Paul Lester Photo

Peaceful Awakenings

Sometimes, when I’ve been away from something for a while, I forget how much I enjoyed it in the first place. It’s been a long time since I got up before dawn, headed out to where I wanted to shoot, set up, and waited. This morning, I almost got it right.

I was planning to arrive before Civil Twilight, but timed it a bit wrong. I actually arrived near the end, some 30 minutes off target. I had to hustle along. I had planned to shoot in this area, the Yadkin Dam, but had not done my usual reconnoitering. Usually, before shooting in a new place, I take my camera and compass and find out where the sun will rise and set and take a few snapshots to get an idea of what I might ‘expect’. This morning, I had no clue. I didn’t know which direction the river ran, where the sun would come up. I knew nothing.

My first shot of the morning: 7:12 AM
When I got there, it was about 10 minutes before sunrise. I had a to find a place quickly, set up, and begin shooting. I could have arrived sooner, but, as I was crossing the bridge of the Yadkin River , there was early dawn light, water, fog, trees, and silhouettes. I had to stop and take a few shots there. Those few shots cost me about 15 minutes.

Everything turned out just fine, though. I was shooting down the river, the sun was coming up downriver, and as the sun rose, the fog moved upriver. It was a perfect morning. As a special treat, I even saw an eagle this morning. I didn’t get a good picture, though, because I had my camera on manual focus since I was shooting into fog. By the time I saw him, got my camera pointed in the right direction and started to take pictures, I didn’t have time to go to auto focus. Oh well. I’ll catch him next time!

Even though I was in somewhat of a hurried state, sitting there in the quiet, hearing the call of the herons and egrets and not much else, I remembered why I love to get up early, go out, and be the only one around as my little corner of the earth awakens to start a new day!

Sun visor recommended
Today I pulled my little Canon Powershot A530 camera out of the car. It always travels there just in case I don’t have my other cameras with me. You never know when you’ll need one. Well, it’s been riding a lot longer than I remembered.

Morning colors
The dates on the images have a range from 2006/11/27 through 2007/09/07. Almost a year! Well here are a few of those shots. That reminds me, I still have some undeveloped film upstairs. It’s much older, I can assure you!

A bit of fog

BTW, I added a front page to my site. Have a gander. Each refresh will load one of 5 images randomly. Refresh a couple of times and let me know what you think. Most probably wouldn’t see it because you link directly to the blog.

Solar Energy

I’m not really sure how to begin this post, so I’ll just begin somewhere. So, what does the title mean? Am I falling in love again with my wife? Yes, but that’s not what this is about.

I read a few blogs and see what photographers go through to print, mount, and get their artwork ready for display. It all seems like such a huge hassle, especially if you are cutting your own mattes and building your own frames, etc. It can take weeks to get ready for a show, from what I’ve read. I just don’t have the time, desire, or inclination to learn those new skills. I’ve tried cutting my down mattes before and let me tell you, unless you have some really good equipment and a lot of experience, it’s not easy!

This weekend my wife and I did our usual thing of going to the book store. We usually go to Border’s and I hang out in the photography or philosophy sections while my wife does her browsing. This weekend, however, I decided to have a look at a book that my friend, Richard, has mentioned on occasion when we talk. The title is: The Photoshop CS2 Book. It’s written by Scott Kelby. I perused the book while waiting, saw quite a few things that would be useful and when it was time to go, I purchased the book.

In going through the chapters of the book, I came upon a chapter about gallery style printing and decided to give it try. The images in the post are printed gallery style: Large white border, small line around the picture, information at the bottom. When that first picture came out of the printer, I fell in love right away. It’s like seeing it in a whole new way. I couldn’t wait to try some others. I spent a little time in CS2 getting them the way that I wanted, printed them and was stunned again.

My next thought was how to mount them. I like simple mountings, so I found a site where I could by some Gatorboard, which is foam core board with a self-adhesive side. I ordered 20 pieces and will mount these prints on them, hang them on the wall, and see how much I like them.

I think that I may be hooked on printing? Even though I like the color prints that come from my printer, I just can’t help but love black and white. It’s where I started from and it seems to always be a comfortable place to return.

I’ve not done much printing in the past 20 years. I used to, when I had my darkroom, print quite a few pictures; however, with digital, it’s pretty much straight from the camera, to the disk, to the web and that’s about it. Were you to come into my home, you’d have no idea that I was a photographer as I have only 3 prints hanging up! My printer is about 3 years old, an HP Photosmart 7760 … way behind the times. I’ve read several of Paul Butzi’s post about his new z3100 printer, which is a $6,500 printer for the 44 inch wide size and $4,100 for the 24 inch size! That guy loves to print. I don’t see one of these in my future, but then again, I’ve never been any good at seeing into the future! I guess that all of that reading about printing and whatnot finally got into my brain.

Any similar experiences, mounting tips, alternate framing tips, suggestions, good places to get or purchase fonts?

A different kind of dragonfly shot!
I’m starting to notice that more and more places want a piece of the pie. You know, that huge windfall of money that all photographers get. After my trip to the zoo on Saturday, I was quite excited by the pictures that I got. So excited, in fact, that when I got home I did a Google search for zoos in South Carolina. I didn’t find a zoo, exactly, but found Riverbanks Zoo and Gardens, which is sort of an entertainment complex.

I surfed their site for a bit and happened to run upon a little notice to photographers saying that the management, or whoever, search stock sites for images taken at Riverbanks. If they find an image and you, the photographer, had not disclosed yourself as a professional photographer and paid the appropriate fees, you will be required to remunerate Riverbanks for said ‘loss’. It also stated that you were welcome, as an amateur photographer, to record your visit; however, if any employee of Riverbank suspects that you might be a professional photographer, they have the right to stop you, inquire, and ask you to return your camera to your vehicle before ‘enjoying’ the rest of your journey. Hah! I think that the enjoyment would end there. I’m thinking that a guy with a big camera, big lens, backpack, and a tripod might draw a little unwanted attention from the staff.

“I” should get the lion’s share of the profit!

If you are a professional photographer and want to do a shoot there, such as a wedding, their fees are $1,000 for the first 2 hours, then $350 per each additional 2 hour block. This is just to use the grounds. Should you need the assistance of their staff, it’s an additional $50-$75/hour per person! How insane is this? Personally, I think that it is just greed. I’ve seen fees at other parks, such as the Fort Worth Arboretum’s Japanese garden, where they charge $50/hour for professional use with no strings attached about having to share revenues from stock photo sales. I guess that I can understand the fees for professional shoots, especially those that use props, take up a lot of space, and may be disruptive, but shooting animals for stock photos. I don’t know.

I’m glad that the NC Zoo has no such restrictions. I’ve searched their site and find no such restrictions. I’ve never been stopped, questioned, or hassled in any way at all. I think that I’ll skip this place, for now. There are plenty of other places that are more photographer friendly.