Sean Duggan Blog

Idea Paths and App Journies

Someone at my Chamber Door  [iPhone 4]
January 26, 2012
(click in the image for a larger version)

I opened wide the door...
Darkness there, and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token...

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I took this photo after my daughter's 5th grade class performed a play about ancient Egypt. The silhouette is their teacher (in long Egyptian robes) saying goodnight from the door to the school auditorium. After playing with the image in a variety of apps, I pondered what the title should be. A good title is often an important part of the creative process for me. It can add to the image and suggest a context or further meaning for a scene.

After wandering down several different conceptual paths searching for a title, for some reason I was reminded of the lines from Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven, where the narrator opens wide the door and peers into the darkness, after hearing "a tapping, as of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door."

One of the things I enjoy most about making images with the iPhone is that it offers a very immediate and compact creative experience that is not weighed down by the considerations or extended time commitments that are often a part of images made with more "serious" cameras. In the case of this image, while I am very pleased with the end result, one of the most satisfying parts of the process was exploring the different idea paths in search of a title and finding the thread that led to the poem The Raven, which I had not thought of for a long time.

For some insight into the fairly simple processing "app journey" of this image, see below:

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Here is the original exposure (cropped slightly to the final proportions). Backlighting is always a situation that has the potential for interesting results, so don't shy away from having your iPhone ready to take pictures at night just because you think it's too dark. It may, indeed, be too dark, but you never know when a door will open or a light will come on to create the backlighting that will lead to an intrigueing image.

 

 

 

 

I started out by using LensLight and added the light beams with the White Rays preset. The great thing about this app is that you have full control over the size, rotation, placement and brightness of the effect you choose (the same developer also has a very cool companion app called LensFlare).

Adding the light rays with LensLight (click in the image for a larger version)

 

The next stop on the app journey was Filterstorm, which is one of my bread and butter "go-to" apps. Don't let the name Filterstorm fool you. This is not really a filter app, but more of a Photoshop-type app. You can apply a wide range of color and tonal effects that function much like those in Photoshop. Plus you can use masks to apply the effects to specific areas of the image. That is what I did for this photo. The light rays from Lens Light were showing up on top of the silhouetted figure of the man. I used the Curves feature in Filterstorm to darken down the shadow areas and remove those light rays on the figure. Then I used the masking tools to paint in the adjustments only where I wanted them. I also applied another Curves adjustment and painted in a lightening effect only on the light rays and backlit parts of the image, as well as added some noise to the entire photo.

Applying local adjustments in Filterstorm (click in the image for a larger version)

 

The final stop was Nik Snapseed, which is an incredibly well-designed and very fun app to use. In Snapseed I made the image black & white, added grain, tweaked with the brightness and contrast some more, applied a sepia-flavored grunge look,  and the final rough-edged frame effect.

Final "flavoring" applied in Nik Snapseed (click in the image for a larger version)

 

If you're interestd in this type of creative transformations for your iPhone images, I will be teaching a half day iPhoneography Creative Processing workshop in Sacramento, California in early June. Be sure to Like my Facebook page, add me to your Google circles (links for both are above left) or sign up for my free newsletter (above right) to keep up to date on the details of that class, which will be posted soon.

The Creative Digital Darkroom on the Monterey Peninsula!

Only two weeks left until my next workshop in beautiful Carmel, California. I'll be teaching a weekend class on The Creative Digital Darkroom: Photoshop Beyond the Basics at the Center for Photographic Art on Feb. 11 & 12. The class is filling up but there are still spaces available so sign up soon if your are interested! Click the class title to find out more about this workshop.

Lightroom 4 Public Beta / My eBook is on Sale

Bear River Rocks  [Canon 5D]
January 2, 2010
(click in the image for a larger view)

It's been awhile since I've posted an image for Time Machine Tuesday, so here's one from two years ago (well, two years and one week ago, to be exact). This was taken along one of my favorite trails that is quite close to my house. An 8-minute drive gets you to the river and then after a 10 to 15-minute hike you will arrive at this spot. I've always liked the arrangement of these two rocks. There's a good balance between them. Finding balance, arrangments and designs in the landscape is one of the pleasures of photographing the natural world.

Real World Digital Photography eBook on Sale!

The eBook version of my book Real World Digital Photography is the official eBook Deal of the Week at Peachpit Press and you can snag a copy for only $9.99! This is a really good price, so if you're interested, head on over to Peachpit Press and place your order before the end of day Saturday (PST) January 14th.

Lightroom 4 Public Beta

Adobe announced the Public Beta for Lightroom 4 late last night (download the beta here). This has been all over the blogosphere and social media landscape, shared and re-shared by seemingly everyone, but on the slim chance that you may have missed it, I am mentioning it here.The 4th version of Lightroom has some exciting new features and improvements. There are good overviews and short demo videos posted at a number of places. Here are a few of them:

Lightroom 4 Videos from Adobe's Julieanne Kost

NAPP Lightroom 4 Launch Center

Photoshop Cafe Lightroom 4 Learning Site

Terry White's "What's New in Lightroom 4 (Public Beta)?"

Upcoming Workshops

I am still in the process of scheduling workshops for 2012 but I wanted to mention three that I am really looking forward to:

The Creative Digital Darkroom: Photoshop Beyond the Basics
February 11 — 12, Center for Photographic Art, Carmel, CA

Creative Transformations with Photoshop
June 18 — 22, Madeline Island School of the Arts
Madeline Island, Wisconsin

True North: Photographing the Interpretive Landscape in Iceland
August 12 — 18, with Focus on Nature in Iceland

I also have a half-day iPhoneography workshop coming up in northern California on June 9th. More details coming soon!

 

 

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.

Holiday Mirrors

Ornament  [Canon 5D]
December 15, 2008
(click in the image for a larger version)

Today's photograph is from 3 years ago on December 15, 2008. We awoke that day to find everything covered in about 8 inches of snow. That much snow in December is a rarity for us; typically our major snows don't show up until January. This is a double-mirror interpretation of a large snow-covered oak tree in our back yard (you can see the original image at then end of this post).

I love to play around with image mirrors because they can transform a scene into something unexpected and delightfully abstract. Natural forms and architectural subjects work particularly well with this technique. Even if you have a general idea how an image might turn out when the mirror effect is applied, the results are often surprising. For black and white interpretations of bold, graphic subjects on white, such as this oak tree, inverting the image also creates an interesting result.

I thought that the mirrored version of this snowy oak tree looked like a delicate Christmas Tree ornament or a snowflake. Of course, the case could also be made that it also looks a bit like a strange insect, or a neural network in the brain (and nothing says "Christmas" like a neural network in the brain!).

 

The original snowy oak tree photo

 

The Nature of Your Own Lens

The Lens  [pinhole photograph]
January, 2011 
(click in the image to see a larger version)

This is one of the new images I have been working on for my Artifacts of an Uncertain Origin series. I photographed it last January in the Florida Keys, but only began to work with the negative a few days ago. It will be included in the Artifacts of an Uncertain Origin 2012 calendar, which should be ready to order in a couple of days. This and one other one from the Florida Keys, are the most recent images I have photographed for this long running series. After an 11-month hiatus, it feels really good to be working with it again. I have several ideas for new images and am eager to follow those paths to see where they lead.

I am often asked what this series is about, which is not an easy question to answer, since there is more than one answer. Each image is different and can lead in a a variety of directions, just as different doors will open into different rooms and passages. These photographs are a bit like doorways. What you find once you enter them depends on who you are and what you see. Apropos that thought, and the concept of seeing, here are some musings on The Lens...

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As photographers, lenses are important to us. We see the world through the lenses of our eyes and we create our images with the lens on our camera (the irony in this photograph is that it was made with a wooden pinhole camera that does not have a lens!).

But the idea of a lens is significant beyond the purely photographic associations. A lens focuses light, bringing our attention to specific areas, magnifying some parts while blurring others. Lenses help us see better, farther, and more clearly. A lens can reveal to us that which is hidden beyond the horizon of natural vision, showing us things we cannot see with our own eyes. Our perception of the world and our journey through it is shaped by the lens of our past experiences, deeply held beliefs, future hopes, dreams, and the river of emotions that courses through us.

One of the most significant concepts that influences my experience with photography, both in creating and viewing images, was expressed perfectly by the photographer and philosopher MInor White when he wrote that "One should not only photograph things for what they are, but for what else they are".

At the most basic level, this image is both a still life and a landscape, a photograph of a lens at the edge of the sea. But beyond that there are other levels. What you see, in this photograph or in any photograph, will depend upon who you are and the nature of your own lens.

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See more of the Artifacts of an Uncertain Origin

 

The Call of the Black & White Landscape

Afternoon Thunder Shower  •  [Canon 5D]
August 29, 2010  •  Mono Lake, California
(click in the image for a larger version)

This image was made about 15 months ago during a drive down Highway 395 along the eastern Sierras. It was actually made on the same afternoon as the previous image of the Sawtooth Ridge. There is so much to see along that drive! The vistas of the mountains, Mono Lake, the Owens Valley, and the Alabama Hills are a visual playground for landscape photographers. It's one of my favorite California drives and I'm hoping to return that way for more photo exploration in the near future.

Exploring the landscape doesn't end when the physical journey ends. Revisiting your images in the digital darkroom is an entirely different part of the photographic journey that can be just as creative as the time you spent on the road or trail in search of photographs to make.  One of the most fundamental questions that arises with any photograph is whether to treat it as a color or a black and white image. You may know how you will interpret the scene based on your own style and whether or not the photo is part of an existing series, but some images present tantilizing creative directions in both color or monochrome. With certain scenes, the answer is clear, but with others, you could go either way. This image of the thunder shower over Mono Lake works well as a color shot, but there is something about it that is more powerful when it is presented in black and white. Perhaps it is the visual association with the long and venerable tradition of black and white landscape photography. That was not on my mind when I took the photo, but it became an obvious connection once I began working with it in Lightroom. There was just something more to the scene when it was rendered in the stark, grayscale tonal values of a black and white image.

I'm looking forward to exploring the landscapes of Iceland next August during my "True North: Photographing the Interpretive Landscape" workshop with Focus on Nature. We'll be spending the week of August 12 – 18 chasing the sweet light all across that beautiful arctic island, focusing 100% on creative photography in a way that is only possible when you set aside time to escape from the regular routine of your life. It is shaping up to be a fantastic trip. I hope that you'll consider joining me for what is certain to be a once in a lifetime photographic experience.

Mountains on my Mind

Matterhorn Peak and the Sawtooth Ridge  [Canon 5D]
August 29, 2010  •  Eastern Sierras, California
(click in the image for a larger version)

Lately I've had mountains on my mind, and my thoughts have been drawn to a location that is less than a four hour drive from where I live: the jagged peaks of the Sawtooth Ridge on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada. I took this photo a little over a year ago, as I was driving down to Death Valley, another of my favorite photo destinations .  It shows the Sawtooth Ridge as seen from Highway 395 near Bridgeport, California. The ridge line is the northeast border of Yosemite National Park. The peak on the far left is Matterhorn Peak, which at 12,279 feet (3,743m) is the tallest peak in that ridge and the most northerly 12,000' peak in the Sierras. Jack Kerouac incorporated a fictionalized account of his attempted ascent of the peak in his 1958 novel, "The Dharma Bums". Some of the other peaks in the ridge are Dragtooth, Doodad, the Three Teeth, and Blacksmith Peak. Below Blacksmith is the ominously named Avalanche Lake.

Sawtooth Ridge from the Northeast, from A Climber's Guide to the High Sierra, edited by Hervey H. Voge (click in the image for a larger version).

The reason this particular group of peaks has been on my mind is that I've been thinking of a photograph I'd like to make that requires high, jagged mountain peaks and this area would be perfect. Actually, there are several images I can see making in this location, but one in particular has been driving this train of thought; a new addition to my Artifacts of an Uncertain Origin series of pinhole photographs.

Since the wooden camera I use for that series has no lens, just a tiny pinhole (the approximate  aperture is f/235) with a wide-angle field of view, things that are far away tend to look even farther away in the photographs it makes. So if I want to have a jagged mountain peak in the shot and have it look good, it means getting up close and personal with the peak. The mountain I'm thinking of focusing on (pun intended) is Matterhorn Peak, the one on the far left. I'm not really interested in summiting this peak as I am in having it figure prominently in the background of the photograph (though apparently you can reach the summit without special equipment).

 

Photographing with the ZeroImage pinhole camera on the western side of the Sierras in April of 2010. (click in the image for a larger version). You can see the image I made at this location here.

This excursion will likely last several days, to accommodate backpacking the roughly five miles up to the ridge and having plenty of time for scouting the best locations, waiting for good weather and light and also just enjoying being in such an amazing place. I feel very fortunate to live in a place where such locations are only a short drive away, and sInce the area is relatively close, I may even make more than one trip. In the image I am planning, I would like to have a fair amount of snow on the peaks and good cloud action is a must. In terms of summer or fall, I'm still pondering the best time to go and more research will help answer that question, but it's definitely on my photo destination list for next year.

Finding the time for such creative projects can sometimes be challenging and it's easy to get distracted and caught up in all of the other aspects of our busy lives. I am continually battling those forces of distraction! But planning ahead and visualizing making certain images, or traveling to specific places,  make it much more likely to realize those visions. Writing about it (as I have done here), is another way to make something seem more real and attainable. To that end I also made a print of this image this morning and am hanging it in my studio so I can see it every day and be inspired by the idea of that future trip. 

Speaking of inspiration, I was reminded of this location by an excellent photo of Matterhorn Peak that Gary Crabbe posted to his Google+ stream a few days ago. Seeing his image prompted me to look in my Lightroom archive where I found the photo you see above. Thanks Gary!
  

Interpreting the Scene

Circular Contemplation  [iPhone 4]
November 3, 2011
(click in the image for a larger version)

When I took my daughter to school yesterday I accompanied her inside to say hello to her teacher who I had not seen for several weeks due to my busy schedule. This is the first year for her school in a new location, an elementary school site that dates from the 1940s. While the location does not have all of the wonderful tall trees and open space of their previous site, this place does have a very agreeable and nostalgic small town school feeling. I had only been there a few times since the school year started and had not yet been out into the playground area. On this morning, I followed my daughter out to the play yard as she grabbed a volleyball for some practice before class started.

Out in the playground there are slanted walls at one end since the yard is built into the side of a hill. In one place there were two large circles painted on these walls, presumably as "targets" for where to aim a ball. The early morning light was shining full on this wall and I was intrigued by the scene and how it appeared when it was visually isolated from all of the other details in the yard and the autumn colors in the trees above it. At first I was disappointed that I could not get close enough to isolate the circles without my own shadow appearing in the frame, but then I saw the possibilities for other layers of meaning with my shadow included.

This is one of those photographs that is a simple and understated view of an ordinary scene, but that can be so much more depending on how you see it and the interpretations you bring to it. Minor White said this best when he observed that "One should not only photograph things for what they are but for what else they are." Another thought in a similar vein is from Henry David Thoreau…"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see".

This is one of the things that I treasure most about photography. It gives us the opportunity to see differently, to find hidden and personally significant meaning in otherwise ordinary scenes, to interpret them in our own, unique way and to create an image of these scenes so that they may be shared with others, who can then find their own interpretations.

Join Me in Iceland Next August for
True North: Photographing the Interpretive Landscape

I'm really looking forward to teaching True North: Photographing the Interpretive Landscape, in Iceland next August 12 - 18. During this workshop, hosted by the excellent team at Focus on Nature, we will spend a week chasing the sweet light in that beautiful country, at a time when the sweet light lasts much longer than in more southerly latitudes. The photographic terrain we will cover will be varied, ranging from the city of Rekyjavik, the hot springs of the blue lagoon, and small harbor towns, to icebergs drifting in a glacial lagoon, rugged seacoasts, majestic waterfalls, vast glaciers on the slopes of active volcanos, and spectacular scenery in one of the world's last great unspoiled landscapes.  I hope you'll consider joining me for what is sure to be an excellent travel and photographic experience. Click here for more details.

Immediate Gratification vs. A Slow Simmer

Encounters with Shadows  [iPhone 4]
October 2, 2011
(click in the image for a larger version)

Some images just speak to you in black & white, and this is one of them. High contrast, backlit scenes with hard shadows and silhouettes are a natural for a monochromatic approach. I have several more from this day, but have been too busy recently to spend quality time with them. My goal is to try and work with a couple each day....small creativity coffee breaks in between wrangling with deadlines. 

One of the joys of iPhone photography (or any camera phone that allows processing with apps) is that it allows for a very quick and direct engagement with your photo creativity that requires virtually no gear and no time in front of the computer. This immediacy and the ability to process photos right on the phone makes it easy to share images not long after you have made them. But I find that some photos require contemplation and pondering, and rather than share them right away, I take time considering what visual treatment (if any) would work best for them, and also how they work within the context of similar images taken that day. By waiting and allowing this time for contemplation, I can "see" the images better. Immediate gratification is good for creativity, but so is taking your time and letting an idea or an image simmer slowly until it's just right.

FotoClave

I'll be giving two 1-hour presentations on HDR & Beyond this weekend at FotoClave in Concord, California. Both sessions are on Saturday, Oct 29 and start at 11:00am and 1:30pm.

Seeing the Potential in a Less Than Perfect Photo

Flyboys  [iPhone 4]
October 2, 2011
(click in the image for a larger version)

These boys were having a great time playing with their big styrofoam glider. Seeing the joy on their faces, I couldn't help but smile myself. I hung out with them for a few minutes and took several photos of their air operations. It was dusk and the light was fading fast, which is less than ideal for the iPhone 4, as it is not that great in low light situations (the new iPhone 4S should be much better in low light situations).

The original image (see below) was not that exciting, but the core elements of the boys with their toy glider, the happiness on the face of the boy on the right, and the entire story of the photo was still very strong. The image just needed a little tweaking. Sometimes, the difference between an image that doesn't quite make it and one that really works is all in the adjustments that you apply after capturing it. Recognizing the potential in an image is just as important as seeing the image and taking the photo in the first place. This is not about relying on "fixing it" in Photoshop (or with apps on the iPhone in this case), but about seeing the possibilities in an image and working with it to see where you can take it. Some images, however imperfect they may be, are worth it.

With this photograph, the post-capture adjustments were fairly simple: A conversion to black & white, some brightening, a little blurring of the edges, and a slight darkening vignette (all applied in Nik's Snapseed, a really cool app that works on both the iPhone and iPad). The genre of this image falls into the category of street photography. For this type of photography, deficiencies such as soft focus, motion blur, and graniness, all of which can be found in the original version of this shot, are more acceptable than they would be in other categories of photography.

iPhoneography Workshop

If you're interested in getting the most out of your camera phone images, both the photography aspect and the post-processing with photo apps, I will be teaching an iPhoneography/Camera Phone workshop at the Viewpoint Photographic Art Center in Sacramento, California in the late Spring of 2012. I have no further information regarding dates or specific class details at this time, but as soon as I do, they will be posted here.

The original iPhone capture was a bit dark and not very sharp.