David duChemin's Blog, page 42

Postcard from Antarctica: Ronge Island

Ronge�´Island, Antarctica. Unedited, so mind the dust.

A quick hello from Antarctica and beautiful Ronge´ Island. We camped out last night, giving us time to get tripods up around midnight to photograph the pastel colours of the prolonged dusk. It never got dark, in fact it never got so blue as twilight, which made our few hours of sleep kind of tough, in addition to being cold and hard. But it’s not every year you get to camp in both the arctic and antarctic, so it was hard to say no. The Antarctica Within The Frame group are troopers, all of them, and we  fell asleep around 1am in our sleeping bags and bivouac sacks, under a beautiful Antarctic sky.

The photographs below are from Peterman Island two days ago. At least I think it was two days ago. Time moves in strange ways here. The photos come courtesy of my friend and traveling partner, Daniel Brown. Serious behind-the-scenes stuff. Don’t bother asking about the second one; there’s no really good explanation. I was feeling punchy, and very, very fond of my camera, apparently.

 

Postcard from Antarctica: Pleneau Island

Another day in Antarctic waters. Yesterday it was Pleneau Island and Peterman Island. This morning we woke to more sunshine and dramatic mountains rising, seemingly, straight out of ice-strewn water, black, clear and deep. Weather’s been a treat – warm and sunny – and a change from the mood and drama of last year. Secretly I’m hoping for a return to that kind of weather. But you take what you can get. Right now it’s all polarizers all the time, though the dynamic range, with all this reflected light, doesn’t require much in the way of graduated ND filters, which keeps fumbling with gear down to a minimum. OK, gotta run, I’ve got more layers to put on than I have time to do it in and I’ve got a zodiac with my name on it.

Postcard from Antarctica: Lemaire Channel

We’ve been on the Ocean Diamond for 3 days now, and this morning we hit land in Antarctica after a beautiful time navigating the Lemaire Channel. In a few hours we’ll land again, this time at Circumcision Bay on Peterman Island. The weather has been astonishing, though it made the Drake Passage such a tame journey it barely feels we’ve earned the incredible vistas. Still, there are 6 of us and we’ve had an amazing time so far. The hard drives fill up in the evenings while we sit with a drink, and this morning’s zodiac ride found us a piece of crystal clear ice, likely thousands of years old, from which we made spectacular martinis. Hey, it’s not all work, work, work down here.

I edited this with a quick white point and black point adjustment in Lightroom 4, then used one of the presets from my personal LR4 preset collection, the Midtone Lift + Vignette + Clarity preset.

THE PRINT AND THE PROCESS Released.

It’s here! The Print and The Process, my latest book, and the unofficial 5th book in the Vision Trilogy is shipping! It’s a little earlier than anticipated, but I’ve just had an email from home telling my the first books off the press are sitting on my desk.

I tried to do something different with this book, which we started with the Craft & Vision eBook series of the same name a couple years ago. What I wanted was a new kind of photography book, something that was strongly educational and not just photographs, but where those photographs were shown they were shown large, un-cropped, and not merely as illustrations. I wanted to honour the fact that I believe the best way to become the strongest photographer we can be is to study not just words, but photographs themselves. So there are a lot of full-page photographs.

The second thing I wanted to do, which I hope I’ve done in my other books, is build a bridge. Popular photography education is full-to-bustin’ with discussion of how we do this and how we do that. In recent years I’ve talked so much about intent that I worry the word “vision” has become completely threadbare and lost its impact. What are missing, almost entirely in popular photography’s various classrooms, are honest discussions about process , specifically the process of getting from intent to expression. And where it is discussed it’s often talked about as a simple matter, when every photographer I know really struggles with the process at times. Wrestling with the process is often messy, but the more we understand the way we make photographs, the easier it will be make those photographs.

The Print and The Process looks at four separate projects, all shot within the last few years. Two of them, Venice and Iceland, were published in a rougher form as Craft & Vision monographs, so to some of you the material will be familiar, but refined a little. The last two have never been published in any form. The first is an assignment I did in Northern Kenya, among the Rendille, Samburu, and Turkana tribes for the BOMA Project, and it’s the first time a humanitarian client has given me permission to show my work so openly. I’ll talk more about that in a moment, but for those wanting a glimpse into how I work on assignment with human subjects, this section alone will be worth getting the book. The last work is from Antarctica and if you’re a regular reader here you’ve seen a few of these images, but not the bulk of them. Here’s an advanced look at some of the spreads.

For each of the 4 projects in the book, I discuss my hopes for the work, my constraints, my gear, my thought processes, and in some cases my post-production, including a few free downloadable Lightroom 4 presets I created for my own workflow. I talk about all this in broad strokes, as well as adding comments and EXIF data for each individual image.

Is it a book about printing?

No, it’s not. It’s a book about the process that gets us to “the print” whether that’s a 16×20 fine art print or a finished image presented digitally.

But the title talks about prints!

It does. Think of it as a metaphor. There are some excellent books out there about printing. This isn’t one of them.

Is this a good book for absolute beginners?

Honestly, probably not. There are way better books out there for helping you grasp the basics of making a technically good photograph. But if you’re an enthusiastic amateur, and you’re past the very basics, and you want to begin to make stronger photographs, then you’re ready for this book.

I bought the Craft & Vision eBooks for both Venice and Iceland, should I buy this one?

If you want to see my new work from both my humanitarian work in Kenya and my Antarctica project, this is really the only way to see it, but the Venice and Iceland stuff will definitely be familiar to you. This way you get a hard copy.

I’m more of a geek than an artist, per se. Will I still get anything out of this?

As long as you’re asking me, yes. In fact, I think you’re exactly the kind of person that needs to read this and begin exploring your own process, because there’s only so far you can get with technique alone. Your work will begin to stand out and have impact when it becomes more uniquely your own. There’s plenty of geek-stuff to keep you happy. Photography is, after all, accomplished by technical means, and craft matters a great deal. I think there’s a lot to learn on both ends of the geek / artist continuum.

Do you shoot Nikon or Canon?

Yes I do. Next?

Why is this the first time we’re seeing your humanitarian work in print?

Most of my clients, in an effort to guard the dignity of the people they work with, are extremely protective about image use. I not only adhere to that, but agree with it. It’s too easy to use these photographs as trophies and misrepresent the people, and the contexts, in which I work. But BOMA Project and I click like I’ve clicked with no organization before, because it’s a small organization of amazing people, and we share a similar vision and way of working. And I not only help them tell their stories, I am a supporter and strongly invested emotionally in their work. As such we trust each other, and they see this as chance to tell their story in a new way. Additionally you’ll be supporting their work among the poorest of the poor, by buying this book. 10% of the profits go directly to women and families in one of the most inhospitable places in Africa as they struggle to become self-sufficient.

Anything else I need to know?

It’s about 230 pages, softcover, and much like my previous books except this one’s wider than it is tall, allowing the images – especially the horizontal ones- to play a little larger. Art Wolfe, a long-time hero of mine, wrote a beautiful Foreword.

Will this make my photographs better?

Honestly? No. It’s just a book. But I wrote it because I labour under the honest belief that the more we understand our process, and the better we know our craft, the closer we can come to connecting the two. Popular photographic education is obsessed with teaching us how to use our cameras, but cameras don’t make art. We do. Once we’ve learned the basics of using the camera, it’s time to move on to the harder stuff, the stuff for which there is no recipe or formula. I think looking critically at beautiful photographs, listening to other artists discuss their process, and allowing those things to inform what, why, and how we do what we do, is more important – and more difficult – than simply learning to “expose to the right”, “f/8 and be there”, or other well-meaning bits of wisdom. That’s why I wrote this. I think there are enough voices out there talking about the other stuff. If you already know how to focus an image and expose it, it’s probably time to move on.

How can I get a hold of a copy of my own?

Good question. I like the way you think. I never take it for granted that my readers are part of what I do, and make it all possible. I’m truly grateful. Thank you. If you want to get your hands on The Print and The Process, it’s available now through Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and pretty much any other bookmonger worth their salt. In Canada, it’ll take Amazon.ca a little longer to get them, and a little longer still in Europe. If you’re in a hurry, my publisher, Peachpit, is shipping them immediately.

The Gift of Inspiration

Ah, Christmas time, that precious time of year once set aside to celebrate love, peace, and forgiveness. It’s also that time of year when the blogs get full to bustin’ with “official” gift guides (it’s true, they register them down at town hall.) for photographers who need more clever gimmicks and plastic crap like they need a wet tongue on their sensor.

Want to give the photographers in your life something that will last longer than so much of the stuff being flogged? Give them a day out without the kids to make some photographs. Get them a membership to a local art gallery. Or consider getting them a book. Get them something that will feed their imaginations, stir their thoughts, and fan the flames of the love they have for photographs themselves.  If you’re looking for ideas, and aren’t planning to shell out for the camera they keep hinting about,  here are 10 books you might consider.

Andrew Zuckerman, BIRD.

I love this book. I’ve got Wisdom too. Gorgeous colour, scale, and light. I know, you don’t think you like birds. “Bird people” are creepy. I get it. But this will blow your mind. You might also look at his other books, Creature, Wisdom, and his just released, Flower. On Amazon HERE.

Iceland, A Journal of Nocturnes – Bruce Percy.

Simply gorgeous. I got mine a couple weeks ago and spent a few hours looking through it, before returning to it to study his compositions. Bruce’s sense of balance and tension, and the serenity of the light he captures, is second to none. Available from Half Light Press HERE.

Magnum Contact Sheets.

I love this book. It’s huge. And it’s not cheap. But here you can see some of the iconic photographs from the last century, in a context we rarely see them – sandwiched on contact sheets by the frames made before and after. This one’s a killer and I’d put it  at the top of the list. On Amazon HERE.

Vivian Maier, Street Photographer.

If the photographer in your life (I know, that might be you, that’s OK) likes candid and street photography, you’d not do much better than this one showing the work of Vivian Maier. On Amazon HERE.

Walker Evans, American Photographs

Every photographer should know the work of Walker Evans. Enough said. On Amazon HERE.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Photographer.

Classic stuff from the man who popularized the idea of the decisive moment. On Amazon HERE.

Elliott Erwitt, Personal Best.

My favourite photographer. Hands down. The king of wit and juxtaposition. On Amazon HERE.

Paul Nicklen, Polar Obsession.

This guy has my dream job. Except for the cold and the wet part involved in being a polar diver and photographer. The cover alone blows my mind. On Amazon HERE.

Karsh Portraits.

My first photography idol. Still a man I revere. If you can get one, this is a classic. On Amazon HERE.

Masterclass, Arnold Newman.

I’ve never seen this one, but it’s now on my own list. On Amazon HERE.

Better yet, make a donation in their name to Kids With Cameras, then head over with a bottle of wine and spend some time together. No gift guide in the world has that one on it. We’re going to keep December pretty quiet around here. I’ll save my usual Christmas post for later, but I trust you all manage to find peace and time with loved ones in all the chaos. Got an idea for celebrating that preserves the wonder and doesn’t involve the usual descent into madness, let us know!

 

Postcards from Tierra del Fuego

Spent a good chunk of today bouncing around the backwoods of Tierra del Fuego here in the southernmost part of Patagonia, Argentina. My friend, Daniel, and I, hired a Land Rover Defender and a guide and spent the day getting out of Ushuaia and exploring forests and lakes. Love it here. We wound up at a small cabin for BBQ steaks and a couple bottles of wine before coming back to Ushuaia to crash for the night and nurse our jetlag. Daniel’s come from Stockholm and my body is still somewhere between here and Kathmandu.

One more night and we’ll be on the boat heading towards Antarctica.

Packing For Antarctica

If there’s an upside to jetlag, it’s productivity. I was up all night so I packed early. Nothing to do now but sit on my thumbs and wait. On Sunday, Nov. 25, I fly to Toronto, then Buenos Aires via Santiago, then on to Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego, the far southern tip of South America. I’ve got a couple days there to acclimate, do some exploring with a friend, and meet our team of 5 before embarking for the Drake Passage and Antarctic waters. Can hardly wait. For the curious, here’s what I’m taking in my one carry-on and one checked piece:

Carry On, in GuraGear Bataflae 32L

1x Nikon D3s body, batteries, charger

1x Nikon D800 body, batteries, charger

CF / SD cards, cardreader

16-35/4.0

70-200/2.8

24mm T/S

Filters and filter holders

11″ MacBook Pro

1 x SSD Drive

Microfibre lenscloths (lots of them)

Sensor cleaning kit, Blower

Notebook, pens

Passports (2)

iPhone, charger, spare battery

iPod
, Bose in-ear headphones

Kindle, with a couple books about Antarctic exploration

Medical Insurance up to date

MedJet Assist Evacuation Insurance up to date

Checked, in Rimowa Aluminum.

Gitzo Ocean Traveler Tripod

Cable release

2x Patagonia long underwear bottoms

2x Patagonia long underwear tops

4x Icebreaker merino underwear

2x Icebreaker merino T-shirts

2x Filson Long sleeve shirts

2x Icebreaker merino Sweaters

1x Patagonia Rain Jacket

1x Patagonia Rain pants

1x Patagonia guide pants

1x Patagonia Down Vest

2x Jeans

1 x Outdoor Research Balaclava

1x Icebreaker merino tuque (wool hat)

2x sockliners

4x Icebreaker merino wool socks, medium weight

2x Patagonia wool socks, heavy weight for rubber boots

2x thin glove liners

1x Patagonia ice climbing gloves

1x Black diamond fingerless mitts

1x LaSportive approach shoes

Black Diamond trekking poles

Toiletries

Sm. Med Kit

Spare glasses and sunglasses

6-outlet powerstrip

Last year I told everyone I wouldn’t be posting from the ship and then found out I could buy satellite access and managed to stay in touch with some regularity with postcards. In the end I think I posted more from that trip than many others. Shackleton would be baffled. I’ll do my best to do the same this year. See you there!

Lightroom 4 UnMasked

Craft & Vision has published books by photographer and educator Piet van Den Eynde before, but never one like this before. Today we’re releasing the first Craft & Vision BigBook. It’s still an eBook, but it’s BIG. I mean, really big. Lightroom 4 UnMasked is complete guide to Adobe Lightroom 4. It’s over 300 pages long and it’s packed with everything you need to know to get under the hood of Lightroom 4. Here are some highlights:

It’s up to date, all the way up to Lightroom 4.2


Written by an Adobe Certified Expert who teaches dozens of Lightroom workshops a year and has a deep understanding, not only of the application itself, but also of potential pitfalls novice users experience.


It’s aimed at both beginning Lightroom users as well as more advanced ones. It grows with you as your Lightroom knowledge grows.


In addition to the regular text, the eBook features 60 cases, 10 of which are pro-cases for advanced users.


It’s ideal for upgraders: text boxes labeled ‘New in Lightroom 4′ immediately draw attention to things that have changed between versions. Two cases also deal specifically with what’s new in Lightroom 4.


Features dozens of tips, tricks and ideas, some of which are I’d never seen.


It doesn’t limit itself to Lightroom as it comes out of the box, but points to useful third-party applications and plugins that integrate well with Lightroom.


 Focuses on Lightroom as an entire workflow application. There’s thorough coverage of ALL the modules, not just Library and Develop.


An entire chapter deals with the Lightroom to Photoshop integration.


It’s an eBook, so it’s fully searchable and loaded with hyperlinks

This is a really dense, downloadable PDF, and it’s unlike anything we’ve ever done before. As such we’re breaking the mold a little on pricing. When Craft & Vision began we had no idea we’d be publishing Big Books. But when Piet came to us with this book, which is already out in hard copy in Dutch, we knew two things: 1. We wanted to do it. 2. We didn’t want to split it up into a bunch of sections and call each one an eBook, then charge $5 each for them. That didn’t seem fair, or honest. So because we thought we might do more of these, we just decided to call it a C&V BigBook.

If you’re looking to learn Lightroom 4 and need a resource to help you do that quickly, or you’ve just upgraded and need to get up to speed, this is a great value. If you know what a great teacher Piet is, then it’s a no-brainer. The price is $20 and for the information here it’s a steal. But for the first seven days, use the promotional code  LR4FIVE  when you checkout and pay only $15. This code expires at 11:59pm (PST) November 27, 2012.

But wait, there’s more! If you visit the Craft & Vision site between now and Friday night (11:59pm – PST) you’ll find every ebook marked down 50%. That’s right, folks, we’re moving out the old stock and need to make way for the new (OK, I made that part up…) so every eBook is only $2.50! We must be crazy! (No, we’re not, but I’ve seen the TV ads where they do all this hyper-sales crap and I figure it must work…) Giant Inflatable Ape! Seriously. 3 days only. Craft & Vision. Big Sale. And get Piet van Den Eynde’s Lightroom 4 UnMasked for only $15.

Travelling Sick

The last couple days have been rough. I went to bed two nights ago and was violently ill all night, in ways I’ve not been violently ill before. I remember apologizing to Jeffrey, with whom I was sharing a room, much to his misfortune, every time another noisy bout of sickness came on me, but the rest is a bit of a blur. I woke still sick, but thanks to a decent pharmacopia, and the help of friends, made it through OK. Pretty sure it was food poisoning. Not the first time Nepal has disagreed with my stomach. As I write this I’m a little fragile and frayed around the edges in Bahrain, after a 6 hour flight from Kathmandu, and I’ve got another 30+ hours of travel before my girl meets me at the airport and takes me home. Traveling sick is no fun, but I guess it’s the price we sometimes pay for these adventures; a little preparation can make it a little less horrific.

I travel on trips like this with both a medicine kit and a first-aid kit, adding more or less depending on my destination and the amount of support I can find there. For a first-aid kit I take a simple one, like the one pictured at the top of this post, bought at Mountain Equipment Co-op for $30. I also squeeze in a sterile sharps kit purchased at my local travel clinic, in case I need an IV, sutures, or other “puncture the skin” kind of help in places where sterilization is suspect. In the Jeep, for Overland travel I’ve a much more complete kit but it’s really big; I’d hate to fly with it. For medicine, in a similar soft-bag, I carry the following:

Tylenol 3 + Codeine

Advil/Ibuprofin

Gravol / Anti-nauseant (also knocks me out)

Immodium (not keen on this, but helpful when things get rough)

ExLax or similar laxative for when things slow down.

Cyproflaxin or Coazithromicin for, uh, faster, nastier stomach/bowel problems.

Tylenol Flu +Cold Extra Strength

Throat Lozenges

EmergenC, or some kind of electrolites (forgot mine this time!)

Glucose tablets (I’m diabetic)

Topical cream for skin/fungal infections

Antacids

Bug spray/cream

Sunblock

It’s not a large kit and it’s not glamorous kit. It’ll take the same space as a couple lenses, but when you need this stuff you need it. Add to this any specific meds you need, and take twice what you expect to use. Of course the best thing you can do is your best to follow the advice out there on not getting sick in the first place, but with air travel and the stress it all puts on your immune system, it’s usually not a question of if, but when.

Before I leave on trips I make sure my vaccinations are up to date, including my oral cholera vaccine, Dukoral. And I double check my travel medical insurance and my medical evacuation insurance, even though, along with my passport renewals, these are marked on my calendar for renewal with reminders set for a couple months prior.

Speaking of medical evacuation, I want to give my strongest possible recommendation to MedJet Assist. When I took my fall in Italy they went above and beyond, were models of kindness and professionalism, and I will never travel anywhere again without a current MedJet Assist membership. If you think you don’t need it because you think your medical insurance, or credit card, covers it, double and triple check that fine print. Many a story’s been told of people that had to pay close to $100,000 for evacuation when they were “pretty sure they were covered.”

I’m already feeling a bit better and will soon be home. Hope to post more from Kathmandu this week, but with Antarctica looming, it might take longer. Safe travels!

New eBook – Andrew S. Gibson’s SLOW

When I first picked up a camera the fastest shutter speeds got all the glory. My Pentax Spotmatic had a top shutter speed of 1/1000. It absolutely BLEW MY MIND when cameras began to go to speeds of 1/8000. I never had a need for such speed, but I liked to know I could freeze drops of water and stuff if the need arose. Now, years later, I seem to spend more and more time at the other end of the dial, chasing looks that can only be created with slower shutter speeds.So when Andrew Gibson asked me if we’d consider publishing SLOW, I just said something intelligent sounding like, “make it happen!”

SLOW is 64 spreads of teaching and inspiration on the techniques and aesthetics of using a slow shutter, including panning and intentional camera movements, long exposures, related equipment, and issues of exposure. He’s included a couple case studies from photographers Doug Chinnery and Joel Tjintjelaar, to compliment his own work, and created an excellent primer on the subject. I’m as excited as I am about this one because I’m using so much intentional camera movement in my own work, as I explore impressionism, and it’s resulted in new ideas and projects I’d have never pursued if I hadn’t started thinking laterally about exposure. Between my twilight series (blue skies at dusk, not pasty pubescent vampires) and my impressionist stuff, it’s been a while since I either anchored my camera to a tripod for 30-second to 10-minute exposures, or slowed the shutter to something like 1/5s and had an intentional seizure, moving the camera back and forth. Watching me make photographs has never been so entertaining (or taken so long!) Even the bulk of my iPhone photographs these days come out of an app called Slow Shutter.

If you’re looking to explore the creative possibilities behind the slow end of the shutter dial, looking for some new ideas, or wanting a primer on intentional camera motion, panning, or long exposure techniques, SLOW is an excellent place to begin.

Special Offer on PDFs

For the first five days only, use the promotional code  SLOW4  when you checkout and pay only $4 OR on CraftandVision.com use the code  SLOW20  to get 20% off when you buy 5+ PDF eBooks.

These codes expire at 11:59pm (PST) November 18, 2012.