Sean Duggan Blog

New California Cell Phone Driving Law

Golden Gate Bridge on a Foggy Day (iPhone)
August, 2011
(click in the image for a larger version)

New California Law: No Handheld Cell Phone Use While Driving
Attention California Drivers...(and other drivers who should look into the laws in their states taking effect this weekend):  There is a new cell phone/driving law taking effect in California on Sunday, Jan 1st, 2017. No hand-held use of the phone while driving....PERIOD. In the past, the law was limited to making calls and texting, but now it refers to ANY cell phone use. When I drive, I have a hands-free set-up for answering any incoming calls, and I do not use the phone for texting, checking email, Facebook, etc.... (not using the phone for those latter uses seems a pretty obvious no-brainer).

But I am making this post as a photographer and, as a photographer, I must confess that I have certainly been guilty of taking occasional photos now and then while in the car, such as the image above of the Golden Gate Bridge, taken while there was very little traffic surrounding me (empty lanes opposite me and no cars near me in the southbound lane as I crossed the span), but I only do so when I deem it safe based on the road and traffic conditions at the time (though, of course, depending on your view of that practice, this is, understandably, up for debate). This law is focused on cell phones only and does not address the many other potentially distracting in-car activities, like consuming food, loading music CDs (if you're old school in your music listening practices...as I am w/ some of my music), or attending to children.

Here's a link to an article about the New California Cell Phone Driving Law.

New Compositing Project Course on Lynda.com

Mysterious Rock
[click in the image for a larger version]

I have some new Lynda.com courses that have been published recently (two last week and one today) that I'll be posting about over the next few days. First up is a new series called The Photoshop Compositing Project. The first installment is a short course (just over an hour) on Replacing a Sky.

The image above is the final version of one of the step-by=step exercise images from that course. You can see the two source images below I was channeling the surreal side of my photographer's personality with this one. Follow the link to check out the Welcome movie, view the table of contents, as well as a free movie from one of the exercises for the Photoshop Compositing Project: Replacing a Sky.

If you're not already a Lynda.com subscriber and want to check out this course, as well as any course in their extensive online library, here's a link for a FREE 10-Day Trial.

Time Machine Tuesday

Untitled  Nov. 3, 2008
(click in the image for a larger version)

It's been a while since I powered up the photographic wayback machine for a Time Machine Tuesday excursion (since this is Wednesday, I am a day late posting it, but I did the search yesterday). On these occasional Tuesday journeys into the past I search my image catalog for an image that is at least one year old and taken on the same day, or close to it. This particular photograph had been overlooked for the past seven years until I found it again yesterday and started to explore a black & white interpretation.

Panorama Techniques for Street Photography

Saturday Afternoon at the Frolic Room  |  [Canon 5D Mark II]
April, 2015  |  Hollywood, California
(click in the image for a larger version)

This was taken back in mid April when I was down in southern California to record some new online courses for lynda.com. It was a beautiful spring day and I made a stop in Hollywood for a short photo walkabout before driving up the coast to Carpinteria.

I'm not really known for my street photography, but it is a genre of photography that I enjoy a lot when the opportunity presents itself. These days, most of my street photography is done with my iPhone 6, but sometimes I also go out hunting for cool street images with my larger DSLR, which is what I used for this image. This scene was one of those perfect moments where everything came together perfectly.

Post processing in Photoshop was key to getting the scene the way I liked it, since the top of the sign was cut off in the main image of the man leaning against the wall. I was working fast to get him in that pose before he moved, but even if I had been more careful with the composition, the lens I was using would not have included all of the sign without cropping off his feet. Fortunately, I was shooting with a panorama-style merge in mind and after he moved back inside I tilted the camera up to get a shot that included the top part of the sign. You can see the two source images below.

Source images (click in the image to see a larger version)

Instead of using the Photomerge option in Photoshop, I opened the two files as layers using that command in Lightroom (Photo > Edit In > Open as Layers in Photoshop). I then used Auto-Align Layers and Auto-Blend Layers (both found in Photoshop's Edit menu) to create the initial merged result. Further adjustments were made using the Adaptive Wide Angle filter to straighten the lines in the image.

Panorama or multi-shot coverage techniques are not usually associated with street photography, but they can be used to good effect to include important location detail, as with this image, extend the angle of view of the lens, or simply create a new aspect ratio for an interesting scene.

Maine Workshop: 4 Spots Open

My next workshop will be in Rockport, Maine August 2 — 8, 2015. There are still 4 spots open, but sign up soon if you're interested in spending a full and creatively rich week on the coast of Maine indulging yourself in Creative Seeing: Refining Your Photographic Vision.

 

Checking in on a Long Term Photo Project

The Message  [pinhole photograph]
Iceland, March 18, 2015
(click on images to see them larger)

This is the latest addition to my Artifacts of an Uncertain Origin series. It was photographed in Iceland in March of this year. I had actually photographed the bottle with the note (an actual letter dating from 1916) in a very different location in Iceland the previous October, but that image just didn't do it for me, and so I waited to give it another try on my next trip there. For those unfamiliar with this series, the images are shot on medium format film using a wooden pinhole camera. After the negatives are developed I choose an image to work on and then scan the neg and all further tonal adjustments and selective toning is done in Photoshop. Although Photoshop does play a role in the polishing of the images, they are not composites; the artifacts are placed in the locations and each photograph is a record of the scene that was created in that landscape.

The first image in my Artifacts of an Uncertain Origin series was actually on the first roll I ever shot with my ZeroImage 6x9 multi-format pinhole camera. That was back in August 2006 and that roll was initially a test roll, just to get a sense of the camera and proof how reliable the exposure time recommendations were on the small brass calculation dial on the back of the camera.

The ZeroImage camera in action in Idaho's Snake River Canyon

For the test shoot I went to a nearby river, which is about 10 minutes from my house, and I brought along an old typewriter to work with an idea that had been percolating in my mind for several months. That roll proved that the simple lacquered wooden box was a very capable image-making device and that the exposure time dial could be trusted. And, it resulted in several fine shots of the typewriter. I did not know at that time that this would be the beginning of an almost decade-long series, but I was quite pleased with the image of the typewriter by the river.

The Typewriter

With some shots, as with the first try at the message in a bottle, they just don't work the way I had hoped. This is an occupational hazard when photographing with a wooden box with no viewfinder and having to wait several days or weeks to see the developed negative. In those cases I will sometimes shoot an artifact later in completely different landscapes. For other images, the pairing of the artifact with a specific landscape is so perfect that I wait, sometimes many months or even over a year, to return to the same location and make another attempt at the images.

The Barometer was first photographed in Death Valley, California in 2010. Two years later I made this image in Iceland.

I'm often asked why I go to all the trouble of using a wooden pinhole camera and that antiquated medium of film to make these photographs. For me, it really comes down to the experience of making images this way, rather than the technical capabilities (or lack-thereof) of the camera.  The whole reason to photograph them the way I do is that using a pinhole camera is a very different photographic experience from using a digital SLR, which I use for most of my image making. And that experience is a key part of my enjoyment of this series. Being out in the landscape with these artifacts, and using a wooden camera with the same level of technological sophistication as the cameras used by the pioneers of photography in the mid 1800s (not to mention a light-gathering process that was recognized by Chinese writers and philosophers back in the 5th century BC) is an experience that cannot be achieved using a modern camera. In this case, the journey is just as important as the destination.

My work on this series has slowed down, but after nearly 9 years, it's still simmering nicely and very much alive in my mind. Of course, working with a wooden pinhole camera is naturally a slower and more meditative process, so a slower overall pace is quite fitting given how the images are created.

The Music

After shooting nearly fifty artifacts in many different types of landscapes, I feel that I am nearing the end of the series, but I am in no rush to get there and there are still images, very clear in my imagination, that I would like to make. Truth be told, I still enjoy this process very much. It's like having a conversation with an old friend. Even after many months apart, we can get together and effortlessly pick things up right where we left off. That's one of the benefits of a long term creative project.

You can see more the the Artifacts of an Uncertain Origin on my web site

The Telephone

Memories of a Recent Expedition

Ascending the Trail Beneath the Manly Beacon
Feb 27, 2015  Death Valley, California
(click in the image for a larger version)

I returned a couple of days ago from accompanying my daughter's 8th grade class (two classes, actually...52 students, plus at least half as many parents and teachers) on a week long camping trip to Death Valley. I came home a couple of days early to get ready for my trip to Iceland.

Although hiking with approximately 70 other people may not seem like the ideal hiking experience to many, when you're a parent, there is something inherently satisfying about accompanying your children, their classmates, teachers, and fellow parents on excursions such as these. As a photographer who was always lingering behind to take photos, I was often the designated "sweep", making sure that no kids were behind me. This role often meant that I was some distance behind the main group, and able to photograph them as they passed through the desert landscape. I was drawn to the interesting visual contrasts of the line of small dark figures against the immensity of the terrain they were crossing. This is the back side of the iconic rock monolith that is more well known when seen from the other side, viewed from Zabriskie Point.

I leave for Iceland tomorrow and will be there through the 20th, leading my Winter Landscapes, Ice Caves, & Auroras workshop. I'll post images here when I can, depending on acccess to wi-fi while we are roaming the countryside looking for grand landscapes, great light and those ephemeral, often elusive northern lights.

Concert for Two

Concert for Two   [Canon 5D Mark II]
OCtobe 3, 2014  •  Reykjavik, Iceland
(click in the image for a larger version)

Iceland is famous for it's natural landscapes, but there is also a lot to see and photograph of what I like to call the human landscape. This was taken in Reykjavik inside the concert hall know as The Harp. The distortion is caused by an ultra wide-angle 15mm lens that I got from BorrowLenses.com for the trip. I had a lot of fun experimenting with that lens. It was deifintely wider than I usually use, and outside my comfort and familiarity zone, but sometimes it's a good thing to step outside that box and explore something new. More on that and the 15mm lens in particular, in a future post.

The workshop in October was a great experience and we had a fine group of enthusiastic and creative photographers. Afterwards, I stayed on for another week to work on some other projects, as well as to give some presentations at the Adobe Create Now even in Reykjavik. Details on my next Iceland workshop focusin on Ice, Ice Caves & Auroras in early March 2015 will be posted in a couple of days. Stay tuned!

A Momentary Interlude of Light

An Interlude of Momentary Light
Iceland, July 2012
(click in the image for a larger version)

I'm really looking forward to my 3rd trip to Iceland in just a few weeks to lead my upcoming Autumn & Aurora Discoveries workshop (Oct 4 – 11) with Focus on Nature. This is a shot from the highlands taken in the summer of 2012. Of course, if you've been paying attention to the news from Iceland lately, you know that there is currently a volcanic eruption taking place in the central highlands, north of the Vatnajökull ice cap. At the moment all the activity is clear of the glacier, so it's not the type of eruption that is causing any problems for commercial air traffic, like what happened when Eyjafjallajökull erupted in 2010. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this current eruption of Bárðarbunga doesn't cause any air travel delays.

If you're interested, we still have a few spots open on this trip. We'll be exploring a wide range of stunning landscapes and amazing light, photographing the auroras in the night sky, photographing night landscapes, and immersing ourselves in creative image making.

Tonality Pro
The processing treatment for the image above was created with Tonality Pro by MacPhun. This can be used as a standalone program, or as a plug-in for Lightroom or Photoshop (all of MacPhun's program are Mac only). Although on the surface Tonality appears to be geared towards creative black & white processing, there is a lot more to it than just black & white, including the ability to work with layers, masks, textures, a selection of rough edge effects, and even the ability to integrate some of the exsiting colors from an image into the interpretation.

After a busy schedule for the past several weeks, I've finally had time to spend some quality time with this program and I really like what I see so far. As I prepare for my return to Iceland, I've been enjoying rediscovering some of my earlier images from there and seeing how the processing controls and presets in Tonality Pro suggest new creative interpretations and possibilities.  For this image I was trying to create a very stark look that significantly darkened the scene and emphasized the contrast between the sky, the dark mountains, and the small ridge that was illuminated by a passing beam of light. I wrote about this approach in artcle last year on the Datacolor SPYDER Blog: Image Interpretation...Into Darkness. I'll post additional results from my explorations with Tonality Pro in the coming weeks.

 

Look Beyond the Obvious Shot

Brooklyn Bridge Reflection   •   [Zero Image pinhole camera]
New York, October 26, 2013
(click in the image to see a larger version)

This is a pinhole photograph from my New York trip last Fall. I really like how the bridge in the reflection lines up with the actual bridge structure at the far left of the photo. This was somewhat intentional, but I had no idea if I was getting it at the time since the camera I was using is just a wooden box with no viewfinder. I've gotten pretty good over the years at estimating what the angle of view is for the camera, but you never know until you see the processsed negative!

This image also makes me think of something I regularly suggest in my workshops and mentoring sessions: When you're out photographing, especially in well known, frequently photographed locations, try to see beyond the obvious shots. This is not to say that you should refrain from taking those more obvious or well known views. Go ahead and take those shots, by all means, if only to get it out of your system so you can free your mind to see other possibilities. Once that shot has been recorded, you can consciously look for other viewpoints and different perspectives. Often, the most satisfying shots I've made of a well known location are those where I found a different way to portray it.

If at first You don't Succeed...

The Device  •  [ZeroImage pinhole camera/medium format film]
February 24, 2014  •  Iceland
(click in the image to see a larger version)

Have you ever had an idea for an image, put a lot of thought into it, maybe even sketched it out, or made some preliminary test shots? Perhaps the shot required that you travel to a specific location, or even arrange for special props, additional equipment, or other people to help out. And then, in spite of all the time, effort, expense, and creativity you put into making that image, something just doesn’t work out and you don’t get the shot you hoped for.

I hate it when that happens! But it does happen now and then. And it’s a normal part of the creative process. How you move forward with the idea often involves another part of the creative process: patience.

•••

The image above is the latest addition to my Artifacts of an Uncertain Origin series. It shares a lot in common with “The Barometer” and “The House of Cards”, both in terms of where it was photographed (Iceland), and the underlying concepts it explores. Like the "The Lock" image I posted two weeks ago, the first photos of this subject that I made in the summer of 2012 were not successful.

On the glacier in 2012 (click in the image to see a larger version). Photos by Bryn Forbes

My initial idea was always to have the device on a glacier, with the metal probes driven into the ice. The first time I photographed it on a glacier the resulting image just didn’t come together for me. The lighting was harsh that day and the part of the glacier I was working on was very dirty.  In black & white, combined with the close-up composition the shot required, the resulting photo was too busy and the ice of the glacier just didn’t look enough like ice. 

One of the shots of The Device from the first unsucessful 2012 session on the glacier (click in the image to see a larger version).

The photographs in this series are as much about landscapes as they are conceptual still lifes, and I always love working with new types of landscapes for these images, or interpreting a landscape in a new way. So when the opportunity to photograph in an ice cave presented itself on my recent trip to Iceland in February, I knew that it could be an excellent place for an Artifact. For the technically curious this was shot on ISO 400 black and white film with an exposure time of 1 minute. The pinhole aperture is f/235

In the ice cave under the glacier in February 2014, using a telephoto lens hood as a tripod. (click in the image to see a larger version).

There is an interesting symmetry about the locations for my first and second attempts to make a photograph with this object. The first version was photographed on top of a glacier and this new version was photographed in an ice cave beneath a glacier. That detail has nothing to do with the final image as it is seen and experienced by the viewer, but I love it when that type of unexpected symmetry is part of the creative process!

 •••

It’s always disappointing when an image that you’ve put a lot of time, effort and, in some cases, expense, into creating doesn’t turn out as you’d hoped. Sometimes making another try at the image can happen soon after the initial attempt. But there may also be times when you have to wait, and sometimes, depending on the circumstances that the shot requires, it might be a long wait.

Taking a break from an idea and then coming back to it can be constructive, and patience is a very useful part of the creative process. Good ideas are worth the wait, and they’re worth trying again and again until you get what you want. What you learned in the unsuccessful attempt will help you make a better image on subsequent attempts. In every case where I’ve had to wait to make another try at one of these images, even if that wait has been many months, the result has been worth it, and usually turned out better than I initially imagined.

The Device, detail view (click in the image to see a larger version).