The Unattainable Fortress

There's a place here in North Texas that every explorer longs to visit. Well, actually there are two. One of them, while probably the greater of the two, is occasionally attainable. You just have to be there on the right day at the right time with equipment ready and you just might get in. And then...there is the unattainable. The one about which they say "don't even bring it up." "You know it's not gonna happen." "It's impossible." "People still live there." One guy gets down right angry when it's brought up.
But every so often...about once a year...I go on a drive by just to check it out and shoot some more outside of the fence pics.
So a couple of days ago, after dropping Emma off at home, I decided to detour through the big city of Decatur and take a drive on up that dead end road. Of course, it was the same as always, although they had been tree trimming so there was a pile of brush in an undesirable spot. But here is my shot for this year. I loved this processing on it. Thought it made it look more haunting. And one day...one day my friends, I'll get in. I may have to pay someone but I'll get in.

Until we meet again.....

Finding Inspiration (Early November)

At this time of year, when the colors finish changing and all the leaves fall to the ground and turn that dismal brown that hurts the eyes and wounds the heart, it gets particularly hard for me to find inspiration. I have a grand dislike for cold weather. I am bored with barren trees, and it is a complete rarity in this area to have a snow day worthy of trying to get some shots. And I lose my inspiration.

Many people turn to indoor photography but my home is most definitely not amenable to that sort of thing. My home is old, falling down, built in a time when it was a dream come true for my mother but kind of a big ol' nightmare for me. So what to do?

Sometimes I dig through the hundreds of thousands (you think I'm kidding, don't you?) of images I have stored from the past say 15 years on external media, and try to "re-see" all of them with my new older eyes. And sometimes that yields some awesome results. And sometimes I come away with nothing.

Luckily, however, this week in North Texas, not every tree has lost it's leaves and I happened to think of a local "treasure" with a bad rep, but with some interesting geography.

Cougar Mound, as we've always called it, or "Cougar Mountain"  has always had a rather sordid history in the local gossip mill. Back in the 1980's when I was a high schooler, it was a make out point. At some point after that, it was rumored that the "huge" gay community of Bowie (no, as far as I know there's not a huge gay community here but feel free to correct me if you have concrete evidence) went up there to have privacy and that there was so much fear over the AIDS epidemic etc that some of the townspeople were going up there and nailing baggies filled with condoms to trees in hopes that they could provide safer sex for those who were determined to do "that".

All those rumors aside, Cougar Mound has it's charms. It has a road cut through it. A "Scenic Overlook" which overlooks nothing. On either side of said road, but mostly the side between the road and HWY 287, there are very many GIANT rocks. Rocks that are 20 or 30 feet tall. More like 20 or 2 or 3 tens stacked up but they're just very interesting. And at this time of year, very mossy.

I took only my 50mm prime because I was trying to challenge myself, so the pics won't be as fantabulously wonderful as they might have been otherwise. LOL. I am sooo kidding. 

Even still you cannot get a fix on how big these things are. This one I thought had some interesting textures. So many different colors on one rock. Amazed me.

I did find a "Dinosaur Tree". And I thought the colors around it were pretty...aside from the dead brush of course.

This was one of the more accessible trails. I still didn't take it. Had my cowboy boots but not my gun so I opted out of snake wrestling OR WORSE.

I found a lone ranger yellow leaf amongst a sea of green and a few browns.

I found a clothesline of changing colored leaves. Or least that's how it appears to me.

I found a view, of sorts, from the summit. 

And I found the moon amongst the clouds on the way back to my car.

Most of us photographers, amateur, pro and in between, tend to think we have to leave home and go on a trip away from what we see every day to find something to photograph. But that's not really true. There is something around every corner, down every street, beyond the next bend in the road that may be just what you are looking for.

We can't all be the Trey Ractliff's of the world, getting paid to travel the globe and take pics of amazing things that most of us will never see. What we can be is ourselves. We can shut our eyes for a few moments. Clear our minds. Open our eyes once more, grab our camera and step outside our front door.

If you still can't find anything and want to bang your head on a wall, join a photo challenge. There are always a million of those around. Numbers, Letters, Colors, Textures.

Keep looking...keep shooting and if all else fails, dig out the external HD and find something old to make new again.

Enhanced... a little or a lot...which is best?

That question is bugging me quite a bit lately as I'm following several groups that are all about Photoshop composites which are freaking amazing. I begin to look at my boring humdrum images and think "wonder if I should be doing composites and crazy things to these to make them unique?"

Then I review the process in my head of everything I already do. I know there are a bunch of purists out there who tell you that every single image they import from their camera is perfect. I call bullshit. There are a few folks out there who have the talent combined with the amount of money it takes to buy equipment that will put out a sharp, bright, non noisy image right out of the camera. I'll buy that. But I don't think there are nearly as many as  you would think.

I've had a number of cameras in my life and each one I thought was the best one ever with no flaws and it was just me who couldn't put out a good image if it saved my life, but then I realized there is a reason that we have all those millions of editing programs. There's a reason I "rent" the Adobe CC Suite every month. Because no matter how great my image is out of the camera, it always needs a little polish. It just depends on how much polish I want to put on it and how much time I want to spend polishing it. Is it a great image??? Will it make people stop in their tracks and gasp in amazement? Nah. None of my images do that because I'm really not planning that when I take them. Most of my images are documentary images. Trips I take. Abandonments I explore. Things I see that I need to remember. Then there are the few paid gigs I get to make images that will make other people smile and sigh when they remember those moments.

I'm not yet an artist. Like a photoshop fantastic artist. I like my images. Then I bring them into Lightroom or Photoshop and I like them more. Then I tease out the details and apply some filters. And pretty soon I'm actually falling in love with some of them.

We recently went to Turner Falls in Davis, Oklahoma. It's a beautiful place! I can't believe I've never been there (well I was partially there once but didn't pay to go in...and it seemed different 20 some odd years ago). It's the "winter" season there now meaning half price and less tourists. No one trying to swim in the water beneath the falls. I kinda want to go back this weekend and next weekend and every weekend until I'm bored and have seen every inch of that park but with a 2.5 year old trach baby in tow, it has to be fair weather and no wind so I go through and edit my pics. Try to make them interesting. Different. Compelling.

I'm not getting there but here is the one I worked on for 30 minutes this afternoon. I love reflection shots. Trees, or clouds or whatever, but I love reflections on the surface of water. So, because I do not understand HTML and making things go to their proper places, the following are my edits.
The first was the sooc (straight out of camera) shot made smaller for the purpose of decency.
The second is the cropped image, getting rid of the blown sky and the chromatic aberrations that even lightroom wouldn't remove completely. Fiddled with the sliders and dehazed a bit.
The 3rd was the image after importing to Photoshop and adding a Nik Color Efex filter or ten.
The 4th was the same image by adding a few more tweaks to be more autumn like.


So....which one is better? Or do they all just suck? I'd like to know. Feedback welcome. Unnecessary rude criticism NOT welcomed ever on my images or anyone elses.

SOOC image. Chromatic abberation, blown sky, just blah. 

Cropped and edited in Lightroom to bring out the colors and contrast. 

Exported to Photoshop, enhanced with Nik Color Efex

Still in Photoshop Nik Color Efex made more dismal, dark and halloweenish.

More editing examples... Go back young man!!!

I keep saying over and over it's all about the editing. Yes yes yes, you should make the picture as fantastic as you can IN camera so you don't have to worry about editing later on, however lets just say for the sake of argument that you obtained entry into a tightly guarded urbex treasure and you only had ....say...2 hours to cover 14 floors plus a basement and a bell tower. Well ...you might be hurried. Add to that the fact that there's no electricity and perhaps you might or might not have slid through a grate into a basement window into pure darkness. Well, in instances such as these you might not exactly be having time to adjust your camera for every nuance of lighting because in addition to covering a good 425 rooms (if you hit them all) plus a spa and various other things like a ballroom and a bowling alley and blah blah blah...well you just don't have time to fiddle with settings all day. You shoot what you can in the time you have and then go through it all when you get home.

I went through this place close to two years ago. Tonight, because I was looking for something specific for a photo challenge, I came back to this gallery and saw all the items I had not worked up. And some that I had worked up that were not exactly fantastic. Mainly because I've learned a ton of new editing techniques since then.

So this one really caught my eye. I knew where it was, more or less, in the building and that it was in one of my favorite locales.

So I applied my "new knowledge" to editing it. Now it still sucks...don't get me wrong. But I'm just showing you what a difference five minutes in post can make. This is the before shot.

Can't really tell much about it can ya? Just a couple of dirty windows and not really any detail anywhere.

Same photo after 5 minutes in post processing. Not a great photo still but you can see the detail on the wall, you can see the view out the windows and you can see the detail in the ceiling which is freaking awesome. I totally love that ceiling. 

Anyway, this is just another example of how taking a crappy image into Lightroom and applying a few standard tweaks can render an image much more viewable. I still wouldn't think of winning a prize with it, but I can certainly tell more about it. 

I'll work on it more tomorrow and make it a masterpiece and then post that so you can see what even more time with a junky image can do. 

Ten points to anyone who can tell me where it is and why I love it. GO!!!

Black and White

"Doesn't matter if you're black or white."~ Michael Jackson

So this won't really be an informative post, not that anyone reads my posts for information about photography. Honestly, I'm not sure why anyone does read them but statistics show that some of you do so thank ya for that.

This post is basically going to be a conversation with myself about my general dislike for black and white imagery. Well, that's already not true. It's not that I don't like black and white images. I've seen a few in my time that were so breathtakingly beautiful that I never even for a second thought "Wow, wonder what this would look like in color...", but as a stark reality in my life, most of the time that is exactly what I think when I see a beautiful landscape in black and white. So maybe it's just landscapes that I hate to see in black and white.

One of the most dramatic pictures I've ever seen in my life was shot by a photographer who was once in a group I frequented called the "Texas Photo Forum" or "TPF" for short. I don't recall his real name. Even though I've now forgotten the name of his company as well, the pic he posted was one meant for contemplation and to stir emotions. It was in black and white. A man sitting on some dark wood steps, perhaps going up to a garage apartment or something. He was holding a shiny pistol loosely in one hand just kinda dangling it there near his feet with the other hand against his forehead as if he were fighting back the demons inside telling him to put an end to it all. Had that image been in color there is no way it would have had that dramatic impact that it had.

Portraits and architecture tend to be the only things that I enjoy in black and white. I joined a Black and White photo challenge recently to challenge myself to find decent images that I think would look good in black and white or to actually find a place to go and shoot something specifically in black and white but then I would never ever do that because ...."I wonder what that would look like in color."

So I picked a couple of shots and worked them up as black and white images and I almost like a couple of them. But ...I like them better in color. LOL

So that being said...

this was one of my submissions. 

It's ok. It's growing on me. Below is the same shot in color. I almost like the BW better in this shot. So maybe the BW movement is growing on me. Heck I don't know. 

The other I chose was one that seemed particularly boring in color so I thought...ehhh what the hell. 

It's actually gotten more votes than the other. Apparently, along with my inability to be able to draw and visualize how to paint a painting, I can't guess what will appeal to the masses. But hey...that's what makes us all who we are. Different people. 

Anyway that's my crazy black and white rant. As I said, it's growing on me in certain circumstances. 

Let's Talk About Editing - Cell Phone Photography & Snapseed

Editing, Post Processing, Workflow

These are all terms that you've no doubt seen if you are thinking of getting into photography or already dabbling in photography. But if you are indeed "new" to photography you may not know what this means or what you need to do or how to even get started with it. And you've probably seen some smug jerk somewhere saying "blah, blah blah the photograph should be exceptional straight out of the camera. You should not have to do anything but minor tweaks to get the look you want. Everything should be done before the shutter snap. blah blah blah." I like to call these people purists. There's another word I use for them but I'm trying to make this blog user friendly for all ages. 

There are many many many editing/ post processing programs out there today. And much depends on how you're taking your photos and where you plan to edit them. I know some people who ONLY take cell phone pictures. Before you scoff too hard at that, let me remind you that some of the cell phones out now days have capabilities that rival "real live cameras". Currently, my cell phone is a Samsung Galaxy Note 4 with a 16 megapixel resolution.That's not too shabby people. And I can tell you that in low light, it takes fantastic pictures easier and with less noise than my big ol' brand new Canon EOS 70D. So with that being said, if you are a cell phone shooter, you can still take fantastic pics but in my opinion they are just not complete until they've been fine tuned. 

I use Snapseed on my cell phone. There's also a built in editor and downloadable filters but to me, for many years now, Snapseed has given the most bang for the buck. Of course, now it's free so that's even better. It used to be a $5.00 app in the IOS store. I also used it exclusively on my iPad until Adobe Lightroom Mobile became available as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. Recently, Adobe also saw fit to make an android counterpart as well so now you can use Lightroom Mobile on IOS or Android. Yippee! But I will cover all of that Lightroom business in a later post since it costs money and I'm talking about FREE editors. 

Snapseed offers you a vast amount of controls and tweaks from brightness, contrast, saturation, ambiance, warmth, shadows, highlights. Cropping can be done with free aspect ratio or certain presets for instagram etc. Vignettes may be added, colors modified. There are a ton of things you can do with your cell phone snaps to make them fantastic. 

This is my before shot. It's ok. Nothing to write home about. 

 This my after shot. Much nicer. 

All processing was done in Snapseed in less than 5 minutes for demonstration purposes. 

BTW if you like Bloody Mary's I suggest you head on up to Winstar Casino in Thackerville, Ok. and have one in the Terrace Cafe'. I'm totally addicted now. 

Let's Talk About Editing

Let's talk about editing. 
Sometimes in our excitement to get out and shoot, we can't always frame a shot the way we want. In my case, I saw this Longhorn by the side of the road so I slammed on the brakes, pulled over, got out my camera, switched lenses, put the cap where I wouldn't lose it, jumped out of the car and by this time, the Longhorn was beginning to notice this was not average behavior.He started moving so I hastily fired a few shots. And then he turned his butt to me. How rude! So I got home and the shot on the left was the best of him but if you'll notice, he had a sunflower stalk over his horn, one above his head, one in the middle of his back and it looked like a jungle. I could have said it wasn't worth the time and chucked it but I like this rude animal and I wanted his picture. So I recomposed. Removed the things I hated which took wayyy longer than it would for a pro and now, it's still not a great shot, but it's much better than it was. The moral of the story is this. Don't give up just because it didn't look perfect right out of the camera. Ideally, we would all love that but only the best pros get that option most of the time. Take it into your editing program. I must say at this time that if you are not shooting RAW or RAW+JPEG then this won't really help you nearly as much. You should always shoot in RAW. (And no that doesn't mean get naked and go outside.) But RAW allows you to completely change lighting, exposure, clarity, vibrance, basically everything after the shot in post editing. JPEGS do NOT. Yeah they give you the feeling you can change some things but really you can't.
So ...again...moral of the story is "Don't give up on a bad shot. Some are beyond hope but most can be given a second chance just with a little creative post processing."