Moose News Blog

The business of photography is not one for the weak of heart, but rather one bursting with passion. It’s not for one who is in it for the short term or glory, but rather for the love of photography itself. It’s not for one who sells their soul for a penny, but rather commands and earns the dollar. These individuals who stay this course are very rare in this business, I know. Even more rare are those who go the extra step and share what the school of hard knocks has taught them to others. I am incredibly fortunate to call such a shooter, friend, good friend and today, good fortune shines on you as well.

Joe’s new book The Moment IT Clicks just arrived today. Galley proofs have been in my reach the last couple of months, but I wanted to wait until I had the book in my hands, sitting in my reading chair and could give it the attention it so richly deserves. It’s hard to read at times I think, seeing through your tears of laughter and deep thought, soaking up all the words of wisdom. The message here will take a couple of reads to soak in. I’m very fortunate though to have Joe’s voice in my head (and those inner ones too at times) as I read. You’re even more fortunate to have his talent shared with you as you shoot. We’re all very fortunate that Joe put it in writing for us all to enjoy, learn from and treasure in the years to come.

Thanks Joe for the great journey!

We’ve received tons of love notes in regards to our latest BT Journal and it’s new layout. The layout credit goes to the incredibly sweet and talented Margie Rosenstein at NAPP (I owe her a BIG hug!) and our packager/publisher Joanne Bolton. The new cover especially has folks asking questions including my current mentee. I thought a question I just answered for him in regards to the cover might be of help to you all. Here’s it is.

“Yes, the cover image has to be cropped to support the paper size, not happy about that but have no option. If you look on pg28, you’ll see the whole photo uncropped.

Composition or how I subconsciously think of it, the arranging of elements, has many, many facets to it. You’re on the right track thinking of white/snow and how that grabs the mind’s eye and a need to minimize it at times. But when the buck hit the ridge, that wasn’t part of my formula or concern for the arranging of elements because I knew the background/snow would be out of focus, the buck tack sharp. I knew they would be out of focus because I was shooting with a 200f2VR lens at f/2. With the buck tack sharp, the eye is forced to go to it first and keep coming back to it.

As for the placement of the buck itself in the frame, yes, common wisdom would say place it left to have it looking into the frame. I’ve never been known to have common wisdom, probably the first problem. But more to the point, the body posture is what dictated the placement of the buck on the right for me. I didn’t want the question answered visually what had his attention, why was he on high alert. I want the viewer’s imagination to take them in whatever direction it may. It could be another buck, a doe, a pesky photographer (which is wasn’t) or even a mountain lion. Only the imagination can fill in the blank. And to me, that’s what brings power to the image, the imagination merged with the reality.”

What I need to add to this answer to Tom is, I just put the camera to my eye and without thinking about any of what I just wrote, I just shoot. At this stage of my photography, something that is still constantly growing (thank god), composition has become a non-issue. My own challenge is to excite the imagination and heart strings in the viewers of my images. One of the few benefits of time.

Photo captured by D3, 200f2VR on Lexar UDMA digital film

We’ve had snow 71/2 of the last 8 days with two of those days with 30+mph winds. Needless to say, the wood pile and wine supply has been dented. You’ve probably seen a few of my snow photographs from Yellowstone and while Mammoth is beautiful in snow, let’s just say I can’t find the same character in the snow here. With all the winds, we’ve not had any birds for the last couple of days either. So to avoid getting cabin fever (couldn’t get out of Dodge either, road closed) I thought I would look at other avenues of photographic expression.

One of the vacation homes in the neighborhood has someone in it (who must be scared of snow, has every light on). The glow out the windows and the pattern of light on the tree and snow hill caught my attention. Cranking up the ISO to 6400, I went out in the falling snow and made two exposures, one for the window light and one for everything else. I than cameback to Photoshop and combined the two. I used Dfine to smooth everything out and baam, alternative to white is done.

Photo captured by D3, 24-70AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film

Nikon announced a new body and three new lenses. You’ve got the D60, the 16-85DX, the 60f2.8AFS micro and the very exciting 24f3.5PC-E. I’m very excited to receive the 24PC-E and create some ultra wide panos with the D3. In case it wasn’t on your radar screen, PMA is this weekend.

(photos courtesy of Nikon)

Here’s some more info on the 24PC-E, 60Micro, 16-85DX, and D60. At the Nikon booth at PMA, you will also be able to see the new 45PC-E Micro and the 85PC-E Micro.

Update: Since I haven’t seen these lenses, I wanted to double check facts before posting more info. The E in PC-E stands for Electromagnetic Diaphragm. Since most photographers don’t use a PC lens, this doesn’t mean much. On the D3 & D300 (only at this time) you can use a PC-E lens in any exposure mode, A, S or P just like you would with any lens. Why is that special? PC lenses “break” in half to achieve their PC and when you do that, you loose any mechanical links to the aperture so previously, all PC lenses were preset lenses. No more, that’s darn cool! The 45 & 85 had the soft release because they aren’t ready for prime time yet. You should see the three lenses as early as March.

We’ve been hammered of late with questions in regards to the 600VR lens. I just got word mine is in route so once I have it and have shot with it, I’ll post some thoughts here.

With the shipping of the Wacom 12WX and my first blog, I’ve had a number of emails of just how to make the most of this cool tool. I’m pretty sure there are many who want to know how to make this work as a 2nd monitor. I don’t know the recipe for Macs and needed the help of my dear friend Joe Sliger to get this right, but here you go.

The recipe for the Photoshop with the 12WX is:

I start by making the 12WX the Primary display in Display Properties (Windows defaults back to normal when the 12WX is not plugged in). Open Photoshop and configure it to your likings and workspace ON the 12WX. Open the image you want to work on; Hit the “F” key until the image appears in a window, not using any of the 3 full screen modes. Than Window Menu > Arrange > New Window for “image name” a duplicate of the original image will show up on top of the original. Drag the duplicate image to the notebook monitor (you can do this by hitting the top express key on the side of the 12WX, which will map the pen across both displays until you click it again). Hit the “F” key until your preferred background shows up (use can use Fullscreen mode now). Hit “CTRL+ALT+0″ to go to fill the monitor with the largest possible preview. Hit the top express key again, which should bring the pointer back under the pen. Select the image that is on the 12WX by clicking anywhere in its window. And hit the F key again with the image on the 12WX selected to select your preferred view. At this point any retouching you do on the 12WX will show up on the larger second display in full view. This enables you to see what Micro retouch is doing to the overall image and Color corrections for small areas and the effect it is having on the whole image.

I hope this helps you make the most of this killer tool!