Sean Duggan Blog

Holiday Leftovers

Parking Lot Christmas Tree  [iPhone 4]
December 29, 2011
(click in the image for a larger version)

Time for the Next Act

I went to the store yesterday evening, just as dusk was falling across the land. The Christmas decorations were still up in all of the shopping center parking lots. As I returned to my car I looked up and saw this tree decoration on the light pole.

It's an odd time, that span of days between Christmas and New Years.  The memory of Christmas is still fresh, but so is the feeling that it's time to get on with it and move on. A new year is just offstage, waiting in the wings, but the decorations and holiday sets linger, until the seasonal stage hands arrive to take them down and pack them away for another 11 months. This week is an intermission of sorts, between the year that is ending and the one that is about to begin. It's time for the next act.

Creative Digital Darkroom Workshop, Feb 11 -12

And, speaking of the next act, my next workshop is coming up soon on February 11 -12 at the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, California. I'll be teaching The Creative Digital Darkroom: Photoshop Beyond the Basics. For a full description of the class, click the title to learn more. There is a discounted price for members of CPA.

Scenes from the Olson House

Transference  [Canon 5D]
August 21, 2008  • Cushing, Maine
(click in the image for a larger version)

In anticipation of my upcoming September workshops at the Maine Media Workshops in Rockport, here is another shot from Maine. This was taken a few years ago in one of the second floor rooms of the Olson House in Cushing, Maine. The camera was on a tripod and I set the rocking chair to rocking and then triggered a 1.3 second exposure. For this interpretation, I layered in the faint traces of a shot where the chair was still, as well as adding several adjustment layers to modify the character of the light and color in the room. The most significant change is the bright light coming through the window. In the original shot there was not a lot to be seen out the window anyway (see below), and I felt it worked better for the story of the image to just have that area filled with bright white light.

The original rocking chair image.

Andrew Wyeth, Christina's World & the Olson House

The Olson House is a great location for wonderful interior lighting, interesting textures and rooms full of character and mystery, but the property also occupies a unique place in art history as the location for one of Andrew Wyeth's most famous paintings: the haunting and enigmatic Christina's World.

The painting, arguably one of the most famous American artworks of the 20th Century, shows Christina Olson, who had lost the use of her legs from polio, crawling through the field towards the house. The Olson House was where Christina Olson lived for most of her life. Wyeth had a home in the area and made paintings of both Christina and her younger brother Alvaro, as well as the house itself, over a period of nearly thirty years.

Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth

The house is currently part of the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland and is open to the public on some days. If you're in the mid-coast Maine area at some point in the next few months, the Farnsworth has a special exhibit on Andrew Wyeth, Christina's World and the Olson House, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the acquisition of the farm house by the Farnsworth Museum. It includes abut 50 watercolors and drawings of Christina and her brother Alvaro, as well interior and exterior views of the Olson House (the iconic image Christina's World is part of the collection at the Museum of Modern Art and will not be a part of the exhibition). The exhibit runs through October 30th. I definitely plan on making a trip to see it when I am there next month.

For our class field trip here a few years ago, we were able to gain access to the house before it opened for normal visiting times and we had a couple of hours with which to explore its rooms and exterior locations. It is always fascinating to see the many different ways that one place can be interpreted, both by a single photographer as well as a group of photographers. The two images below are both from the Olson House.

 

Laundry Wringer
(click in the image to see a larger version)

 

Rock on Shelf
(click in the image to see a larger version)

I have two workshops this September in Maine, Advanced Digital Photography (Sept 4 - 10) and HDR & Beyond (Sept 11 - 17) and there are still some spaces in each one. Follow the links for more information on these classes. Mid-coast Maine is a great place to improve and refine your photographic vision and technique. I hope to see you there!

The Case of the Missing Eagle

Missing in Action  [Canon 5D]
June 8, 2009  •  Rockport, Maine
(click in the image for a larger version)

It's Monday evening as I write this and I am getting a jump on another edition of Time Machine Tuesday. I was working on my Lightroom Tips & Tricks article for the October issue of Photoshop User and I came upon this image from two years ago. It was taken with a 24mm tilt-shift lens while I was out photographing with my students at the Maine Media Workshops. There used to be two identical eagle statues at this house, just down the street from The Workshops, but someone stole one that summer. I always thought the one remaining looked a bit forlorn, with the sign tied around him like that, waiting for word of his missing twin.

Heading Back to Maine

Maine is on my mind because I received word last week that my Advanced Digital Photography workshop in Maine is a go (Sept 4 - 10), and I am really looking forward to returning to Rockport. I have taught there every summer (and some autumns) since 2005 and it is one of my favorite places to share my knowledge and experience with other photographers. It's an excellent place to focus (pun intended!) on your photography with many scenic and interesting locations nearby, and the people at the Maine Media Workshops offer a top notch program and a great experience (to say nothing of the Friday night lobster or steak dinner out under the big dining tent!)

There are still some spots left in this class, so click here for more detailed information.

Google+

For those of you who have ventured onto Google+, you can find me here.  After some initial concerns about their terms of service regarding photos (allayed by Jim Goldstein''s excellent article), I've begun posting images there. I posted an HDR shot of the Eastern Sierras there on Saturday and in response to a comment I mentioned that I would be putting up a blog post on the post-processing evolution of the image. I had hoped to have that post up by Sunday, but other events conspired to put that off for a few days. The new plan is for the HDR image and the de-breifing on the post-processing techniques to deploy here on Wednesday, 7/27.

The Road to the Sea

 
The Road to the Sea  [ iPhone ]
April 26, 2011  • Fort Ross, California
(click in the image for a larger version)

I find it hard to resist a scene where there is a lonely curving road or path meandering off into the distance. Throw in a blue ocean in the distance and it becomes even more interesting to me. The possibility for metaphor, symbolsim and story are just too good to pass up!

This was taken on my recent trip to Fort Ross with my daughter's 4th grade class. If you are standing in front of the fort, looking out to sea, this is the view. Photographed and processed on the iPhone.

Found Object

Remote Control Fire Engine  [ iPhone 4 ]
June 7, 2011
(click in the image for a larger version)

My daughter and I took a walk yesterday evening and we found this toy fire engine sitting by the side of the road near a driveway. It was a good exercise in found object photography and one thing that I really appreciated about photographing it with the iPhone was that it was so easy to get a ground-level viewpoint without engaging in groveling and uncomfortable contortionist moves. If I took this shot with my DSLR I would have been getting dirty lying prone on the ground (and no doubt attracting inquisitive looks from passersby or the neighbors)! Of course, such functionality is not exclusive to the iPhone; any compact camera with a large LCD screen on the back would have allowed for easily composing from such a low angle

By using the bigger camera, I would have had a much larger file size to work with (and I may still go back to make this shot with my Canon 5D, as the location is just down the road from our house), but the native resolution on the iPhone 4 yields an 8x10 with no upsampling, so that's pretty good for this type of casual, out-for-an-evening-stroll image. Plus, I've enlarged the files to 16x20 size with great results. The key to getting good resolution when you're working with apps is to make sure that the ones you're using allow for saving the full resolution file and not a smaller, sized-down copy.

All processing for this image was done on the iPhone using two apps: Tilt-Shift Generator for the radial blur and Filterstorm for the customized (as in, not a canned template or app preset) irregular hand-tinting.

Interested in learning more about creative photography
and image processing with the iPhone?
Stay tuned to this space for information on iPhoneography workshops and tutorials that I am currently developing. You can also sign up for my free newsletter using the subscription form above in the right column.

And, Speaking of Workshops....

Indulge your creative side and take your photography skills to a new level on an island of amazing landscapes. Join Mike Shipman and I for "Icelandic Visions", August 17 - 26. We have a great 10-day itinerary planned out for exploring some of the most scenic locations that Iceland has to offer. Click here for more details.

And coming up in just a week and a half, I'll be venturing to a small island on Lake Superior in northern Wisconsin to teach "Essentials of Digital Photography & Lightroom Workflow" (June 20 - 24) at the Madeline Island School of the Arts. This is an in depth, hands-on workshop that is being offered for the amazingly low price of only $500. There's sill some spaces left, but sign up soon if you want to reserve a spot!

Winter Bird House

Winter Bird House  [Canon 5D w/ a Lensbaby Composer]
February 17, 2011
(click in the image for a slightly larger version)

I was down in the San Francisco Bay Area for the past three days on a consulting trip to visit with some of my regular clients. The weather was rainy most of the time, but the last day was the worst in terms of high winds and the amount of rain that fell. Of course, heavy rain in the lower elevations means snow in the higher elevations and I was concerned about the snowy weather affecting the road conditions closer to where I live.

As it turned out, Interstate 80 was closed a few exits before my usual turn-off due to blizzard conditions and zero visibility at the higher elevations. I took an alternate route to my place but it was still a bit tricky getting up the hill to my house. We had about 9 inches of new snow last night on top of the 6 to 8 inches that was already on the ground. In the ten years we've lived here this is the snowiest winter yet, both in terms of the number of times it has snowed and the amount that has fallen. As has been the case for most of the big snow storms this year, several trees came down and the power was out for most of the day. The image above was actually taken during an earlier storm we had a month ago, but it's a fair representation of what it's like here today. The extra blur factor was created with a Lensbaby Composer.

Newsletter News

I'll be sending out a new edition of my long dormant newsletter in the next couple of days. If you're not already a subscriber, you can sign up using the form in the left-hand column.

 

Convergence

Convergence  [Canon 5D w/ a Lensbaby Composer]
February 11, 2011  •  In the Sierras near Truckee, California
(click in the image for a slightly larger version)

 

A Winter Solstice Gathering

Winter Solstice Gathering  [Canon 10D]
December 18, 2004

Today is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day and the longest night of the year (for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, that is). The darkness of winter will be gradually lessening now as the days become ever longer.

For this edition of Time Machine Tuesday, we travel back 6 years ago to the Winter Solstice of 2004. Our family was invited to the home of some friends for their annual solstice bonfire in the forest on their property. In terms of one of the more common hallmarks of technical quality, namely sharpness, this image really doesn't have all that much going for it: I did not have a tripod with me that night and the hand held shutter speed of 2 seconds resulted in a photo where all of the detail is tantilizingly on the wrong side of sharp.

But sharpness is not everything in an image. Sometimes, capturing the light, the mood, or the memory is more important, and I think that this is such a scene. Precise, sharp details, while satisfying on a purely technical level, wouldn't really bring anything more to the image. The trees, the lanterns, and the ground might be in focus, but the people would likely still be somewhat blurry, especially if they moved during the exposure.  In terms of the most important aspect of this image, which is remembering this night and the people who gathered there, the flickering candle lanterns, and the bonfire's glow creating the sense of being in an immense forest cathedral, this photograph has everything it needs.

 

Artifacts of an Uncertain Origin 2011 Calendar

My 2011 calendar featuring 12 new pinhole photographs from the surreal and enigmatic Artifacts of an Uncertain Origin series is now available. Click here to see a preview of all of the images in the calendar or to place an order.

 

FOTOfusion in South Florida

In mid January I'll be presenting some hands-on classes and giving a presentation on the Artifacts series at FOTOfusion, the photography and imaging festival hosted by the Palm Beach Photographic Center. The dates are Jan 11 — 15. Here's a list of my sessions:

• Creative Interpretations with Camera Raw
  (90-minute computer lab)
  
  
• Crafting the Multiple Image Composite
  (3-hour computer lab)
  
  
• Artifacts of an Uncertain Origin
  Lecture/Presentation

Their Fathers' Magic Carpets

October 16, 2006  [Canon 5D]
Sacramento, California
(click in the image to see a larger version)

For this edition of Time Machine Tuesday we travel back four years ago to a visit my family and I made to the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento. For most of the day I photographed with a Lensbaby; the old trains and historical exhibits seemed to be good subject matter for the selective focus effect offered by that lens.

The title is drawn from that excellent Arlo Guthrie song "City of New Orleans" (written by Steve Goodman):

And the sons of pullman porters
And the sons of engineers
Ride their father's magic carpets made of steel.
Mothers with their babes asleep,
Are rockin' to the gentle beat
And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel.

An image of a train seemed an appropriate photo for today since we are soon to depart for a short autumn getaway, though our travels will be by car and not train. This image was transformed quite a bit from the original to be an illustration in a still unfinished serial mystery I worked on a while back called "Strangeness on a Train".

I did a lot of styling work on this image to create the effect that the train was rushing through the night. Most of the blur comes from the Lensbaby, but I added some addtional motion blur here and there, as well as the headlight, a suggestion of fallling rain (which is not that visible on this web-sized version), and changing the color, of course. You can see the original shot below.

Information on newly scheduled workshops for 2011 will be coming to this space soon (as well as some posts that do not involve time travel!)

 

 

 

Move your head so I can see Diamond Head

Arm's Length Self Portrait — [Canon 5D w/ Lensbaby Composer]
Waikiki Beach, Honolulu, Hawaii
April 23, 2010
(click in the image for a larger version)

This was taken during my April trip to Honolulu to teach a few workshops at the University of Hawaii. For the past few years, I have indulged in a now traditional Lensbaby Walkabout along Waikiki Beach. The unique look of the Lensbaby Composer just seems to really fit the visual vibe of that place. It does wonderful things with the bright colors and and lights, whether on the beach itself, or on Kalakaua Avenue, the street that runs adjacent to it.

"Move your head so I can see Diamond Head"

This couple was setting up an arm's length self portrait shot using a method I had not seen before: He held out the camera, pointed in his direction with a view of Waikiki and Diamond Head in the background, while she made adjustments to the position and framing. Then she came around and joined him and he snapped the picture. Making photographs of other people taking pictures, especially in classic touristy locations such as this has been a thread in my photography for a long time. I just find that aspect of the photographic process interesting and the dynamics involved when are people posing their friends or themselves for a picture can often create an intriguing moment. The clever framing method employed by this couple was a new spin on this theme and I felt that the addition of the delicious Lensbaby blur only added to the scene.

What's the Story?

Another thing I like about this image has to do with the story aspect of the scene. I am always looking for story potential in the images I create, either through obvious events in the scene I am photographing, or hinted at through juxtaposition, metaphor or suggestion. Sometimes I am aware of the narrative possibilities as I am making the image, as was the case here, and other times I do not discover the story until after I have taken the photo and am working with it in the digital darkroom. In this photograph I was intrigued by the sense of tension created by the contrast of the idyllic, almost fairytale sky and the relaxed vacation moment with the battered "DANGER" sign next to the couple. They are completely absorbed in making their sunset photographic memory, while the sign juts up ominously, breaking the smooth surface of the sky with its hard, angular warning.

Workshop in Maine Next Week

I'll be heading to Maine at the end of the week to teach my Real World Digital Photography class at the Maine Media Workshops, June 13 — 19. I look forward to going to Maine each year and teaching there. It's a great place for photography and the staff at The Workshops always helps to create a wonderful learning environment. As with all of my workshops, we will search for the extraordinary in the ordinary. There are a still a few spots left so sign up soon if you are interested.

Upcoming Workshops in L.A. & New Mexico

The Creative Digital Darkroom
June 28 — July 1
Marlborough School • Los Angeles, CA
Info & Registration Link

The Creative Eye: Photography & Digital Darkroom Essentials
July 25 — 31
Santa Fe Photographic Workshops • Santa Fe, New Mexico
Info & Registration Link

And coming up September 16 — 19 will be a 4-day version of my popular compositing and collage class, The Creative Collage with Adobe Photoshop at the Mesilla Digital Imaging Workshops in southern New Mexico.

Lightroom 3

In case you may have missed it, Adobe officially announced Lightroom 3 today. It's been in public beta for many months but the final version is now available. This is a major upgrade with lots of new features and improvements to old favorites. If you are already a Lightroom user, this is definitely worth the $99 upgrade price. Here's a link to a video with Julieanne Kost explaining all the new features in Lightroom 3.