All of this portents a hugh shift in one of the major markets for photography. In one sense, as the these pads with color capabilities will provide a larger market for photographs. Work is underway right now on the development and delivery of college texts to be delivered on an iPad. Yet, the move away from printed material is going to mean that a loss of a major source of image revenue. Interesting, will be the change in the deliver of the standard picture book that sits on the coffee table. How are photographers going to develop their ebook on, lets say Photographers are going to need to be savvy as well as creative in the delivery of their digital images.

However, in preparation to write this piece, the scary thought occurred to me that there now is a large segment of the photographic community that has little if any knowledge of Fujifilm’s Velvia. In reality, it must be approximately 8 years since I seriously used Velvia and in those 8 years digital photography has taken a irreplaceable hold on photography, greatly increasing the ease and quality of image capture and reproduction. Don’t get me wrong, I love digital photography and have no burning desire to go back to shooting film. Equally, for all of the wonderful images captured with the right kind of light to show off Velvia’s capabilities, it did have the draw back of being a color balanced film at 5200 and one did have issues when shooting in other types of light.

So what is/was so great about Fujifilm’s Velvia. It was introduced in 1990 and quickly became the industry standard in high-definition color film. It had brighter and generally more accurate color reproduction, finer grain, and twice the speed of Kodachrome 25, the film it initially competed against. Velvia was also a high contrast and exceptionally sharp film but it is its tendency to saturate colors is what it was best noted for and as some believed, it went too far. However, it was quickly accepted within the community because of the popularity among photo buyers of the pleasing results. Virtually all of the noted photographers of that time used Fujifilms Velvia including Art Wolfe, Galen Rowell, John Shaw, Frans Lanting and others. John Show, for one, praised the film for its accurate reproduction of purple and here is the particular uniqueness of Velvia.

Velvia had a way of adding a purple/lavender accent to the blue elements of a picture that, for me, created a magical quality to the image. If one visits the Mountain Light Gallery of Galen Rowell, one can view a display of the quality results the film represented. Because Galen and his wife Barbara perished in their plane crash in 2002, almost all of his noted work was shot in Velvia and he never had the opportunity to make a serious move to digital. This unique color signature of Velvia once got me into a rather heated discussion on one of my visits to Bishop and a Mountain Light workshop involving a particular snowy seen taken with Velvia. I argued that the image could not be replicated with digital photography and my partner passionately disagreed. Below is an image of Mt. Rainier taken with Velvia. In it one can see Velvia’s signature color. There were no adjustments made by me to this image or any of the other Velvia images.

After having a more recent discussion with some of my photo buddies, I decided to go out first thing in the morning and take some images of the Seattle skyline at sunrise from Alki Point in West Seattle. My Ephemeris claimed that the sun would be rising directly behind the office buildings on the other side of Elliot Bay. My goal was to replicate digitally several images captured in the late 90’s with Velvia. Well the morning was a little hazy, not as clear as my earlier visit and the sun turned out to be a bit too far south, but I did get some images to work with.

Here are two images shot with Fujifilm Velvia. In the first image, one can notice Velvia’s telltale purple/lavender color added to the water in the foreground. In the second image, one can see how the film saturated the reds and orange of the morning light. As I have stated earlier, these images are the product of the film. I have not added saturation in their post processing.

To see if I could replicate these images, I tried several programs that represent that they can digitally replicate Velvia. After working through these programs and testing their features, I concluded that they do virtually the same job that one can do themselves in Photoshop, Lightroom and some of the other RAW processing software. It appeared to me that one could achieve the same effect of these applications by using a combination of the temperature/hue, curves, contrast and black point adjustments. One does not need to purchase any software to add saturation and contrast to an image.

Secondly, I quickly realized that where Velvia saturated a single color in an image, like my second example of the closeup of the skyline, it was quite easy to replicate the Velvia effect with the above mentioned tools. The real issue was replicating the look and feel of the first skyline where the purple was in the water; a case where there are multiple colors involved. Neither the commercially available softwares nor the straight forward application tools were able to replicate Velvia. To achieve something close, the task became more difficult with layers, masks and matching colors. The truth is I was able to come close to replicating a Velvia image only because I had an image to work towards. If I did not know what the scene would have looked like with Velvia, I would not have been able to replicate it.

So, I guess we are both right. Many fine Velvia images can be achieved digitally either in the camera or with some post processing if a person wants to achieve that objective. But when it comes to those complex images where there is more than one color element, there is not an application that can take a digital file and with some standard steps achieve an image that will look like something shot with Velvia. In point of fact, these are two different mediums with their individual reaction to light; one electronic, digital and the other chemical or analogue. It is kind of like comparing CD’s to vinyl records. There is something lost in translation, yet we move on.

In reality, after 8 years or so of shooting digital, I have survived very well without film and Velvia. Yes, there are those rare occasions in which I would like an image to be more representative of Velvia, but there are a lot more times when I am just as happy to be shooting digital and like the more natural look. Take these two images of Mt. Shuksan, the first with Velvia an the second with a digital back.

In all candor, I like the digital image over Velvia and by the way, virtually all of the other images on this web site are digital with the very few exception of some of the images taken in Mt. Vernon of tulip fields.

Earl

Most of the lighthouse images are of the Fire Island Light on Long Island. I found it to be a rather photogenic light and I particularly like the couple images taken early in the early morning have the pink glow of the New York City’s lights. There is also one image of Montauk Point LIghthouse and another of the New London Ledge Lighthouse. New London was viewed on the ferry ride from Orient Point LI to New London Connecticut. There are a couple images from Long Island, a couple of a small power boat in a cove and another of some horses in a rather attractive field.

After moving to Pennsylvania, I have included some rather attractive images of a Dutch/German barn outside of Allentown, PA. I love wandering around this part of Pennsylvania and capturing images of the various Hex Barns that one finds south and West of Allentown. The waterfall is from Ricketts Glen State Park, a rather gray and rainy day. Finally, some images of the local forests around Chambursburg, PA as well as a couple images processed a little differently.

Enjoy.

Starting most notably with Yosemite National Park and the loss of the Hetch Hetchy Valley to a hydroelectric dam for San Francisco, our National Parks have been the subject of constant battles between those who want to preserve our nations heritage and those who want to exploit the lands for short term economic gain. These battles have raged from The Grand Canyon and Glen Canyon to the Great Smoky Mountains. Most of these battles have involved mining, logging or the creation of hydroelectric dams. But today, a more insidious and transient threat is immerging, but one just as real and threatening as the construction of a dam is; the installation of Walmart Supercenters in or adjacent to our National Parks.

In an area of Virginia in which, by congressional authority, an area has been established as part of the Civil War Wilderness Battlefield, but not directly owned or controlled by the National Park system, Walmart was able to obtain a large piece of land right across from the National Park entrance. It has now obtained approval from the local Orange County Planning Commission to build a 140,000 square foot SuperCenter and an adjacent 100,000 sq ft of retail space. These plans are apposed by the National Park Service, the Governor of Virginia, The National Trust for Historic Preservtion, The Civil War Preservation Trust and a whole host of groups and individuals looking to preserve our heritage in the face of Walmart urban sprawl.

What is interesting about Walmart’s plans is the existence of 4 Walmart Super centers within approximately 25 miles of this site, 1 to the West and 3 to the east in Fredericksburg. Additionally, the site itself does not appear to be overly viable other than intending to draw people and traffic from the Southwest and taking them right through the National Park to this proposed site. From looking at the maps of the area one would think a better option would be for Walmart to locate in the City of Unionville, VA approximately 15 miles to the SouthWest rather than in this sensitive spot.

I am no fan of Walmart and it appears that every battle that this organization enters into over its selection of retail is one predicated on the success of the organization rather than the wisdom of the site. From my opinion, Walmart has done more harm to this country than good. They have single handedly enabled to flow of jobs to move offshore to China and other places in their frenetic drive to provide the lowest and cheapest product to the average consumer. Further, they have taken advantage of their workers by providing them with the lowest possible support possible. Yes, they have allowed us to maintain our standard of living, but I ask again, at what cost.

Currently Walmart has approximately 8,500 retail units throughout the world, generates $405 billion in sales and produces net income of almost $15 billion. One would think that it could forgo this site for another more acceptable and less impacting one. The founder of Walmart, Sam Walton used to pride itself on “Buying American”. Maybe they could adopt a slogan like “Protecting America’s Heritage” but I think this is a concept lost on those who run Walmart now.

Please join me and others who are fighting this Walmart store. As in the past, the fight to protect our National Parks is never ending and the cause too great to give into short sited benefits.

Earl

Relevant links:

National Trust for Historic Preservation
Civil War Preservation Trust
Google map of the area with historic sites and Walmart stores
Frontline series; Is Walmart Good for America
Walmart, The Hight Cost of Low Prices

I must admit, this is a truly wonderful feature which I regret not having used earlier. With Live View, not only can one zoom in and check to make sure the elements are in focus between the close items and the distant items, but one can watch the changes is one increases or decreases their f/stop of adjusts the lens’ focus setting. It is not to be understated how valuable this feature is when working with a tilt shift lens and challenging terrain.

Canon's 5D Mark II Live View Instructions

Another feature that I used on this trip is the image playback function. A lot more digital cameras come with this function and I am equally embarrassed that I have not used this feature more often.  Since I like to work in low light situations, Live View will not work in these situations unless one cranks up the ISO setting. With image playback and Magnification View one can check the image just shot to determine ones focus settings and make sure the elements desired are in focus. What is important about his feature on the Canon 5D Mark II is that one can zoom in just as close as is allowed in Live View, in both cases 10x magnification. Since the LCD monitor on a Canon 5D Mark II and on almost all current digital SLR’s, are larger than the viewing screen, one can get a good determination of the accuracy of the focus on close and distant items.

As you can see, I have included sections of the instruction manuals for the Canon 5D Mark II and the Phase One + backs. Using the image playback, magnification review, is the difference between knowing one got the shot they were trying to get versus going home and finding out they missed it because the image was out of focus.

Canon 5D Mark II Image Magnification Inst.

Phase One Image Zoom Instructions

Also, these images were produced from a combination of Lightroom 3beta and Photoshop CS5 beta.

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Even though I own Dreamweaver, I hardly used it for this project and it is not a necessity. Of great importance, even though SlideShowPro is a flash application, if one acquires the Stand Alone version and then uses the SlidePress plugin for WordPress, there is NO need for flash to develop the fla and swf for installation. All of the Flash parameters are controlled within the SlidePress pluggin; color, navigation, presentation, seize, etc. Utilizing SlideShowPro’s director, is a very convenient way of controlling which images are being presented where, maintaining good image color quality as well as slightly better securing in posting your images. Further, SlideShowPro will also handle video clips.

I assume who ever is interested in these costs already owns Photoshop and if you are into video, have your own program for managing and converting video clips. I have not quite mastered audio and that is my next technology challenge. It isn’t that I think this is a difficult issue, but for some reason my Mac will not recognize my microphone.

I mean really, there are apps for confirming ones flight on Alaska Airlines, for visiting the Museum de Orsay, calculating meters to inches, checking the price of an item in a store with its bar code against its competitors, figuring out how far one walks and translating languages beyond its use for playing music or games,  as well as watching movies, videos or TV shows. Oh yah, when one it is not doing all of these things, maybe they will use the iPhone to talk to their family, friends or business associate. As a photographer, I have loaded the tide calculator, the sun and moon rise and set times, a GPS tracking device, a wildflower guide, a bird guide (but not one yet for shore birds) and an exposure guide for daylight and night conditions. I just got started and I still have a lot of room for more musing and apps.

In The Wall Street Journal today their Business section carries a story about how The Hearst Corp is devoting a handful of employees to start pumping out apps as an additional business venture with sports feeds for specific professional teams and markets. Sorry, Verizon, when my contract is over I am going iPhone. I don’t care if you have more coverage. Unless it gets with the program, AT&T is where it is happening.

Then there comes the various technology hurdles of figuring out how to post various image and video components to ones blog. While I was familiar and used Slide Show Pro for my html and look around for other products which could provide a good combination of the blog comment and visual representation of images. In the search, I found a number of quality page designs, many of which snugged into Lightroom and allowed easy export as a web page. The trouble was, I didn’t want a web page, I just wanted to Flash element within a WordPress page. So after all to those trials and tribulations, I ended up back with Slide Show Pro and the use of their Director product. Virtually all of the slide and video elements are presented with Slide Show Pro’s SlidePress plugin.

Finally, I am learning about the other creative ways to present information within this blog format; the various plugin’s and widgets that help in improving content and presentation. But now the work is in producing content; pictures and documents, the good stuff of photography.

Here are some of the images from this trip.