PhotoWalkPro

The weather on my last trip was pretty dicey in terms of photographic potential.  But that’s the thing about travel photography is that you just never know what Mother Nature is going to dish up for you.  Some days you can go out and be greeted with beautiful sunrises and other days, the sun just pops up into the sky without any fanfare at all.  Still other days you could be met with clouds or rain or even snow.  There’s just no way around it and unless you live in the area and can go shooting when the weather is optimum, you only have two choices, shoot what you have or don’t shoot at all.  Frankly, I would rather have something to remember my travels than nothing at all so I shoot.  That doesn’t mean I always have to settle for bad shots when the skies won’t cooperate.  One of the best ways to overcome blank, overcast skies is to just ignore them and shoot for black and white.  Either in camera or through post-processing, you can get some pretty decent black and white shots on those cloudy days.

Not the greatest of shooting days...

...but not too bad as a black and white image.

Another option is to not show the sky at all.  Cloudy conditions mean no sun but they also mean no harsh shadows and nice, saturated colors.  If the clouds move in on you, try concentrating your photography on colorful items that will come to life when the skies are gray.  Just make sure you adjust your white balance to compensate for the typically cool tones that accompany a cloudy sky.

Taken inside a Tea Room while shaking off the cold.

The sun finally came out shortly after I took this shot.

Sometimes as photographers we get lucky and all the necessary components line up just right for us and we get that shot that we envisioned.  Sometimes we need to look past those shots and deal with what we have.  These are the moments that make us better photographers.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned snow yesterday because that’s what we woke up to this morning.  It wasn’t horrible, just enough to cover the ground a little and give us cloudy skies.  We decided to check out the Photography Conference that Scott was speaking at instead of heading straight out to shoot.  I was really surprised to see such a large show.  While I was there I stopped by the Peachpit booth to check out Scott’s translated books and was pleasantly surprised to see that they had copies of my book as well.  They were in English but it was still a kick to find them there (check out the shot of me over on Scott Kelby’s blog). We also checked out a model shooting demo over at the Elinchrom booth by Frank Doorhof.  He was great, even in another language. Another highlight for me was when I stopped by the Canon booth and checked out the new T2i/550D.  It’s pretty darn slick and I expect it to make a pretty big splash in the market when it comes out later this month.

We wrapped up our visit to the show and then headed off to shoot some windmills and anything else we could find.  The skies were still cloudy but the sun did start poking out and I managed to grab a few good shots.  From there we headed East to a small fishing village where we shot the last moments of good light and then headed back to the hotel.  It’s been a great trip but I’m ready to wrap thing up and head on home.  I’ll post some more images and give some more details tomorrow but until then, have a great Tuesday.

Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny day here in Amsterdam and I got to spend a great day touring the city and shooting with my buddy Jeff Kelby.  Unfortunately his brother, Scott, was tied up all day at the Professional Imaging conference in Utrecht.  We will probably crash the conference for a little while today to check out all the action on the trade-show floor.  Scott has another full slate of classes so Jeff and I will be heading out for another day of site seeing and shooting as we set out on a quest for windmills. I have a couple of spots already scoped out just North of the city so we will see if the weather once again cooperates.  I just wish we were here in May or June.  I can only imagine how beautiful it must be when all of the flowers are blooming and the trees are green.  Nonetheless, it has been a fantastic trip, even with the cold temps and brisk winds.

Here’s a few photos from yesterday’s venture.  I’ll be sure to throw a few more up here on the blog tomorrow, that is unless we get snowed out.  Have a great Monday!

And what’s a trip to Amsterdam without some bike pictures?

I recently downloaded the latest version of Topaz Labs’ Topaz Adjust 4 and I have to say that I am digging some of the new improvements to the plug-in.  The GUI (that’s Graphic User Interface for those of you that don’t speak-a da geek) has been greatly improved.  First take a look below at the ver. 3 interface.

You can see that, while functional, it lacked a certain organizational structure.  It also wasn’t very pretty with all those sliders just hanging out there at the bottom of the screen.  Now take a look at the new and improved ver. 4.

As you can see, everything is very well laid out and it has a much more polished look to it.  There are drop-down panels on the right side of the screen for all of the adjustment sliders and the presets have been totally re-done.  In ver. 3 there were small thumbnails of the image for each preset with a rendering of that effect on the image.  In the newest version, not only are there a lot more presets, there are no longer individual preview thumbnails.  Now when you mouse over a preset, it will display the effect on the small preview window above the preset list.  This is very reminiscent of the way that Lightroom displays its presets in the Develop Module.  I have been playing with some of the new presets including the HDR Settings.  They aren’t really HDR but they give a very similar look to the image.  Here’s a before and after shot using Topaz Adjust 4 with one of the HDR presets.

So here’s the good and the bad on this latest version.

The Good -

First off, if you have already purchased version 3, then the version 4 update is absolutely free.  How cool is that.  If you have yet to purchase it, it can be had for only $50 (if you are a NAPP member, you can get a discount off of that price by going to the NAPP Member Discount pages).  If you purchase before March 15, you can get 20% off the price by using the code on the Topaz Adjust website.  There’s even a free 30-day trial so you can play around with it and really decide if it’s worth your money. As long as I am listing the good, I think it’s worth noting that the plug-in is available for both Windows and Mac. I have to say that I have been a user of Adjust for some time and it is one of my all-time favorite Photoshop/Lightroom Plug-ins.

The Bad -

Unfortunately there are still a few bugs rolling around in the new version and I have been hearing of a few different problems from different people.  My issue is that it won’t open using the Topaz Fusion program from Lightroom (check out my review of Fusion here).  One of the great things I loved about Ver. 3 was being able to go to Adjust directly from Lightroom, but when I launch Fusion and select Adjust 4, it just kicks me right back to Lightroom.  If I open the plug-in from Photoshop I have no problems and everything works as it should.  Someone else told me that they were getting bizarre colors in the Adjust window when they used the plug-in with Lightroom.  One other person told me that Adjust had crashed their Photoshop 4 times when they tried to use the plug-in.  This kind of thing happens with a lot of new software releases and I expect that some bug-fixes will be rolling out fairly soon.

So the bottom line is that you might want to wait a little longer to upgrade to this version (like until they have some of these bugs ironed out) but that aside, it is a plug-in that you will certainly want to have in your bag of tricks.  And did I happen to mention that it’s also compatible with Photoshop Elements, Aperture, and iPhoto?

Here’s a quick rundown on some items I found of interest over the past couple of days that you might have missed.

Damn that Joe McNally -

It’s bad enough that Joe is a rockstar with a camera and lens but now he’s taken to waxing philosophic on his blog in such incredibly superb fashion that he looks like he has made his living with the keyboard instead of the camera.  Telling the story only the way he can, Joe talks about a chance encounter that he had coming out of a Starbucks and in doing so, captures the psyche of a photographer.  You rock Joe!  We Just Can’t Help It Read the rest of this entry »

Hi everyone.  As you can see from the titl of this post, I am in San Diego, CA. for a few days.  The weather has been pretty nice but my wi-fi access has been nonexistant.  I am supposed to have it in my room but it would take Indiana Jones to find the signal.  I got in late Sunday so I didn’t have a chance to make a post for Monday.  I spent all day yesterday teaching a class and I was just beat by the time I finished so I was not inspired to go looking for a reliable hotspot.  I had a few minutes this morning so I have logged on to the computer in the hotel business center to give you this short update.  I am hoping to get some picture taking opportunities later today with my buddy KB.  I will be sure to find a way to get you some updates and load some images as I am able.  Just be aware that my posts will probably be a little spotty for the rest of the week.