Sean Duggan Blog

Iceland Winter Landscapes & Auroras 2016 Workshop

Aurora Over a Frozen Glacial Lake
Iceland   |   March 17, 2015
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It's summer time in Iceland now, some of the longest days of the year, so you won't see scenes like this right now. But there's a good chance you will if you join me on my next Iceland Winter Landscapes & Auroras workshop with Focus On Nature, which is planned for either late February or early March 2016. We'll have the dates pinned down soon, so shoot me a message or leave a comment if you want to receive advance notification of this amazing journey to an amazing place.

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Checking in on a Long Term Photo Project

The Message  [pinhole photograph]
Iceland, March 18, 2015
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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
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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.

March Iceland Workshop: 2 Spots Open

Ice Cave
Iceland, February 24, 2014
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Here's an image taken last February inside an ice cave in southeast Iceland that extended 300 meters back under a glacier. This an HDR blend of 3 exposures showing the entrance, or rather, the larger "window" above and adjacent to the entrance. To get a sense of the scale, just to the right of the tip of the icicle column is a zodiac boat and a small wooden bridge. The melt stream, very low and frozen solid the day I was there, is visible at the bottom of the image.

I'll be heading back to Iceland to lead my Winter Landscapes, Ice Caves & Auroras workshop March 8 – 14, 2015. There are still 2 spots open, but sign up soon if you're interested in joining me on what is sure to be an incredible photographic adventure.

Below is another shot from the ice cave, looking up through one of the several "skylights" in the ceiling. The opening was about 10 feet above my head and the length of the shaft was maybe another 12 to to 14 feet. Deeper into the cave these shafts would open up 20 to 30 feet overhead and then extend up another 40 to 50 feet up to the top of the glacier. It was one of the most amazing places I've ever visited and I'm looking forward to going back, either to this cave, if it is still accessible, or to another ice cave.

Exploring the Salton Sea

Four Pelicans and a Stormy Sky  •  [Canon 5D Mark II]
December 2, 2014  •  Salton Sea, California
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Last week I was down at the Salton Sea and the Anza Borrego desert areas of southern California filming a new photography course for lynda.com. This is an image I made on my first day there as I was driving down to rendezvous with the production crew. A storm that had brought much needed rain to most of the state created great clouds and some kindly pelicans arranged themselves into a pleasing formation as they sailed past.

Of course, this being the Salton Sea, the scene was not quite as idyllic as it appears here. There was the ever present smell of decaying organic matter and legions of dessicated fish corpses scattered along the shore. Still, in spite of that, it is a fascinating area to photograph, both for the crumbling ruins of a once-thriving  1950s and 1960s vacation spot, as well as for the opportunities for bird photography, as it is a key spot for migratory birds.

More from the Salton Sea and the Anza Borrego desert in the days ahead. To find out more, check out the Wikipedia page on the Salton Sea. And, if you're up for an hour-long documentary, check out Plagues and Pleasures of the Salton Sea.

The Road to the Glacier

Vatnajökull Glacier, Iceland (2012)

I'm getting ready to return to Iceland in a couple of days to lead my Autumn & Aurora Discoveries workshop with Focus on Nature. We have a good sized group that meets the "Goldilocks" standard...not too big and not too small...just right!

It's always interesting to return to a place that you've already explored with your camera. The familiarity allows you to revisit themes and compositions that are still calling to you. You can also be more efficient as you explore some areas, since you've already gotten certain "obvious" shots out of your system. With those images already "in the bag", you can concentrate on looking deper and finding new ways to portray a location.

I'll be brigning three camera systems with me on this trip: My full frame Canon DSLRs, an iPhone 6, and my wooden ZeroImage 6x9 pinhole camera. I look forward to using each of these imaging systems to create distinctly different photographs. After the workshop ends on October 11th, I'll be staying on for about a week to give some presentations at an Adobe event in Reykjavik, as well as to explore and photograph on my own.

I'll try and post to this blog every couple of days at least. You can also follow me on Instagram,  Facebook, or Google+, where I will be making regular posts during the trip.

A Momentary Interlude of Light

An Interlude of Momentary Light
Iceland, July 2012
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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.

 

Photographing Lightning with a Camera Phone

Lightning Over Lake Tahoe
July 16, 2014  •  [iPhone 5]
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A few days ago my wife and daughter and I joined some good friends for an afternoon at Sand Harbor State Park on the eastern shores of Lake Tahoe. After some relaxing on the beach and swimming in the cool, clear waters of the lake, we took our seats for the evening performance of the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival's production of "As You Like It". The outdoor amphitheater is right within the park and the view from the seats overlooks the beach and lake where we had been earlier in the day.

(click in the image for a larger version)

If you live near Lake Tahoe and have never been to the festival, it's definitely a fine way to enjoy theater with a grand view of the lake. The performance began at 7:30 and shortly before intermisson the sun descended behind the mountains. The sky was painted with clouds and that helped to create a beautiful sunset. I left my seat and walked up to the upper edge of the amphitheater to take in the view. The image below was made about 4 minutes after the photo of the stage above.

(click in the image for a larger version)

The weather forecast predicted a high chance of thunderstorms and rain that evening, so we came prepared for that eventuality. Towards the end of the first half, we began to hear the rumble of thunder coming from behind us, accompanied by occasional flashes of lightning. During intermission we left our seats to ascend to the top of the hill at the back of the seating area to watch the show in the clouds to the north of us. I tool advantage of the opportunity to try to capture the lightning with my iPhone (more on that below).

After intermission, the storm moved closer and a light rain began to fall. The stage became wetter and the stage manager called a halt, informing the audience that they would pause the performance for about 30 minutes to wait for the storm to pass by. We passed the time in our car just in case a real downpour developed. Fortunately, that never came to pass. The play resumed and, even though it continued to rain lightly for awhile, there were no nearby lightning strikes and our blankets, windbreakers, hats, and large plastic bags for our laps kept us reasonably dry. It was a fine performace and the stormy interlude made for a very memorable night at the theater!

Photographing Lightning with a Camera Phone
If you're interested in taking images of lightning with your camera phone, here are a few tips based on my own experiences at Lake Tahoe last week:

• Be safe! Don't be out trying to take photos if it looks like the lightning is striking close by (of course, depending on how you feel being out in a thunder storm, "close by" is a relative term). Better to survive without any photos than to become an unfortunate statistic! Avoid standing very close to water, tall metal structures, or underneath tall trees, all of which can sometimes be magnets for lighting strikes.
• Stabilize the camera. If you have a tripod, use it. If not, try to stabilize the camera to prevent camera motion. This is especially important in lower light conditions, where the camera may need to use a longer shutter speed. For my images at Lake Tahoe, I braced the iPhone on the top of a wooden fence post.
• Timing is everything. Point the camera at the area of the sky were the lightning is occuring. Turn on the camera app of your choice, place your finger just over the shutter button and get ready to tap it. When you do see a flash, tap the button as fast as you can. For these shots, I used the ProCamera app which allows me to tap anywhere on the touch screen to take a photo (Camera+ also has this functionality, as do some other camera apps). This is very convenient because you have a much larger area where you can tap to take the shot.
• Look at the sky, not the phone. Watch the clouds where the lightning is appearing, not the back of your phone. You'll be able to react much quicker if your eyes are on the real action and not on the phone's screen. Wait to review your shots until after you're done. If you're checking the shot you just made, you may miss the next impressive lightning bolt.

Finally, you might want to consider an app that is designed to take a photo when lightning flashes in the sky. I found one for the iPhone called iLightning that works similar to lightning triggers designed for regular cameras (if you have an Android phone, try a Google search for "Android lightning trigger app"). I have not tried this out yet, but I plan to very soon (maybe even this weekend, as more thunderstorms are in the forecast). I did not use a lightning trigger for my shots last week, but just relied on my own reflexes and luck. Out of 17 attempts, I was able to catch lightning in about 9 shots, which was better than I was expecting.

(click in the image for a larger version)

In some shots, the lightning flashes just illuminated the clouds, or the bolts were smaller, and in one the flash was so bright it overexposed the entire sky. In a few shots the rolling shutter effect resulted in partial exposures where the sky was not exposed evenly and these shots were not useable because of this. You can see some examples of the rolling shutter partial exposure effect below. In my shots, this only became an issue when it got darker, and it was intermittant. There's not much you can do about this, except take lots of shots and hope you get some good ones that are not affected by this issue.

If I have an opportunity to try out the iLighning app this weekend, I'll post my results here in a future post.


Partial exposures due to the rolling shutter effect.
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Work Space

Tree on the North Face of Donner Peak
June 13, 2014
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My "office" for the past two nights (the general area, not the tree). That's one cool fringe benefit of having a job that revolves around photography. Although sometimes you do find yourself at a desk in front of a computer, there are projects take you into some wonderful locations. I feel blessed that this area is just under an hour's drive from my house.

I was here to do some still and video shots of the full moon (some of those coming in the next couple of days). Every time I make the drive up to the summit, I see other areas among the rocks and peaks that I want to explore a bit closer.

Tenacious Tree

Tenacious Tree
Donner Summit, California  •  May 10, 2014
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This was taken just under a month ago during one of my excursions around the Donner Summit area in the Sierras. On that day I was exploring the abandoned train tunnels and snowsheds below Donner Peak. After exiting one of the snowsheds and doubling back on the outside, I was able to get a good vantage point to photograph this tree clinging to the side of the cliff. It's amazing that the tree is still alive and, in spite of its precarious position, it seems to be doing well. I'll post more images of the tunnels and snowsheds in the weeks ahead.

Interview
Andrew Kavanagh, a talented digital artist and Photoshop tutor in the Los Angeles area who is one of the admins for the popular Photoshop and Lightroom group on Facebook featured an interview with me on his blog this week. You can find it here. And be sure to check out some of the other interviews that he regularly posts there.