Newsletter

Filing the frame with the critter isn’t required for great wildlife photography. Reflecting on how I first slanted my wildlife photography in this direction, it has its roots in the first lens I had to shoot wildlife. I started with a Vivitar 400mm f/5.6 on an old Minolta that was soon replaced with a Nikon 400mm f/5.6 on an F2. That 400mm was my main lens for a long time and it taught me lessons about wildlife photography that I still depend on to this day.

Rehabilitation Through Photography (RTP) is an amazing organization, acclaimed for using photography to enhance the lives of autistic children, veterans, the mentally challenged and others who can benefit from a positive influence on their lives. The group recently changed its name to the Josephine Herrick Project, in honor of the founder who in 1941 made a commitment to help WWII veterans overcome the often-debilitating emotional effects of war.

As someone who loves riding vintage bicycles as much as shooting with state-of-the-art cameras (and had a serious crash a year ago to prove it), I was particularly intrigued by a project under development by Chaotic Moon involving an innovative bicycle helmet designed to capture critical imagery during an accident.

Digital opens visual doors, and John Neel walks through many of them in his new book, Rethinking Digital Photography. This 240-page book is filled with ideas and experiments that encompass both historic film approaches and leading-edge software techniques, including how-to building guides for gadgets and hybrid imaging devices, using odd and wonderful software to build unique images and adapting items such as toy camera lenses into your work. In all, it’s a great visual workout and idea book that breaks out of the traditional digital how-to book mold. In this excerpt, Neel takes us through techniques combining panoramic shooting and using software filters to create “planets.”—Editor

May 2013

On The Cover
In this month’s issue we cover a quartet of software programs that can be very helpful to photographers. We’re also happy to present our annual “Weird and Wonderful” report that covers unique gear. Tests include the exciting new Sony Alpha 99, a “full-framer,” and the latest Canon PIXMA printer, the PRO-10. The cover shot is by Rick Dahms, who is part of our roundtable on professional associations, and who tells us that the shot is of “Pepper Fewel, innkeeper and trail boss, with daughter and wrangler Tiffany Fewel on the fence. Cherry Wood Bed, Breakfast & Barn, Zillah, Washington.”

Think of the image you create with your digital camera as a negative and that you are a master printer who can take that negative and make as good a print as you have ever seen. When you adopt that mindset you begin to understand the potential of each shot. The expectation that you can do something more with an image can be built into every type of lighting condition, contrast and exposure problem you might face. The attitude should not be that you can “fix it” in software, it is that you should think beyond the exposure to what can be done to the image later when you download it to your computer and work with it in software.

Snap Art 3 from Alien Skin Software (www.alienskin.com) can quickly take your photographic images into the realm of hand drawn, professional level traditional art media, from Classical to Pop (#1). Whether you want to fulfill your own dreams of artistic expression or expand the services you offer to clients, Snap Art 3 (SA3) makes it strikingly fast and easy, and does not require drawing by your own hand. Rather than in the wrist, it’s all in the software. Hundreds of preset effects are only a click or two away. You do, however, still have a vast array of options to control via sliders—variables such as brush size, color saturation, contrast, tone, light direction and more.

Since Snap Art 3 is a plug-in, in order to use it you must have Photoshop, Lightroom, or Elements to run it (see the list at the end of this article). Whether you work on Windows or Mac, SA3 couldn’t be more straightforward. In Photoshop, open a photo and choose Filter>Alien Skin>Snap Art 3. You’ll be presented with 11 art media styles to choose from: Color Pencil, Comics, Crayon (new), Impasto (thick textured paint), Oil Paint, Pastel, Pen and Ink, Pencil Sketch, Pointillism (inspired by Impressionist painting), Stylize (this creates a posterized or silkscreen look) and Watercolor. Chose one of these and a large preview opens as SA3 applies the effect. If you like it, click OK. If not, delve into the tabs and submenus to tweak and vary the look until you have completed your masterpiece.