Announcing my new Photoblog!

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 10:39:55 -0700

My photoblog is on the move - from iWeb to WordPress. The new address is
http://www.williamneill.com/blog/

The blog now matches/blends in with the new web design. My goals are the same - to share my thoughts on landscape and nature photography in general, as well as sharing information specific to my own photography. I will continue to include links to the work by other photographers I find inspiring, plus products and resources that I find useful. Your comments are welcome.

Please update your bookmarks, RSS feeds, etc.

New Photoblog address: http://www.williamneill.com/blog/

The photo included was made in my backyard pond. When I noticed the pattern that the pads form, I visualized a B&W photo. This was unusual for me, but since John and I developed the Meditations in Monochrome ebook, I am "seeing" in B&W more often. I also made dozens of color frames on Saturday and Sunday. Sunday was especially good since it rained here!

Be sure to "follow" me on Facebook or Twitter too!

Mexican Pebbles

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 08:30:06 -0700

In my backyard, I have a rectangular bucket full of Mexican Pebbles I bought many years ago from the local landscaping supplier. I washed them down and set up to make a pano detail of them. I aimed to the left for the first frame, then used the Shift function of my Tilt Shift lens, recomposing to include the stones in the right side of the bucket without moving the camera or tripod. I imported the resulting images into Lightroom, and inspected all the pairs I made to find the best and sharpest ones. I selected those two, then used Photo>Edit In>Merge to Panorama in PS. Here is the result.

Enjoy, Bill

New William Neill Web Site!

EBOOKS NOW AVAILABLE!
Impressions of Light - Digital Edition
Landscapes of the Spirit - Digital Edition
Meditations in Monochrome - Digital Edition

New Web Site!

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 15:05:26 -0700

Big news! We have launched our newly-designed web site. John O’Connor has done an amazing job!! He designed my ebooks, so if you seen those, you know the design is excellent. This is the first full redesign in many years, and soon I will be upgrading my blog from iWeb to Word Press.

Features on the new site include newly updated portfolios:
New Portfolios

Please renew your bookmarks and hit refresh to clear your cache. The old site is being removed as I write.

New William Neill Web Site!

Let me know how you like it, and if you have any problems.

Cheers, Bill

EBOOKS NOW AVAILABLE!
Impressions of Light - Digital Edition
Landscapes of the Spirit - Digital Edition
Meditations in Monochrome - Digital Edition

Mid-day Blues

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 11:00:50 -0700

Last Friday, my family and I went to Drake's Beach at Pt. Reyes. For various reasons, mostly that we were going to hang at the beach with the cousins, we were there in the middle of the day. I brought my camera out to the beach in case something caught my eye, not really expecting much. There was lovely, glistening light on the surf and Drake's Bay. As nice as it was, it would not have made a good "straight" landscape image in my opinion. Fortunately, I had my Singh Ray Vari-ND filter, which works great for creating impressionistic landscapes. It is especially useful on bright days so I can use a slow shutter to blur the scene.

I am happy with this new Impressions of Light image, but I can tell that this image needs to be printed big. The textures of the scene will come alive at a larger scale. I use watercolor paper for my Impressions prints, which greatly enhances the painterly qualities.

BTW, I worked for the National Park Service at Pt. Reyes one winter, way back in 1978, so it is always fun for me to return to this landscape.

Enjoy,

Bill

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or
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EBOOKS NOW AVAILABLE! Only $15
Impressions of Light - Digital Edition
Landscapes of the Spirit - Digital Edition
Meditations in Monochrome - Digital Edition

The Cloud

Sun, 9 Aug 2009 09:55:19 -0700

Last Thursday, I stepped outside my office and noticed this cloud. For the first time I can remember, I saw the subject in terms of a final BW result, envisioning a “red filter” effect of a black sky. The conversion from color to was made in Photoshop CS4 using a Black and White adjustment layer, and a couple of Curves.

Enjoy, Bill

Hope to see you on:
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EBOOKS NOW AVAILABLE!
Impressions of Light - Digital Edition
Landscapes of the Spirit - Digital Edition
Meditations in Monochrome - Digital Edition

Sierra Impressions

Thu, 6 Aug 2009 15:48:51 -0700

Yesterday afternoon, I stopped here at an overlook of the Sierra just beyond Oakhurst. Using my Singh Ray Vari-ND, I created this Impressions image. I added contrast and color saturation since the blurring process “softens” the separation of tones.

Also, I just finished my OP column for October’s issue. Posted the image for the column here:
http://www.facebook.com/williamneillphotography

Made a new BW image this afternoon, and should be posting by tomorrow.

Enjoy,

Bill

Hope to see you on:
Twitter or
Facebook

EBOOKS NOW AVAILABLE!
Impressions of Light - Digital Edition
Landscapes of the Spirit - Digital Edition
Meditations in Monochrome - Digital Edition

my waterfall...

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:01:54 -0700

Here is a recent image. Not sure what I think yet... when is an image too simple, or too “open-ended?”

Bill

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EBOOKS NOW AVAILABLE!
Impressions of Light - Digital Edition
Landscapes of the Spirit - Digital Edition
Meditations in Monochrome - Digital Edition

Magazine Interview, Outdoor Photographer column...

Wed, 8 Jul 2009 13:35:07 -0700

I recently did an interview with a British magazine called DSLRUSER. Here is the interview online.

Interview

Also, Outdoor Photographer recently posted my latest On Landscape column. They have cut back on the number of columns per month - down to 3 per issue. I used to write monthly, now down to 3-4 per year. Ouch! Any OP readers notice this change in the magazine?

Thanks, Bill

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EBOOKS NOW AVAILABLE!
Impressions of Light - Digital Edition
Landscapes of the Spirit - Digital Edition
Meditations in Monochrome - Digital Edition

Photo of the Day - Sierra Clouds!

Thu, 2 Jul 2009 16:30:58 -0700

Early this morning, the clouds were great above my home. While I composed, a bird flew off of the big Ponderosa pine behind the house. Simple design with the pine adding an accent to the main subject - the clouds.

Enjoy the simple moment in time, Bill

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I am currently offering two BetterPhoto.com courses, starting on Wednesday July 1st.
Inspiring Nature Photography: The Essentials (four week course)
Portfolio Development Course (eight week course

Lines and Edges

Wed, 1 Jul 2009 09:38:27 -0700

This morning, I made this image in my studio using window light. My assistant John challenged me to make a new image for posting here, which is a good thing since I haven't photographed much lately. So I pulled out this stone I collected many years ago. As I photographed, I played with how the lines in the stone related to the image edge, rotating the stone for each frame.

I have been writing a lot of critiques lately for my BetterPhoto courses, and this has reminded me of the importance of how lines move through the frame. When you compose an image, look carefully to see the graphic forms of a subject or scene. Generally speaking, diagonal lines are more dynamic than those which are parallel to the frame's edge. Of course, some subjects like trees are naturally parallel and it would look odd to tilt them. I have included a second image to show how different the two photos are when the stone was rotated.

Let me know your thoughts on which one is best!

Cheers, Bill

I am currently offering two BetterPhoto.com courses. The four week course starts on Wednesday July 1st.
NEW! Inspiring Nature Photography: The Essentials (four week course)
Portfolio Development Course (eight week course

Waterfall Ripples

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:32:39 -0700

Yesterday afternoon, I finally made some new images. I didn’t have far to go. My backyard waterfall flows over this wonderful Yosemite slate, which is the source of color here. In the sunlight, the patterns form graphic little waves.

I think that it is very important to bracket your shutter speeds when photographing moving water. With all my experience, I am never sure what amount of blur will work best to me. Experimenting is the key to creative success!

Cheers, Bill

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EBOOKS NOW AVAILABLE!
Impressions of Light - Digital Edition
Landscapes of the Spirit - Digital Edition
Meditations in Monochrome - Digital Edition

Back up your backups...

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:22:02 -0700

I was reminded of the great importance of having backups. John was looking for this image above, but only found an empty folder. No master file, no sized files for printing. Couldn’t find it on any of my drives. I did find the files in my old tape library backup system, so I had them there if needed but the restore process is long and tedious. Fortunately, I had the original scan on both CD and RAID backup hard drive system. We resurrected the image with new layers and saved the new Master file. Whew!

And then yesterday, my computer froze with all the hard drives mounted. We didn’t lose any files but the mirrored drives were out of sync, so my Softraid software spent most of yesterday resyncing.

Advice: Backup! Make cds of all of your digital captures, at least on CD or DVD.

Useful links on the West Coast Imaging site about backups:
http://www.westcoastimaging.com/wci/page/info/photoshoptip/tip29.html
http://www.westcoastimaging.com/wci/page/info/photoshoptip/tip14.html

Here's info about what HD setup I use:
http://www.westcoastimaging.com/wci/page/info/photoshoptip/tip32.html
Each slot has a 1TB drive, and I have two of them!

I hope this is useful. Let me know!

Bill
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EBOOKS NOW AVAILABLE!
Impressions of Light - Digital Edition
Landscapes of the Spirit - Digital Edition
Meditations in Monochrome - Digital Edition

Twitter, Facebook and social networking...

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:45:53 -0700

I wish I had new images to share, but I don’t! Unusual for me. But I have been busy! Teaching BetterPhoto classes. John is redesign my web site. Looking fabulous... I am also writing captions for my next ebook, a collection of Yosemite images with extended captions and location info, including the Washburn Point image above.

My big project for the day was to extend my “social networking” so now I am on Twitter!

Twitter
Facebook

I am uncertain of the advantages, but seems worth a try!

Cheers, Bill

EBOOKS NOW AVAILABLE!
Impressions of Light - Digital Edition
Landscapes of the Spirit - Digital Edition
Meditations in Monochrome - Digital Edition

This Month’s Featured Print - Corn Lilies, Summit Meadow $40

Mon, 8 Jun 2009 09:46:08 -0700

For the month of June, I am offering a Special Edition "Mini" Print from my Meditations in Monochrome series. I'll be releasing one image at a time as a "Featured Print" which you will be able to purchase directly from me!

This month's Featured Print is "Corn Lilies, Summit Meadow, Yosemite National Park, California 2008" shown to the left.

This Special Edition image is an archival inkjet print, sized to 6" x 9" on Fine Art Heavyweight Paper, matted and mounted to 11"x14" on archival museum board. The print will be initialed by me, not signed. The series will be unlimited in quantity, but numbered sequentially on the label.

With each collectible Special Edition released, you can build a fine art portfolio of my photographs at a very reasonable cost. And the best part...it's only $40!

Visit my website for June’s Special Edition print.

Clouds, Sierra Nevada Mountains

Fri, 5 Jun 2009 10:38:42 -0700

Last Sunday, I saw these clouds from a parking lot in Oakhurst where I live. Fortunately, I had my camera. John and I worked on the file, trying both color and B&W, more contrast and less. Here is the version I like the best.

Enjoy! Bill

For more of my new B&W images, see:

Meditations in Monochrome- Digital Edition Photographs by William Neill Sadhna Press, 2009 Single Page, High Resolution PDF,  viewable with Adobe Reader.   $15.00 USD Available as Downloadable PDF. 58 pages, 52 Photographs

TWO OTHER EBOOKS AVAILABLE!
Impressions of Light - Digital Edition
Landscapes of the Spirit - Digital Edition