Twilight
Last night in class, some folks asked for the link to my blog article about twilight. Here it is: http://www.johnbaggaley.com/blog/2012/10/twilight-in-washington-1
Photographer's Ephemeris
A couple of years ago, in Barbara's Photo Trekking class, she introduced me to a fantastic tool called the "Photographer's Ephemeris". The Photographer's Ephemeris is a tool that is very popular with outdoor photographers for planning natural light. You use it to calculate the timing and position of the sun and moon. It can show you on a particular date and time where the sun will be located relative to a particular point on a map and it will show you how light will be projected onto the landscape. The tool is available for Mac and PC for free and can be downloaded at the following: http://photoephemeris.com/The Photographer's Ephemeris is also available for iOS (both an iPhone and an iPad version) as well as Android.
Luminous Landscape
There are a lot of websites out there relating to photography, but one of my favorites seems to target landscape photographers more than others. Luminous Landscape attracts a large readership of professional landscape photographers. Like many websites, you will find a lot of articles about gear, but unlike many websites, you will also find a lot of articles about composition and other matters relevant to photographers as artists.One of my favorite contributors to Luminous Landscape is Alain Briot, a fantastic large and medium format photographer who shoots largely in the southwest. He is currently publishing a 9-part series on using color harmonies in photography.
- #1 of 9: Monochromatic Color Harmony
- #2 of 9: Complementary Color Harmony
Alain Briot has also written a number of books. I enjoyed his Mastering Landscape Photography, which is a collection of essays that he previously published on Luminous Landscape.
Book recommendations
Incidentally, photographer Thom Hogan has compiled an excellent list of book recommendations: http://bythom.com/Bookrecs.htmDigital photography best practices: workflow and digital asset management
American Society of Media Photographers and the Library of Congress have collaborated and assembled a website to promulgate best practices for photographers called dpBestflow. Ever wondered how you should organize and name your photos? Ever thought of keywording? Color correction and calibration? File formats? Backup? Copyright registration?Apple Aperture
Someone mentioned to me last night that they downloaded Aperture. As Barbara knows, I'm a big fan of Aperture. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, you may think of it as a professional version of iPhoto. Adobe makes a competing product called "Lightroom".Here are a couple of good resources for Aperture users:
- Training videos and resources: Aperture Expert
- Book: Apple Pro Training Series: Aperture 3 by Dion Scoppettuolo
If you decide to use Aperture, do yourself a big favor and read the book first. It's an eye-opening experience. It will also save you from some frustration.
2 comments:
Thanks John, this is useful. I use Lightroom myself, and find the latest version (4.2) has greatly reduced my ventures into Photoshop. Not entirely though. Especially if I have a difficult colour cast, or need attention to specific areas, I find LR a bit clunky.
I was much taken by the Photographer's Ephemeris a couple of years ago but find I hardly ever use it - nor a similar tool called Sun Surveyor. What I do find myself using all the time are depth-of-field calculators, of which there are many, and easily downloadable to Android or Apple phones. That, and Google Maps!
I'm glad you pointed the way to dpbestflow, the successor to updig (universal photographic digital imaging guidelines). With funding by the LOC and input and support from a range of experts, including most notably Kensington's own DAM (digital asset management) guru Peter Krogh, it's a great compendium of up to date thinking on dp best practices.
Another completely fabulous resource PK helped develop is called Shutha. http://shutha.org/ You will recognize the interface and some of the content as similar to dpbestflow but it also goes far beyond dp best practices to offer a wealth of free training, including in Lr and professional practice, geared to photographers in the majority world but dandy for all. Check it out.
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