Bernie Came To Town - 2

And the beat goes on.

Street portraiture's a bit like fishing. I cast my lens into a pool hoping to catch a prize... Something worthwhile. There are two kinds of artistic images. The first is a question, the second an answer. Oh, ok... maybe there's a third - the image which both asks then answers. Frankly, answering questions is above my pay grade. Personally I feel that asking questions is what the best art does. Answering can too often become a polemic.

So I look for questions that each visitor to my work answers alone.

The first in this series set the tone for the questions that occurred to me on May 5th. Here's another, more will come and perhaps the entire set may contain an answer. Synergy happens when the whole becomes greater than its parts. When each sentence is a question, perhaps the impact of the essay is what Sextus Impericus invented maybe 2,200 years ago? You know, a set of questions which while each is seemingly unrelated the whole allows inductive insight?

Truth is revealed from the bottom up. Now don't get me started on "truth" - OK?

What can we conclude from this man and young woman? He wears a wedding ring. They each carry signs... His read, "America Is For All Of Us", and her's "Jess King For Congress". Each of the signs were given to early arrivers, but no one had to take them. Bernie spoke as I grabbed this image. They were rapt, nodding to his points. Can we tell more? He wears a fashionable stubble. Her ears don't appear pierced. I'm imaging that this is a father/daughter pair, their jaw and cheekbone lines suggest a familial relationship. Can you find more clues? Their expressions are serious, attentive. Awaiting Senator Sanders, they'd stood and squinted into the sizzling Spring sun for hours. 

GEEK STUFF: Same equipment as the first in this series. However the afternoon's sunny contrast pulled me to use Alien Skin's Exposure 4's powerful emulation of Kodak Ectachrome EES to take advantage of its saturated palette and low contrast. It's was a workhorse film with a tiny grain structure and reasonably wide tonal range at low ISO (ASA) settings. Plus my 300mm lens permitted a sufficiently narrow depth of field to pluck my subjects from the large crowd surrounding them.

Bernie Came To Town - 1

Democrat Congressional Candidate Jess King addresses a large
crowd in Lancaster's Musser Park on May 6, 2018

Last Saturday May 5th, Senator Bernie Sanders, a previous Democrat Socialist candidate for President of the U.S., arrived in Lancaster to endorse a local Democrat candidate, Jess King, for Congress. Some 2,800+ Sanders' followers joined him in Musser Park which is about 500' from my home. With press credentials hanging about my neck I did street photography of the crowd. It was a warm sunny Spring afternoon with the audience in a happy mood. Here's the first of those portraits.

Geek Stuff: Agfachrome slide film presented my favorite color palette. Thanks to Alien Skin's Exposure X3, I can approximate both that palette and its grain structure. Of course my Canon EFS 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens was easily hand held on a Canon 7D MrkII producing needle sharp images. I guess I was, on average, about 50' from subjects - but I made no effort to hide: The park crawled with press photographers. 

Incidentally: I estimated the crowd's size at 2,800 by breaking the lead pano in this post above into 21 quadrants and meticulously counting the people in each. I then similarly analyzed two other panos I shot from different angles - angles which revealed the additional numbers to the left and right of the pano atop this posting. 

BTW, Lancaster has about 55,000 residents and Lancaster County (where few homes are more than 45 minutes from Musser Park). 

Pennsylvania Barn #7

That's the diving/fishing dock poking into the emerald lake there to the lower right. The brown field mid-right was recently seeded for a winter crop. And in the center is the fully restored barn they've converted into a full service event site. They successfully hosted a first wedding the weekend before this series was photographed. 

If you look closely just to the left of the tree -  see the lavender covered trellis? Perfect for bridal pix from every angle - especially with the photographer's back to the barn and the pond, fences and the heart carved into the hill shown in Series 5 behind the wedding party. 

It feels like a romantic chic-flick movie set. 

Pennsylvania Barn Series 6

Catching up time... Thought I'd stylize these a bit... Explanation in the GEEK STUFF below

Here's the Southern Side... Or a northern view of the barn. There's a large parking lot off to the left rear with room for overflow under construction behind the fence to the right. You'll recall that there are two distinctive details to the Pennsylvania Barn. I discussed the overlay or overhang back in Series 7, well this is the other side where the construction is banked to allow ground access to the upper floor where we find those glassed access doors enter into...

This is a monster space capable of holding 750 people for parties, meetings, and weddings.This image covers only the eastern half - note how the room's constructed to allow north and south light avoiding the glare of morning and afternoon sun.  Hmmmm... and  I guess it might also host funerals? One could hold the funeral downstairs then come up here to join the family for drinks and luncheon. Or... maybe not, depends if they'll all have to caravan to a cemetery. Heck, if it's a cremation or an Irish wake, they can bring the urn and/or the coffin right on up to join in the celebration of life.

I'm really lit but that circular staircase, it's a woodworker's art! Again, everything is red oak without nails... Instead holes are drilled then wooden pegs are glued into boards. There's a loft upstairs but I wonder if gowned-women will negotiate that staircase. They've installed professionally lit makeup bays off the the left corner above with a huge-multi sinked bathroom to the right rear. There's also an ice box to keep the champaign chilled. There are lots of USB ports and charging stations along with blue tooth speakers to play favorite music from the bride's cellphone. The TV screen is on the wall behind me where I think that beyond full cable options, they've added CCTV to watch the guests arrange and congregate in the Great Room and on the grounds around the lake.

What's good for the geese is great for the ganders. Here's a fully equipped man-cave with broadcast, movie, and sports channels. There are also blue tooth speakers to allow groom to play loud music (the room's soundproofed. There's planned CCTV to watch the guests arrive, and a game box under the TV with controllers on the couch. Of course there are abundant USB outlets and charging stations. The wet bar is part of fully equipped kitchette and that's a large changing room/bathroom in the right corner. 

GEEK STUFF: Unfortunately I had to resort to paintings for these last two images since I was invited to capture the exterior at sunrise and consequently did not tote along indoor lighting. Bummer. These are all multi image panos stitched together from hand-held Canon 7D images then processed with various tools. 

The Pennsylvania Farm Series 5

Go on back and study the 3rd in this series which I posted on June 26. See there on the lower right... behind the spring house? There's a natural spring fed green lake. This one... In the Fall...

Now look up there on the upper right. See it? There's a heart carved into the crop. Remember, this is a working farm. And in October, well, there are few more gentle places on earth. Can you envision a bride in the foreground? Some of the party lolling in the chairs... Drinks in hand? Once this was a swamp which the family dug out and created more efficient drainage into a stream. See there on the lake's right? Yep that's a diving and fishing dock. The float on the left is the drain as well. Centuries of hard work. 

And now, directly behind me here sits the restored barn. Nope, not shabby at all, huh? BTW: Look at the last post in this group... Series 4. Follow your eye to the far right about a quarter of the way down. See the chairs? Yep, there they are up above. This is a large scene, perfectly executed. 

GEEK STUFF: Yep, hand-held with my Canon 7D Mk.II through its 17-85mm glass - I captured a 3 panel pano. Then it got stitched together in PSCC-2018 where I fixed the distortion, optical range, and relative dynamics. Then I added pieces of various imaging from Topaz Clarity and finished the work with the power of Alien Skin's Exposure X3's Agfa slide film. 

The Pennsylvania Barn Series 4

Ahah! See - there's the barn and how it fits into this scene. Told you that it looms over everything. And since this is a wide angle view, well - this still understates its mass. Anyway, look at its overbite. 

Okay, that's really an overlay, the way that the second story overhangs the space below - it's a key feature of a Pennsylvania barn. It kept farmers and animals out of the elements, and allowed wagon and truck loading and unloading as well as pulling stuff to the animal stalls up there. Easier to clean out as well. The place is huge.

GEEK STUFF: Hand-held my goto 17-85mm on the Canon 7D Mk-II. Processed with PSCC-2018 and worked with Clarity in the Topaz studio then finished with AlienSkin's Exposure X3's Technicolor - at least in spots. Really love the color density that it affects. 

We Ain't Got None Of These. You?

Even in Baltimore, Philly, and NYC - well, this franchise hasn't come yet. I mean America's planted KFC, Starbucks' and Mac D's worldwide - but the Dutch haven't slipped this idea into U.S. streets. Least I don't think so. Maybe they've already had a growth spurt? Anyone out there had a Condomeri come into your town?

I almost missed this shop as I walked the city's streets. I'd gone a few steps beyond it when it dawned on me what it sold... And I mumbled, "Huh?!" Unfortunately I was scurrying back to our boat and lacked the time to look inside. Next time... 

Blow this up, the window displays are intriguing. 

The Pennsylvania Barn Series 3

Ok... still haven't reached the barn there on the right in this series. Lens distortion caused the foreground to appear bigger - while in fact - the barn actually LOOMS over the caters' truck entry and the professional full kitchen... Cool the way the designer incorporated the food support wing to look nothing like what it is. 

GEEK STUFF: Canon 7DMk II, Canon 7D, EF-S17-85mm, Processed in PSCC-2018, multiple iterations created then blended on the macro side with Alien Skin's ability to capture such emulations of film with Exposure-X. I grew up using Agfa slide films with its decisively elegantly rich palette. On the micro side, after the usual cleaning up in Photoshop Topaz tools allowed me to enhance every little part of the image. Together with Photoshop's adjustment layers - there's every tool imaginable. 

But perhaps others can imagine more?

The Pennsylvania Barn Series: 2- Daybreak - 6/19/18

The Caterers Quarters

   The restored Pennsylvania Barn session I did last Tuesday was sort of a convocation for the place. The owners have built an "Event" structure aimed at hosting any number of celebrations, particularly weddings. 

   Now I'm walking slowly around the building in the background is the spring house displayed in an earlier post, in the foreground is where a catering truck can enter directly into a fully equipped professional kitchen so they are out of the elements with a LOT of room laden with all of the equipment for a team of cooks to work. This building is connected to the stone barn behind it and stairs together with hidden hallways allow wait-staff to access multiple levels of event rooms.

   Look there on the upper right behind the farmhouse. There's a huge heart mown into the hillside grass.

GEEK STUFF: Not much to add from the earlier captures, same camera and lens, however this is a five shot pano stitched together in PSCC-2018 in post where I used Alien Skin's powerful Exposure X3 to add a Kodachrome II palette while painting in the sky and highlights with PP's curve adjustment layers. while the lighting was just pre sunrise and relatively flat, I added the romantic glow with my own tools to emphasize the key details and to allow edges to fall into vignette.

The Pennsylvania Barn Series 1

You're entering a Lancaster County farm. OK, you know I guess that this county sits atop America's richest non-irrigated land. Friends own the spread and they've just refurbished their stone 

barn. So they let me take sunrise pictures last Tuesday (June 19th). There was a storm brewing in the east as the sun rose just beyond those trees. No, that's not their farmhouse there beside the road, nor is that the restored barn to its right. Today they're both storage structures. See the cobblestone drive? They're from Europe. Once upon a time, empty or partially filled sailing ships needed ballast on the way over. The blocks were quarried on that side of the Atlantic and dumped over here into large mounds around Chesapeake and Philadelphia ports. Hence they were free resources to early road builders. They are just one authentic touch on this 18th century working farm.  

Now turn around 90 degrees and facing West... Look how the cobblestones wander through the alleyway with a spring house on the right and on the left - Yep: Here's the authentic 1840 Pennsylvania barn. 

The Pennsylvania Barn’s main feature is the projecting 7-8 foot forebay, or overshoot. But, it is important to remember that in order to be considered a Pennsylvania Barn, it must have these essential features: a projecting forebay and banked construction, almost invariably with the eaves side in the bank.” The Pennsylvania Barn appeared late in the 18th century and flourished from about 1820 to about 1900. It is most common in the southeast and central parts of the state (although it can be found in many parts of the state). Although people from all social groups built Pennsylvania Barns, they are most closely associated with the Pennsylvania Germans. And at the center of it’s epicenter of interest sits Lancaster County with this barn on the Armstrong farm in Refton built in 1820 and entirely restored in 2018. 

GEEK STUFF:  I did the series using my Canon 7D, assorted lenses and post processing with a combination of tools from PSCC, Topaz, and Alien Skin. For particular drama, the sun rose through a cloud bank of a gathering late-spring storm providing a combination of strong light at first then flatter light perfect for avoiding the super contrasty early morning sun.

More to come...

Tack-Sharp Enigma

Explaining Amsterdam

After my fourth visit, I'm thinking that Amsterdam's one of my favorite places. 

It's like everything I understand but isn't. The city's infrastructure seems comfortably similar to my world, yet it's in a culture-bubble that's puzzlingly different. Its people have a methodology that seems so like mine but which just doesn't crunch and chew at life as I've been taught. 

Amsterdam's like San Francisco without the hills. 

GEEK STUFF: What's to say. I roam streets with my Canon 7D and look at them through my default 17-85mm lens. Afterward the serious image making began in PSCC-2018 where I tried to puzzle through the feelings of a moment.

Look here... where land meets the sea, but nowhere beneath the sky is there anything remaining of "The Natural" world. Even the water's engineered to behave lest it spill over everything the Dutch have created. And in the very center of the corset-tight control, there's an equally precise piece of black and white art that's drawn with the same precision in a monotone that leaves no room for subtlety and yet no clear room for interpretation.

It, like its city, is a tack-sharp enigma.

Whoa! They're... Like Tribbles!

A Couple Of Amsterdam's Bike Park Lots

There are other cities where bikes are like... well... cockroaches. They scurry everywhere in Amsterdam. And the inspire every visiting mayor from America to accomplish the same thing at home. The thing is that except for some humpy canal bridges - Holland is FLAT! Still it doesn't stop the hope-springs-eternal-crowd. There's a relentless effort here in Lancaster to duplicate Amsterdam's bike-friendliness. And I do bike around regularly, particularly in summer. 

Still, in Amsterdam people of all ages own bikes and they collectively congest every inch of the place. Lancaster's built on the rolling hills of Central Pennsylvania. These hills are not particularly friendly to people uninterested in serious exercise. So we're going through a lot of bike-path-on-existing-streets-construction to satisfy a really small percentage of the population. Today, Sunday, I watered the front flora and in the twenty or so minutes on a perfect summer early afternoon, a lone kid on a bike passed by. And we live on one of the city's main arteries. 

Not surprising I've got mixed feelings about Amsterdam's bikes. On the one hand, they fit the place so perfectly, and they are a faster way around that place than even a car or cab. But they infect the ambitions of American politicians to duplicate an unduplicatable phenomenon. In that latter case those burgeoning bike lots are just another threat to my pocketbook by the same well-meaning dreamers who tried to give everyone a mortgage back in the first decade of this century... A whim for which we are still paying ten years after.
Sigh!

GEEK STUFF: Used my Canon 7D from a river boat where the bright sun allowed me to hand hold its EF-S17-85mm at about 900 ISO. Post processed in PSCC-2018 implying Alien Skin's Snap Art 4 after I'd reworked the photo to bring out its ominous feelings with a starker palette. Fun stuff. 

No Bull - Mbarara Bustles

Patiently Awaiting the Stoplight

Here's the early afternoon midweek epicenter of Mbarara - the largest central place in Uganda's SouthWest. Growth? Founded in 1901, Mbarara's 2001 population was about 69,000, 82,000 in 2010 and  in 2014 about 84,000 making it the country's fastest growing city and 3rd largest after Kampala and Kira. Why so busy on a typical afternoon? Hey, the reason for Mbarara is its position as a a key transportation hub for long distance trucks destined for and coming from Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Yep, that's a 20% population growth rate in around a decade, right? In demographic terms, Uganda's a young country its streets swirling with children, teenagers, and young adults. 

GEEK STUFF: Snapped this with my Canon 7D through its EF-S: 17-85mm glass. Post processed in PS 2018CC with a bunch of my own tools to emphasize the action of this scene under the equatorial mid-day, way-high contrast sun. No bull about it, Mbarara bustles - huh?

Comfrust Madrid

Twin streams pierce the lingering darkness of Madrid's AM drive-time where the sun comes late but rains come early. The morning's metal muddle squirms from both directions - as if one flow is seduced to fill the hole the other's created. A sort of equilibrium of ballast. Pity that the soft stuff within those machines won't trade homesites so that the morning snarl goes flaccid. 

GEEK STUFF:  How'd I do it? Well I pointed my 7D Mark II's Canon EFS 17-85mm through a bus windshield to grab the scene. Then in PSCC-2018 the image was kneaded with an array of tools I created along with those from Topaz and Alien Skin so that each of its parts could be first plucked for independent attention then reassembled to highlight my question about commute-frustration (comfrust?).

How badly did the Apian Way clog from morning traffic into ancient Rome? Were the arteries of classical Athens clogged with squirming streams of carts, riders, and carriages? Did Egypt or Mesopotamia need traffic cops? Is congestion a symptom of civilization's  success or its curse. Certainly it is a tax that seizes hours/days/months/years of life. In a way, that's the harshest tax of all. 

A Mist of Tower Bells

Nearing Vienna
A mist of tower bells
Glazed the Rhine
Snuggling into ears,
Muscle, and
Feeling.

I still haven't figured out how to use GPS feature on my 7D Mark II. From the date and time our Teeming River Cruise boat was maybe ten miles west of Vienna. The sky was clearing and the bells pealed. Our boat was so silent that only the waves lapping against the shore added a percussion line. Pretty moment, very typical, but nothing much deeper. Hmmmm... perhaps if I'd dropped a nude couple climbing the trees? Howzabout I dyed the two yellow? Is beauty alone sufficient excuse for making an image 

I think we use beauty up quickly. There's something about it that wears out fast. Even when the original moment startles, its image rarely invites a return to study or enjoy it. 

Oh well. You all know that i'm an Alien Skin beta tester. And I totally enjoy using their newest sophisticated application. But just now the lure of Topaz's new Impression offers so many options to dig into an image. Fact is that the two apps are powerfully complimentary. I finished this image in Alien Skin's Polaroid, creating a romantically subdued palette that I have no other way of accessing. 

A few years ago, a friend told me that she thought filters were merely devices to save a bad image. No, she's wrong. No one charges that a larger bristle brush is what is necessary to save a mediocre oil painting. Filters are tools. I've never found one that allows a miraculous one click redemptive overlay. Instead I employ my large collection of filters to work upon parts or an image - or a feeling. 

Perhaps I'm just paranoid? And yet the same folks who abhor post processing techniques are gear heads anxious to talk about the latest lens, camera body, or light array. Is this an ideological thing: progressives anxious to find new tools, conservatives determined to protect tradition? Wuddaya think? 

Dear Leader In Budapest

Got to spend a sizzlingly hot July 2017 day in Budapest. The city baked beneath a squint-making sun. Stupidly I chose a seat atop one of those sightseeing busses where the sun melted both my brain and this place's urban charm. Finally, in center-city we found an outdoor café where, from across the street, this facade glowered down - bringing to mind the Soviet Big-Brother who'd imprisoned Hungary. But in reality, this sign was cultural appropriation from another land - mine. Do young Hungarians get off on Totalitarian Art? Is that how U.S. pop music's enjoyed?

I've read Europeans intellectuals dismiss the U.S. as the place that went from savagery to decadence without passing through civilization. And  yet here Hungarians scar a grand (if dingy) piece of their architectural inheritance with this! It is as if someone stirred a stinky boot into the goulash. 

Still, I'm thinking this image of that dichotomy offers so much to both emotionally and intellectually fill exactly the right spot in a hip-elegant living space. You think?

BTW: What's the English equivalent of the word 'Mandoki'? It sounds vaguely Asian, no? Just how far east had we travelled? :-)

Gotta' catch up a little...

Okay, success on the internet demands the 3 Fs: Fast, Frequent, and Fresh. Which is why I am unsuccessful on the internet. I've finished 100s of images which I've meant to, but have been to lazy to... post. And I'm content with all of them. What I won't show, I trash. Well, mostly. So maybe it's time to do a little catching up? So here's a painting I did of a Mityana, Uganda Girl Scout Brownie. And...

Here are a couple of street scenes. The first is the 15th century gothic cathedral of St. Martin in Bratislava, Slovakia. It was built to match the Bratislava Castle which looms almost directly above it. The church tower's built into the city's defensive wall. Slovakia's a smaller European nation that would undoubtedly be much larger today had they not been the first European nation to export its Jewish population of 57,000 people  to feed Hitler's ghastly "Final solution to the 'Jewish Problem'". Of course that Catholic Church continued its activities as the cattle cars were crammed with writhing masses of people. A guidebook pointed out that, "A small but significant neighbor of the cathedral is a monument to the national synagogue which stood next door for centuries until the Communist government demolished it around 1970". Uh-huh, the image looks spooky, right. Well so is this street's history.

The other image is a misty morning street corner in Toledo. Spain. Can you sense the history veiling the neighborhood?

Speaking of street scenes, well howzabout a watery street's scene? This one's along the Danube between Dornstein and Melk, Austria. These folks live next to a busy floating highway. You think they have wet basements?

Here's a Spanish finca growing Valencia oranges in Spain. Finca? Uh-huh, these are country homes, usually plantations or farms of some sort. Usually is a tad old fashioned way to describe fincas. Today in hispanic countries the country home of affluent people are frequently called fincas whether or not they grow or raise stuff or animals. Pretty rich?

And this street scene's from the middle of Vienna - yep - the Austrian Vienna :-) Sooner or later I'm going to post a passel of totally gorgeous Viennese scenes. My dear friend Andreas Mannesinger hosted me for an entire day in the Austrian capital. It was wunnerful. But this image could be from almost anywhere, huh? But this thing jiggled my imagination for some reason - probably the reflections in the rear view mirror... And the jiggling caused this semi-poem to tumble free:

Through back-eyes Truck
Watches history suck
Time through a tiny
Vanishing point.
.
Watching and holding speed constant
To average 60 seconds per minute
Is what Truck does.
.
But larky:
Sometimes Truck’ll
Stutter-foot momentum.
Or jerk at the wheels.
.
Causing things to:
.
First seem longer
Than it takes for
Right-guy to text
The gal who gave
Up her info.
.
Or when Truck
Gooses its gas how
Time shrinks shorter than
The hours before a life-test.
.
And when Truck jerks
At the wheels?
.
Its windows reflect a
History that’s swirled,
Snarled, and sqooshed
Together In clots and breaches.
.
Truck’s wondering though
What happens to
History if …
.
If even for an instant
.
The truck stops here?

Jeff & Gina Paglialonga are the owners of Teaming River Cruises. It was their riverboat that drove us through the epicenter of Europe (Amsterdam to Budapest)  during the summer of 2017. Jeff's personality's bigger than the kilometers his river boat travels. OTH the food on The Royal Crown - his company's flagship - is good enough to gobble. So? Why not, huh?

Okay - I'm neither fast, frequent, nor fresh - but it was a turtle who beat the rabbit, right?

HDR Experimenting (1)

Thanks to my friend and gifted Austrian photographer Andreas Mannesinger (See his link there on the right?), I got a guided tour of his Vienna on Wednesday August 2, 2017. I'll have much to write later about that day, but I've nostly used the outtakes of that shoot for this HDR experimenting.

I took a new camera to a 14 day European river cruise on the maiden voyage of  Teeming River cruises which included a day and a half in Vienna. It's a 7D Mark II. I upgraded from my 7D Mark II instead of going full frame so my three lenses would still be compatible. In addition to the cool reviews of the Mark II's processor's ability to conquer low light and high contrast, I was very interested in it's HRD and GPS capacity. While I generally switched on the GPS software, I've not yet examined the results. Instead, I've first examined the HDR capabilities in cooperation with Photoshop CC's built in HDR Pro. I own Photomatix Pro 5 and expect to eventually pair it with the 7D's HDR files. But first here are some immediate results with the PSCC + Canon features.

NOTE: I expect to add to this posting over the next days, as I work upon additional HDR images. Recall also that HDR is essentially exposure bracketing. Meaning the camera fires a burst of images, one which the meter judges as right on, and others that either over or under expose around that initial setting. Thus some of the images expose for shadow detail, others for highlight detail. By combining the images Photoshop CC HDR Pro (PSCC HDR-Pro) attempts display the average exposure, then pull in detail in both shadows and highlights from the other images made in that burst.

For example.... (1)

Subway Bustle

Here's an entirely meaningless grab shot from the Vienna subway. You may click on any of these images to enlarge the details. I purposely used a slow shutter speed to enhance the sense of commuter hustle-bustle. So the effect I intended is enhanced but so are the details in the shadows and highlights except for the streaks of dark and light where I intended to enhance the tone with some dramatic color slashes. Comments? Without HDR, this RAW image is entirely flat. Incidentally, PSCC HDR-Pro flattens the various shots from a cluster shot into one that is 16 Bits deep. Say what? Think of the image laid flat on a tabletop. Now take a ruler that measures in Bits instead of say inches or meters and measure the depth of the image. The thicker the image the more information that  sits at any one spot. Information that can be mined. In PSCC you can dig into layers to reveal the photos that exposed for highlights or for shadows revealing that information from above.

OK... Now most RAW images are 8 bits deep... jpg images for example. RAW images can be much deeper and PSCC allows us to dig into either 8, 16, or 32 bit deep surfaces. Here I chose 16 bits which allowed me to pull out those vivid yellows and see the flashes of green and blue? Hence while details are blurred, the color glimmers add an illusion of sharpness to the image.

Then here in (2)...

Street Worker

I wondered how a grab shot of a Viennese beggar might work when rendered as an impressionist painting. The lighting was viciously contrasty on a Viennese mid-day in August. I'm not at all happy with the result. I opted to leave the blue cast of the shadows, perhaps removing it might enhance the overall impact, but it just appears gimmicky and forced to me.  

In (3)...

Lineup

So I decided to combine HDR with heavy texture to play with the wonderful human shapes lined up to refill their water bottles in downtown Vienna. The skin tones are perfect, and the shadows invited the texturing revealing suggestive detail and glimmers of color. Here I think that HDR will allow a lot of conceptual narrative. But this particular meaningless image was ready for the trash yet it provided a good chance to even out a harshly high contrast moment where the figures were in full sunlight and background in shadow. Oddly, as I look at it there seems to be a Norman Rockwell something wafting from this image. Y'think?

Now (4)....

265

Here the spooky colors of HDR totally pop. I could have muted those blues in particular but their drama seemed too dramatic to overlook. Notice the depth of field (DOF) here in the early morning sun (all images were hand-held) allowing for a smaller lens opening while utilizing a higher shutter speed. Thus the image is sharp while DOF is dramatically deep. You can easily peer down the street. There's really no value to me beyond craft in this image... It makes no comment beyond those that the building's owners might enjoy. Still it is high-craft thanks to the ability HDR allows for digging into highlights... Look at the sun and  window reflections while revealing the detail I wanted (note the area beneath the  under-hang under the number 265). 

Now here's (5)...

Maybe A Church?

Crunchy? U-huh. this one of those typical church-like buildings which seem to pock the streets of European cities. It may not even be a church steeple, perhaps a library? Regardless, it's pretty, but says little more to me. However there's a postcard attractiveness that sucked in my lens. Here I experimented with the Edge Glow and Edges Strength sliders in PSCC-Pro. Which results in a crispy-pop to details. I can sand my nails on the texture in this image. To what effect? The image is pretty without meaning and the effect's reduced its underlying charm. However it does show the power of PSCC-pro to inflate the edges of knife-like details. I can imagine using it sparingly in some images to create a purposeful distraction. I also almost completely removed all shadows from this mostly back-lit tower which also makes my brain say... "Whu?" It's a terrible fake, useful only when I might want to create a terrible fake to make a statement. And again, particularly in the blues, the colors are, well, creepy, don't you think?

Now lettuce look at (6)...

He's Eyeing Me!

Here the intention was to go surreal with a surreal Viennese billboard. In monochrome which I'd then selectively recolor by hand. Okay... technically it works, but it's a podge of purposelessness. Hey, everything doesn't sear into deep meaning, okay? 😥 However I got a lot more of that crunchiness in the grass and the horizontal slats in the upper right than intended. Apparently the edge sliders are considerably more powerful than they appear when working in PSCHD-Pro. Moreover the colors I chose are even creepier than the stuff that comes out of HD. Ugh! But the tonal map here is generally more believable and coming under better control.

Which brings me to (7)...

TWA? What's That?

Better. The idea was to create a travel poster for the Teeming River Cruises. Have you ever seen the classic TWA travel posters? They generally depicted paintings of  high-key iconic scenes from far-away places that hung behind the desks of travel agents. Here was my first chance to intentionally exaggerate the edge slider power in PSCC HDR-Pro. See how there's a white fringe around the edges? While I deleted some where it was most distracting, I emphasized it in this image then processed it through Alien Skin's SnapArt 3's oil painting filter. 

Okay, that's not Vienna, you caught me: But this image combined so many of the iconic Slovak details of their capital city along with their fearless use of primary colors that it cried out for the TWA treatment. For the first time the tools created exactly the feeling I'd preconceived. And note how even with the distraction of the oil effects, there are still shadow and highlight details where I intended them?  Okay, I'm getting somewhere... Um, right? 

Life's about learning, right. Critique and comments madly accepted either here to through the email on the right. Thanks...

Ooops!

We boarded our Teeming River Cruises river boat on Friday, July 21. Ahead, a 12 day journey from Amsterdam, up and down rivers to Budapest. The Royal Crown carries just 90 passengers, and left Amsterdam at around 2:10 pm on Saturday with 89. Now why was that? 

Later I learned that Captain Hans de Gelder delayed leaving for a full 10 minutes beyond his scheduled 2pm departure. But the rules of the river, berthing, and crew assignments meant moving off even though a search for one missing passenger turned up nothing. Before disembarking they'd even called the Amsterdam police to see if the tardy guy was hurt, or perhaps hospitalized. Seems he left the boat around ten that morning to, "Wander around my favorite city." 

Yeah, it was me. Without European cell service my iPhone, away from WiFi, was useless. Stupidly certain that the boat was leaving at 4, I contentedly snaped pix until about 1:55 when I decided to go back even though 4 was still way off. But the day grew hot, the mid-day lighting grew awful, and crowds were everywhere thick as July humidity. 

Imagine my surprise approaching the slip when, well, there wasn't a boat! 

At about 2:20 an empty Teeming Rivers slip adjoined Viking Cruise berths where greeters awaited their passengers. So I walked over and met a happy Irish fella in charge. Teeming River equips all of their disembarking passengers with identification cards that carry their boats' telephone numbers. The Viking guy got right on it. He sent me inside to relax, called the boat, and arranged a reasonable limousine service to meet the boat at a place called Roosseveltlaan, in Utrecht some  24 miles and 40 minutes away. My driver in a sparkling new Mercedes town-car described landmarks along the way. The Royal Crown's  captain detoured through a residential neighborhood's canal about twenty miles beyond Amsterdam. There the driver and I, along with a gaggle of curious neighbors, stood waiting (as a light drizzle fell) on this X for the Royal Crowne to poke its nose under that lovely bridge up there in the distance. 

 And, after about 20 minutes, it did poke under. But, as you can see from the picture here on the left, this was not a dock with no provisions for gangways or ladders. Instead the boat almost stopped, a guy grabbed my camera, while two other BIG fellas snatched either of my arms and flipped me like a cod onto the boat's deck. FWOOOP! As 89 passengers and a bunch of crew laughed and cheered, I became a celebrity. From that moment on, the crew and a lot of the passengers helpfully reminded me of departure times at each stop. 

BUT: The toughest part of all of this wasn't mine. Nope, my poor wife Rita was so worried. As the minutes ticked toward departure, her anxiety blossomed. Our reunion was tender yet, what is the exact word? Judgemental? Yeah, you remember that financer-guy Bernie Madoff? Well I know how Bernie felt. Fortunately I'm married to saint. 

Okay, with that outta' the way... How was the cruise? Where'd we go? What'd we see? Hear? Smell? Eat? Feel?

Yeah, But Is It Art?

At a street market in Amsterdam there is a vendor selling boxed sets of compact paint spray cans. They come in sets of complimentary colors (including shading hues). And the boxes are cleverly open with an over-the-body strap that allows the user to dangle the cans at waist level for rapid access. European cities are more densely tagged with grafs than most of their US counterparts. They also seem to be far less political and/or gang related.

Questions: (1) Is this display on the corner of Elandsgracht and Derde Looiersdwars Straats in Amsterdam’s Centrum… art? Before rushing an answer, look how the city’s allowed that advertising box along the wall, and planted weed-like street signs. Look how bikes are strewn all about. See the utility boxes screwed to the walls. Is any of that, art? How should this scene look? Who makes that decision?

(2) Uncovered walls in Pompeii are wrapped in millennia-ancient tags. While much of the Pompeian graffiti seems advertising related (“Buy Deficia’s Big Sausages”) lots just reflect a passion of people to declare that they were there.. Is their an instinctual artistic need to brand a historic instant with their presence?

GEEK STUFF: Grabbed with my new Canon 7D through its workhorse 17-85mm zoom. Mid-day sun tested the 7Ds ability to capture HDR groupings… I’m thinking it dramatically passes that test. Right?