The above image pretty much says it all about the Palouse. I head home after a week here shooting and leading a PODAS workshop. It was a lot of fun. We had 28 attendees from around the world and made some new friends. Photography open so many doors and it so much fun to meet people who have the same passion. What a great week.
I have arrived in the Palouse. I picked up some of the instructors for the workshop and we went shooting. When in the Palouse sometimes it is the simple shot that just works. A week of photography in a beautiful area at harvest time. How cool is that!!!
A quick update, tomorrow I head out for an 8 day adventure in the Palouse. This is a region in SE Washington state that is a very beautiful area to shoot landscape pictures. I’ll be leading a PODAS workshop there with 28 attendees and 5 great instructors. I’ll update my blogs as often as I can. So starting tomorrow look for PODAS Palouse images. You can follow our blog for this trip at the PODAS Blog by clicking here. The blog will begin on Wed.
Today’s picture was made in the Neon Graveyard in Las Vegas, where old signs from the strip go where they are torn down. I focused on a red light bulb and then enhanced it in a few apps on the iPad. Kind of different so I thought I would share.
So, what do you do when you go to an industrial site (Gravel Quarry) and want to make the place look gritty and sort of apocalyptic? You use a good camera and some of the app you can find on the iPad. This shot was of a big old dump truck at the quarry, obviously not used much. I shot a variety of angles of it and this is the one I selected. I like the flat tire, low angle, and the hose coming off of it. I pulled the image into the iPAd and used SNapSpeed to adjust the drama, grit, and selective colors. Enjoy!
A few weeks ago I spent a few hours ay a local gravel pit right before a thunderstorm . The light was beautiful and there was all sort of things to shoot. This shot was originally made on a GH2. I imported the photo into the iPad and worked on in SnapSeed a great app to manipulate images. I wanted to portray a kind of scaryy, abandoned what is this machine look. I also cropped it tight and almost square. I added some tonality to it also. So, What is IT?
The sun is going dow and a storm is rolling in and I am at a very Terminator movie looking place. No one is around yet there are all of these giant machines all around, wires and pipes running all over he ground. So, I saw this one shot and thought it would work. There are a lot more. This has wires going out to some building but I have no idea what any of this stuff is. Made for an interesting photo.
Today’s image is from the same place in San Miguel, Mexico where I did the shot from a week ago. This time I composed the picture so I was looking dead on into the stairs. I like the brick, concrete and stone. I loaded the image onto my iPad which is now one of my favorite have with you anytime editing platforms and worked the image a bit a few programs. This is the result. Hope you like it.
Good day…This is a shot of the Dunes in Death Vally from the Stove Pipe area. I like the way the images have different layers. I also processed it out to a gritty (sand) and different contrasty look. a different way to see this great area.
While visiting San Miguel, Mexico I had the opportunity to visit a giant hotel that was under construction. Then one day they realized they were building this hotel right below a dam and if the dam broke the hotel would be wiped out. So, they stopped building the hotel. Thus her is this abandoned hotel just sitting there. My friend Michael and I explored this hotel and i found a number of cool shots. This one is clued stairs. I love the angles of the stairs and how the angles of steel (red) make the image.
So, blogging from China is still hard to do. I am also having Facebook withdrawal as I can’t access FaceBook form China. But, I am having a great time. I started my trip out in Beijing and for the last few days have been in Chengdu. Here I did a few presentations on PODAS workshops trying to get the Chinese market interested in a photography workshop in Death Valley this November. We have had more than 50 people at each presentation and they have been very welcoming to me and PODAS. Yesterday and today have been down days and I have had a chance to see some of the wonderful sites in the Chengdu area. Yesterday I visited the Panda Research facility and that is where I took the wonderful photo for today’s blog. What would a trip to China be without a Panda photo. We caught a cab just as a torrential rain storm hit. It kind of washed out the rest of the day as the heavens opened up and it just poured down rain. Never the less it was a great day with wonderful meals with great new friends. Today, I visited two areas. One a river area with all sorts of beautiful places along cliffs and the river. Lots of climbing and walking. I even managed to slide butt first down a muddy hill. It’s very hot here and you need to drink a lot of water. Lots of walking and climbing. We also visited a mountainous area and it seems that we climbed hundreds of steps to the top. It was a beautiful area and I am sure I’ll be posting some images from this wonderful area. It was then back to the hotel for a refreshing cool shower and some relaxing before a dinner with fellow Phase One members and our local dealer. All in all it’s been a very special trip so far. Tomorrow I head to Guangzhou where I will do two presentation and then to Hong Kong where I will do presentations on Thursday and finally a very long plane ride back home on Friday. I hope all of you have had a great fourth of July weekend. I will make up for missing the holiday next weekend with my own fireworks and burgers on the grill. Look for more posting when I can get online.