Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 70-200mm f/4L IS lens, f/8 at ISO 200
Exposure blend of three images (30 sec, 4 sec and 1/20 sec)

I photographed the “supermoon” on Saturday night at Gasworks Park at the tail end of a Google+ photowalk here in Seattle. I wasn’t expecting to get too much, especially with a hoard of photographers on the same hill alongside (basically photographing the same thing) but I think I came out with a pretty cool image.

Photographing the moon can be challenging, since it’s a ball of light that is significantly brighter than the surrounding foreground and sky. So to balance the exposure of this scene I created three exposures: one for the houses and water (30 seconds), one for the sky and clouds (4 seconds) and one for the moon (1/20 sec). Then I used Photoshop to mask and blend the images by hand.

Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 100mm f/2.8L IS Macro lens, 1/60 sec at f/4, ISO 200
Edited using one of my Lightroom 4 Film Presets, available at onOne Software 

Believe it or not, I used to be a runner. Nothing crazy or competitive (and I would never consider myself fast) but I ran a lot. I even ran (and finished) a marathon back in 2006 which was an exhilarating experience. After all of my years of running the one thing I learned about myself is that I never give up. Getting to the point of being able to run long distance takes time, training and patience. You have to work at it regularly, walk out the door and just run. You suck at first, but it gets better … and better … until you cross the finish line of your first race. But that finish line isn’t the end, because there are many more long, strenuous races to run.

As a photographer there are a lot of parallels with building up the physical endurance of running to the point of crossing a finish line many miles down the road and the learning process of photography. If you’re picking up a camera for the first time—even if it’s the most expensive camera on the market and the fanciest lens there is—you still have a long way to go before you’re able to make intentionally beautiful photographs. Good running shoes don’t make someone a better runner, they just help with the existing skill and training that has already taken place. With photography that same principle applies—put in the time to learn your craft and solidify your skills and you’ll find that eventually you may just surprise yourself with the quality of your photographs (which is always a good feeling).

Being a skilled photographer doesn’t happen immediately. You won’t walk away from a photography class, an intensive workshop or conference and have enough skills to photograph anything that is in front of your lens. I’ve learned pretty much everything I know about photography from picking up little nuggets of information in various places over several years. I also tend to focus in on one specific type of photogrpahy and dive into it 100% to get good at that one specific genre. My new adventure, and something I’m determined to learn as much about as possible, is macro photography and focus stacking. I recently purchased the Canon 100mm macro for food photography and I’m also using it for my personal work (like with the image in this post).

Giving myself new things to learn is my way of challenging my skills and building on to the existing foundations I already have. I know a heck of a lot about photography, but I don’t know everything … I’m still collecting nuggets of information and I suspect that I will always have room for more. In five years I want to have polished my skills so much that the photos I take today look like crap in comparison. And I want the learning and growing to continue until I float on up to the big’ol’ “Darkroom in the Sky”. I guess it’s not just a marathon, but a super-marathon … there’s no doubt in my mind that I’ll keep on going, and I hope to see you hitting the metaphorical pavement along with me.

Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 70-200mm f/4L IS lens, Lee Big-Stopper filter, 129 sec at f/11, ISO 200

Sometimes a scene is obvious … we can view it with our naked eyes and have expectations on how it would look as a photograph. Other times it takes searching and discovery to find the right spot, the perfect place to aim our camera and create.

This image, while one of my favorites, definitely didn’t jump out at me right away. I walked around and made photographs of the wider scene (like this one from yesterday’s post) and eventually this spot struck my eye. Click on that link I just posted … can you find it? This little mini-waterfall in a sea of flowing water? Once I saw that I knew I had to photograph it.

This photo was created on a mini-adventure with some wonderful photographers, all of whom I’ve met here on Google+: Varina Patel, Jay Patel, Patricia Davidson, Brian Matiash and Michael Riffle (who has an enormous amount of grace … I was so excited to get this shot I didn’t look up and behind me to see him setting up his camera!). :)

Canon 5DMkIII, Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II lens, Lee Big-Stopper filter, 40 sec at f/11, ISO 800

I was in Portland most of last week and while in town I had the opportunity to spend an entire day with some absolutely amazing photographers, all of whom I’ve met through Google+ (Brian Matiash, Varina Patel, Jay Patel, Patricia Davidson and Michael Riffle). This day-trip has probably been the best photography experience I’ve had since I’ve moved to the Pacific Northwest … it was gorgeous, peaceful, chilly (in an absolutely good way) and made me fall in love with everything I was surrounded by.

I also spent my time with some extremely talented artists, which is always a good way to be filled with inspiration and a drive to continue to grow in your craft. I’ve never considered myself much of a landscape photographer but have been very smitten with photographing nature lately, mostly because I’m trying to create a larger portfolio of personal images (along with my stock and food portfolio). So it was refreshing to soak up some invaluable information from the Patels, who just happen to be incredibly gifted landscape photographers who are also beautifully geeky with the technical side of it all (which I especially appreciate). I can’t wait to do more travelling to create many more images like this.

For some tips on long-exposure photography check out my article over on the Canvas Pop blog.

Yesterday I posted a free Photoshop PSD template you can use to give your cover photo on Google+ a little bit of awesome sauce. It was kinda fun, and people seemed to like it … so I thought I’d make even more awesome sauce to share!

I created a template that makes your photos look like instant prints! Here’s a link to download the PSD file. I created it using Photoshop CS5, but in theory it should work with any version of Photoshop CS2 and above (I don’t have them all so I can’t check).

Here are instructions on using the template:

1. First, download your template and unzip/extract the file. (Here’s the link to download the file.)
2. Open the template file in Photoshop.
3. Have a folder of images you want to add to your cover photo.
   NOTE: If you want them to size perfectly to the images in the template, prepare your images so they fit within 600px x 600 px, If they are larger or smaller, that’s okay … you’ll just have to resize the smart object to make it fit. (Click “Edit > Free Transform” to resize the image immediately after replacing it.)
4. In the Layers panel, click on the drop-down arrow of the Group to show its contents.
5. On the Smart Object layer that says “REPLACE ME!!!”, right-click on the description text (not the thumbnail), and select “Replace Contents…”
6. Navigate to the photo you want to replace, select it and click “Place”.
7. Your photo should now be in the border (if it is sized funny, see step 2).
8. To save your file, click “File > Save As…”,  select where you want to save it, and make sure you pick JPEG from the “Format” drop-down.

The last step is to replace your new perfectly-sized cover photo on your profile over on Google+! :)

If you’re on Google+ you may know that they recently changed the type of cover photo you can use. I thought it would be fun to do something simple, yet a little different than just a standard photo, and the image in the screen-shot above is what I have on my page right now (and very likely to change around in the future). :)

I also thought it would be fun to share my template with other users, so if you want something similar to the layout I have on my Google+ page (with your own photos, of course), then here’s a link to download the PSD file! I created it using Photoshop CS5, but in theory it should work with any version of Photoshop CS2 and above (I don’t have them all so I can’t check).

Here are instructions on using the template:

1. First, download your template and unzip/extract the file. (Here’s the link to download the file.)
2. Open the template file in Photoshop.
3. Have a folder of images you want to add to your cover photo.
   NOTE: If you want them to size perfectly to the images in the template, prepare your images so they are sized to 600px x 400 px (horizontal) and 400px x 600px (vertical). If they are larger or smaller, that’s okay … you’ll just have to resize the smart object to make it fit. (Click “Edit > Free Transform” to resize the image.)
4. Right-click on the Smart-Object (image) you want to replace in the Layers panel (the description text, not the thumbnail), and select “Replace Contents…”
5. Navigate to the photo you want to replace, select it and click “Place”.
6. Your photo should now be in the border (if it is sized funny, see step 2).
7. To save your file, click “File > Save As…”,  select where you want to save it, and make sure you pick JPEG from the “Format” drop-down.

The last step is to replace your new perfectly-sized cover photo on your profile over on Google+! :)

Canon 5D Mk II, Canon 70-200mm f/4L IS lens, 1/200 sec at f/4, ISO 200

This is definitely my absolute favorite image from my Vietnam trip last year. I’m still, slowly, going through the images and thought I’d post my finalized, edited version of this image … I’ve used it in a few tutorials (and also shared the iPhone version here on my blog), but still wanted to share it “officially”. :)

This photo is a reminder to myself that getting up early can pay off. I woke up very early to photograph the city and the market, since during the day there are a lot of tourists and locals walking the streets. However, just after sunrise the streets are empty and it made this photograph possible. Plus, I doubt I would have even recognized this same wall during the day … it likely had street vendors or motorbikes up alongside the wall, let alone no drying laundry to balance the composition.

Have a lovely weekend everyone … and to those of you celebrating the holiday, Happy Easter!

Here’s a quickie post for Monday morning … it’s been a busy last few weeks of travel (mostly for Photoshop World) and now I’m finally back in Seattle. I expect this week to be crammed with image editing, along with lots of writing … followed by a lot of local–ish traveling the next week.

But first I’m starting off the week with something fun. Over the weekend I was playing around with a newly discovered iPhone app, Cinemagram, and I decided to see if I could create my own cinemagraph in Photoshop with a video file from Vietnam. It worked, and is actually very fun to make and has a lot of potential for interesting image animations. This one was quite simple and created from an existing file … so I may just have to start creating video clips while out shooting specifically for cinemagrams and implement them into my future workflow. :)

BTW, if you have an iPhone Cinemagram is pretty fun to use on its own … here’s a link to an example of one I created with the app. Have a great week everyone!