Photography Workshop “Yosemite in Winter: A Season of Contrast” with Michael Mariant. Day 1: Yosemite National Park.
NIK just released version 2 of their Silver Efex Pro plugin for Photoshop and Lightroom. I have been using version 1 of Silver Efex since it was released for converting digital images to monochrome (black & white). The new version has the look and feel of NIK’s HDR plugin. The first image is the original taken a year ago during the “Yosemite in Winter: A Season in Contrast” photography workshop (RAW image processed with Capture One Pro, and sharpened with Focus Magic in Photoshop CS5), the second is the B&W version converted using the new Silver Efex 2.
Yosemite Valley in Winter. Nikonians 2010 Yosemite Winter Workshop Day 1. Image taken with a Nikon D3s and 50 mm f/1.4G lens (ISO 200, f/8, 1/40 sec). Capture One Pro 6. Adobe Photoshop CS5, Focus Magic.Yosemite Valley in Winter. Nikonians 2010 Yosemite Winter Workshop Day 1. Image taken with a Nikon D3s and 50 mm f/1.4G lens (ISO 200, f/8, 1/40 sec). Capture One Pro 6. Adobe Photoshop CS5, Focus Magic, NIK Silver Efex Pro 2.
Elderhostel “Photography in the Southwest” Workshop Day 1. Star Trails.
The following image is a composite of five 30 minute night sky exposures taken during a Elderhostel/Road Scholar photography workshop at Kelly Place outside of Cortez, Colorado in 2008. It was really dark other than the Christmas lights at the main building, and you could see a lot of stars in the sky. I moved the tripod as far away from the lights as possible and decided to do this series with a fisheye lens that would give a 180° field of view. The five images were combined using Startrails. This program is old (only works with jpg or 8-bit tif files) but works better than when I try to merge the images as layers in Photoshop.
Winter night sky looking north at Kelley’s Place near Cortez, Colorado. Composite of four images taken with a Nikon D3 camera and 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens (ISO 200, 16 mm, f/2.8, 30 min). (David J Mathre)
Individual images in this slide show can be viewed here.
I’m back home in NJ recovering from walking pneumonia contracted while in Patagonia. Yesterday I started going through 560 e-mail messages at work. Please check out Thom Hogan’s blog about our being held hostage in Chile. It was real, I was there. This weekend I plan to start uploading new images from the fun part of the Patagonia workshop. I also need to deal with hard disk space on my main desktop and back up all images (~20k, 360 GB) taken while in Patagonia.
Troll Family. Composite of 30 stacked images using Helicon Focus. Nikon D3x and 50 mm f/1.4G (ISO 100, f/1.4, 1.3 sec) (David J Mathre)
Gone to See Patagonia 2010/2011. Photography Workshop with Thom Hogan. Day 22: Back in the USA!
I arrived in Miami at about 5 AM, made it through immigrations but had to wait for my luggage. After going through customs I couldn’t directly recheck my luggage to Tampa because I didn’t have a boarding pass. It was a long walk to Terminal D. The problem with the boarding pass was I had multiple reservations on the AA flight. Once that was resolved, I had to go through security again. I just barely made it to the AA Tampa flight. The flight arrived in Tampa on time, but now we are waiting for the rain to stop so they can unload the luggage.
Jens Picking Me Up at Tampa International Airport
22-January-2011 edit: Check out Thom Hogan’s blog about being held hostage in southern Chile.
Gone to See Patagonia 2010/2011. Photography Workshop with Thom Hogan. Day 21: Beginning the Journey Home!
Yesterday we moved from the Hotel in Puerto Natales to the Red Cross Refuge center (in the E3 School). Early in the morning we thought that things were about to be settled and thought about a dash in a bus to Calafate Argentina. Our local guide visited the nearest barricade and found that the protesters were in no mood to let anyone through. Therefore, we decided to go with the safe option. By the time we got to the Red Cross site, they had us stand in line to be registered. A line in the main auditorium was for folks wanting to go to Calafate, Argentina, and another line in the gym for folks wanting to go to Punta Arenas. Looking at air schedules out of Calafate, made it look like we could be there for a week or two before catching a flight. Punta Arenas had more flights and appeared to be a better overall choice (even though it is still blockaded from the city 24 km away). Lunch for 1000+ in the Red Cross center was pasta, some meat sauce, an apple, bread, and orange juice – a typical elementary school meal on the school lunch trays. By late afternoon two buses had been organized to bring folks to the local airport. The initial selection was families with small children, elderly, pregnant women, and sick. With my cough, I ended up on the 2nd bus, and the rest of the photography group was with the 3rd group.
NOTE: As we were leaving and going through the roadblock we saw others being separated from their transportation and having to walk the 10+ km into Puerto Natales rather than being pointed to the local airport for transportation out of southern Chile.
After running the blockade and being dropped off at the local airport, the Chilean Air force transported us to Punta Arenas via a B737. This got us past at least 6-10 additional blockades. I ended up sleeping in the airport and taking the first flight out at ~5:40 AM to Santiago. I am currently working in the LAN Executive Salon waiting for a flight to Miami that leaves late tonight.
LAN Business Class Seat – Back as a full lay down bed (David J Mathre)
22-January-2011 edit: Check out Thom Hogan’s blog about being held hostage in southern Chile.
