Beautiful Scenes from Southeast Missouri

I've lived in St. Louis all my life, not realizing (until recently) the amazing vistas located within a two-hour drive from my home. I took these two photos today (on an iPhone 11, processed with Aurora HDR). Both of these scenes were taken in the Mark Twain National Forest, somewhat south of Fredericktown, Missouri. Top photo is of the St. Francis River.





This third photo shows a friend's Irish Wolfhound, "Owen," enjoying the sunset over the St. Francis River in the Mark Twain National Forest.

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Need to Up My Game on Photoshop

I've dabbled with Photoshop over the years, but I have decided to (as Stephen Covey suggested) "sharpen the saw."  In other words, I want to incorporate new tools so that I can get things done better and more efficiently when I use Photoshop.  Shane Parrish of Farnham Street would identify this as "Compounding," which is a really cool concept, especially when applied to things other than earning interest on money.

And what a better time to learn tips on using photoshop than modern times, when you can attend Youtube University or pay a bit from many other online instructors?  I've already incorporated one change when compositing, something I should have done years ago: Instead of trimming a the top image with the eraser tool, I've started making use of layer masks.  That, and use of the "x" key to switch colors from black to white (black conceals, white reveals), has made it a joy to display only what I want on the top layer.  Whenever you make a mistake, it's non-destructive and hitting the "x" key lets you bring back what you accidentally took away.  What you'll see below is an image I created using the layer mask to display precisely what I wanted in my own body (I'm the guy on top).   I'll paste in the FB commentary so you can experience the joke too:

Last night I spotted my buddy Eddie White at the Southside YMCA. Eddie is active duty U.S. Army and I think his military exercise routine requires him to bench press a house. I was happy to serve as his weight-lifting partner.





My body looks pretty tidy, but it took a long time (about 45 min) to get it looking good. I kept zooming in deep to make the cuts precisely and I was using a mouse. My next step in my education is to learn to use the Wacom Intuos Wireless Graphics Drawing Tablet that I just purchased. There's going to be a learning curve, but I've seen a lot of testimonials from people who learn it and love it so much that you couldn't take it back unless you pried it out of their cold dead hands. So that's my next step in my education, my quest to do more than simply "dabble" with Photoshop.

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Deep Music Photo

I'm trying to learn some new photo processing techniques by reworking some of my photos from the past. This is a selective color photo of one of my favorite people, Dan Rubright, who is an educator, philosopher, father and lecturer. Mostly, though, I know Dan as an incredibly talented musician who has the knack of transporting himself "inside" of his music and coaxing it to do magic-seeming things. Here's a shot I took of Dan about 4 years ago while he was performing with his group, Wire Pilots. I shot this one through the drums and sticks of Dan's brother Ted Rubright, also a brilliant, multi-talented man. This image brings back vivid memories of their awesome music.



My main challenge in this photo was to pump up the edges without also exposing the noises. In the end, I had to use hand-selection of the blackness, then reverse-texture (LR) in the end, to get the totally black background. There was simply too much noise, given that I had to use high ISO to keep the image tack sharp during the shoot.

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From Photo Hobbyist to Featured Artist at an Art Gallery

This is going to seem more like a journal entry than a blog post, but it's been a fun weekend and I wanted to share my day in the sun.

Two months ago, I walked into a beautiful art gallery, the Silver Sycamore Gallery of Fine Arts in Sainte Genevieve, Missouri. It's a beautiful art gallery located about an hour's drive south of St. Louis, Missouri. After looking at some of the work then on display, I showed the gallery manager (Leon Basler) some of my own work on my iPhone.

To my surprise, Leon took an immediate intense interest in my work and offered to display my photography, further offering to designate me to be the "featured artist" during  a citywide celebration: "The Ste. Genevieve Annual Holiday Christmas Festival."  Of course I said yes.  Leon eventually decided to display all 30 images that I hauled down in a van earlier this week. Displayed, they took up half of the gallery. What an honor! The gallery owners and the people stopping by the gallery treated me like a celebrity, which is serving as an antidote for my bout of imposter syndrome. More about that below.

 

The opening was this weekend. If you click on the title to this article, you will find a gallery of many photos from this weekend, including some of my displayed photos.

Also on display this weekend were dazzling paintings by at least three other artists who were in attendance, including 90-year old Charles Rhinehart and 92-year old illustrator/painter, Don Langeneckert, who still paints every day, and who will be the featured artist in an upcoming show.  Leon's own works were also on display. Leon, who also works as a pilot and an engineer, has explored so many styles of painting in so many ways, that you would be certain that a room filled with his work was actually the work of 5 or 6 different artists; check out his website.  Also at the gallery, across from my photos, one can admire the exquisite paintings of Ali Cavanaugh.  It's truly stunning work, which you will see if you visit her website. 

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Magic Places: Cappadocia, Turkey

I'm starting to plan my next trip to Istanbul Turkey in the spring (I teach law school there periodically). I'm so looking forward to seeing friends who live there. That led me to look at some of my photos from my trip in 2017. One of the highlights was driving to Pigeon Valley in Cappadocia with good friends. What a magical place, and it actually has lots of pigeons! The top photo is the iconic photo of the valley that I took in 2017. The lower photos is also from Cappadocia, from the city of Goreme.

There are certain places in the world to which I have said "good-bye" out loud, hoping that someday, somehow, it would not be the last time I would visit. Cappadocia is one of those places.



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