Patrick Lynch Photography

Travel and Compromise

04. February 2016 · Comments Off · Categories: Philosophy, Photography, Travel · Tags: compromise, photography, Travel

Village rice terraces; a compromise photo

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” Mark Twain

What I have found, is that as a photographer, there are compromises that need to be made when travelling. The number of compromises increases with the number of people you travel with. The featured image above is an example; shot from the bus window as we were driving by. The photo required large depth of field, high shutter speed, which meant high ISO…Compromise. If I had been by myself, I could have stopped, set up the tripod and had a better image.

Sunset, a set of compromises.

The compromise is often around time, as a photographer, I need time to take photos, the others don’t want to wait, or can’t wait. Sometimes the compromises are with yourself; in the sunset picture the rest of the group was enjoying a cold one, or in the pool, I make the choice for the photo rather than cooling off. There were other compromises as well, no polarizer because of time and condensation. Not having enough time to deal with the condensation that makes the left part of the image soft.

I knew going in that travel would be a set of compromises, not enough time in return for having the experience. Compromise was forced on me in that my primary body was in the shop and I was using the backup body. And so, the list of compromises continues. There will always be compromises. Given that there will always be compromises, then the question becomes what choices do we make in the face of competing desires or goals, how do we choose between more than one goal with limited time and resources?

Rice paddies and mountains

With ‘Rice paddies and Mountains’ a different comprise; I was riding a bike with my camera in my knapsack, limited amounts of time to stop, no deviation from the route. Exceedingly well worth the the bike ride, and even the pack spill that I went down in. Lot’s of possible ‘IFs’, but if I was focused on what was not available I would not have been present for what was available.

Tanah Lot is incredibly popular as a world heritage site. In this photo there were folks on both sides of me and behind me all jostling for an opportunity to take this photo. How do we deal with others that may have goals that are different than mine?

Photography, like life is learning to choose and live with compromises.

For more pictures of Bali, visit my Bali Album

Tanah Lot

Too Perfect?

26. January 2016 · Comments Off · Categories: Philosophy, Photography, Travel · Tags: philosophy, photography, Travel

“Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.” Salvador Dali

I was sharing with a friend photos from Bali. He surprised me and said the pictures were too perfect ! LoL

Are these photos too perfect?

Everyday beauty, Common offering of flowers in Bali

Sunrise and fishing

Sunset

Rice paddies and mountains

I would argue that they are not too perfect, but rather their imperfections are not as glaring as the typical travel point and shoot pics. No, not too perfect.

Let’s look at each of these photos and see what might have been done better.

The bowl of flower petals, gorgeous bowls made every morning. In the photo the upper rim of the bowl is slightly out of focus. The red was more vivid than the photo. And there is a glare reflection in the center of the bowl. If I had been using a polarizer, the the colors would be better. A tripod and greater depth of field would have helped the upper rim. No not too perfect

Looking at the sunrise photo, a nice photo, one of the best from the trip. My timing was slightly off, the boat needs to be slightly more to the left. But worse, is that the horizon is not level. I should have caught that imperfection in post processing. Again, if I had had a polarize on the colors would have been more vivid. No, not too perfect.

The sunset photo although eye catching has many goofs that the trained eye will notice. First are the awful spots, worse than zits on a face, on a face you don’t get a lot of choice, in a photo you do. Also the horizon isn’t level. But there is another problem with this photo over on the left edge, notice the softness in the water? Our rooms were thankfully air conditioned to about 70 with much of the humidity remove. Outside at 90 to 100 and 75% humidity was a different story. The issue was, taking the camera from the cold room outside promptly caused LOTS of condensation on the lens. This needed to be carefully wiped away to take a shot until the camera warmed up and it was good for about 10 seconds. Again, a polarizer would have made the colors more vivid still. No not too perfect.

The water temple is nice, but notice the lens flare above the fountain? Taking time, with extra shading from a hat would have prevented the lens flare.

The rice paddy with mountains; see the glare in the water? That would have disappeared with a polarizer, and the polarizer would have made the sky darker more contrasty.

Conclusion, no not too perfect. However, there are several vastly more important lessons to be gleamed here. There isn’t really perfection, it is a journey as we become more perceptive to nuances. There is a prayer that I love that speaks to learning to live with imperfections. “God, I humbly ask you to remove all of my shortcomings that get in the way of me being of service to you” notice not all the shortcomings, some of the ‘shortcoming’ might just be needed even though we may not like them. Photos like life are not too perfect, they are perfect they way they are.

Travels in Bali

19. January 2016 · Comments Off · Categories: Travel · Tags: Bali, Travel

Much has happened since the last post in September, including a computer crash and a trip to Bali, Indonesia. One of the most powerful characteristics of travel, is its ability to allow us to challenge assumptions about life and living that we take for granted. When a fish is out of water it suddenly notices the lack of water that it never noticed before. The featured photo is of Tanah Lot, Bali, which is a world heritage site. It is a Hindu Temple site, but Muslims and Christians as well as others visit it in peaceful coexistence. Besides a being beautiful, the rock has a fresh water spring welling out of it. In Bali, temples are built where there are unusual, auspicious things. In our western way what do we become jaded to? Why can’t we have coexistence and cooperation rather than one up, one down?

On this trip, I went with Spirit Tours. Usually I travel on my own without the pampering that I received from this tour. However, more importantly, this tour encouraged me to examine my beliefs and grow spiritually as a result. In Bali, there are statues EVERYWHERE! Here are some examples. The statues always seem to have a cultural/spiritual reference. I guess this isn’t surprising; statues always seem to have this, or at least historical significance. The statues everywhere reflect the cultural importance of religion in everyday life.

Carved in the rock

Pool at first hotel, the elephant a figure of wisdom in Bali

Another character from the Ramayana, as depicted in Bali

Rama and Sita, in Bali

Gryphon in Bali

Similarly, everyday, offerings of flowers are made. What would our culture be like if we lived it with a spiritual perspective pervading all that we did?

Everyday beauty, Common offering of flowers in Bali

Common offering of flowers in Bali

Bali is caught between the old and the new. Tourism is 70% of its income, however about half the population is still rural subsistence farming, as seen in these photos.

Rice paddies and mountains

Otherwise a typical scene in Bali

Terraced fields in Bali

Village fields in Bali

Typical house and plot

Getting ready for planing

As a tropical location with all of the humidity, there are beautiful sunrises and sunsets.

Sunrise and fishing

Sunset

Sunrise

For more images of Bali visit my Bali album.

Shout out for ThinkTank Photo !

09. September 2015 · Comments Off · Categories: equipment · Tags: camera bag, equipment, ThinkTank

ThinkTank backpack holding down the tripod

I have to write this post! I have a ThankTank Airport Addicted (no longer made) that I love as a camera backpack! I’m guessing that the closest one today is the Airport Accelerator. There are several fundamental themes as to why I love my ThinkTank products (I also have a large sling bag from them).

ThinkTank Photo
ThinkTank Photo

They work! I have acquired and given away probably half a dozen different camera backpacks over the years. They all seemed good initially, but with a little use I found issues with each in turn. My Airport backpack from ThinkTank is the exception.
1. As an ex backpacking guide, I know how a backpack should fit and feel, what works and doesn’t work for carrying weight on the back (and glass weighs a lot). The Airport backpack does a great job in meeting the backpack requirement!
2. It holds lots of stuff! My sister says that there are two types of backpackers; those who only pack what they can carry, and those that pack what they want and then learn to carry it. I am of the later variety. For some trips (like when I am leading a photo day hike) I will often only fill half of it with camera gear, and then put jackets, food, water, first aid in the other half. (and that still leaves me with tripod, 500mm, 100-400, and 24-105 lens. and filters).
3. Usability. Some of the camera backpacks were nothing more than large bags that required rummaging around in to find things without any padding. Others had so much padding and dividers that there was no room for anything. The Airport backpack is a great compromise between protection, space, and access. Access on some of the backpacks was very cumbersome and only place that they could be unpacked was the living room floor, not so with my Airporter.
4. Incidentally nice things: It does fit in the overhead of all but the small regional jets. I have added a small carabiner to the top handle (it has handles in places to make it easy to carry as a suitcase) so that I can hang it from my tripod when things are windy (Oh, and I can still get in it).
The second reason that I love my ThinkTank is because of how they treat their customers. Three or four years ago, after I had had the backpack for 3 or 4 years one of the plastic buckles broke. REI did not have one that would fit as a replacement after buying several and trying. So, I contacted ThinkTank and they sent me a replacement buckle free. More recently, I lost (I don’t know how) half of the belly band. I contacted ThinkTank again and they mailed a replacement half out right away along with a new buckle so that I could make sure that the buckle would match. Again at no charge. I compare this to one of the camera day packs I had that had fraying seams at the the end of a few months of use…

So, based on my two products and my experiences with ThinkTank I happily recommend their equipment ! Next time you are in the need of some type of camera related container take a look at their equipment.

PS. this blog is purely spontaneously written and is not a quid pro quo for anything from ThinkTank.

Below are some places the Airport backpack has been. The only place it was a problem were some of the tight slot canyons.

detail- adding a catch light in the eyes

Waking grizzly

Arches National Park

Escalante

Elephant Seals,Piedras Blancas

Eastern Sierra,Fall Colors,Sierra,Sierra Nevada,aspens,tree]

Fall Colors

Back it up!

05. September 2015 · Comments Off · Categories: Backups, Taking care · Tags: backups

Photos I would not want to lose, therefore backups

Skateboarder on a pipe, Santa Cruz

Back it up! -Backups save the soul

There is this awful feeling – you put your heart and soul in to creating a set of photos, only to have them gone for some technical reason. Backups tend to minimize this. When people have to evacuate their homes, almost always they take their family photos. How important are your photos? What are you doing about it? Remember Murphy was an optimist; the gremlins will show up at some point, it is just a question of when….

Photos I would not want to lose, therefore backups

Let’s contemplate the uncomfortable and look at where things might go wrong.

Pre sunrise Yosemite valley

In the camera: I had a compact flash go bad after a weekend of shooting it was 128 GB so that it held the whole weeks worth of shooting. Yes the manufacturer replaced it for me, but the weekend was lost and could not be recovered. This is an uncommon event, but it did happen. I now have a camera that puts the photos on 2 memory cards, not one.
Between shooting and home: This area is high risk, the number of things that could go wrong are large
- Camera stolen or lost (or the storage is stolen or lost)
- Accidentally deleting the photos to make more room
- Images get corrupted on the media
- I’m sure your mind can create many more scenarios.
- I have a Hyperdrive device that I use to make a copy of the photos after I take them so that I have yet another copy of the photos. This way if I am tired and goof, I have that much more of a safety net under me.
Once at home we can in tiredness fat finger and delete the wrong files or the wrong directories. I have done this one too…
Somewhere down the line the disk crashes and photos are lost. This has happened several times over the years – shame on me
There is an earthquake, fire, tornado, etc and the computer is lost with all of the photos.

Sunrise in fog

Although there are two general themes to the losses, external cause, and user error, the net result in both case loss of the photos. Each of us needs to decide what is it worth to have backups of the photos. There are a variety of solutions with pros and cons. Below are some of the ones that I am familiar with, this is not to say that there are similar or possibly better solutions, just the ones I am familiar with.

Wind Turbine

Hyperdrive is a nice solution to make a copy of your media while you are in the field, and potentially allow you to re use your media. It is easy to use and very reliable. The only downside is that media are getting larger faster than disk space is, so my 128 GB camera media now can only be saved 4 times in my 500 GB Hyperdrive. The only risk is being tired and deleting something you didn’t want to delete.
Local raid array on computer. Although this sounds nice, having tried the computer’s raid option twice on different computers, I have found that this is a false sense of security. In each case when there were computer problems the raid array was corrupted and the photos lost, not because of disk problems, but that the solution was not very reliable.
Dedicated hardware raid array. This requires that you are comfortable working on the insides of a computer so is not for everyone. I like the solution. There is potentially a significant outlay of $$$ for the solution in buying the controller, the disks, a good UPS system. I have found from using this solution that it is vulnerable to power fluctuations and having a UPS goes a long ways towards decreasing disk failures.
Synology NAS solution. This is a box that sits next to the computer and is connected to the computer with a network cable. It is easy to use and install. It does require buying the hard disks separately. I have used a variety of hard drive and vendors over the years as I keep increasing the size of my storage. I am very happy with Western Digial Red drives. They have been the most reliable drives that I have ever had.
And finally BackBlaze, this is an online backup solution. If there were a fire, I need an off site copy of the photos. I have looked at several online solutions for backing up photos and with the exception of Backblaze not been happy with the solutions. Often they become very expensive to store photos (figure 10TB of data), or they rate limit how quickly I can upload data (so that once beyond a threshold there is no more data uploaded. Backblaze is very reasonable at $5/month, nor do they rate limit the upload, which is good, because it still takes a long time to load that much data across the net.

Reflections at Yosemite

I would recommend a Synology solution and Backblaze solution for anyone looking at backup solutions. If you don’t have an an automatic method now, you will have some soul pain in the future.

Devil is in the the details

30. August 2015 · Comments Off · Categories: Fall Colors, Locations, Taking care, Travel · Tags: details, devil is in the details, planning

ADHD makes details difficult, luckily meds make a huge difference ! Never the less, the devil is in the details 🙂 Several things have been reminding me of this lately; some post processing work I have been doing, and planning the Columbia gorge trip with others.

The featured image of the Canadian Rockies was originally to dark and the clouds were blown out. I had it on my home page after fixing the too dark, but the clouds still bothered me because they were blown out -one of those details I had not taken care of….. This in turn had me looking at other photos from that trip (honeymoon) and finding more. One of the other details that I found was halo’ing on the sky-mountain edges. This in turn required me to revisit several other photos to deal with the halos. In the photo below, notice the halo in the sky along the mountain top.

Canadian Rockies

At least for me, it takes time and practice to notice the details, (and usually a goof or two as well). The fall colors to the Columbia gorge looks like it is a go, and I was talking with some of the others about it. In the course of the conversation, lots of details started popping up that need to be thought about.

rain cover for the camera
wool socks because our feet are likely to get wet, and wet cotton is awful
towel for rain, mist (from sky or water fall)
alarm clock to make it to sunrise on time
battery charger
which rental car agency so that we can have 2 drivers per car
AAA maps
which flights
where to stay for Silver Falls State park

And the lists go on. But if there is a list, I am more likely to get taken care of than thinking of it, and then forgetting.

The grizzly below does not have a catch light in its eyes. Compare the difference in feel between the image without the catch light and the one with the catch light. The catch light is a small detail, but has a big impact.

Waking grizzly

Waking grizzly with catch light doesn’t seem as formidable as without; a warmer friendlier photo.

Planning waterfalls and fall colors

22. August 2015 · Comments Off · Categories: Composition · Tags: composition, planning, waterfalls

This October, rather than our regular Eastern Sierra Fall colors trip, we are planning a trip to Oregon for waterfalls with fall colors. Part of the issue is that for my son and I the Eastern Sierra are becoming cliche; we know where a large number of great shots can be taken from, not that there are not more, new and different ones, but the obvious shots have been collected, in my LR catalog I have over 33,000 fall color frames, clearly not all of outstanding quality (LoL, 🙂 ). I have only done the waterfalls twice, one in the spring and once in the fall, it is still new.

Columbia gorge

There are the usual logistical issues of where to stay so that we can maximize photo time and have the greatest possibilities. Then there is the question of what places should we plan on stopping at? In this case, a guided book is invaluable, and I like Photographing Oregon, the whole ‘Photographing <state>’ series is designed for photographers. But, beyond the logistics of the trip there are other challenges that should at least be given some consideration. In sunny California, water, and in particular waterfalls are not common, blue skies are. How should we shoot a waterfall? High noon doesn’t work! Waterfalls are difficult to shoot because of the high contrast between the water, shade and sky. The high contrast makes it difficult to capture an image that matches the experience of the waterfall.

There are several ways to deal with the high contrast so often found when shooting waterfalls;

Make sure that everything in the photo is in the shade (implies no sky). The picture below violates sky clause, however most of the photo is in the shade , but even then the contrast in the water is still large.
Silver Falls Park, OR
This usually means knowing the right time of day for each scene that you want to shoot. (not 2PM like this one)
Do not include the sky even if there is direct sun on the scene
Can require great creativity in composition to make this work.

San Jose, Uvas Canyon
Waterfall without sky
Waterfall with sky
Use HDR with bracketed exposures (Usually need 3 to 5 stops on a sunny day)
Shoot with overcast skies so that the light is more even, less contrasty, and the colors are richer
Although I like HDR for the increased range, I have not yet had great success with waterfalls when I include the sky.

Multnoma, Columbia gorge

I couldn’t resist using this picture of my wife and I. Multnomah falls is a popular wedding location. 🙂 Luckily the Oregon weather tends to cooperate with this aspect!

Pretty Pictures

15. August 2015 · Comments Off · Categories: Philosophy, Photography · Tags: photography, pretty pictures

Overlooking Capital Reef A pretty picture

This week, I am not writing very much. I have spent much of my photo time the last two weeks looking at photos and improving them in the digit dark room with the goal of making pretty pictures. I have found that over time, my criteria for what is an okay picture has evolved, that I get pickier about what I like. The pictures today generally have to have better composition, and be better technically (straight horizons, no spots, etc) than what they use to be be. The net of all of this, is for me prettier pictures.

I saw the opening image in the rear view mirror and stopped. At the time, and now it is a golden crown. We were in the right place at the right time; there are many right places and right times if your eyes are open. Paying attention leads to pretty pictures.

One of the Windows Arches. Seeing the possibility

The image below is about what the camera produced, but in my mind’s eye there was more than this. The result a pretty picture after a bit of work.

One of the windows arches in Arches National park

Here is another variation of the same scene. Both can be nice pictures.

One of the windows arches in Arches National park

When I got married a few years back, I gave away framed photos. It took a while to frame them, and I had help from a friend. But what was interesting was that there were lots of different pictures, and pictures that I found pretty were not the same ones others did, so pretty pictures, like beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

The picture below has a very different feel to it compared to the arches above. Each of us is drawn by the feeling that a photo evokes within us. The massiveness and strong lines can be accentuated with a crop as seen below.

Slot Canyon

You choose which one do you like best; there is no right answer only what each of us calls a pretty picture.

Cropped version to emphasize the massiveness

Come on over to Patrick Lynch Photography and see more.

Good Photo Hygiene

08. August 2015 · Comments Off · Categories: How to, Locations · Tags: photo hygiene, Point Lobos, spotting

“Photography suits the temper of this age – of active bodies and minds. It is a perfect medium for one whose mind is teeming with ideas, imagery, for a prolific worker who would be slowed down by painting or sculpting, for one who sees quickly and acts decisively, accurately.”

by Edward Weston.

Yes, I admit that I had fun with the title ! 🙂 Photo hygiene is a catchy title for spotting photos. It is seldom that there is not some spot on the photo, that while barely visible on the screen stands out like a huge zit on printed photos ! The lead image has been spotted to remove the worst of the spots, plus a minute or 2 of work in Adobe Lightroom (LR) and Adobe Photoshop. Here is the original image. Notice the spots over in the upper left. Distracting at best. There are also spots in the center. Below are some blow ups, for the spots I have both a blow up and an enhanced blowup to make the spots easier to spot (pun intended).

Pre photo hygiene

Lightroom has a nice spotting tool, and easy to use. after selecting the spotting tool, the size of the spot can be controlled with the roller on the mouse.

Spotting tool used for good photo hygiene

After selecting the spotting tool, there is a a check box at the bottom of the window “Visualize spots” checking the box changes the image. The result looks similar to the image below. I have added the red arrows to indicate spots. The check box makes it easier to find and fix spots, i.e. practicing good photo hygiene. Use the spotting tool on the image in this mode and when unchecking the “Visualize spots” box the spots are gone. Here are the blow ups of the spots.

Left side spots

Center spot blow up before good photo hygiene

Enhanced center spots

This write-up on the spotting tool makes it sound more difficult than it is by far. The whole spotting exercise is less than 30 seconds of work. ‘Try it, you’ll like it, Mikey likes it.’ Here are the settings that I used after taking care of the spots to add a little more contrast and zip in the photo.

Lightroom Settings

Point Lobos state park just south of Carmel, Ca is a wonderful location, It was a favorite location of Edward Weston, hence the opening quote. On the day of the photos I was lucky enough to have have fog which certainly improved the image. Pt. Lobos is a locale that I continue to visit. Hint: arrive early, because the park fills up and then you have to wait for someone to leave to enter. Here are some other photos from that day.

Point Lobos

Harbor seal warming itself

Point Lobos

See more photos at Patrick Lynch Photography

Learning something new

01. August 2015 · Comments Off · Categories: Mental Process, Philosophy · Tags: learning, Learning new

Moon & Planet through the Tufa; learning night photography

When I go out to a restaurant, often I order something new, just to see what it is like, but sometimes I have the tried and true (like vanilla ice cream). Most folks I know have some spark of adventure in them, and some being comfortable. I drive the same 4 routes to work with very little adventure, whichever way is quickest, but with food, far more adventuresome. What about your photography? Are you learning something new? Or are you doing what you always do?

Milky way and Cathedral Peak – Learning night photography

I have been curious about night photography, but haven’t done much. I have thousands of frames of Yosemite, but when an opportunity came up to try night photography I was up for it (in a literal sense as well; the first night ended about 1:30 AM). Mostly the photos were duds which is not a surprise for the first time out. I don’t particularly like the first image because of the blurriness of the stars. Here are some of the the things that I learned:

Even with a red light headlamp, it causes problems. Lots of images where the red light either came in through the eye piece or the foreground.
Similarly the red light on the camera for when it is active caused problems as well.
- It helps if there is no one around with extraneous lights !
- For the next night I put duck tape over active light on the camera (it still shown through, but much less, and didn’t seem to impact the photos)
- I also put duck tape the second and third nights over the view finder to minimize any light that way as well.
Dress warmly. This one I had nailed, even though it was in the 80s during the day, at night with a breeze it was cold.
I also knew about hanging my camera bag from the tripod to help stabilize the tripod from the breeze.
I had problems getting the right exposure and focus
- As can be seen in the the first image, that has the crisp silhouette, but small star tracks getting a good crisp sky, properly lit sky is tricky.
- Use the fastest lens you have !
- If you have a foreground, then use 2 different exposures with different focus points. Use tape to hold the zoom, and focus in one place so that it doesn’t creep during the exposure.
- Look up ahead of time what is needed for a good night shot (it is different between star trails, and milky way shots) that has ISO, exposure time, f-stop. Nice sites with info:
  - how-to-photograph-the-milky-way
  - milky-way-exposure-calculator
- TURN OFF automatic noise reduction in the camera (certainly for Canon, maybe Nikon as well), as it doubles the time needed for every exposure.
And of course ! a GOOD tripod.
Sunset over Mono Lake

There is still lots more to learn about night photography ! Also lots of interesting foregrounds to use.

What are you learning that is new? Go look at some photos, and see what you would like to try that is new? Patrick Lynch Photography

Patrick Lynch Photography

Travel and Compromise

Too Perfect?

Are these photos too perfect?

Travels in Bali

Shout out for ThinkTank Photo !

Back it up!

Devil is in the the details

Planning waterfalls and fall colors

Pretty Pictures

Good Photo Hygiene

Learning something new

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