Nevada: Death Valley, Sand Dunes, International Car Forest, etc.

Tom and I have been going to Nevada to photograph for many years. Last week we taught our first workshop out West. It was great, we went all day and into many nights.

We went to Death Valley, a bunch of Ghost towns including Rhyolite and the International Car Forest, where we were treated to some wonderful SNOW. Seeing snow on the Joshua Tees was really cool!

International Car Forest -- and we had some snow!

Labyrinth, light painted at ~10pm

Open air museum, light painted 

We did a lot of light painting! I love the sky during our long night exposures. 

Tom painted this wagon, love it!

Tom captured this touching scene of momma and her baby 

in a herd of Burros on the way to Rhyolite.

lots of verticals went into creating this panorama of Mesquite Sand Dunes

I love the patterns and textures in the dried mud!

panorama at Chincoteague

Panorama at Chincoteague

16 verticals (see third image)were combined in Photoshop CC ACR (Adobe Camera RAW) to create this evening image at Chincoteague.

When you have a panorama image sometimes you are further inspired to create a "tiny planet" from it, filter, distort, polar coordinates.

These 16 verticals, 24mm (24-105mm lens) were used to create the final panoramic image in ACR.

"No egrets" with this Painted Egret

Here is the final edited image of an egret that I photographed at Chincoteague. I applied two textures to the photograph and then went back into Adobe Camera RAW (as a filter) and used the radial filter. See this and a few more photos from our last workshop here http://www.breaphotosgalleries.com/Locations/DelMarVA/

You can see my progression. Starting from a good image I added a texture, and then a second texture (to warm it back up), and lastly darkened the edges using the radial filter in the ACR filter

above, with the ACR radial filter, below, without...

Longwood Gardens at Night

For the past few years Tom and I have led workshops in December at Longwood Gardens during their Christmas lights at night. Every year is different: the flowers and colors inside, and the lights and arrangements (and weather) outside.

This year Tom and I went back to Longwood for ourselves for the three day New Years Weekend.

Here is my interpretation of the large Tree near the main building...

Canon 5D Mark III Canon 24-70mm lens.
Tripod
Long exposures (to get rid of the people, warmer nights mean more people, be careful what you wish for, lol)
and some Fun with post-processing

Every year this tree is different, but always a constant focal point...

The inspiration for this image was the year that it rained in December during our workshop. People were dedicated and got some great images. Interestingly enough the images were drastically different from any other year -- because the rain created awesome reflections. 

No rain this year, but I had this image in my head from that one rainy night.

Kaleidoscope

SnowGlobe

I love finding old lightbulbs during our Urban explorations, so I created this wintery light bulb scene...

 

 oh what fun! I wish that we lived closer to Longwood...

Happy New Year!

CTPPA 2nd Quarterly Print Competition - Tom

Four of Tom's images scored well at the CTPPA 2nd Quarterly Print Competition of the 2016-2017 year. 

Below are the entry results :

Tom Cuchara “A Fairie’s Story” - Third place

This next image is part of Tom's new wide angle off camera flash portraits project. Tom has a way of connecting wth the subject and creating some very intimate wide angle portraits

Old Car City, Nature reclaiming...

This next image is one of my all time favorite images of Tom's... 

As a scientist there is so much in this image related to disease prevention, epidemics, infection, etc. I love how he used Topaz Texture Effects for the final image.

Lisa and Tom have 6 images accepted into the top 100 images in Connecticut Association of Photographers competition

Four of Tom's images and two of Lisa's images were accepted into the TOPS in CT.

We are proud to have six photographs selected to be amongst the best 100 entered.

"The Tops in CT 2016 judging is complete. We received 636 images from 107 Connecticut photographers for judging. Of the 636 images, 101 were accepted into the show."

"The 101 accepted and medal winning photographs will be organized into the Tops in Connecticut 2016 program and shown at the CAP Dinner on Saturday, April 29, 2017, at the Whitney Center, 200 Leeder Hill Drive, Hamden, CT 06517. This will be the only time to view the photographs and hear the commentary on this exceptional work by Connecticut photographers. Judging from the quality of the images selected it will be an outstanding show."

CTPPA 2nd Quarterly Print Competition - Lisa

Four of Lisa's images scored well at the CTPPA 2nd Quarterly Print Competition of the 2016-2017 year.

Below are the entry results :

"Lookouts"
took Best in Show in the Art/Electronic Image (aka Creative) (scored 80, challenged, rescored to 82)

"Baseball" 1st Place in the Unclassified Category (scored 81, challenged, rescored to 86)
1st Place

Hanging with the Frogs 1st Place in the Art/Electronic Image (aka Creative) category, (scored 78, challenged, rescored to 81)

"Have Moor" scored an 80 in the Portrait Category