52 weeks: Week 2 wrapup

© 2010 Simon Hucko

Week 2 of our 52 weeks project has come to an end. The number of submissions dropped a little, so to all of you who didn't make it this week you'd better submit something extra awesome next week! ;)

My photo this week comes from the gorge at Toughannock falls, just north of Ithaca. The falls themselves are very impressive and worth a trip in, but there were plenty of other interesting photo opps with the creek being frozen over. This was taken at a little drop (no more than 6 inches) where a small patch hadn't completely frozen over. I used a polarizer to cut the glare on the water and to help extend exposure. This was a 4 second exposure at f/22. Black and white conversion was done with a blue filter to darken the rocks even more (they had an orange-red cast to them) and really bring out the ice and foam.

All right, enough about me. This week's winning photo is "shiver" by [Adam_Baker]:

© Adam Baker

The tones, the wonderful composition, and most of all the falling snow all drew me to this photo. It's a beautiful, icy, thorny representation of winter, and is my pick for the week. Nicely done, Adam.

Another photo I feel deserves mention is this untitled shot by JustinZoll (a close second for me and Rachel's favorite this week):

© Justin Zoll

The thing that caught my eye the most was the contrast between the textures in the reflection. I like the rule-of-thirds framing, too. This would make a great piece of wall art - I encourage you to get it printed large (at least 12x18) and hang it somewhere.

That's it for this week. Thanks again for your submissions and for all of the comments going around the group. Don't be afraid to post discussion topics, either; questions, how-to's, and any other information you want to share are more than welcome! Keep those photos coming.

~S

[title of blog] on flickr

Managing Vacation Photos

© 2009 Simon Hucko

I've already written a bit about managing your workflow, but I thought I would talk specifically about how I handled photos on this trip.

I have a relatively small amount of card storage available to me, and I was certain I would go over capacity pretty quickly. Rather than go buy new CF cards that I'll likely never need again, I decided to bring my laptop and a card reader and use it to dump my photos onto every day. (There are specific devices that are basically a hard drive with a card reader attached that will do the same thing, but they're even more expensive than new memory cards.) After setting up a series of dated folders, I was ready to start shooting.

Over the past year my shooting style has evolved a bit. I tend to avoid pressing the shutter unless I'm reasonably confident that I have a good photo in the viewfinder. Often I'll adjust exposure and take another shot (learn to love your histogram), but keep the same basic framing. This philosophy greatly cuts down on the number of photos that I take to begin with, helping me not to fill up memory cards and cutting down on processing time later.

There are a few exceptions to this, though. Sometimes I think "there's a great image in there somewhere," and will spend a few minutes trying different approaches to the subject until I find it or realize that I just can't get it due to lighting, timing, physical obstacles, etc. Also, when I'm shooting people I'll often take a few quick photos in a row to make sure I capture the expression I want with their eyes open. (I think people have a sixth sense about cameras and manage to blink right when the shutter is tripped.) I also tend to shoot short bursts in low light to ensure that I get a sharp shot.

I don't usually recommend deleting photos in camera, but to save space I would delete shots that I knew right away were bad (missed exposure, obviously blurry, bad timing and whatnot). By being picky with what I shot and deleting the FUBARs, I never even came close to filling up my cards for the day.

When we finally got home, I realized I had no good way to get the 9GB of photos from my laptop to our iMac. In a perfect world I would have a networked folder on the iMac that I could upload all of the photos to. In the real world, I decided not to mess around with any of that and just used a thumb drive to move photos over 1GB at a time. A little bit of foresight would have saved me a good amount of time here, so learn from my mistake and have something set up for transfer.

I created a new folder in my Aperture library for the trip, and created several projects within the folder: one for each day (dated and labeled with where we were), one for bracketed shots that I took for some HDR images down the line, and one for a few panos that I'm going to stitch together. These got separate folders because I didn't have time to work on them right away, and this way I can find them easily and don't have to go digging through the rest of the photos.

Final photo count for the vacation? Just under 1000, which is about half of what I expected I would shoot (not that I'm complaining). After sorting and starring, I ended up with just under 500 to share with friends and family. Of these 500, I expect only about a dozen will make it to flickr.

Editing 500 photos was no fun task, but I made good use of Aperture's "lift and stamp" functionality. Because I shoot in RAW and have a preferred style of editing, every photo gets the same basic treatment (slight contrast boost, little bit of vibrancy, mild noise reduction, sharpening, small amount of vignette). By editing one "average" photo and lifting the adjustments, I saved a lot of time and was able to fly through most of the images. With these basic adjustments lifted and ready to go, I would adjust white balance if necessary, clean up exposure and highlight recovery if necessary, straighten and crop if necessary, then stamp the adjustments. Obviously, not every photo will benefit from this basic processing, but I could handle those on a case by case basis. I know that Lightroom has presets available, where you could do something very similar (and better, IMO, since you can set up a few different presets for different situations like landscape, portrait, low light, etc and have them ready to go). I'm not sure about other photo editing applications, but it's worth doing a little digging if you're going to have to process a high volume of images and have a somewhat standardized set of adjustments that you do to each one.

Sorry for the rather lengthy text-filled post, but there are a few good take away lessons in there. First, make sure you plan ahead and have enough storage space for all of your photos while on vacation. Second, make sure you have a good way of getting those photos on to your primary computer. Third, try to mean it each time you press the shutter, it will save you space and editing time. Finally, lift and stamp or presets make editing a lot easier and faster.

Plenty more to come about the trip. Stay tuned!

~S

[title of blog] on flickr

52 weeks: Week 1 wrapup

© 2010 Simon Hucko

Well, we made it through the first week of the 52 weeks project. We got 13 submissions from the 17 people signed up for the group, so that ain't bad. Keep up the great work, and remember that photos should be taken sometime within the week that you post them.

My photo this week comes from the beach at Cozumel. It was a quick pick as I was in a jam to finish editing photos from the vacation, and in retrospect I think I probably could have done better. I like the feeling of isolation and peacefulness of the shot, though, and the great texture in the sand. Looking at it again I should probably have boosted the exposure a little and warmed it up a tad to give it a brighter beach feeling, but c'est la vie.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for. My favorite from the first week's submissions is... (drumroll please)

"Big Wheel, Head On" by matt.mendick

© Matt Mendick

I really like the symmetry and the unique perspective. There are a few technical issues here (some of the reflections are a little distracting, and there's that shadow in the bottom left), but I kept coming back to it. When trying to decide on a "winner" this week, my wife Rachel also picked this one out almost immediately as her favorite. There's just something very compelling and unique about this composition, like being a little kid staring up at your new toy. Nicely done, Matt.

This week's submissions close at Saturday midnight, so get shooting and get them in! Thanks again to everyone who participated, I'm looking forward to seeing your next entries.

Also, if you know anyone else who might be interested in joining (or if you're a reader and you haven't done so yet), we always welcome new members :)

~S

[title of blog] on flickr

Happy New Year

© 2009 Simon Hucko

OK, so I'm a little behind on the New Year thing. Sorry all. Finally returned to civilization today after cruising the Caribbean. Between Christmas and this vacation I came home with around 1300 photos to sort through, so I'll be spending a lot of time staring at the iMac this week. Plenty more to come on all that.

The real purpose of this post is to announce that submissions are open for the 52 weeks project, and a few photos have started trickling in. I plan to have mine uploaded tomorrow or Friday, depending how I fare with the vacation photos. Don't forget to stop by and submit your photo by Saturday at midnight. Should be easy this week with all of the New Years festivities.

That's all for now. Stay tuned early next week for the first week's "winner" and the first of what I'm sure will be many posts relating to the trip. In the mean time, don't forget to get out and shoot for next week's submission!

~S

[title of blog] on flickr

Best of 2009

As the year ends and we draft up our lists of resolutions for the new year (and the 52 weeks project is at the top of your list, right?), it's good to take a look back on what you've accomplished in the previous year. Or, in my case, to brag about some photos I've taken :) In no particular order, here's a few of my favorites:

"Black and White and Redwood all over"

© 2009 Simon Hucko

This is one of my favorites from our trip to Yosemite in February. I like the strong leading lines of the trees and the texture on the bark. I also think it captures the feeling of standing and looking up at the towering redwoods.


"Dark Falls"

© 2009 Simon Hucko

Rather abstract for me, but I really like the effect of the polarizer and the long exposure here. A different take on the typical long exposure waterfall shot.


"Buttermilk Falls State Park"

© 2009 Simon Hucko

This is my most popular photo on Flickr. A classic waterfall shot, and one of my first forays into long exposure work. I went in search of fall colors, and ended up liking this better in black and white, and apparently you all did too :)


"Washington Monument"

© 2009 Simon Hucko

My take on the Washington Monument. I like the strong symmetry set against the wispy clouds. I also like that it's not a typical view of the monument. It can be hard to get unique photos of a touristy place, especially as a tourist, so I'm very happy with how it turned out.


"Sunday Afternoon"

© 2009 Simon Hucko

Four fingers, a book, a remote, a magazine, and a bottle of nail polish = a lazy Sunday afternoon. Simple, but tells a great story.


"Rehearsal"

© 2009 Simon Hucko

I just love the candid laid back nature of this shot. The blown out background adds to the clean relaxed fun feeling.


"Rafting on the Street"

© 2009 Simon Hucko

I like this one for the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. It was raining so hard that the streets flooded and a bunch of students decided to go rafting in the street on an air mattress. Definitely a once-in-a-lifetime situation, and one that I'm really glad I was able to witness and capture.


"Going for a Spin"

© 2009 Simon Hucko

This was the result of having some fun and not taking myself very seriously one fall afternoon. Not only do I like the photo, but I had a great time walking around and experimenting. A good reminder that it's important to have fun and try new things.


"The Time Traveler"

© 2009 Simon Hucko

This is probably my personal favorite from the year. The contrast of the old bike and clothing against the craziness of Times Square, the rain washed pavement, the feeling of isolation against the big city background and the little bit of motion make this one for me.

~S

[title of blog] on flickr

52 Weeks

© 2009 Simon Hucko

The new year is rapidly approaching, so it's a good time to start thinking about your plans/goals/resolutions for 2010. This is often a time when photographers start long term projects, and 365 (photo-a-day) groups start popping up and filling up on flickr. I've been considering joining a 365 group, but in the end I think that shooting every day just isn't feasible for me. I wanted a motivating project, not something that would cause me stress and become a chore or force me to put out sub-par work ("Oh no, it's 11 and I haven't done my 365 yet!").

So, enter the [tob] 52 weeks project. Rather than taking a photo every day, participants are asked to upload their favorite photo from the previous week. This project was designed with several goals in mind:

- Encourage people to pick up their camera and shoot at least once a week.
- Create a forum where people can share these photos, allowing for feedback from other photographers and discussion about the project and photography in general.
- Recognize outstanding contributions by picking a favorite photo from everyone's submissions and posting it here on the blog every week.
- Foster the growth of a small community of like-minded photographers.
- Have some fun. Photography is fun, remember?

So please: join up, invite everyone you know, say hello on the discussion board, and get ready for the new year. The more people and participation we have, the more fun this will be for everyone. I'm excited to see all of your photography, and to get this project started!

~S

[title of blog] on flickr

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! May you have a safe and happy holiday filled with joy and love and plenty of photographs of family and friends. Feel free to brag about any shiny new camera gear here :)

~S

[title of blog] on flickr