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...

***********************

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:

***********************

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!

 

 

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.

Stonington

Stonington, Maine  •  [Canon 5D]
September 3, 2011
(click in the image for a larger, sharper version)

A weeklong workshop goes by fast sometimes. On Sunday night when the class meets for the first time to go over the week ahead, it seems like you have all the time in the world. Then the days rush by, in a blur of visiting cool locations, making photos and working on them in the digital lab, learning new methods and techniques for interpreting and perfecting your images (not to mention enjoying the great food and interesting conversations under the dining tent at the Maine Media Workshops).

The first of my two back-to-back workshps ended yesterday morning and this evening a new one, "HDR & Beyond" begins. It's a good process that benefits not only the students but also myself. I always learn something from each workshop I teach. From the questions that get asked to the way someone might choose to create an image or interpret it in a unique way. The back and forth exchange of ideas between photographers is an important component of growing as an artist.

The image above is a 3-exposure HDR blend that was taken last Saturday before my first workshop began. The weather last week was gray and rainy much of the time due to Hurricaine Katia passing by far out in the Atlantic. The forecast looks better for the week ahead for 5 days of exploring and pushing the boundaries of what is possible with HDR, both techically and aesthetically.

 

Exploring the Edge

Exploring the Edge  [iPhone]
August 18, 2011  • San Francisco
(click in the image for a larger version)

I was down in San Francisco the past couple of days meeting with some of my photography and digital darkroom consulting clients. I had some free time Thursday afternoon and I headed out to the Cliff House and the old Sutro Baths ruins to work on a 3-pronged photo approach that included shooting source images for a multi-image compositing project, generating new HDR examples for my upcoming September workshop in Maine, and some creative exploration with the iPhone.

It was cool and overcast at the coast, quite windy and nothing like a typical hot summer day. Then again, San Francisco is not known for sweltering summer days. They do happen on rare occasions, but not very often. The man's scarf flying in the wind makes the shot for me.

For the app-curious, this shot was processed on the iPhone 4 with Filterstorm 3 and Snapseed. I used Filterstorm to replace the sky with a new one that was shot during the same session. The original sky was a bit blown out in the upper left corner so I used Filterstorm's Add Exposure feature and excellent gradient mask capabilities to seamlessly blend in a sky with better detail. Once the sky had been addressed, most of the processing and creative styling of the image was done in Snapseed. For those who are unfamiliar with this app, it is from Nik, the same company that makes many great plug-ins for Photoshop and Lightroom. I really like the intuitive interface design that they have brought to their iPhone and iPad app and it has quickly become one of my main creative apps. One of the big pluses is the U-Point technology for making local adjustments to specific areas. This is a feature that is a hallmark of Nik's main photo-processing programs. Both Filterstorm and Snapseed are excellent apps and if you're looking for something new to add to your collection of iPhone photo-processing apps, I highly recommend them.

I am currently developing some iPhone classes on how you can make the most of this incredible creative tool. If you want to be kept informed of when these are available, be sure to sign up for my free Viewfinder newslettter using the sign-up form in the right column.

Day-for-Night HDR, Revisited

 
The Narrow Road  [Canon 5D]
February 25, 2010  Point Bonita, California
(click in the image for a larger view)

I first posted this image about a year and a half ago. The reason this photograph is on my radar screen again is two-fold. First, I'll be in the San Francisco and Marin County area working with some of my consulting clients later this week and I hope to visit this spot again.  Second, I just learned today that my upcoming HDR & Beyond class at the Maine Media Workshops is a go (Sept 11 -17), and since this image certainly fits the description of HDR and beyond, it seemed appropriate to re-visit it for those who may not have seen it before.

The location is the path to the Point Bonita Lighthouse at the entrance to San Francisco Bay (you cannot see the lighthouse from this angle as it is on the far side of the rocky point). I was exploring the Marin Headlands, which is one of the places I like to visit when time permits during my regular Bay Area consulting visits. On this particular day I arrived a bit too late to visit the lighthouse and the tunnel through the rock at the far end of the path above was already locked by the time I got there. But it was still a great place to go for a stroll and the views of the headlands, the rocky coast, the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco were quite spectacular.

This image is a an HDR blend of three carefully-braced hand held exposures (yes, in some circumstances, it is possible to do HDR without a tripod) that were photographed one stop apart using the camera's auto exposure bracketing feature (see below for what the original shots looked like).

The initial HDR blend was created using Merge to HDR in Photoshop CS4 and then the 32-bit HDR file was processed in Photomatix. I enjoy playing around with day-for-night interpretations of some scenes and I knew that this is how I wanted to process this photo. I actually made two separate Photomatix versions: the first one (see below; click to see it larger) created the overall HDR tone mapping effect that I liked, as well as the beginnings of a general flavor of an exaggerated night scene.

But I was unhappy with the strong halo around the tip of the rock, so I made a second version in Photomatix with a darker and lower contrast sky that did not have the objectionable halo (see below; click to see it larger). 

These two versions were then opened into Photoshop and combined with a layer mask (see below; click to see it larger).

Finally, the night effect was enhanced via several adjustment layers that significantly darkened the image, and reduced the overall color saturation, and the power poles in the distance were also retouched to create the final image you see at the top of the page.

••••••••

We'll be exploring the Day-for-Night approach, as well as other ways to venture beyond the initial HDR composite in  HDR & Beyond, Sept 11 - 17. I invite you to join me for a week of beautiful mid-coast Maine landscapes, intriguing lighting challenges, creative photography, lots of learning and good times with like-minded people. In addition to the HDR class, I will also be in Maine the week before teaching Advanced Digital Photography, Sept 4 -10. Both classes are running and there's still room in each one. Click the class titles for more information on these workshops.

Maine Memory Lane

Mirror in a Blue Room  [Canon 5D]
August 21, 2008  •  Cushing, Maine
(click in the image to see a larger version)

Here's another image from the Olson House that I wrote about in yesterday's post. This is an HDR shot made from four exposures, processed in Photomatix and "seasoned" with some additional TLC from several adjustment layers in Photoshop CS5 (you can see the layers panel for the final image below).

 

The four source shots for the HDR image.

 

Location, Location, Location!

I'd love to go back to the Olson House again when I will be in Maine teaching in the first half of September. I'm not sure of its availability as a location, however, since the nearby Farnsworth Museum will still be hosting their exhibition on Andrew Wyeth, Christina's World and the Olson House at the same time. But even if it is not available to visit with one of my classes, the great thing about teaching at the Maine Media Workshops is that there is no shortage of wonderful and scenic locations to explore with our cameras. This will be my seventh year teaching workshops there and the weeks ahead, I'll be sharing several of my favorite Maine images here on the blog.

You can find out more about my upcoming Maine workshops by clicking the image links in the right-hand column below the sign-up form for my free Viewfinder Newsletter.

 

 

 

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!

Bring on the Night: Changing the Time of Day for Creative Effect

Marshall Point Light  [Canon 5D]
August 13, 2008  •  Port Clyde, Maine
(click in the image for a larger version)

From the mountainous Eastern Sierras in the previous post we head to the far eastern shores of the U.S. to the rocky coast of Maine, and a nighttime view of the Marshall Point Light at Port Clyde.

Ah, but is it really a nighttime view?

Actually, it is not. Rather, it is a day-for-night (or, perhaps more accurately, an early evening-for-night) interpretation created from two slightly different treatments of a single Raw file, as well as tonal and color modifications applied via adjustment layers and layer masks in Photoshop.Though creating a day-for-night effect can be somewhat involved,depending on the photo and what the actual time of day was, in this image the changes are fairly simple. They are achieved primarily through an adjustment layer that significantly darkens the scene and another one that makes it seems as if the light inside the house is spilling out onto the porch.

Below you can see the original image, which was taken in the early evening hours after the sun had set (click in the image to see a larger version). You can see a screenshot of the final layers panel for this image at the end of this post.

TIP: The starpoint of light coming from the lighthouse was recorded that way in-camera. If you are photographing bright points of light at night (or in the early evening hours as in this scene) and you want to create the pointed rays of light like this, the trick is to use a small lens aperture. The aperture in this shot was f/18. Of course, in low light situations like this, such a small aperture will necessitate a slower shutter speed and you will need to be on a tripod to ensure that camera motion does not create an unsharp image (the shutter speed for this image was 2.5 seconds).

Advanced Digital Photography Workshop in Maine

Night photography, combining multiple exposures, and creative post-capture interpretive techniques in Photoshop are just some of the many things we'll be exploring in my Advanced Digital Photography workshop coming up Sept. 4 - 10 at the Maine Media Workshops. There's still some spots left so sign up soon if you're interested in getting away from your normal routine and spending a week exploring a beautiful part of the country and focusing on improving your photography and digital darkroom technique.

I will also be teaching my HDR & Beyond workshop immediately following this one (Sept 11 - 17).

• • •

The Final Layers Panel of the Marshall Point Light image:

 

 

Deconstructing an HDR Image

Late Afternoon Light, Eastern Sierras  [Canon 5D]
August 29, 2010  ••  Along Highway 395, California
(click in the image for a larger version)

This shot is an HDR blend of three exposures that was taken almost a year ago during a road trip on the way to Las Vegas. On the first day my route took me up over Donner Pass and down Highway 395 along the eastern Sierras to Lone Pine and the Alabama Hills. Day two was spent photographing in the Alabama Hills in the early morning and then heading east to Death Valley in the afternoon. I spent that night in Death Valley and then did more photography and hiking the next day before crossing into Nevada and making my way to Vegas. On the way back I repeated the route with more time for exploring and making photographs. It's great to indulge in a road trip like that now and then!

The photograph above was taken late in the afternoon on the first day, not far from Lone Pine. The sun was low over the mountains and occasionally covered by passing clouds, which created these beautiful rays of light streaming down over the peaks and onto the edge pf the Owens Valley. Light like that is a powerful magnet for photographers and I made frequent stops to take pictures of it (which is why, when you ask a photographer how long it will take them to drive somewhere, akways add a few hours onto the estimated time!).

I first posted this over on Google+ and someone made a comment saying they'd like to see the orginal source exposures. Here they are below. The camera was not on a tripod, but was braced on the top of my car. The aperture was f/8 and the shutter speeds, in the order in which they appear here, were 1/1600, 1/3200, and 1/800 (click on any image below to see a larger version).

 

These three raw exposures where run through Photomatix to create the result below:

 

After the initial HDR blend created in Photomatix

 

I regarded this as a good start, but only that. The colors were a bit too saturated for my tastes and the contrast was still a bit low. Of course, I could have altered those qualities in Photomatix, but I like to leave my options open. This is why I chose to create an initial HDR blend that had good color saturation but relatively flat contrast. I can always decrease color saturation and increase contrast in Photoshop, with far more localized control than I have in Photomatix. But my options would have been more limited had I desaturated the colors and boosted the contrast in Photomatix.

And therein lies one of the core concepts of my upcoming HDR & Beyond workshop at the Maine Media Workshops this September 11 — 17: That the initial result you create from HDR software is not necessarily the ending point of the process. In most cases the image can be improved much more with further enhancements in Photoshop. The initial HDR composite is not the destination, but just another way station on the creative journey of the image. For this image, the next stop in the journey was an application of a color toning effect that I call "Sepiaesque" that I use on some of my color images:

 

After the "Sepiaesque" color toning.

 

Sepiaesque uses Hue/Saturation layers to create the sepia coloring, plus the Overlay or Soft Light blend modes (the one I end up using depends on the image). It is the blend modes that create the boost in contrast, especially if Overlay is used. After applying the Sepiaesque toning, I added a few more adjustment layers to enhance localized contrast and saturation. The final layer is a color fill layer set to Overlay at 29% opacity to add a warm feeling to the rays of sunlight shinging from behind the cloud.

 

The final image after localized contrast and color tinting for the rays of light.

 

The reasons you might choose to use HDR are varied. They range from a practical need to use different exposures of the same scene to capture a very wide range of tonal values and contrast that would be impossible to record in a single exposure, as in this image, to a more aesthetic choice to explore the different visual style that is possible with the HDR process. Though HDR sometimes gets a bad rap when it is used in a heavy-handed fashion to produce wildly exxagerated and over-saturated images that look almost cartoonish, keep in mind that an HDR shot doesn't necessarly have to look like an "HDR shot". Like any imaging technique, it's just a tool. And the result you get depends on how you use that tool.

The two programs that I use for HDR, Photomatix and Nik's HDR Efex Pro, both offer a wide range of controls for styling the look of the HDR blends they create. But I always go beyond the result created by those programs and further customize and personlize the look of the image in Photoshop CS5. That's what my HDR & Beyond workshop is all about (as well as mastering the camera technique behind HDR captures and just having a really good time immersed in creative photography on the beautiful Maine coast).

Here's a view of the Layers Panel for the final image: