I'm a Finalist in the Outdoor Photographer Contest!

Oh, happy day! There were 4,000 images submitted in the recent Outdoor Photographer "Your Favorite Places" photo contest, and 31 fnalists were selected and announced today. This image of Mt. Fitz Roy in Argentine Patagonia, taken last November, was chosen. I am very proud of this honor; it feels a bit humbling to see my image alongside the images of so many other wonderful photographers.

I had decided earlier this year that it is time to get my stuff "out there", so it does feel very rewarding to have my first effort acknowledged this way.

If you would like to cast a vote for my image in the People's Choice competition, you can go to the finalists page where you will find Fitz Roy on page 2. You will need to be a registered user of the Outdoor Photographer site, which is easy to do - you do not need to have a subscription to participate. Click once on the stars under the photo to cast your vote.

Contest winners will be announced in June and the results published in the magazine. Wish me luck!

Almost Forgotten

A bum knee has kept me closer to the computer than usual for the past couple of days. It has given me the chance to dig into a project I had set aside - the creation of a Blurb book of my Patagonia adventures. It has been fun to revisit these images and apply a few newly learned Photoshop techniques to them. I have discovered that "select:color range" can be a powerful way to do a pretty decent job of isolating colors that I want to brighten. I find that when I can do this, say, to the leaves on a tree or some colorful foreground plant life, it can really add depth to my image. Another trick that I have been using lately is to convert the background to a smart object, then go to "Image" - "Adjustments" - "Variations". In this panel you can work with midtones, highlights, and shadows to lighten or darken these select portions of the image.

I found two images in my raw collection from Torres del Paine that I had not originally selected for my gallery and spent some time with them. I am very pleased with the result - they show the moodiness of the scene, which was a pretty cloudy and blustery day. I had not orginally selected them because the Torres were obscured by the clouds. I hope you will agree that the result is very dramatic! A true lesson for all of us photographers about the importance of backing everything up and not discarding randomly. You may find a diamond in the rough on a future visit to your archives.

Back at Home

I am back at home after a wonderful week in Sedona with the red rocks. This morning, I decided to get up early, at 4 am, to chase the harvest moon with hopes that I might get a photo of it with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. I had been told by a friend that it was amazing yesterday, so, why not give it a try? I drove out to Emeryville and found fog over the gate, so I drove over the Bay Bridge thinking that I would see the moon over the City from Treasure Island. It was dark, I was not fully awake, so I overshot the turnoff, and what do you know, I was in the City! Keeping the moon within sight, I drove out to the Marina and ended up at the Palace of Fine Arts just as the setting moon slipped behind the building and out of sight. So, I set up my tripod and made this image.

I think my early morning foray into the City is kind of a metaphor for life, when you allow yourself to take each moment as it comes. Follow your instinct, follow your heart, follow the moon, and look what waits for you at the end of the road!