KenElevenShadows

The photo below is now one of the finalists for the Smithsonian.com 11th Annual Photo Contest Finalists, one of 60 selected from over 50,000. This is for the Reader's Choice winner. Please vote for mine in the Travel Category if you are so inclined! http://www.smithsonianmag.com/photocontest/photo-contest-finalists-11th-annual-180950372/?no-ist http://www.elevenshadows.com/travels/borregosprings-2013august/images/3034_kenlee_borregospringsnightsky-scorpiongrasshoppermilkyway.jpg

Very cool!!! I like the church photos. Stained glass is always good. And the fireworks shot looks good! I taught a Star Trails and Light Painting Workshop in Borrego Springs over the weekend. Went really really well, and it was a lot of fun. It was a bit challenging in that it's basically two workshops in one, and there was a lot of material to cover, but I managed to break it down to its essence and cover some of the technical and approaches to composition without getting bogged down in jargon or math. The first part was the workshop, which was held at Borrego Art Institute. That's where we discussed star trails, how to focus at night, light painting techniques, composition, etc. The second part was out in the field, practicing the photography. We shot these amazing sculptures by Ricardo Breceda. I'll include some photos of sculptures I've shot here, although it wasn't in the same evening. Here's some photos I took that evening. I didn't take that many photos because I was walking around helping students. These were all taken after they had dispersed, after midnight. I figured I'd take a few before going to sleep. The moon had already set, so all these were taken in very dark light. http://photos4.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/b/e/0/c/highres_350388652.jpeg http://photos1.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/b/e/1/6/highres_350388662.jpeg http://photos3.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/3/c/f/2/highres_350355602.jpeg

I would love to go to Cinque Terre!

Nice and sharp! I hope to have pro-level gear someday. I am looking to get my first professional full-frame camera soon.

Thanks everyone for the congrats!

Yeah, there's nothing wrong with automatic. Those automatic settings are often very good. The reason I suggested doing this on a DSLR or other exchangeable lens camera is this: the camera is good quality. It's responsive. I think it's irritating to use a camera that has shutter lag. Put some decent glass on that, such as a decent zoom lens, and you're all good. There you have enough quality that you're not going to have crappy looking photos, and you just simply set the automatic settings. Then, consider the rest of my advice and just keep having fun. It is supposed to be fun, y'know? As for sharing stuff regardless of perceived ability level, just go for it. There's always photographers or musicians that can mop the floor with you in one thing or another. That will never change. But who cares? Only a few people get to be the greatest, and even then, you know, it doesn't matter. I played guitar at a gig with Nels Cline, who can mop the floor with anyone. He came up to me after the show and - I'm not being overly modest in saying that I'm not a very technical guitar player and many people can play better than me, although I am inventive - paid me a really great compliment. And anyway, if all else fails, even if I'm not the greatest keyboard player in the world, there's probably a decent chance I can take photos better than Keith Emerson or Rick Wakeman.

This brings up a workflow question for all the guys here: do you delete photos? I pretty much never delete any. I have a little server set up as NAS (currently 2 TB storage capacity) so storage space isn't an issue. If they're blurry, out of focus, generally unusuable or terrible, I delete them without a second thought. I save the screw-ups that look interesting. And I save the things that look just about as good but am not going to use right that moment. If the photo is obviously messed up, I delete it in the camera and don't even bother downloading it to the computer. I usually do this out in the field.

I look forward to the woodpecker and other ones that you are going to upload. Image 6661 is cool. You focused on the eyes. That's crucial, and you totally nailed this. They're all super great!!!! For animals, I think you have to shoot in volume. You have to know what you're doing, obviously, but it still takes a lot of shots to get some good ones because of how unpredictable they can be and how quick their motions are as well as how wary they are of you, how small they are, and all sorts of other reasons.

Wow, this is pretty big. I've been selected as one of the top ten finalists in the Travel category for Smithsonian Magazine's website!!!! "On behalf of Smithsonian.com, I am pleased to inform you that you are one of the top ten finalists in the Travel category o­­­f our 11th Annual Photo Contest. Your photograph of the sculpture garden in Borrego Springs was one of the best of more than 50,000 entries we received from all over the world." http://www.elevenshadows.com/travels/borregosprings-2013august/images/3034_kenlee_borregospringsnightsky-scorpiongrasshoppermilkyway.jpg

This pertains to photography in general, and not your class. Do you enjoy photography? Not the course, but the whole experience of photography? If the answer is no, then don't read further. If the answer is yes, then here's my advice. For now, screw learning about aperture, ISO, lenses, depth of field, etc. Just don't bother learning it for now. I'm not saying they're not important to know, but that it's not important right NOW. Here's what I think you should do. Presumably you have a DSLR or other digital exchangeable lens camera. Great. Don't buy anything else. Simply go out with it, use the automatic settings, and shoot. Just have fun. After a while, you'll start noticing patterns in the settings, which is automatically recorded by all digital cameras. It records the aperture, ISO, shutter speed, everything. Look for patterns. For portraits, it might be that it uses a large aperture so that it has a narrower depth of field (a thinner "slice" of your image is in focus). Or you may notice that for action photography or landscape, the aperture is smaller, resulting in a wider depth of field....almost everything is in focus! Whatever. Just notice patterns. Don't change anything. Don't buy new lens. Keep using the automatic settings. Just have fun. When you start wondering, "Gee, if I had a new lens, I could do........." or you keep wanting to change the image slightly because it's not quite what you envision or it's not quite looking like a magazine photo you were trying to capture and it frustrates you slightly, then and only then should you start looking at lens and camera settings. If you don't find yourself doing this, then screw it, just keep using the automatic settings and having fun. Those automatic settings are pretty darned good. I talked to a National Geographic photogapher before, a guy in his '60s, a long time ago. I said that I was mostly using the automatic settings of my SLR. He said, "Well, you know, between you and me, those automatic settings are pretty great, and I use them fairly often, especially if I'm in a hurry!" If it works for a National Geographic photographer, it'll be just fine for you and me.

Hey Mike, those are fantastic photos of the various animals! Really great stuff!!!!

http://www.elevenshadows.com/travels/tronapinnacleskillbillchurch-2013july/images/2235_kenlee_killbillchurch3-mojave.jpg While I'm here, I should post another photo. This is a photo of the "Kill Bill" Church, featured in a scene where Bill had attempted to dispatch Uma Thurman's character in a bloody hail of gunfire. Aren't most of us intrigued by those desolate, hopeless desert scenes we see, thinking, "Where is that?" It conjures up different worlds. And true to form, the "Kill Bill" Church was desolate, nearby to nowhere. The church was also featured in "True Confessions" with Robert DeNiro, a movie based loosely on the Black Dahlia murders.

Thanks! I love what they do to moving water. So gorgeous. Some people take really loooooooooooong exposures of water. I'm talking 30, 40 minutes. Not seconds, but *minutes*. It renders the sea as a completely white, smooth surface.

Thanks, man!!! I don't remember if I posted this long exposure coastal photo from Mendocino, CA: http://www.elevenshadows.com/travels/mendocino-santacruz2012/images/105bowlingballbeach10sf14iso200-flat2.jpg

http://www.elevenshadows.com/travels/tronapinnacleskillbillchurch-2013july/images/startrails-easttronapinnacles-50m-30sf28iso400-flat.jpg I took this long exposure star trails photo taken in the Mojave Desert in California, USA last summer.

http://www.elevenshadows.com/travels/miscellaneous/pharoahsanders-march2011/images/518pharoahsanders.jpg This is a photo of the legendary Pharoah Sanders at the Catalina in Hollywood, CA, taken with a Nikon D90 and an 18-200mm VR lens.

Suh-weeet.

Wow! Very interesting! Great sounding synth!!!!

If you could send several jillion tons of it and sprinkle it on our mountains, that would be greatly appreciated.

Snow!!! Cool!!! I might be inspired to get up to the snow, but we haven't had a lot of it this year, unfortunately. Drought, economic woes, brushfires, and lack of water will follow.

Thanks, Mike! I just added on to my question a leetle bit! Figgered I'd add about the workshop or where else I can answer questions also.

Great question. The star trails are the only ones that take take many shots. And many shots won't ruin the sensor, although the shutter may eventually fail. But no, I'm not worried. If it fails, it fails. But this is my third digital camera, and I've never had the shutters on any of them fail, and if I do, I either replace it or get another camera. I've done this with my older DSLRs, and never had anything happen. And more modern DSLRs have adequate heat syncs, and some even have a failsafe so that if your sensor heats up too much, it'll simply stop the exposure. For sensors, there's not much that will destroy them. Except for lasers. Or continually shining the camera into the sun. That might do it as well. You can get the sensor to start heating up if you do a reeeeeeeeally long single exposure (think 2, 3, 4 or more hours!), but quite frankly, the chance of you destroying a sensor from even something like that is almost nil unless maybe you are shooting on an absurdly hot summer night, and even then, it would be really hard to do. Also, you can minimize the amount of shutter clicks on star trails by doing longer exposures for each individual shot. Or, of course, by abandoning that altogether and doing a single exposure! But for "stacking", say you want to do a one hour star trails photo for example (I rarely go above 50 minutes, so I'm using this as an example). If you shoot 4-minute intervals, that's really only 15 shots in an hour. That's not a lot. I mean, sports photographers burn through 15 shots in a couple of seconds!!! I'm having a Star Trails and Light Painting Workshop in Borrego Springs in early April in case you are really interested in pursuing this. Or if you ask me questions here or on my Facebook photography page, I answer questions there as well. http://elevenshadows.com/travels/tronapinnacleskillbillchurch-2013july/images/startrails-tronapinnacles3-50min-30sf28iso400.jpg http://elevenshadows.com/travels/sonoma2013december-bellavigna/images/5402kenlee_sonoma2013-12lightpaintedantiqueauto2-121sf8iso200flat.jpg

I'm giving a Star Trails and Light Painting Workshop in Borrego Springs in early April, and I'm very excited about that. We'll learn about various techniques and philosophies, and then go photograph some of the sculptures in Borrego Springs. Should be very fun. In honor of that, I'll post this photo that I took a year and a half ago in Borrego Springs with GearMike, whom some of you know. http://www.elevenshadows.com/travels/borregosprings2012summer/images/dragonlightpaintingred070512-700px.jpg

I love these three photos above. Fujifilm is making some outstanding cameras, that's for sure, some of which are winning Camera of the Year or other accolades from the photography magazines. Sony as well. They have surpassed the old guard of Nikon and Canon and are consistently more innovative.

Those are eye-popping sunsets, WJ. And yes, the Nikon has a retro sort of camera which I believe is full frame.