Mellow time at the docks - a short show

Jazz piano by Andre Previn, who was honored with the London Symphony Orchestra's Lifetime Achievement Award on Tuesday, May 13, 2008.

North Carolina Water Rights Committee

The latest on the Alcoa licensing, podcasts, and more....

The N.C. Water Rights Committee is a coalition of hundreds of North Carolina business people and concerned citizens who have joined this state-wide effort to inform people of the critical issues concerning water rights that affect all North Carolinians. This is a grassroots initiative funded by donations from members of the committee.

We are advocating for the same rights to our water that 33 other states currently enjoy, including our neighbors in South Carolina. Chief among these beliefs is that we, the residents of North Carolina, are the best stewards for our water rather than private firms who use it primarily for their financial benefit.

North Carolina Water Rights Committee

Finding a rainbow

I hopped a ride with Gregg and Dorothea to shoot clouds on Shore Farm Road. The day previous was a bust so I was eager to try again. The skies had been dramatic and varied for days and I wanted some of them. Although we had planned a sunset run, the skies I saw while driving home from work were ripe for pickin', so I tipped off Dorothea as soon as I walked in the door. We hadn't been on the farm long before we were rewarded with terrific skies.... and the rainbow.

I've been shooting for HDR processing most of the time now,
but sometimes the ole single frame is the better image.

Another shortie, with HDRs, NIK filters.

Another May Sunset by the Docks

An older fellow fishing on the docks when I arrived greeted me with "looks like it's too cloudy for pictures, eh?" He left about 45 minutes later...too soon to see the show. I'm playing with my new CS3 and trial versions of NIK Efex (filters) and NIK Dfine 2.0 (noise reduction). Adobe Bridge is a powerful editing tool and I love the ease with which I can now view, move and edit files.

A short show.

A Cloud Show at Bruce's Farm

The clouds were gorgeous as we left Albemarle late last Saturday afternoon, and I was wondering where I could compose some shots. I had my camera only because I thought
I might grab a shot or two at a currently being developed subdivision, Edgewater on Lake Tillery. It wasn't until we pulled onto Indian Mound Road on the way to Edgewater, that it hit me that , of course, "the farm" would be an ideal vantage point. Although I didn't have my tripod, I tried bracketing for HDR and found it worked fine. I used the fences and the VR (vibration reduction) on my Nikon 18-200mm for steadying. The shots of Wendy and Nelson walking are not HDR.

I might try one of this series on metallic photo paper from Bullock Professional. If you're not familiar with metallic paper, check it out. It's high contrast, snappy color and has an interesting depth that's impossible to achieve with inkjets. This webpage is offering free samples of either Kodak's "E" surface or of the Metallic, both being Kodak's Endura real photo paper.

Shore Farm Road - Mourning Light

An unexpectedly enriching weekend with other photographers, morning light and a very generous landowner. Thanks Bruce. Thanks William.

I went, I waited , I saw

If you show up enough there's eventually some kind of payoff. It wasn't ideal, I wasn't coming up with the best compositions, I fumbled my ISO and apertures, but it was enough to keep me "showing up". This day, this light, these clouds are forever gone, but I'll show up at these docks again...and again. And maybe "it" will show up..and I'll get it right...or not. Maybe it's just about "being there" and that's enough.

April - Lake Tillery sparkles

I finally got a few shots of Morrow Mountain from the Swift Island Bridge. I was passing over it in my pickup truck with my dog, Scout, when the afternoon's gorgeous light, spring leaves and clouds were too much to resist. I shot a preliminary image while driving, generally aiming blindly in the direction of the mountain (slideshow image #33). When I saw the result, I went back across the bridge, parked and made a few short ventures onto the bridge on foot. #'s 52 and 53 are HDRs while the final several images are early morning on a farm near the lake. I'll have more of that series in a show to itself later.

Spring on Lake Tillery

As I work during the week, I was lucky for spring on Tillery to be spectacularly unveiled over Easter weekend and on through the following week. A Wednesday vacation day proved particularly well timed for mild weather fronts passing so I captured some more of the yellow-green sparkles of early springtime around the lake.

By the Water One November Morning....a short Smilebox with Celtic music

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Thanks Giving

Woodrun on Tillery - Fall Color 2008

Sailing into Morning

HDR version above

I've decided I prefer the non-HDR version below.

The major elements stand out better and the

eye isn't tangled up in too much foreground detail,

making the speeding bass boat stand out even more

in it's glowing fog cloud. I may try to tweak the foreground shadow areas

a bit, but for now it's OK.

I drifted down to the new Woodrun docks this past Sunday morning and found

my fix of fog, light and water.

Dabbling in easy slide shows and HDR

Hallmark's Smilebox provides an easy and

quick way to get a slideshow together and

emailed. Their templates range from the very simple,

classic and clean, to the all out "scrapbook" look.

There are single page "postcards" and multi-page

"books". Thankfully, Hallmark has the styles

grouped and sorted nicely, so finding a simple

slideshow with minimal graphics is fairly easy.

A choice of 3 music tracks is provided for each

Smilebox for free in the "basic" package, but you can opt

for the "premium" package, which allows unlimited

music choices, bigger viewing size and no

advertisements on the page.

The "basic" package is 100% free, if you

don't mind the smaller size, the ads, and

limited music clip choices.

The slideshows below are the "basic" version

and can be emailed, forwarded or blogged now, or

at any time in the future.

If you look carefully past

Hallmark's family oriented, busy graphics, you'll

find the simple, clean designs for

more serious photography slideshows.

The slideshow (Ridge Storm) below is a quick one I did last summer while I was experimenting with HDR (high dynamic range). Photomatix is the free trial software I used, as evidenced by their logo. If you can put up with the logos, the free trial download can be used indefinitely.

HDR requires shooting 3-5 images or so, bracketing the "over" and "under" exposures so that the HDR software can then make a composite image. In this way you've got the shadows opened up and the hightlights filled in with info. My Nikon D80 has a 3 frame, +-2.0 setting that works well.

above, HDR - final composite

middle exposure

2 stops underexposed

2 stops overexposed

HDR can be used in subtle ways to obtain a more perfect exposure of a difficult lighting situation, or it can be used for extremely dramatic, 3-D like effects. Once you figure out your camera's bracketing procedure, haul your tripod out and decide on a lighting-challenged subject. It's fun to see what "cooks up" later in the HDR software's compositing process.

I didn't know about HDR while I was shooting the "October Party" sunrise images, but wished I had, as I did a fair amount of post processing to better balance the skies' exposures. HDR is the sort of post-processing tinkering that will remind you of the fun part of being in a traditional darkroom.

Getting my feet wet

My boss suggested the idea of blogging to me today, and I guess I've jumped right in..."jumping right in" isn't typical of me but that's where I am today.


I work in digital photography and I play in digital photography and graphics, so this blog will have lots of images, mostly my own. For example, the header of this blog is from a 2 page spread of "Swift Island"...80 Years A Beauty, a book I've recently self-published. Not meaning to sound self-important, in case you're oblivious to the self-publishing revolution, anybody can fairly easily publish a book these days. Quality, content, appeal...none of that is required...just the motivation to collect thoughts and/or images and dump them into the self-publishing website's software, and then "pay up" .


The self-publishing idea caught on with me a couple of months ago when a neighbor sent me a link from a professional photographer whose Yosemite workshop she and her husband attended this past winter. One of their instructors had published through Blurb.com and I was instantly and thoroughly sucked into site. If you're a photographer or writer, or both, you should check out some of the self-publishing sites sproutin' up all over. Even if you have no intention of getting a book together yourself, you'll probably find browsing the crazy, wide variety of books available from those who have. Blurb.com is an easy one in which it's easy to navigate and search. Although I've already mentioned "anybody" can publish, some of the self-published photography coffee table style books are gorgeous ....bookstore quality and are truly first rate in content and style.


I'm just starting to explore what's out there along this line, but I plan to comment on my new finds, bad finds, ...whatever. Well, I guess I got my feet wet, so I'll give it a rest for now.