Sean Duggan Blog

RGB

RGB  [Canon 5D]
Foster Botanical Gardens, Honolulu, Hawaii
April 13, 2008
(click in the image for a larger version)

In looking for an image to post today, I used the filtering functions in Lightroom and searched through images that had a rating of 3 or more stars. I had not thought of this image for awhile, but I am glad that it crossed my path again because I have always liked the quiet simplicity of this arrangement (which is mostly as I found it; I did pick up the blue berries which were on the ground and added them above the red leaf).

This type of spontaneous photography, where you go into the world with no idea what you may photograph that day, is a refreshing counterpoint to the more conceptualized and planned out scenes that I create with my wooden pinhole camera. I enjoy both types of photography equally; they fulfill different aspects of the creative impulse and each nourishes the other.

There is no One photography. Instead, there are photographies. Embrace the ones that fill your creative soul with light, no matter how different they may be.

The other reason this image caught my eye is because it was taken in Hawaii, and a few days ago I was going over the outlines of the three short workshops that I will be teaching there in a little more than two months. These will be held on the campus of the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Honolulu, April 22 – 25. The classes are already filling up, so if you are interested in attending, please follow the link below for more information.

3 Photoshop Workshops in Hawaii
April 22 _ 25, 2010
More Information & Registration Links

A Weekend Workshop in Carmel

Closer to home, and closer on the calendar, is a weekend workshop that I'll be teaching at the Center for Photographic Art, in Carmel, California, on March 20th and 21st. This is a laptop-based class designed for photographers by a photographer that will cover the essentials of working in the digital darkroom:

Lightworks & Shadowplay
Digital Darkroom Essentials
March 20-21, 2010
Center for Photographic Art, Carmel, CA
More Information & Registration Links

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Birds in Flight [Canon 5D]
July/August 2009  Auerbach, Germany
(click in the image for a larger version)

Last summer my wife, daughter and I spent about four weeks in Germany visiting with family. My wife's father has raised show and racing pigeons for most of his life and he has many birds. One of the flocks flies free for most of the day and these photos were taken over the course of several days. I took a lot of photos of these birds zooming through the air during our stay there. It became a self-assignment (not to mention a challenge) for me to try and get good shots of the birds in flight. They are amazingly fast and you have to take hundreds of exposures just to get a few good ones. Thank god for digital photography!

My father-in-law still shoots 35mm film and I could see his envy at my digital SLR's ability to shoot at high ISOs and fast shutter speeds in order to freeze the motion of the flying birds. Not to mention the "free" nature of taking hundreds of shots in an afternoon just to hopefully gt a few good ones. Of course, while taking the shots is "free", the cost comes later in editing them, in terms of time spent at the computer. But editing in Lightroom is a breeze and so much easier than dealing with so many shots in a pre-Lightroom or, (shudder) film-based situation.

This image is a composite of four separate photos. I needed to create an illustration for a column I was writing for Layers Magazine and this fit the theme of multiple-image composites based on image motion sequences. Look for that column in the May/June issue.

Upcoming Workshop in Carmel, California

I'll be teaching a weekend workshop March 20-21st at the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, California. This is a laptop-based class, which means you do have to bring your own laptop with Photoshop CS3 or CS4 on it. There will be some Lightroom coverage but it is mostly Photoshop and having Lightroom on your laptop is not required for the class. This workshop is being offered at a really great price: $250 for CPA members and $275 for non-members

Lightworks & Shadowplay: Digital Darkroom Essentials
March 20 & 21, 2010
Center for Photographic Art
Carmel, California

Here's a link for more info and registration.

Upcoming Workshops in Hawaii

I will also be in Honolulu, Hawaii on April 22nd through the 25th, teaching three Photoshop classes:

April 22: Restoration & Retouching Essentials

April 23: Selections & Masking

April 24 & 25: Creative Collage with Photoshop CS4

Here's a link for more info and registration details.