Tag: Winston Hall

Wednesday (20-July-2011) — New Jersey

Backyard Summertime Nature in New Jersey.

10,000 Hours to Become an Expert. Over the last couple of days I have seen several blogs referencing that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in a subject, activity, profession, etc. Thom Hogan and Mike Hagen have related this to becoming a photography expert. Thom Hogan pointed out that 10,000 hours is 40 hours/week for 5 years. (About as long as it took me to complete my PhD studies in Organic Chemistry). This could be doubled if visualization/acquisition of the image, and post processing are separate areas of expertise. Unless totally committed (and not having a day job to pay the bills) how many folks have 10,000 hours to commit to becoming an expert in 5, 10, or 20 years?  I have always taken on new challenges every few years, both professional at work and outside of work. It was about 5 years ago that I decided to take on photography. From my point of view, the technical side was easy (but still requiring a lot of work and practice). For me the artistic side is the challenge. I have had several teachers/mentors (Winston Hall, Thom Hogan, Michael Marriant) over the past 5 years. One thing I learned from Winston was to share a new image every day (and thus my “Image of the Day” postings) and then learn from the feedback. Thom Hogan also pointed out today you also need to accept and learn from failures. If you don’t like one of my images, let me know.

Back to my “Images of the Day”.  Another hot summer evening in New Jersey. Each of my tomato pots on the deck took 2 gallons of water. As I was sitting out on my deck I took some images of a young fawn, a grey cowbird, and Harvey the backyard rabbit. All were taken with a Nikon D3x camera and 600 mm f/4 VR lens. Because the D3x camera has a 24 MP sensor, I was able to do significant crops and still retain significant detail. I will break this into 3 posts (one for each animal) because of the number of images.

Grey Catbird with Insect Lunch. Summer Nature in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D3x and 600 mm f/4 lens (ISO 400, 600 mm, f/4, 1/250 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define 2, and Photoshop CS5. (David J Mathre)
Grey Catbird with Insect Lunch. Summer Nature in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D3x and 600 mm f/4 lens (ISO 400, 600 mm, f/4, 1/250 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define 2, and Photoshop CS5.
Grey Catbird. Summer Nature in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D3x and 600 mm f/4 lens (ISO 800, 600 mm, f/4, 1/125 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define 2, and Photoshop CS5. (David J Mathre)
Grey Catbird. Summer Nature in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D3x and 600 mm f/4 lens (ISO 800, 600 mm, f/4, 1/125 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define 2, and Photoshop CS5.

Tuesday (21-June-2011) — New Jersey

Winston Hall and Tuner Photography.

Last night I got an e-mail link to the June 2011 Newsletter from Tuner Photography. The first thing I noticed was the image of an old car in front of the Cow Canyon Trading Post in Bluff, Utah. I remembered taking a snapshot of this vehicle as we were driving by back in February 2008 as part of an Elderhostel (now Road Scholar) Photography Workshop I was attending with my father and brother. Ever since I have wanted to go back to spend some more time in Bluff. Since then based on Winston’s image it looks like the Cow Canyon Trading Post has added a Gallery. If you do a search on the Internet you see a number of images of the Cow Canyon Trading Post and this old car parked out front. Back to Winston’s Newsletter — How to be creative where many have (and/or are) taking images from the same location. I remember a session at Delicate Arch where it seemed that the tripod positions were so used that they were marked in the rocks.

I’ve attended several workshops with Winston, and recommend him as a teacher. As a new digital photographer, I learned a lot during his workshops, both out in the field and back in the classroom “after the click” processing the images. It is because of a comment he made during one of his workshops that I try to share at least one image a day (preferably one taken on that day). I  started doing this on Facebook, but after dropping Facebook it morphed into my “Images of the Day” photo-blog. I do recommend that you also to sign up for Winston’s monthly Tuner Photography Newsletter. Some day I hope that I can attend his Balloon Festival Workshop in Albuquerque.

Below are two versions of  the image I took of the old car in 2008. I admit it is a snapshot or “grab” as I was in the back seat of a van and we were moving when I took the picture. One in color, the other converted to B&W with Nik Silver Efex Pro. Is this just a historical picture from somewhere I have been, or something artistic. I am still digesting Thom Hogan’s 20-June-2011 essay “How Thick is Your Skin”

Back to the images of the old car — I think that it is a Buick from the mid-50’s but am not sure. If you can identify the make/model and year let me know.

Cow Canyon Trading Post. Image taken with a Nikon D300 and 80-400 mm VR lens (ISO 200, 80 mm, f/5.6, 1/640 sec). (David J Mathre)
Cow Canyon Trading Post. Image taken with a Nikon D300 and 80-400 mm VR lens (ISO 200, 80 mm, f/5.6, 1/640 sec).
Cow Canyon Trading Post. Image taken with a Nikon D300 and 80-400 mm VR lens (ISO 200, 80 mm, f/5.6, 1/640 sec). NIK Silver Efex Pro 2. (David J Mathre)
Cow Canyon Trading Post. Image taken with a Nikon D300 and 80-400 mm VR lens (ISO 200, 80 mm, f/5.6, 1/640 sec). NIK Silver Efex Pro 2.