Today's Guest Blogger: Linda Cullivan

I met Linda Cullivan – and her husband, expert Maine lobster chef and boat captain Mike – a few years ago at a seminar in Plymouth, MA. Since then this dynamic duo have participated (and I use the word participated because they really participate) on my Alaska, Iceland, Bosque del Apache and Florida workshops  – and they are coming to my "Croton Creative Workshop" this fall.

Like many of my workshops participants, Linda and Mike have become my friends. These guys are not professional photographers, but they sure do make professional-quality images.

When Linda casually showed me the last photograph you see in this post, I asked her to write a guest blog post – because I wanted you to see her work. Here goes and thank you Linda!

My friend Rick Sammon asked me to write about an image I recently took of a pileated woodpecker family.  I love birds, and pileated woodpeckers are one of my favorites.  

In the seven years I have been photographing, I did not have any good images of this beautiful woodpecker. 

When a friend called to tell me of a pileated woodpecker family two hours south of where I live, there was no hesitation.  I hopped in the car and drove down to find the nest.   

The directions were good and it didn’t take long to find the site.  I set up my tripod with my camera and Canon 500mm lens with a 1.4x extender and waited. 

There were three young woodpeckers in the nest, and I took a number of shots of them. The day was bright although there were plenty of trees for shade.  I set my ISO to 400 and shot in aperture priority at f/8.  I wanted to make sure I had all the birds in focus and those settings gave me enough of a shutter speed to accomplish that.

It wasn’t long before one of the parents flew into the seen to feed the young.  I managed to get a nice shot of one of the parents flying in to the nest, as well as a nice image of the father feeding the young birds.

There was a group of about a dozen photographers and we "chimped" and showed each other our best images.  It was a great way to spend a few hours.  It wasn’t until I got home and downloaded my card that I found what turned out to be my best image of the day – the image you see below, which is the image Rick "flipped out" (his words) over. 

I’d been happy with everything that I had taken but this image really made my day!

Here is my advice:  Learn from the best, shoot as much as you can and follow your passion.  Combine practice and hard work with a bit of luck and you can get an image that makes your heart sing. It happened to me!

• • • • •

Thank you Linda for sharing your work. Until the next lobster dinner!

Explore the light,
Rick

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P.S. Here's a photo of Linda and Mike that I took on my Iceland workshop. Great couple and great fun!



Removing Reality Adds a Touch of Artistry to an Image

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When we remove some of the true color from an image, we remove some of the reality. When we remove some of the reality, our images can, but not always, look more creative and artistic.

For artistic photographers, my friends at Macphun software have just released Tonality Pro – a plug-in/stand-along program that, as the company's president, Paul Muzok, says, “For many photographers, crafting dramatic black and white images is their favorite form of creative expression, yet presents uniquely difficult and time-consuming challenges. We designed Tonality Pro to overcome those challenges, and be not only the best app for those passionate about monochrome image making, but also appeal to the casual photographer who is exploring the genre."

Click here to order Tonality Pro. Cost is $69.99.

All the plug-ins I use are listed on my Play & Save on Plug-ins page.

I used Tonality Pro to create the opening image for this post from the photograph above.

Key features are listed below, but here are my personal favorites:
• easy to learn - thanks to a thoughtful interface;
• easy to use – with sliders and brushes;
• fun factor – made possible, in part, by presets, sliders and speed;
• creative layer possibilities.

Official Key features:

•   Professional image quality with proprietary 16-bit RAW processing engine;
•   Advanced algorithms and a streamlined user experience for superior results;
•   Scores of inspiring professional presets provide a wide range of one-click image styles;
•   Built-in organic-style overlay textures, plus user-loadable textures, for incredible creativity;
•   Unique adaptive exposure and smart contrast tools for advanced tone control;
•   Multiple effect layers, each with separate opacity controls, blending modes and preservation of color data offer true advancements in creative tool sets;
•   Adjustable, pressure-sensitive brushes and masking tools for precise selective edits;
•   Advanced clarity and structure detail controls yield dramatic results;
•   Proprietary grain engine with over 20 emulated film types;
•   Selective color using color channel sliders for unique stylistic expressions;
•   Glow, lens blur, vignette, photo frame and opacity controls for finishing touches;
•   Easy image sharing to popular social networks, and via email, instant messaging, AirDrop and SmugMug;
•   Macphun Print Lab services, powered by MILK;
•   Runs as either a standalone app or, in the Pro version, as a plug-in to popular image editing software like Adobe® Photoshop®, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom®, Adobe Photoshop Elements® or Apple® Aperture®.

My advice when working with Tonality Pro: start with a preset, and then apply different color filters to see how they affect the different colors in your image. This is important, especially when it come to skin tones. Learning about color filters will help you with your monochromatic photography.

When working with monochromatic images, contrast, highlights and shadows become more important. Consider those elements very carefully.

In picking a preset, let the image suggest a preset.

For example, I used the Wild West preset (in the Vintage presets) for the image above, created from the image below.

Below is a look at the Tonality Pro window (partial view) that shows the Vintage presets and just a few of the other creative options – too many to show in one screen grab.

I teach plug-ins (and Photoshop and Lightroom), as well as making the best in-camera image, on all my workshops. Hope to see meet you on a workshop – where we have a ton of fun.

Above: I took this photograph on my Death Valley Workshop. Join me/Hal Schmitt in 2015 for an awesome dunes/model workshop.

Develop your creative vision,
Rick

Topaz to the Rescue: Turn Outtakes to Keepers - and save a few bucks

In going through my images for my new Feather Friends Galley, I came across the outtake on the right. Taken early one morning in low light with the Canon 7D at ISO 800, a tightly cropped image showed a bit of noise. Plus, low contrast made the image look flat.

To reduce the noise, I used Topaz DeNoise. To add some color and a painter quality to the image, I used Topaz Simplify's BuzSim filter.

You can save 15% on Topaz plug-ins when using this code upon checkout: ricksammon. See my Play & Save on Plug-ins page for details.

Develop your creative vision,
Rick

 

Keep Portrait Lighting Simple - And Save a Few Bucks on My Home Studio Speedlite Starter Kit

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I like to keep portrait lighting simple. Very simple. For example, for this portrait, inspired by Vermeer's paining, Girl With a Pearl Earring, I used only one Canon Speedlite in a Westcott Apollo soft box.

I used that softbox because it has a recessed front panel that lets me (and you) direct the light and shape the light on the subject.

I used the black side of a Westcott light modifier to darken the shadow on the shadow side of the model's face.

Careful lighting made the subject stand out from the black background.

My friends at Adorama have put together a cool speedlite accessory kit at a cool price that you can use to make dramatic portraits in the comfort of your own home - and on location. It includes the softbox, light modifiers and light modifier stand that I used - plus a sturdy background stand and larger background (which is way better than the piece of black material that I pined to my bookshelf. Just add your speedlite.

Here are two quick portrait tips: One - If you want an interesting portrait, don't light the entire face. Two - Keep in mind that the camera looks both ways. When you are shooting, know that the mood, energy and feeling that you project will be reflected in your subject's face - and eyes.

Above: See, you don't need a pro studio to get professional looking portrait. I took my Girl with a Pearl Earring image in my home office.

Here's a quick tip on all lighting: Shadows are the soul of the photograph.

Explore the light,
Rick