The END is Near

Well, hopefully, not that end, but the end of 2009 and another decade is upon us. I have gathered my three muses and opened a bottle of wine - yes, that damn Merlot - and tried to think what I really want to do this coming year, what really must be done, and what I can afford to do.

1. Face squarely the digital storage disaster that most photographers face. When the per image cost disappeared with the digital era and the seductive shutter sound of continuous high crying its siren sound was joined by the falling cost of memory, both in the camera and on the desktop, it became all too easy to shot now, edit what you immediately needed and bank the rest TBD. Now even when the snowstorm of the Century hits who is really going to jump up and shout "Now I have time to edit those TBs of images that I have really not looked at since shooting." Not me! Well now the Grim Reaper of MTF (mean time betwen failure) stares me in the face and says "Buddy, you better edit and really back this up before I randomly take one of your hard drives." There is a more positive reason for doing this. December saw a number of major new software releases that can really rescue images that otherwise deserved to be trashed. Nik Software delivered Viveza 2.0 and OnOne Software released new versions of Focal Point, Photo Tools and Photoframe. January and February is going to see a real attempt to reduce this digital jam, extract a few jewels and get ready to move on.

2. Get out the door! We have had so much dour weather that I have been abusing my three cats as free models. March it will be Chincoteague and Charleston. May Shenandoah National Park for fawns and Spring vistas. June will be Palouse in Washington state. And the Fall off to the Maine coast.

3. Loose the comfort zone on equipment and lenses. I seldom use flash unless forced to and Nikon keeps uping the acceptable ISO range of its sensors so I seem to be less forced to than in the past. But it really is not the amount of light, but its quality and shape. This is the year to get over the flash hangup. The same with lenses. I love my Nikon 24-70mm and my 70-200mm and probably shoot 95 percent of my images with one of these two, but - believe me - that is not all the glass I own. This year I am going to press myself not just to carry other lenses, but to actually put them on the camera and shoot with them. It is truly a heresy, but I have been seduced by a non-Nikon camera. A Panasonic Lumix GF1is her name. Sure it is only a play thing. She is light, dances in my hands as if I were 40 years younger, captures light but not frowning stares from security guards. I know that I will return to my Nikons, too much invested and an EBay divorce would be way too costly and they are too young to become orphans. But I will take only the GF1 -- some of the time.

Enough of this and the Merlot is running low.
Happy New Year and good shooting!!

Riding With Respect

"Just one rider Standing the Flag line The right thing to do"

While photographing a funeral yesterday at Arlington National Cemetery, I was struck by the silent dignity, strength and compasion shown by the small group of men and women of the Patriot Guard Riders who show up at every funeral of an active duty member of the Armed Forces. Certainly in this City of suits and uniforms they do not look like the average citizen. To some they may even look slightly scarry. But let me tell you as I have met and talked to a number of them this past year and watched the way suffering family members draw strength from their presence, the only thing scarry to me is that their numbers are so few.

If I had only one wish for this next year, it would be that there would be fewer of our courageous young men and women that have to be interned in this sacred ground. But I know that this will not happen, there will be more not less. So my one realistic wish would be that the Patriot Guard Riders would be joined by at least an equal number of the rest of us to Stand the Flag Line to honor those who have fallen and to give some comfort to the families that have to carry on with living.

Way too much SNOW

With a forecast of snow most photographers in the Mid-Atlantic - remind me to research who decided Virginia should be in a region that sounds like it is close to the Canary Islands - a rush of images start to march through that viewfinder in our mind - monuments artfully enveloped in snow and soft light, snow covered streets leading to the White House or Capitol, a solitary walker with a red umbrella of course, horse in a snow covered pasture, trees wrapped  in snow, etc. All day Friday that digital imagination we all carry around was working overtime as it became clearer that this was not just another overhyped weather event that would make the usual right turn to head some place else.
Reality on Saturday morning confirmed not only that the snow was here, and would be here for hours, but that the only images most people were going to take would have to be in walking distance of where they slept on Friday night. All the jokes aside, and mostly deserved, about how no one in Washington knows how to drive or clear snow, this was one big, continuing snowfall that dumped between 16 and 24 inches of snow on the area with winds that moved it around like blowing sand.

What to do? That is what to do other than shoveling and re-shoveling the driveway. My answer was to be sure the birdfeeders were filled and strategically located, open a window and see what nature would bring.

A Time to Look Back and Look Ahead

As the year rushes to its end, there are moments in the seams between parties and family when one should look back at what you have shot this past year and try to understand what has come close to satisfying and why it is only close, but not really there. This becomes tougher ever year, not because I have gotten better, but because new software offers tools and ease of use that allow the probbing of alternative interpretations that allow an image to be driven beyond its initial capture to close the gap between what the mind sees and the camera delivers. This Christmas has already brought Plug-In Suite 5 from onOne Software which contains an awesome set of tools for photographic interpretation. There is the promise from the Nik folks of a more powerful version of Viveza before the champange corks go flying on New Years Eve. And, although it is not software, the ever creative folks have put my new fisheye optic on the UPS sleigh and it should be here soon.