We tried a new concept in our local camera club this year: small special interest groups that would do a deep dive into one subject. The group would decide how, what, where, when and why, and also for how long. One of the groups I joined is looking at Fine Art, in all its forms, as a key to improving our own photography.
But first we had to decide what the heck is “fine art”? We’ve had several animated discussions in the past few months, even a field trip to our local art gallery. In the past, I’ve written about photography as art and thought that experience would help, but no. For all the “deep diving” on this subject, I’m not really much further ahead. Why is this so hard? Continue reading “On the Hunt for Fine Art”
I’ve set myself a goal for the next year to become more proficient at Photoshop. I use a variety of editing tools now, most of which are slider-based. You move a slider and watch what happens on the screen. The sliders in most applications are laid out in a nice orderly fashion, and you can literally move from top to bottom and achieve a well-edited well-presented image.
Add to that the challenge of learning something new as an older adult. We don’t absorb information the same way as we did as a child. We don’t necessarily retain it even when learned. Memory declines in uneven ways too – with muscle memory and the memory of physically doing things changing at rates different from the memory of reciting things or recollection. So I’m not only setting a goal but trying to find the best method to accomplish it. 
On your camera lens, you may find an inconspicuous button or buttons labelled “IS”, “OIS”, “VR” or something similar. On the newest bodies, there is no button and you don’t need to turn anything on at all – image stabilization or IS is built into the body and is just there for you all the time. What is it? It’s a wonderful technology that stabilizes the image on your sensor when you can’t stabilize yourself or your camera. We “need” stabilization to avoid a blurry image when the camera is moving. And despite our best efforts, the camera moves ALL the time.
There are also times when you have to move to get the shot – you’re tracking something, you’ve just found that perfect angle, but it’s on a branch up high in the air in the wind (not that you would climb up there), or you’re just plain in the wind and it keeps knocking you and your camera. Or you are walking and vlogging, which seems to be popular now, and we naturally shake when we walk. So what can you do? 
I’m becoming more puzzled and concerned about new products released by hardware and software companies that invariably get poor reviews and need to be “fixed”. We’ve seen that lately in the Apple 15 inch MacBook Pro (which has been “fixed” by the 16 inch released Nov 15/19). We’ve seen that in Skylum’s Luminar 3 (which as of this writing, has been “fixed” by Luminar 4, released Nov 19/19). We’ve also seen that very recently in Adobe’s Photoshop for iPad, which as of this writing, has not yet been “fixed”, after having been essentially trashed on its release in Oct. First-release mirrorless cameras from Canon and Nikon both needed firmware “updates” (i.e. fixes). And lastly, ON1’s Photo Raw 2020, released in October, seems to have a bug that causes it to do what should be background file management tasks in the middle of a photo edit, preventing any meaningful work from getting done. As of this writing, that has not been “fixed”.
Modern digital cameras, particularly “prosumer” quality and above, include several different modes or ways of interacting with the camera settings. Although labelled differently for different manufacturers, all good cameras have modes that range from fully manual (where the photographer picks all of the settings) to fully automatic (where the camera evaluates the scene and picks the settings).
Not quite what you expected? In the northern hemisphere, Fall is typically about shutting down, about returning to routines that don’t include time at a vacation home or sunlit walks in shorts and a floppy hat. We begin to cocoon, bringing in our lives indoors, at least more so when it gets dark 4 hours earlier.
Many of my generation are travellers. We have done our bit for job, country and family, and now have the time and the funds to see the world. Many of us travel to exotic locations, with cultures not remotely similar to ours, to experience all that human civilization has to offer. I’ve seriously considered joining my friends, especially where the destination offers some unique photography. But I’ve also come to realize that much of the beauty of life can be experienced right here, in the country where I live, Canada.
It seems there are as many ways as there are people to deliver a critique for an image. Some concentrate on the technical, supposedly objective, aspects that anyone can see; some on the storyline; some on the overall presentation. Feedback can range from how the image makes the viewer feel, right through to steps to “fix” it.
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