“Hello everyone.”

My word! - the past few weeks have been very busy, but it is great to be back in Canada, enjoying the summer and looking forward to the release of the Nikon D700 which I think will do just nicely as a general purpose dSLR, saving me $2000 over the same image engine of the D3.

Anyway, this past Saturday I found out that the local cement works was having an open afternoon and with a free BBQ, bus tour and some large diggers and trucks for my “mighty machine” mad son to climb over it seemed that the afternoon was set up perfectly.

"Open Day"

So a Cement Works in the beautiful rural ideal of Prince Edward County - Is that possible? How has that been allowed! Well I have to say that because of the lack of other industry the steaming chimney and other pale yellow industrial structures associated with the 1000 acre site do appear a bit of a blot on the landscape.

But…

… like many things, when you understand a little more about what is going on there is a lot more to it than that and although I’ll be honest and say I’m glad it’s not at the end of my garden, I was actually fairly impressed. And at the end of the day I guess we do need cement for many things, and industry - whether new or old, clean or dirty, does provide an image hunting ground for a freestyle artistic photographer such as myself.

"Mighty Machine"

However a bus tour during a family day out is not the ideal platform for creating award winning or commercial use images - a tripod, tilt shift lens and an elevated vantage point is really needed for high end work - but as I’m currently experimenting with some advanced techniques using a combination of new software, some grab shots of pipes and chimneys were just what I needed.

"One of the Drying Kilns"

Why; well these make good subjects for those, oh some folks are going to cringe here, HDR type shots. Well I’m not going to call anything here true HDR, like I’m not going to explain HDR principles tonight, but some shots that you’ll see later have been subject to a technique that extends the dynamic range by extracting as much useable data that I can find in the file. The difference with these is that I’m not using any specific HDR software like photomatix the popular tool I often use for this task.

They are all generated from a single shot, which while not uncommon, does limit the overall image to the data that one file can collect. However of new technique is using a single shot without making multiple adjustment files that are required for many HDR software applications. (Photomatix does have a single shot ability but for some reason I never fully explored this feature.) But what may surprise many people is that the primary software, albeit the second stage of the process,  is our friend Adobe Lightroom!! I’m sure you could use other RAW convertor / image editing software in exactly the same way too but you’ll have to try for yourself! 

"Bridge Stone!"

Normally I like to try and restrain myself to keeping a reasonably natural look, but I’m afraid with all the pipes and big trucks around it just isn’t always possible and anyway, I wanted to see just how far I could push things with some of the images. The purists can shout as loud as they like, these almost CGI effect images are in many ways how many folks under about Thirtyish see the world -  and whether you like them or hate them, the ability to generate them with just a few clicks is something that I find very exciting.

"Extending the tonal range?"

Previously one could take hours preparing files, wait during processing time and then the fiddle of tone mapping, all prior to a lot more work in Photoshop, and you could still end up with problems like halos that ruined the image. OK you could just blend layers in photoshop, and arguably the best results are often achieved this way, but on complex images this takes even longer.  I guess if I was to prepare one of these as a large print, or if I was working with a several file stack which in true HDR images you should be, then I may well go through my previous workflow as it probably squeezes a little more, but 2min v Potentially Several Hours on my creaking powerbook - it’s a no brainer for general one shot images!!!

"I think this one is Bigger!"

In Part two I’ll show you the evolution of a couple of pictures, talk a little more about squeezing more dynamic range out of a file, but for now please enjoy some more images from the tour. Your comments are always wecome!

"Power Point!"

"Ready For the Crusher"

"South Quarry"

For all of the images from the afternoon click on the photo’s or this link!

Take care, Steven

www.stevendraperphotography.com

All images are copyright of stevendraper 2008 and unauthorized use is not permitted.  Enquires regarding there use are welcome.

Hello 

I’ve recived two exciting emails over the past couple of days. Firstly both of my pieces were selected for the Art in the County Show, which is something I’m pretty proud of. 

This excitement developed further yesterday when I was told that I had won an award for Natural Support. Wow wee! I’m not sure what award I have won - I’ll have to see if the web site gets updated to provide more information, but needless to say I am very pleased to have a piece recognized at the show.

The example entered is matted and framed by myself, the image area being approx. 151/2″ x 101/2. This is an example of what is under the matt of one of my signature edition prints.

Steven

Hello

It has been a flat out couple of weeks for a variety of reasons and unfortunately the blog has got a little behind, even though several interesting things have been happening! Part of the rush has been caused by a requirement to visit the UK, where I am now, a minor plumbing emergency at our home just before we departed and other things like internet problems!

When looking at what “The County” has to offer prior to moving here, a prestigious juried art show called “Art in the County” designed to showcase the very best work from the 300+ local artist caught our eye. Between 80 - 100 pieces are selected from all of the entries by a jury panel for the show which runs from June 20th until July 6th at the Old Town Hall, Picton. This years panel comprises of Linda Jansma, curator at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, George Earl Wale an artist and director of programs at the Burlington Art Centre where he has worked since 1994 and George A. Walker an associate professor at the Ontario College of Art and Design, and an award-winning illustrator and author of of several books. The panel is also responsible for making a number of awards.

Despite a number of challenges that conspired to try and derail every aspect of my entry, I managed to have two of my pieces delivered to the show which is running while I am tying up some business in the UK and away from all the action. The pieces are “In a Spin” and “Natural Support” I’ll add some images soon and keep you posted on how things go!

Steven

Whistle Tweet Whistle Tweet Whistle!!

I spent the morning wondering around local woods with an amazing chap called Terry Spratt who could tune into the bird song and tell us the names of the birds that were around and then point out to where they were. (Just like someone might be able to decode my birdsong hello - yes it really is an apt code - answer next week sometime!) I love birds, perhaps in the past some of my energy existed in birds, who knows. I’m a bit lens limited for the little ones, but I can just about get away with a big crop on the web.

” a very pretty little bird on this mornings walk”

Listening to all that wonderful birdsong, the complex communication that was going on all around me in the trees got me thinking, about how we communicate, let others know what we are up to, what we are doing. Is blogging a human birdsong? - what a transition!! CBC I’m waiting for the call! So I’ve been flying in and out of other peoples doors and windows to see how the experts do it.

This led me to a number of conclusions when seeing 500000+ hits on some sites. Perhaps I should visit my site all day from my wife’s computer !!!!!!!! No I’m honest really I am! But I did stumble across something of a strategy to get the hits without resorting to sly marketing, a sexy avatar or being naughty with the keywords. Lets have a schedule, I mean it almost seems to be a rule, like a “rule of thirds” for blogs. So lets make it like a magazine here at “The Compete Picture.”  So here it is, my first draft, well if you click continue!

• The Monday Muse - containing inspired, life changing waffle like this!
• Top Tip Tuesday - How can a photo-blog be complete without explanation of “exposure.” Let me tell you what the Button next to the letters ON-OFF does; I’m sure you want me to tell you that I can prove that there are no rules in photography. OK maybe I will explain ICC profiles one day, or confess all about HDR.
• Wondering Wednesday - I could tell you all about the living in Prince Edward County, Ontario the greatest place on Earth! What a plug for my photo tours and workshops that would be!!!
• Thursday - Well I do need to take some pictures for friday, and my son has Beavers too in the eveneing!!!!!!
• Image in Focus Friday - where I blatantly post at least 1000+ images - straight off my camera - to block up the tag search and annoy you into visiting my site. Then I can leave no info about them other than plug that you can buy online at “these sites” You know Fine Art photography, it’s so easy isn’t it?
• The Saturday Surprise - “Exactly what it say’s on the Tin” (might need to be English to understand that one - so it’s a link) Probably the other 500 images that I didn’t bombard you with on Friday, kind of repeat advertising like they do on TV. First the long advert, then a quick refresher before the movie continues, just incase you forgot that “SuperDo” make this in the 5 seconds since the long advert, or confused it with the rivals DooperSo.
• Sharing Sunday - Links to all those other millions of web sites and other annoying things.

Perhaps I’ve been unlucky and just found influence from the wrong sites, but anyway today is Thursday. OK that makes life easy - no more post - the end!!!!!

Byeeeee Steven

So I shouldn’t be writing tonight as I sit here in my home office / studio. I shouldn’t tell you that I can detect smells of my favourite ”sausage and leek” supper coming from the kitchen, where, through the open door, I can see the smile on my wifes face as she prepares my favourite supper.  I can hear what sounds like Go Diego on the television, and there are a lots of excited shrieks coming from my youngest son that suggest he is up to something I should really check out!

You wouldn’t know that outside the sun is shining and the light is just starting to soften into  what I expect will be a lovely golden end to the day. The birds are signing, the dogs are barking - let me feed them….  ….. Dogs are now quiet. 

On a schedule I wouldn’t be able to share with you “almost live” why I have a hand made tumbler containing some good aged scotch and a very significant letter on the desk beside me. A letter that if I ever become an iconic 21st century photographer and have a museum built to honour my achievements, would be on display somewhere prominent, I dream on!!!!!!

It’s really surreal, I’ve known this moment was coming, but right now it is here. “Steven, we’ve concidered the medical reports, we are sorry to say that it is  Game Over.” Please see attached letter to give to your employer, of which I’m technically not allowed to blog about. But in the future airports will mean joining the que with everybody else at security, no longer having great big windows to watch the world go by, no access to the most exiting in-flight entertainment screens, buttons and other interactive knobs and levers, oh nearly forgot no pay………………………………. My word, and you know, just like the letter that started my career, its on horrible thin paper and has been photocopied wonky.

Sad, yes, but actually the sadness was in the dark days of the past. When you realize that the only way out is forward, not back, you tend to want to move on as quick as you can. So the beginning of the end game of Life part one is actually something of a huge relief.

Life part 2, well it will be different, almost opposite to part one. Careful diet, regular sleep and expensive tablets will be part of it, a family life and speaking through photography will be the other. I can see my little blog being part of the future too, but today your reading about the now. And isn’t that part of what blogs were meant to be about. Writings that are in the present, not with all the hindsight about today that comes with the sunrise tomorrow?

In my kind of photography, when I wake up in the morning I never know what I might see during the day. How will the light work, who will I see, where will I find myself? No schedule to operate by any more, divine moments and creativity are gifts that come when they are given, not when they are asked for.  

As the sun sets beautifully at the close of another day I can say that there won’t be a schedule here, just like my viewfinder, you’ll get what you get. Sometimes this, sometimes that, sometimes nothing new at all! So you’ll just have to keep checking in. But I will always give you part of me, some kind of picture, and eventually you’ll have “the complete picture.”

And as you’ve stuck to the end here is one that means a lot tonight:

“Final Departure”

Take Care, Steven

Be Free, Be True, Be Creative 

www.stevendraperphotography.com

The past week has been very busy, and the outcome wasn’t just improvements to the organization of my hard drives, or the disorganization of my blog by playing with different themes and losing all my widget info!

Critical Event is the name given to my event photography work, and it will now reside with its own galleries and info blog - “criticalevent”. This will just make it easier to navigate around each zone, I mean if you are looking at event photo’s do you care about arty fine art prints that cost several times as much?

“Thanks Dad”

One thing I don’t subscribe to is that a “lower” standard of work should be acceptable just because you are not always in control of every aspect of a shot, and any workflows needs to be carried out promptly. Yes some moments do have to be grabbed very quickly and people don’t want to be standing around while you make several camera adjustments, or attempt some more creative angles. So a use a puff of fill flash, set f8 and keep an eye on your shutter speed and ISO - Oh, watch for those highlight blow-outs that wreck images! I still shoot Raw, you just never know when you might need all the data!

I think, if you are photographing other people at an event, then as a photographer you have a responsibility to ensure that the images you present respect the moments that you capture. So I still have a quality over quantity approach, even if that does mean dumping the million dollar winning smile because you’ve managed to capture, in the soft focus of the background, a view down some mum’s top as she bends down to adjust her point and shoot. 

Outside Event work isn’t all about smile, grins or gritty expressions either, my over-riding photographic philosophy applies - stand still, look around and with the benefit of a quality telephoto you can reach into magical moments, and capture them forever.

So have a look at these shots, take a peak at my latest gallery let me know what you think.

Take Care

Steven

www.stevendraperphotography.com

Hi

Well I’m busy trying to sort out my hard drives into something of a workable archive in Lightroom. Through my big office widows I can see the mornings sun has been replaced with an ominous grey. Was that a rumble of thunder?

A few minutes ago, I came across this old scanned image of mine. It dates back to Mildenhall Airfete 86 or 87 and was taken on my big heavy “everything manual” Zenith TTL with, with its mid range lens, felt like a bazooka. It seems strange to think that in the latter years of the cold war I was “shooting” Nato aeroplanes with a Soviet camera!

The weather that day started sunny and warm, the cumulus building up and up until, like today, it all went very sudden grey. Blast, it might rain I thought, and boy, it certainly did. The crowd line was no longer ten people deep as many of the 200000 people dashed back to cars, the gift tents or the hanger, where for a few pounds or dollars,  you could buy a really greasy BBQ cooked burger to go with your icy tin of US beer, and then eat it under the wing of an F-15 Eagle while pretending to be American!

I stayed put, as a 16 years old an airshow was a massive treat for me, and I wasn’t going to miss anything, especially as the Royal Air Force’s aerobatic display team the  Red Arrows were on soon. However there was something very exciting about to drift through the Suffolk air that afternoon, and it wasn’t burger smoke!

“Weather or Not”

It almost looks like a  ”mid west” Tornado, but we are in the rural flatlands of Suffolk, in Eastern UK. But on the right you can see the you can see the moist air being sucked downwards and then into the rotating tunnel cloud. Not surprisingly flying stopped for a while, the unstable air around this cloud would certainly cause some unscheduled aerobatics!

But it’s not a Tornado. This is a “roll cloud” that forms along a storms “gust front” when cold air from a storm downdraft lifts warm air above the condensation level to produce a menacing looking site. The Red Arrows have their smoke trails too, but this cloud was one rare aerial display I was very glad to see. Even so I only took one exposure of it, and I’ve never seen another picture of it on the web, despite searching! OK mine has not been seen for 20+ years either!

That leads me on, and sort of back to what I’m meant to be doing right now. Going by some online galleries you’d think that you have to take 70+ exposures of each flypast now days, and that kind of amazes me. I only took one exposure of the cloud because I had only taken two rolls of 36exp Fujichrome 100 with me that day to an 8 hour air show, and by now we were very close to the end of the day! Back then, when a roll of film would sometimes last me for several days out, plus other photo missions, many of my competition successes came from sequences of just one or two exposures. Two films in one day was a luxury!  And thankgoodness, the trunk of slides sitting in the corner of my office, awaiting the day I finally buy a decent film scanner, is big enough as it is!!! 

Take Care! Steven

stevendraperphotography.com

Hi everyone.

OK, I should be doing some other things right now! I’ve a couple of posts that my “coming soon box” has been advertising for a little too long, and then, some prints to make ready for Mondays post. But overall I should actually be in bed now, planting 100 trees with my son and a few others tomorrow will be hard work for a day-dreamy chap like me.

But if you’re creative then you’ll understand that sometimes your energy gets focused towards something you just need to do, regardless of what’s going on around - smoke pouring from oven, my eldest boy screaming in one ear “Dad, the chips are burning,” whilst on the other my accountant saying, “just to let you know we couldn’t file your electronic tax return……….” And that happened to me today, stubbling across an image file whilst sorting out my hard drive.

But before I reveal everything, I’m not one for creating those long pages that scroll on forever in the tag searcher, here’s a little teaser.

“Image Detail -Teaser”

Look to the sky and what do you see,

Can you see what is hidden in me,

Or do your eyes view shades of blue

with hazy greys that drift on through,

Maybe, that is a thundercloud!

With noise that rumbles long and loud,

But I am there, just look you’ll see,

click continue, a rainbow - maybe?

“Crystal Rainbows”

I cannot believe I just vandalized the last line of some words that seemed to drift into my mind while watching the rainbow colours of my mac’s spinning ball of death. 2Gb of  16bit, layered Tiff are not comfy on this battered old powerbook anymore!!

The last line of my poetic dabbling should be, for those one or two who might be interested.

But I am there, just look you’ll see,

In every sky, will beauty be.

Happy Dreams, Steven

Hello

One of the great things about photography is breaking a few rules from time to time - now don’t start me on the  ”There are no rules in photography” debate, I’ll save that for later.

Anyway as someone who does gets paid for their images, well sometimes, I should only show off the finished, highly polished, 0.0001% of files that sit on my hard-drive!

But sometimes life provides a moment of excitement that although the image isn’t going to win any prizes, is possibly worth sharing. And this is one. It’s a massive crop, and by that I mean I’ve kind of zoomed in on the interesting part by getting rid of most of the image. (this would have required a lens of about 800mm to fill the frame like this) It’s a bit blurry up close, but then it was getting dark,  hand held, and taken through the highly camera friendly optical properties of the car windscreen, of which I had carefully parked, hazards on etc!!!! 8^) Actually, it doesn’t look to bad on the web, perhaps I should have kept quiet!!!

“Dear oh Dear”

I’ve seen the deer as little dots at the bottom of the field behind our house, but this was much closer - I’m not sure who was more surprised, me or the Deer - it didn’t hang around for long!

Take Care, Steven

Hello everyone.

For this image I take us into the highways of the sky, back to a world I know so well, back into something of a real emergency in my studio the other night.

“Airway 401″

Highway 401 runs along the Nothern shore of Lake Ontario, connecting the Canadian cities of Toronto and Montreal. An airway follows the same path, only a little wider and thankfully somewhat higher. It is one I’ve travelled several times, flying at over 1000km/hour and leaving those annoying little trails of white water vapour behind.

Last week, the sun had just set, and my final images were made with my lens pointing into the sky south of nearby Belleville. Pressing the shutter I recorded the various states of contrail decay to the sensor in my camera, which in turn passed the 19mb of RAW data onto one of my older compact flash cards. It appeared to load onto my Hard Drive OK, until…….

… this rather worrying message appeared on my screen.

Now, in my life as a pilot, responsible for the safety of all the passengers and crew, protecting them from those little snags that try to spoil your day was kind of high on my “things to do at work” agenda. In fact, the first priority was to spot the snags in advance and avoid them, but none the less, there’d still be a few “moments” to sort out from time to time.

And after trying several other things I realized that I’d encountered a photographic “moment” some kind of compact flash card failure, the digital photographers equivalent to having an engine pack up on your airliner…, maybe not…, well losing your suitcase anyway.

Fortunately help is at hand. When things go wrong, people realize that there is money to be made in making it right. So, in exchange for a small fee, ($40 - $80 is typical) a variety of data recovery programmes are just waiting for you to click “download” so they can come to your rescue and save the day.

detail of the sky

Having thought that this may one day happen, I already had one such programme, well at least I thought I did! Lexar bundled their “Image Rescue 3″ onto some pro CF cards last year and I’d picked one up to fill my data requirements. But sadly no amount of searching could locate it on my HD, however thanks to a few emails the kind folks at Lexar sent me an attachment containing another copy!

Anyway it did the trick and recovered most of the data. In fact there were still a few problems, for example this image will still not open as a raw file in Capture NX, but I could open it Nikon View and make a TIFF, tasks that had been impossible prior to recovery.

So when things go pear shaped, and at some point they will, don’t panic. Read the manual, call the supplier, Cry “Mayday” on the forums!! Explain your situation and there will be someone who can help.

Steven

More images at www.stevendraperphotography.com

… from previous post.

I’ve recently found harmony, a place where I can sense my spirit dancing with the energy within the passing clouds and singing with the birds in the treetops. Waking up each morning in a place I described in an earlier post as my “watership down,” I have every reason in the world to protect everything about what is around my new home. Every day is an Earth Day here.

My wife named our small 40 acre farm “Sengdroma” which is Tibetan for “The Protector of Herds.” I think it is a fantastic name which embodies everything about how we intend to manage the land, the animals we want to bring here, the animals, flora and fauna that already live amongst the trees, ponds, and grasses.

As a photographer I look forward to photographing the wild life, the moods and the little moments that mother nature provides. Long term we plan a small additional building in which we can share and educate those who visit. Space that will provide studio and gallery opportunities for myself and a creative studio overlooking the lands we manage and the skies I enjoy.

Living in the heart of Prince Edward County, near the quaint town of Picton, I have great access to the surrounding scenery, lake Ontario, and many other interesting places, whilst being about 2 hours drive from Toronto. There is also a fairly large population base within 45 minutes, although most are over the bridges on the mainland.

But in my books, living at the wavelength that I enjoy is key in allowing the creative ideas and energies to do their stuff, and as I unpack items and start to organise my computers, printers and other equipment in the basement under our house, I look forward to a life sharing my view of the messages and emotions from the world around me.

I’m off to enjoy the sunshine! Steven