 
Hi Everyone! This week I'm going to talk about all of my camping systems and when I use them. You would think that you would only use one, a tent, but I have several. The ones I choose depend on what I'm doing, where I'm going, and who I'm with. If I'm with my wife, I camp in a certain way, and if it's just me and Forrest (my dog), I will camp another. There are two types of campers. There are those where the campsite is the main attraction. What I mean by that is that they are more interested in the camping at the campsite. They are into setting up the campsite, making the fire, cooking, drinking, the whole campsite experience. Where they are camping is secondary to the campsite. The other type of camper is what I am. I'm just looking for a place to sleep and eat, and I'm ready to go the next morning. Where I am is more important to me than the campsite. With that said the people that I camp with can be the first type of camper, so compromise on my part is always happening. So what about the different systems I use? Well, there are many. First, tents. I have several tents, and this is what I probably started camping in. They are versatile and all you need is a flat piece of ground to put them on. They come in many sizes and shapes. Second, hammocks. I have discovered hammock camping in the last couple of years and found them to be very comfortable. I have made some myself. Third, sometimes I camp out in my truck. I have a bed topper and have made a bed platform so I can sleep in the bed of my truck. And last but not least I have my Teardrop trailer that my wife and I purchased a couple of years ago. So I have all these different types of camping systems. When and why do I use them? Well, here you go.
Tents. Tents are one of the most versatile camping systems. I used a pup tent when I was a Cub Scout. I keep a tent in my truck for emergencies if I get stranded somewhere. But to tell you the truth, I don't use tents often because I'm getting older, and sleeping on the ground isn't as comfortable as it used to be. I mainly use them when I'm backpacking somewhere and I don't know the terrain were I'll be sleeping. I have many tents and they serve different purpose . I have one that's a dome tent (the one I keep in my truck) that's a durable tent, and it weighs about 5 lbs. This is not the tent that I backpack with though because it's too heavy. I have another that is very lightweight, just under 2 lbs., and that's my backpacking tent if I'm by myself. But if Forrest is with me, then I have another tent that's a little larger and weighs about 2.5 lbs. so he can sleep with me in the tent. So different tents for different situations.
My hammock. This is my preferred way to sleep when I'm camping. It's very comfortable, cheap, and easy. When I'm backpacking this is what I want to use. If I know there are going to be trees (and that's almost anywhere in the Southeast), the hammock is what I will be using. I have made a couple, and they
have integrated bug nets with tarps for cover from rain and sun. They are fairly lightweight so they are good for backpacking. But if Forrest is with me, there is no room for him. So if Forrest goes backpacking with me, no hammock. But I'm trying to make him something that he can sleep in while I'm in the hammock.
The truck camper. This is my newest way to camp. I built a platform to sleep on and a drawer that holds all of the camping supplies. I've only used it a couple of times. This is mainly used to car camp. While
doing my project of visiting all of the state parks in North Carolina, Forrest and I will be doing a lot of car camping, so I guess this type of camping we will be using more of. I can still use my hammock when we car camp, and Forrest can stay in the truck. We've done this once before and it worked out well.
My teardrop camper. My wife and I used to do a lot of tent camping when we were younger. But I just couldn't see my wife sleeping in a tent when we got older, so we bought a Teardrop Camper. It is pretty
neat but is definitely Glamping (glamour camping). When my wife and I go camping now, this is the type of camping we do. It has all the perks. Stove, sink, TV, AC, DVD player, just about everything. My wife and I will set up an awning in the back where the kitchen is and we play cards and relax. We don't use it as much as I would like to. The problem with using the camper is that you usually have to make reservations way in advance, and the weather or other things can come up that
messes up your trip. Last year we had six camping trips set up for the camper and only made one. Bad weather or other things messed up all the other trips. Hopefully this year will be better. We have a trip planned for two weeks from now.
So those are all my types of camping. I hope you get a chance to get out into the wilderness and do some camping. Until then get out and shoot!
Hey Everyone! This week I want to discuss video. Now I'm not an expert at all and really don't know a lot about shooting moving pictures. I have been a still photographer for most of my life and have only recently started shooting video, mostly for my own personal use. I do have a YouTube channel with 30 or so short videos. They are mostly of hiking and camping with some photography and photo editing thrown in for good measure. But I do admire those who can tell a story through video. There is a lot of forethought that goes into a small movie or video. You have to have a story and a timeline in your head, and then there is audio that goes along with it. That is a whole other world that I'm not familiar with. A couple of my photography friends in my camera club shoot great video, and I'm inspired by what they do to try and do something similar. But it's hard to concentrate on still photography and video at the same time. It's either one or the other, or you just do both poorly. I'm still working on that one.
One of my personal projects for the year is to visit all of North Carolina's state parks. This project is to, one, get me out of the house; two, make more photography; and, three, do some hiking and camping. While I'm doing this project, I had an idea to record my adventures with short clips of the adventure with
my dog Forrest. So I will have some "Forrest Goes to..." adventures. Here's a link to the latest one I did, Forrest Goes to Fort Macon. Hope you enjoyed the video. What were the tools that I used to make this? I currently have two Gopro cameras: one older Gopro Session 4 and a newer Gopro7. But I also use my phone, my Sony A6500, and my Canon G7XII. On this particular video, I used all of the above in one form or another. They all came in handy at different times. The Gopros are great for action-type scenes, like Forrest hiking or the camera mounted to my truck to show us traveling. I might even mount the camera to Forrest one day to get his eye's view of what's going on. I haven't quite figured that one out yet. The Sony A6500 and the Canon G7XII are great for still shots, like on a tripod for an interview. And my iPhone, well, it's just always with me so it's great just to pull out when something happens and I don't have the other cameras with me. I do have mounts for the GoPros and mini-tripods to mount all of these cameras on. I have a cheap microphone that I can hook up to my iPhone to use as an audio recorder, but honestly I haven't done much talking in my videos yet. All of these things fit into a little bag that I can take with me when I go out.
For video-editing software I use iMovie. It's not the most advanced, but that's why I like it. It's simple and I can do quite a bit with it. I can export straight to YouTube from the software or export a file from my computer files. I shoot in 1080 right now and don't see the need to shoot in 4K video for a couple of reasons. One is storage. 4k takes up a lot of space on my computer and computing power for rendering the video, which might be too much for my current computer. I am only putting the videos on YouTube and Facebook, and the quality doesn't need to be 4K. The other reason is that all of my cameras, from phone to oldest GoPro, will shoot in 1080, and not all of them will shoot in 4K. I get licensed free music from YouTube that you can download and use for free for the background music. This music sets the mood of the video and helps me create the clip.
And all of that is the easy part. The storytelling is the hard part. You have to have a story in mind of how you will shoot it, camera angles and such in mind before you start videoing. When you have all of your raw footage, then the editing begins and that's where the story starts to unfold. Do you go in chronological oder, or do you just tell the story with maybe even flash back moments? All of this is done in the editing.
I could go on and on about the powers of moving pictures, but you know the power. You see it every day in television, movies, and almost anywhere. And you have a camera with you all the time. That's how I started, with my phone on hiking trips. So pull out your phone and start shooting video. Have fun with it. Shoot your cat or dog (not literally! LOL), put those shots to music, and you'll have your first movie. That's all for now. So until next time, get outside and shoot!
Hey Everyone! This week I'm going to don my cape and turban and pull out my crystal ball and look into the future of photography. What will camera technology be like in the future? Will we all be cyborgs with cameras built into our heads? Well, I don't think so, and you don't need a crystal ball to see into the future. You just need to pull your phone out of your back pocket to see what the next technology will be for your camera. This little camera that is disguised as a phone with the little tiny sensor that takes such good snapshots that are good enough to be blown up to a billboard-sized photo is the future. Computational photography will be the future. Computational photography is software that fixes or alters a photo in camera, like the portrait feature on newer phones that blur out the background like a f1.4 aperture lens would. Like being able to put your camera in a mode "Nighttime" that allows you to handhold your camera at night and get great photos without blur. These things are being done now in phones and soon will be, if not already, in your camera by using super powerful on board computers. So this brings up the question about larger sensor professional cameras. Will they still be made? If I can take the same quality photo with a small sensor camera that I can with a larger expensive $4,000 camera body and a $2,000 lens, why would I buy the more expensive? I'm sure there will always be the people that have the money and the high-end professionals that will need these cameras, but what about the ordinary Joe like you and me? I think that they will start buying (every day Joes) the less-expensive ones. Now if you're using smaller sensor-sized cameras and lenses made for these smaller cameras, the whole package will be smaller and more portable and great for the everyday
photographer, travel photographer, and nature photographer. There will be things that will be built into the cameras that we can't even think of yet. And with cameras using computational photography, instead of upgrading hardware every couple of years, you could just do a software upgrade to make your camera as up to date as the guy buying a new camera. I believe that we have about topped out the megapixel bubble, and more megapixel cameras just take up more storage on your computer and not necessarily better quality phot's. We have 100 MP cameras now, and for most of us who take photography seriously, the only way we could tell the difference between it and a 24MP camera would be to Pixel Peep on a computer. But to the naked eye not so much. So far we've been talking about what our cameras will be able to do in camera, but what about software?
Post processing is very advanced now. Just think about what it will be able to do in the future. The newest trend right now is AI (artificial intelligence), that we can enhance the photographs, shadows, contrast, and many more items by just sliding a slider. There are sky enhancers, foliage enhancers, and sky replacements. All of these can be done in Photoshop, but newer programs are going to make these easier to do without having to be a Photoshop skilled editor. I can only see AI getting better, and along with the computational photography, I only see stunning, eye popping photographs coming in the future.
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Now, did I come up with this all by myself? No, not really. I listen to a lot of podcasts on photography. One of them is the "Future of Photography." The one that gave me the idea of this blog is "The Digital Story." The Digital Story Podcast #725 Click on this link to listen to the podcast by Derrick Story that gave me this idea. I think that the future of photography is bright, and I can't wait, although I will be an old timer and will probably stick to what works for me. So until next time, keep shooting and get outside!
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Hey Everyone! This week I thought I would talk about what’s in my photography editing toolbox. If you have someone build you a house, the contractor has more than just a hammer in his toolbox. He has saws, drills, levels, and all sorts of tools at his disposal, each with a unique task to perform. Much like the contractor, as photographers we should have more than one tool in our photo editing toolbox because, like the contractor with the hammer, we cannot edit our photos with just one tool and expect great photos. I’m going to break this down into hardware and software. I’m assuming that we all have a lot invested in both, and I’m going to show you what I have in my toolbox.
Hardware.
Hardware is easy to explain. It's your computer or computers. But it can go
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much further than that. It can extend to your tablet of choice and even your phone. My main editing computer is a 2015 27-inch IMac, and I just upgraded the mechanical hard drive to a Solid State Drive. It’s maxed out on RAM and is still pretty snappy to be five years old. This is the computer that I really do all of my editing on unless I’m traveling somewhere. Attached to it I have external hard drives: one for miscellaneous stuff and one for photo archives that my software accesses. I use a temporary 250 GB SSD drive that I use as a buffer. I was doing this when I just had a mechanical drive to make the process quicker. I really don’t need to do this anymore now that I have the SSD hard drive, but it's just part of my process. I leave photos on this temp SSD drive until I’ve finished editing to make it quicker. Then I send the photos to the archive. My mobile computer is a 2017 MacBook Air, and I recently upgraded
the hard drive in it also. I went from a smaller SSD to a quicker and larger 1TB NVME SSD drive that is twice the speed as the old one. It has brought new life into this computer and made it very snappy. I still only have 8GB RAM, but it seems to run the programs that I have on here pretty well. Like I said, this computer is only used for editing when I’m mobile. It's used mostly for browsing the web and stuff like that. I have a 250 GB SSD that I keep all of my photos on for my mobile computing as a buffer also. After I arrive home, I transfer all of my photos to my main computer. I have an IPad Pro that I tried on my last big outing for my mobile computer, and it worked but was a little cumbersome to use. With keyboard cover I have on it, it seems just as heavy as my MacBook Air. And of course there is my IPhone. I do occasionally edit iPhone photos on it and can access my photos from my main computer. I do have an older MacBook Pro, a 2011 model that has been souped up and is my backup in case my main computer dies. It is strong enough to run all my programs on it that I would need. But it's older and newer software doesn’t like to run on it, so it stays put away most of the time. As you can tell, I am pretty invested into the Apple/Mac ecosystem and have been for quite a while. For me the durability of these machines and how they interact with each other is a great asset. My main computer is backed up to a cloud service Backblaze. All of my external hard drives that are hooked to it are also backed up. The other machines are backed up using Time Machine. Please back up your computers so if something happens you can restore a new computer and everything is as it was.
Software.
I use lots of different software to edit my photos, but my main software is Lightroom. Lightroom is the hub where everything takes place. It’s
where I import my photos, do basic editing, and can send photos to different software to have specific things done. Then the photo comes back to Lightroom where I can export it to the web or print. It is the heart of all of my photo editing. I have over 50,000 images in its catalog, and I will stay a Lightroom user. Now there are two flavors of Lightroom. There is Lightroom Classic, which is what I use the most, and then there is Lightroom CC (mobile) where I can sync photos to other computers like my mobile computer, IPad, and IPhone. I only sync rated photos. I can edit from a mobile device, and it automatically syncs to the main computer Lightroom Classic. The mobile flavor of Lightroom is a stripped down version, but it still does a lot.
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Photoshop is another software that I use and is the industry standard in photo editing and graphic design. It is a monster of a program and will do almost anything. It can be very frustrating to use, and I only use it on occasion when I need to do something specific like add text or something creative like I mentioned in my last blog doing composite photography. It uses a layering system of editing your photographs. Like I said before, it can be complicated to use, and I usually have to watch a tutorial somewhere to relearn how to do something in Photoshop. Photoshop to me is very time consuming because of all of the re-learning going on, but still it comes in handy and can handle any job you throw at it.
Luminar 4 is a recent addition to my toolbox and is also a very powerful tool. It uses AI (artificial inteligence) to do some of its work. It can do things like sky replacement where you just pick a sky and it puts it in the right place in your photo. Or sky enhancement where you just slide a slider and it knows where the sky is and only adjusts it. It has some portrait AI also that I haven’t gotten time to play with yet but will. It’s a vey cool software, and I had Luminar 3 which was great. But when Luminar 4 came out, the user interface was changed quite a bit and it freaked me out, so it took a while before I switched to Luminar 4. I can send a photo from Lightroom, and it will go to Luminar. I make my corrections, hit apply, and it sends the photo back to Lightroom so I
can do what I want with it.
The Nik Collection of tools is an older software that has tools like HDR, Color, Sharpening, B/W tools in it. You can export to one of these tools, and after you save it, it brings it back to Lightroom. The tool that I used the most is Silver Effects Pro that lets you edit black and white photographs and make them look like some of the old films. It can emulate lots of different films from the day and really make your photos pop!
Photo Editing Accessories.
Yes, just a couple of accessories. One is a Color Monitor Calibrator. I use one from Exrite, a company that specializes in color calibration from monitors to printers to projectors. I calibrate all of my computers once a month to make sure all of my colors are the same with all of my computers. So red looks like red on my IMac and MacBook. I am a mouse guy. There, I’ve said it. I’m not a trackpad person. I love using a mouse, and my mouse of preference is the Magic Mouse used with IMac and MacBooks. It’s nothing special, but it's made especially for Mac. The last accessory is a Wacom Pen and Tablet. I’m a late adopter into the Wacom world, but I really like the way I can control my brushes when I’m burning and dodging. It seems to work better than the mouse. I don’t use it all the time, but when I’ve got to use the brush tool for any amount of time, this is the tool of choice for me.
So that’s what’s in my toolbox. Seems like a lot, but most of this was purchased over time and learned over time, so it wasn’t such a big impact. What are your tools of editing? Let me know. Until next time, keep shooting and get outside!
Hey Everyone! What a title. I thought of this subject while at my photography club's meeting the other night. We were going over the next year's activities, and I saw composite photography as one of the topics and hoped that they didn't want me to teach it because I've just done a few of them. So then I started thinking of a title, "Composite Photography/Fake News." What I wanted you to think about is do you think that composite photography (taking two or more photos and merging them in Photoshop) is art or just Fake News? Are you a purest? Do you think that no photo should be manipulated like this, or do you think that making an image out of many photos is art? I'm sure there are some strong arguments on both sides. On one hand, if you're a photo journalist or a sports photographer, the answer may be, yes, it is fake and not allowed.
And I can understand that in those circumstances. But for the 99% of hobby and enthusiast photographers that most of us are, I think it is another way to show our creativity. I am by no means an expert at composite photography. But I have dabbled in it a little, and it is very challenging. For those who don't know, a few years back I was between jobs for quite a few months, so I was at home with a lot of time but with no money. (I never seem to have enough time and money at the same time. I usually have one or the other.) So I decided to learn some Photoshop. I followed tutorials on YouTube, starting small and working my way up to more elaborate composites, still following step by step. I even inserted some of my own photographs of myself in some of the photos. Then I started making some of my own with all the photos that I had. Maybe replacing a sky, inserting birds or a plane in the photo. Maybe adding a milky way into the shot when there wasn't one. When I post those photos, I always say that they are composites and try not to say they were originals. So in my mind
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compositing is an art in itself. I think a photograph like a landscape isn't journalism. I think it should try to convey the feeling that you saw when you were there, and if a little compositing helps to do that, I'm all for it.
Composite photography can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. Simple composites could be maybe adding a bird to the sky or changing the sky altogether. Maybe you had a blue bird on a sunny day and you wanted a moody, cloudy sky. You could take one sky out and replace it with another. Maybe you wanted to insert people into the photo. Or maybe you're a portrait photographer and you're shooting a group photo and one person has their eyes closed. You can composite their head from another photo where the eyes were open. Maybe you have a person who wears glasses and you take one photo with and one without glasses; then you can composite the eyes into the frames of the glasses to get rid of glare that was in them so it looks like a perfect lit shot with no glare. But that's just simple stuff. You can create completely different worlds with composite
photography by combining many photographs and parts of photographs from different sources. I have one photo here where I did that. The photo looks like there was a war zone. I took the buildings from a photo of bombed out buildings in the Middle East, a couple of wrecked cars, a cop on a Segway from a Christmas Parade, and a photo of me hiking. So in the photo here it looks like I'm hiking through a futuristic war zone. This photo took many hours of work and thought, but it turned out pretty good, I think.
There are some things to remember when compositing. Light matters. The direction and the intensity of it. It should be the same throughout the whole photo.
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You have to be mindful of shadows and that they all go the correct way and are where they should be. You should pay attention to edges of the parts of photos that you're bringing in and try to blend them so they don't look sharp and cut out but smooth, like when you're looking at a lot of objects. Things should look fairly natural. All of this is very hard to do, especially if you're struggling with the tools of Photoshop. That's where I struggle the most. I can see the photo in my mind's eye but struggle with Photoshop. The only way to stay good at Photoshop is to do it a lot, which I don't. So when I start to do something in Photoshop, I have to relearn how to use and do things, and that takes up most of my time and everyone else's, I guess. If you had a good command of all the tools and how to's in Photoshop, it might not be so difficult to do these composites, and there would be a lot more of them I bet. I have put some examples of some composites that I have done with the blog.
If you want to learn and follow step by step with a tutorial, go to YouTube and type in "photoshop composite" and there will be many videos of composites being made. Most of them don't have any talking, but you can go step by step and stop and start and rewind the videos as you go until you have a completed image. After you do a couple of these, it will become easier and you can start making your own. Then when you go shooting you can look for cool things to shoot that you can composite later. Maybe skies or textures or all kinds of things. So until next time, stay creative and keep shooting!
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