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Ocotillo Shadow, Abandoned Cabin, Anza-Borrego State Park, California. View Larger Image
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Purchase This Week's Print
Ocotillo Shadow, Abandoned Cabin, Anza-Borrego State Park, California is available as an 11"x14" Print, matted
to fit an 16"x20" frame. Each print is signed
and numbered by the photographer. Only 100 prints will
be made, so order early to secure your piece.
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Image of the Week Fine Art Print Offer
Each week, I post an image from my recent or historical work and talk a little
bit about it; the process, creative thought, and technical details that
contributed to its creation. During the week an image is featured, I offer it as
a Limited Edition Fine Art Print at a special price. Each image is printed
personally by me on the latest Epson printers using archival pigment inks on
acid-free archival paper. The prints are shipped matted and signed and can be
framed using a standard size, off-the-shelf frame from your local frame shop.
Learn more about my fine art printing process.
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Image of the Week
Do a little Photoshop in-camera.
Adobe Photoshop's "Lens Distortion" filter makes it very easy to correct common distortion
and perspective effects caused by extreme wide-angle lenses or acute camera-to-subject
angles. One of the most common corrections a photographer may perform is to counter the
"keystone" effect that occurs when one places the camera low and shoots up at an oblique
angle to the subject, causing vertical lines to converge in the top of the photo. Most of
the time, this effect goes unnoticed. But when you shoot subjects that have obvious
vertical lines that show profound keystoning, it's time to take action.
Yes, you can fire up Photoshop, go to Filters > Distortion > Lens
Correction and play with the sliders until the distortion effect is countered. This
works well a great deal of the time, and I use it often. The only drawback is that this
filter reduces your image's resolution; the distorted area is squeezed and reduced to bring
it inline with the rest of the image. Sometimes, to get proper parallel verticals, the
correction is so strong you end up losing valuable image area to the correction-induced
crop. If you need to go big with an image, or the retention of fine detail is a must, this
solution might not be the way to go.
This is just the kind of job where a large format field camera shines.
A field camera is nothing more than a view camera designed for portability. Both types feature moveable lens
and film planes, allowing you to tilt, shift, rise/fall, and swing the two surfaces relative
to each other. The result of using these movements allows the photographer to finely control
the angle of the plane of focus, the apparent size of objects in a scene, and to correct
perspective effects caused by acute camera-to-subject angles. For a full treatise on the use
and operation of view cameras, I highly recommend Steve Simmons' Using the View
Camera.
When I photographed Ocotillo Shadow, I wanted to capture the rear window framed
within the front window, but the angle required the camera to be placed far to the right of
the composition. I needed the front window to fall on the right of the image and the shadow
of the Ocotillo limbs to "crawl" from the bottom right to top left. To accomplish
this arrangement, I shifted the lensboard to the far left. This produced the composition I
envisioned without compromising the lens-to-subject relationships. Best of all, the
resulting negative needs no further adjustment in post production and reproduces very well
at large sizes.
Have questions, comments? Let me know what you think.
Technical Data
Ocotillo Shadow, Abandoned Cabin, Anza-Borrego State Park, California was photographed with a Tachihara 4x5 Field Camera and Schneider Symmar-S 150mm ƒ/5.6 lens on TMax 100 B+W negative film, EI 50. The exposure was
unrecorded.
Other Images of the Week
- Chapel of the Transfiguration, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
- Cross-Country Runner Alexandra Krieg, Middlebury, Vermont
- Horse Bath, Morgan Horse Farm, Weybridge, Vermont
- Whitney, Citronelle, Alabama
- The North Window from Turret Arch, Arches National Park, Utah
- Jeff, Middlebury College, Vermont
- Hostas II, Middlebury, Vermont
- Hikers in Coyote Gulch I, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Utah
- Ocotillo Shadow, Abandoned Cabin, Anza-Borrego State Park, California
- Moonlit Palms, Anza-Borrego State Park, California
- Park Avenue, Arches National Park, Utah
- Ashton and Whitney, Citronelle, Alabama
- Steven
- Halladay Road III
- Fall colors and ivy-covered wall, Middlebury College, Vermont
- Maple Tree, Middlebury, Vermont
- Jesse Hamner at Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone NP
- Aon Center from Millenium Park, Chicago
- Mountain Biking I
- Boulders II, Canyonlands National Park, Utah
- Hosta Leaves
- Joe
- The Pour
- Skylar
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