Photo Blog

Action triggered cameras

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 16:33:15 -0700

Here in Colorado we have one of these handy action cameras mounted on a tree in our back yard. We never know what we are going to see but are usually not disappointed! Here are two photos found on the SD storage card taken in early winter...one of a coyote with heavy winter coat and the other of a black bear barely visible in the darkness. It is not unusual to have various wildlife wandering through our yard....bear, foxes, coyotes, deer, raccoons ,squirrels and of course many chipmunks and various species of birds! Just the other night I awoke to a pack of coyotes howling nearby...what a musical treat!

My First Camera!

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:21:52 -0700

I was a little over two years old and the very old Brownie box camera was something I was totally charmed with. Fast forward three or so more years and I had an “updated” version of this brownie that I would walk around my house and yard with taking real “photos”. For high school graduation I asked for a new camera for a graduation gift!

My love and passion for the mechanics, magic and art of photography obviously goes way way back and I was fortunate to have had parents that encouraged this early interest of mine. I have most often seen the world as through a viewfinder whether I had a camera in hand or not. Today in Houston while waiting in Christmas traffic I sat looking out my car window at the clouds....their color, shapes, tones, and wondering how I would photograph them had I had the opportunity with camera in hand.

I do this where ever I am at the moment....I “see” potential images, I compose....this is very simply the “way I see the world”. This goes waaay way back! What a gift!

Lenswork , Photography & the Creative Process

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 14:02:09 -0700

Recently my series of monotone images on My Dad’s Workshop along with an audio interview, was selected to appear in issue #86 of Lenswork Extended Multimedia publication (along with three images included in the magazine) and needless to say I am both excited and honored to be a part of the Lenswork family of photographers/artists and writers.

I have been a fan of Lenswork for many many years and find the philosophy behind this excellent worldwide publication both fascinating, interesting, challenging and refreshing.

Lenswork, in their portfolios and articles published tends to be more traditional (but highly creative) in their approach to photographic art rather than leaning toward cutting edge post modern conceptual art (see Aperture Magazine). Apparently a whole lot of folks all over the world like the Lenswork philosophy because they have subscribers in over 50 countries!

If you don’t subscribe to the Lenswork Magazine and Lenswork Extended I highly recommend you give this excellent publication a try.

Donating my work

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:19:23 -0700

I enjoy sharing my work and one way I can connect with people that would not otherwise be reached by my images is to donate a portion of what I do photographically and artistically, to non profit organizations. I recently donated a significant number of original prints to two worthy organizations, one a Texas Medical Center Hospital and the other, an art educational center and gallery in Dillon, Colorado. For details please see notations below:

*Ten large framed color prints to St. Lukes Episcopal Hospital in the Texas Medical Center in Houston. Stop by the Bette Burgdorf Gallery if you are in the hospital area!

*Many original signed prints to Lake Dillon Art Center & Gallery in Dillon, Colorado. Those in the area stop by. 100% of sales benefit the LDAC!

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 beta release

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:04:46 -0700

I have been printing through Colorbyte Software Imageprint RIP for years. When Lightroom 3 beta was recently released I decided I’d give the enhanced Print Module a try. I have been more than pleased, so much so that I am now doing all my printing through Lightroom 3 beta using custom paper profiles in the Epson Print driver. My results are stunning. For black and white images I’m using the Epson Advanced Black and White print mode and getting just the custom warm tone I want and the results are, again, stunning. While I still do my RAW processing through Capture One software from Phase One, I highly recommend Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 beta for printing.

Bear visits, infrared camera at night

Fri, 7 Aug 2009 21:03:49 -0600

Not exactly something you’d see in Houston...black bear visits in our yard here in Colorado. Reminds us that the “natural world and wildlife” is all around us. A couple of years ago we had a young black bear visit the tree and birdfeeder next to our deck. Started to climb the tree and as I stepped out with the camera, the bear just gave me a passing glance and got on with tree climbing to get the bird feeder. It wasn’t until our Lab Dillon came out on the deck and started barking that the bear casually sauntered off, only to return later to finish the job he/she had started. A couple of weeks ago a bear took down two of our feeders during the night and the last time, night before last, managed to pull down just this one feeder. This was a good sized bear, as the spruce is not less than 7.5 or so feet tall.

Summit County, CO Farmer’s Markets

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 21:07:36 -0600

I highly recommend the Dillon and Frisco, CO weekly Farmer’s Markets. These events are one of the most popular “happenings” in Summit County, Colorado during the summer months. There are markets in Dillon, Frisco, and Breckenridge. It’s fun just to walk through the markets and look at all the various booths....everything from wonderful local fresh produce, fresh eggs from cage free hens, meats, salmon, pizza, quiche, homemade pestos, jewelry, clothing with a local flair and much much more. Last Saturday at the Frisco market my husband got a freshly made chicken, vegetable and pesto giant crepe, which I promptly sampled. Yes I’m going to get my own fresh crepe at the next Frisco market! it was delicious!

Shhhhhh....Colorado’s best kept secret

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 20:42:02 -0600

The Colorado high country is famous for it’s beautiful winter season and it also attracts many people during it’s Summer season. Everyone knows that Fall in the Rockies is really gorgeous....... but “early summer”.....? no one ever talks about early summer in Colorado. Colorado has been part of my life ever since I can remember, but I honestly don’t think I’ve ever been here in early summer...early June....that is until this year. What a surprise it was and to me it’s beauty rivals the Fall season. Early summer means rivers that are overflowing their banks bordered by foliage with bright (very very bright) light yellow green new growth leaves. The mountains and still covered with snow and the sight of deep blue sky and white puffy clouds hovering above snow covered mountains with valleys that are overwhelmingly beautiful with their bright green grasses, aspen trees with new tiny leaves, willows that are starting to sprout tiny leaves and rushing rivers tumbling through the valleys. And wildflowers are beginning to bloom everywhere. On the trail just outside my home, I stood and counted 11 different kinds of wildflowers in one small area.

Longing for Colorado

Sun, 17 May 2009 20:51:34 -0600

Well it’s mid May in Houston and getting very hot and humid and I’m getting impatient about returning to Colorado where the high country summer is just around the corner! In the meantime I’ll be adding new things to my blog along with updating my links on the links page so stay tuned! My Antarctic trip was a great success and I recommend Lindblad/National Geographic Expeditions without reservation. Everything was flawless and very exciting, informative and educational, not the mention the incredible natural beauty that surrounded us on the trip! I’ll be doing blog posts on Capture One, the art scene in Summit County and other things mostly photographic in nature....so, check back!

Folio Image Presentation

Thu, 1 Jan 2009 20:33:08 -0700

I am considering offering my images in a new format called a “folio” print. They are printed on 11X14 fine art paper and are signed and dated. The actual size of each image varies. In addition some images are color, some monotone images are warm toned and some are printed in a more neutral tone. Beneath the signature is the title of the image and under that, my name and web site information. These can be matted and framed showing only the image, or the image with signature, or image with signature including title and so on. Sample shown, “Trees, Anahuac WLR” is a warm toned monotone pigment on paper image, is for demonstration purposes only and has not been personally signed. Check back later for more information.

Printing on Matte Papers

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:12:07 -0700

My photographic printing background began in a traditional chemical black and white and color darkroom and I printed this way for many many years. I especially loved printing on silver gelatin papers for black and white as there was a certain magic to the quiet isolation of the darkroom “experience”. However, I converted completely to digital in both image capture and printing in about 2001 and was faced with the realization at that time that it was impossible to match the quality printing in digital I achieved in my black and white darkroom. However over the years the offering for both color and black and white printing papers has mushroomed and now stunning papers similar to the old air dried archival fiber darkroom papers are there for the choosing. For awhile, I was (and still am) so taken with this new breed of digital printing paper I forgot about fine art digital printing on all the lovely matte “art” papers that are available. These matte papers don’t have the brilliance and dmax of the fiber soft gloss papers but are stunning in their own way,.

However recently I was working on a job for the Maternity Center for Texas Children’s Hospital and they wanted a fine art matte paper and ended up selecting Epson Ultrasmooth from a selection of choices I gave them to consider. I began printing some Painted Light abstracts on this paper and found that the matte paper worked much better for these images than one of the soft gloss fiber papers would have. I began printing some of my personal work on matte papers and found that, for the right image, these papers can be absolutely stunning!

Getting the shot...or “why I do what I do”

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:09:37 -0700

I have been thinking about all the inspiring landscapes I’ve photographed over the years, but more importantly, all the wonderful places I’ve been able to experience, and realized that all this photographing is first, about “being there and experiencing the moment”. If I should loose all my shots at the end of the day, I will still have had a “good day”.

HDR or High Dynamic Range imagery

Tue, 4 Nov 2008 18:30:01 -0700

I recently purchased a software application called Photomatrix. This is a program that is designed to shoot multiple in camera exposures and combine them to produce an image with very high dynamic range with detail ranging from very bright highlights to very deep shadows. While I haven’t had a change to even begin to completely explore what is possible with this application I have done some experimenting with multiple files created from the same original RAW file and used the “exposure blending” option to open up shadows and give the appearance of very even illumination. The above image is one example, showing very open shadows. This was created from two tif files that were processed from one RAW file - one tif was processed for highlights and midtones, and the other processed for open shadows. These images were then blended in Photomatrix.

Canon G10 “point and shoot”

Tue, 4 Nov 2008 18:18:02 -0700

After reading a review of this 14.7 megapixel camera on Luminous Landscape, I engaged in some impulse buying and rushed out to my local camera store to purchase one. I did not have a small discrete camera that shoots RAW and this seemed to fit the bill. Indeed the quality is excellent, especially at the lowest iso of 80. It’s usable up to iso 200 if you don’t mind a bit of noise but after 200 iso I wouldn’t recommend it. The image “Pots”, above, was taken at my local flower market in bright sun and the RAW file retained good detail in all shadows and highlights.

More Super Wide Shooting

Mon, 4 Aug 2008 16:47:26 -0600

I am having fun doing hand held 35mm super wide shooting using my 14mm ultra wide lens. Today I visited one of our local plant places and while my husband was picking out some plants for our yard I wandered about looking for images that would make interesting sepia toned semi abstracts. I have a “garden series” started and have included some examples of what I shot today. I will eventually have a web page on the site of more of the series. I sepia toned these using Abobe Lightroom 2.0 which does a nice job with the sepia. I’ve printed some small samples of these on Harman Gloss FB AI paper warm tone and they look like some of my old darkroom sepia toned silver images.

Aerial photography...what I have learned

Fri, 1 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0600

Over a two week period in June and July in 2008 in Alaska I flew in numerous small (Bush) planes covering an area from western Alaska to Eastern Interior Alaska. Planes were both float and wheeled planes and ranged from Cessnas (172, 185 and 206) to a De Havilland Beaver. I used both a Canon 35mm camera with their 24-105 IS lens and a Hasselblad H2 camera with a Phase One P45+ digital back with a normal 80mm lens.

The need for “good light” is a given as is always the case when doing creative artistic photography. I found the next thing that was most important was the quality of the air currents....the smoother the plane ride the better the images regarding sharpness. On my flight over the Wrangell Mountains I was able to lower my film speed to 50 in both cameras which gave me excellent dynamic range. On my H2 camera I merely set the shutter speed to the max of 800 and let the f stops fall where they may....usually in the 5.6 to 10 or 11 range, depending on the brightness of the scene. The Wrangell St. Elias flight (up to 12,000 feet in elevation) was incredibly smooth which was a huge help).

After good light and smooth air currents I found the most critical thing was the ability to open the plane window in order to avoid shooting behind glass. On my Wrangell shots I did both...shooting with the window open (wind chill was -60 outside) and with the window closed. The shots taken with the window open just stood out on my computer and had a brightness, snap and color accuracy that were just not there with the “window closed” shots (even tho the window was quite clean).

I found the stabilized Canon lens to be of great help in achieving sharp images especially the plane rides that had some “bounce” with more challenging air currents. In western Alaska I only used my Canon and at times used iso speeds as high as 800 and even then many shots were not all that sharp.. So in aerial shooting a lot of luck is involved.......good light and calm air...One other thing...never touch any part of the plane with the camera...you need to avoid the vibration of the plane at all costs!

And last but not least, thanks go to all my great pilots - Lori, Dan, Cecil, Martin and Bill! They knew the area well and knew how to make good aerial photography possible through tipping the wings, and so on.

One Bird Saved!

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 18:17:15 -0600

We have been having problems with the Pine Siskins flying into the glass on our home here in Colorado. We have lost 4 birds in the last few days and I have buried them all in our yard. Today my husband and I heard a “thump” and we immediately went out on to our deck and found this bird, stunned but still breathing. I held the bird for a long time and while there was not much movement the bird kept breathing. We placed the bird in a box with clover and bird seed outside on our table on the deck. When we checked back a bit later, the bird had revived and flown away. We have since moved our bird feeders much further away from our house so hopefully this problem will be solved while at the same time allowing us to feed the birds that visit our yard.

Lynx fatally injured in Summit County

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 13:09:48 -0600

The Summit Daily News featured a headline story on it’s front page today about a Lynx that was fatally injured yesterday on Highway 9 north of Breckenridge. This is the kind of action taken by residents that makes me proud to call this area my part time home. Many folks stopped to help and traffic was stopped in order to try to save this beautiful animal. This Lynx was collared and was part of a program to reintroduce this species to the Colorado Rockies. As one resident that had stopped to direct traffic commented when several “in a hurry drivers” became irate at the delay, “they need to go live somewhere else because in this county we stop to help”. That about says it all. My appreciation goes to those on the scene that took the time to do whatever they could to help. (photo from the Summit Daily News)

Photographing from Alaskan Bush Planes

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:38:08 -0600

I’m leaving for Alaska soon and will be photographing from small bush/float planes. On my previous Alaskan journey back in the early 90’s I flew in these small planes for flyfishing but I’ve never photographed from them so this will be a new challenge. I’ve contacted several photographers on line that have successfully photographed from small planes and also talked with photo friends who have had extensive experience in photographing from small planes and have recieved some solid advice about what works and what doesn’t. I’ve very excited about one flight in particular leaving from McCarthy on a small bush plane with Wrangell Mountain Air. This will be an 90 minute custom flight with only the pilot and my husband and me and they have agreed to use one of their planes that has windows that open so any glare from window glass will be avoided when photographing. We’ll be flying among 16,000 - 18,000’ mountain peaks in Wrangell St. Elias National Park in eastern central Alaska near the Yukon border.

Check back in a couple of weeks for what worked for me and what didn’t!

Black and White (monotone) Printing

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 19:48:22 -0600

Every now and then I get in a black and white printing mood and I have to do some work that reminds me of my old darkroom days. I love warm tone black and white and usually print everything I do in monotone using a warm tone...usually some shade of brown. I did this in my wet chemical darkroom, even toning snow scenes with a Kodak brown toning solution. There is something about a rich chocolate brown that lends depth to a print and when printed on a good quality fiber paper the image “jumps” off the page at you! I recently printed my “Backroads Colorado” series in black and white with a rich brown tone using the Harman Fiber AI gloss bright white paper. I like the resulting prints and am looking forward to trying the warm tone version of this new paper. The above image was taken in Fairplay, Colorado.