PhotoCamp Utah 2009

In the last year I have grown to really enjoy the local photographer community in Utah.  Not only are there great opportunities to get out and take photos, but there are great people to run shoulders with and learn from.  I am happy to announce PhotoCamp Utah 2009 as the first of hopefully many photography conferences in northern Utah.

In the last year I have had the opportunity to help some local photographers organize events for Photowalking Utah and Utah Strobists, and visited a few other outings along the way.  There are other groups I hope to visit soon because there is so many great people to meet and associate with.  The people are amazing in their willingness to share in their knowledge and passion for photography.  It is the people I meet and networking with fellow photographers that makes these events so valuable to me on top of the opportunity to get out and take photos!

Thom Allen, an organizer for PodCamp and other conferences suggested it would be great to put on a photography themed conference in the camp theme, and thus the PhotoCamp Utah ideas started brewing.  I was very excited for the idea and jumped at the chance to help put it together.  I am excited for the schedule of awesome speakers that have stepped up to present – I plan to hit every class I can to get the most out of the day myself!

Photocamp Utah is not tied to any one photo club or group; in fact, we have been reaching out to every group we can think of to invite their involvement.  PhotoCamp is all about everyone in the photography community getting together for learning, fun, networking and inspiration.

Everything has been coming together so well, from the volunteers helping with the organization to the speakers sharing their expertise.  A big help in making this event happen was Peter and East Bay Studios offering up their facility for the event.  A perfect location with everything we need to put on a great show!  Sponsors are starting to line up with great donations for giveaways.  It is all coming together in a big way!

If you are in Utah and have yet to register, get on over to PhotoCampUtah.com to check out all the details and get registered.  You can see the growing info on the Schedule of Events for the day, including new info on speakers just added later today and with more to come!  Seriously, don’t miss this awesome day.  The cost is only $10 for the entire day, all of which goes towards the expenses of putting on the event.  This is a not-for-profit event BY local photographers FOR local photographers.

On one last note for this post, I am going to let a little exciting info leak out…

Smugmug was one of the first sponsors to commit to the event, and they did in a big way.  Get this: along with some cool swag they are sending out, from camera straps to stickers, every PhotoCamp Utah 2009 attendee will receive 50% off a Smugmug membership of their choosing.  Depending on which membership you choose, that is $20 t0 $75 in savings!  On top of that, Smugmug has donated 10 1 year PRO memberships to be given away at the event.  How cool is that!  Not only do you get an amazing day for cheap, you will get your money back and then some!

Have I sold you yet?  I hope so!  Get on over to the site and see what this is all about.  Get registered and tell your photography friends to do the same.  Seating is limited, so reserve your seat right away!

www.osmondmania.com/2008world_tour/

I am also going to continue to cross post some images on Flickr as well as make some personal comments and updates here on this site.  And, finally, the admins of Donny.com are working to get some access together so I can add photos to their galleries\

Hopefully enough to keep everyone involved and interested.

Thanks for all the comments on various sites and especially here.  I appreciate them, and the comments motivate me to keep publishing.

Well, it is only three days into the tour and I’ve already stepped on some toes. Apparently the pictures I posted earlier today breached the exclusive contract on what they are trying to sell to the papers in the UK on that shoot, so I had to take them down. I have a hard time understanding how I was infringing on anything with the behind the scenes look, but then what do I know. I just feel bad that I did anything to cause difficulty. I hate getting in the doghouse a bit with those organizing things too. My sincere apologies, especially to whomever found the photos so fast on my little bit of posting, I was in trouble within a few hours!

So, at this point I am going to have to pull back a bit and just show some of what I am seeing outside of the actual tour. I am trying hard to get the access lined up to post “official” updates on their sites, which will be approved before going live. Hopefully soon!

Canon 40D, Sigma 10-22, 1/100 at f/4 and 400 ISO
see it larger on flickr

This update went well, without a hitch. There were some plugin updates that were notified that I did that seem to have everything running smoothly. The admin area is drastically changed both in design and some functionality.  I have to say I like it.  Most of all, the site responsiveness and performance seems much improved.  Both good things!

Those on the subscriber list will have noticed an out of the blue update on a very old post.  That seems to be the only “glitch” out of everything.

I have talked about this previously but I have committed now to get myself moved over to a different blog in the near future.  I started WGG and WGS with as an experiment and exploration in some subject areas that I am really not addressing any more.  My plan is to get a Great Projects blog started up for my photobloggging, which really seems to be most of what I am doing these days anyway.  I will likely move over all the photo oriented articles to that blog and then decide later what to do with WGG and WGS.  If anyone is interested in taking over either of these sites, let me know and I may consider it.

With this in mind, I am starting up a new Flickr Group called “How I Did It: What I Did in Post.” I still need to finish writing up all the rules and coming up with some good examples, but that will be a evolving process in itself.

My thought with this group is not to expect people to write up lengthy tutorials with plenty of screen shots and extended examples. Though I love those kind of tutorials for their detail and ease of following each specific step, an essay like those are very involved in creating. For me I am more interested in the summary of what was done, basic steps that give me an insight into what the artist did to create their final image. Though I may need to learn more to understand what is meant by specific steps, the more wonderful examples I see with some hints as to the post-processing steps, the better I will get at having a variety of ideas in my pool of techniques I can use when bringing a photo to life.

Here is an example of what I am talking about. This is a recent photo I posted to Flickr and included in this blog:

This particular photo is one that I took a few years ago on a wonderful trip to the United Kingdom. I was astounded at the intricacy and beauty of this building, but also by the dramatic clouds looming over it. The final image I posted was much better (in my humble opinion) than the original:

I have covered previously my thoughts on whether a photo is “tainted” by the involvement of Photoshop in the development process. I strongly feel that if the final image is your artistic expression of the scene and improves on the photo, all the better.

My idea for rules & requirements for this new group are to ask any photo invited and added to the photo pool would need to add in a general listing/description of their steps they used in to post-process their photo. As most people will likely be thinking back to what they did rather than taking notes along the way, I would expect fairly a general list of tips. That said, those general tips can be very insightful.

Here are my steps I did in developing this photo:

1. Opened two copies of the file, each initially exposed differently in Adobe Camera Raw. Often I do this in Adobe Lightroom, but with this particular image I went straight into ACR/Photoshop. The first was exposed for the sky (darker), and the second for the building (lighter).
2. In Photoshop, I duplicated the building exposure file as a layer in the sky exposure file and closed the extra file.
3. A layer mask was added to the building file, hiding the sky portion of that exposure so I ended up with a dark sky and a brighter building in the same view.
4. I used a Curves adjustment layer on the sky to add contrast
5. Another Curves adjustment layer on the building for brightness/contrast for drama and detail
6. Saturation adjustment layer on the building to adjust and amp colors for drama as well
7. An Overlay layer filled with neutral gray and then 5% large/soft brush for dodging and burning along with some slight vignetting to emphasize the building and mute the sky as it was further from the building.
8. Stamped out some distracting elements (people) in the foreground.
9. Downsized for upload, then Smart Sharpening, at roughly 60%, radius of 0.3 and threshold of 0.

That’s it (sarcasm intended). The process is really subjective along the way as I tweak to what seems to be best for the individual photo. Now that is an example of a fairly detailed list of steps. Here is a shorter version that would also be acceptable:

1. 2 exposures of same file, one for sky one for building
2. Combined in one file with masked layers
3. Curve to sky for contrast
4. Curve to building for contrast & brightness
5. Saturation adjustments to building
6. Dodged, burned & slight vignette
7. Stamped out people
8. Downsize & sharpening

Obviously a little more detail is nice, but even from this more concise version there is a lot to learn!

Most photographers I know enjoy sharing their tips on creating great photos, probably because most of us have learned this way from others as well. My hope is this group can be very informative and one that photographers will be happy to share their insights rather than shy away from revealing their “secrets.”

I would enjoy any feedback here or in the group as to if you think this idea is worthwhile and how it could be improved upon and pulled off in a beneficial way. Thanks!

“The only thing constant in life is change”
- François de la Rochefoucauld

I have always enjoyed the quote above, frankly because it is true. With most everything I have planned to do in life, there is usually some evolution of the idea along the way.

I had been intending to close down my GoGetPhotos.com site at the end of January when the new annual billing cycle came up. Due to an arrangement with the hosting company, SmugMug, I will now be keeping
the site live indefinitely. SmugMug offers a free site to anyone that develops an application utilizing their API; a great symbiotic arrangement if you ask me. My brother an I will be creating an application which qualifies me for a free account, which makes keeping the site live a much easier choice. Free is for me

I am excited about this because of some of the unique features offered by SmugMug. I have recently started using Flickr to share and interact with other photographers and friends, and I find the social aspect of their site enjoyable. That said, SmugMug is much better at storing large volumes of photos in full resolution, plus the added ability to market photos for sale through their integrated Pro system.

I have a number of things in the works that I hope to announce shortly, including possibly moving my photoblogging to another site to leave WGS for other sharing purposes. Stay tuned!

For those that have known me through my association with Donny Osmond, you know I have enjoyed working with him on a variety of projects for his fans. Most notably I have enjoyed the opportunity to do a lot of photography, which has been a big part of my learning to become a better photographer along the way. If you do not know the history of how my book project with Donny came about, let me know and I’ll share it on a future post.

Earlier this year I began talking to Donny about a new idea I wanted to try, specifically to create a behind the scenes DVD that reached further than anything previously done. Much like the book, the emphasis would be to provide a perspective and insight to the fans not typically achieved. I wanted to tell the story of the fans as well, with insight from the long time and more recent fans, what it is like to be on tour and to follow Donny on tour. The ideas began flowing the more I talked about it, and Donny thought it was a great idea so it was put into motion.

Now remember I am a self-taught photographer, and video is a different animal. Midway through the developmental process I began feeling uneasy about my ability to pull of the project at the level I wanted to. I am always confident in my ability to learn new things, but life is different for me now compared to when I did the book project. Taking the time off to travel plus the complexity of learning the art of videography was beginning to look daunting. Along with that, I just couldn’t shake a nagging feeling that I shouldn’t be going on this trip.

Fortunately I have a friend that is much more skilled than I when it comes to camera work, so I gave him a call. He has the same passion for video work as I do for still photo work. Unfortunately he didn’t see how he could take the time off either, though he loved the idea of the project. After a couple of months of wearing him down though, he managed to find a way to make it work.

I am really grateful this worked out because of the recent problems with my son’s health, which would have precluded me going anyway. I would have been scrambling to try and find someone to take my place.

So, for those Donny fans that read here periodically, I introduce Jarond Suman who is boarding a plane tomorrow to join the UK tour to take what I am sure will be some amazing footage. I am very excited for this project to take shape, and a big part of it’s success will be Jarond’s interactions with you as fans. Look for him over there and have fun.

I’ll talk a bit more about the project as things go along, so watch for more details here and at Donny.com. This is going to be a very cool video that I hope a lot of people will enjoy. We are also planning on putting together a small tour book to go along with it, so my photography will also be a small part of it.

As always, I welcome your feedback and ideas to make this a better production!

I feel fortunate to be doing my small part in this, and I am hoping that some of you may also be interested in participating in the event.  If you have a blog, you are more than welcome to register at www.blogactionday.com no matter how small or large your blog is.  They do prefer established blogs though, not ones started up just for the sake of participating.

If you do not have a blog but would like to participate I would really enjoy seeing some guest posts on What’s Gotta Go or What’s Gotta Stay for that day.  The posts need not be literary masterpieces; they can simply be your thoughts on thing that are good or those that need to be fixed.  The posts can be short or long, whatever your style or the amount you want to say.  I have a few choice topics I plan to cover, but I am more than happy to have anything you might want to contribute.

If you are interested in writing, please contact me by submitting a comment on this post or emailing me at wgs (at) whatsgottastay (dot) com.  As always, sorry for the cryptic way of writing the email, but it helps in avoiding spam.

Please keep in mind that I am more than happy to receive your articles/posts prior to the 15th; I can hold on to them and post it on that day.  I look forward to hopefully hearing from some guest writers!

I have some new concert tips and photos to share that have been in the works.  So let the posting begin again!

Now the 40D has just come out.  With it’s $1,300 price tag, that is no small change to a mostly-hobbyist-sometimes-pro like me, but I have to admit I want it.  I have considered keeping my current camera and working with two camera bodies, which is what many pros do.  The idea is that you keep two different focal lengths at the ready, one on each camera body.  That is a luxury I am not quite sure I can afford though.

So, with that all said I’d like to ask the readership out there if anyone might be interested in purchasing my current camera as part of my upgrade?  This camera has been kept in pristine condition, always cleaned with professional equipment and housed in a protective case when not in use.  There is some great history out there as well for the Donny Osmond fans as this camera has traveled with me on every tour after the 2004 UK tour where I used my previous 10D.  I haven’t decided on a price, but it will likely be similar as the high end of what they are going for on eBay, which is in the $700-800 range.  The camera is well worth it.

So why get this instead of a new Canon Rebel?  Personal choice of course.  There are some speed advantages the 20D offered that have never been released in the Rebel line along with some other pro features, but otherwise there are a lot of similarities.  The body of this camera feels much more rugged in your hands.  To make the deal even better, I will throw in some personal lessons either over the phone or in person if you happen to live in Utah or in the future at an event.

So there it is.  No high pressure sale here, just throwing it out there to see if anyone is interested.  No need to publish a comment here publicly, you can email me at wgg (at) whatsgottago.com and I will be happy to discuss more particulars with you.  If you want the best high quality images, this is a great camera to get there!