"Out of Chicago" Brings Together the "In Crowd"

September 22, 2015

Today's guest blog post is by the talented, dedicated and enthusiastic Chris Smith, founder of the Out of Chicago conference. Take it away, Chris.

I am always nervous to write for Rick's site. He has been my biggest supporter and mentor. From the first time he convinced me to lead a photo walk, to Out of Chicago growing into a full-blown conference, Rick has always been there to help. Thank you, Rick . . . and I am super excited that you will be speaking at the 2016 event.

2015 marked the second year of the Out of Chicago conference. What started as a fun get-together for a few of my photography friends has turned into an event beyond anything I could imagine. In 2014, 15 of my photo friends taught classes on how they shoot. In 2015 I was able to convince Elia Locardi, Bryan Peterson, Juan Pons, Valerie Jardin, Thomas Leuthard, Bob Davis, Jim Harmer, and 24 other amazing photographers to teach what they do and lead photo walks around the city. It was an unforgettable weekend in Chicago.

There is something special about the Out of Chicago conference. I don't know what it is. But I've never seen so many photographers this excited about photography in one place before. Maybe it's because we're not only learning from the best photographers in the world, we're out on the streets of one of the greatest photography cities in the world. The conference venue is in the heart of Chicago, walking distance to the best photo locations in the city.

Some highlights: Photographing the Chicago Riverwalk with Juan Pons. Leading a photowalk with Elia and Naomi Locardi. Leading a photowalk with Jim Harmer. Hanging out with instructors and attendees at the after-party. Teaching my classes on photographing Chicago. Meeting my photography idols. Giving out cameras and lenses as prizes from our sponsors. Meeting so many photographers that I've only known through social media and the internet.

Sometimes I think I'm dreaming. Our 2016 lineup includes some of my absolute favorite photographers. You know at least one of them. The 2016 lineup is headlined by Rick Sammon, Frederick Van Johnson, Jimmy McIntyre, Bryan Peterson, Mike Moats, Jim Harmer, Valerie Jardin, Karen Hutton, Rob Knight, Corwin Hiebert, Derrick Story, Levi Sim, and a whole bunch of people yet to be announced.

Save the dates for June 24th-26th, 2016. For a limited time, we are doing a pre-sale. Save $200 off the full conference price and pay only $199 for the full conference registration. Click here to sign up. It will be another special weekend.

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Thank you Chris for your kind words and great post. I can't wait to attend the event!

Explore the light,
Rick

What's new? My 36th book: Creative Visualization for Photographers.

Today's Guest Blogger Mickey Rountree Takes Us to Old Car City

September 21, 2015

I'm Mickey Rountree from Chattanooga Tennessee, and I'd like to thank Rick for giving me the opportunity to write a guest blog post. Rick asked me to do the post after seeing some of my Old Car City images.

Rick asked me to give you a few tips on Old Car City in Georgia because I've been a regular visitor there for years – and because Rick is leading a photo workshop to this location in October. You can register here.

It's forty acres of cars from the 1920's through the 1970's in conditions from relatively undamaged to totaled, and in various stages of being reclaimed by nature. If you like rust, decay, and the interplay between nature and machine, this is your place.

So, in no particular order, here are a few tips based on my experiences.

1) Forty acres and thousands of cars can be totally overwhelming. Don't feel you can see or shoot it all in one day. Pick a smaller area and work the scene. Broaden your areas on successive trips. I've been there twenty times and still don't feel I've covered it all.

2) Do your homework! Research Old Car City images and you will finds thousands of images. Look at what others have done, and try to find a style that interests you and plan to work on those kinds of shots. Try not to make copy images, but put your own style and personality into shooting and processing.

3) You can literally use every lens you own here. I have shot with my Canon 8-15mm fisheye, my 70-300mm and everything in between. However, I suggest that you don't carry every lens you own. Pick a viewpoint you want to work on, and carry one or two appropriate lenses. My all purpose lens for walking around OCC is my 24-105mm on a Canon 5DM3. When I'm doing a project with a specific viewpoint in mind, I only carry one or two lenses to help keep me on task. My last shoot was interiors, so I only carried a 17-40mm and my 8-15mm fisheye. I spent a couple of days solely working on hood ornaments and badges and only used my 70-300mm and occasionally my 100mm macro.

4) This place just screams HDR! If you have never shot in HDR, the range of textures, tones and colors is perfect to make your first HDR shots amazing. I tend to shoot almost every inanimate subject in HDR, or at least shoot the required brackets. I then have the choice of doing HDR, or just picking the best single exposure and working with that. On an overcast day, shooting a whole car or large scene, three brackets at +/- 2 stops is probably sufficient. Shooting an image that goes from very dark areas to very bright sky, such as a car interior that has bright sunny sky visible may require 7 or even 9 brackets. In those cases I'm also usually shifting my exposure compensation down to -2 or -4. Check all of your bracketed shots to see that you have a shot with good detail in the shadows and a shot where the highlights are just barely visible. When in doubt, it's better to over-bracket than to get home and find that you don't have the range you need. It's easy to delete the extremes that you don't need, and much easier and cheaper than having to go back and re-shoot.

5) I Often use the in-camera HDR just to help me see if a shot is worth pursuing or not. If your camera will do in-camera HDR you are usually limited to three exposures and 4 or 5 styles. I find I can usually do much better in Photomatix with a wider range of brackets, but it's an useful check. And when the in camera HDR looks good, I really get excited and motivated, because I know my edits will be great.

(If you don't have Photomatix, you can get a discount here.)

6) Some essential equipment to bring would include a sturdy tripod, a right angle finder, extra cards and batteries, a brush or microfiber fiber cloth to clean your lens (hey, it is a junkyard after all!), and a loupe for viewing your screen. The loupe can be very important. Everything looks sharp and pretty on the small screen, and it can be disappointing to see out of focus shots when you get home. Better to fix it in the field.

And last, a few non-photographic tips:

7) Watch where you put your hands! I went to lean on a boulder that turned out to be a compacted ant hill containing thousands of very upset ants. I have seen several snake skins, but thankfully no live snakes. I'm betting some snakes have seen me though. Also there are lots of sharp edges of old rusty metal.

8) Unless you're there in the coldest months, long sleeve shirts, long pants and bug repellent are a good choice. There are lots of hungry mosquitoes, and chiggers are waiting in the high grass. Check for ticks when you get home. Sturdy shoes or hiking boots are a must, and it's good if they're also waterproof when you're walking through wet grass and mud.

9) A good pair of contractor's knee pads will be useful if you like getting down for those low perspectives (and you should). Carry a large plastic garbage bag to lay on for ultra low shots.

10) I like to carry a small first aid kit for minor cuts and scrapes.

11) If there's a particular car you want to find, ask Dean Lewis the owner.

12) If you like down home Southern cooking (or need to try it), Wesman's restaurant across the street is part of the experience.

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Thank you Mickey for a great blog post! Nice work.

Again, readers can register for my Old Car City workshop, which also includes shooting at the South Eastern Railway Museum, here.

Explore the light,
Rick

What's new? My 36th book: Creative Visualization for Photographers.

Photo Workshops Inspire Photographers – including the instructors

September 20, 2015

Above photograph by David Recht. Click images in this post to enlarge.

One of the reasons why I enjoy teaching photo workshops and leading photo tours is that I see the photo workshop participants inspiring each other to make good images – in the field and during our photo processing sessions. Everyone learns from each other . . . and that includes the instructors.

This point was driven home last week on my Iceland Photo Workshop, with co-leader Tim Vollmer. During one of our processing/happy hour sessions, workshop participant David Recht showed me the image that opens this post.

I was most impressed, for two reasons. First, I thought it was a very creative image: balanced composition, interesting main subject framed by surf, perfect slow-shutter speed exposure, and a beautiful background of crashing waves. Second, it was exactly the kind of image I was trying to make the same day, but missed it while helping other workshop participants.

So I said to David, "That's a perfect shot. I want to get an image like that tomorrow."

The following day I got the shot. Before I share my image with you, here's the info on David's awesome image.

Shooting details:
Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 24-105mm f4L shot at 105mm
B+W 1.8 ND filter
.6 sec at f/10 with exposure compensation of +1 1/3
Really Right Stuff tripod and ball head

Processing: Lightroom to reduce exposure to bring out the black beach as well as the ocean and wave detail. Further processed in Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 using Wet Rocks filter.

Background: Shot on the beach at the exit of the Jokusarlon glacier lagoon at about 12noon on September 12, 2015 on the Rick Sammon Iceland Photography workshop.

Concept: My plan that morning was to shoot longer exposures of the icebergs at the wave line to soften the backgrounds. I thought this would enhance the sharpness and brightness aspects of the ice sculptures in their environment. This small piece of ice was in the right spot and had an interesting shape. I shot it from the right side to take advantage of the ice sculpture’s direction and how it matched up nicely with the wave flowing to the left as well. The small, dark rock in the left foreground was happenstance but it does serve to fill some dead space and provides a bit of an additional foreground element.