Keith Don't Go

If the title to this post doesn't ring a bell it is the title to a song by one of my favorite musicians, Nils Lofgren. He has played with E Street Band, Ringo Starr, Neil Young and has countless solo albums out there. If you are not familiar with his solo work check it out.

But I have already digressed. I admire the work of Annie Leibovitz but what this is about for me is Keith Richards. He defines Rock and Roll. Who would have thought he would me hanging around with Louis Vuitton luggage. I would have guessed more likely an old duffle bag but what do I know.

Anyway there is some cool lighting Annie does here, I just have to wonder, with both of them being such high profile people what the vibe was in that room. I bet it was way cool!

You Suck at Photoshop #5: Select Color Range

If you haven't seen any of these videos let me just say they are FUNNY.

Whether you know the process covered or not you will get a laugh watching Donnie walk you through various Photoshop techniques.

I think there are a series of 20, all funny and for those new to Photoshop informative.

New Website Up!

I just spent the last week doing what I thought would be a fairly easy task, updating my website. That was not to be the case.

With a lot of time on my hands, my arm still in a sling, one thing led to another and the end result is that I completely redid my website. I added new images, which would have been easy enough but I decided to complicate this by going back over hundreds of older files looking for images I had not used for one reason or another.

Then since so much of my existing web imagery was a couple of years old and feeling like I know a LOT more about using Photoshop now I thought it wise to start from the original RAW file and re-edit almost every image.

Turns out I am really glad I did both. The downside to my new knowledge is there just seem to crop (no pun intended) up those images that I can spend infinite amounts of time on playing with variations.

A good example is this image. I shot it six months ago and before finally saying, “okay this is it!” I must have started from the RAW file 25 times at least. I have a new appreciation for landscapes and photographers that shoot them.

Then I decided to change the type face of my header. I thought this would be quick and easy but I turned it into a full day of looking at type faces on what seems like every website that has them. Good news is I learned a lot about type...man there are some awesome type faces out there...there are also some really weird ones to put it nicely. Towards the end my eyes started to glaze over and at one point I even considered this, well for about a split second.

Probably a good decision since I don't want people to think of me as the chain saw photographer as a friend of mine put it.

I am using http://www.sitewelder.com/ as my host company and I can't say enough about the good people that run things there. They are amazingly fast to get back to me answering any questions I have and are also great about tweaking things for me when asked.

Here are a few other new photos I added:

What To Do With My Arm In A Sling??

So I have my left arm in a sling from the accident a week ago and I am starting to get bored. So I figured go through some old files and play with Photoshop. The one below I shot several years ago in Pagudpud on the cost of Luzon. I decided to bump up the saturation...a lot, and give it some grain i.e. noise, crop it and voila.

This one I did close to the opposite. I desaturated it and then added the noise.

Then I decided to go out n the deck and shoot some of the orchids my wife had just put out and convert them to B/W. Again I added some "grain".

Not sure the doc would approve quite yet but it was kind of fun just playing around.

Ouch!

Had an accident on my motorcycle last Sunday. Dog ran out in front of me and then did a u-turn about 3 feet from me.

Here is the scoop...

My clavicle bone separated from the scapula completely. Clavicle was sticking straight up. 3 cracked ribs. Fortunately I had a full face Helmut on. I have two pins in the bones. One will be removed in two months. The other stays in for two years at which time it can be removed if I want but no real need to. Have to find out more about that. Minimum 6 months recovery before I can go back to the gym. It sucks! Can't even lift a camera for at least 2 months and maybe more. Hell I can't even put in my contact lenses because I can't lift my left arm to my face.

Thankfully I had a full-face helmet on. It is trash now. Weird no cuts and only one minor bruise on the inside of my knee. All in all I would say I was lucky!

Surgery went well and I think I had a great orthopedic surgeon. He and his brothers all studied at St. Lukes here in the PI...best med school here and rated very highly worldwide. But man am I soar.

Jade and Mia stayed at the hospital with me. Of course Jade loved that. She thinks it's a vacation but she was glad to come home last night. Going to be tough on her since daddy was always the play guy and now I can't even pick her up but she seems to understand, saying "dad you sick? Your shoulder is broken? This one?" And points to hers.

The brother of my surgeon is a cardiologist and he went over me to clear me for surgery. Blood tests for everything. Cardiogram was good as was everything else. BP was 120/80 the entire time there except immediately on checking when it was 130/90.

The most painful thing was tests for allergies to any and all meds before they gave them. Those hurt!

He has me on antibiotics, pain meds (which I really need) and vitamins to help the bones heal for three months.

Docs told me 80% of their trauma cases are motorcycle accidents and most of those caused by dogs running out into the street.

I took the sling off yesterday to bath and already my arm has stiffened to where it is hard, close to impossible, to straighten at the elbow...so I am slowing stretching it twice a day. The rehab is going to be slow I think especially in the beginning which is probably 2 months away...

Trying to do some PS work today and finding it to be a pain in the ass with one hand.

This is the last shot I did the day before the accident playing with a couple of lights on yet another rainy day here in the Philippines.

Ocean Cleanup

This past weekend I covered the cleanup on Manila Bay here in the Philippines, part of an around the world ocean cleanup day organized by Ocean Conservancy.

The Cleanup began in 1986 in Texas and in 1989 the Cleanup went global with the addition of Mexico and Canada. Since then, the International Coastal Cleanup has grown to become the largest volunteer effort of its kind for the ocean. Last year alone, nearly 400,000 volunteers in more than 100 countries removed up 6.8 million pounds of trash at 6,485 sites along beaches, rivers, lakes and streams as well as below the water’s surface.

It was amazing to see the effort put into the day by so many people. Sadly the results, as good as they were, seemed hopeless as I watched another line of trash move in on an incoming tide just as the cleanup was finishing up.

Before the cleanup began you can see the amount of trash on the shoreline.

Just a fraction of the people helping Saturday.

The Philippine Coast Guard was on hand to help.

A new line of trash can be seen close to the horizon as it moves in with the incoming tide just as the cleanup is finished.

Marine debris (ocean trash) is more than an eyesore; it is a potential threat to our food supply, to tourism and economic activity, to marine wildlife and ecosystems, and to our own personal health and safety. It even relates to the ocean’s resilience and ability to adapt to the onset of climate change.

Testing in the Rain

Okay so I am sick of the rain. It just seems to rain and rain and rain here lately. Last night I was going a bit stir crazy and decided to walk down the street with two 580 EXIIs and the Canon 5D and play around. I knew a spot where I could hopefully light and shoot and keep everything dry.

This is what you call a dirty kitchen (the outside kitchen) in the Philippines and the vehicle to the right is called oner here in the Philippines, kind of a jeep.

I used a 16-35 zoom at about 24 or somewhere close. It was too dark to worry about recording that at the time.

This first shot is without any strobes...f11@ 20 seconds, ISO 100.

For this shot I used one strobe just off camera right zoomed out as wide as possible -2/3 stop, same aperture and speed. I actually discovered that by slightly pulling out the bounce I could zoom it out to 14mm. Not sure if it is fact but it says so on the display and I thought I saw a difference between that and 24mm. The second strobe was about 15 feet to my right zoomed to 70mm and again -2/3 stop, angled right at the oner.