“Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… It remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.”
Aaron Siskind

When I read this quote, it immediately makes me think about photos of my children. There is something about viewing an old photo that seems to bring back the feeling of being there….at the exact time the photo was taken. And that just seems magical. It feels much different than seeing a drawing, or even a painting. But, maybe that’s just me. Does it do the same to you, whatever the photograph happens to be of?

Many people think of cemeteries as places to stay away from or perhaps even a little ‘spooky’. I am fortunate to live quite close to a cemetery that is not that way at all. It is actually a fairly large one, but it really is quite beautiful with a pond, tons of trees, and lots of green area. There are always a good number of people in it that have come by for recreational purposes.

There are walkers, runners, and bicyclists on the paved trails. Birdwatchers are always to be found with their field glasses, given that it is a large green area within the city. And wildlife abounds in the mornings and evenings. I have seen fox, deer, groundhogs, and turkey living there. This time of year there are almost always bucks to be seen in the early mornings.

I’m not much of a wildlife photographer, but every so often I will take a morning ride through the cemetery to see what I might be able to photograph.

I have sold prints to various healthcare facilities over the last few years. It is really heartening, particularly as a physician, to have my work in these locations and hear positive feedback from peers and patients. Over the last several weeks, I have been working on a couple of new projects, and one of them has been creating a website specifically dedicated to providing artwork to healthcare institutions and commercial spaces.

I have now completed this project, and the website is currently live and titled Art & Health. I constructed it using the new Squarespace version 7.1. Learning how to use 7.1, compared to 7.0 which I used for this site, was interesting. I do think it resulted in giving the new site a cleaner and more modern look and feel. In fact, I was tempted to redo this site using 7.1. The problem with that (and I think this is a real failing on the part of Squarespace) is that, while they provide a method of migrating Wordpress blogs to Squarespace, they do NOT provide a way to properly migrate a Squarespace 7.0 blog to the new 7.1 platform. This means that, if I were to redo this site, I would lose over a decade of blog posts that bring viewers to my website. I will likely work on updating the look a bit, but stick with 7.0

At this point, I would like to invite readers to have a look at Art & Health and please feel free to leave a comment here and tell me what you think and/or make any suggestions you might have!

On a recent morning, I went out to photograph Lake Arthur, about a 40 min ride from my home. It was a bland and cloudy day and I made this photograph….which shows just how overcast and seemingly monochrome the scene was. This is the processed image as it came out of Lightroom.

I obviously could have added more contrast to it, but I like leaving myself room at both ends of the histogram when a photo comes out of Lightroom, because I complete my processing in Photoshop and want to have some leeway before clipping occurs.

Though I say ‘seemingly monochrome’, it is obvious that there are some colors in the image. One could argue that this might make a nice black and white photo, but I was looking for color and wanted to bring out the colors that I know are hiding in the photo.

The first question is what colors are actually there? The answer in this, and many other cases like this, can be rather surprising.

Any image can ultimately be broken down to the colors or hues in it at 100% saturation and then with brightness and saturation layers and appropriate masking it can be restored to its original appearance. I have an action from a course I took that will do just that. It takes any image and constructs one layer of hue, meaning a layer that has every pixel’s hue at 100% saturation, and then adds a layer for saturation and brightness along with the appropriate masks and then puts a black background under the layers. When all the layers are turned on, the image appears completely unchanged. But with just the hue layer on you can discover what actual colors are hidden in your image, albeit at 100% saturation. So let’s see what colors this photo is actually made of. Here we go:

The blue isn’t all that surprising, but the colors in the sky was and, perhaps to a lesser extent the foreground water. My goal then was to bring these colors out and separate them to some degree in order to add some color contrast. I undertook this challenge using a variety of Photoshop tools, plug-ins, etc to achieve this final image. I should note that I didn’t paint in any colors, I just manipulated the ones that were already there to get to this point:

Just for fun, let’s rerun the action and take a look at what colors the final image contains.

It isn’t 100% necessary, but it can be of value, and it is certainly of interest, to know what colors an image is actually comprised of.

Lately, I have been doing a bit of looking back at images I have in Lightroom that I haven’t processed over the years. Let’s just say that I have many, many more unprocessed images than processed ones. Of course, there is a reason that some of the photos remain unprocessed, but the truth is that there is a lot in my Lightroom catalog that is worth processing but I just never got around to doing so. If I decided to stop photographing today (which is by no means the plan, as I hope to be doing that to the bitter end) I would still have enough material to work with for years.

This photo is one that I took back in October of 2009 of Bridal Veil Falls in Ohio’s Cuyahoga National Park, which also happens to be the nation’s smallest national park. It is located just a couple hours from me, so I think it’s a place that I should return to. In this instance I was drawn to the reflections of the fall colors in the water below the actual falls.

Like me, do you have material that you have never worked on but that is worth revisiting?

I haven’t had the opportunity to photograph at the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral Of Learning for some time, but I still have quite a few photos from the location that I haven’t processed. Like this one. The Gothic architecture definitely imparts a rather medieval feel to the location. Sometimes it is quite useful to take an ambiance that is already present and try to enhance it even more. In this case, I thought the monotone sepia presentation did just that.

The picture that you took with your camera is the imagination you want to create with reality.”
Scott Lorenzo

Somehow, this quote seems particularly apropos to the current era of digital imaging; a time when the images we take with our camera are merely reality based starting points for our imaginations. We can turn those images into almost anything we would like. Lorenzo seemed to say it very concisely and in a thought provoking way!

So I have this bad habit. I’ve had it for years. When I am out photographing, I tend to focus on one little area I find and explore it in depth. But I tend to lose sight of the other photographic opportunities that exist in the area because I keep concentrating on the same thing. I’m not saying that concentrating on photographing one thing in depth is bad; on the contrary, it is a good way to make personally expressive photographs. But like most things, there needs to be a balance and sometimes (meaning almost every time) I tend to lose that balance.

So I am thankful that when we were out photographing an abandoned car on a recent trip to the Columbia River Gorge, my friend Alex grabbed me and practically forced me to photograph these beautiful lupines that he had found just a handful of yards away from the car I was photographing.

Note to self: explore a bit more, move around a bit more, open your mind to all that there is to photograph at a location.

Typically speaking, my photographs tend not to have people in them. There are several reasons for this. The first is that I am usually trying to portray the unspoiled and idealized landscape (which, to some extent, we all know is becoming rarer - visit a National Park lately? :) The second is that I am usually photographing alone or with friends who are also photographers and thus I have no ‘assistants’ to insert into the ‘photo’. Finally, I tend to be very slow and deliberate when I am photographing, focusing manually, etc. Therefore, if someone wanders into the photo I am usually unprepared to capture them even if they are doing something that I think might add to the composition.

So when I was recently photographing at Bandon, I decided to change my tune a bit and let some people in…into the photo that is. This was a first step anyway, as I decided not so much to set up and change my style of shooting, but, rather, to try getting some photos when people happened to walk into the scene. This would be instead of doing what I would usually do, which is to wait for them to walk out.

There are some very good reasons for having people in your photos. For one thing, they can give a sense of scale to what might otherwise be the main subject of your image. There are also many viewers that recognize that the pristine landscape, in reality, is rarely as pristine as photos tend to show and want a more realistic view. They enjoy seeing others in the photo and consider it a more ‘human’ touch. Finally, the presence of a person can add interest to a photo, particularly if they are actively doing something interesting.

So how did the experiment work. I have to say that I liked some of the results I got! Lets get to a couple of examples:

I wish I could say that I saw the bicyclist coming and carefully planned for her to be in the scene. The truth is that I saw her at the last second and wasn’t even sure she would be in focus. In fact, were I carefully planning I would have preferred that she be about a third of the way from the left of the frame, instead of the right, so that she would have space to ride into the frame, instead of out of it. The wave splashing directly over her head was a bit of luck as well. I did like the slight blur of her and the bicycle related to motion.

The point is that I am opening my mind to more possibilities and that has got to be a good thing! I will see what comes of it moving forward.

It’s that time of year again…..sunflower fields! I had the opportunity to photograph at the Schwirian Farm Sunflower Festival for the second year in a row. Of course, I spent the first hour or so making the standard type of compositions among the rows and rows of beautiful huge sunflowers. But then I wanted to try to make something different; something that wasn’t so standard. So I tried some more abstract techniques: intentional camera movement, zooming during exposures made long through the use of neutral density filters, and in-camera multiple exposures. It was the zoom abstracts that I found most compelling.

I try to remind myself to try new, or at least different, ideas when out in the field. Not in the attempt to merely make something different, but in the hopes of making something more expressive.

I ran across this interesting video on YouTube by Alex Kilbee and The Photographic Eye. The video is about sharing your work and, while I can’t say that I totally agree with everything that is said, I do completely agree with the main thesis. There are some very good thoughts and ideas to ponder in it.

I do think there is a very real role for having an audience for your photography and believe that the narrator agrees. His main thesis (and the point of the video) is that the primary reason to make photographs should be for the joy you get by doing so. I’m totally on board with that. Moreover, and perhaps more to the point, I think that if one is doing it for joy and to please themselves first, then the audience he or she gets is more likely to be truly interested in their work.

I thought it was an interesting video and one worth sharing. What are your thoughts?

I wonder why, as photographers, we find abandoned places so irresistibly attractive. Is it a sense of nostalgia? Is it because using a camera we become very aware of time, catching life in fractions of a second? Is it because it feels like traveling back in time when we stand before abandoned locations? Or is it just a natural human feeling to wonder what came before?

This particular abandoned barn (and a farmhouse that accompanied it) was seen on my recent trip to the Columbia River Gorge.

For quite some time I have had mixed feelings about the sheer number of photos that are posted daily to the major social media sites. There is simply an incomprehensible number of images that are shared on-line each day:

• Snapchat users post 528,000 images per MINUTE (of course they thankfully disappear :)

• Instagram users post 47,000 images per MINUTE. That’s about 68 million photos a day; 95 million if you include videos

• Facebook users upload more than 300 MILLION photos daily (that’s a lot of look at what I’m having for breakfast shots :)

Of course, the vast majority of these are not meant to be ‘fine art images’, which can often get lost in the fray. But even if only 5% of the Facebook and Instagram images are meant to be fine art, that is still over 18 million of them a day. What does one look at? What does photography mean when there is that volume of images calling for our attention?

One thing we can do is accept that we must limit our intake. Nobody can see everything there is to see. In addition, wouldn’t it be nice if we could actually see the ‘good stuff’ without having to scroll, the act of which inevitably makes one spend very little time even the images we enjoy?

That is why I am so excited about the introduction of the FRAMES Photography App, the brain child of Tomasz Trzebiatowski, the founder and editor of FRAMES magazine. Oh no, not another photo sharing app you say! Ah, but this one is quite different. Worried about having to deal with hundreds of photos….no worries, there are only two photos shown daily. Questioning whether you will see quality images….don’t, the stream is curated with great photography on display. Worried about not seeing a wide variety of photographs….no need, the stream is rich with images from all genres. Concerned about having to pay to view or to submit images…..toss out that concern a well, it’s all free. And by free I mean free. No ads (you heard that right) and no ‘in-app purchases’.

And here is the best part. If you are spending some of the little free time you have looking at images on an app, wouldn’t it be nice to get something of value in return? YOU DO! In the form of education and inspiration. When you submit images for consideration to be included in the feed you are asked to answer the following questions:

• SHARE THE STORY BEHIND YOUR PHOTOGRAPH. Where and when it was it taken? What does it represent? Why did you create this image? Your thoughts, your emotions...

• BE A TEACHER. Help The Viewers Improve Their Own Photography. Share something of value (technical or inspirational) that will help the viewers with elevating their own photography skills.

• Equipment Used / Settings

The responses to these questions are printed with the displayed photograph, along with the contributors website URL or Instagram feed. These responses give insight into the photographers thoughts and motivations. Isn’t that refreshing!

The app, as I mentioned, is completely free for both viewing as well as for submitting your own photographs. It can be downloaded here for both iOS and Android systems.

FRAMES magazine itself is beautifully printed on thick fine art paper on a quarterly basis, but a subscription also includes 12 monthly ‘Digital Companion’ issues in pdf format as well as quarterly video Masterclasses with renowned photographers, and a subscriber only website and forum. You can find more subscribing information here (affiliate link).

As readers of my blog may already know, for the last year and a half I have been doing part time work in Oregon, which has given me the opportunity to frequently photograph Bandon Beach as well as other locations along the Oregon coast. During this time I have learned some practical things about beach photography, which I thought I would pass on in the form of short tips.

• If you have two camera bodies, take them both and mount a wide/normal zoom on one and a longer focal length zoom on the other. You don’t want to be changing lenses on the beach if you can possibly avoid it. Sand has a magical way of getting everywhere you don’t want it to be (such as on your sensor).

• If your back can take it, wear your backpack instead of putting it down. If you do put it down, look for a high, dry rock to put it on. Why? Because putting it down on the sand is just asking for sand to get inside when you open it (and if you put it down an a plastic bag or rain cover the wind will invariably gust just as you are lifting the bag…..now imagine yourself chasing that rain cover down the beach :). The rock is important because if you just put the bag on the sand and 30 minutes later realize that the tide is coming in you will turn around and find your bag soaked (at best) or floating (at worst).

• Wear a small pack on your belt that holds your polarizer and neutral density filters, as you don’t want to have to put your pack down in the sand and open it to search for them. I use the MindShift Gear Filter Nest Storage Case (affiliate link).

• Oregon Beaches are different from most East Coast beaches. Nobody lays in the sun on a blanket. They walk on the beach. It can be chilly and windy even when it is quite a bit warmer inland. I wear a sweatshirt over a long sleeve shirt even in July when going out for sunset. It’s hard to be creative when you are uncomfortable.

• Beware of so called ’sneaker waves’ - large (and potentially dangerous) waves that can seemingly come from nowhere, particularly when the tide is predicted to be high and is coming in. They say to never turn your back on the ocean. It is wise advice, particularly when you are on the edge of, or in, the water.

• Along the same lines, rocks that are wet can be very slippery. Think twice. There are some places that you don’t want to fall into (like the one below). Be safe….no photograph is worth risking your life for (if the video doesn’t travel to email subscribers here is the link.)

• The best way to bring the viewer into the image is to get into the water yourself (it doesn’t have to be very far in, in fact it’s better if it’s not….you don’t want you or your camera knocked over). But you will want to be wearing waterproof boots and waterproof over-pants with snaps or ties at the bottom of the legs. And the over-pants should be worn over your boots, not tucked into them. Tucking them into your boots simply funnels water into the boots (I learned that the hard way). I personally also take my cloth socks off and wear waterproof neoprene booties inside the boots.

• If you are getting into the water, make sure it is in a calm location. You most definitely do not want to be getting into the water at locations similar to that depicted in the video above.

• In addition to the ‘big picture’ look for the small scenes on the beach….ripples in the sand, interesting rocks, shells, washed up kelp. At low tide look for the living creatures on the rocks. The rocks that you think are stone are often alive, with every square inch covered with various types of sea life….look carefully.

• Including passers by can add a sense of scale to your image

• Be ready for anything, conditions on the beach can change rapidly and sometimes interesting photographic opportunities may only last a few minutes (or even seconds)

• Bring neutral density filters, you will be glad you did

And the most important two rules of all:

• Don’t be overly rigid about what you expect to shoot. You don’t always get what you expect, but you always get something good if you are flexible enough to take advantage of it. As my teacher, the late Nancy Rotenberg, used to say….’take the gift you are given’

• have fun being creative!

On my last trip to Bandon Beach, I arrived to find it heavily overcast and quite foggy. I stay in Coos Bay when I am there, which is about a 25 minute drive away. It’s amazing how often there are only a few clouds in Coos Bay, while it is heavily overcast at Bandon……a place that truly does have its own micro-climate. I certainly can’t say that I dislike fog, because it does lend a feeling all its own, but, for heaven’s sake, this was the third evening I had arrived to find only fog. Here’s what I mean in an unretouched cell phone shot of the beach when I got there.

As sunset approached and nothing seemed to change, I packed up my equipment and was getting ready for the drive back when I noticed that maybe, maybe there seemed to be some small breaks in the clouds out over the horizon. Did I want to get my equipment back out again and wait to see what happened? Yes, no, yes, no…oh, what the hell…yeah, let’s just see.

And then this happened on the back of my camera! It only lasted about ten minutes and then it was gone. How could that even be?

The lesson is obvious:

i) It ain’t over till it’s over

ii) And, as an aside, some of the neatest color actually occurs after sunset (though on this particular day it rapidly clouded up again)

The processed image:

It was definitely worth both the unpacking and the wait!

On a recent visit to Moraine State Park in Western Pennsylvania, I found myself at a small area of the lakeside that I hadn’t ever photographed before. There were three small wharves that looked like they would make good photographic subjects. Two of them were brand new and made of fresh lumber, but one of them was far more interesting with its old, weathered wood that had deep texture to it. That was the one to photograph!

It was only after I got the photo into Lightroom and Photoshop that I realized there was a very light reflection of the sky in the water.

And by the way, there’s no fishing allowed :)

I had the opportunity to make another photograph in my series of ‘swirling flowers', this time using yellow Peruvian Lilies (from Trader Joe’s of course). One of the things I love about making these is that you never really know what will come out at the end until you spend time playing with the many layers. For reference, I put a photo that makes up one of the layers below the finished piece.

Below is the photograph that constitutes one of the 35 layers.

On my recent trip to the Columbia River Gorge, I had the opportunity to photograph sunrise at Washington’s Dalles Mountain Ranch, which is just over the Oregon/Washington border. There was a huge field of Arrowleaf Balsamroot and when getting down low in the flowers it really felt like you were surrounded by and lying in a bed of orange. But the spot was chosen carefully….which is to say no flowers were injured in the making of this photo :)

This particular photograph was made using a wide angle lens at a focal length of 15mm and, given the wide range of brightness at sunrise, is an HDR photo composed of 3 merged shots taken at different exposures. I personally use SNS-HDR to process my HDR photos (which, granted, are needed far less frequently these days), because of the ease in which I can obtain a natural look using that software.

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I have been thinking quite a bit about my photography lately, particularly about instilling more into my photos. By that I mean more of me, something beyond just recording sights that are beautiful. One of the things I have been experimenting with (among several) is making images with a bit of mystery to them. Why this building? What happens here? Why are we here?

This particular photo was taken with a Lensbaby Velvet that I was experimenting with, and the air of mystery obviously comes not so much from the subject, but from the appearance of the subject. In this case there is an overall blur and cold tones on the front of the building, as well as the closed doors and the unusual ‘altar’ in the front.

This was the first time I shot with the Velvet and, though I like the results, the ‘jury is still out’ in my mind. I say that not because of the results, but because I believe I can achieve similar results (and with greater control) using Photoshop along with several plug ins. Then again, there is something alluring about not having complete control. There is always some uncertainty about exactly what that final image will look like with the Velvet. You can see it on the back of the camera, but the entire effect really isn’t totally apparent until you view the image at a larger size. More experimentation seems warranted.

This post is a bit different from my usual. I recently have started teaching Photoshop and Lightroom to several people via Zoom and find that I am really enjoying the experience. I do have the time to teach a few more people, and thus this post!

Why learn from me via Zoom when there are tons of Photoshop and Lightroom courses out there? The main reason is personal attention. With live instruction we can focus not on generalities, but on what you want to learn…one-on-one. You decide what you want to spend time learning and improving. We can focus specifically on the issues you are having with your image processing and learn how to use the tools that will be helpful for what you are wanting to accomplish. I love photography and love teaching and that’s what I hope will make this a great experience.

I have also been giving thought (though I haven’t started yet) to perhaps giving live one-on-one instruction out in the field if you live locally. This would also tie in quite nicely with on-line teaching about processing if learning creative photography is an interest of yours.

If any of the above sounds interesting to you send me an email at howardgrillphotography@gmail.com There is no commitment whatsoever on your part. We can simply talk about how we might be able to structure teaching in a way that works for you.