Monday Missive — July 29, 2019

Quotes

“We are all faking it. But that’s not a bad thing. Not when faking it means making it up as we go. Learning what it means to be us. To be alive in this world and to create whatever it is we make as our art from that place of vulnerability and humility.” — David DuChemin

“Great photography is always on the edge of failure.” – Garry Winogrand

“It is one thing to photograph people. It is another to make others care about them by revealing the core of their humanness.” – Paul Strand

Links

Photoessays/Bodies of Work
– Emilio Nadales: Street Photography
– W. Eugene Smith: Country Doctor If you aren’t familiar with Smith’s ground-breaking photojournalism, you should definitely check out this article. It is mostly about his “Country Doctor” essay, but there are some links to Spanish Village and other work. His style was distinctive, the order of images critical, and his work always had tremendous emotional impact.
– Stories on Stockholm streets I like the images, but also like the idea that he keeps people annonymous, but still tells a clear story.

Post-processing
– Scratch disk Often Photoshop needs “work space” to complete commands. Sometimes the required workspace can be considerably larger than the size of the file. If your system is nearing its limits, PS can run out of space to complete the requested changes, especially if you are working with large files. This video illustrates three options for addressing this issue.
– Sharpening without halos Sharpening algorithms actually increase small scale contrast, they don’t actually sharpen the image, they just make it look sharper. When you increase contrast, the lights get lighter, and this can create halos and that “crunchy” look. This video shows how to minimize that effect.
– How to easily straighten buildings Works great for horizons too. (From Steve Oney)
– HDR panoramas
– Make your images pop Using a BW layer in Luminosity blending mode

Field/Studio
– Birding hotspots in the east

Miscellany
– Straight talk about Instagram

Didn’t get out much this past week, so this Monday Missive images are all from my backyard. The butterflies seem to be particularly active this week. I planted specifically to attract pollintors and the most attractive plants seem to be Joe Pye Weed, Butterfly Bush and Agastache.

Tiger Swallowtail on Joe Pye Weed; coneflowers in the backgournd.

Tiger Swallowtail, dark form, on butterfly bush.

Silver-spotted skipper. The skippers are small and often common butterflies that are typically hard to identify. I like the silver-spotted skipper because it is so readily identifiable by its size and distinctive white spot.