Cory Photography with Tom and Pat Cory

Newfoundland, 2007

Newsletter, May 2009 Continued

                                

 

 Creating a Watercolor Look

Most of us like a nice deep blue sky for our images.  However, a nice white sky can be fun too.  On our Smokies workshop we were shooting up at a pink dogwood with a white sky behind it.  By over-exposing by 1 to 2 stops, you can sometimes create an image with a watercolor look to it. We find that pastel colors such as in the image below seem to do very nicely with this technique. Don't worry if your histogram looks a little (well really a lot) skewed toward the right and you have blinkies all over the place, this is perfectly normal since there is supposed to be a lot of white with no detail.

 

 

 

 Lightweight Travel Tripods

Also on our Smokies workshop, two of our participants had very light-weight, 4 segment, carbon fiber tripods.  These fold up to a very small size and fit easily in a suitcase of carry on size. The Manfrotto version was the 190cxPro4, 19.7 inches long, 2.9 lbs, and able to hold 11 lbs. The Slik version is the 614CF, 17.9 inches, 1.9 lbs, and able to hold 6.6 lbs. Carbon fiber tripods are not inexpensive, but these would make great travel tripods when weight and size are a consideration.

 

 Blurb Book Contest

Blurb is launching their second annual photography book competition called Photography.Book.Now. Sponsors include HP as the Grand Prize Sponsor ($25,000), American Photo, British Journal of Photography, B&H Photo, Maine Media Workshops, NewPage, MAC on Campus and Virgin America. Blurb has just opened up their Photography.Book.Now Bookstore at http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/pbn.. Even if you are not ready to enter the contest, it’s a great spot to check out to see what’s been submitted so far and perhaps get some inspiration for creating your own book. The panel of judges can be seen at http://pbn.blurb.com/juror1, with complete biographies for each juror.

 

 Photographic Resources

 

 Hunt's Camera and Video continues to offer specials for our subscribers.  Check out their website for their current offerings.

 Any questions, contact Gary Farber at 1-800-221-1830 ext 2332 or email digitalguygary@wbhunt.com  Gary and his staff are always very helpful.

 

 On the local scene, Superior Camera is a Chattanooga store owned by our friends Mike and Nancy Daniel. They offer both new and used equipment and are a great resource for those in our area who enjoy stopping by and seeing the equipment in person before they buy it. They also offer camera repair, digital sensor cleaning and Internet sales as well as other services. This store will become even a more important resource with the closing of the Wolf Camera store on Ringgold Rd.

 

Many of you are familiar with Robert Hitchman’s Photograph America, a guide to photographing the scenic areas in the US. Robert has been publishing this newsletter for 20 years and before the days of the Internet, it was the resource we all went to when we were planning a photographic trip. The thing is, even now, this is still a very valuable resource. Robert now offers his newsletters in printed or PDF format which allows him to offer these guides with beautiful color pictures.  He has also gone back and revised many of his original issues. You can purchase one issue or a CD with all the newsletters. If you are planning a photography trip to our national parks or other scenic areas, it’s worth checking out—this is a guide for photographers written by a photographer with years of experience in locating the best of the best.

 

The Lightroom 2 Handbook by Brad Cottrell is an e-book published on DVD for use as a textbook while Brad taught a course on Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for the University of Tennessee Personal Development Program. The book contains more than a hundred pages of practical information to help you learn and use Lightroom.  In addition to details on  the great features in Lightroom, the book includes a generous number of screen shots and hands-on exercises that demonstrate the Lightroom concepts and techniques.  Also included on the DVD is an example Lightroom catalog of 277 images for use in the exercises.  If you would like to see the table of contents and some sample pages before purchase, please send a request to bradsphoto@bellsouth.net. 

You may order the Lightroom 2 Handbook by sending a check for $21.00 (tax and shipping included) to:

                  Brad Cottrell, 7432 Huntland Dr., Knoxville TN 37919