MooseNewsBlog

We’ve heard from a bunch of folks who sailed with us last week. We sure do appreciate all the love notes. A common question has been, “What was my favorite photograph from the trip?” I decided to post it. One afternoon, a bunch of folks wanted to explore flash a bit more. We went to the 7th deck, midship to this very cool mural we had spotted days before. An old friend was on the ship, Barbara, who besides being gorgeous, was so sweet to put up with our flash shoot for an hour.

The photo is actually pretty simple to take. The camera was left in AWB to take care of the lighting color balance on the mural. We underexposed the ambient light by minus 1/2 stop effecting that light. We than used one SB-800 that was gelled to bring the light down to Tungsten light balance (to match mural) and shot that through a Lastolite panel. Using a SU-800, we bumped it up to plus 1/2 to cancel out the minus on the body. Than, we just had to wait for the folks to not be behind the model and click. I want to thank Barbara for her patience and Able for helping all the Canon folks get their 580 flashes to work pretty much like the SB-800 was functioning.

And that’s my favorite shot from the voyage.

Photo captured by D2Xs, 70-180micro on Lexar digital film

After a brief stop at beautiful Victoria, Canada, Sharon & I are back at our 2nd home, Sea Tac airport. We had a marvelous time with some truly marvelous folks on the cruise. We want to thank them all for making it such an enjoyable time on and off the boat. We especially want to thank all who came to the Martini Bar where we (Sharon, myself, Laurie & Frank) could be found every evening. We made some wonder new friends. While I don’t think cruise ships and mooses are made for each other, it was mighty smooth sailing this time.

You might be looking at the title of the post and than the photo wondering how the two relate. Well, I took this photo when we entered US waters outside of Seattle. Under that water is US soil This photo was taken from our balcony looking straight down at the ship’s wake. Now, it’s off to Photoshop World to meet and say hello to a whole other bunch of nice folks, get my batteries recharged and have merry. Cya there!

Photo captured by D200, 28f1.4 on Lexar digital film

We’re in Ketchikan today, a rainy, gray, cold day with no real photo ops blowing up the down jacket. At one local where there was a black bear, this old trailer is what summed it all up for me.

Photo captured by D2Hs, 14AF on Lexar digital film

We cruised Glacier Bay today and it was cool. It was nowhere are big as I thought, but what we saw was just gorgeous. Shooting was fun, using mostly long lens and panning with the ship spinning in front of the front. The name of the game is patterns, graphics and inspiration. It was great!

Photo captured by D2Xs, 200VR on Lexar digital film

Well…grizzly bears are not rare, but seeing Dave Cross and his daughter in downtown Haines sure is! We had a great day ashore photographing grizzly bears. bald eagles, sights and happenings of Haines. We’re now in Glacier Bay and I’m heading out to shoot.

As you know by now, Nikon has announced the D3, D300 and new VR telelphotos. Like you, this is all new news to me. While I appreciate all the emails asking my advice and opinions (437), I haven’t seen and don’t have the gear to provide personal insight. All I have is the same info you have on the web. I can happily report though that our D2Xs and 600AFSII still work and produce great images! I highly recommend you go out and shoot, enjoy photography and all will be well!

Photos captured by D2Xs, 200VR & D200, 14AF on Lexar digital film

Off the boat in Juneau and up to Mendenhall Glacier where we were treated to great glacier views and photographs and a bunch of Black Bears. I’m writing this after a long day, having two chocolate Martinis and on a notebook about to run out of battery power. So….it all looks good to me at this time of day….tomorrow could be a totally different

Photos captured by D2Xs, 200f2VR on Lexar digital film

We’re just about to make land, Juneau Alaska. We’re on this killer cruise with Cruising Through Life having one hell of a good time. I’m here with my good friend, Vinnie Versace, Dave Cross and Laurie Excell. And, we’ve got a great, great group of folks! This is the pilot boat bringing in the pilot taking us into dock at Juneau. As internet is available, I’ll be posting. Be sure to check back on Thursday!

Photo captured by D200, 17-55AFS on Lexar digital film

This just came to my desk. It was started by the father, and it’s hasn’t ended yet with the son. YOU have to make the call if the wild heritage left to you, should be left to the next generation.

The Northern Spotted Owl and the ancient forests where it lives are under attack. The Bush Administration is planning to repeal protections for the Northwests iconic old-growth forests and significantly reduce the Spotted Owls habitat.

Please submit comments to help the Northern Spotted Owls. The deadline to submit comments is next Friday, August 24.

Earlier this year, the Bush Administration released the Draft Recovery Plan for the Northern Spotted Owl. This plan will undermine all the work that has been done in the last fifteen years to protect the owl and the old-growth forests where it lives. The original recovery team that authored the plan agreed to work together to base the plan on science. This group was then replaced by high-level Bush Administration officials who wrote the plan based on politics, not science.

Please tell the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reject both options in the draft recovery plan and write a plan based on science, not politics. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is accepting written public comments on the Draft Recovery Plan for the Northern Spotted Owl until August 24, 2007 .

Thanks for speaking up to protect wildlife!

Sincerely,

Ryan Manion

Oregon Field Representative

Endangered Species Coalition

Submit comments to:

NSO Recovery Plan, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Ecological Services, 911 NE 11th Avenue, Portland, Oregon, 97232

503-231-2194

NSOplan@fws.gov

There we were, at the edge of Lake George (just a couple minutes from our home) in great light working with a beautiful model, Pariva, when this Black Bear mom (who is eating way too much human food) and her spring cubs came tripping down the shore and onto our set. The cubs checked out the tripod, mom rummaged through the case of strobe gear and sneezed on my Lastolite panel before moving on. That wasn’t the rude thing, they were just being bears and we’re quite use to bears. The rude thing was the hordes of people following them. They had the family going along at quite a clip trying to stay ahead of the pack mentality. Jake got some real nice shots of one of the cubs heading up the tree before they went into the shade and around the corner of the lake. After about 20mins, the crowd lost interest in the bears and our model and we could get back to work.

Photo captured by D2Hs, 200f2VR on Lexar digital film

I’ve been burning the midnight oil getting all my shows ready for the upcoming cruise (8hrs of all new shows). Well yesterday something came up that threw my well planned schedule to the wind. Scott Kelby’s new book arrived and as you can see by the cover, I was up all night reading. Bloody good book folks!

This isn’t a book to learn how to turn your friends green after an all nighter, give you mother in-law two heads, no no. This is a book for photographers who are in the business of visually communicating. This is not some reprint of an old book, but new text with tons of great, new ideas on how to polish your images. Our capture devises while good don’t capture everything we see. Our images also go to many places, not just the computer monitor. Scott’s book is full of techniques for cleaning up color, sharpening, presentation either by print, web gallery or a host of other ideas, organization, black and white conversion and the list just goes on and on. And all of these techniques take advantage of all the power and ease of Photoshop CS3.

I’ve got to go know, I didn’t quite finish reading the book. You can get your at your local bookstore and NAPP members, be sure to pick yours up at the NAPP store online, or at the NAPP store at Photoshop World at the end of the month. This is one monster of a book!

There we were, on this gorgeous beach in Oregon with the tide out, seastacks beautifully outlined and a rainbow. Click, click, click. Back at the computer looking at the images, while I knew the rainbow was there when I took the photo, it was barely visible in the photo. I tried a number of techniques in post to pull it out, none really doing the job. I than emailed my good friend Joe Sliger at Wacom who came up with a very cool and effective technique to help solve the problem.

How do you get to this point in your photography? First, venture with us on a DLWS event. Than after getting the great images and a good start with Photoshop with us, you head to Photoshop World where you learn from the best and most creative in the business! This particular image required knowing black & white conversion, creating and using a gradient, layers and masks, free transform, actions and typography. You can learn all of this and a whole lot more in the most fun packed, adrenaline rich, creative energized environment on the planet! I know I’ll be there and I look forward to meeting with you there.

Photo captured by D2Xs, 14f2.8AF on Lexar digital film