We all had a lot of fun with black & white photography this weekend. The zone system is a really interesting way to see the world. We shot in several different locations around Flagstaff, northeast, northwest and right downtown- for people shots. Here are a few photos I took of our participants.
In the next post, I will put up a mini gallery of the images people chose to print- everyone went home with a beautiful exhibition quality black & white print!
Don’t forget Joel’s joint workshop with Hidden Light- Creative Black & White Part II – all about black & white and the wet darkroom! Should be fun, and we still have room…
Ciao!
Photo Tech notes: I used a Canon G10 to shoot these participant photos. I made selections, cropped, and converted to black and white jpegs using Adobe Lightroom 3 on a MacBook Pro 15″ Based on your requests we are now providing some information on equipment, software, and techniques we use in the photos. We will also try to provide links, when possible, so you can find out more about the gear and software.
Yes, we still have one more spot if you or anyone you know would like to join us! The Creative Black & White Part I workshop is Friday through Sunday, August 12-14. It will be a lot of fun, as usual. It will include shooting in the field and you’ll also learn digital file preparation for exhibition quality images to make your black & white prints stand out! We are following this one up with a traditional wet darkroom based Creative Black and White Part II in September.
Also, Congrats to Joel for some new sponsorships, some offering discounts! Check out this new page on his website!
Ciao!
This time the photographer, instead of his wife, is writing this post. I’m very excited to announce a newly formed relationship with Topaz Labs. Who’s that? The company that makes some of my favorite and essential software tools which I use to improve my images prior to printing them. As many of you know I do all my own printing so preparing my images is a critical process that is the modern equivalent of my old wet darkroom, only way cooler! I also set up a discount with Topaz (use code JWOLFSON for 15% off any products and/or the code GETADJUSTED for 25% off Adjust) for any of you out there who are photographers and want to try their awesome plug-ins.
Here’s a quick behind-the-scenes example with some brief explanations:
Step 1: My original image (left side), shot in the Fall is this curvy aspen that looks like it’s dancing.
My first step, using Topaz Adjust, is to bring the slightly washed out leaves and sky in the background back to the way they looked (the camera often lies). I do this using the Adjust’s Adaptive Saturation to make them more vivid. I also use the Detail controls to bring out the detail in the bark. These are fairly subtle changes but look closely at the two images and you can see the differences. The adjusted image is on the right.
At this point I think the foreground tree, although compelling because of its shape and the light on the edge, is competing for attention with the background.
Step 2: Next I use Topaz ReMask to isolate the foreground tree. The funky colored image you see is what it looks like within the software when you create a “mask”. A mask is a cutout where you can block everything out except what you want to work on- in this case the foreground tree. Everything with a reddish cast gets blocked out, the blue outline tells the software what you are isolating, and the green area is what will show through the mask. The righthand image is the mask itself.
Final Step: Now with the tree isolated by the mask I just created, I can lighten it up which draws more attention to it. Voila! Here’s the final image (some of you may have noticed a black and white version of this in a previous post but that process I’ll save for another day…)
That’s the nutshell version of preparing this image!
If you are interested in trying these plug-ins you can take advantage of some discounts through my affiliation with Topaz- Use code JWOLFSON for 15% off all Topaz Products and the code GETADJUSTED for 25% off Adjust (Adjust ends August 1st, JWOLFSON discount is ongoing.)
Our Creative Black & White Part I workshop scheduled for this August is filling up quickly, so sign up soon! We only have a couple slots left… Interest is heating up for Part II in September. We’re very excited for both of them- it’s going to be a lot of fun!
Our rainy season is making a slow start this year in the north country, but I think we’re finally out of fire season… until next year!
Ciao!
Last weekend, our light painting and night photography workshop was a lot of fun. With a small group everyone got a lot of individual attention.
The summer is already breezing by… We’ll be at the Art in the Park show at Wheeler Park in Flagstaff, July 4th weekend, where Joel will have at least one new release.
August 12-14 we have Part I of our Creative Black & White workshop coming up! If you’ve never shot black & white, it’s a whole new world! We’re already half full, so sign up soon… Part II is September 16-18 and is all about film and the traditional wet darkroom. Should be fun! Please click the links for more workshop details.
Check out some of Joel’s favorite black and white images as well as favorite night images.
Since returning from Italy, we’ve been scouting for our Light Painting and Night Photography workshop this weekend. We have a lot of fun doing it and think our participants will too!! Here are a couple samples…
We still have room for anyone with a high “spontaneity quotient!”
Ciao!
In the days since being evacuated due to wildfire and returning to our house still standing, many people have asked, “What did you pack in that 1 hour?”
Luckily, we did not panic! We thought about our possessions carefully and chose to take mainly those that are irreplaceable and/or sentimental… not as many as you’d think. Joel took a couple of “pre-packed boxes” of old transparency film not yet converted to digital. I packed my late father’s Brooklyn Dodgers pennant from his boyhood that I recently had framed. I also packed two small paintings by my maternal grandmother. Joel packed several photography books that he’s had for years and are no longer available in print. We also packed a Navajo wedding basket used during our wedding ceremony- a close friend’s family made it for us, which gives it even more significance. There were other things too, but these were the first ones in the car. Of course our dogs are the most important and valuable “items,” but they wouldn’t let us forget them!
I have to admit, driving away from the house through the smoke-filled air, down our little dirt road clogged with fire fighting personnel, was terrifying. It pays to pre-plan, and given our choice to live next to the forest, we had a plan that worked out for us.
My next post will be photography-related, I promise!
Ciao!
For those of you not in the Flagstaff area, some idiot set several fires in our neighborhood last night… As we drove up to the house, there was smoke everywhere and the source appeared to be very close to our house. We had about an hour to pack before the sheriff knocked on our door and told us to leave. Hearing the slurry bombers (planes that assist fire crews by dropping fire retardant) and helicopters flying over the house every minute or so is very unnerving- the adrenaline certainly made us pack faster. One structure was lost in the fire nearby, but they were able to stop it from taking any more. We were allowed to come home last night and saw the hillside near our house glowing. This morning, we walked the fire line and met the firefighters as they arrived.
As a fire ecologist, I think the fire looks good- few trees burned into the crowns, most of the fuel consumed was on the ground. Oak trees and some of the shrubs will die, but will sprout back very quickly. The larger ponderosa pines will likely survive as well- all of these species are adapted to fire. All in all, a VERY stressful night! Joel took these photos this morning…
Click here to see more of Joel’s photos.
Before we left for Italy, we started a contest to win this cool Canon coffee mug for one of our blog subscribers. We’re pleased to announce that we drew Susan Shaw’s name as our winner! Congratulations Susan 
We often do drawings for fun stuff in our workshops as well, please join us and find out!
There are ruins of past civilizations all over Europe and Italy is no different. Old buildings were often added onto, rather than being torn down to make room for another, which seems to be the modus operandi in America. In this image, the columns to the right are free standing, all that remains of an ancient structure that predates the 11th century Romanesque church in the background. The bell tower in back is the “newest” part of the church, probably 16th or 17th century. Sometimes they did remove columns such as these for use as building materials, but here we were lucky they didn’t.
Ciao!
