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Ten Days in Italy: Rome

May 27, 2016 by John Batdorff 1 Comment

It’s been about six weeks since our Italy photography workshop wrapped up, and while I’m still plugging away trying to scan some of my film, I thought I would share a few of my favorites so far. We had a great time with six amazing photographers spending days dedicated to photographing Rome, Florence, and Venice. This was a truly memorable photography workshop. I have too many photos to put them all in one blog, so I'll do three installments, one for each city. Since Rome was first on the itinerary, I'll start there. Enjoy!

Rome is known for it's fashion

Rome is known for it's fashion. The people there are definitely dapper dressers!

Italian Store fronts

Italy is known for it's classic streets and storefronts…

Italy is well know for being an artisan community

…as well as the artisan community. This man builds his frames one by one using a little glue, a hammer, and some nails.

Nuns window shoe shopping

It's “nunsense” to think you're the only one who enjoys shopping for Italian shoes! 🙂

Guarded Italian statues

It wouldn't be the Vatican if there weren't a naked statue with a personal guard around every corner.

Relaxing in St. Peters

The only way to truly take in St. Peter's Basilica is to sit back and enjoy it's grandiose beauty.

Rome is very colorful and gritty at moments. Frankly, some people just belong there :)

The streets of Rome are gritty and colorful. Frankly, some people just blend right in there. 🙂

There's a hidden treasure around every corner in Italy and workshop crew milked every photograph to it's fullest.

There's a hidden treasure around every corner in Italy and our workshop crew milked every photo opportunity!

The sketch

Rome has over 900 churches! A young person sketched Jesus from a pew in one of them.

The Carousel

There's something very magical about night photography in Italy. A big shout out to Jon for catching this one along our walk.

Rome had so much to offer in term of travel and street photography.

Rome had so much to offer in terms of travel and street photography.

Who knew rollerblading and drinking beer was big thing in Rome?

Who knew rollerblading and drinking beer was big thing on a Saturday in the park?

Italian kids

The Italian kids were the best. Since I have a 15 year old daughter, nothing was lost in translation. 🙂

The Collosseum

There are some places that I just prefer to photograph in black and white. The Colosseum is absolutely one of those places.

The Forum

The vast size of the Forum was incredible. To add drama to this image I used a red filter on my Leica Monochrom.

john's foot

We walked nearly 8 miles every day. I know it's a lot, but I'm a big believer in getting around on foot and public transportation when it comes to visiting a city like Rome. When you walk that much with a camera in tow you're bound to get a few shots of the ground. The image served as a reminder that we really did pound the pavement and we were rewarded for our hard work. Once I get to the end of the series, I'll share some work from our participants as well so you can see more than just my perspective. I hope you enjoyed Rome. Next up…Florence!

Filed Under: Travel, Workshops & Classes

A Review of Macphun Tonality

April 17, 2016 by John Batdorff 5 Comments

A a few years back I had the pleasure of demoing a program nicknamed Houston by the folks at  Macphun. Houston, which later became known as Tonality, had a very successful launch (pun intended) by some of the very same people that made Nik Software so great. I’ve been working with Tonality for a while now and I  think it’s safe to say it’s a real player in the black and white conversion world. Here is my review of Macphun Tonality.

Tonality interface, review of macphun tonality, macphun presets, tonality review, tonality presets

The tools I love

Tonality has a host of tools that I love and which have become the backbone of my workflow. These include basic tone adjustments (exposure, contrast), clarity and structure sliders, and tone curve and color slider adjustments.

Tonality Tools

The user interface is very similar to most image editing software programs with an easy to follow, top-down approach to editing. If you're familiar with Lightroom or Silver Efex Pro then this workflow will feel very natural. But, what's great about Tonality is they didn't stop with the basics. They have provided us with a host of other creative editing tools including lens blur, glow, texture overlay, and more for artists who want to create a very unique style.

Structure clarity

color tools

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Presets

For the preset lovers out there, Tonality comes with a ton of presets already loaded. If you'd like more you can visit their Tonality Preset Page  and download presets from some of your favorite artists, including your's truly. I created a Travel preset series while on our Italy workshop, pulling inspiration from my amazing surroundings while fueled by good food. I'd like to say that these presets are sponsored by Italian pizza and gelato. 🙂 The Presets are incredibly easy to install: simply sign up and download them, then drag the file onto the Tonality icon at the bottom of your screen and the presets install themselves.

tonality presets, macphun presets, review of macphun

Another cool feature is the ability to dial back the opacity of a preset's effects simply by moving a slider. You can also stack presets and effects in layers.

preset opacity

What about Silver Efex Pro 2?

I love Silver Efex Pro 2, and while the program is still functioning on most operating systems, it’s been made clear by Google  that future developments will be limited to updates to guarantee compatibility with the latest operating systems. Frankly, this isn’t news and is simply a confirmation of what many of us had suspected for years. Google needed Nik's algorithms and technology for other projects (e.g. Google Plus and Snapseed). PC users: Nik is still is probably one of your best bets outside of Lightroom because Tonality only works on Macintosh computers.

Looking Ahead

If I had to envision a future for Silver Efex Pro then Tonality would be it with only one caveat: I wish it was available for PC users as well. However, I respect a company that sticks to its core competency and creates great products. Tonality has a rich feature set that perfectly melds the tools we love in Photoshop with a user friendly interface that is intuitive too.

Here are a few images processed using one click of my Travel presets for Tonality

Classic BW preset, macphun review, macphun preset

Classic BW Preset

 

Italy workshop, macphun conversion, review of macphun

Gritty Preset

 

macphun review, tonality presets, black and white presets

Deep Shadows Preset

My nit picks

An honest review of Macphun Tonality wouldn't be complete without a few constructive criticisms, so I have some small complaints, but they really are nit picking if anything. There is a small lag in rendering the after-image when you resize the screen. Importing presets is extremely easy — simply drag the presets onto the Tonality Icon and they’re installed — however, adding presets to already established categories (or folders) is less intuitive and appears to be done at the system folder level. But, these are far from deal killers and if anything they're just fixes to look forward to in future releases.

Macphun

Conclusion

For Macintosh users, Tonality is the future of black and white processing. Its algorithm creates beautiful black and white images and is supported by a strong suite of tools. But, like with anything, I always recommend kicking the tires first. You can download Tonality for free HERE to try it on for size. Check it out and let me know what you think by leaving a comment here on the blog. I have a feeling you're going to truly enjoy it.

Filed Under: Software & Technology

Death Valley: Beautifully Unpredictable

January 31, 2016 by John Batdorff 2 Comments

Death Valley never ceases to amaze me, and our last trip was no exception. The park saw unprecedented rainfall last fall, leaving many of the roads and sites destroyed by water and mud from the flash flooding. The park service did an amazing job of clearing and repairing the roads in a relatively short time, leaving only Scotty's Castle and a few other minor arteries closed. We were a tad nervous that our workshop would be affected, but the reality is we can’t control Mother Nature and knew it would create new photographic opportunities. We decided to make the most of it, and we were well rewarded.

Badwater basin is normally all crystal white with dried salt, but this year it was filled with water and the reflections were some of the best that I can ever remember. I guess we weren't  alone in our thinking as another photographer rode his bike out to the basin to capture an amazing sunset.

Badwater reflection

Personally I could have spent the entire week at Badwater just photographing the reflections of the mountains on the salt flat. As the sun went down it cast the most beautiful light on this desert lake, creating an otherworldly scene.

Badwater reflections

Despite our salty and wet feet, I don't think anyone from our team really wanted to leave as the light was simply unreal, and the colors amazing. Death Valley-3013

It wasn't just the presence of the water and light that made Death Valley so different this time around for us, it was also the fun and interesting people we met along the way. Meet Sierra, a very vibrant, sweet, and sincere guy from California. He and his crew of teachers were on the flats practicing some yoga poses and enjoying the photography. I heard him say he needed to get wider, so I walked over and loaned him my Zeiss 15mm so he could try it out. Meeting new people and sharing a beautiful location with good souls and swapping stories (and lenses!) are the moments that define a memorable trip. (Sierra, if you're reading this, how did those photos turn out? We'd love to see them!)

Sierra

Sierra with his friends enjoying a beautiful sunset at Badwater.

Sierra Group

The rains didn't stop international travelers either. We arrived at Devil's Golf Course, which admittedly isn't my favorite location to photograph in Death Valley because of it's harsh conditions and drab colors. But, like I said, the desert never ceases to amaze me. This fellow photographer was visiting with friends from Vancouver to photograph Death Valley as well, but if I hadn't known better I would have thought she was a model shooting a camera ad.  She was a good sport and even provided the group with some fun photographic opportunities beyond that of Devil's Golf Course landscape. 

Visitor The sunrise at the dunes is hard to beat as far as epic photo ops go, and while the hike takes a little bit of time, the reward is worth it. This year I decided to step back from my digital camera and spend more time shooting with my Pentax 6×7 loaded with Kodak Portra 160. The team was all set up and shooting away, so I took a step back and watched the sun slowly peak up over the horizon. How a place so desolate can be so beautiful will always inspire me.

Death Valley Workshop Group

I have yet to see a bad picture from the dunes as the lines and ripples morph and change as the sun moves overhead.

Death Valley Workshop Dune Waves

And for me this year the dunes were about shadows, shapes, and texture of the landscape. I wanted to break it down to it's simplest forms and see if I couldn't maximize the impact of the small things.

Dune Shadows

People always ask me why I love Death Valley so much. There's simply no other place like it on earth…

Racetrack Shadows

And, I'm a sucker for long shadow shots!

Filed Under: General, Travel, Workshops & Classes

A Photographer’s Guide to Yellowstone

December 17, 2015 by John Batdorff Leave a Comment

I’ve been visiting Yellowstone National Park for decades, and for the last 9 years I've had a cabin located near the Madison River just outside the park. Staci and I love the area more than almost anywhere else on earth, so last year we decided to take all that experience and love of the area and share it by offering a 5 day Yellowstone Photography Workshop. The results were beyond our wildest dreams. Since we can only take six of you at a time, I thought I would share some fun facts about the area that you might not know, and give you some quick tips in our photographer's guide to Yellowstone National Park.

Bacteria creates colorful hot springs

Yellowstone is such a unique place with hundreds of beautiful hot springs.  Many of these hot springs are brought to life with color as sunlight reflects off their unique bacterial mats creating vibrant colors. Different colors are created by different bacteria that live only in certain temperatures. The grand daddy of them all is the Grand Prismatic.

Grand Prismatic, photographer's guide to Yellowstone

The Grand Prismatic Spring from above

bacterial mats

A macro view of bacteria mat

Yellowstone is home to hundreds of waterfalls
Park rangers and hikers find new waterfalls every year in the backcountry, but some of the most beautiful are accessible via car. When photographing a waterfall make sure the sun is not directly on the falls to get the most detail. Create a shot list, map your route and make sure to plot your waterfall photography during optimal times.

Gibbon Falls, photographer's guide to yellowstone

Gibbon Falls

Yellowstone is a giant caldera!
This one took me a while to get my head around, but what makes Yellowstone's eco system so unique is it's flourishing on top of an ancient volcano. And, believe it or not, scientists believe there's a giant hot spot directly below the park, and as the tectonic plate slowly moves over it, the geothermal features of the park continue to change. The geothermal features include hot springs and bubbling mud, which of course creates endless mystical photographic opportunities.

Yellowstone Mist, photographer's guide to yellowstone

Yellowstone Mist

mud pots of yellowstone, photographer's guide to yellowstone

Boiling mud bubbles

Elk fight for their harem of females every fall

Now this one I totally get! 🙂 It's true, elk will clash with other bull elk during the rut which takes place every year in the fall. A fun fact is that the timing of the rut is not determined by temperature, it's the declining amount of light each fall that changes their hormones and puts them in “the mood.” If you want to see crazy eyes, then you should have seen these two bull elk fighting this last fall. Thankfully Staci had a zoom lens on and despite dwindling light, she was very fortunate to capture this brawl. She had to bump up her ISO to make sure her speed was fast enough to capture the fight.

elk in rut, photographer's guide to yellowstone

Elk fighting at West Thumb Geyser Basin

Grizzly bears are not always brown

Many of our workshop attendees were surprised to see how silvery-gray this grizzly was. Like many people some of them thought the best way to tell the difference between black bears and grizzly bears is the color of the fur, but “black” bears can actually be brown, and grizzlies can be anywhere from black to brown to silver! Instead look for the humped shoulders and pie-shaped face. We managed to find a grizzly on the last day of our workshop on our last ride to look for them.

yellowstone grizzly, photographer's guide to yellowstone

A grizzly lumbering through a field

Old Faithful is not the biggest or most faithful geyser in the park

In writing a photographer's guide to Yellowstone, we'd be remiss to leave out Old Faithful! Old Faithful erupts every 35-120 minutes and goes off for anywhere from 1.5-5 minutes. Usually the longer the time between eruptions, larger and longer the eruption. The best way to photograph the geyser is to put something in the frame to give it scale. Otherwise it may not be obvious that its almost 200 ft high! Check the live streaming Old Faithful webcam!

geyser photo, old faithful, photographer's guide to yellowstone

Old Faithful with an old douglas fir in the foreground for scale

The greater Yellowstone Eco-system has some of the best fishing in the world
I’ve been coming to Yellowstone since I was in my mid 20’s, first because of my love for the great outdoors, and then I learned to fish! If you think photography is an addiction then you should try fly-fishing. The great thing about Yellowstone is it offers some of the best Blue Ribbon (high quality fishing) water in the United States. This year we thought we would share our passion for fly-fishing, by offering an optional one-day fly-fishing excursion complete with instruction from our good friend and professional guide Geoff.

Fly Fishing Instructions

Geoff gave great instructions to first time fly-fisherman

netting fish on the madison

John Prince, our driver and rural specialist, helped net a few

Of course they don't call it catch and release for nothing!

Catch and Release

Catch and Release

Yellowstone is very accessible to the public and it's hard to find a bad location to photograph. You can fly into Bozeman or even West Yellowstone then rent a car to drive through the park. I recommend allowing yourself a minimum of two to three days in the park. A word of warning, the summer months are very busy with August being a madhouse with family vacationers so make your reservation well in advance, and remember patience is key because traffic back-ups are very common.  I always tell people to go explore Yellowstone for the first time with their family because it's a wonderful bonding experience and classic family vacation. But when it comes time to focus on your photography and not feel guilty about leaving your family behind then dedicate some time to yourself in the park or consider a Yellowstone workshop where your'e surrounded by like minded people.

Filed Under: General, Travel, Workshops & Classes

New York City Workshop Redux

November 17, 2015 by John Batdorff 1 Comment

It’s been a crazy three months and we're wrapping up our fall photography workshops. Staci and I have had the pleasure of  hosting photography workshops in Yellowstone, New York City, Chicago, and we just returned from Death Valley. It’s been busy, fun, and exhausting, but the people we meet and the places we see really makes it worth our time.

I haven't had much time to review my images, but I thought I would share a few of my favorites from this year's workshop in New York City.

The Flatiron building is iconic by all standards and symbol of New York's great architecture. I decided to use a 21mm to help frame the scene as cabs rushed by honking their way through the intersection.

NYC FlatIron Building with M6 and Portra 400 film

NYC FlatIron Building photographed with a Leica M6 and Portra 400 film.

I also spotted a man using a phone booth. He had a Goodfellas look about him as he chatted on the phone  holding his cigarette. To be honest,  I haven't seen anyone using a phone booth in a long time!

Man Using NYC Phone booth. Photographed using an M6 and Portra 400

Man Using NYC Phone booth. Photographed using an M6 and Portra 400

What I love about NYC is you never know what you're going to see in the streets.  I never imagined a couple of high-heel-mobiles going past…

Stilettos cars Leica Monochrom with 35mm

Stiletto cars, captured with Leica Monochrom and 35mm

Soho is well known for it's shopping but what I love are the wide bricked streets, classic New York architecture, and of course the interesting people. I was chatting with Bing, one of my students, about approaching people when we saw this man and his dog. We stopped to talk to him for a while and it turned out that he was into photography as well. So we started chatting about cameras and the city and our workshop while Bing was shooting away. I only took one shot during our conversation, but he was heck of a nice guy and gentleman about the entire process. The next day we discovered it was Neal Slavin, a renowned photographer with a studio in Soho. His work and talent speaks for itself, so check it out. You never know who you'll meet on the streets of New York!

Neal Slavin and his dog. Leica Monochrom with 35mm

Neal Slavin and his dog. Leica Monochrom with 35mm

Someday I will go to China, but until then I have Columbus Park in Chinatown which is a favorite among the locals for playing cards.

Columbus Park in Chinatown

Columbus Park in Chinatown

The Fish Market in Chinatown always offers some unique photographic opportunities.

Chinatown Fish Market

Chinatown Fish Market

One of things I love about NYC is the amazing Graffiti. In Spanish Harlem I had the opportunity to see the artists working in shifts with spray paint and tiles to create this amazing piece of art. The crazy thing is they even worked on this project at night with the use of spotlights. There is so much talent in this world.

Artist working on Graffiti in Spanish Harlem

Artist working on Graffiti in Spanish Harlem

In between our workshops I was able to make some time for myself and head over to Brooklyn's Dumbo Park to photograph the Manhattan bridge. The bridge is simply beautiful.

Manhattan Bridge captured with Leica Monochrom and a 21mm lens and yellow filter.

Manhattan Bridge- Monochrom with 21mm lens and yellow filter.

We use the NYC subway quite a bit during our workshops and it's usually packed to the brim with people, but on occasion you get lucky and you have the car to yourself. 🙂

NYC Subway

NYC Subway

Coney Island has become one of my favorite locations to visit during our workshop for it's cult-like following and colorful residents.

Coney Island

Coney Island

Brighton Beach is known for it's Russian population where the locals congregate for chats, exercise, and of course the view of the Atlantic Ocean. I love the area for street photography.

Brighton Beach

The boardwalk near Brighton Beach

I saw this gentleman at a distance doing pushups on a park bench. I was intrigued and approached him to ask if I could take his photo. His physique was matched by his big personality and he was very graceful with his time. We got to chatting about his 7 children and life on Coney Island.

Mike from Coney Island

Mike from Coney Island. He's lived there all his life.

He looked great for any age, which of course led me to ask the question, “How old are you?” He said, “How old do you think I am?” I replied, “I'm not sure, but I would say you can't be a day over 52.”  He replied with a big grin, “I'm 74!”  I of course I had a hard time believing him, and apparently my reaction was the norm because he quickly furnished his birth certificate! This of course made us all laugh, but as Mike tells it, he's used to no one believing him so he started carrying his birth certificate to prove his age.

Michael from Brighton beach

 

We chatted with Mike for a while more before moving on when Staci slowly leaned over to me and said, “Now you know the expectation.” I of course laughed because everyone knows I'm too afraid of needles to get a tattoo. 🙂

Filed Under: General, Travel, Workshops & Classes

How to Disable Lightroom’s Add Photos Feature

October 25, 2015 by John Batdorff Leave a Comment

https://youtu.be/HpE_hA0nxus

Adobe's New Add Photos feature

Lightroom's newest updates, LR 6.2 and Creative Cloud version 15.2, were a huge disappointment with the major overhaul to the import module being particularly problematic. The upgrade was so flawed with so many bugs and features added and removed that Adobe issued an apology for their mistake. Now this might not be new for many of you, but I've received a lot of questions on how I'm handling the update so I thought I'd share my thoughts here for my readers.

My feeling is that mistakes happen (even at Adobe), but how quickly they respond to the mistake is the real issue. Adobe quickly released an update to versions 6.2.1 and 15.2.1  which did help alleviate some of my system's crashing issues, but it wasn't until I turned off the  “Add Photos” feature that my system starting acting somewhat normal. I'm sure intentions where good in that Adobe tried to create an easier way to import photos into Lightroom, but sometimes simplifying things too much creates more problems down the road. The add photo feature brought my system to a crawl and ultimately made Lightroom unusable. The word on the street is that Adobe is working to release 6.3 which will revert back to the old style of importing. While you can roll back your system to a version prior to the upgrade, this does require a few steps with which some of you might not be comfortable. So my recommendation is simply to disable the “add photos” feature. Here's how:

How to Disable Lightroom's Add Photos Feature

Step 1

Launch Lightroom

 

Step 2

Locate Lightroom Preference menu and navigate to the General Tab and uncheck “Add Photos Screen.” Once it's unchecked, then simply close the preference screen and you should be set.

disable

 

 

I also created a video on how to disable Lightroom's Add Photo feature so you can see it in real time:

 

Disable Lightroom Add Photos

Disable Lightroom Add Photos feature video

 

 

Filed Under: General, Software & Technology, Video Tutorials

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