Deer assist in the Kootenays
I spend a week in the Kootenay Range of the Canadian Rockies and this is the first image I have processed. After setting up and exposing the first frame, a deer was kind enough to stop by and pose in various locations in the field. She did a lot of snorting but otherwise was still in each location for quite some time. Nothing special about seeing a deer in this area (there are so many, they are almost a nuisance) but her timing was perfect.
Here is an interesting story about the photographer who captured and sold the image that was the default Windows XP desktop.
Focus after capture?
This is quite remarkable. There will soon be cameras available that will let you just snap away mindlessly and worry about focusing on the subject (what ever that might be in what ever part of the frame) later.
Now you can have as much or as little in focus as you want and don’t have to worry about such details while actually taking the picture.
Check this out: Lytro
Giving Photoshop a little tune up
Adobe has published a guide to configuring Photoshop for optimum performance. You can download the guide here.
Depending on your knowledge of the use of RAM in computer systems (including paging and swapping), there maybe some tips of interest for you. The one thing that I took away from reading this white paper is that you can change the order of the selected Scratch disks. Neat!
Critiquing the Masters
If you have ever visited an online photo sharing site and/or participated in an online photo critique forum and especially if you have ever received an unsolicited critique
“In response to your request for a critique (which I assume you wanted because I have found your photo uploaded on the internet)”
then this satire is for you. I just think this is so funny.
Mike Johnston over at The Online Photographer posted this several years ago on his old site but I just recently came across it.
Great Photographers on the Internet
Great Photographers on the Internet, Part II
Enjoy!
My favourite by far is the suggestion to Robert Capa that he should have used a tripod while on Omaha Beach during the D-Day invasion.
© Robert Capa
Go Big
Here is a interesting video of the large prints of peoples faces (shot are a distorting 28mm) being pasted around neighbourhoods. What a fascinating project. Pause the video at 4:53 to see the train line up with the hill side. I wonder who funded such a project and why JR identity seems so hard to discover?
April snow on the Icefield Parkway
Southern Alberta has hit by a large snow storm over the weekend. It was relatively late, as most of the heavy spring snowfalls in this area tend to happen in mid March. The roads on Saturday were in very poor condition but I “braved” it and headed to the mountains. Although the forecast did not have as much snowfall predicted for the mountains, I knew that the combination of new snow and April light could prove to be a great combination. It was quite the drive but I survived. I headed up the Icefield Parkway and sleep in my SUV over night. In the morning, the sky was clear and it was only -16 C. I headed to Mistaya Oxbow, one of my all time favorite spots along Highway 93 (check my website for other images from this location like this one and this one). I photographed this scene with my 24mm TS-E lens and shifted the lens to create a wider panoramic image that captures light on two peaks. As I processed this image, I tried various crops, and in the end I liked this smaller square version better. Just because I have the wider scene captured does not mean I have to use it. The super large mega-pixel image provided for a wide range of experimenting with various crops. BTW, this image was created the old fashion way (Graduated neutral density filters, no HDR)
© 2011 Scott Dimond
And speaking of the Icefield Parkway, if you have never ventured up that way, you don’t know what you are missing. I could go on and on about it but there is a much better way to learn about all the wonderful photographic opportunities that exist in all seasons along this route. The definitive guide for photographing this area is authored by Darwin Wiggett and he now has two new eBooks on the subject available at HowToPhotographTheCanadianRockies; one for winter and one for the other 3 seasons. These are highly recommended.
