tree eert

My goal, one day, is to take a reflection shot that blows the world away! Baby steps, baby steps.

:) Thanks for following us in our photographic journeys.

Brookside Gardens

My friend/photographer Ashley Kurzweil and I made a field trip to Brookside Gardens in Silver Spring, MD today.

We arrived around 2PM, on a mostly sunny day, and the lighting was perfect.

Here are a few shots from the adventure. There are some pretty cool flowers and plants in this world, and Brookside is a great place to go to visit them.

Small Actions, Big Results

A couple of weeks ago we were lucky enough to be contacted by Sarah Ause, fellow photographer and animal lover, who works for Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab, UT. You know all those photos of the cute kittens and pups that need to be adopted? She took them. Are we a little jealous that she has the best job in the world? Yes. For those who don't know, Best Friends is one of our preferred charities and Lauren and I actually visited them briefly while traveling this summer. We're already planning a trip back and hope to volunteer for a couple weeks.

Anyway, we've become e-friends (did I just coin that term?) with Sarah and she's been giving us a ton of tips related to improving our photo skills. She's really talented, and self-taught, which we love. She also offered to make a post about Photos That Give on the Best Friends Facebook fan page. While a seemingly small gesture, I knew this could be big for us. Best Friends has over 125,000 fans, all of whom received a PTG shout out on their news feed yesterday afternoon.

We've gotten over 1,000 visitors to our website (so far) from all over the world! Seriously - Africa, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South and Central America, Canada, Asia, etc etc etc. We've added 50 fans to our Facebook page (and at only 175 or so fans, that's a big jump), and we've even made a couple sales. But most importantly, we're connecting with people who are interested in and support our mission - getting e-mails from other photographers, comments on photos, and justification that what were doing makes sense. Having someone say "Hey, I think you're doing a good thing" is just as good as making a sale.

So thanks Sarah, and everyone else at Best Friends, for helping us spread the word about our mission. Hopefully it leads to bigger donation checks from us in the coming months.

Impossible is Nothing

If you've followed our blog over the past couple months you know that I had my first Canon Rebel DSLR, along with 3 lenses, stolen out of my truck this summer while we were traveling cross-country. I filed a police report, called local pawn shops (in Tracey, CA), and scoured Craigslist postings for my gear, all to no avail. But maybe it's too early to give up hope. Check out this article.

National Geographic Photo of the Month: Cockfight

by Ario Wibisono

Suradita Village, West Java, Indonesia (2010). Children playing with their roosters. Actually it was not a real cockfight because the roosters didn't wear blades on their feet. Children like to play this game because they almost never have toys in their life.

Letting the Cat Out of the Bag

Royal is a good lookin' cat. That's really all there is to say about that.

Photoshopped or Not

Last night my friend e-mailed me a link to a photo from someone's Flickr gallery with the question: "Was this photoshopped?"

Since I don't have the permission of the photographer to use his photo I'm not going to post the image or share the link, so bear with me in my description.

I'm not going to lie - I've gotten so used to admiring highly processed photos that I've almost come to accept them as real and kick myself for not producing images of the same quality. So before I answered my friend's question I had to think about it logically.

Let's look at this photo for a second. First of all, it's a great shot. The sky is interesting. The tree is exceptional. It's framed well. Then I started breaking down the photo. I've seen clouds. I've seen blue sky. But I've never seen blue clouds, as they appear in this photo. Then I looked at the grass: neon green? Neon yellow? And there appears to be a spotlight of sunshine around the tree, which seems unlikely with that level of cloud cover.

I quickly came to the conclusion that this photo had been created using HDRI, a method in which multiple exposures are used to create a wide dynamic range between the lightest and darkest areas of an image. It's pretty cool - and the results are, well, unreal (literally).

I'm not writing this post to bash people who use HDRI or other methods of post-processing (see previous post on my experiences with Lightroom). I truly believe that as consumers of digital photography we have skewed perceptions and expectations of what is real. I recently saw a highly touted (by photography forum members) photo that depicted the most surreal purple sunset. I thought, "Wow, what a fantastic moment - this photographer was really lucky to capture that." And then I realized that the water had a purple tint. As well as the grass. And the branches and leaves on the trees. The whole photo had a purple tint and in all likelihood there wasn't even a hint of purple in the sky that day. But we're so awed by these images that we don't stop to think that maybe, just maybe this wasn't how the scene truly presented itself.

And that's why I respect photographers who accurately portray what they see through the lens. A photo that I know is real. Photographers who spend more time more pre-shutter release than post exposure. Who don't try to fool the viewer into seeking out a scene they'll never be able to recreate because it doesn't exist. Being true to the scene while still creating an interesting image is the real skill. That's the kind of photographer I want to be.

Editing in Lightroom

I have Adobe Lightroom installed on my computer, but in truth, I have no idea how to use it. I import, I export, and I have no clue where the files are going. There are endless sliders with titles that mean nothing to me. Aside from contrast, brightness, and saturation I might as well be reading Japanese. To the best of my understanding Lightroom is used mostly to edit color and light, while Photoshop takes it a step further by allowing users to add/move/remove entire objects, among other things.

While I have no desire to become a post-processing wizard, cropping out objects and pretending they were never there, I wouldn't mind learning some basic skills to improve the quality of my photos. For instance, sometimes I'll trash an otherwise solid photo because one area is under or over exposed. And up until now, the only way I've known to try to adjust that is by changing the exposure, which affects the entire frame and doesn't really help. However, Lightroom allows the user to adjust "Fill Light" or "Blacks" - enhancing just the areas that need work, which can salvage a shot. You can brighten a dark area without making the already bright areas too bright. And you can darken a bright area without making the already dark areas too dark. There's also a slider titled "Recovery" which saves (recovers?) otherwise lost dark areas and diminishes overblown highlights. How it does this? No clue.

Here is an image of my friend Adam that I edited in about 5 minutes this morning in Lightroom. Honestly, if it takes more time that that it's not worth it to me. I changed the color scheme (Sepia) and added some vignetting to draw the viewer's eye to the subject. I still think it's a little overexposed, but I'm just practicing at this point so I'm not too worried about it.

Don't worry, this isn't the beginning of me over-processing my images and becoming obsessed w/ every little detail. I think I just have to me more opened-minded to the benefits of some minimal, yet quality, post-processing.

Searching for Inspiration

Sometimes there's no way around it: Maryland is ugly.

Okay, not the entire state. But most of it. When you live in the suburbs it's hard to find inspiration. For us there are basically 3 options:

1. Metro or drive into the city (D.C.)

2. Head north to the country

3. Stay in our apartment and take endless pictures of our dog and cat

While I never truly get tired of 3, yesterday I opted for 2.

My friend and fellow photographer, Adam Bank, picked me up and we headed toward Poolesville, a suburb of D.C. nonetheless, but much more country than Rockville. And we actually found some pretty interesting spots. Old family-run businesses no longer doing business. Homeless kittens roaming the grounds. The remains of an old brick house of unknown origin. And a lock of the C&O Canal that seems largely unexplored that we will most certainly visit again.

Lauren and I were lucky enough to travel across the country this summer for nearly 2 months, hitting some of the most stunning places in America - inspiration calling to us from every corner. But when you're back in Maryland you have to get more creative. You have to get down on your elbows and knees and search for that interesting angle. You have to go out driving for miles searching for that tree that calls out to you, or that old, broken-down barn that begs to be framed just right. You have to keep your eyes open and you have to do the work. You have to be willing to go out shooting for hours knowing that you might come home without a single usable shot.

While these aren't my best, here a couple of the highlights from yesterday's outing.

rockin' the surburbs

Perhaps it's my lack of creativity, but it's hard to shoot in the burbs.

I was determined to get out and shoot today, but didn't feel like hopping on the metro to go downtown (I do that every day for work!) or getting in my car to explore one of my favorite places, downtown Frederick (driving around here sucks).

So, I threw my camera around my neck and walked out the door with no real destination.

I took pictures of train tracks; posters on telephone poles; even our apartment building.

I found myself snapping pictures without emotion.

Some of my best shots came out of very strong emotions, like my Street Dogs series.

Perhaps this is why I'm starting to get antsy about traveling again.

Sales

When you own a small business, making a sale is exciting. Especially when you're semi-pro photographers running the operation out of your over-crowded one bedroom apartment, and doing the majority of your marketing through Facebook, Twitter, and word-of-mouth. The most rewarding part about selling a print is knowing our art is hanging in someone else's home - someone we don't know. It's just cool.

When a sale comes in, we're excited to find out who bought it (do we know them or not?), where they live (are they in the DC area or someone else in the country), what photo(s) they purchased (was it one of mine or Lauren's?), and what size/finish they choose. It's interesting to see which photos are popular - sometimes it takes us by surprise.

The other day we got our first repeat buyer. It makes us feel legitimate. Someone liked our photos enough to take a chance and order a couple online, and loved them enough to go back to the site and order more. And that leads me to my final thought:

Thank you. For anyone who has made a purchase from Photos That Give, we truly appreciate it. We appreciate that you like our work, but we're even more thankful that you enable us to give back to all the organizations that make a difference.