SnowMoon, LLC

Posts Tagged ‘Photography’

Click to see more Yellowstone Scrapbook Pages

Since I’m often found for Scrapbooking Yellowstone, I’ve pulled together my layouts in a gallery at my Photoshelter account and embedded a slideshow here. I’ll be organizing and working to include credit for kits, templates and such over the next few days, but most come from DSP.  Hope you find some inspiration in there! If you have photos you would like help pinpointing a location or identifying a thermal feature or animal or whatever,  I’m happy to take a stab at it – either post in the comments or email me.

And if you’ve got layouts of Yellowstone, I’d love to see those! Post links in the comments so I can take a peek and find inspiration as well.

Yes, a layout today, and a bit of a twist on The Story Behind the Click.  All of us have these types of photos – ones that bring you straight back to that place and time.  You see not only the photo, but all the surroundings and you can almost hear the conversations that went on.  This is the journaling that should go with your photos no matter how you record your life – no matter what your end purpose of the photos.

Grab a photo today and write your story behind a click.

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The big slide in Cody, Wyoming. Not long ago, it was deemed a huge eyesore by someone advising the town and down it came – and it was time for it to go. But in this photo it was the new big attraction in Cody. That’s me in front (gangly and all) and my sister behind. The photo was taken by Ruthie, my grandfather’s cousin. We were her only family and she loved photography.  In fact she (being a teacher) was the first one to help me learn how to compose my shots better and the first one to say to me, “get closer and fill the frame.” During this time in the 1970′s she hoped to break into stock photography as a bit of extra retirement income and this was one of her photo shoots. She got permission from our parents and treated us to quite a few times down the slide.

After climbing the stairs for the umpteenth time, legs aching, we’d wait until she was ready (she did handle those harsh bright light/shadow contrasts well), and called out to us to slide down. On this one, she requested that we hold up our arms. I’m not the ‘arms up and smile while you’re terrified’ type on rides, but screwed up the courage and did it simply because I knew it would make for a better photo for her. Of course my trepidation made my solid and rarely ruffled sister just roll her eyes.  Of course, she got the coordination gene that I didn’t.

I now have Ruthie’s slide collection and while some of it has been scanned in, I need to scan more. I cherish so many of the photos she took – she stayed with us for part of each summer, and often at Christmas.  Her photos are a unique snapshot of that time in our family’s life.  I can see now how she, too, struggled with the creative effort every photographer (or artist of any medium) faces. I think she had a few minor successes at stock, but nothing in her records indicate she was ever accepted at an agency.  But she was a success.  Her success, though, wasn’t fame or fortune – it was simply doing what she loved and connecting with those in her life.  I can still hear her laughter.

As I work at building my own stock collection, Ruthie often crosses my mind.  At times it feels as though she’s standing next to me just on the other side of the veil, supporting and encouraging me as always.  When I take what feel like enormous steps, I screw up the courage to do the “arms up and smile” thing even if I’m terrified as I take that step.  And I keep in mind that success can be defined in many ways.  Doing what you love and connecting with others in your life – making memories – definitely counts as tremendously successful.

Happy Friday!

Calliope Hummingbird and Pink Fuschia

Happy Friday!  The mornings and evenings are full of the zing of the Broadtail Hummingbirds that seems to increase with each passing day. We have a couple of feeders out – one you can see on the webcam -  last night we caught the woodpeckers also drinking from it. If all works well this weekend, I’ll locate my fuschia plant to hang by the front door on the north side of the house to act as yet another feeder. It still will need to come in each night for a bit longer as our true safe date for being frost free for the summer is around June 10.

The Story Behind the Click: I captured this photo in August of 2005, when I was really just starting to take my photography a bit more seriously. It was one of the first that let me see that I could capture what I saw in my mind’s eye. Each summer I work to add to my collection of hummingbird photos, but this one remains near and dear to my heart simply because it helped to lead me forward to where I am now.

To capture this scene, I start my day by setting up the tripod and camera and get out a stool. Composing the image as I hope to take it, I set the focus and turn it to manual mode to keep it there – and then with the remote trigger in my hand, I sit calmly and wait. Hummer after hummer comes, but often not to the spot I have composed, so I just enjoy the warm morning sun and the sounds of the forest waking. Deer may move through, the large gray cat that adopts us each summer to keep our mouse and chipmunk population down strolls down the driveway, the wind ruffles the aspen leaves to make them quietly applaud the morning, and I relax into it all. I usually give it a half hour to 45 minutes before going in to get other things done, forcing myself to pull out of that near meditation state.

Even if I don’t release the shutter once, it’s worth every moment.  Taking the time to pause and connect with the nature surrounding you is always worth it.  Yes, I live in a gorgeous area where you don’t have to work hard at finding nature, but it surrounds you even if you live in the city.  And just like here, you still need to deliberately pause to soak it in.  Take a few moments today to find the nature around you – and give yourself the gift of a few minutes to really connect. Let it refresh you.

If you don’t have time outside to do that – take a few minutes to watch Phoebe’s baby hummingbirds in Southern California.  They’re growing like weeds right now!  Delightful company while working at the computer.

ASMP has the BEST video out about how to register your copyright.  Why register?  Because some folks don’t have the morals they probably should when it comes to asking for permission to use your photographs.  It needs to just be a part of your workflow with your photos.  Think it can’t happen to you?  It can.  Some scrapbookers I know take amazing photos that some editors just can’t resist.  While you own the copyright from the moment you release the shutter, you really can’t enforce it until it’s registered with the copyright office.  It’s the difference between walking in a dangerous neighborhood with a Chihuahua or a Pit Bull.  Registration gives your copyright a good set of teeth. (no offense to any chihuahuas – love that breed, too, but they just wouldn’t be my first choice in a dangerous area)

Learn more over at Photo Attorney – Carolyn has a wealth of information on her site (which has a very cool, new sleek and classy look) – which is where I learned about this great video.

Last Friday I posted a portrait of a girl from a newborn photo shoot done last week.  I got lost in that photo, but when I came back to it, it just didn’t quite express what I envisioned when I was taking the shots.  The past few mornings I’ve been working on those shots – this is one of the big sisters – and I think this captures more of what I saw as a finished image when working on the initial captures.  Softer colors, a couple of texture overlays.  I like it.  Hope you do, too.

While looking through my stash of photos this week for a Friday Photo, I found myself lost in this series of photos.  This one’s probably the best – not stock quality because of the lack of the depth of field (I have GOT to take the tripod with me especially when I’m tired), but recalling the moment of capture, I’m right back in that spot again.  And even if it’s not stock quality, its going to find a home on a scrapbook page.

This Woolly Bear Caterpillar, along with 3 or 4 others in the same small area, munched their way through a small batch of tall clover growing in the drainage from a culvert in the road not far from Old Faithful, near the Firehole River.

I had pulled off where countless fishermen had pulled off over the years to fish the Firehole.  The sun shining through the trees and glinting off the river drew me to pause there after 6 hours of driving with a few stops to visit various friends – thermal features as well as people in West Yellowstone.  A busy day as normal while visiting the Park – so much to see, so much to do, so many miles to drive.  Busy.  My energy waned and I knew getting lost in nature always refreshes and I wasn’t ready to check in at Grant another half hour down the road.  I thought I’d get out and get lost in the light and shadows, but in the end, the caterpillars won out.  I spent at least 20 minutes just watching them go about the business of being caterpillars.  20 minutes to just be in the moment.  Connecting.

Mid August – still summer, but the shift to fall had started.  Soon these guys would create their winter cocoon, and emerge as Tiger Moths in spring.  Reminders that time keeps rolling on with a gentle rhythm that holds us all.

Sitting there just a few yards from the road shuffling people on through the Park, I photographed these guys who remained oblivious to me  – just as the people in the cars remained oblivious to them. I marveled at the wonders God surrounds us with. Even in the heart of a city – or the heart of our busy-ness, they’re there.  Caterpillars munching on clover and cars whizzing by – Yellowstone or Manhattan makes no difference – Woolly Bear Caterpillars munch away, preparing for the next season in the same way.  I find it amazing that God and nature just quietly wait there for us to pause and refresh ourselves – if we remember to just take the time.

I’ve been doing a LOT of work on my photo organization since my last post – mainly because my camera’s shutter went out and I got the dreaded Err99 – code for “something went wrong.”  Off to the Canon Repair Center it went and I hope to hear from them sometime today.  As nice as it would be to upgrade to the 7D, that’s not in the works right now, so I’m hoping the repairs will come in at a decent price.

But I digress…back to how I organize and get my photos ready to use.

What works for me may or may not work for you – and that’s how it is with so much with photography – one person’s path to where they are probably really won’t fully work for someone else, but then again, parts of it might be a wonderful solution.  As you may know, I’m against specializing – life is too big for me to specialize too much, though my focus for awhile might be on one thing or another, I just flat out like making images.  I take them for a variety of purposes – for stock, for someone’s portraits, for sketching reference photos, for scrapbooking, to tell a story, to create a series, just a lot of reasons.  That means my workflow can be a bit complex at times.

But for cataloging and copyright purposes, I have a spiral bound notebook that I’ve vertical lines on to create checkboxes.  Here’s basically what it looks like:

And I just start filling it out – each of the smaller boxes gets a date in it of when I completed that part of it – or a checkmark if that task was done at some point before I started this.

I could do this part online, but I find having that spiral notebook to hold in my hand and sitting on the desk staring at me in the face helps to keep me on task and not get lost on where I last left off.   Once these things are done, then I feel free to jump to the processing workflow.

But I also have a file on the computer now (using DavidRM’s software The Journal) that I enter in other data that must be tracked and kept organized for stock purposes and tracking the uses for copyright protection (once they’re registered, you have a ton more protection, but if you have a track record of each photo, all the better if when you run into a copyright infringement case).  I have this on the computer because I’ll keep going back and adding in how I use various photos – even for a scrapbook page.

Here’s a look at a section of my image tracking file:

Looking at this, I see I need to add in here a column for model/property releases I have on file.

Much of what I do is probably overkill for most folks, but if you’re even considering doing ‘something more’ with your photography, starting out with good records will save you a ton of time.  When I get quiet here, chances are I’m buried deep in past images working frantically to catch up on the behind-the-scenes organization.

Photo organization can be rough and with all I do with my photos it’s crucial.  Every photographer comes up with their own system, and mine developed over time.  Since I get asked this fairly often, I’ll start sharing more on how I have it working for me. Feel free to borrow what ideas work for you.

When downloading files, I name a folder for the date.   I may not download each day and don’t worry about that.  The file folder heirarchy on my external hard drive looks like this:

• Raw Files
  • Year
    • Month
      • Date

The next step is to rename the files.  In Adobe Bridge (I use PS CS3), I select all the photos and use the Batch Rename function under Tools.  Here’s a screenshot of the pop up box you get (I just selected one file from 2006):

Under the Text, I add in J to denote that I took  the photo.  And I preserve the last 4 digits by typing in the last 4 digits in the file name from the first photo in the batch.  The renamed file lets me easily find and track images as well as giving each a unique name needed to register the copyright.  It’s the first and probably the most important step in keeping track of all the photos and how they’ve been used.

This morning, though, I’m working on another part of the tracking process.  I used to keep this on paper in a 3 ring binder, but now want to transfer that information to The Journal software.  I’ve created a category for each year and tables with four columns – one for each month, but that may not really be needed – one table would work fine, but I like to break it into smaller chunks so I can feel ‘done’ with each month.

• Folder Date (One folder for each day I download)
• Subjects (for easy searches)
• Image Used (for copyright tracking)
• Where/When/How (for copyright tracking)

Once each year is done, I’ll print it out as a hard copy (in my opinion) offers the best assurance of archiving data.

More on the software I mentioned:  I’ve been using DavidRM’s The Journal software for over a year now to help me stay organized.  But with all the record keeping and writing I do, version 4 slowed me down as I bumped into the size wall of 2 GB.  I emailed David about the problems I saw and received a response in less than 20 minutes.   After walking me through a couple of possible fixes, he had me upgrade to version 5 which got me going again as it can handle over 200 GB in the database.   All I can say is WOW!

I was thrilled before to find a solution for my writing and records, but I now I absolutely adore all the additions and changes he did for Version 5.  You can organize, search, and write to your heart’s content knowing it’s all contained on your computer (you can even password protect it).  I know I haven’t even scratched the surface, I find myself breathing easier and relaxing knowing that now I’ve got room to get everything in one place – to print out what I want as hard copies, to act as a second brain for me.  It’s this writer/photographer/organizational nut’s dream!

If you want to record memories, do research, or just keep an extensive journal, give it a try – I’ve tried other software with lots of disappointment and regrets, but this one has me flying.

Disclaimer – No, nothing free from David, just the same great service he gives to all for an awesome product!

Have a great day all!

Slow Down - Hitting an elk will ruin both his day and yours

That’s my guess at how many photos I’ll take in 2009 – actually it’ll probably be closer to 21,000.   And, it’s time to slow down because – no, I didn’t hit an elk with my car (but that IS my favorite road sign – graphically clear) – but my ‘working’ external drive died.   We’ve tried reviving it and occasionally get it to take  breath or two, but not long enough to retrieve the files there.  I’m now slowed to a crawl as I start just with my 2009 images.

I’m not terribly upset, but annoyed more than anything.  I regularly  backed up all the basic raw files.  But I lost the organization.  I have around 100,000 images to manage and I had gone through – deleted ones that aren’t worthy of the space, or that I have enough multiples on.  Save the best, and ditch the rest.  I had them half organized in Lightroom, many keyworded.   But now – I have a clean slate.  And this is ok.  I can work at a consistent process and get them done.  I’ll share what all I do to stay on top of this monstrosity of a collection.

If I can do this twice – you can get your photos together as well.  Join me, won’t you?  I know it’s the holidays, but with Lightroom (I’m putting LightRoom 3 Beta through it’s paces with this), it’s something you can set to work on while doing something else.

STEP ONE – Get the photos all in one spot. Start with 2009.  Get them together.  One month at a time.

I have them sorted by date.  One file for each day I download from my camera, each of those under a monthly photo, and all the monthly files under a yearly one.  Sorting by date is the only way it works for me – I use keywording to sort by event or subject.  But just for now, get your photos together.  For scans, I have those in a separate folder, loosely organized by decade.

Snow Shark! © 2009 SnowMoon, LLC

No, not a snow shark - it's Rhad!

It’s the first time Rhad’s really experienced deep snow – we’re up to 16″ and another 7-11″ are expected tonight.   It was a fun day of going out to blaze some trails for him so he wasn’t completely exhausted – and took the camera with me each time.  More to come…