Sean Duggan Blog

Red Curtain

Red Curtain  [Canon 5D]
San Francisco - Jan 15, 2009
(click in the image for a larger version)

I was in San Francisco last week and found this image while enjoying an evening stroll. A shopkeeper was putting up a new window display and making final adjustments to this red curtain. I was intrigued that just her hand was visible, and the bright red paired with the yellow wall in the background made for a pleasing color scheme. This is a good example that night photography can also include tight detail-oriented compositions such as this, as well as those that take in the larger scene. For the technically curious, this was shot using an ISO of 1250 hand held at 1/40th of a second (with an image-stabilized lens).

Best Photo Book of the Year Nominee
My co-author Katrin Eismann and I were honored that our book The Creative Digital Darkroom was included as one of the nominees for Best Photo Book of the Year for 2008 over at The Online Photographer (ours is the 3rd down from the top).

Workshops
My next workshop will be in Sacramento on February 7 & 8th. Other upcoming workshops will be offered in Monterey, California, South Florida, Hawaii, Morro Bay, California and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Check out my workshops page for a full listing of 2009 workshops.

Drakes Bay Twilight

Drakes Bay  [Canon 5D]
Point Reyes, California
June 26, 2008
(click in the image for a larger version)

This is a 10-second exposure taken on the same day as the previous two images (though chronologically it fits between them). The actual light level at the time I took this was much darker than in this image, and I have even darkened it down a bit from the original raw exposure. As I was taking these exposures a sea lion or elephant seal was swimming slowly through the shallow water near the shore and in the still twilight the sound of its breathing carried easily to my position on the hillside above. Although it was too dark to make a positive identification, it was definitely a large marine mammal and as there was an elephant seal viewing area a short hike from here, I am guessing that it might have been an elephant seal.

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Newsletter News

I've been dividing my time between the coast and the Sierra foothills for the past two weeks due to all the bad, smoky air from the nearby forest fires that have been raging in our area. The next issue of my free newsletter has been delayed by all the back and forth travel but should be out by this coming Sunday.

Real World Digital Photography in Maine - August 17 - 21

Night Road

Night Road  [Canon 5D]
Point Reyes National Seashore
June 26, 2008
(Click in the image for a larger version)

On the drive out of Point Reyes, I stopped to take a few night shots looking back along the two-lane road. The foreground light on the road is from my car's tail lights. I left my car idling with the lights on so I wouldn't be totally invisible on the road and also to provide some needed illumination for the foreground. With night photography, all manner of things can serve as a light source to bring a little lighting to areas of the scene, including tail lights.

Of course, since tail lights are red, the light on the road was red, too. I corrected this in Lightroom by initially processing the image to have a cooler color cast. Then in Photoshop I did some further work to remove the remaining traces of the reddish color cast. Although I felt the reddish color cast on the road combined with a yellowish cast in the clouds in the sky (due to the smoky air and the light that was shining over the far hills) looked interesting, I wanted to create more of a classic night feel and with less color and a cooler color balance.

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Real World Digital Photography Workshops

My next major workshop takes place in mid-August along the New England coast at the world renown Maine Photographic Workshops. Real World Digital Photography I is the perfect class if you want to get a jump start on truly understanding the controls on your digital SLR, learning good exposure technique, shooting in raw, special exposure situations (like the night photography featured in the image above) and making the most of your exposures back in the digital darkroom using Lightroom and Photoshop CS3. It's already filling up so if you're interested in taking this class, don't wait until the last minute to sign up! Click the class title to learn more about this class.

A second level version of this class will be offered at the Maine Photographic Workshops Oct 5-11.

For a complete listing of my upcoming workshops, click here.

McCormick House

McCormick House  [Canon 5D, 53 second exposure]
Pescadero, California  June 12, 2008
(click in the image for a larger version)

Last week we spent a relaxing family vacation in Pescadero, California. Pescadero is a small farming and ranching community located near the coast between San Francisco and Santa Cruz. It is about two miles inland from one of the most beautiful stretches of coastline in northern California.

We were very fortunate that my wife discovered a wonderful country inn for us to stay at. The McCormick House is a lovely old home built in the 1880s. We had the two upstairs rooms to ourselves and it was the perfect place from which to explore the many beautiful beaches along the coast just a few miles away, and also as a base for day trips to Santa Cruz or San Francisco. One of the best things about the McCormick House were the innkeepers, Lisa and Mauro. Their kindness, generosity and good cheer made our visit a very special one and we look forward to a return trip, not only to enjoy the beauty of that part of the coast, but also to visit with them! In addition to being wonderfully hospitable innkeepers, they also create lovely assemblage sculptures of small houses from old pieces of recycled and weathered wood. You can see more of their charming "wee wood" house sculptures here.

The photograph above is a composite of two different interpretations of a single raw exposure (about 1 minute on a tripod). The lighting is a combination of moonlight, ambient spill form nearby street lights, the interior lights and a single pop from my flash unit. In order to get the sky looking the way I wanted, the bright windows became too washed out. So I processed a second copy of the file that was much darker and used a layer mask to brush in some of the darker exposure in the areas of the windows and under the balcony. As I was taking this photo (and others) barn owls flew back and forth above me, screeching and chattering in the moonlight.

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Real World Digital Photography Workshops

My next major workshop takes place in mid-August along the New England coast at the world renown Maine Photographic Workshops. Real World Digital Photography I is the perfect class if you want to get a jump start on truly understanding the controls on your digital SLR, learning good exposure technique, shooting in raw, special exposure situations (like the night photography featured in the image of the McCormick House) and making the most of your exposures back in the digital darkroom using Lightroom and Photoshop CS3. It's already filling up and is now half full so if you're interested in taking this class, don't wait until the last minute to sign up! Click the class title to learn more about this class.

A second level version of this class will be offered at the Maine Photographic Workshops Oct 5-11.

For a complete listing of my upcoming workshops, click here.

Breakwater

Breakwater [Canon 5D]
Honolulu, Hawai'i
April 13, 2008
(click in the image to see a  larger view)

This is a blend of two 30-second exposures of one of the breakwaters at Waikiki Beach. The waves sloshed over my feet and the bottom of my tripod a couple of times while making this image.

The reason I took two shots is that even with 30 seconds and all the ambient light of the hotels behind me, the rocks on the breakwater were much darker than I wanted them to be. I didn't do a longer exposure because I didn't want the sky to wash out. So I used my Canon 580EX speedlite to flash the foreground three or four times during one of the 30-second exposures and then combined the two shots in Photoshop using a layer mask. There were also some adjustment layers added that further darkened the sky and lightened the water and modified the color balance a bit.You can see the Layers palette for the finished image below.

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5-Day Creative Collage Workshop

I'll be teaching a 5-day version of my Creative Collage class at the excellent Lepp Institute of Digital Imaging in Los Osos, California June 2 - 6, 2008. The extended time frame of this class allows for more time to explore personal collage projects, not to mention enjoying the beautiful natural surroundings on the coast near Morro Bay. More about this class.

25 Seconds on Waikiki Beach

Watching the Twilight [Canon 5D]
Honolulu, Hawai'i
April 16, 2008
(click in the image for a larger version)

This man kept remarkably still for 25 seconds! Grooving on the twilight Hawaiian surf can have that effect on you.

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I'm off to the Bay Area for some private consulting and then down to Monterey to teach my 2-day Creative Collage with Photoshop class. I just got word that the class is full, but if you're interested in this topic, I will be teaching a longer version near San Luis Obispo in central California in early June. See below for more details.

If you want to be kept up to date on my upcoming workshops, as well as receive digital darkroom tips and tutorials, I invite you to sign up for my free newsletter. There's a sign-up form above in the left column and you can also see more details here.

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5-Day Creative Collage Workshop

I'll be teaching a 5-day version of my Creative Collage class at the excellent Lepp Institute of Digital Imaging in Los Osos, California June 2 - 6, 2008. The extended time frame of this class allows for more time to explore personal collage projects, not to mention enjoying the beautiful natural surroundings on the coast near Morro Bay. More about this class.

December Moon

December Moon  [Canon 10D + a Lensbaby]
December 17, 2004

This was taken 3 years ago in our front yard...a serendipitous alignment of a crescent moon and the top of a tall pine tree. This is a hand held shot at 1/13th of a second with a Lensbaby providing the uneven edge blurring.

Every Christmas I've meant to do something with this, but never got around to it. Finally, I resurrected it from the archives today. If you celebrate Christmas, then do have a good one. Gather round with those who are special to you and enjoy some good cheer, reflect on the things in your life you're grateful for, and hope for a better world.

September Moon, September Storm

Distant Lightning and Full Moon [Canon 5D]
Rockport, Maine -- September 26, 2007
(click in the image for a larger version)

Here's another shot of the incredible view from my friend Amy's house in Rockport, Maine. This was taken about an hour and a half after the photo from yesterdays post. This is a 69-second exposure  and the long exposure time really shows the cloud motion very well. The aperture was f/16, which is significant for this shot because the use of a small aperture created the "starburst" effect on the full moon.

I chose the small aperture for two reasons; One was to get that starburst effect on the moon, and the other was to force the use of a long shutter speed. By this time it was much darker than it was earlier in the evening, the storm clouds were rolling in.  I wanted the long exposure time to lighten up the areas of the sky that were still clear, and also to allow for more time to catch the elusive bolts of lightning in the distant storm. Most of the processing was done in Lightroom with some additional dodging, burning and contrast control applied in Photoshop.

Book News: I received my author copy of The Creative Digital Darkroom today and it looks wonderful! After all the work that goes into a book project like this, it's so satisfying to finally hold it in your hands. The fact that my copy has arrived means that online orders should start shipping and it should be appearing on bookstore shelves very soon.

*Upcoming Workshops *

My next workshop will be a 5-day class called, coincidentally, The Creative Digital Darkroom, March 17 -€“ 21 at the Palm Beach Photographic Centre in sunny south Florida. Based on the new book, this hands-on class is focused on exploring essential creative digital darkroom techniques for photographers. Short photo field sessions will also be featured on some days to practice critical exposure skills with digital SLR cameras. Click the course title above to learn more or to register for this class.

Moon Over Rockport

Moon Over Rockport  [Canon 5D]
September 26, 2007  Rockport, Maine
(click in the image to see a larger version)

This was taken last September when I was in Rockport teaching at the Maine Photographic Workshops, I had been invited over to dinner at the house of a former student who lives in Rockport (thanks, Amy!). The view from her back terrace was stunning. All the more so when the full moon rose above some low clouds on the horizon to put on a spectacular show.Photographer Brenda Tharp was also there and we both had our tripods out the minute we realized the moon was about to perform.

But as beautiful as this was, things got even more interesting a little later as a storm moved in farther up the coast and we had both a full moon, interesting clouds and lightning in the distance. I'll try and post one of the those shots tomorrow or the next day. This image is a 5-second exposure at 100 ISO. It was processed in Lightroom but I really didn't do much to it except for a little bit of a contrast adjustment and a slight increase to the Vibrance slider.

A big thank you to Scott Kelby, and also the good folks over at Photoshop News, who both mentioned The Creative Digital Darkroom on their respective blogs today.

*Upcoming Workshops *

My next workshop will be a 5-day class called The Creative Digital Darkroom, March 17 -€“ 21 at the Palm Beach Photographic Centre in sunny south Florida. Based on the new book, this hands-on class is focused on exploring essential creative digital darkroom techniques for photographers. Short photo field sessions will also be featured on some days to practice critical exposure skills with digital SLR cameras. Click the course title above to learn more or to register for this class.

Lighthouse & Trees

Bass Harbor Head Light  [Canon 5D]
Acadia National Park, Maine
October 2, 2007
(click in the image for a larger version)

Another photo of the lighthouse from the previous post. This was the view from the parking lot after I had hiked back up from the rocks at the waterline. The tripod was already all put away and the camera stowed in the bag, but of course, this scene prompted everything to be taken out and set up once again to make this 4 second exposure.

I played around with a black and white version, but this is just one of those images that needs to be in color. No special enhancements here...apart from the square crop, this is pretty much exactly as the camera recorded it.