I decided this past weekend to add more memory to my computer. I had 2GB of RAM and upped it to 4GB. Not a lot by some people’s standards but quite a lot for me. I ordered the memory from OWC, it came today and computer guru Kevin installed it for me tonight. He then took the old RAM from my iMac and put it into Kathy’s PowerBook, which upped hers from 512MB to 2GB. Now we both have screamin’ machines with the substantial increase in memory. All for under $50!

To commemorate the occasion I’ve been playing around with things that use memory-hawg processing like panoramas. This one is a 15-frame stitch made at sunrise at Pounding Mill Overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway last fall. Click on the image to see larger. It looks pretty nice on the screen. I may have to try and print it!

Those of us in the financial industry get a long weekend this weekend, and I’m trying to take advantage of it and get some work done. Kathy & I went to a little doings last night at the home of Nanine Hartzenbusch and her husband Bert Fox. Most of my usual Photo Buddies were there, and I met a number of interesting people whose work I have seen but didn’t know personally.

Gary O’Brien is a photographer for the Charlotte Observer and does fantastic work with panoramas, for his own portfolio as well as the Observer and for charlotteobserver.com. I’ll be interested in following his work to see what I can learn about panorama photography.

Although nothing like Gary’s panoramas, today’s photo is a measly 14-frame stitch panorama from last November’s Chincoteague outing. I’ve posted it a little wide, and you should be able to see the full-size image by clicking on the photo.

I’ve been experimenting with impressionistic motion blur techniques on land and on water as inspired by William Neill and his recent book Impressions of Light that Kathy happened to buy me for Christmas (thanks!). I have been following this work on his website and on his blog for quite some time and find it really appealing. I really like some of the results I have been getting, especially on water, and have made some prints which I’m really, really happy with. The thing I like the best is that Neill’s work has inspired me but I don’t feel like I am just copying someone else’s work or style. I feel like it is very personal and allows me to express myself in a personal way.

I belong to an informal photo support/print review group that meets a couple of times a month, and I took some of my prints to our meeting this week. I got a number of favorable comments about the work, partly because it is a real departure from my usual landscape work, partly because it is – not just in my opinion – pretty nice work and partly because everyone is being polite. But not too polite because it is a pretty tough crowd!

Among the many comments I received was one that went something like “you need to do more of this, but don’t let it become about the technique.” After additional discussion and conversation, and some subsequent thinking on my own, I think that comment summarizes in a lot of ways what I am trying to do with my work. It’s so easy to get hung up on the gear, the software, the technique that for many people creativity becomes about the “how” and not the “why.” When I see some bandwagon that everyone is jumping on, whether it is some new selective-focus lens, special effects plug-ins or some special filter, I tend to run the other way. There’s nothing wrong with using the tools, but we don’t go around wrecking the furniture just because we got a new hammer.

I need to explore this further, as I’m not sure where my head is going with it. Not every scene or subject is appropriate to photograph with motion blur any more than it is appropriate to use a Lensbaby to photograph everything we see. I think I need to do more of it, with different subjects and under different conditions to learn more about where it works and where it doesn’t, what I like and what I don’t like. And I probably need to get back to the beach. Kathy will hate that!

“Beamies,” as I like to call them, have become somewhat of a trademark for me. I like finding them and they make dramatic subject matter. Sunbeams are rays of hope and provide encouragement in the face of a new year.

One morning at Chincoteague this past November was a day with high Beamie Potential. As I often do I took off with just one lens, in this case my 70-200 which turned out to be a little long for this scene. What to do other than to try a few panoramas? This is just a 2-frame stitch but was all I needed to catch both ends of the rays. A wider lens would have given me more foreground and sky, which I would have probably cropped out anyway!

Considering that I started out the year planning to take it easy on picture taking in order to get something done other than add to my ever-increasing backlog of image processing, I still managed to burn almost 10,000 images this year! For people who spend a lot more time pressing the button than I do that’s a busy week, but for me that’s a BUNCH!

For the last couple of years I have been keeping a list of goals that I wanted to accomplish. My goals for 2008 set a pretty high bar for someone who does this part-time and for fun while trying to have a somewhat normal life and pay sufficient attention to my lovely companion, assistant and steadying influence (that would be Kathy). Despite all the distractions of Real Life I managed to get some things done:

(1) I created and distributed to potential clients a list of my existing stock inventory.
(2) I started and regularly updated my photo blog,
(3) I totally revamped my website and kept it updated with my best and most recent work. MAJOR BIGGIE and thanks Neon Sky!
(4) I finally put together a group of my Greenway images for a public show. Yeah, it was just a show at a local art-in-the-park show but it was a START.
(5) I prepared and presented a talk on Digital Workflow with Lightroom to our local CNPA chapter.
(6) I had two images published in one new publication (Blue Ridge Country)

The two unfinished biggies from 2008 that I had just moved to the top of the list for 2009 were (1) to finally get around to sending some of my images into a local stock agency and to (2) develop a process for registering my copyrights. Welllll, just this weekend and just under the wire, I started working on that stock agency project. I now have on my desk a stack of 10 DVDs, containing about 2600 of my images from 2004 to today. They’ll go to the agency on Monday, and that will cross one more thing off my list for 2008. I now have a process in place using Smart Collections in Lightroom to automatically put new images into a folder for future submissions.

According to my calculations I’ve processed about 1000 of those 10000 images and have another 1500 or so “picks” to process or toss, so I still have my work cut out for me. But there’s still a lot of winter to go!

It’s nice to have a few days away from the office from my Day Job, although I am technically Working From Home on Friday and do need to get some work done while I am here. The commute is certainly better than usual!

One of a number of door images taken on our walk around Old San Juan (Puerto Rico) on our recent cruise. I thought the wreath on this door made it appropriate for a Christmas Day post.

I hope to do some more posting over the weekend, depending on what other responsibilities crop up.

We just returned from our annual cruise, this year aboard the almost-brand-new Celebrity Solstice. What a beautiful ship and what a wonderful vacation! It’s Kathy’s reward for following me around the mountains in October and November chasing fall color.

One afternoon while lounging by the pool I happened to notice these glass panels that serve as a wind break between sections of the deck. From certain angles they reflected the clouds, but I just liked the way the shapes interacted with the clouds, without reflection. I didn’t even have to get out of my chair for this shot – proof that if you look around you’ll be amazed at what you can find.

I’ll be posting some more of these artsy shots as well as some vacation snaps soon!

Our latest magazine assignment was to shoot photos for an article about Banner Elk, NC for the January/February issue of WNC magazine. Since the article is to feature activities in the winter months, and since Banner Elk is known for being a ski destination, we kinda needed to get some snow to make it look like someplace you’d actually go and ski, right?

I was sweating this one, because I needed to have the photos turned in around the beginning of December, I really wanted to get some snow shots, and most importantly, it doesn’t usually snow very much there in November, and when it does it doesn’t always stick around very long. I also don’t have any more unscheduled vacation days from my day job, so it would be really convenient for me if it would snow on, say, a Friday so I could go there on a Saturday.

Needless to say, luck was a-shinin’ on me, because this past Thursday night and Friday morning Banner Elk got about 6 inches of the beautious white stuff. Add that up with a really helpful marketing director at Sugar Mountain Resort and Kathy & I copped a trip on the chair lift to the top of 5300′ Sugar Mountain! Lots of ski and snowboard shots, and everything just looked so nice and winterly with a good coat of snow.

This view is from the top of Sugar Mountain looking down over Banner Elk and the Elk River Valley. Those tracks in the foreground? The ones that look like they lead off a cliff? They lead to an actual ski trail called Boulder Dash, which is a not-for-sissies black diamond trail. I didn’t think I would try to look over the edge!