"Starburst" photography exhibit

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Starburst: Color Photography in America 1970-1980 has opened at the Princeton University Museum of Art. I guess I should tell you that I live in Princeton. Our photography club had a private tour of the exhibit a few days ago.

It is magnificent. In a review of the exhibit appearing in the New York Times I read the following, " Black and white are the colors of photography". So said Robert Frank. Another quote from Ansel Adams declared "If you can't make it good, make it red."

In the 1970's, color photography became the new frontier. The likes of Barbara Kasten, John Divola, Joel Sternfeld are among the 18 photographers offering their wonderful images.

Is HDR our new frontier? I think it is. Of course there are those who would argue this. I also think there is room for all disciplines. I love black and white, I love color and I love HDR. There are well known photographers who are even taking HDR to a much higher level. Vincent Versace calls his concept "images harvesting". He expands not only exposure but color, focus and even time. A much larger idea then just hdr.

Things are moving very fast. It's important to keep up.

NIK Radio - it's a must

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First a word about the attached pictures. The picture above was taken a few weeks ago while out in Santa Fe, New Mexico. That's right, Santa Fe. The first Sat. we were there we went to the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market. A great place to shoot.

Here are 2 others. The vendors all dressed in their traditional cloths and the craft quality was spectacular. I did buy my wife a beautiful bracelet from Laos that I could not resist. She loved it. There was a craft person from Bhutan, a country we visited a few years ago. In the "Small World" category, his good friend was our guide.

Now on to NIK radio. If your into NIK software, and you should be, this is a must listen every week. Yes there is a lot of information about their products but the interviews are packed with tons of information. Last weeks interview with Vincent Versace has some great philosophical insights into photography and photo processing. I invite you to listen and enjoy.

I couldn't resist. Here's a picture from Bhutan.

Trey Ratcliff to release 6 hour HDR instructional DVD

I just received an email from Trey telling me that his 6 hour HDR instructional DVD is finished and will be announced to the public tomorrow. You can find the information here on Thursday and it will be available for sale on Friday.

From what I understand there will be 2 versions, a Basic package and a Premium package. I have been looking forward to this for a while. It's going to be interesting to see his workflow and any tricks he uses to get those great lighting details and textures. I'll let you know what I think after I get mine.

My top 3 HDR Spotting images

I think you know that I upload photographs to HDR Spotting. I checked the stats this morning and was pleasantly surprised to see the number of views for 3 of my pictures. If you're into HDR, this is a great site to see what other photographers are doing. Both the good and the bad. Over time I have communicated with some of them and we have shared processing ideas. It's a great way to learn and improve your skills. Take a look here. If you're interested in posting images, you'll need a code. I have 3 to give out . Contact me and I'll send one along.

Back from Long Island and The Cape plus a Lens Flare tip.

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We're back. The art sale in East Hampton was fun. The 2 pictures that I was sure would sell did not, but 2 others did. I'm happy about that. My friend Steve sold all 5 of his. They were wonderful images. You can see his work here.

I must admit that I didn't do much shooting in either place. It just didn't work out. I'm a little disappointed with that. I did get a few good pictures that I'll post later this week.

Getting a good lens flare "in camera".
Matt Kloskowski showed this tip on a recent episode of "D town". His turned out a lot better than mine but I know what went wrong so I thought I would share it. When shooting into the sun and you want a sun flare, close you lens down to f16 or smaller. I shot mine at f22 and it's a bit much. Next time I'll shoot a range of f stops to get the right effect. Matt did say that every lens is a little different and you need to experiment. I remembered that today. I'll remember it next time.