I’m not a big fan of processing, okay? Okay, so maybe I’m a fan but I believe that (Photoshop) processing is no remedy for crappy photography. I have always believed that half the photo happens when you’re behind the camera and the other half happens at your photo lab. These days, YOU’RE the photo lab for your fine art shots.

I mention this because our PhotoShop class is in full swing right now and maybe we should have a “next session.” So many pictures are dull without processing. They are tosses. They are garbage. They are “Oh, yeah, I saw that” instead of “Oh yeah! Wow cool!”

So here’s a Canada Goose picture out in a wildlife area east of home…

Geese as seen by camera

It’s right out of the camera. Ho-hum, no? You’d pass it by and delete it, wouldn’t you? But why not process it, develop it, make it art. Here it is again. This time it’s been processed. It’s the same picture, sweetened, polished, finessed. Photoshop. Ahhh.

Geese, sweetened

Before you print it for your stairway, refrigerator or for competition, process your picture(s) for display (or for your clients!). Do it yourself or ask for help. Darkroom (or computer) processing is totally cool!

We can do it or teach it, whichever you like.

Be careful, have fun, and watch your step on the ice, will ya? It’s dangerous out there!

For those that like to photograph the birds and other wildlife while dreading the cold Winters we normally have nearby, I want to remind you of indoor wildlife photography. From the comfort of a sheltered room, you can still photograph the birds and some of the critters at our MetroParks. They’re called “Windows on Wildlife” and they appear all over.

Secor Park has a nice one at the Nature Center. Side Cut Park has one up high on the canal side of the park (it’s super heated in the Winter, like a sauna without the humidity), Oak Openings has one and Wildwood Preserve has one, too; there might be others as well. Yesterday and today I went to the one at Wildwood and it’s the best I’ve seen so far.

It’s like watching reality TV on a big screen but the content is better and there are no commercials.

Wildwood Preserve's Window on Wildlife

The birds and animals are not captive outside a wildlife window so the photography experience falls somewhere between shooting at a zoo and shooting in the wild. The animals are not tame at all but they come in such great numbers at feeding time that you’re bound to get a shot; still, there’s great sport in doing so and your reflexes will be given quite the workout because these suckers move fast.

Nuthatch

You’ll want to use a telephoto even at 20-30 feet away because most of the subjects are no bigger than your hand. A 200mm lens would suffice, 250mm even better, 300mm recommended, 400mm or more if at all possible. Use Aperture Priority mode with a large f-stop (small number) or use Portrait Mode which will force the camera to use a large f-stop. That way, the background will blur away and prevent fences, signs and natural clutter from competing with your subject matter.

Tufted Titmouse with corn cobs in background

Timing matters as much as anything in this kind of shooting. For one thing, you might want to be there for feeding time if you can determine when that is. There will be food all day long but when it’s freshly stocked you’ll see the greatest amount of visitors unless a hawk visits and scares the little ones away. Even more importantly, you might want to be shooting in some dramatic light which is likely to be a couple hours after dawn, or like some of these pictures show, a couple of hours before dusk.

Squirrel

Cloudy days are okay, too, because they afford a super soft lighting situation with an absolute absence of shadows…

Hairy Woodpecker

…and sometimes that’s precisely what you need…

Female and Male Cardinals

…but the sunny days give you high drama lights-and-darks for the utmost in color intensity. Plus, more light from the sun means you can use a faster shutter speed when necessary.

Finch at Feeder

For a little excitement, train your camera on a busy feeder, set your camera on Shutter Priority mode and choose a fast shutter speed somewhere faster than 1/1000th second. Or, just use the Sports Mode to force the camera to use a fast shutter speed. Lean gently on the shutter button and shoot a burst of 10 or 20 or even 50 shots if you like. The action of sparrows and finches is so fast you won’t even see what you’re shooting but you’ll get to check it out when you get home again.

Sparrows

Be aware that the light meter in your camera might well get fooled by the relative darkness of the surrounding area compared to the bright feathers of your sunlit subject. As a result, your pictures will have a weak, washed-out look to them.

Red Bellied Woodpecker - exposure comparison

Locate the button with the +/- graphic on it if you have one. On some models you have to press-and-hold the button while pushing a rocker switch or turning a command dial while other models have Exposure Compensation as a menu option. However yours works, you’ll probably want to set the Exposure Compensation to about -1 to get rich, luxurious exposures of birds in the sun.

So go shoot some wildlife this winter without all that messy walking around. There’s plenty to capture right outside the window; you just need to find the right window!

Male Cardinal

On my first official day out of the house following a simple back surgery and hospital stay, I went for a walk. Where would you go?

I went to a place I like to call “Side Cut Metropark” and I call it that because that’s its name.

Most of the deer were up by the city (Maumee) although others were behind the cemetery on River Road. Woodpeckers were all around and so were the geese. A single heron seems to be wintering in these parts and plenty of squirrels were busy doing what they do. Of particular interest, though, was a certain hawk. Not a red-tailed as we see so often these days, but apparently a Cooper’s Hawk methinks.

They’re not all that rare but I’d never seen one before.

When you’re out and looking for the critters to photograph, be sure to look up.
Hawks and others are likely to be up there, watching you watching them.

And when you get a really good one? We at Kohne Camera & Photo will print it, laminate it, mount it, and frame it per your needs. Get into the competition. We’ll help with that!

We greeted each other while passing. Who wouldn’t? And then the woman asked me,

“Is it muddy?”
“Why. Because your shoes are so pretty?”

They were really pretty just-outa-the-box, silver-colored cross trainers, or tennis shoes, or whatever they’re called these days. I’m not up on all the current lingo.

And by the way, jsyk, it’s not “cool” to tell a woman that you like the frosting in her hair. “Frosting” is an old term as it turns out. Now it’s called “highlights.” And depending upon when you read this, they might be now called “Sparkle Streaks” or maybe “Spacy Fakes.” I’ll certainly never know. But yeah, she was worried about her shoes.

It matters at this time to mention that it’s never what you say, but how you say it that’s critically important. The way you say stuff has everything to do with how your stuff will be perceived and received.

When I looked at her shoes and made my comment, that 35-year-old woman giggled like a child. I wasn’t making any fun of her shoes and she could tell by the way I asked. Body language, facial expression, tone of voice… all of this stuff is way more meaningful than your words.

Anyway, I told the both of them of a particular 12-foot stretch ahead and how they could both keep to the left without any shoe-soil incident.

Earlier, I had a run-in in reverse with a guy in a giant Indiana DNR truck.

I was on the side of the road, in a park, out of state, and trying unsuccessfully to photograph plant life under overcast skies.

Come to think of it, why was it cloudy? The weather forecast was Sunny. Not “kindof” sunny, or “maybe” sunny, or “we really have no idea” or even the more catch-all midwest forecast of “Partly Cloudy.” No. The forecast was for Sunny today, which is why I made the trip in the first place. And yet, it was not Sunny.

Anyway, he pulled up, slowed down, then stopped right next to me. I thought he’d say that I wasn’t allowed to park on the side of the road. What’s the big deal? There’s nobody out! I was prepared to defend myself and my actions.

The guy was about my age. But big. Really really big. He had the window down and leaned his left arm on the door frame while facing me. I have a 400mm lens so I knew I might be able to take him if he’s not happy with my parking prowess, but then I saw it. On his face was a BIG ol’ smile. He actually looked a little like Santa Claus’s younger brother.

“Isn’t this just a beautiful Thanksgiving morning?”

Squirrel at Feeding Station at Pokagon Windows on World

I briefly remarked to him precisely how beautiful it was, and why, and then he agreed and wished me to have a good one and drove off.

So yeah—this post was going to be about something else but instead, it isn’t.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. Got your coats out? It’s time for coats!

With my body the way it is, my attitude the way it is, my love for Summer, sun, kayaking, and walking around unencumbered by mounds and piles of clothing and wool socks and boots, it’s just not at all clear what I’ll do in the Winter. Perhaps I’ll hibernate and post next May.

Fortunately, it’s something I can put off for a while, at least until tomorrow. Autumn colors are still with us, and if you get out there, you’ll still be able to see them just in front of the snow clouds. I suggest shooting in RAW to get the best from the colors once home again, or at least set your camera for VIVID, if available.

Other than that, just close the windows, turn on the heat, and make some chicken soup.

Toledo Botanical Garden in November 2011

It’s mating season for the deer so if you get in the way of a male, you could be run over faster than if you stood on a New York freeway at 1 pm, or worse, you might be a threat against what he needs to do since he’s in a bad mood until he gets his babe. Either way, you might get mauled by flailing hooves because you’re in the way and you’re not at all what he wants.

The rest of the year, and all year long, the does (females) are wandering around and you can take their pictures all you want while they graze in the wild as well as at the city parks.

This month, the bucks are out in full force looking for a doe. Any doe. They need to mate. It matters. Like, now!

It’s a pretty cool concept. The antlers on the males indicate their male-ness. They shed them in the Winter and start growing them back in the Spring. The bigger the antlers, the cooler, more awesome, more valuable-as-a-mate is the buck. They use them to fight as well as to attract.

Here’s a young one seen today:

A young one on the prowl

He will clearly lose his chosen babe to an elder more formidable foe but he’ll find another.

Another buck chased his female prey for love-making back and forth through a mile of woods and up and down through a ravine but she refused to be had today. The poor guy was left to be standing, exhausted, in a swamp, panting and unfulfilled.

Tired from the chase but getting ready for the next one

No matter. He and his contemporaries will get their girls. They always do. It’s just the way it works.

Not the largest around but impressive all the same

Addtionally, and with all the mauling, gross disfiguring and death notwithstanding, this is also the time to collect praying mantis egg sacks.

This is also the time for apples, Autumn colors, and hamburgers. Yep! It’s National Hamburger Month! So get out there if you like to get out there; there’s lots to enjoy, no?

Be careful around the deer this month, but have fun!

You might already know about that. Meanwhile, there were leaves in the yard. So I had a couple of days of fun but the yard work was piling up by the minute and I had already spent two days away.

On the third day, I found that my lawnmower would run for only five minutes per day. Not cool. The next day, I found that my lawnmower could not be repaired by a lawnmower repair guy. Way not cool. A day later, I found that suitable used lawnmowers are impossible to locate. Still not cool. On the sixth day, I found that suitable new lawnmowers are out of season and have given way to snow blowers instead. Totally not cool.

Then I got a little lucky and now I have a lawnmower. And it is very, very cool.
See, it mulches while it cuts, so I use it to grind the leaves into dust instead of raking them around.

Why mention this on a photography blog? Well, the slideshow, mostly. You don’t need to use a tripod for this pair of shots, btw. You will, however, need to use two focus points in your viewfinder to line up point A and point B in your Before shot to line up with the same points in your After shot. Obviously, you’ll need to shoot from the same place, and from the same angle, and with the same exposure.

If you’re not worried about theft, then use a tripod and leave the camera alone between the before and after shots. I used only one focus point for line-up on this one and lived to be sorry. That’s why the trees move. You must use two points and two focus sensors, ya hear? Three would be better.)

Photoshop will let you animate from one to the other (Window—> animation) though it’s not exactly intuitive and the steps involved are way past the scope of this post (and if you’re a WordPress blogger, “slideshow” is the only way to go for this kind of thing), but yeah, animation CAN BE a part of photography.

Also, and much more importantly, make sure to do routine maintenance on your lawnmower so you don’t ever have to buy another one. Good luck with having fun with yard work. Photos might make it better.

The road is filled with traffic and I was always in a hurry to get to a nearby park or parts nearby. Couldn’t stop. Too much in a hurry. Not safe. Never noticed the driveway. Scared of getting clobbered by a semi. Maybe I’ll get it on the way back, but then I never did.

A house - viewed from the rear

And then one day I did.

Abandoned House at Sunset

It’s important to say “what if” in your photography. It’s not just about the big picture, like “What if I ask so-and-so if I could take their picture,” or “What if I could go to an exotic place and take pictures,” but it’s important on a smaller level as well. “What if” can include taking a wider shot or moving in closer, or removing some debris from the shot, trying it as a vertical, getting down on your belly or triggering the camera while it’s on a monopod high over your head. Most of all, what if you just try something you’ve been meaning to try? It’s a really great feeling when you do.

Summer Home

Now, then… what if I could go inside?

If you live within two hours of the Cleveland area, you could visit the park inside of a day if you get a crazy-early start, but the next time you might just want to spend the night instead. I have found that to be much more do-able in my yearly visits.

As national parks go, I find this one to be rather odd. Within the park boundaries, there are entire cities, and schools, fire departments, pizza places, doctors, dentists, lawyers, newspaper publishers, lawnmower repair men, and every other type of business, apartment or house you might have near your own home; and yet, these are all within a National Park. Cool, huh?

Anyway, this time around I wanted to catch a ride on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railway.

It runs Wednesdays through Sundays until the end of October and then weekends-only through the winter months. It has about five stops between Akron and Rockside Road in Independence, and the entire one-way trip takes less than an hour and a half. The event rides they offer look like a great deal of fun (check their site under Events) but I just wanted to ride for a while, have a brief layover, and then return; therefore, I went from the Peninsula, Ohio depot to the Canal Visitor Center and back in just over a couple of hours or so.

Passenger Train arriving at Peninsula, Ohio

The layover was largely uneventful though that visitors center near the station is well worth a look. Meanwhile, I just hung out. Grasshoppers appeared in great numbers so I chased them around and photographed them for a while.

Grasshopper at Canal Visitor Center passenger station

On this particularly beautiful day, I counted billions of people hiking and biking, strolling and fishing. I’m not certain that the fishing part is a good idea. The river (Cuyahoga) is cleaner than it was in the 60’s but they still warn you to avoid actually touching the water. Certainly, if he caught a live one, he’d throw it back.

Fisherman on Cuyahoga River

The return trip was pretty much booked so the only seats available were in the club car. These are all authentic railroad cars from the 30’s and 40’s (including a Vista-Dome car) but refreshments are no longer served in the club car. I’m not sure where they were serving but I saw plenty of people with a wide variety of snack foods and packaged lunches. Me? I just wanted to look out the window and not be driving.

Club Car on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad

One of the views I particularly enjoyed was of the Ohio Turnpike bridge over the river so I went back the next morning to take a look. You can’t see them in this view but the rails run right along the nearest bridge supports and just below Riverview Road slightly north of Peninsula.

Ohio Turnpike bridge - Peninsula, Ohio

If you venture to the park, don’t go without a map of the area; GPS devices probably won’t indicate all there is to see. The small towns around (Peninsula, Brecksville, Richfield, Boston Mills, Hudson) are worth going to, but the numerous trails and waterfalls, picnic areas and natural attractions might only be available on the CVNP map which you could print yourself or pick up at any area railway station, visitor center, most motels (unless they run out) and at some of the local metro parks.

I chose to go back to The Ledges in the Virginia Kendall area. The Ledges, just east of Kendall Lake (btw, there are other ledges trails in the area; Whipps Ledges are in the nearby Hinckley Reservation, where the buzzards show up every March 15) feature 250+ million year old sedimentary rock left over from when the place was covered by a shallow ocean. It’s a bit of a pain to get down there if you’re not a kid or if you’re unsure on your feet but if you arrive at the bottom without dying or breaking any body parts, the views are as spectacular from the bottom as they are from the top.

Ledges in Virginia Kendall area

It’s pretty cool to see rocks of this magnitude in an area (the midwest, that is) which is more known for its farm land than it is for its sedimentary rocks.

Ledge Trail, near Kendall Lake

The normal compliment of midwestern animals can be seen here, too, and you’ll probably see deer crossing the roads or grazing in pastures off to the side from time to time.

After all, it is a National Park.

Wary Chipmunk

While it’s still October, I recommend you get over there if you possibly can; that is, if you like this kind of stuff. And if you get that crazy-early start, a great breakfast can be had at the Richfield Family Restaurant. If your coming from the west, it’s right on your way. Enjoy. Have fun but be careful!

We’d take the roll of film to a local photo lab, or a drug store and have the roll developed and printed. Then we’d look at our resulting pictures and throw away the lousy ones that we already paid for. Remember that?

Nowadays almost all of us shoot with digital cameras. Those that prefer real photos to inkjet outputs still take the pictures to a lab (such as Kohne Camera) while those that only share pictures on Facebook or other online-share-sites instead of sharing them on a couch, at a kitchen table, or by postal mail don’t print them out at all.

Regardless of how you share, half a picture is made behind the camera and half is made in the photo lab.

For those of you that are I-never-print-my-pictures people, you still need a photo lab, but you’re the photo lab, and that’s precisely half the effort that goes into making any picture, just like always.

Point-&-Shoot camera shooters need not read on because the in-camera photo processing you have is wonderful, fabulous, and probably needs no assistance from you; however, SLR owners just might need to polish their photos, finesse them, sweeten them, and otherwise make them more awesome before sharing.

Why? Generally speaking, the camera manufacturers have always seemed to feel that if you have a Point-&-Shoot camera, you’re into living, loving and laughing. You have no need to sit behind a computer because you’re too busy living and laughing. All you do is live and laugh. And love, too, of course. All the awesome image processing is built right into your camera so that you can do what you’d rather do. Your pix look terrific right outa the box.

If, however, you bought an SLR (Sony Alpha, Pentax K, Nikon D-series, Canon Rebel), they figure you’re into photography. And you plan to love your photos between all that laughing and loving stuff. And you want them, no—you need them– to be really great; therefore, in-camera processing is much lesser in an SLR. The manufacturers simply leave the sweetening up to you.

You can remove all the distractions, debris, and clutter from any photo you take these days. You can remove the people you no longer speak to. You can make a blue sky when there was none that day. Take out that highway sign above your child. Replace the closed eyes with open ones. Add a pigeon where there was no pigeon before if need be. Paint over graffiti or remove the garbage truck altogether. Most of all, you can make your digital camera capture match what your eyes saw in real life.

Art and Artistry is one thing, but I don’t suggest that for normal picture-taking, you should ever alter reality in any big way. If you take my PhotoShop class, I’ll make that perfectly clear for about 5 minutes; however, sweetening (or being your own photo lab) is just a normal way of living with a digital camera these days.

Just below: the SOOC (Straight Out Of the Camera) version of some Wood Ducks that hang out at Side Cut Park this month…

And next, after personal processing… with me as the photo lab… this next one was cropped, has contrast alterations, sharpening, highlight enhancement, and CTTA to remove the clutter (Cloning The Trash Away).

Which would you rather share, SOOC or Sweetened?

We’re doing consultations this season, and Photoshop Classes in January if you want help with being your own photo lab. Once you do, you’ll not only have fun but be proud as well. Those that are already Photoshop enthusiasts, good on you! You already know that half a photo is camera and half is computer. I really have to work on my living, laughing, and loving because this self-photo-lab stuff is really way cool!

-Gary