I can’t believe that it is Friday again.  In reality I think that I have pretty much lost track of time since I came out to the east coast for the summer and especially since I came to camp.  I have been at camp for almost a week, it is crazy.  I can’t wait for the kids to arrive, and that isn’t until next week!  I did however, remember that I should post a photo today, though I don’t remember what it was that made me even think that it was Friday!

A little girl looks out at the water in La Rochelle, France

I captured this image in La Rochelle, France while I was working on the Ms. Prinsendam.  As I mentioned in my last post, people watching can be very fun and interesting.  This girl was with another young girl who I assumed was her sister, but there were no parents in sight.  I could pass up getting a few shots of her looking out from the ramparts (not sure if that is really the right term) at the ocean.

This images was touched up in Photoshop.  I added a watercolor filter effect to it to enhance the texture.  I would probably approach the image differently today than I did four years ago when I shot it.  It is an image that I come back to often, so maybe I will revisit it and see if I can make it any better than it is.  I have used in cards before and people have told me that, out of all the cards that I made, this was one of the favorites.  I probably need to make some more!

As always, comments, questions, and critique are always welcome!

My summer that is.  Yesterday I officially said my goodbye’s at the theatre (just for the summer that is), packed up my junk and this morning I made my trek over to the east coast.  Pretty normal travel day all things considered, 6AM wake-up, have Sunreon pound on my door at 6:20, load up my junk into her car and head over to The Red Moose for a cup of coffee and a breakfast burrito.  I can’t remember if I ever mentioned this little coffee shop before, they haven’t been around that long (I believe since December) but they have great coffee and great food.  They are also practically right across the street from my house which could be a dangerous thing.

The traveling today was pretty painless.  I still think that it is a pain in the ass to get from the door of the airport to the door of the plane, but when you fly early enough in the day getting through security is pretty efficient.  In general, flying on Southwest is pretty efficient.  They seem to really be able to get you from one place to the next without much hoopla.  They also have pretty good fares.  I do love sitting in the terminal and on the plane during boarding listening to the agents and flight attendants try to explain to people about the open seating.  There are some people who really just don’t get it.  It isn’t that hard to understand is it?

As we loaded up the first plane (SLC to MDW) I ended up sitting next to a very interesting gentleman who works for the VA hospital right across the street from the theatre.  We shall call him D for the sake of privacy.  It turned out that he was also flying from SLC to MHT, though his reasons for the trip were not quite as upbeat as mine.  He was a very nice man and we had a great conversation for most of the flight.  In fact, by the time that we stopped chatting I only was able to make it about halfway through the new “Alice in Wonderland” movie.  In the end I suppose that isn’t terrible because now I can watch it on a screen larger than my iPhone.  I never did see it in theaters, and I was totally OK with that.

We arrived at MDW a couple minutes early which is a good thing because the layover was only 35 minutes.  I probably should and cold have grabbed some food, but since people were already lining up to board, I figured that I would hit the head and then get in line.  I ended up sitting with the D again and another interesting person who I believe was around my age.  This flight, which was only around 1:30-sin in length, the tree of us chatted the entire time.  I don’t think that I have ever had that much interaction with the people that I have been sitting with (who are not friends or family) on an airplane before.  In the end, D and I exchanged cards, and will probably connect again when I get back to Utah.  He has kids who he would love to see get involved in the arts, and he knows some people at one of the youth theatre organizations that he wanted to put me in touch with.

With an on-time arrival in Manchester I met my parents and I finally got to meet the new puppies.  They are sooo cute!  They are crazy hyper, like all huskies, but they are a lot of fun.  However they did manage to pinch my old Red Sox cap from my bag and chew it up.  It is a little sad, but I am sure that I will get over it (and get a new cap).  So, since it is Friday, I think that I will leave you with one of my father’s photos of the puppies.  The white one is Ava, and the black/silver one is Zoe.

Zoe and Ava on the back porch

I suppose that I should also mention that for the rest of the summer (until mid August) I will be on the east coast, primarily in Maine and New Hampshire working at Indian and Forest Acres camps.  My blogging may be a little more erratic over the summer, but I will keep you all up to date!

Well, I have posted a lot of photos recently due to the photo workshop that I was on last week.  I can’t believe that it was already a week ago.  Time is kinda flying now.  I need to get things ready and packed to go to the east coast next week and I have things to ship as well.  However, all that considered, there is always time for another photo post!

My photo for this week comes from the workshop.  I have actually got almost all of my picks for photos from the workshop posted over on IceWolf Photography.  The photo I chose though, is another HDR image of Balanced Rock in Arches National Park.  I have been getting some really interesting and beautiful results from some of the HDR images that I have created.  I love how the colors really pop and the textures in the clouds are pretty cool as well.

It is certainly a beautiful desert that we have here in Utah.  I don’t think that I would ever get tired of shooting it.  As always, comments and criticism are welcome!

The final day of the photography workshop that I have been at this week started dark and early at 0410 when our alarm went off.  Under the barely blueish pre-dawn light we made our way up to Dead Horse Point State Park to photograph the sunrise.  As I mentioned before, we photographers are a very rare breed.  Not only do we like to get up for things like sunrise, we like to do it multiple times in the same week.  If you think getting up before dawn and being out till after sunset is hard one day out of the week, try doing it twice!  I am quite happy though as these “golden hour” shoots are something that I really wanted to do at some point here in Moab, so being with people who also wanted to do that was great!

Dead Horse Point State Park is an incredible place.  My grandfather likes to describe it as a “mini Grand Canyon.”  When you see it, it is not too far from an accurate statement.  From the park you look out over a canyon carved by the Green River, though not as deep or as large as the Grand Canyon, the concept is similar.  Sunrise yielded some amazing colors and views.  It was also another time to experiment with shooting some HDR images.  I am still trying to figure out what I need in terms of shots for HDR and what all the options do when you composite them in the computer.  I have been able to turn out some interesting shots though.

This entire trip I have managed to find some precarious looking positions to shoot from.  Sometimes you have to do something crazy to get the shot.  This morning I was the first person to climb over the wall on the rim of of the park to set up for the sunrise shots.  I think I actually spent a lot of time on the other side of the wall.  I am told that my picking interesting places to plan myself led to a number of photos of me, though I have yet to see them.  However, I did think to whip out my little P&S camera that I have been carrying around all week to grab a photo of me on the edge.  It isn’t the best photo, so don’t look at it too big, but it will give you an idea.

This is me on the edge of the rim at Dead Horse Point State Park

After shooting for a while at the park we headed back into town for breakfast.  Certainly a welcome thing to do.  We got to the restaurant a little after 0800 which meant that we had already been up for at least four hours.  Needless to say, even though we were eating at Denny’s, breakfast was good.  We even almost had the whole group back together as the sickest member was finally feeling well enough to get out of the hotel.

From breakfast we went right over to Arches National Park again to walk through Devil’s Garden and over to Sand Dune Arch.  The big thing to see in Devil’s Garden is Landscape Arch.  Odds are, this will be one of the next arches to succumb to the relentless forces of gravity and erosion.  Back in the 1990′s (’91 I believe) a large section of the arch fell.  It is the widest known span in the park and it isn’t very thick.  I don’t think that I have ever been able to do justice to shooting Landscape Arch before, but I think that I may have got a couple good ones today.  It is a tough one to shoot because you can’t get that close to it, and it is really big.  Also, if you don’t have a generally upward shot, there isn’t much contrast between the arch and it’s surroundings.  You really need sky in the shot (or snow as I have seen in a few photos).

The last stop of the workshop (in terms of shooting locations) was Sand Dune Arch.  In my humble opinion, not the most exciting to photograph.  Of course today it was also complicated by high wind, tight spaces and too many people.  It was really hard to find a moment to get a clear shot with no people in it.  Couple that with the sand that was blowing around in the wind and the experience was just kinda blah.  It will be interesting to see if any of the images I got there are worth writing home about.  Having already played in the sand earlier at PIne Tree Arch, I think most of us were pretty ready to be done.

The workshop concluded with a wrap up classroom session back at the hotel before some people had to make their exit.  Overall, I was very happy with the workshop, I feel like I have learned a lot.  I learned how to really use my camera as the tool that it is and to interpret all the information and feedback it gives you.  I learned a lot of new ways to think about composition and ideas for how to continue to develop my “eye.”  Tuner was a great instructor, very knowledgeable and very helpful.  We also had a great group of photographers with insight from all areas of experience and everyone was willing and eager to share.  The biggest thing that I felt was lacking was sharing and critiquing our images.  I would have loved to get the group’s feedback to see if I was actually doing the things that we were talking about throughout the course.  In general though, a fun and educational experience.

Before really calling it quits from the workshop, most of us ended the week together at Buck’s.  Every trip to Moab should include a dinner at Buck’s.  On the outside it looks like it is just another road house, but inside it is actually a nice steakhouse.  We had a great time, exchanged business cards, and said our good-byes.  It is really wonderful how well we all bonded and how many members of the group offered their homes to anyone who wanted to come visit.  I don’t think that I could have asked for a better time.

With that, I shall leave you with one more photo.  This one is an HDR image from sunrise this morning.  A fisheye view looking out over the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park from Dead Horse Point State Park.  Hopefully no one reading this gets vertigo, and if you do, you have been warned.

Morning Needles ©2010 Alex Weisman

As always, comments and criticism are welcome.  I would love to hear from you.  I am sure that over the next week I will get through all of my images from the workshop and post them up at IceWolf Photography.

Thankfully today didn’t start wicked early, we got to sleep until about 0600 so that we could be ready for an 0730 departure.  On the other hand, we are doing another early morning tomorrow with an 0445 departure, so I m going to try to be brief so that I can get to bed.

We spent all of today shooting in Arches National Park with a break for some classroom time and lunch mid-day.  The morning we spent shooting in the “Windows” section of the park around Turret Arch and Double Arch.  Lots of fun opportunities there.  After the classroom time we headed back to the park to the other vantage point of Delicate Arch.  Certainly and interesting and different view, and much less of a hike to get there.  This was the first time all week that I pulled out my long lens!

I finally think, after four trips to Arches, that I have got shots of Balanced Rock that do it justice.  We got there just before sunset and the light was spectacular.  Then as the sun sank lower We saw some amazing reds and purples show up on the rocks and mountains.  This is the kind of like that allows you to see the “Purple Mountain Majesties!”  I would love to share on of those images tonight, but I have not even looked at them yet.  One of the other crazy things about the sunset was the line up of photographers all waiting for the magic moment.  There were probably over 40 people there with cameras on tripods.

After the sun went down, as we started to pack up, this Japanese woman asked us to pose for a photo of us in silhouette against the sunset.  So we did.  Then of course more of the Japanese tourists came over to take our picture.  This morphed into them asking us to do a jumping photo at which point almost 20 of them were trying to take our photo.  After they spaced us out and counted us off a couple times, we felt like we were done, when one man said to us: “More higher!” we just quit.  Of course we left them a card so maybe we will get a photo in email!

On that note, I shall leave you with an image for today as I hit the sack.  This is Turret Arch:

Turret Arch at Arches National Park ©2010 Alex Weisman

As always, comments and critiques are welcome!