There is no shortage of barns, old and new, around SE Oregon. Here is just one of the more unique ones. This the first HDR image I have processed using Photomatix Pro 4 Beta – I am really pleased with the look.

Just looking for some tranquility as we road trip along. We found these rocks stacked in a river during a walk around a campground. The next morning, light reflected off of the nearby foliage created beautiful colors on the water surface. A 4 second exposure added to the tranquil feeling.

Time for my wife and I to hit the road, relax and have fun together. Will I be shooting? What do you think? Will I be blogging – probably not much. I don’t expect a lot of internet or even phone access where we are headed – but then I am always surprised by what is available in the middle of what appears to be no where.

Blog image: Just a simple shot on the Wilson River about 20min from my home. Feels a bit appropriate as we head out down the road.

Why blog? This is a  good question to ask yourself every now and then – if you write a blog. I am reading David duChemin’s latest book, “VisionMongers – Making a Life and Living in Photography” and somewhere in the middle chapters of the book he talks about blogging. His discussion got me thinking about my blog and how I may have drifted over time away from my original intent. It has been awhile since I really just talked from the heart and gut about my pursuit of photography. I tend to be a bit of a private person, so opening up and sharing what is going on inside and expressing my heartfelt thoughts in a blog isn’t a totally natural thing for me. I think it is for David duChemin (if you haven’t read any of his books, I highly recommend them).

Open sharing is really the basis for any real relationship and a blog can be one way we relate to others.  I have shared at that level at times (if you have been reading along for the past 20+ months you probably know that) but it hasn’t been as consistent as I would like. It is my goal to do more of that level of sharing as I go forward. Feel free to interact and participate in the dialog if you like.

So what do I see this blog being about? For now I see three primary purposes.

1. To relate – Share experiences that might just let you know you are not alone in some of the things you go through or feel as a photographer.
2. To teach – Share useful concepts, techniques or methods. My new screencast videos fall into this category.
3. To inspire -Continue to share new images that might provide inspiration or vision to you as a photographer.

Blog image: Don’t let the rain keep you from shooting. I shot this image through my rain coated windshield (thanks to my wife’s suggestion). It was then double processed through Photomatix Pro even though it was a single image. Should make for a good screen cast some day.

I have added a link to David duChemin’s blog on my list of favorites.

I decided to go ahead and re-process the same barn image used in the first tutorial but with Adobe’s Lightroom 3. As with most post processing there is more than one way to achieve a desired result. The final image should come from your vision – the tools are just a means to get there. These two video tutorials allow you to compare different ways of performing B&W conversion and basic image tonal adjustments to reach a common vision. To see the video, you can click here or on the image above.

The image below is the one processed before using Silver Efx Pro. It is linked to the first video.

Feel free to give me any feedback.

As I promised in my previous blogs I have created my first video tutorial. It demonstrates the conversion of a color HDR image into an HDR Black and White image using Nik Software’s Silver Efx Pro plus a bit of Color Efx Pro. Note that the video is HD so when you go to the Vimeo sight right click on the video and select full screen. in the popup menu.

Click here to go to the video tutorial

It isn’t perfect, but hopefully you will find it useful. Please feel free to leave me feedback – it will help me produce better videos as time goes on.