Northern Ireland, Carrick-a-Rede

Carrick-a-Rede, County Antrim, Northern Ireland

'The poetry of the earth is never dead'......John Keats

Red Barber Chair, ESP

Red Barber Chair, ESP

This is a re-doux of an image from a few years back...The Red Barber Chair is in the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. A good trip to Philly is to get to the Graffiti Underground and then Eastern State. Makes for quite the photographic day...

Death Valley, California

Death Valley Landscape

'In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks'....... John Muir

Ireland, Ballybunion Beach

Ballybunion Beach, Ireland

'There's room at the top they're telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill'.....John Lennon, Working Class Hero

I am never quite sure what he motivation is for me to post an image with a quote....they just seem to appear so I follow the lead....This image has been posted in color some time ago...Today it changed...

New Jersey Shore #2

New Jersey

'There are places I remember

All my life though some have changed

Some forever, not for better

Some have gone and some remain'......Lennon and McCartney

Jersey Shore

VIP Motel - Jersey Shore

Driving back from Cape May today we took Route 9 instead of the Parkway..I was amazed at how desolate the beach strip was - no cars - no people - other then a few getting ready for the winter months. It was like everyone just got up and walked off to return again next summer - an apocalyptic film set. I know the summer months are the complete opposite but it was nice to see the shore in this particular mode.

These places are throwbacks to a time gone by for sure. They have such wonderful shapes and colors and are simply irresistible when one has a camera in hand. And the light was particularly cooperative today...

Death Valley, Mesquite Dunes 13

Death Valley, Mesquite Dunes #13

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

Zabriske Point 4, Lightroom 4

Zabriske Point 4 - LR4 Beta

I have become totally immersed in the Lightroom 4 Beta the past week - watching several instructional videos while working on images.

Today's image was processed using only LR4. Adobe has made some really powerful changes in this beta version. The first thing that jumps out is that you can add clarity without fear of the dreaded halo. The sliders in 'basic develop' are highly intuitive and parametric, meaning they are capable of making much more precise adjustments to the image - somewhat like a parametric sound equalizer can dial in a certain frequency to fine tune a venue for music (of course I mention music)...Another change is the brush and graduated dialog has noise, moire, temperature and tint sliders to allow for more dialed-in local adjustments.

Today's image was processed using just the Basic , Detail and HSL dialogs.....processed above and original below....

Original Zabriske LR4 Beta Test

Use the link below for Adobe video tutorials on LR4.

Julienne Kost

Zabriske Point - Detail

Zabriske Point, Detail

It seems like there are endless ways to portray this location in Death Valley...Just when you have what you consider the one there are still more to work with....Death Valley has become a constant source of images, Dunes, Zabriske and Badwater Basin.....One thing for sure is that these natural locations need protection in the years to come....

I do remember this image as I went off to a different spot for the sunrise that morning - had watched these same shadows the morning before and made sure I was in the right location to catch them the next day...Proves the point that you need to go back many many times to catch the character of any locations...

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...

Everglades, Smooth, Quiet, Sunrise

Quiet Sunrise, Chokoloskee Bay, Everglades National Park

Actually this image is just after sunrise out in the Everglades..The captain brought me out in the dark and dropped me off on an oyster bed just before the sun peeked out...That was truly a defining moment for this lad from New York.. The silence was deafening....I remember him clearly saying, 'you better get out now or you will miss the sunrise'. So I did.....Took a few minutes to get my bearings, particularly after he went out into the bay about 200 years - I wondered who helps when the alligator shows up... After that first 10 minutes it was difficult to get me off the oyster bed...a truly amazing experience...

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, Birthday Rainbow

Birthday Rainbow, Irealnd

What a way to spend my birthday - tooling around Ireland looking for images....And I get a birthday rainbow......these rainbows just show up - they seem to materialize out of the mist.......alas no pot of gold - but still looking......

Irish Pony

Irish Pony

 Been doing a good deal of driving the past few days.....not much processing/looking at image time due to lack of sleep......As mention spent most of Sunday touring up in the Inishowen Peninsula. On Monday made the drive from Derry (Londonderry) to the Cong area...Today it was south to Limerick making several stops in the Partry Mountains - Finny area just outside of Cong. Must have seen minimum 10 rainbows - they are elusive - here one minute gone the next...managed to get one good image but that is for another time......tomorrow is exploring the Dingle area - I hear there are some pretty neat places to shoot....Have I mentioned how good the food is in Ireland.....that alone is worth the price of an airplane ticket...

The image today is from last Sunday up on the northern coast of Ireland - saw this pony out of the corner of my eye standing down in the field and was immediately attracted by the colors...made an immediate u-turn and went back....glad I did...one of my favorite images from the trip...

Only three days left.......went much too fast....

Ballycastle Beach, Northern Ireland

Ballycastle Beach, Ireland

Left Belfast today and headed north and west  to Londonderry. Drove back over some of the same roads from Wednesday - this time the weather cooperated a bit - some rain but mostly dry weather....I saw this image the first time through and was happy to get back for a second shot at it......

 Spending New Year's Eve and Jan 1 in Londonderry exploring the northwest peninsula of Inishowen.

According to Wikipedia Inishowen is the largest peninsula in Ireland and the most northerly point, Main Head. Additionally, they say it has some of the highest sand dunes in all of Europe - as well as a fort constructed in the sixth century, Grianan an Alieach.....

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

New York Subway Impression

New York Subway

So much goes on in the subway system in New York City....everyone moving quickly and directly to wherever they may be going. For someone not from NY this can be a daunting experience but as a New Yorker the subway provides the most direct, quickest form of transport for getting from one place to another...most just keep their heads down and keep moving forward.....this image is what my camera saw as I walked up the stairs at the West 3rd Street station in Greenwich Village....

This image is from my 'No Look - Point and Shoot' series.....

Maine Landscape

Maine Landscape

Looks like today is oldies day on the blogs....This image is circa 2008 when I first made the shift to digital images. The image was made near Cushing, Maine - can not remember what camera or the image management...I do, however,  remember I was in Maine for my fist workshop with John Paul Caponigro...and if my memory serves me well about 5 minutes into the workshop I was lost...

Hraunfossar Waterfall

Hraunfossar Waterfall

This waterfall is very unique in that water just pours out of a lava field which was originally the flow from a volcano eruption. This eruption occurred under a glacier, Langjokull (not sure when). Hraun means lava...Iceland has the perfect climate for rain and therefore has quite a few waterfalls....Really liking the farm that sits up above the waterfall....

Hoping to find a few more out in the field today......

I would have wanted to climb down to this waterfall but the legs told the head not to do it......and I listened...
 
Stay tuned....

Image Management:

Phase One p65+
Alpa STC 12
Schneider 47MM Lens
Photoshop cs5
Lightroom 3