The Digital Photo Guy

Yes Virginia, There Really Are Burrowing Owls

After 3 fruitless years of searching, I finally found and photographed burrowing owls in the wild. In fact, within one hour, I saw 4 of the cute critters and managed to get a photo with two in one frame.

The originals of two are shown below. If you can’t efficiently and effectively create the above photos in a few minutes with Photoshop Elements, you’re not getting full value out of PSE. Notice how I removed twigs in front of the owls for a better photo. The third was just cropped and had curves adjusted.

Desert Spring Wildflowers

The temperatures started warming up in the desert on Friday, 3/12 so we should be in peak bloom this coming Saturday and Sunday. There’s still space in the workshop. Remember, past students receive a 10% discount on all classes.

Here are some photos from last week. We used wide angle lenses to make small flower patches appear huge as well as telephoto lenses to “stack” the scene so everything seems closer together. The students were most amazed at the world as seen through a macro lens and learning to control depth of field in macros.

For a great place to stay, I recommend a cute trailer at Leapin’ Lizard RV Ranch in Ocotillo Wells, just 15 miles from Borrego Springs. I discovered it this past week and am totally amazed at what Deborah and Siegfried Kunkler have built there. They even erected two 40′ WiFi antennas so the whole park has free WiFi. Best of all, the trailers are as little as $60/night.

Topaz Labs FREE Webinar, April 7

Eric Yang of Topaz Labs will present a FREE webinar on Wednesday, April 7 at noon Central Daylight Savings Time (CDT). That’s 1PM EDT, 11AM MDT and 10AM PDT. To register, click here. If there’s still room, you’ll receive an e-mail confirmation in a few days.

If you belong to a camera club or other group, you’re welcome to project the webinar on a screen for the whole group to view.

I produced three Video MMTs over the last 2 days which I’ll be releasing while I’m leading the Spring Desert Wildflower Photoshoot Workshops this weekend and next. There’s still time to register so sign up now. When’s the last time you went to the desert to photograph wildflowers? Here are some photos from last year.

While taking a break, I came across the following videos and thought readers would get a kick out of them. This is the perfect, non-violent yet extremely painful, costly and effective revenge against an uncaring corporate giant.

Last Song Released

Most everyone remembers a YouTube video that went viral last year about a Canadian guitarist whose Taylor guitar was broken by Unitd Airlines. The airline refused to do anything until over 50,000 people viewed the video in the first 24 hours. By the time the video finally peaked, it had been viewed over 8 million times, a PR nightmare for UAL.

In the ensuing 7 months, UAL has (ineptly) tried to mollify the artist, Dave Carroll, but never really “got it” regards customer service. Carroll reports in his last song (he promised to write 3 songs about the experience) that he still hears daily from people who have been badly treated, mistreated or simply ignored by UAL. Click to read more and see videos

It’s time for a new photo contest. This time, the theme is holidays. Being American, I’m partial to Thanksgiving during this period. For readers from other countries, the photos must reflect some sort of national celebration. The contest is open to registered readers of this site. Registration is free. The contest is open now and submissions will be accepted until December 8, 2009. The winner will be announced in time for them to receive the prize by Christmas 2009 unless they happen to live outside the USA in which case, all bets are off as to ETA.

800+, 8.5" x 11" pages

The prize is a Photoshop World Workbook from Photoshop World 2009 in Las Vegas. It is 800 pages of PS tips, tricks and hints from virtually every class at PSW. For a peek at the contents, see this description on my site. Because the book is heavy, I’m asking the winner to pay US$10 via PayPal for shipping.

Photos will be judged on three criteria:

1. Exposure – is the photo correctly exposed. Correctly does NOT always mean right edge of histogram at right side and left edge touching the left side. Many photos look better when one side or the other is pulled in to achieve a specific “look”. Color balance will also be evaluated.
2. Focus – is the photo in focus or was blur used artistically. If your portrait has a sharp ear but blurry eyes, it will be noticed. Not only must the important parts be in focus but the unimportant parts must not be distracting. Controlling DoF is an integral part of good photography, it will be evaluated.
3. Composition – what is the emotional impact of the photo? Does it tell a story or do the colors/shapes/lines/negative space evoke an emotion? Does the photo engage the viewer? Does it create tension through unanswered questions? More than anything else, I’m looking for photos that have impact, that makes me sit up and notice.

Since I am the sole judge and arbiter, here are some of my biases. As much as you think your kids/grandkids are precious, I rarely find any redeeming artistic value in photos of children or pets. On the other hand, I love landscapes, portraits, wildlife, birds, flowers, still life, architecture, old things, new things, shiny things, rusty things and just about anything. See photos on this site to get an idea of what yanks my chain, floats my boat, tingle my toes and, in general, makes me happy, sad, excited, thrilled, thoughtful or otherwise emotional. BTW, I’m also not a fan of street photography unless your name happens to be Henri Cartier-Bresson.

All photos must be resized to 640 pixels along the longest side and no larger than 1MB. Send it to me via e-mail or post it on your own website and send me a link. If you send a link, it should be a link to one photo. In other words, don’t link to a page with a gazillion photos and expect me to figure out which is your entry. The photo must have been taken with a digital camera (any type, make, model) and the only edits allowed are crop, color correction, levels and sharpen. No composites or collages will be considered. HDR will be accepted but the more it looks like a single frame, the better your chances. Each person is limited to three (3) submissions. Once a photo is submitted, it can be withdrawn but not replaced.

The purpose of this contest is to promote photography as an art. I want people to elevate their photography beyond snapshots of Fluffy & Rover at the backyard barbeque. I want more people to see the potential within themselves. Even if all you ever take are photos of your kids/grandkids, I want you to make them into art, not simple snapshots.

Legal stuff – By entering a photo(s) in this contest, you affirm that you are the photographer with all rights appertaining including, but not limited to, copyright. You agree to hold harmless the owner and publisher of this site and contest promoter from any claims, past, present and/or future arising from any actions related to the photo(s) submitted by you or in your name. By submitting a photo(s), you agree to convey an irrevocable, non-exclusive 5 year license to The Digital Photo Guy (Lee Otsubo) to display the photo(s) and use them for teaching purposes. All other rights remain with you. Any part of this agreement/contest may be modified by The Digital Photo Guy without notice.

I’m writing this update from Anza-Borrego Desert State Park where I’m getting ready to go look for wildflowers. Yesterday, on my way back from Arizona, I stopped by Joshua Tree NP and drove as far north as Conttonwood campground. There are definite signs of a spring wildflowers but they’re still pretty scrawny. The desert lupines are sparse and standing about 4″-5″ tall where past displays have been thick and lush, standing 10″-12″. There were lots of chia that looked as if they had been killed by a frost and the live ones seemed pretty forlorn.

A weathered, leathered desert rat of the female variety flagged me down and told me the road ahead was washed out. She and her older but very well maintained RV were camped just outside the south entrance to Joshua Tree NP. By her reckoning, the full spring wildflower display wouldn’t happen for for another 2-3 weeks.

To the east of JTNP, below 2000′ elevation, the bloom was in full swing. Along the freeway, I could see bladderpods, brittlebush, sand verbena, chuparosa, desert lupines, California poppies (in AZ they’re called Arizona poppies, duh!) and other SCBs (small colorful bushes).

Here are some lupines I found just outside my RV this morning as I made photos of the sun rising over the mountains to the east. The sand verbena and desert gold were along Henderson Canyon Road in Borrego Springs.

I removed a dead stalk in front of the lupines using the Clone Tool and cropped to remove the RV parked next to me. Otherwise, I just adjusted Levels. I didn’t even have to remove dust bunnies. The sand verbena and desert gold were cropped, levels adjusted and sharpened.

On my way to Bosque del Apache, NM, I stopped by JTNP to check wildflower conditions. At the southern end, most of the vegetation is nicely turning green with spots of early bloomers such as this bladderpod.

On the way home, I came across  I-8 along the southern route through Tucson. That route was already in full bloom with lots of brittle bush, sand verbena, Arizona poppy and others that I couldn’t identify at 65MPH.

Some recent reports say Anza-Borrego State Park has already started peak bloom and anyone waiting much longer may miss it. Bottom line, it looks like Joshua Tree NP around the middle of March will be perfect for that area.

If you can’t go to Anza-Borrego, consider my JTNP Spring Desert Wildflower Photoshoot on March 21 or 22.