Friday, December 31, 2010

2010 - Top Ten


Here they are in no particular order and if I had to pick again I can't guarantee it would be the same ten... but I am calling these my ten favorite of my images from 2010. It was very tough to choose.


Minisceongo Creek
Grand Canal - Venice
Venice
Circus Maximus - Rome




I hope you enjoyed these and i thank Everyone for their comments and support in 2010. Here hoping everyone has a great 2011!

Keep Makin' Art!
Carl

Best of 2010 - The Contenders...

Narrowing down your favorite images for the year is a tough process. Out of almost 8000 images captured I have narrowed my personal favorites down to 78 images (or 1% of what I shot this year). Narrowing these down to a top ten is really tough.

If you would like to see the contenders for the ten best of 2010 Click Here.

Now I am back to cutting down the list from nearly 80 to 10! I will have this done before the end of the year.... Tick tock...

Keep Makin' Art!


Thursday, December 30, 2010

Penny the Poser



While I have been busy uploading and editing images, Penny the Cat has been sitting in her favorite spot which is on top of a pillow perched on the radiator looking out the window. Today she sat still long enough for me to actual get some decent shots of her by the window light. Thanks for playing along Penny. You can go back to your nap now.

Keep Makin Art!

Let It Snow... The Pictures






I set out on one of my favorite paths this morning that follows the course of a brook and changes elevation slowly. This gives you several small falls and pools in the brook as it meanders thru the rocks and trees. The only sound this morning was the rushing of water on rock. It was incredibly peaceful. The hike and the photos were exactly what I needed to recharge my batteries as we jump into 2011.

Today I will work on my best of post for 2011 and my goals for next year.

Keep Makin' Art!
Carl

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Let it Snow...

We returned from Rochester just in the nick of time to get unpacked and settle in before the snow started flying. Hopefully when it stops I will get the chance to get some wonderful photos in it.

Stay warm and....
Keep Makin' Art!
Carl

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Happy Winter Solstice....

The long winter nights are upon us. Stay safe and warm. The Spring will be here in a few short months.

Keep Makin Art!
Carl

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Another gem from the past...

I did not shoot today, but while I was combing through the archives I found this gem. It was taken in the early morning after a snowfall in Harriman State Park. I can still hear the crunch of snow underfoot while the first warm light of day made its way through the forest. Originally i had worked on the images of the fallen snow in the fields and the stark blue skies. this image was virtually ignored only for me to find it again today and spend some time coaxing the tones hidden in the original image. I normally edit each days shooting pretty harshly and delete what does not strike me as a winner that first day. I think from now on I may change my workflow and keep all images and move the winners out to a workflow folder to work on so I can review everything later. I hate to think of the strong images I may have thrown away over the years because i did not fall in love with them right away. Another reason to keep them is as I learn more uses of photoshop and new tools are developed I may be able to find magic in images i would have once thrown away. I found this lesson out the hardware recently when I got my HDR software and realized I had been tossing out my over and under bracketed shots.... How many amazing HDR shots I might have if I had not been editing so eagerly these past five years.... Food for thought.

Keep Makin' Art!
Carl

Skylands Project - Top 5 B&W Images (ok... 10 images)

This morning I set out to pick my five favorite b&w images I photographed at Skylands in 2010. I really only started shooting b&w at Skylands after I got one of my cameras converted for infrared b&w in the middle of the year. After a late start I did a lot of b&w work there this year. The same subject can change dramatically based on the lighting conditions. Some of the subjects like the little cottage I probably photographed ten times and they all look very different. Whittling these images down to five favorites was a tough task. Somewhere around twenty two it really got tough. I ended up cutting some of my favorite images of the year to get it down to these ten.

Here is where I need your help. Which are your favorites and why? I am curious to see what you think.










Keep Makin' Art!
Carl

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Skylands Project - Top 5 Color Images

With most of 2010 in the rear view mirror I started looking at my photographs from this year. Much to my surprise I found that the Skylands Botanical garden in New Jersey was my most photographed spot. I first went there and shot once in 2008 and discovered how great a location it was with the scenery changing with what was blooming on an almost weekly basis. In 2009 I started to make frequent trips there shooting a total of six times that year. In 2010 I found I had been there more than fifteen times and took photos in both b&w and color. Last week I decided to go through all those images and find my five favorite color and five favorite b&w shots from 2010. This was a tough process to go through that many photos I had taken and liked to get down to 5 that I felt were my best for this year. I can tell I am growing and getting stronger as a photographer and artist, because shots that in 2009 would have made the top of the list were not even close. After much review here are the five images that I think best represent my color work at Skylands this year. I think I have more than enough to make a really nice calendar too. Hmmm that's an idea...

Tomorrow I will post my favorite b&w images from Skylands in 2010. That will be a lot of fun as I was able to get some really great infrared stuff there and next week I will really turn the looking glass on myself and talk about the goals I posted myself as an artist a year ago and talk about where I have done well and what goals I will need to carry forward to 2011.

Enjoy the photos!





Keep Makin' Art!
Carl

Friday, December 17, 2010

Skylands Project Update

This project of picking my five favorite color and b&w images from 2010 at skylands has been tougher than I thought. Mostly that is because I took so many photos. It is taking time to go through them all.

I will post on Saturday my five favorite color shots and on Sunday my five favorite b&w shots.

Next week I will post a wrap up to 2010 including a review of my goals for 2010 and what I actually able to accomplish as well as my favorite photos from a great year with the camera. There is stuff from all over NY, there is Cape Cod, Italy and a bunch of other locations.

It has been a really good year for me with the camera and I have really enjoyed sharing the journey with all of you.

Keep Makin' Art!
Carl

Monday, December 13, 2010

The Skylands Project

It totally snuck up on me in 2010. Skylands vaulted to the top of my photographed spots list. I had probably been to the Botanical Garden at Skylands five times in the years previous. This year it topped out at fourteen visits. I think I liked best that it is different each time you go there and it made for some wonderful b&w work as well. Over the next week I will compile the top five color and b&w shots from my ventures to Skylands and post the results at the end of the week.

Next week I will review the goals I set for myself as an artist in 2010 to see where I did well and where I missed the mark. This will lead to goals for 2011. I think it is good at years in to take a look inward and take stock of where you are and where you have been.

Keep Makin' Art!
Carl

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Peaceful Cape Cod Morning


All this cold this week has me wishing for the warmth of Cape Cod in August! Peaceful cool mornings on the beach and the best sunsets in the world. The days in between are lazy and idyllic...... My kind of place!

Keep Makin' Art!
Carl

A little More on HDR


After I posted my two posts of HDR (High Dynamic Range) images on Sunday my good friend Carl Skiba wrote to me and said hey that's cool I'd like to see the three images that went into making the HDR photo side by side so I can better understand what the HDR software did for the image.

The image at the top of the post is the HDR image after it was run through the software. The image below shows the three images used to put the file together. The one in the middle is the normal image from the cameras meter and the ones on left and right are over exposed one and half stops and under exposed one and a half stops. All three images were taken on a tripod in the exact same position.

While I like the original image (the middle of the grouping of three) you can clearly see how much more detail there is when you can take the best parts of all three images. essentially this allows you to capture a much wider exposure latitude than the cameras sensor is capable of in a single frame. A word of warning it is very easy to go too far and make fake looking images. That is not my goal here. For me it is another tool to help me get over the limitations of the camera and allow me to bring you the image the way I saw it when I captured it.

I hope you enjoyed this and look for more HDR images soon!

Keep Makin' Art!
Carl

Sunday, December 05, 2010

HDR - Sunset on Cape Cod Bay 2009

This HDR Stuff is cool!

Keep Makin' Art!
Carl

Watkins Glen Revisited - HDR


I shot these images of Watkins Glen back in the late spring of 2010. I was fairly happy with the original shots, but struggled with capturing the whole contrast range of the scene. I found I had shadows and highlights that were off of the scale even shooting long exposures in the early (5:30am) light of a rainy day. I was able to capture the scene really feels like using HDR or High Dynamic Range software. Essentially you take a normal shot and then one over exposed and one under exposed of the exact same scene and the software uses the best parts of each file to compress the scene into a tonal range you can work with. These images are much closer to the magic you feel wandering the trail along the falls in Watkins Glen. The only trick is to always setup on a tripod and bracket the scene with one normal and one under and over exposed shot. There are a tone of shots I could have done this with as I always bracket my images... Alas as part of my work flow afterwards I decide which image of the three is best and delete the other two so I don't have a lot of shots I can do this too. I will however keep this in mind as I shoot new images because this can help me produce breathtaking images. Like any tool the trick is to know when to stop so you do not take it too far.

You should give it a try you can get some amazing images. You can really open up the shadows and pull out detail this way while retaining the highlights.

On a technical note my HDR Software is HDR EFEX PRO from NIK Software and is available from the good folks at Digital Silver Imaging.

Keep Makin' Art!
Carl

NYC - Holidays



We spent the Day yesterday in NYC with friends from Upstate. I will post more of our big day in the big city later today. For now all I can say is OMG the crowds!

Keep Makin' Art
Carl

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Crazy Life

Wow the holidays are busy and hectic. I had hoped to take portraits of my great nephews and get some painting in while I was off for thanksgiving. It just did not happen that way. When I did try to paint I felt rushed and only got mad at myself.
When I feel this way it is best to take a deep breath and relax. I can carve out some art time when I can.
I can't wait to get back to oil classes and really want to focus my efforts this coming year. I made a to do list for my art going into 2010. I will repost them soon and take a look at where I have been successful and where I have fallen down.
How are you doing with your 2010 goals?

Keep makin' Art!
Carl

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Railroad bridge - Suffern, NY

I took this shot of the railroad bridge near my town in late summer. I was going thru some of my IR images and came across it. I was not thrilled with it at first... but now I kinda like the reflections and shapes.

Keep Makin' Art
Carl

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving 2010!

Sunday, November 21, 2010

The Joy of a clean studio

After about five hours of cleaning and organizing yesterday... I found there was indeed a studio out there and not just a store room. Yeah! I am looking forward to pushing some paint around tonight after the rest of my chores are done.

Keep Makin' Art
Carl