The Snapshot
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
A Newsletter of the Redwood Camera Club THE SNAPSHOT July and August 2016 SOME SUMMER SIXTEEN It may be hard to believe, but this year brings us the 8th annual Humboldt Photography Exhibition. Eight years! Five of the seven grand prize winners have been RCC members. Entry day is July 16th at the RAA, 609 F Street, from 11AM to 2PM. Complete details should have been emailed to all RCC members. If you didn’t get this email, please contact Sharon Falk-Carlsen. This IN THIS ISSUE year the Eureka Chamber of Commerce has chosen to focus on the RAA for the month of August. Some Summer ‘16 ..................... 1 This entails a cocktail event to be held at the RAA building (while the HPE in on exhibit) on August Kathryn Mayo Samples .......... 2 18th from 5PM-7PM. Everyone is invited! And besides this, the HPE is a wonderful photography Maxing Dynamic Range ......... 3 competition and exhibition. Part One: Alfred Stieglitz ..... 4-5 The judge this year is Kathryn Mayo, who heads the photography program at Consumnes River College Freshwater Farms Trail ........ 6-7 in Sacramento, where since 2007 she has been teaching Exploring Bald Hills ................ 8 photography full-time and where she has served as chair Flowers by Pam ....................... 9 of her department. She teaches a broad range of classes in Shore Acres ............................. 10 both film and digital, encompassing all film formats from Classifieds & Notices .............. 10 35mm to large and ultra large format, photo history, photo manipulation, and alternative photographic processes. She Board Members ...................... 10 also teaches private workshops at her home studio in the wet Annual Picnic Info ................. 11 plate collodion historic process. See the next page for a few Golden Gate Bridge .......... 12-19 samples of her photography work. Lynch’s Best of Show!.............. 20 Late summer brings the 120th annual Humboldt County Fair which will run from August 18th to the 28th. CONTRIBUTORS RCC sponsors the awards for the youth photography, as well Editor: Becque Olson with assistance & as awarding RCC ribbons and prizes. Yet there’s the adult photography competitions, too. Over the submissions from Sharon Falk-Carlsen, years participation has lessened due to less than stellar management by the Fair organization. Still a few Senior Writer Mary Ann Machi, Regular stouthearted RCC members continue to make an effort, so if other members attend the Fair, please Contributor John Lynch, also submissions take time to visit the Fine Arts/Red Barn buildings and see the exhibits. — • from David Callow, Pam Cone, Jon Exley, Steve Kamelgarn, Rose Kidder, Greg Nyquist, Wes Rishel, Jim Shryne, Rachael Shryne, Woody Thompson, Diane Williams, & William Wood THE SNAPSHOT 1731 OCEAN DRIVE MCKINLEYVILLE, CA 95519 [email protected] The Snapshot — July & August 2016 SAMPLES OF KATHRYN MAYO’S PHOTOGRAPHY Photograph & Copyright Kathryn Mayo Hide Under the Shadow Of Your Wings Photograph & Copyright Kathryn Mayo Circle Rehearsal #3 Photograph & Copyright Kathryn Mayo Title Unknown — 2 — The Snapshot — July & August 2016 MAXIMIZING DYNAMic RANGE / GREG NYQUIST Maximizing the dynamic range of As a real world example, consider your digital camera is really quite easy. an image taken amongst the hoodoos of All you need to do is (1) shoot at your Bryce Canyon. Here we have a narrow camera’s base ISO; (2) shoot in raw and ravine with high dark walls on both process your image in a raw converter such sides and a very bright, partly cloudy as Lightroom; and (3) achieve an optimal sky above. Ten years ago, I would have exposure to the right side of the histogram. been forced to take several different Shooting in raw is a no-brainer, exposures and combine them using but raw files have to be processed in a HDR or compositing techniques in post raw converter to take advantage of their to capture the dynamic range of such a extra data. Once the image is loaded into scene. Nowadays, many cameras can easily Photoshop, it’s no longer a raw file, and capture such a scene in a single image— contains less data and, ipso facto, features assuming, that is, that ETTR is used to significantly lower dynamic range. attain an optimal exposure. Here’s what Base ISO is whatever ISO setting an optimized exposure looks like straight produces the best signal-to-noise ratio. out of the camera: It’s often, but not always, the lowest ISO setting on the camera. An optimal exposure is attained by exposing the image as bright as possible In the unprocessed image, bright without blowing out any highlights. The areas are too bright, dark areas too dark. most common technique when using a DSLR is to examine the histogram of the image, either in playback or with a digital But that’s easily fixed in Lightroom. preview. Simply choose the exposure that Using the shadow recovery slider, tone contains as much data to the right of the curve sliders, the orange saturation slide histogram without clipping highlights. and some judicious dodging and burning Below is an example of the histogram of with the adjustment brush, it’s fairly easy an “underexposed” image: to attain something like this: Exposing to the right (ETTR) would look something like this: — 3 — The Snapshot — July & August 2016 PART ONE: ALFRED STIEGLITZ, PHOTOGRAPHY’S IMPRESARIO, ADVOCATE, AND TALENTED PRACTITIONER / JOHN LYNCH When introducing the readers of The seven children born to Edward Stieglitz the international art community as such. Snapshot to important photographers , and Hedwig Ann Werner. This study also lead to Stieglitz’ Alfred Stieglitz should have been my very Edward was determined to give his first published article in 1887 titled, “A first presentation. I apologize. To me, son the best education he could. He sent Word or Two about Photography in Alfred Stieglitz is to photography what Les him to the private Charlier Institute in Germany” for the magazine Amateur Paul was to the electric guitar. He didn’t New York. Classes here and at the public Photographer. This was to become the first invent photography, but he did become high school Alfred attended his senior year in a series of articles on photography and one of the most famous photographers didn’t challenge him, and didn’t impress photo techniques for various magazines of his time, introduced modern art his father as preparing him for college. In in Germany, England, and America. to America, married one of the most 1881, to better prepare Alfred, Edward Alfred wasn’t just writing and researching famous modern American artists, and was sold the family business for the princely photography at this time, he was also principally responsible for establishing sum of $400,000* and moved the whole producing great images. photography as a serious new artistic family to Germany to enroll Alfred at the The same year he began publishing medium. Technische Hocschule in Berlin. Here he articles on photography he began Alfred Stieglitz was born in Hoboken, took a class from Herman Wilhelm Vogel submitting images to photography contests New Jersey January 1, 1864. That’s right, who was a leading researcher in the new … and winning. His first entry was to during the last part of the Civil War. In field of Photo Chemistry. the Holiday Photo Contest of the English fact, his father had been an officer in the In 1884 the rest of the Stieglitz family Amateur Photographer and won first prize Union Army and was wounded and sent left Germany and returned to America. for “Last Joke, Bellagio” -- the next year home to recover. Alfred was the first of Alfred, however, stayed and continued he won first and second prize in the same his studies in photo chemistry, photo competition. techniques, and contemporary modern Stieglitz was establishing a reputation art of the 1880s (this was actually a very as a talented photographer, and as a writer exciting time in the art world with the of all things photographic in Germany, transition from the romantic and classical England, and America. This was all art that had dominated the art world before he did any serious photography in for centuries to impressionism and the America. beginnings of modern art.) It was through this independent study that he formulated his thinking that photography was really a serious new art medium and that it should be considered by Alfred Stieglitz, 1933 A Wet Day on the Boulevard, Paris, 1897 Photograph by Dorothy Norman — 4 — The Snapshot — July & August 2016 In the next issue of The Snapshot I will finish with Alfred Stieglitz’ return to America, and the rest of his career. It is hard enough to cram the lives of important photographers into 500 or so words, but with Stieglitz the rest of his life would not have made as much sense without first knowing his preamble.— • * My guess is this might be something like $20-$40 million in today’s dollars, since Sears was selling shotguns then for $8.50. The Hand of Man, 1902 Last Joke, Bellagio, 1887 — 5 — The Snapshot — July & August 2016 FRESHWATER FARMS RESERVE NATURE TRAIL / WILLIAM WOOD A new nature trail has recently Creek levee has been breached, so it the nature trail because of the cattle been opened at Freshwater Farms is periodically flooded with salt water. in the pastures. Reserve, owned and managed by the Revegetation with salt tolerant plants The nature trail is three-quarters Northcoast Regional Land Trust. The has returned much of the reserve of a mile in length. It starts through trail starts on Myrtle Avenue about to a salt marsh (photo 2). Now farmlands, then a tree-lined path half a mile west of Freshwater Road Coho salmon, steelhead and coastal (photo 4), and finally along the dike when traveling toward Eureka (photo cutthroat trout use this area prior to of Freshwater Creek and Slough 1).