Crazy Horst’s aerial extravaganza

Crazy Horst attaches a helmet cam to an RC aircraft and captures some breathtaking video. He shoots beautiful locations, executes daring aerial maneuvers, and has a good sense of humor. Here are a couple of my favs:

Flash photo seminar at B&H

Neil van Niekerk is a guru on the subject of flash photography. Neil has a very extensive website with lots of tips & tricks.

This is a two-hour seminar Neil gave at B&H Photo in NYC.

Slow Synch flash

Steve Tavelaris of the Agean Duo was kind enough to let me shoot some photos of him playing at the St. Sophias Greek Festival in Syracuse. I was using slow synch flash (2nd curtain) to try to capture the speed of his playing. I think this one turned out best. 1/8th second at f/11.

last man in Alcatraz

 An old photo of a cell block at Alcatraz (taken March, 2008).

I decided to play with the light and add a semi-transparent silhouette in Photoshop. I like the result.

land of the free

 I shot some photos adjacent to Auburn Corr. Facility today, and was repeatedly harassed by Corr. Officers making it clear that they didn’t like what I was doing. One watched me through binoculars, another heckled me from a guard tower, and a third discouraged me from a passing car. I had every right to be there and was doing nothing wrong.

I was surprised at how aggressive they were. Surprised enough to do some research. For some tips on photographers and the law, look here and here.

The media guidelines of the NYS Dept. of Corrections says this about photographs: “3. Photographs taken while physically standing on any Department property require the prior permission of the PIO. Violators risk the confiscation of their exposed film or deletion of the images in question from their digital camera(s). 4. The Department has no authority over the making of pictures or sound recordings of its property when the media is physically standing off Departmental property.” I was on a public sidewalk.

looking forward to returning to Spain

Learning Lightroom 4

I now use Adobe Lightroom as my go-to software for raw conversion, printing, and keeping track of my photo library (almost 30,000 images and growing). Lightroom underwent a major overhaul in the transition from version 3 to version 4, with the primary controls for tonality all changed in significant ways. So training up a little on how best to use the new controls is in order.

I have found George Jardine’s video tutorials extraordinarily helpful, and recommend them enthusiastically. George’s instruction is comprehensive (over 5 hours of instruction in this video series), aimed directly at photographers, and avoids the pitfalls of technical discussion for its own sake on the one hand, and uninstructive casual chit-chat on the other.

For those who prefer a short and sweet approach, this article on optimizing exposure using LR4 by Charles Cramer may be helpful.