast grey, Blue or Brown. To get to see clouds in the sky at sunset is a treat, to watch thunderstorms growing is an even bigger treat. So the evening of July 4th after dinner and waiting for dark to arrive for fireworks I grabbed the trusty camera and went shooting the storm building to the west over the Big Horn Mountains. Very cool watching the grey build and have the sun sneak below and send shimmering golden rays across the valley floor. Swatting the flies and mosquitoes wasn't fun but it too is part of being in the country.

I shot all four images with an ultra wide angle lens to capture as much of the sky as possible, to exaggerate the immenseness of the sky. The low sun added the drama. I shot 3 exposures knowing I'd use HDR to bring back the detail in the shadows and the ultra bright highlights created by the sun. After that its tonemapping with Photomatix and then cleaned up with PhotoshopCS2 and the Virtual Photographer plug in. End result sunset landscapes with details in the sky and shadows controlling those demons is so much easier when you can use HDR to real them in.

Not exactly an impressionist paint, not exactly pure photographs, but pleased with the results. Enjoy!

Race you for a pink slip?

Our boatThe other teams boat

Jillian, Will and his wife Susan brought up the rear

Not the best score but we still kicked our opponents arse

NOT doing the Hula to Don Ho's "Tiny Bubbles"

Lifes adventures can't be passed up. As I run through he mid-life years I'm bound and determined add a few extra adventures to my belt before I decide to slow down. (Sounds good but I'm way too hyper to slow down).

This weeks adventure was to attend the LA Lotus Festival in Echo Park. More specifically I was a rower in the Dragon Boat races and part of the Metroblogging LA Team. This is one of those events that celebrates one culture and the the diversity of Los Angeles a city I am quite proud to call home.

Anyway the race...we kicked ass. We raced a team from another division and it felt good to beat them but a good 40 feet...maybe 3 boat lengths. The first leg across the lake we were mismatched by rowing ability and coupled with a good head wind wound up making a big curve off course and lost a lot of our huge lead of 100 feet trying to correct it. We got it all back together to make a solid run to the finish line in time (well sorta) to Shannon's beating of the drum and the chanting "blog, blog, blog...". It was fun, a nice diversion to the weekend and a great way to meet new people that can only enrich our lives in the deal. Can't wait till next year to do this again!

final tidbit...these pics were all taken with the trusty old che-ez snap in all its glorious .3 megapixels!

The Black Hills....and they were pretty green

Some more from the road trip as promised. We got to spend 2 days in the Black Hills National Forest in Southwestern South Dakota. I'm not sure how they got their name, probably because from a distance and approaching from the east they look Black. Likely due to the dense green pine forests contrasting with the amber waves of grain on the plains below. Just a WAG on my part but you never know.

Regardless the area is really pretty if you are into tall trees, lots of green and mans attempt to carve humongous statues out of mountains. The latter are actually quite impressive and more so when you understand their purpose like I blogged here and here.

All of these images were shot with HDR in mind. I hand held as it was just too hot and laborious to trek the trails with even a light tripod. They were all done RAW, EV was varied +/- 2 stops, merged and converted to HDR with Photomatix. Then they were adjusted further with Photoshop CS2 and further refined with the Virtual Photographer plug in.

Running down the impressionist path.....

"Moon over the Missouri" Pierre, SD

"Moonrise at the docks" Pierre, SD

I had some fun with these images. Big discovery today was that very long time exposures with digital media makes incredible noise. Along the lines of many, many multicolored dots, dashes and crosshatches all over the image much like the color shifts and accentuated grain you get with silver film when you "push" it. (Pushing is a technique where you expose the film at a speed higher than it is rated then increase the development time and temperature to push the film to that new speed).

Another interesting phenom that I was prepared for was that the movement of the moon due to mutha earth's rotation would cause shifts in the position of the moon in the sky when you shoot long exposures. It even got funkier when I shot with HDR in mind as I wound up getting 3 images of the moon in the sky. At least the clone stamp was able to get rid of the extra moons for these images. Another time around I just may let them stay and make them a centerpiece but that's more than my tired brain is ready to handle at the moment.

These images were shot shortly after sunset as the moon was rising at Farm Island State Park in Pierre, South Dakota. I had the camera mounted on a tripod as the exposures ranged from 2 seconds all the way to 30 seconds in the bracketing +/- 2 stops from average exposure. I used Photomatix to merge the 3 raw files to create the HDR file. From there they were denoised, cloned and whatever else needed in Photoshop and converted to 8bit jpeg for here. (Pesky details but out there some geeky type like me likes that info).

Enjoy my little foray into the surreal from the real this morning!

Late afternoon shadows add drama....

"Campers and Clouds", Laramie, WY

"Dead Caddy", Beaver, Utah

"Country Living Estates", Beaver Utah

The long shadows, warm highlights and cool shadows of later afternoon and evening sun add their own drama to a scene. The shadows and highlights quickly get out of range for what your recording media can handle, whether it be digital or analog aka silver based.

Those of us venturing into the digital realm have a nifty tool that I've blathered on here quite a bit to help tame the demons of shadow and highlight detail. High Dynamic Range photography is the tool, a bit time consuming on the post processing end but with the range of tools available you can produce some really nice results. Today I stayed with the realists when working on this set of images. All of these were post processed from their raw state with Photomatix into HDR files that were then fine tuned in Photoshop CS2 and Virtual Photographer.

They paint Buffalo don't they?

A road trip always has some interesting things to see. In West Yellowstone Montana we ran across a really fun and interesting public art project similar to the Angels in Los Angeles a few years ago. The fun twist is that its all Painted Buffalo keeping in character with the area. This is only a few of the 25 Buffalo planted around the city. Visually stimulating and very diverse. Read more about them at "Where the Painted Buffalo Roam".

Happy 4th of July!!!

I got to visit Mount Rushmore a couple of times during our stay in the Black Hills National Forest in South Dakota.

Interesting place, quite stunning, but a bit of a disappointment too. This was my first visit and some preset ideas and expectations. I can still remember reading about it in my Weekly Reader in elementary school and somehow thought it should be so much bigger. Maybe its those pics on the ashtray souvenir's that my grandmother who was born near there had that set it in my mind they would be so much bigger. Whatever its still pretty cool to see in person.

Anyway, I learned a lot about them during these visits and walking the various trails around the monument. Impressive for what they are. Moving to understand why each president was chosen (am too lazy to type so google Mt Rushmore and get to the National Forest Service's explanation and history for all those details).

I shot several different images of the monument bracketing for HDR. When I get back to a real pc I'll work them through. In the mean time enjoy the images and think about what each of these presidents contributed to our country's growth. Quite an appropriate moment of silence as you prepare to celebrate our nations Independence and freedoms.

Just a little flower not bigger than a quarter. Don't know its name. Just know that its a native prairie wild flower. I found it growing along the bike path near out campsite in Valentine Nebraska.

I applaud the Sioux....Crazy Horse is amazing

On the road trip we stopped in the Black Hills to explore a bit. Among the stops was the Crazy Horse Memorial. (Sorry for the lack of links but....wifi just blows, slow and takes forever to get much done).

The Memorial is part of a huge North American Indian Heritage site that will eventually include a university and medical school that will fill many acres at the base of the mountain where the statute is being carved out of the mountain.

The Sioux deserve a lot of credit in this. They had the idea some 55 years ago to build a monument to preserve the heritage and culture and move forward. They have been offered Federal and State money in the past to get the statute done faster but turned it down as they want to do it themselves. They rely on private and corporate donations to move this forward.

While at the visitors center I asked if the other tribes, especially those with gambling income have been contributing. I pointed out that I know from experience that the Pechanga children get 10 grand a month each and wanted to know if the Pechanga and Pala tribes have contributed. The answer I got was that no, the money is mostly coming from the Indian Nations in the Plains States so far and little of it comes from gaming revenue. I asked if they have approached the tribes raking in the gambling revenue to help build this North American Indian Heritage Center and he said there had been discussions and went on to tend to a customer looking a some paintings. So...I don't know if the gaming rich tribes are helping or not, or even if asked but it seems to me that such a noble cause to preserve their culture they should be all over that project.

Anyway, I have a few more things to post before its all over here. I do have a fairly decent wifi this morning and none of the local activities start until later today so I'll try to get it done....

Until then, Happy July 4th from Sheridan Wyoming!

The Desert in full living color

Desert Heather aka Mexican Heather
Mexican Bird of Paradise
Desert Primrose

And there you go some color from out of my Ma's front yard. All desert native landscaping which is totally appropriate and water friendly for a water starved city like Las Vegas.