I have been shooting from that exact same location in all types of weather and in all seasons for a number of years and over time I realized that what started out as a casual photograph, had become a few photographs, then many photographs, and now an exhibit.

For the last ten years, I have viewed the same scene every day of the week, every month of the year, and in every season – over 3500 times. It wasn’t until three years ago that I realized what I casually ignored was special. Although it had been previously viewed without stopping to really notice, think about, or appreciate it, when I slowed down and observed the beauty of this changing tableau, I was amazed at what I saw.

Stand in the exact same spot, day after day and observe the world in front of you as time passes. You will see changes far greater than imagined. This is what I did with my camera. What had been just the view from my window became a world unto itself, with its own beauty, mystery and constantly changing moods and feelings.

In music, many compositions include “variations on a theme,” where the composer writes the “theme” and then provides numerous variations. In this exhibit, nature has provided the theme and through the passage of time we have been presented with the innumerable variations that have truly transformed the “ordinary” to “extraordinary.”

The sheer joy of getting up each morning and wondering what I would experience and if I would be moved was the motivation to begin the journey of this project. And it continues today.

Details of the exhibit can be found here. Note that the Opening Reception is this Sunday, May 13th, from 2pm – 4pm.

Further information can be found at Info and Signup.

Fairy Circles Seen from the Ground

There have been many theories about the origin of the fairy circles, but there is still no generally accepted explanation for their existence. The theories range from some form of termite infestation to Meenoplidea bugs to meteor showers to euphorbia poisoning. The oral myths of the Himba people suggest that the fairy circles were caused by the gods and spirits.

Seen from the ground, the fairy circles look interesting, but were not remarkable (see photograph above). It was on our flight from Sesriem to Windhoek in a small 5-seat Cessna that I realized how incredible and prevelant the fairy circles were. As seen in the photographs below, the fairy circles were everywhere!

Fairy Circles from 5000 feet

When I returned home I Googled “fairy circles” and learned little more than our guide told us. Of course, an enterprising initiative enables you to “adopt-a-fairy-circle,” with the proceeds going to the NamibRand Conservation Foundation.
I had heard of crop circles, but not fairy circles!

More Fairy Circles

From innovator to litigator. That about sums up the last 132 years for Eastman Kodak (EK). Had it not been for Kodak, it is unlikely I would have developed (pun intended) an interest in photography, and I’m sure that’s the case for millions and millions of us. Harvard case studies have been written about Kodak, and I’m sure there will be many more books detailing the rise and fall of this formally mighty company. Was it the inability to acknowledge that many of your company’s own innovations might totally cannibalize your bread and butter business? Some people argue that EK simply was afraid to decimate their film business, so they never aggressively moved into, and marketed digital. Was it the inability to appreciate the incredible pace of change and how quickly consumers will accept and embrace something they didn’t even know existed just a few years earlier? Or was it simply that innovators must continue to push the envelope and anticipate what the consumer will want, long before the consumer even knows that it’s a possibility. Think Steve Jobs and Apple. As companies get big and bigger, it becomes increasingly difficult to accelerate the pace of innovation and creativity, especially for a 130 year old company.

In the 60′s, Kodak survived and prospered in spite of Polaroid’s innovations and meteoric rise. From carbon paper to word processors to fax machines to computers to the Internet to cell phone cameras to social media. The pace of change just gets faster and faster, and the price of innovative products gets cheaper with features unheard of just a few years ago. Will standalone consumer cameras disappear as cellphone cameras get better and better? Will Kodak be able to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization to become a viable company again? Only time will tell. But a former manufacturing company is in trouble – big trouble, when the major source of revenues is from suing others over their intellectual property and patents.

Eastman Kodak WAS photography for most of our lives. In the digital world they helped create, they were a victim of their own innovations. Once again, those critical inflection points are either understood, anticipated and adjusted to (think, Amazon.com, landline phones, newspaper and book publishing in today’s digital world, gasoline powered cars, the buggy whip, etc.), or the world of opportunities quickly disappears. Very quickly.

If you treasure memories; if photographs help you link the past to the present; if you want to record and hold onto precious moments, then you’ll enjoy this beautifully conceived and executed Kodak advertisement. It probably sums up better than anything I can think of, the ways in which Eastman Kodak has impacted each and every one of our lives, and will continue to, even with the non-Kodak digital cameras that we all use today.

Important dates in the history of Eastman Kodak (source – Wikipedia):

1880: George Eastman begins the commercial manufacture of dry plates
1881: Eastman and businessman Henry A. Strong form a partnership called the Eastman Dry Plate Company
1884: The Eastman-Strong partnership was dissolved and the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company formed with 14 shareholders
1885: George Eastman invented roll film, the basis for the invention of motion picture film, as used by early filmmakers and Thomas Edison
1888: Eastman registered the trademark Kodak
1888: The first Kodak camera appeared, taking round, 2.5″ pictures, with a fixed focus lens, and having a roll of film for 100 exposures
1889: The Eastman Company was formed
1892: Renamed the Eastman Kodak Company in 1892 with the advertising slogan, “You press the button, we do the rest.”
1895: The first pocket Kodak camera, the $5 Pocket Kodak, was introduced
1897: The first folding pocket Kodak camera was introduced
1900: The Brownie camera was introduced, creating a new mass market for photography
1930: Eastman Kodak was added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average index
1935: Kodak introduced Kodachrome, the first 35mm color film
1975: Steven Sasson, then an electrical engineer at Kodak, invented the digital camera
1976: The Bayer Pattern color filter array (CFA) was invented by Eastman Kodak researcher Bryce Bayer
1976: The company sold 90% of the photographic film in the US along with 85% of the cameras
1986: Kodak scientists create the world’s first megapixel sensor, capable of recording 1.4 million pixels
1994: Eastman Chemical, a Kodak subsidiary founded in 1920 to supply Kodak’s chemical needs, spun off as a separate corporation
2003: Kodak introduces the Kodak EasyShare LS633 Digital Camera, the world’s first digital camera to feature a full-color, active-matrix organic light-emitting diode display, and the Kodak EasyShare Printer Dock 6000, the world’s first printer-and-camera dock combination
2004: Kodak announced that it would stop selling traditional film cameras in Europe and North America, and cut up to 15,000 jobs
2004: Kodak de-listed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average index, after 74 consecutive years
2006: Kodak divests consumer digital camera manufacturing and distribution to Flextronics, who continues to use Kodak name for these products
2006: Kodak keeps high-level digital camera design in house, continuing r&d in digital still cameras, and retains all intellectual property and patents
2007: Kodak announces a 2-4x increase in light sensitivity to compared to current sensor designs
2007: Kodak announces cross-licensing agreement with Chi Mei Optoelectronics for the use of Kodak technology for active matrix OLED modules
2009: Kodak posts a $137 million fourth-quarter loss and announced plans to cut up to 4,500 jobs
2009: Kodak announces it will cease selling Kodachrome color film ending 74 years of production, after a dramatic decline in sales
2009: Kodak aggressively pursues patent litigation to generate revenues
2010: Standard & Poor’s removes Kodak from its S&P 500 index
2011: Kodak hires law firm for restructuring advice and its stock dropped to an all-time low of $0.54 a share
2012: January 8, 2012, Kodak announces major restructuring into two main divisions, one focused on products and services for businesses, and the other on consumer products including digital cameras
2012: January 19, 2012: Kodak files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection (reorganization) and obtains $950 million credit facility
The Future: ?????

CS6 is expected to be released in the first half of 2012. Adobe’s “new” “new” upgrade policy will enable CS3 and CS4 users (NOT CS2 or earlier) to upgrade to CS6 (presumably at an attractive upgrade price) until 12/31/12. CS5 and CS5.5 weren’t mentioned, but it is understood that ownership of those versions automatically qualifies for upgrade pricing to CS6.

Above is a photograph of the ruins of the Old Sheldon Church, about 17 miles north of Beaufort, South Carolina. Built in the mid-1700′s, the church was burned by the British during the Revolutionary War in 1779. Why is Old Sheldon Church among my 2011 favorites? Probably because of the mood and sense of emptiness that the old ruins conveyed to me. I have many photographs of intimate details of the church, but this wide-angle shot, taken with an infrared converted camera, captured what I saw and felt. For me, key elements of this image that help make it one of my favorites, are the dark tree limbs and tree trunk on the right side of the frame, the dark shadow along the ground in the foreground, the mighty columns that still remain, and the infrared interpretation of the sky and leaves. This photograph is hanging in my studio and although I have looked at it thousands of times, I continue to enjoy it.

The Arthur Ravenal Bridge connects Charleston with Mt. Pleasant, S.C. and this image was taken at sunset. In processing this image, I struggled to decide whether I liked it best as a color or monochromatic image. Because what I liked about this image was its simplicity and the architectural beauty of the structure, I decided on black and white. This image and the bridge are all about triangles, some that are complete, and others that are implied. Did you notice the many triangles of the supporting cables? I find a soothing rhythm in the repetition of the shapes and lines, and even slight arch of the roadway, which gives a sense of motion. The empty sky completes the image. Clouds would have competed; here the bridge stands on it’s own.

Botany Bay Beach is on Edisto Island in South Carolina. The two dead trees in this image are, depending on the time of day and the tides, either along the beach or in the water. This particular photograph was captured just before sunrise after carefully checking tide tables and sunrise times. This scene was also about the mood and feeling of the place, so I decided to use a 30 second exposure which made the water appear milky and serene. The color repetition from the horizon to the reflection on the shoreline helps tie the elements together. The slightly lighter band in the water, where small waves accumulated, helped to break the monotony of the dark water. Like many of my images, this one is simple, with just a few key players and a supporting cast of the light, rocks and debris on the shoreline, completing the staging of this beautiful sunrise.

Conventional wisdom, and an old photography axiom says that you don’t make photographs of other peoples’ art. Well, what about photographing architecture? What about photographing carefully designed and arranged gardens? I love to break the rules! This statue of Neptune by Paul D. DiPasquale is on the boardwalk in Virginia Beach, Va., just steps from the sand and the Atlantic Ocean. What an appropriate location. What initially attracted me to make this photograph was the beautiful, man-made lighting that lite this enormous statue. I always like surprises – the unexpected. When I first studied the statue the clouds were thick over the ocean. Suddenly, the moon appeared, as if nestled between the two clouds. I quickly and carefully repositioned myself to get the clouds and the moon exactly where I wanted them. “Click – click – click!” I had my shot.

Death Valley, California. I LOVE this place! This photograph was taken just before sunset in the middle of the Badwater salt flats. The stagnant salt looked like a flowing river. I decided to crop the bottom of the image to emphasize the nearby wide-expanse of the “river,” leading down through the “S-curve” as the salt receded into the distance. Color just wouldn’t have worked for me. This image is about the juxtaposition of the tonalities (salt, clouds, sky, mountains) with the harsh textures of the mud-salt combination to the right and to the left. The amazing clouds dancing at sunset completed the image. I’ve been to Death Valley three times. I’ll be back!

I would greatly appreciate your comments and thoughts about these five photographs! I’m sure there will be some very different opinions!

I just came across a terrific resource that will provide me with countless hours of visual enjoyment and motivation, and I thought I’d share it. Last year, the Professional Photographer magazine in the U.K. named their “100 Most Influential Photographers of All Time”. In most cases there are links to websites that showcase the work of these amazing photographers. Ask ten people and you will get ten different “Top 100″ lists, but this is a great starting point that helped me remember many photographers whose work I had not looked at recently.

Here’s a top 10 list by Bill Becker, Director of the American Museum of Photography.

Did either of these lists leave out any of your favorites? Leave a comment and let us know who they are, and provide a website link that we can all explore!

Adobe recently announced a new upgrade policy for its Creative Suite, that includes Photoshop. There will definitely be frustration from many photographers that I know. Not all users of Photoshop have found it necessary or economical to upgrade to the latest, greatest version every time Adobe released a new version. For example, if you owned Photoshop CS3 and didn’t find compelling reasons to upgrade to CS4 when it was released, under Adobe’s old policy, you could have upgraded to CS5 when it came out, and pay the upgrade price of $199, versus the non-upgrade price of $699. Well, that is all about to change!

There is widespread speculation that Photoshop CS6 will be released around mid-2012. As reported in an Adobe blog post on November 9th, 2011:

“For customers who prefer to remain on the current licensing model, we will continue to offer our individual point products and Adobe Creative Suite editions as perpetual licenses. With regards to upgrades, we are changing our policy for perpetual license customers. In order to qualify for upgrade pricing when CS6 releases, customers will need to be on the latest version of our software (either CS5 or CS5.5 editions). If our customers are not yet on those versions, we’re offering a 20% discount through December 31, 2011 which will qualify them for upgrade pricing when we release CS6.”

The link to this special 20% discount from Adobe is at Adobe’s Store .

If you’re not interested in one of Adobe’s new subscription pricing offerings that range from $35-$49/month for Photoshop and $49-$75/month for Photoshop Extended, or their new cloud offerings, and you are a “perpetual license customer” who doesn’t already own CS5, but will probably want to own CS6, I strongly suggest you consider your options NOW!

If you don’t own CS5, assuming CS6′s price is consistent with CS5, it will cost you $699 to buy CS6, i.e. you will not have an upgrade path unless you own the last version, in this case, CS5.

With many photographers doing more and more of their image editing in Lightroom, this increased cost to upgrade Photoshop if you don’t own the most recent version, may well frustrate some photographers. Two years ago, I did 30-40% of my image editing in Lightroom and 60-70% in Photoshop. Today, those numbers have flipped. While some photographers do all of their editing in Lightroom, I still must use Photoshop for virtually every one of my images. I have upgraded to every new version of Photoshop since CS, but many of my fellow photographers have not, and if they don’t act before December 31st, they are going to be in for a (costly) surprise.

Adobe is going to have to include some major enhancements in each successive version of Photoshop to motivate upgrading. It is unlikely that Photoshop users will rebel to the extent that Bank of America debit card holders did when faced with increased fees, but it is no longer economical for the Photoshop user to upgrade every few versions.

Come to think of it, that’s probably exactly what Adobe intended.

Finding a new ways to see and photograph the familiar is a challenge I enjoy. And when you visit the same location multiple times, much is familiar. In great locations, the raw material is always there, but it is the photographer’s responsibility to see the familiar in new ways, and to try to convey that uniqueness to the viewer.

A few months ago, I decided to add to my growing portfolio of black and white images of Washington, D.C. You can view a partial group of my D.C. images in the Capital Idea gallery of my website. I find photographing my hometown especially challenging in spite of its incredible beauty, because so many “postcard” shots have been taken and are embedded in everyone’s minds.

When we do things regularly, we often don’t think about everything that is involved. We just “do it.” I thought it might be an interesting blog post to keep track of the process I followed before, during and after a shoot. Yes, I know, by writing down most of what I thought about and did might be considered being obsessed with details, or even worse, but I’ve been accused of much more!

Here are the things I thought about or did before, during and after my dawn shoot.

The night before:

• Checked sunrise/moonset times with the LightTrac app on my iPhone – sunrise will be 6:24am
  
• I want to be in position 30 minutes before sunrise because that’s often when the best color is in the sky
  
• Determined the amount of time to drive/park/walk to first shooting location
  
• Set alarm for 4am – leave house by 4:45 – on location by 5:45
  
• Used LightTrac app for various shooting locations to determine sun location over 2 hour window at and after sunrise
  
• Checked hourly weather forecast with iPhone app The Weather Channel MAX: Found partly cloudy, at sunrise, which might be ideal
  
• The Weather Channel app also showed a weather alert – “code orange air pollution alert” for the shoot day – could be good if adds some color to sunrise – may be bad if hazy, which can affect telephoto shots
  
• Based on weather forecast, selected clothing
  
• Selected a number of shooting possibilities and then found a parking area within 1 mile of the places I planned to shoot
  
• Thought about possible shots (wide, telephoto, pano), which determined what camera and lenses would be needed
  
• Some shots will be before sunrise, therefore they would be long exposures. A tripod is a must, but will be prohibited in a number of shoot locations, such as The Mall and at certain locations in some monuments.
  
• Because of the low light before sunrise, some locations where tripod cannot be used, I will need higher ISOs and longer shutter speeds, so I decided to take my low noise camera (Nikon D3), in addition to my high megapixel camera (D3x).
  
• I may do panoramas, therefore I need my pano rail and PC or tilt/shift lenses
  
• Checked batteries and left to charge overnight
  
• I no longer carry a camera backpack, and instead use a
  ThinkTank Belt and pouch system. This allows me to change cameras/lenses faster and without having to lay a backpack on the ground. I loaded my cameras and lenses in the pouches and put other items (pano rails, neutral density grad filters, polarizer, etc.) in my photo vest.
  
• I put a few snack bars and a bottle of water in my photo vest
  
• I checked all equipment, formatted memory cards, blew dust off the sensor with a Giotto Rocket blower
  
• Laid out all equipment (tripod, vest, belt system) for fast morning departure
  

The morning of the shoot:

• Woke up on time (4:00am)! (I’ll leave out my personal grooming details!)
  
• I put the now charged batteries in my camera
  
• I loaded the car, left at 4:45am and drove to my pre-determined parking location and luckily found a parking space
  
• Walked to the first shooting location (Vietnam Memorial) and was in place at 5:30am
  
• I began shooting a variety of pre-dawn shots of the memorial until the lawn sprinkler system turned on at 5:45am, which I had not anticipated or even known about!
  
• As primarily a landscape photographer, I typically have my camera set on aperture priority, because I want complete control over what is in focus, and what is out of focus. I had my hyperfocal chart in my vest pocket and referred to it very often to be sure I chose the proper aperture for the affect I wanted to create.
  
• Because of the sprinkler, I had to change locations and began shooting with the Washington Monument in the background UNTIL 6:10am when the lights on the Washington Monument were turned off! In the pre-sunrise, that eliminated including the now dull, grey obelisk in any shots until sunrise.
  
• After sunrise, I walked to and shot at a number of other planned shooting locations.
  
• Even at sunrise, there are numerous National Park Service police located around the Mall. When wearing the belt system and harness, I always make it a habit of walking up to them and saying, “Good Morning,” which enables them to see I’m really a photographer and not a suicide bomber!
  
• As the sun rose, the dynamic range of the light created a number of challenges. In some cases I need my neutral density graduated filters, and in others I shoot bracketed exposures that could be layered in post-processing.
  
• I continue shooting a variety of possibilities until the light begins to turn harsh.
  
• By 7:30am, just as the commuters began pouring into downtown Washington, I was heading home.
  

After the Shoot:

• Arrived home at 8:15am and downloaded memory card to computer
  
• Lightroom is the hub of ALL of my photograph organization and RAW processing. I imported all shots into Lightroom, automatically adding copyright information and high-level keywording to all images.
  
• I then used Lightroom to rename all images with my standard date/filename format.
  
• Did a quick run-through all photographs taken, adding a star rating to those images that may have potential
  
• Added more specific keywords to all images
  
• It’s now 9:30am and I go to sleep for a few hours
  

I remember the first time I drove a stick-shift car. I had to think about EVERYTHING! Depress clutch, shift into gear, s-l-o-w-l-y release clutch while pressing the accelerator. When the car stalls, go back and start again! I can now get into a car with a manual transmission, and although I haven’t driven one for many years, don’t miss a beat. The more we do something, the less we have to think about it. That’s certainly the case with photography.

The amount of knowledge and experience we build after shooting tens of thousands of images is often overlooked. Now that everyone is a photographer, with their smart phones and point-and-shoots, it’s a useful exercise to remind oneself of just how much time, thought, preparation and experience goes into making a portfolio-worthy photograph. I found it a valuable learning experience to take note of many of the things that were involved in this shoot. Try it, it’s enlightening!