The best of Summer 2010 gallery is up; it was a great summer and a great road trip. I saw lots of great stuff that I have always wanted to see, and a lot that I didn’t know I was missing. A few notes about the gallery, There are a few “arty” shots which is a departure for me. I did a sepia treatment to one of the shots form the Grand Canyon and an interesting take on a picture of a tree I saw in Mesa Verde Co. ALso of note in the gallery is a shot from Moab I did a High Dynamic Range treatment (where you take 3 to five shots of the same scene with varying exposures then combine them in either photomatix or photoshop. this gives very moody skies and edgy contrast on rocks and other high detail surfaces.). Theres also a panoramic shot of Lake Mead which I took when we went to Hoover Dam.

I hope you enjoy viewing the shots as much as I did making them.

While touching up the pictures from Mesa Verde I hit the wrong button in lightroom and got a happy surprise…I’m generally not one to do artsy shots but I really thought this one was pretty neat. Let me know what you think and you can check out the rest of the gallery from the main page.

So, while I was on vacation apparently my gallery page decided to vanish heh. While I resolve the problem I will use the main page here on tahquechi.com for the vacation galleries. Eventually (soon?) I will move the galleries back to the http://www.gallery.tahquechi.com page. Vacation pics are coming soon, I have been working on them and want them to be final before I post them. If your waiting for pictures expect a email shortly with the links to your gallery.

During the Grand Canyon trip, we took a jeep safari to the bottom, our traveling companions were from Australia, a mother and daughter who lost their camera gear. If they are reading this  please send me an email and I will send you a link to your personal gallery

The black and white drawing class primarily focused on graphite, but did use pen and ink and even some color towards the end of the class. I found the class very interesting and I learned a lot.  I walked into the class without having touched a pencil to paper for drawing in years.  I now feel confident in my ability to render with pencil my thoughts. Now, this isn’t a drawing blog so I won’t other you with my drawings, I will just share my new photos with you as they are completed.

I was honestly hoping to get more out of the color and composition than I did. The bulk of the compositional aspects of the class were completed using cut pieces of paper on different backgrounds. I did learn more about how colors act together in a composition but was hoping for more. I will point out specific things I learned in the coming weeks as I post new photos.

I did learn from both classes that no matter what I am doing I tend to focus on the rule of thirds which is a basic photographic concept. The coming weeks will be interesting from a photographic standpoint. Its summer gloom time here in Santa Cruz so shooting outside at the moments is tough.

Before I go, I want to mention something about my instructors. I am fully aware of how difficult a visually impaired person is to teach, the teacher needs to often change not only their methodology for teaching that specific student, but also alter their expectations for what that student has delivered or is capable of delivering.  Both my teachers were exceptionally willing to work within my abilities and make the atmosphere positive and fulfilling for me.

I hope everyone had a great new year! I went out shooting for the first time this year and got a nice sunset picture at Natural Bridges.

ISO200 32mm @f5.6 1/160 sec Bracketed exposure + and – 1 stop

This was a great shooting summer. The 2 big highlights for me was the July 31st class in South San Francisco taught by Joe McNally.  Hes an awesome photographer and a constant source of inspiration for me. I wish that I had the visual acuity to be able to shoot portraits (would help if I could see the subject’s face, not just the big blur heh). Even though hes a Nikon shooter  I still learned so much from his class that I use on a daily basis. The only bad thing was that I tried to get close enough to get a question in during the breaks, but he was soooo mobbed that there was no way I could get close enough.  In August, my wife Carrie and I flew to Colorodo and took a road trip through Wyoming to South Dakota and stayed in the old mining town of Deadwood. I put up a gallery of some of the shots I took while there you can see it at: http://tahquechi.com/gallery.htm The toughest part about traveling is that you don’t have much control over when you get to a location you want to shoot, which meant shooting Devils Tower in the middle of the day in 100 degrees with super blight sun. Though I do have to say that our hosts were VERY accomodating to my photo needs and planned events and arrivals as best they could.

I’m looking forward to fall. I love the leaves turning, the crisp weather and the rain. Its my favorite time of the year. This week I’m working on another Then and Now page, I have a great shot of my grandfather’s car (model A?) taken on a local street here in Santa Cruz. If the morning or evening fog ever gives me a break I can get my shot to go with that one.  By far the toughest part of lining up the historic photos with current ones is finding the spot they were originally taken from (I have his diary, but its not complete and doesn’t cite specific shots just dates and locations.).

This shot was taken at ISO 100, 36mm f9.0 at 1/125sec. Same beach as the  shot above, but facing the other way. This is the first time I have shot this area of the beach and I think it is going to require a couple more trips to get all the shots I want out of there. The foot bridge, and the stretch of land which overlooks the wharf and Boardwalk certainly merit a few more shots without all the fog rolling in.

When I composed the shot, this is very close to what I saw in the viewfinder. Generally I have to scan the viewfinder over and over to get the framing right and remember and imagine what it will look like when I take the picturte. Its not until I get to see the image on the back of the camera that I can (kind of) see if I got the composition the way I wanted. This is the reason you don’t see a lot of people in my images. Its not only tough for me to see faces and check for blinks and frowns, but people (unlike landscapes) tend to move around 8).

Once I have the shot done then I take it into photoshop and do a lot of zooming and working at 100% to fix any problems with the image (or remove things in the picture that I didn’t see when I was composing the original image in the field.).

You might be asking yourself how I get around without a guide dog or cane with such limited vision.  When I am walking around I use the same scanning method I use when composing  pictures. I also make it a habit not to go out in the evening or dark since I have almost no night vision. I have never been one to listen to people who want to put limitations on me, I think that if you want to do something that you can find a way to do it.

Heres the final image from the other night. Thank you all again who have sent me the great feedback and please make sure to check out my Then and Now section of the website. I just put the second page up. Its a bit of fun history on the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf mixed with an original picture taken by my grandfather (who was also legally blind and had the same degenerative eye disease I have.). Get out there and get shooting!

This image is of the San Lorenzo river in Santa Cruz near the Boardwalk. I shot this at ISO 100, f8.0, 34mm at 1 /100 second shutter speed. Shot at sunset as the fog was rolling in.