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New NIK’s HDR Efex Pro 2 – Save 15%

Software  Comment
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NIK recently announced a new version of their exceptional software for HDR imaging – NIK’s HDR Efex Pro 2. It’s the HDR solution with the best visual interface, one that helps you compare your options at a single glance.
Use the code JPCNIK to get a 15% discount on all NIK software
NAPP’s RC Concepcion (Check out his HDR book here.) demonstrates the latest version in this video.

New features include …
Improved Tone Mapping Engine – Develop superior results with better color rendering and improved natural styles
Interface, Interaction, and Workflow – Benefit from improvements to the merging interface, tone mapping and enhancement controls, visual presets, and more
Depth Control – Enjoy added depth and realism in images with the new and proprietary Depth control, which helps counteract the flattened look commonly associated with HDR images
Full GPU Processing and Multi-Core Optimization – Gain even faster performance with GPU processing that takes full advantage of the processors found on modern display adapters
Ghost Reduction – Improved ghost reduction algorithm ensures that artifacts created by moving objects are removed with a single click
Chromatic Aberration Reduction – Reduce color fringes around objects
Graduated Neutral Density Control – Access the full 32-bit depth of the merged image, providing a natural effect especially on images with a strong horizon line
Full White Balance Control – Take full advantage of the white balance in an image with a new Tint slider, which along with the Temperature slider, can be applied both globally as well as selectively using U Point technology
History Browser – Easily review adjustments and different HDR looks via the History Browser which records every enhancement used in an editing session
Extended Language Support – International users benefit by the addition of Brazilian Portuguese and Chinese (Simplified and Traditional) to a list of languages that includes English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, and Japanese
Find out about even more features here.
Learn more in my digital photography and digital printing workshops.

Adam Fuss – Visible Traces

My Influences, My Influences - Photographic  Comment
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Adam Fuss’ photograms encourage you to think about photography, in different ways and much more broadly. His life-sized camera-less photograms represent one man’s attempt to work with, explore, and see subjects, media, and perception more directly. By making camera-less images, Fuss eliminates many distortions inherent in optical systems that employ lenses.

The turning point in Adam Fuss’ work came when he accidentally processed a piece of film that recorded only a grain of dust and its shadow. He had the sensitivity to see something extraordinary in this ordinary moment. Since then, he’s explored many ways of making photograms, including producing images from the chemical reactions created by photosensitive materials coming in contact with viscera and decaying objects.

Fuss’ photograms highlight the idea of the photograph as a trace made by light that has come in direct contact with the thing recorded. Fuss takes this one step further in his photograms, as the objects, not just the light reflected from them, literally make contact with the recording device, which becomes the final art object. Akin to abstract painting, the thing made represents itself more than the subject.

In Fuss’ work, the absence of light reveals as much or more as the presence of light, reversing our conventional expectations of photographs (‘light drawings). This is more than just ironic – it’s insightful.
Like Plato’s The Allegory Of The Cave, where men raised in a cave are bound in such a way that they only see shadows and mistake them for the real things not just reflections of reality, Fuss’ photograms ask us to consider the limited nature of our perceptions and not to confuse the recordings we make with the things themselves.

Read my extended conversation with Adam Fuss here.
Find out more about my influences here.

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Green Action – Clean Your Beach

Environment - Green Actions  Comment
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Be more green!
You can make a difference today!
Make many small changes to make one big change!
And you’ll save a lot!
Take action now!
Here’s one idea.
Clean your Beach! 
It’s summer here in Maine and the temperatures are rising.  Like anywhere else in the world when it gets warm – we head toward the water.  Be it an ocean beach, a river bank or a lakeside retreat we grab our snacks, beverage bottles, and towels and head toward the cool embrace of our local watering hole.
With approximately 80% of the worldwide population living near water, that translates into millions of tons of bottles and snack wrappers ending up on the worlds beaches.
We all know the importance of clean water, but more often than not, the full weight of this responsibility seems unfathomable.  Lets look at some numbers…  The total length of the worlds coastline is estimated to be close to  217,490 miles, or to put it visually, roughly equal to the distance from the Earth to the Moon.  The United States alone has more than 250,000 rivers equaling to 3.5 million miles of shoreline.  These numbers can become overwhelming in terms of tonnage and clean up.
But it can be done.
On September 15 for the last 26 years, the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup has held a volunteer clean up day for ocean and waterway health.  Each year these indefatigable volunteers not only scour our shores and waterfronts but additionally keep a running total of each specific type of item collected.
During the 25th anniversary Cleanup on September 15, 2010 nearly half a million volunteers combed the shorelines around the world to collect a total of 9,843,121 items of debris.  Some numbers are overwhelming…  980,067 plastic bags; 75,168 balloons; 1,094,921 plastic beverage bottles; and 1,892,526 cigarettes or filters are amongst a myriad of other refuse from vacuums to baby bottles, and washing machines.
What can you do?
Start with leaving the beach in better condition than it was when got there.  Leave no trace that you have been there, take all your garbage, any neighboring debris and your belongings with you.
Volunteer to clean up your local beach and get your friends and relatives involved.  Many local communities ask for help with clearing debris.
Don’t feed the birds!  The more food they receive means the more they hang out on the beach which increases the amount of bird droppings on the beach.
Don’t leave debris near storm drains.  Most of these drains run directly into the waterways without any filtration. After taking a swim in the nearest waterway these debris will most likely end up on the beach.
So grab those snacks and beverages and remember to clean up your area after you enjoy the cool clean water!
See you at the beach this summer!
Find more resources that will help you take action now here.
Find environmental organizations to support here.

Why I Can't Wait For My Crossing The Antarctic Circle 2013 Workshop

Destination - Antarctica, Workshop  Comment
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People keep asking Seth Resnick and I why we keep returning to Antarctica.
We’ve made four trips and every trip was different. We visit new locations; there are over 40 locations cruises land at and with each visit we get to visit an average of 12. The ice conditions are always different; one month can make a big difference. Surprisingly, the thing that we’ve found makes the biggest difference is the weather, which affects the light dramatically. We saw riotous colors during four hour long sunsets on our 2005 Peninsula trip and “nights” where the sun only skims the horizon but never truly sets south of the Antarctic circle in 2009. Every time we go, we keep wondering how much more could there be to see and how different could the conditions be and every time we’re surprised that we discover so much more and that locations we know look so different. Each voyage has had an entirely unique character.
The two most sublime landscape experiences I’ve ever had were at Sossusvlei, Namibia and in Antarctica’s The Gullet. The Gullet was the remotest, purest, whitest experience I’ve ever had. It felt like being in a frozen heaven. Quietly cruising on mirror calm waters through the dramatic mountains of Crystal Bay to find the narrow channel through The Gullet (like seeing clouds cascade off high peaks to touch the water and be frozen in place) and through to Margueritte Bay lit up by endless hours of midnight color was one of the most beautiful 24 hours of my life. Many of us didn’t sleep that ‘night’ because we didn’t want to miss anything. We knew while we were there that few people on earth had ever had an experience similar to the one we were having.”
See more images from Antarctica’s The Gullet here.
There are still a few spaces available in our Antarctica 2013 workshop.
Email me at jpc@digitalphotodestinations if you’d like to join us.

Why Drawing Is So Important To Me

Drawing, Images - Studies  Comment
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I love to draw. I began drawing before I could speak. I’ve never stopped. It took me decades to learn to draw the way I wanted to. I spend less time drawing than I used to, now I rarely draw to produce finished results, but hardly a day goes by when I don’t draw, to record or refine ideas.

Drawing is a way to understanding. There’s a difference between knowing things mechanically (with a camera) in 1/125th of a second and knowing it manually (with a pencil, pen, or brush) over the space of hours or even days. Both ways can inform one another.

People often ask me, “Do you draw before, during, or after I photograph?” I respond, “Yes.” There are different benefits to drawing at every stage in the process of creation.

I sometimes draw before arriving at a location to structure my visual explorations. I sometimes draw while on-site, to record ideas that cannot be photographed. I sometimes draw after visiting a location, from unfinished photographs made there, to identify the many ways they can be combined with other photographs. I sometimes draw on finished photographs to identify patterns of thinking and ways to develop them further.

There are many reasons to draw and many ways of drawing.

I take the definition of photo-graph literally – light-drawing. For me, photography is one more way to draw.

 

The Newly Redesigned Crop Tool In Photoshop CS6 – Julianne Kost

Video - Adobe Photoshop  Comment
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“There are several advantages to the newly redesigned Crop tool in Photoshop CS6. In this video tutorial, Julieanne demonstrates the refined interface, new features, customizable presets, enhanced tools and essential shortcuts that will make cropping easier than ever.”
Plus find Julianne’s list of crop tool short cuts here.
View more Photoshop videos here.
Learn more in my digital photography and digital printing workshops.

Walter Chapelle – More Than Material

My Influences  Comment
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Walter Chapelle’s Metaflora series is the kind of photography that fascinates me most. Rather than portraying things as we see them, it uses photography to extend our senses, providing new windows into the universe.

Chapelle uses Kirlian photography to look deeply into the world of plants. Kirlian photography (named after the Russian inventor Semyon Kirlian) is a form of camera-less form of photography, akin to a photogram, that records the effects of high voltages of electricity applied to objects in contact with light-sensitive material. An electric current separates the electrons from atoms and objects become ionized and glow, albeit faintly. Typically, nothing is seen by the observer during exposure, but an image appears when developed. The size and shape of the energy field are related to the amount of water, a prerequisite for life, in the object as well as the surrounding atmosphere. Plantlife loses moisture after it is harvested so the length of time between picking and exposure affects the intensity of the effect. Electromagnetic radiation penetrates beyond the typically opaque surfaces revealed by reflected light, itself one manifestation of a broader spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, and renders both the interiors and the immediate exteriors surrounding objects.

This glimpse into the invisible electro-magnetic fields that surround all objects, including our own bodies, generates visual effects that are reminiscent of the age-old idea of auras or the spiritual bodies of living things. Part science and part poetry, Chapelle uses this unusual perspective to speak metaphorically about seeing into the hidden dimensions of ourselves.

Find out more about my influences here.


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