It’s interesting the turn my career has taken over the years. Commercial photographer, wedding photographer, portrait photographer, educator and writer. I’ve worked through many genres of photography and now concentrate on creating art, commercial imaging and education/writing.
Current writing ASP and The Photographer Magazines
Article in the Fall Issue of ASP Magazine
Here is are a couple magazine articles I’ve penned and had published recently. One is for American Society of Photographers (ASP). It was a follow-up to my photographing the Milky way article. This was on processing to take the images to the next level. Look for the Summer issue for planning and shooting. Fall issue was on post-production of Milky Way images. The camera, lens and long exposure collect way more information than your eye can see. Post processing reveals all the color and grandeur of the Milky Way.
Article in the latest issue of The Photographer Magazine
The other magazine article that just dropped was for ‘The Photographer’ magazine. It shares ideas on capturing water droplets in and artistic and colorful fashion. The Art of Photographing Water Droplets can be accessed and read here.
Photofocus online
Photofocus is an online magazine for which I write at least three articles a month, often more, for the last three years. This is in addition to writing for Successful-Photographer. Here are a couple links to the last articles I posted.
Weirdly enough all of my photography career has been some combination of photography, education including hands on and presentation to photography groups and writing about it. If you need a speaker, writer, photographer or Lens Based Artist, let me know!
American Society of Photographers (ASP) has announced their second annual image competition. Images of Distinction (IOD) was wildly successful in it’s inaugural year. Using the same criteria for judging, and Professional Photographers of America jurors the event is a great way to get feedback on your photographic imagery. Check out the rules at PrintCompetition.com And get start getting your images ready.
ASP Images of Distinction February 25-26, 2022
What’s different?
IOD uses scores on the first day of judging. The following day there is image commentary for all makers who wish to receive feedback on their work. This is an invaluable part of the learning process to get your images ready for Professional Photographers of America’s (PPA) International Photographic Competition (IPC). Kristy Steeves shares her thoughts on how the process helped her achieve Diamond status in the Artist category and Platinum in the Open categories at PPA’s IPC.
I interview Kristy about last years ASP – IOD success and why you’ll benefit from entering.
https://youtu.be/-02oPm0LV6Y
Professional Photographers of America (PPA) hold the International Photographic Competition (IPC) each year. My results.
The Jury
A panel of 36 eminent jurors from across the United States selected the top photographs from over 5,000 total submitted entries at PPA headquarters in Atlanta. Judged against a standard of excellence, 1,706 images were selected for the General Collection and 865 (roughly 17 percent) were selected for the esteemed Loan Collection—the best of the best. The Loan Collection images will all be published in the much-anticipated “Loan Collection” book by Marathon Press.
“I’m thankful that these challenges exist through PPA. Having your work reviewed and judged by top industry professionals helps keep my image making from becoming static. I get feedback on new techniques which is priceless in keeping me growing my image creation skills.”
‘Another World’ was captured at the Toadstools in Southern Utah.
‘Great Blue’ was captured in Page Springs, AZ at the Bubbling Ponds.
Loan Collection
Three of my images were accepted into the Loan Collection.
‘Orange Outburst’ is a water droplet photo.
Another water droplet capture in the PPA Loan Collection.
Two were made of experimental photography involving falling water droplets. Orange Outburst and Twice Nice show the result of specialty lighting of three water drops crashing at intervals which are done by very specific timing of the drops, plus a bit of endurance. Many images need to be captured to find some that create these patterns. The other Loan image was from a composite image titled ‘Blessing Place. Bob worked with images of animals photographed at the Phoenix Zoo some northern Arizona landscape features and and clouds photographed from above. In addition two more photographs were named to the General Collection. I rendered a watercolor of a great blue heron in flight over the Bubbling Ponds in Page Springs. ‘Another World’ was a night sky photograph of the Milky Way made while in Southern Utah of the Toadstools. It has a very prehistoric feel.
‘Blessing Place’ is a bit of a departure from my normal work.
Images will be in the International Photographic Exhibition alongside other top photographic works from the competition and traveling and special invitational displays. These images constitute one of the world’s largest annual exhibits of professional photography gathered simultaneously in one place.
About PPA
Founded in 1868, Professional Photographers of America (PPA) is the largest and longest-standing nonprofit photography trade association. It currently helps 30,000 professionals elevate their craft and grow their business with resources, protection, and education, all under PPA’s core guiding principle of bridging the gap between photographers and consumers. See more of my artwork at coatesart.net or at the Gallery of Modern Masters in Hillside, Sedona, AZ.
Coming soon
Above you can see the images that were favored by the judges. Soon I’ll share those that did not make it into the General Collection.
With all that is going on with Covid–19 this year I knew I wasn’t going to be able to travel in my usual way. That led to outfitting my Toyota RAV 4 for boon docking, AKA car camping. My photographer friend Jose Robertson who came through in his vehicle when traveling 2 years ago inspired me.
The start
About a month ago Jose came through on another trip I had the opportunity to test my set up under his watchful eye. During his travels we camped at Lake Powell, Arizona for a couple nights. He taught me a lot and showed me I needed a few more modifications.
I’ll be doing a more in-depth article for the online magazine Photofocus.com. For now you can get an idea of how I fitted out the car.
A peek into the build
A look in the back. Cot with sleeping pad. Removable shelf. Bins for organization.
Not wanting to add a lot of weight or to remove seats I added a five-inch cot to sleep flat.
A shelf that is installed with no attachments to the car is a huge help. This went through a few design iterations. Especially since the cot was billed as being three inches tall. The shelf was redesigned with the five-inch actual cot height! The bins help organize. Bottom bin is the kitchen with stove, gas, cooking tools and utensils. Top bin holds my personal such as clothes and toiletries.
Assembled
Testing the setup. I assembled the ‘camp set up’ in my driveway before hitting the road. testing is good… Trust me on that!
Here’s an image from Watson Lake in Prescott, AZ with the vehicle in use. I’ll share more soon I’m heading out on a new lone adventure on Monday!
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
PS – my photographer friends will recognize that part of the support for the shade are two background stands I repurposed.
I did a webinar for the Professional Photographers of California (PPC) last week. The subject was Photoshop including some ideas on creating art. Check out the Photoshop Party where I shared some ideas on Photoshop Selections, Blend Modes, Single image HDR with Aurora HDR 2019, creating cloud brushes and more…
The Lumix G9 with Leica DG 100-400mm lens was set upon a tripod and made mostly worry free for the duration of the show. Since I was making decisions on the other cameras. (see Part one Fireworks set-up – Part two Olympus LiveComp Mode) I was looking to get images on the G9 without doing anything other than making sure the fireworks were framed properly.
Blended images Photoshop
Once the files were downloaded I culled the empty frames and the ‘less than stellar’ captures. Then I took multiple frames into Adobe Photoshop and combined some of the images. For best results I recommend the Screen Blend Mode. Put a mask on the file and use a black soft edge brush to remove the parts of the image that don’t add to the final look for which you are going.
Settings for this camera were 5 SEC f/11 ISO 200. In addition, the in camera time-lapse was invoked. A one-second break was added to allow the camera to reset between frames. I was making the images with still photos in mind. If I was creating a time-lapse movie the settings probably would have been more like a two second exposure to help explore and record the movement and to have enough frames for a longer movie. As it is after removing some frames I ended up with only 134 frames, which makes for a pretty short movie.
Let me know which frame rate you prefer and why if you get the chance.
Occasionally I'll send out a digest version of the blog posts on Successful-Photographer. I'm not a fan of Spam and I'm sure you are not. Your Email address is safe with me. Bob
For infrared conversion of my cameras I use LifePixel. Infrared allows you to put an older camera to use and opens up a new time time of day for productive image creation.
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Lightning, waterdroplets, sound, time-lapse, HDR sequences, smiles and much more control for your camera!
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A High Speed Smart Camera Remote
