OH YES!!!

A favorite song of mine from Metallica - Disposable Heroes

Although that song has nothing to do with this "Blog" or "Blog Post" it seemed fitting as was thinking of stuff to write.

Why?  Well, that's a good question.  It revolves around me trying to get back to doing certain things I enjoy - one of which is photography.  I've neglected it over the years gone by.   So much so that I've forgotten how to use equipment, use this website - the list really goes on. 

Scott Kelby - and if you are familiar with Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom then you know his name, well he recently published a new book - Scott Kelby's Lightroom 7 Point System.  In it he details his standard workflow that he uses to process many of his photos.   The book has several exercises stressing repetition on this system.

My goal here is to do these exercises first using his default photos then on this blog posting photos of my own using the system to post process them.

These may be just bad photos that I want to see if the system can salvage.  They may be old photos taken years ago that I want to revisit how this compares to what I did then when I didn't know much about Lightroom or Photoshop.

New River original raw fileThis was taken a couple years ago in late January f/11 1/250sec ISO 800 24-70mm Canon EOS 30D focal length 42mm This first photo was taken in 2019 along the Longpoint Trail in New River National Park around Fayettville.

If you hover over the picture you should be able to see all the original photo info like Shutter Speed, Aperture and all the other technical stuff.

Obviously the day was overcast and being in late January all the leaves are gone the New River is up and flowing brown.

Basically it's just a dreary picture and not all inspiring.

That being said and I don't know if you can tell here on the website but there is a bunch of detail in the photo and it's pretty sharp.  That's amazing for me as I usually screw that up.  lol

So what is Mr. Kelby's 7 point system.   Mostly it's common sense if you really think about it.

1. Choose the correct color profile in Lightroom.
2. Get your colors right.
3. expand and maximize the tones in the image
4. Deal with your sensor issues and abilities
5. do some retouching
6. Similar to bullet 4 - deal with any lens issues
7. Some finishing moves - add some sprinkles and such.

Maybe not in that order, maybe no need to do all those all the time he says.  Yet in general those are issues that almost every photo has some sort of.

I think my photo has all of those issues and more.

When I originally took it - I simply rated it as a "pick" which for me means I'm not tossing it as I think its good but I probably just won't do anything with it.

Like I said I felt it was detailed and sharp.  I don't like the pine tree in the upper left but I may practice removing that in Photoshop at some point but that's not what I'm trying to do here.

So how did it turn out you are probably asking.   Well you are the beholder and you will have to be the judge.  But I'll post the actual revisions and maybe a few comments here shortly below.  

One thing - I'm not going to go into detail about what I actually did - you can pretty much buy the book and do the same yourself.  Therefore there will not be any intermediary photos either.  I don't know enough about what I'm doing to even pretend to know.   So again buy the book and practice yourself.

Some photos I may not even comment at all - just plop a before and after photo up and take it from there.  This exercise is more for me to hone my skills.

New and Improved ??

Right off the bat I feel it's an improvement.   Brighter the browns of the woods are warmer but stand out   The details are more defined in the river rapids and rail lines.   The clouds I feel are more detailed and defined.  However I also feel they are more magenta than grey - something is a bit off about them but I can't really put my finger on it.  (well one thing I see a few sensor dust spots I don't remember seeing when I uploaded the file lol)

Anyway here they are side by side:

1965 GTO Good Afternoon

or is it evening.... or maybe morning.. by the time this gets posted.  We wont even discuss the time that anyone actually gets around to reading it.

As you can tell I have not posted anything on this blog for quite sometime.  Over two years I think.   Maybe slightly less or slightly longer.

In away it has been " a long strange trip" for lack of a better description.   Not that I haven't been meaning to get back into this photography hobby more - as I have.   It is just that time is lacking.  Work gets in the way of personal hobbies.  Then some hobbies seem to take precedent over other hobbies.  Finally you just throw in the "why do it today, I can just start tomorrow" philosophy.

It's that "do it tomorrow" philosophy that gets the best of me and does so in more ways than one. (trust me - I step on a scale everyday, and every six months my Dr. informs me my Blood Pressure needs some attention. lol)

Nevertheless - much of what I just said has nothing to do with photography.   However I just wanted to say that this past Fourth of July weekend I was able to get into a project that has inspired some creative juices flowing.  I hope that creativity also continues to build and does go on an extended hibernation.

That project was basically taking some pictures of a 1965 GTO that a family friend had been working on.  I've never been much of a car guy.. hell the only pictures of cars that I have are junked cars under leaves and rust. 

So needless to say this was a challenge for me for several reasons.   The biggest as I said it's not something that really interest me, nor is it something I know about.   Thus I don't have any experience with it, do not know what the so-called "money shots" are.  Then there is the one big key factor that was in play on a scorching holiday - the festive mood of all the legal beverages and food.

What could go wrong?

Fortunately nothing did go wrong or if it did I'm not aware of it - yet.

But somethings that I learned... quickly after reviewing the first shots.. pay attention to the background stuff - yes DUH! idiot.. several of the better photos had an electric meter blind in the picture right behind or off to the subject.  This is probably the biggest issue I felt stupid about as it would have been the easiest to remove by simply composing the picture slightly different.   

The other issue I had is that some of the pics in the far background had buildings and neighbors cars and such.  Not easy to get out of the frame, but maybe if I had paid more attention it could have been possible to blur them out?   Again that whole depth of field thing still messes with me.

Finally the owner said he'd like to get some pictures of the interior.  I'm like WTF?  What the heck is an interior money shot.  Well I did my best, didn't really have the best lense for it.  I could have probably went inside and got a different one that would have worked a bit better.  But my thought was maybe I could capture something and bring it out in post production either by cropping out unnecessary stuff or just emphasizing certain things.

Anyhow.. here's a link to some of the pictures - hints, allegations, things better left unsaid??

RLS-20210103-028-Daima-DRV-007 Well going on three weeks now with the new pup.  We've been to the vet for a round of boosters and all is good.

Still we are doing a lot of peeing in the house - the pup that is not me.  Yet the vet said she is only about nine weeks she is just now starting to learn to control her bladder.  Which makes sense as she does seem to be trying to make it to the door and she is sleeping longer and not wetting.  So that is a positive.

Photography wise - I've added a few photos to her gallery.    I watched some videos on shooting pets and these were some of the first ones I took.  Well to be honest other than with the iphone, I haven't take any others.  

I've also been watching some videos on taking sharper photographs so we will see how that all pans out.

This is just a short post to stay updated.

I've attached the other photos and clicking the picture will take you to all her photos.

RLS-20210103-001-DRV

RLS-20210103-007-Daima-DRV-004 RLS-20210103-030-Daima-DRV-006