lifted spirit photos
lines
i’ve spent a lot of time making “art” that wasn’t a full expression of myself. i apparently needed to be given “permission” to fully express myself through my images, and now that i have, i realize something. it’s something that makes all of my exes incredibly happy! i was, as you may have guessed by now…wrong.
Read Morei love to share about those who inspire me artistically or photographically. this is one in a series of the many artists who’ve had an impact on me and the way i see. this post is about a film photographer who composites multiple film negatives into a single image print in a way that photoshop can’t even compare. in this blog post, i celebrate the work of Jerry Uelsmann.
Read Morea good friend of mine, incredible photographer and wonderfully skilled writer asked me the other day if he could interview me. so he sent me a list of questions as he lives half a world away in physical terms, and i answered them the best i could. (which may not be very good at all, if i’m being honest) if you’d like it, you can find the link within the blog post. but even if you don’t want to read my answers, please check out my friend Siddhartha De - his photography and written words about the places he visits throughout the world will leave you salivating to travel.
Read Morei love to share about those who inspire me artistically or photographically. this is one in a series of the many artists who’ve had an impact on me and the way i see. this post is about a photographer i’d call a minimalist landscape photographer. he often shoots with film, and has an incredibly interesting perspective on tones - no hugely saturated tones here, yet they still have the impact of those huge saturation images. i’ve taken a couple of his online courses and finally broke down and treated myself to his latest book offering which i couldn’t be more excited to receive. this photographer is in my top five favorites as well as influential, and his name is bruce percy.
Read Moreif i ever start telling you what’s in my bag, or that you need to have piece of gear X in order to be a photographer, or a landscape photographer, or a film photographer, or whatever, then you should probably call me out on it and stop paying attention to me.
and i’ll tell you why i feel this way in this blog post.
Read Morei love to share about those who inspire me artistically or photographically. this is one in a series of the many artists who’ve had an impact on me and the way i see. this post is about a large format film photographer who tells some of the best stories in a single photo that i can recall seeing. many people call him cinematic although he shoots stills, but i would agree. it feels like a movie, and it feels like an entire movie - not just a screen capture of a scene in the movie. how he does it, i have no idea, but Gregory Crewdson is an incredible photographer who i someday hope to emulate.
Read Morechasing likes and followers appears to be all the rage lately. many landscape photographers travel from epic place to epic place, chasing the trophy images. while i started out doing primarily that, i find it less and less interesting to me these day: trying to appease the masses.
Read Morealong the same lines of the color filters discussed previously, many software packages have the ability to lighten or darken tonality of colors, which in turn darkens or lightens the gray tones produced when converting to black and white. one can use these tonal adjustments to add or remove contrast based on color tones in the original image. care must be taken as these tonal adjustments are global throughout the image.
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Sand Dune Shapes
this extended look into contrast focuses on the color filter(s) as a method of adding contrast to our images. a color filter in software is equivalent to adding a color filter to the front of your lens in the old-school (or current) film days. color filters disallow certain colors from coming into the black and white conversion and essentially lighten or darken certain colors. it is in this way we can wisely add contrast to our black and white images.
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Pilot in the Clouds
this blog post concentrates on what contrast is in an image. we’ll discuss what more contrast looks like in an image vs less contrast, and briefly touch on how to add contrast into an image. we’ll also get to see the tone curve in lightroom as an example of adding or removing contrast in an image.
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a grayscale version of a classic viewpoint of long’s peak in rocky mountain national park
in this blog post, i detail how i make a black and white image from a color image. this can apply to either digital or film images, but is the method i use most often for digital images.
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a golden aspen during the peak aspen colors in the fall in colorado
a common question i see is, “does this work better as color or black and white?'“ and my personal response is typically, what are you trying to say with the image? black and white is usually about shape, form, line, contrast and texture. color is usually about…well, um…color. this blog post digs into the details of black and white vs. color, and why and how i choose one or the other.
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