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My Top 12 Images Of 2016

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Incubation XV

Antarctica CXCII

Antarctica CXCII

Antarctica CXCIV

Antarctica CXCIV

Antarctica CXCV

Antarctica CXCV

Revelation XXIX

Revelation XXIX

Revelation XXXIX

Revelation XXXIX

Revelation XXIV

Revelation XXIV

Revelation XXXVI

Revelation XXXVI

Revelation XXVI

Revelation XXVI

Revelation XXVIII

Revelation XXVIII

Revelation XXXVII

Revelation XXXVII

Revelation XXXVIII

Revelation XXXVIII

This is a selection of my top 12 images of 2016. This selection doesn’t reflect sales, publication, or activities on the web. It simply reflects my opinion. Click on the titles to find out more about each image.

Geography

While I visited most of the biomes in one year (all seven continents in 18 months), the images I released were drawn primarily from the artic and antarctic regions.

Process

Straight images from Antarctica were processed on location, mostly in Lightroom. Composite images were created in studio, mostly in Photoshop after launching from Lightroom. I date “straight” shots based on the date they were exposed and composites on the date they are completed.

Concepts

I focussed on a long-standing theme, creating symmetries drawn from the land to better reveal the spirit within. The final resolution has prompted me to remaster many related files made in 1996. I released multiple related series of studies, including a series of digitally rendered inkblots.

Magnificent Moment

There was big magic in 2016! In Antarctica there were moments of extreme quietude amid the lifting fogs at Black Head and the glassy reflections in Antarctica’s Plenneau Bay. We experienced the epically varied lands of New Zealand; in one day we moved from a waterfall strewn fiord, through a rainforest, up to a high arid plateau, and finally to the base of a glacier. Sublime light filled hours and hours, as we flew helicopters over Namibia’s Sossusvlei dune fields, which roll out to the Skeleton Coast. All of these adventures were long-held dreams come true.

It’s challenging to choose so few images from so many – but it’s insightful. Try selecting your own top 12 images. Try selecting the top 12 images of your favorite artist(s).

View more of my Annual Top 12 Selections here.

View more images in my ebooks here.

View my full Works here.

View my Series videos here.

View new images in my newsletter Collectors Alert.

A Checklist OF Things To Look For In Prints

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When you’re evaluating print quality, knowing what to look for is almost as important as knowing how to achieve it. Many technical factors contribute to print quality. Here’s a list of things to look for when you’re evaluating print quality – yours and others’.
It’s not that every one of these factors has to be optimal to achieve great print quality. It is that every factor you optimize enhances print quality further.
Well Focused
No Motion Blur
No Sharpening Artifacts
Extended Depth Of Field
Extended Dynamic Range
Appropriate Lightness
Highlight Detail / Separation In Values
Shadow Detail / Separation In Values
Mid-tone Contrast
Gradation
No Posterization
Low Noise
No Noise Reduction Artifacts
 
Believable Color … or … Color Transformed With Intent
Color Without Artificial Color Casts
Variation In Single Colors
Saturated Color
 
Appropriate Materials
Appropriate Scale
Appropriate Presentation Materials
Appropriate Contextualization
Appropriate Price
So what’s ‘appropriate’? That all depends on the statement being made. The real question is, “What is the artist trying to do? And how well did they achieve that?” You can successfully break the rules if you break them for a reason.

My 12 Best Selling Images

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Oriens

1

Oriens, 1999

Selva Obscura VI

2

Selva Obscura VI, 2002

Oriental II

3

Oriental II, 2000

Correspondence - Nocturne - XII

4

Correspondence XII – Nocturne, 1999

Reflection I Adagio

5

Reflection I – Adagio, 1999

Condensation II - Prelude

6

Condensation II – Prelude, 2001

Correspondence - Sonata in Blue -III

7

Correspondence III – Sonata in Blue, 1999

Refraction X

8

Refraction X, 2002

Exhalation I

9

Exhalation I, 1996

Resonance in Red and Gold IB

10

Resonance IB – in Red and Gold, 2000

Resonance in Blue and Gold IA

11

Resonance IA – in Blue and Gold, 2000

Wake I

12

Wake I, 2004

Enjoy this collection of my twelve best-selling images.

Click on the links to find their current prices.

Find out more about my editions here.

Find out about new releases here.

17 Top Printing Tips For Making Great Fine Art Prints

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There’s no mystery to what it takes to make great prints. There are just many things to consider before making them and many steps to take while making them. Set clear objectives, map the process out clearly, master the skills in each step (or collaborate with people who have mastered specific skills) and you too will be able to produce great prints.
Here’ an overview of what it takes.


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7 HDR Artifacts And How To Avoid Or Cure Them

Technique - HDR  Comment
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Different HDR renderings accentuate different artifacts

HDR (high dynamic range) imaging captures extreme contrast ratios and subsequently renders them for LDR (low dynamic range) devices, monitors and / or prints. The very things that make HDR renderings appear natural can make them appear unnatural if taken too far.

Midtone compression
You can’t avoid midtone compression, they get caught in the middle when the relationships between highlights and shadows are compressed. But you can take steps to minimize it by being sensitive to this when choosing compression settings and amounts and by taking subsequent steps to expand it.

Tonal inversions
Some compression routines and settings can be so aggressive that they create inversions or solarizations of specific tonal relationships. Avoid this, there is no subsequent cure. If you like the overall effect of an aggressive setting and the inversion is contained to one area of an image you can render an image twice, once for the overall effect and once for a specific area, and then blend the two together using Photoshop’s layers and masks. 

Saturation Distortions
Saturation changes when lightness shifts but color stays the same. Because HDR produces effects that can be aggressive and localized to specific set of tones, the saturation shifts that accompany tonal compression often appear unnatural. Selectively adjusting the saturation of specific hues, with tools like the HSL panel in Lightroom or Camera Raw, can often convincingly cure a majority of these side effects and hide the rest.

Halos
HDR softwares help restore midtone contrast by accentuating contours. When used aggressively this edge contrast can produce halos.
Over the years, these algorithms have dramatically improved their ability to treat the halo (light line) separately from the line (dark line), suppressing the first more than the second. Sometimes, to avoid distracting halos at the border of skies, you may want to make a second rendering for the sky and blend it with another rendering using Photoshop’s layers.


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