I spent last weekend hiking the trails in Central Oregon and photographing rock climbing. Here's a post of some of the action. These pictures were taken using my 16-35mm lens to capture the entire scene. It's hard to see, but if you look closely at the picture on the right, above the tree on the left, you can see the climbers standing on a ledge on the wall.

I ventured out to the local farmers market this morning in hopes of finding some early blooming flowers and luck was on my side. The brilliant color of the camellia sparked my imagination. With a little blending and combining other plant photos, I came up with this beautiful flower compilation.

Night Photography

The other night found me wandering our local park with friends searching for interesting elements to illuminate and photograph. Night photography has always intrigued me because the night removes color and reduces our view to shapes. With the help of strobes and flashlights, color can be reintroduced selectively. This shot was a 2.5 minute exposure at 100 ISO, at f11 with a 16mm lens on a full frame sensor. I used a tripod with a locked cable release, then moved in front of the camera and triggered the flash a few times to light myself. The effect is ghostly! Because of the longer exposure, I was able to capture the ambient light from the streetlights in the park.

Recently I began experimenting with macro photography. I started by setting up a little scene of fun objects from my collection of stuff. As you can see from the picture, some of the objects are only 1/2" or so in size. My challenge was to create a depth of field that made all the objects in focus. I used a Canon 100mm lens that my friend loaned me, with a setup of continuos tungsten lights with 3' umbrellas. My camera was on a tripod, in mirror lock-up with a cable release. I had the f stop set to f22, at .6 seconds. I'm very happy with the results and hope to experiment more in the future. Any ideas or suggestions are much appreciated.

My next post will be about night shooting and light painting.

This last weekend I attended a Fine Art Digital Workflow Workshop presented by R. Mac Holbert of Nash Editions. I had the opportunity to attend this same workshop last year, came away with many helpful techniques, and again, left with my brain full of information! Because there is such a wealth of information presented, attending a second time allowed me to revisit in-depth the information I learned the first time, but didn't quite understand. I highly recommend this workshop to anyone working with digital images! You won't be disappointed.

Check out the before and after images.

Klamath Basin - New images

This weekend found me wandering the bogs and marshes of Klamath Basin Wildlife Refuge in Northern California. This is the time of year that migratory birds make their stopover from the Northern lands. I saw many bald eagles, a golden eagle, a great horned owl and Canada geese. The quiet of the vast landscape and the voice of the many different birds, combined with the starkness of the landscape allows for a quiet meditation between myself and my camera. You can find some of the images from that trip by going to: http://JulieYoung.zenfolio.com/zf/fbshow/1a26fd38f5f5f5cccccc030203af

Ashland Community Hospital Foundation Show

First Friday in Ashland is quickly approaching. I have been participating in an exhibit at Ashland Community Hospital that is organized by the Ashland Community Hospital Foundation. It is a partnership between the Ashland Art Center and the Foundation. December will be an art fair, with lots of gift items for the holidays. The date is December 4th from 5 to 8pm. It is a worthy cause with a portion of the sales going to the Foundation. Please join us!