Steel City

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It rides upon
Three river ways
And like a
Boat at night
It rocks!

Pittsburg, PA
Canon 7D, Canon EF-S 10-22mm @12mm, PS4: Topaz, AlienSkin, SnapArt, Oil Paint, Custom brushes and textures

Suppose...

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Suppose that sky
Met the water
Exactly where
A barn
Met them
Both…
Once upon a time.

West Dennis, MA – at high tide, low cloud and old barn.

Canon 7D: Canon EF-S 10-22mm, PS4: Topaz, Alien Skin: SnapArt2, Custom filters & brushes.

When We Were Rich (er)

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Coudersport, Pennsylvania is a very small town. And right in it’s dead center there’s this house. Built when Coudersport’s was nostalgic for the future. Now, like the house, the nostalgia seems to... peer in the other direction.

Canon 7D, 10mm, PS4: Alien Skin, PopArt: Topaz, Custom textures & brushes

Nope

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Y'know? Sometimes craft is all that happens. Look at this image. The guy's a manager for a traveling carnival. Normally artists seem to look among carney workers for grim metaphors about the meaning of life. They try to reveal the workers as lost souls, teetering on the edge of societal doom. In fact I've discovered them to be ordinary folk who sort of like it that they are entertaining people for a living. They particularly seem to enjoy the way kids glow as they squeal in the rides and clamor for the food.

BUT ... that's not how we're supposed to do it, right? We're supposed to find Diana Arbus monsters... freaks... Nope, couldn't do it... All I found were people like my cousins and neighbors who worked - hard - for a living at jobs that they were happy about. Darn... So much for profound insight into the dark corners of our cultural brain stems huh?

Thought I'd share this overworked failure of an image. Darn! Grit and despair are so fashionably artsy and all I could find were jovial people. So without a grim dankness to it, well I guess this is pretty much un-save-able, no matter how much craft I slather onto it, huh? I'll take this down in a week or so.

The Line's End

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She still stands there waiting
A whistle or smoke,
She still stands there waiting
Her lines thronged with folk.

But her tracks now are rusting
With weeds grown to choke
Off the chance to leave searching
For dreams that aren’t broke.
*
New Columbia, PA
Canon 40D/Canon EF-S 10-22mm (f3.5-4.5): PS4/Topaz, AlienSkin:SnapArt2, Watercolor, Custom brushes/textures (Thanks, Distressed Jewel)

Emporia Tanked

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Sunrise burns
Pepsi quenches.
It is not
A tankless
Job...

Emporia, Canon 40D: 40D: PS4: AlienSkin, Bokeh2: Topaz: Custom textures & brushes

New Hope

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For some New Hope
Is a place where
There is an
Expectation

On the part of
Some that they will
Not ever need
To conform to

What others think
That they have to
Do with their lives
Filled with new hope.

Canon 40D: PS4, AlienSkin:SnapArt: Topaz, Lucis Filters, custom brushes.

New Hope canal, New Hope, Pennsuylvania

Not for sale...

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What not to do at a wedding.

Don't know about you, but friends sort of expect that I'll take pictures at weddings I'm invited to. And at the same time, they've hired a hard working pro. Now, I haven't done a wedding professionally in over 35 years. Maybe longer. And I won't. They don't stimulate my creative juices. Um... what I mean is that they are a commercial challenge. It's expected that the pro will do some very hard work in making certain that a number of formula pictures are taken.. quickly... with minimum interference at maximum quality. That pro expects to sell those pix and probably more at alá cart pricing. I'm not there to eat into that professional's earning's by taking the easy creative shots around the fringe. I will take a few images, and after waiting long enough that I'm comfortable the pro's made his/her sale... I gift my friends... BUT... It's take it or leave it, y'know? If they don't like what I like, um, tough.

You may recall that we went to my wife's niece's wedding last year. It's anniversary time and I'm thinking the pro's made his sale by now... soooooooo :-)

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Sidewalked
A vendor
Hawked his
Carvings.

Tabletop
She screamed
At crowds
Leaving.

She was then
For sale.
Carved art
Ignored.

Directly in front of the doors of the New York city’s Whitney museum, a street vendor’s table sat filled with carvings. Strangely, the seller was nowhere around, yet none from the jostling crowd seemed to want to steal his stuff.

Canon 7D: PS4: Custom brushes/filters, Topaz, AlienSkin: SnapArt, pastels.

Martini - Shaken

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I stood above
Chris’s Lotus.
And I
Realized
How heat…
Rises.
Canon 7D: PS4, Tabletop, Topaz, AlienSkin: SnapArt, Colored Pencils, Custom: Textures & Brushes

FWOOOOM...

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Chris loaned me his 2007 Corvette.
It's very ... very ... quick.


Especially atop a table.

Canon 20D: PS4, Topaz, AlienSkin: Bokeh2 & SnapArt: Water Color

MoonStruck

(Click on image)

And when
He did
Music
She
Glowed.

Susquehanna Tree, Columbia, PA
Canon 40D: PS4 Topaz, AlienSkin: SnapArt, Colored Pencil – Custom brushes/textures/filters

Cave Painting

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There is an urge
To deface space.
Like a dog’s need
To mark his place
With primal dung.

To boldly claim,
"This is my thing
See I’ve been here."
To scream aloud
“It’s about ME!”

The spray can is
Mightier than:
Maturity, or
Historical
Adhesive.

The spray can is
What happened when
The stone age child
Ran out of stone..

Via Dei Bonizzi
Florence, Italy
Cannon 20D; PP: PS4, Topaz, AlienSkin:SnapArt:Colored Pencil, Custom textures and brushes.

Roman Time

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Time exists so that
Everything doesn't
Seem to happen at
Once.

In Rome I noticed that different things seem to change by different clocks. Change needs time, but time is an oddly capricious engine. I wonder though if that big... big... window, unlike the nail-chewing lad, has figured out how to waste its time? Hmmm.... maybe that's what makes us different from everything else that exists?

••••

Took this in Rome with my Canon 20 at about 20mm and processed it with PS4, Topaz, Alien Skin's SnapArt: oil paint. The brushes and texture screens are customized for this image.

What I Did At Spring Camp...

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This image of me is sort of for my buddy Andreas Manessinger since he and I have this slightly, um, different conclusion about America's Second Amendment.

I was invited by my friend Chris to attend the annual Men2Mountains at his private hunting lodge and compound up in Potter County, Pennsylvania last weekend. The place is about a 5 hour drive over sometimes primitive roads into the north-central Pennsylvania mountains. There's still a carpet of snow in the shadows.And it snow showered on Saturday. There were eleven of us ranging in age from two Eagle Scouts who are 14 and 15 to the patriarch who's 85.

And then there were the toys. First off the weaponry was all handheld. Unlike my friend Charlie Smithgall's cannon/mortar/gattling gun shoot... What we used up in M2M were long guns and pistols. Each of the men are expert in their own weapons and careful instructors for those who lack that knowledge. And while it was explosive fun... the four ranges were carefully worked out for safety.

Two of the guys are trained chefs. You can imagine the food that eleven mountain men brought along.

I said four ranges. One was for shotgun clay shooting. Another was some 350 yards up a steep hillside for long guns. Finally there were two pistol targets: one for close self defense (10-12') and the other for handgun target shooting at around 30'.

While someone did bring a breech loader no one used it. But there were a ton of cartridge antique weapons that you rarely see much less get a chance to fire. I brought my own .38 cal Smith & Wesson Model 6. Yeah, I have a concealed carry permit like most PA gun owners. That's my gun on my hip in the picture up there, the others I picked up from ground coverings where dozens of single and double action weapons sat waiting to be used.

In America virtually no one lives behind the security screens that adorn most windows in Europe and much of the rest of the world. But I guess the understanding that so many folks have their own weapons does tend to discourage a lot of bad guys from breaking and entry, huh?

So... when I write that I was away at a weekend shoot... Well, maybe it has a different meaning to a bunch of photographers, huh? BTW... I am NOT a hunter. Bambi's and Thumper are safe from me :-)

Last point... Was all of this manly? Wuff! You can smell the testosterone farther than gunpowder. I came home with a real-man swagger and my voice an octave lower. Okay... gotta go now and chew some nails....

Carney • Child's Play

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Swirled show
Squeal light
Ride glow
Excite.

Part of a small city carney series I’m slowly working upon.
Lancaster, PA
Canon 40D, 17mm.
PP: PS4/Topaz/AlienSkin: Bokeh2, SnapArt: Water Color, Custom

Carney • Zipper

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Something whippéd

Comes This Way.

Part of a small city carney series I'm slowly working upon.

Lancaster, PA

Canon 40D, 10mm.

PP: PS4/Topaz/AlienSkin: Bokeh2, SnapArt: Water Color, Custom filters/textures/brushes.

Some may recall this posted here before the Bad Apple (see explanation on the sidebar to the right) snapped it away.

Carney • Air Chairs

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Inspiration happens...

When your

Memories

Come unplugged

From reality.

Or vice versa...

Part of a small city carney series I'm slowly working upon.

Lancaster, PA

Canon 40D, 17mm.

PP: PS4/AlienSkin: SnapArt: Water Color, Custom filters/textures/brushes.

Carney • Wheel

I'm just saying...

Emotionally charged?

Part of a small city Carney Series I’m slowly working upon.
Lancaster, PA
Canon 40D, 17mm
PP: PS4/AlienSkin: Xenofex2, Bokeh2,
Custom filters/textures/brushes

ImageFiction?

In what sense

Is fiction true?

If truth is

Obvious

Silence is

A lie!

Canon 7D • 300mm

City V Townspeople?

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There's a difference

Between city and

Townspeople.

Their waking hours.

Hudson River Meadow

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Along the Hudson

There are meadows

Fertilized with

Money.

Tired Tonight - Yawn

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Long day. Taking a week off from the gym. Put the two together and ... Uhhhhhhh. Eyes drooping... Nope! Gotta keep them open.

Which reminds me of this guy whose trying hard to look awake.

Canon 40D

Rhinebeck, Upstate NY

Composition

The world is sweet, mysterious, and beautiful. Sometimes.

Middelbury, VT.

Here's a second take on the image... I'm trying to find a 1920's feeling here in the stillness.

Andreas Does Duomo

Each moment
Caused by the last
Each tensioned
Without the last.

What moment
Far from the last
Is finally
Free from the first?

Once upon a very early morning Andreas Manessinger and I went to find art among great art that would be different from the art it was among. And it occurred to me that the artist is always a part of the art that is found, but too often not pictured there.

Or something like that? Enjoy.

Canon 20D, Florence/Firenze, Italy.

PS... I once posted something like this but the BAD APPLE - explained there in the right column - made it go away. The magical colors made me bring it back. Hope you'll agree that the effort's worthwhile?

Strange Mysterious Feeling

Click!

Florence, Italy

Street scene(s)

Assisi

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Hmmmm…. Do artists have a novel way of
seeing?
Or do they see novel
things?

Assisi, Italy
PS4: Custom brushes and textures

Terrible Frozen Beauty

Non Textured Texture

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There was so much texture in the scene, I can now file my nails on the image. Wuddaya think?

ValenTime

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Found her fading on the wall of an antique shop. Something about this time of year seemed to moan out for restoration, paint up... and fix up... Right?

Night Grit

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Vic left the club at eleven. He was late... It was the night that was early.

No filters, no textures. It is what it is....

OILY - A Tutorial

NOTE: all images in this posting can be enlarged by clicking upon them....

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How about some tutorial? Or comparison? Or review? Or - wuddever of what I was up to here. Let me type out some thoughts about the what and why of this image of my grand-niece Katelyn Rose.

You'll recall I raved about the quality of low-light images that come from the Canon 7D, even at 3400 ISO. Well, that's not the case with the Canon G10.

A touch of background. The G10 is Canon's 'professional' point-and-shoot. It allows full override of all automatic controls, plus unlike any other point and shoot I could find, it has an optical range finder as well as a real-time LCD. So when the sun is at your back - washing away the LCD preview - the viewfinder does the job. It's a terrific camera, and just about pocket sized - if you have a generous pocket. The G10 has a quarter frame sensor coated with 14.7 mega-pixels (MP).

Which is a LOT of pixels for a small camera. Previously the Canon G9 had 12.1 MP, and the bump up in these things in the G10 was Canon's attempt to ratchet onward in the sensor-size wars. OOOPS! Since the camera has a quarter frame sensor the smaller pixels just do not take as large a sample of the light falling upon them. Which leaves more room for error... and error turns into what appears to be grain- which we all noise. In fact, Canon's brought out the G11 with just 10 MP! What? About 20% fewer than its G9 and double the reduction over the G10? Why? They installed a bigger computer chip to allow the larger pixels to do a lot more. In fact, more, but smaller, MPs - beyond some point in low light - actually seem to increase noise, decrease tonal range, and add little sharpness. To be sure, the G!0 is wonderful at ISO settings up to 800, but beyond that those hailstones grow bigger.

Now I took this photograph at 1600 ISO with the G10.

The lighting was lovely, though dim coming principally from a windowed patio door to the left on a very gray winter afternoon. The fill light was tungsten from various table lamps. No flash or artificial fill was used. Okay, take a look at this blowup of the details of her face from that un-retouched photo... See: A hailstorm of grain makes the image almost unacceptable.

Now, I've recently seen ads from the Topaz Labs (http://www.topazlabs.com/) for their Topaz DeNoise 5 (http://www.topazlabs.com/denoise/) filter. Okay, I really like Topaz filters. For a reasonable outlay the one I own, Topaz Adjust (http://www.topazlabs.com/adjust/) is robust and totally productive. "So," I says to myself, "Self... what if you use Topaz DeNoise 5 on images shot at higher ISOs with your Canon G10? Might that not compensate and turn the G10 into a real competitor for the 7D at lower light levels?"

Which led me to download the thirty day trial version of Topaz 5 and apply it to this image of Katelyn. Here... What do you think of the same expanded area after it was cranked through Topaz 5?

Surely there is considerably less apparent grain, but the skin tones look a bit as if they were in a thin plastic film. Still, with some adjustment layer tweaking of the dynamic range, the result can be turned very easily into this.... Which is good enough for government work, huh? But... but... Well, the image lacks the lighting of the grand masters, and has, of course a ton of distractive background through no fault of the G10. Fine... now onto the diddling to suck out the good stuff from this image.

And that's where I turned to my AlienSkin filters - three of them in fact. First I popped Katelyn out of the image and copied her to another layer above this original. Then I copied the original image to a new layer to which I applied the AlienSkin :Bokeh filter and masked it back in around her to throw those pesky distractions out of focus. Then I applied AlienSkin's SnapArt: oil filter to that carefully blurred backgroung image to create an oil painted background. Finally I applied the SnapArt:watercolor filter to Katelyn's image on the upper level - and went back to allow each of them to carefully fit together. To these I added some adjustment levels to mask in appropriate areas of shadowing, vignetting, and tonal range to the introudctory image way up there atop this posting... and I added an additional custom green screen on a higher level which I blended with an overlay adjustment to suggest a warm Rembrandt mood.

So? Think at me. I think the G10's a pretty good backup for the big apparatus - Comments? Does Topaz DeNoise 5 save the G10 at the higher ISO?

Peach Spa

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We look
For hooks
To which
We Can
Hang an
Order,
A map,
An under
Standing.

NYNY
Canon 7D

Canon 7D, NYNY

Over There: See?

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Brambles always return. We are only so far in front of life’s jungle. But as long as we’ve got the energy and tenacity to keep ahead of the suckers…. To whack ‘em off when they’re little more than scratchy stubble – Well, it is as if civilization’s here to stay. But it takes a bunch of individual effort – an every-day-thing.

Because the jungle’s really just below ground, and sometimes – even in the middle of a city its fingery brambles claw back through like… like…

Over there: See?

Underneath

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KatelynRose and Rocco. Sweet stuff, babies and doggies. Too easy?

Storm

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When the heavens open in the tropics - it's as if the air abruptly becomes solid.

Hopper Sunday Morning

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Hopper revisited as I continue to study and grow from his haunting work....

From high up Edward Hopper smashed light against substance – to invariably watch substance flinch. In buildings he found his fears and desires. Or did he release ours?

He revealed in the struggle between light and substance outcomes that mattered. But… but… even dreadful stuff matters. And somehow, in his torridly lit frames there remained an intangible alienation of a visitor’s shadowy dread.

*
Sunday morning rooftops, Lancaster, PA.
Canon 40D, PS4, AlienSkin: Snap Art:Oil paint, custom brushes and filters.

Watercolor Dreamy

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Christmas cannot bear too much reality. Or... or maybe I can't, and Christmas fends it off. Once a year I want a quiet reverie in flickering candlelight where my inner-child gets in touch with me. Failing that, I find an outer-child to get the peaceful glimmers flickering. Y'know?

GEEK STUFF: Canon 7D at ISO 6400/f5.6-1/30sec. PP: PS4:Topaz, Alien Skin: Bokeh & SnapArt2: watercolor, custom brushes.

Moment

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Here's my wife's grand-niece KatelynRose on Christmas day. Magical moment. But doubly magical. As you can see it's naturally lit, primary from window in front on cloudy morning, and filled with tungsten light from the room. I balanced them in PS4. Simple operation there. But the magic was from my new Canon 7D. I used my 17-85/mm cranked out to 85mm at f5.6/.30sec. at an ISO of 3200. Lookit that last number.... ISO 3200!!!! And I've done NOTHING to obscure the grain. Those skin tones are like butter. At 3200 ISO! That's three full stops over 400 ISO. With imperceptible grain/noise. ZOWIE! Thank you Canon.

2011 - Merry

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My little buddy Rocco suffers through New Year's Eve. Lancaster has a midnight fireworks show atop a parking garage a block or so away from our home. We usually sit out front and watch it explode above us - adult beverages in hand. Unfortunately my fuzzy guy is NOT a hunter. He's been bread to be a watch dog, suspicious of the odd noise. He suffers from fireworks overload. Which leaves him an exhausted fur ball. And maybe that' the best metaphor for 2010, it's left us... thank Zeus... exhausted with a "Good Riddance!" taste. Like Rocco... I'm tired of it and looking forward to awaking in 2011.

Wish you a mellow one.

Pacem In Terra

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And away they all flew
Like the down of a thistle...

But I heard him exclaim
Ere he drove out of sight,

"Merry Christmas to all,.
And to all A GOOD NIGHT."

We're at a moment of worry with respect to things economic, with a real possibility that a gale of creative destruction will whip through our places in 2011. We face a moment of challenge which this time I hope will see, as that gale recedes.... Pacem In Terra.

Which is truly the hope we have been waiting for.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Ted

History's End

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There’s only one track now
Coming to or
Going from?
Castel Gandolpho.

Where once the Popes
Ruled the West
In summer heat
That hasn’t cooled.

Though history
Has…

I wonder if this track is there to fill the now tiny town or to empty it out? I wonder if the devil lies, as they say, in the details? That is to say that the devil dares to lie anywhere near a papal palace.

Geek Stuff
Cannon 20D, Post Processing in PS:CS4: Topaz, Alien Skin: SnapArt – Colored Pencils, custom textures and brushes.

What To Call 1 & 1/4?

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I'm hearing a lot about diptychs. This is their big fashion moment. But I didn't have a diptych... just a dip and a quarter. Or is that a one and a quarter tych?

Well anyway... there's a thing about winter. It's always pushed into the city by a big storm. On one side of the thing it's fall, and winter on the other. A couple of days ago was on the other side of the storm. Then it got things wet, cold, and brrrrrr....

GEEK STUFF

7D through the Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens. Sweet bokeh, huh? And then? Well I cranked it up with AlienSkin's Bokeh and SnapArt colored pencil. Simple....

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A Hindu friend once explained dars´san to me. "I go to temple not to worship Ted, but rather for dar´san. – to see divinity. Dar´san can be taken or given Ted. It is a blessing that comes from the sacred."

Okay, now I do not have my head around that concept. But I'm wondering if it has something to do with why our lenses are tugged toward objects like this? Is there an instinctual compulsion for dar´san? What do you think... does this give dar´san? Or is a rose by any other name just a rose?

GEEK STUFF
In the backyard with my Canon 40D: Canon EFS 17-85mm (f4-5.6) in macro mode. Post: PS4, Topaz, Alien Skin: Bokeh & SnapArt - Water color, custom brushes & textures

Sunday In The Park

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The lad comes with his mom and dad... his receiver. And he tosses with all his might. Aiming high and far, the thing spins like a bullet. And he tosses and tosses. And dreams...

Geek Stuff

My Canon 7D through the long, long Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens, Then afterward I searched for my feelings in PS-CS4 with custom brushes and textures.