Monthly Archives: December 2011

 

One of the principles of composition that I love to teach  is extraction, the pulling of details out from the entire scene. I was fortunate to travel up to Harlan, Kentucky yesterday to shoot some at an coal company property.  There is wealth of color and detail images.  I used a FX sensor DSLR with a 24-120  and a point and shoot for most of these images, bet you can’t guess which are which!?  Think about what a small area some of the images are and imagine pulling details out of the overall scene!  Some are straight shots, some HDR & some Topaz Digital filters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are chits, in the early days of mining each miner would take a number brass disk in the mines with him each day, when he came out of the mines at night he would replace it on the board, it was how they knew who was out of the mines and who was still inside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My good friend David Middleton, a great teacher in the photography field once said,  “If done properly, a photographer will spend 90% of their time looking for great subjects in great light, and 10% of their time shooting!”  I agree!   I hope these images give you food for thought as you explore with your photographic eyes!

 

the pilgrim

 

PS:  A big thanks to Homer and Terri for getting us in to the property!

 

I wrote an entry in the Learning Center this morning about knocking off the rust photographically, now it’s turn top look at our spiritual condition.  If we don’t practice our faith the the weather will cause us to turn to rust, decay, slowly but surely loose our effectiveness.  Rust is caused from neglect, and if we neglect something long enough it will eventually completely go away!  A good maintenance program can prevent rust and keep us working in top shape for Him.  Here are my suggestions;

 

1.  Get into and stay in the Word!  God gave us the Word as a plan for our lives, to answer all spiritual questions and develop a foundation on which we can always find assurance, hope and the answer!  kStaying in the world continue to build us up and helps us develop a shield of protection.  Staying in the Word will help you grow into the man or woman God desire fro your life.  It will also make you a stronger witness in the world.

 

2. Stay on your knees in prayer.  Humble yourself before God and talk with Him, listen to Him, and know Him as your best friend.  God want to have a relationship with you and this is the best way to relate to Him, to go to Him in prayer.  Paul said “Pray constantly!”

 

3.  Put His guidance and teachings into practice in your everyday lives.  Nothing builds a strong bond with God like Obedience.  When you know He is pulling on your heart stings, always answer Yes Sir.

 

4.  Ask God to put you in contact with those that need Him.  You will surprised how many people God will send into your life that need Him, that need love, encouragement, and a reason to have more faith.   God will use you to help these people find what they need, develop a relationship with our Heavenly Father!

 

5.  Take time everyday to thank your Heavenly Father for His countless blessing in your life, and pray for your Brothers ands Sisters in Christ, your co-workers and your lost friends.   God will surprise you with what great results will come from your obedience!

 

Over two years ago i started a simple little blog called the Pilgrim’s Chronicles.  Almost immediately I came to the understanding that it was not about me, it would not be done by me, or for me, (I just do the typing and make the spelling and grammatical errors!).  I have seen the blog grow to over 200,000 hits, and I get emails and letters from all over the world.  People thank me for inspiring them, I wish I could, but God is inspiring the people that get inspired.  He alone knows who is reading this, and what their needs are.  All I do is listen to what He shares with me in my spirit and then start typing, usually I can hardly keep up with what is being released into my spirit from Him!  I often finish a post and read it and am amazed at the truth and wisdom. please believe me, when I say I don’t have that kind of wisdom to share!!  I’m not saying this to be falsely modest, I’m saying it because I  want the readers attention to go to the source, not the servant.

 

I’ve never had any duty in my life that thrills me more than serving Him, and doing this………….

 

the pilgrim

 

 

 

Just for laughs, let me share some reccent comments from emails, you will love them and may agree!

 

“You shoot rusted things great, but I sure wish you liked other subject matter!”  Answer;  “Sorry about that”

 

“The way you talk about all the incredible cheeseburgers you’ve had I expected you to way 500 lbs.  When I met you I was shocked!”  “Thanks, I think.”

 

“I love your website and I’m from France, but I don’t get the hill bill stories??”       Answer to them “Neither do we!”

 

“I’m a Canon shooter and you always talk about Nikon’s, you would think you work for them!”     Answer  “Actually I do!”

 

“You said you almost always use a tripod, how do you set it up in your airplane?”      Honest, I really got this question!!!!

 

The day the the D2x came out someone asked me, “What do you know about the D3??”   Answer;  “Really!!!”

 

“I’m going to Moscow on business, can you tell where the best burger is there?”

 

“Which Sony camera do you like best?”  Answer;  ” I will pass on that one….”

 

“Do you have a “Carbonite”  tripod?”

 

“How long does my camera strap need to be?”  Answer;  “How far is from the middle of the back of your neck to the middle of your chest, double that.”  Just couldn’t help myself.

 

“Which version of the Bible do you like best?  I use the King John Version.”     Answer “Ooops”

 

Sitting on a dock with our feet dangling over the edge just inches from the water, a photographer actually asked me, “How far are we above sea level?”  Answer  “Oh, I’d say about 18 inches?!”

 

Keep em’ coming!

 

 

 

Over the winter is a great time to sharpen you skills and get ready for spring shooting!   All people that have skills must keep them sharp, singers practice, football players practice, golfers practice and photographers must too!  Now the fun part of practicing as a photographers is a big part of your exercise is shooting more pictures, which is fun anyway, but it goes deeper than that, lets review some key components you must work on to stay sharp and on top of your game!

 

1.  Getting Tack Sharp Images  –   This is a matter of practice and discipline!  If you hand hold a lot, do this little practice sessions, get your children or grandchildren to sit int he floor in front of you while you sit on a chair or the couch, and practice “squeezing”  of the shutter release.  You should know your shutter release so well that they can’t tell the exact moment it will fire!  The technique is simple, all shutter releases have something call creep, that is the short distance you can press down just before anythting  happens, when you take up this first space, the next slight push will fire the shutter.  If you hand hold very much you need to practice this skill until it is second nature to you.  The kids will love the game and it will make you a lot more skilled at firing the shutter!

 

2. Tune up your focusing – All cameras that have autofocus “can”  get out of register and give you slightly less than perfect focus.   This is simple to check, find a good brick wall and pick a spot on the wall and focus on that point,  Now carefully shoot and image.  Pull the image into the computer and check it at 100%  You will be able to tell immediately if t=your lens is focusing properly.  If it is not, here are two solutions.  Check you camera manual, many higher end cameras actually have a way in the menus to adjust focus!  It’s not hard just follow the directions in your manual.  If your camera does not offer that feature, you can send it into a authorized repair center for your camera’s brand and they can adjust focus back to factory specs.  For closeups try shooting a newspapers newsprint!

 

3.  Clean your cameras and lenses for the upcoming season –  This is easy to do and only requires some simple tools.  Get an old toothbrush (dry) and a camels hair brush, which you can pick up at any arts and crafts store or Walmart.  You will also need some lens cleaning supplies, for years I used actual lens cleaner solution and lens cleaning paper from Kodak, I now use the little foil pouched lens cleaners from Zeiss.  You can buy them at the eye care department at Walmart and they are great for wet cleaning of lenses, eye pieces and LCD panels, they also work great for your glasses, iPhone and iPad!  They come in a blue box and are called Zeiss Lens CLeaning Wipes – Pre Moistened.  they simply have alcohol which dislodges any smudges and dries fast.  The proper way to clean a lens surface, and remember they have two a front element and a rear element, is to use a blower bulb (or baby ear syringe) to blow any dust or grit off the lens first, then apply the wipe to wet clean the lens. Use the toothbrush to get into small crevices around the outside of your camera and get all dust and grit out.  You can use the camels hair brush to overall clean the camera.  DON’T ATTEMT TO CLEAN THE MIRROR!!!!  Only use the blower to blow any dust our o the mirror box, cleaning of mirrors is a task best left to a trained camera technician!

 

4. Test the accuracy of your meter –  The winter is a good time to set up a test subject and see if your meter is spot on!  Once again just set up a subject, and  make sure you have the correct white balance setting then shoot some images and see if all the tones look good, your histogram will be a good way to see if tones are falling where they should.  Some cameras will let you make adjustment to your meter, other need to be seen by a technician.  I’m often asked if the expensive heavy duty pro cameras are worth the money, this is one way they are, they allow all these adjust ments like focus, and metering right in the menus!

 

5.  Get your eyes ready to see photographically –   Spend some time looking at great, well crafted images, good places to look are the countless websites of very good shooters, you might try some I feature on the Home page.  You can also see some amazing work on 500pix.com
Study how these great shooters composed and set up their shots, you will get a lot of great ideas!   I really like the work of Jim Begley, John Shaw, Tony Sweet, Christopher Burkett, Rod Planck, Mark Alberhasky, just to name a few!  One last suggestion ,my latest Kelby Training class is coming soon, called Learning to See Photographically, I think it will help, as well!

 

6. Practice – Practice – Practice  –   The best way to get better is study the fundamentals at a Nikon School, or Kelby Training and then practice!!!!

 

Hope these tips help you get ready for an exciting shooting year in 2012!

 

the pilgrim