Eye Captain......

Meet Thy God.....

'The story of life is quicker then the blink of an eye, the story of love is hello, goodbye'...... Jimi Hendrix

Northern Ireland, Carrick-a-Rede

Carrick-a-Rede, Northern Ireland

This is my first time posting from an airplane. I truly love the modern technology - between my computer and the ipad it passes the time quickly....And I might even get some work done....I am short of hard rives up here at 31,000 feet but did find an image from the last trip to Ireland. The place is called Carrick-a-Rede in Northern Ireland. It is where the famous rope bridge can be found. That particular day was much too windy so no one was allowed near the bridge so I turned around and of course there was an image behind me.....

I can not get enough of Ireland....

Death Valley, Badwater Basin

Sunrise, Badwater Basin, Death Valley

Sometimes it happens that you are in the right place at the right time....I was in death valley with a few friends a year or so ago and we were shooting a sunset from atop Dante's Peak. I can't remember what our plan was for the next morning but after looking down on the basin from Dante's the plan quickly changed. I have been to Death Valley 4-5 times now and had never seen the basin with that much water --- so the next morning at sunrise there we were mucking through the basin waiting......well worth getting up at 4AM......

This image was made using a Phase P65+ on a Mamiya 645 - 80MM Schneider Lens.....Processed in Lightroom4 and PhotoshopCS5.

This image is part of a Death Valley Series I have been working on.

 

Death Valley, Mesquite Dunes 13

Death Valley, Mesquite Dunes #13

'Choose only one master - Nature'.......Rembrandt

The Who

Pete Townsend, Keith Moon, The Who

Not sure exactly where this image is from - possibly Madison Square Garden circa 1975...might be Philadelphia also. I used a an on camera flash for this - it was OK back then....I think I have finally come up with a decent workflow for processing these older Ektachrome slides/tranparencies (wow transparency gives my age away)....Anyone know where this is...

I had a great time last night at the Photography Club of Lower Fairfield County....gave a presentation called 'Music, iPhone and Other Neighborhoods'....Thanks to Steve Lingeman for the invite...

Low, Quebec, Blind

                                                                   Blind, Low, Quebec

This is the day before Christmas immediately after a snowstorm Off the the left is a huge waterfall that supply energy to the power plant....The image is a three frame stitch (Canon 5DII) using Photoshop CS5 with local adjustments in Color EFX Pro 4 and Silver EFX Pro2. Looks ike the start of this year is all about black and white...Thanks for the motivation Tom....

Death Valley, Mesquite Dunes, Stovepipe Wells

Death Valley, Mesquite Dunes, Stovepipe Wells

'Even Castles made of sand, fall into the sea, eventually'....Jimi Hendrix

Ireland, Loch Na Fooey

Loch Na Fooey, Finney, Ireland

Today's image was made late in the day, almost sunset, on the shore of Loch Na Fooey in the town of Finney, Ireland. And, yes, another one of those Irish days with on and off rain and wind.....pretty much had to lean against a barbed wire fence to get the image. How much do we love the landscape possibilities in Ireland......and yes that is snow on the hillsides...

Just a note that after this last weather adventure in Ireland I bought weather protection gear for my equipment. This after reading Laurie Excel's blog and learning about Lenscoat, a company that makes covers to protect your gear in foul weather....Click on the name above to see their website.

That being said this image was processed in the new Adobe Lightroom LR4 Public Beta application. Adobe has made several upgrades to the existing LR3 modules and has added two new modules, Book and Map. The Map module will allow one to display the location of the image to include GPS coordinates and metadata information.  The Book module is in partnership with Blurb - although there might be others coming. You can output to a book or simply print a PDF. It has all the capability of the online Blurb site right inside of Lightroom.

There are several changes in the other modules and rather then go into a long winded description of LR4 please fond below a link to the Luminous Landscape video overview - They have done a superb job of showing what LR4 is all about.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/software/whats_new_in_lightroom_4_overview.shtml

I would suggest anyone using LR3 should take a look and give LR4 a look.

And here is the link to where the LR4 Beta can be downloaded - it is, of course, free.

http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2012/01/lr4betanowavailable.html

Thanks to my good friend Mark Segal in Toronto for letting me know about the LR4 Beta and the Luminous Landscape tutorial....

Northern Ireland, Vintage Caravan

Vintage Caravan, Northern Ireland

Just back from Ireland yesterday. Other than the fact that I picked up the wrong bag from the carousel and had to go back to Newark Airport the flight home was rather seamless - albeit almost 8 hours due to high winds - also The Edge was sitting right in front of us....as my friend David said, 'The Edge is the soul of U2'...On a good note I got to play with images for the entire flight.....

As I mentioned most days were filled with rain and wind....but there were enough pockets of decent weather to get around. It was a two week class in shooting in less then favorable conditions and I learned a good deal on how to make that work....I will be buying a raincoat for my camera next week...

Found this image along the road driving from Belfast to Derry...the same day we also saw yellow sheep in a meadow by the water and a rainbow at the top of a hill.....quite the colorful day....

Happy New Year everyone - 2012 is finally here.....and it is a Leap Year...

Ireland, Foul Weather

Irish Sea, White Park Bay, Ireland, Canon 5dmkII

Yesterday was one of the my worst weather days ever touring Ireland. We had Rain, Sleet, sun, clouds and winds sometimes as high as 60-70 miles per hour. As I posted on my iPhone blog one could lean back against the wind and it would hold you up. It was also one of the most fun days fighting these elements to get the image....

It was very difficult to photograph in a wind that strong - had to shoot at high ISO and shutter speeds and still hold the tripod down - the other problem was the water being blown on to the front element of the lens.....fun day all around fighting the elements....in the end it all worked out and now I know a few new places to get back too in the future....

Below is the image made just to the right of the above image - shot with my iPhone 4s also on a tripod.....took a few creative liberties with this one.

This morning it is the 'political murals' in West Belfast...Needed to hire a car and driver as the advice was to not go in there without a local....looking forward to seeing these famous murals close up with a camera in my hand.

stay tuned..more coming...

White Park Bay, Ballintoy, Ireland, iPhone4s

Low, Quebec, Christmas

Low, Quebec, Christmas Day 2012

'The snow is snowing, the wind is blowing
But I can weather the storm!'....Irving Berlin

Yes, it turned out to be a very very White Christmas up in Canada.....Got up early and went out and captured a few snow images on Christmas day.....Nothing gets much better then freshly fallen snow...I truly enjoy the way it defines the landscape.....

Death Valley - Mesquite Dunes

Mesquite Dunes, Death Valley

'This sand seemed to us the connecting link between land and water. It was a kind of water on which you could walk, and you could see the ripple-marks on its surface, produced by the winds, precisely like those at the bottom of a brook or lake. We had read that Mussulmans are permitted by the Koran to perform their ablutions in sand when they cannot get water, a necessary indulgence in Arabia, and we now understand the propriety of this provision'...Henry David Thoreau

Publish Post

Genes

Image fr Morocco

 I bought my daughter a Canon EOS Rebel T1 for Christmas last year as she wanted to pursue photography....It all started on a trip we made to the Oregon Coast where she used my 5DMKII.....It was the 5DMKII she was after but I thought starting a bit smaller was the way to go....

So fast forward to last night when she came up to the house asking for help in printing a few images from a recent trip to Morocco. This morning we met at the monitor with coffee cups in hand and started to look through the images - suddenly I realized she was quite good at seeing composition - and was duly impressed with her progress as a photographer.  We spent some time with me teaching her some photoshop - some sharpening, curves, selections and masking.....I think she had the aha moment....With her birthday three weeks away it appears that Photoshop has made it to the gift list.

After we worked on the image above I decided to make it my blog today.  I know it sounds like a proud father, well I am....Photography and music have given me back some magical moments, friends and life lessons......And passing it on does not get any better.

Genes are a powerful thing.........

Carmel Indiana - Car Detail

Car Detail, Carmel, Inndiana

Opened the Music, iPhone and Other Neighborhoods gallery show at the Renaissance Fine Art and Design Gallery this weekend in Carmel, Indiana. Friday night there was an artist presentation with the official opening on Saturday night. The show will remain in Carmel until October 2 when it moves to Toledo, Ohio and the 20 North Gallery opening on October 7.

There was an antique car show happening today just outside the gallery so naturally today's post is a bit of classic Automobile detail. Unfortunately I was a bit rushed and never quote caught the kind of vehicle this was....stay tuned for more images from the car show.

Iceland - Jokulsarion Galcier 2

Jokulsarion Glacier 2

'The glacier was God's great plough set at work ages ago to grind, furrow, and knead over, as it were, the surface of the earth'...Louis Agassiz

Iceland - Jokulsarion Glacier

Sunrise, Jokulsarion Glacier, Iceland

'Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative'.....H.G. Wells

Bastion Falls

Bastion Falls, Hudson Valley, New York

Writer

Writer, Los Angeles

Happy to say that these two images were juried into a portrait show, PERSONA, at the Darkroom Gallery in Essex Junction, Vermont which opens mid-September.

Driving to Carmel, Indiana today for the opening of my gallery show,  Music, iPhone and other Neighborhoods at the Renaissance Fine Art and Design Gallery. The show will move to Toledo om October 10 at the 20 North Gallery. This show will be images from my 40+ years avocation with photography.

Street Photographer, Street Fair, New York City

Poco

Poco, Academy of Music, New York City

I am not quite sure which version of Poco this image is from but my best guess is the 1973-1976 line-up which included:

Timothy B Schmit - Bass
Rusty Young - Pedal Steel, Dobro, Banjo
George Grantham - Drums, vocals
Paul Cotton - guitars, vocals

This photograph was taken at the Academy of Music in New York City.

Image made with a Nikon F Series Camera, Ektachrome Slide Film


I was lucky enough to be included in an article about Tour Managers in this months issue of Elmore Magazine. The link is below - note that the article starts on Page 12..It was written by a up and coming young music writer, Melissa Caruso...keep your eye out for her byline.....


http://www.onlinedigitalpubs.com/publication/?i=79123&page=1

Video Still

Video Still, 1994

This image is from a John Mellencamp video shoot in Belmont, Indiana (near Bloomington, Indiana). The song was 'Baby Please Don't Go' which was used in the 1994 movie 'Blue Chips' with Nick Nolte and Shaquille O'Neal.

Image made using a Pentax 67
Tri-x 400 speed film
Scanned into the digital world using an Imacon Scanner
Image management in Lightroom3 and Photoshop CS5