In my search for tranquility on a recent road trip, I found some at Bandon beach (Oregon) on a quiet morning before sunrise. Shooting on this highly photogenic beach you can feel a bit of pressure to create something totally new (hard to do at a place so photographed). I shot one sunset session a couple nights before in which I just got my feet wet (figuratively and physically) and found compositions weren’t flowing all that readily – at least not ones that intrigued me. I found the morning light much more to my taste.

The blog image is just one from that morning.

Today I was introduced to the work of  a young (19 old)  photographer, Evan Sharboneau. He has a different and creative approach to photography. If you need to be inspired by some very unique images take a look at his work on the web. It can be found in multiple places: http://www.redbubble.com/people/thevlue, blog at  http://www.photoextremist.com and http://www.vlue.deviantART.com.

His work will just give you a taste of some of the radical things that can be done with all the tools available to the young photographer in the digital age. Just imagine the images that will be produced by the next generation of photographers.

Blog image: One of Evan’s images. See his blogs to see how it was made.

I thought I would share the good news that I have been awarded  an exhibit next year at the Glenn & Viola Walters Cultural Arts Center. This was a situation where my work was competing against art from many disciplines so I am very pleased. If you are in the area (Hillsboro Oregon), my work will be on exhibit all of June 2011. There will be two bodies of work on exhibit: Floral Fusions and Seasonal Immersions.

So how do I feel about it? This will be my first formal exhibit so I am grateful for the opportunity, excited and nervous. There will be a lot of work to do – I have been awarded the whole lower floor (20-30 prints needed). I will need to finalize my selections, print, matte and frame them. If things go well, hopefully there will be a couple of prints sold.

The blog images are samples from Floral Fusions and Seasonal Immersions respectively.

One of the keys to finding good compositions is footwork. Using the zoom alone doesn’t cut it. Not fancy footwork, but just plain walking side to side, backward and forward, etc.  But when you are in the sand dunes, that footwork can be hard work. That was the case as I was shooting at the Oregon National Dunes last week.

The blog images illustrate one other thing. When shooting dunes, white balance can make a lot of difference. Even when shooting in the late afternoon with a warm sun, if you have a blue sky you can shift blue. I find that I like some images better warm and other with the cool blue shadows. Do you have a preference?

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.