Outside of Tucson is this 300 year old Spanish Mission. More information about it is at sanxaviermission.org.

Based on the success of my recent sepia picture, I decided to treat this one the same way. Most historic pictures of the old west are in sepia, so it seemed appropriate. And it is an easy thing to do with Lightroom 2.

There are so many historical things to photograph out there. Some of it seems more timely than others. With the sabre-rattling going on over Georgia, perhaps a photo of this Cold War relic is a timely one.

This Titan II Missile is standing in a nearly complete missile complex in Tucson, Arizona. Decommissioned in the 1980’s, all but this one were blasted to a depth of 20 feet to ensure they could not be easily reused, and so that the Soviet Union could verify their destruction via overhead satellite passes. This one was spared, for historical purposes, and turned into a museum. They give tours ( http://www.titanmissilemuseum.org/ ) which are interesting and very informative (AAA Members get $1 off the tour admission BTW). This was a fascinating place to me, having wanted to be a rocket scientist at one point in my life. We always joked with the ROTC students that they were just going to be “key turners” once they graduated (they all wanted to be pilots naturally). Mutually assured destruction seems like insanity to me, but it did keep both sides form using these destructive weapons.

Anyway, if you are in Tucson, this is one thing worth checking out. I got some other interesting photos while there, but most are just of the ’snapshot’ variety to show people what these facilities were like.

As for the photo, I cropped it, selectively reduced exposure in some areas, and then applied an “aged photo” preset, all in Adobe Lightroom 2. I love this program…

Lea on bike, originally uploaded by Dizzle @ 2*3 Photos.

Lea posing on “Kokane” after her runway show at The Purple Martini August 30, 2008.

It’s funny how things work out sometimes. I organized and shot a charity fashion show a couple of weeks ago and learned quite a bit.

Like if you are the organizer you should not think that you will be focused enough to be the photographer as well. I at least thought that one out ahead of the show and had two other photogs come out to help me out.

As I figured, my attention was spread so thin among different things my images of the actual show came out horrible. Well, more not to MY liking…

But through out the night I took several candid shots of folks in and outside the club and this one of one of the models posing on a bike has become one of the favorites of the evening.

Pay attention to what you are doing and know when it’s time to delegate to others to get the job done correctly.

Both Erik and Sheba’s images of the show came out great…which is really what matters in the end.

A few weeks ago, Microsoft Photosynth hit the Net. A few of the blogs I follow talked about it, and it looked interesting. I had some time during my conference in Phoenix, so I made a “synth” of my room at the Westin Kierland Resort in Scottsdale, AZ. I downloaded the PDF synth guide with instructions for making a new synth, and set about shooting the room. I wound up with 78 photos.

I shot them in RAW, so I exported them from Lightroom 2 and then started the upload process. This is where my frustration started. It took over 4 hours to upload those pictures. Luckily I had other things to do, like go to the pool and then a dinner engagement, so I left to do that.

When I came back after dinner, the little green box said it was done, and that my photos were “58% synthy”. Whatever that means. I proceeded to load the synth, and was not pleased with the results. For whatever reason, I had expected this to work like other synths I had seen, that acted like a virtual walk-through. I took pictures of the room, the balcony, and the bathroom. I took “approach” photos that I thought my be what synth needed to construct the next scene in the walkthrough. It didn’t do any of this.

You are probably asking why I did all this, and expected a result other than what I achieved. Fair enough. It’s because the PDF instruction set didn’t have specific directions for how to do this. In the absence of those directions, I made an assumption. I wonder how many other people are experiencing this.

Oh well. I don’t really see an application for this anyway. You have to download software to even view these things. When you consider that Flash is on 99% of computers out there, it makes more sense to do virtual tour types of things in Flash than this thing. It’s a solution without a problem.

I picked up Bryan Peterson’s “Beyond Portraiture”, not because it was written by Bryan (that alone would have been a good reason), but because I have been looking for help on some specific things where portrait photography is concerned. I didn’t really find what I was looking for, but as with all of his books, I did get a lot of helpful insight into making better photographs.

Before I get to what it was I was looking for, I want to tell you what this book does bring. Aside from what you would come to expect (discussions on lighting and exposure), the author starts off by getting you comfortable with talking to people, helping them to understand what you are trying to achieve, and making them into willing participants. For someone like me, this was a very valuable section. From there, the book moves into considerations in actually working with people, and the different types of people you might encounter. Some example of corporate report types of work are included in the book, which I found interesting given how much I follow the work of notable Colorado-based photographer David Tejada.

After the sections on dealing with people, the book then moved into a discussion about light (and I think Bryan is a master at this). From there we get an in-depth look at composition. This was particularly useful, as composition considerations are definitely different for people than they are for landscapes, etc.

The last section was perhaps one of the most useful for me, covering different techniques to digitally edit photos. As long as I have been using Photoshop (since 1995), you would think that I would know a lot more than I do. But for me it has always been a tool for editing web images. I have always known the power that Photoshop has, but never taken the time to learn more about it. The edits that Bryan presents are relatively simple and could be immensely useful if you don’t already know them.

All in all, I highly recommend this book. It didn’t have “posing” information that I have been looking for, but I got far more out of this book than that one subject is worth. Pretty sure I can find that info somewhere else.

With this photography thing, I sometimes I feel like I am cramming a lifetime of learning into as small an amount of time as possible. But I am learning, which is always a good thing to do. I hope you are continuing to learn as well.

Where Do You Stand?, originally uploaded by Sheba Wheeler.

A couple weeks ago, Photography Director Rob Haggart wrote a blog post entitled “Here’s What I Think Of Your Pictures“. It seems to have struck a chord with a number of people, myself included. I am a flickr-holic, constantly browsing the recent uploads to see what is moving through there. Most of it is uninspiring. A lot of cutesy snapshots (not that I am above taking such images). Every once in a while though, I see an image that moves me, and I either favorite it, or sometimes go so far as to add the photographer as a contact. The timing of Rob’s post is interesting. It came right about the time I was editing the photo above. The original is in color, and the sky is horribly blown out. But because I shot it in RAW, and with the assistance of a friend and also Lightroom 2, I was able to selectively adjust the exposure of the sky, bringing out more detail. Then I went in a direction I don’t normally go.

Sepia has never done a whole lot for me. In my mind, it just made things look “antiquey”. But as I was floating over the presets in LR2, the preview of the Sepia version caught my eye. I applied it, and you see the result (after about 4 iterations of exposure correction, leveling the shoreline, etc - see the original color version). Now this photo talks to me. I am sure it is in part because that is “daddy’s little girl” in the picture. But for me, this was a rare instance where she was sitting idle, taking in the scene. None of it was staged, other than me telling her to sit on the rock so I could take some pictures. The rest was all her. I have some with her facing me, some with her back to me (such as this), but it was all her choice. The strap on her shirt off her shoulder, the hair, everything about it was as it happened. I didn’t do anything but take the picture. I have always said that I am more lucky than anything else - right place, right time.

I printed this image on the color laser at work, using HP Glossy Laser Photo Paper and have shown it to some people, looking for objective opinions. The reactions were all the same. This picture moved them. They all interpreted it differently, but the bottom line is that it moved them in some way. This is what Rob was looking for in his blog post. I feel fortunate that I was able to capture a moment that has moved some people. But I also know I cannot bask in the glory of this moment for long. There is no doubt that I will still get more snapshots than moving pictures. But at least I know I am capable.

New Monitor, originally uploaded by Ankou.

I picked up a new monitor for the command center recently, a 22″ Widescreen LCD to go along with my 19″ standard LCD. A whole lot of real estate that, will more than likely become dual 22″ widescreens in the next month or so.

But for the time being I need to get these things calibrated to each other…cause out the box boy oh boy are they a world apart!!

I have lost count the number of times I have suggested to folks that they think about calibrating their monitors, especially when running a dual monitor setup. When you start complaining about color issues in your photos, or other folks start commenting about color issues…it is an easy first place to check.

Since I am in the process of upgrading a lot of my computer equipment I plan on testing out a few calibration systems and doing some reviews of them to help folks find something that will work for this task and not break the bank (hopefully).

But for the time being, most monitors come with some sort of built-in calibration program that you can use to at least get you going. Give it a try, sometimes you can be shocked with how far “off” colors can be.