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mysterious sliding rock on The Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park, California, USA ©2005 Ed Book (all rights reserved - DO NOT COPY)   http://edbookphoto.com
sliding rock on The Racetrack Playa in Death Valley, California


'just ran across this and liked how svelte my shadow looked and after the biggest rainstorm in the history of recordkeeping in these parts, the desert looks inviting.


Peace

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watch this  ©2006 Ed Book   http://edbookphoto.com

My 17" PowerBook died. (drowned, so says AppleCare) (keep juice away, far away from these things.) I had to replace it and since they quit making that model, it was replaced by the 17" MacBook Pro (warning danger Intel inside)

This new MBP looks like the replaced PB with a few small differences–one being the camera lens mounted in the screen frame.

The computer has a program I tried out called Comic Life. I guess it's to make comic books. Along with the camera that has some special effects, I gave it a try.


Peace

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High Rock Lookout - Gifford Pinchot National Forest - Cascade Mtns, WA   ©2003 Ed Book (all rights reserved DO NOT COPY)  http://edbookphoto.com
High Rock - Gifford Pinchot NF - Cascade Mtns, Washington                         ©2003 Ed Book


High Rock Lookout - Gifford Pinchot National Forest - Cascade Mtns, WA   ©2003 Ed Book (all rights reserved DO NOT COPY)  http://edbookphoto.com
Remember the image I posted a couple days ago of Sawtooth Ridge with High Rock on the right end? I made this image from near the lookout at the top of High Rock about three years ago. You can see a shelter tucked in the trees. Behind me was the lookout. I'll look for an image of it but it may be a week or so (remind me) before I post it because I'll be on Whidbey Island, north of here, to teach a couple of Photoshop workshops... I don't know if I'll have internet access up there. If anyone is interested, there is still time to sign up.





Peace

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I met and photographed lots of folks on the trails this past weekend. As I get time, I'll post images I made of these skiers, snowshoers, and hikers... but here's a teaser, heh, This photo was made by Noah Tratt. I met Noah a couple years ago when his group skied to High Hut... that's where I saw them again this weekend. Good snow conditions... good grooming (*pats self on back*) and I got onto my skis a few times along the way to test the trail... I skied mostly uphill... I do better going uphill--I'm not in a panic like when my skis go by themselves.

If I photographed you and you don't see your photo here soon, please email me. ed at edbookphoto dot com

Noah caught me near High Hut and was surprised to see me actually on skis...

(please note that, yes, the Ed guy is fat but that fact is exaggerated in this image because I had two hats, a pair of gloves, and a water bottle stuffed into the front of my jacket--the red vest actually does zip shut)

Ed Book on skis near High Hut - Mount Tahoma Trails (MTTA) ©2006 Noah Tratt


Peace

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Ed Book on 58th brithday May 10, 2005 ©2005 Ed Book   http://edbookphoto.com


by request
'the state of Ed... life is good and I'm working on excellent ('just not saying how much farther I have to go to get there... or if I have to change direction).

Peace

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one of the challenges one faces when photographing the dunes is one's own shadow... how to avoid it or use it...

sand self portrait shadow Eureka Dunes, Death Valley National Park, California ©2005 Ed Book   http://edbookphoto.com


For this image, I was using the 17-40mm lens at 17mm looking for a composition displaying depth of field from a couple feet to about 100 feet. I was making some compositions using the shadows of the ripples and in the viewfinder, I caught sight of a shadow urnning in a different direction and followed it to see it was from my tripod... I turned the camera just a bit more to see my shadow and tripped the shutter.

Peace

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I knew there would be some way out...

ed escapes (c)2004 Ed Book edbookphoto.com


because the fort was being restored by prison inmates I knew there would be a way out... I found that one of the bars wasn't fully nailed at the bottom (the spike was there but was cut off where it entered the log behind)


Peace

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jailkeeper Ed (c)2004 Ed Book edbookphoto.com


who's the badboy?

Peace

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ed and horny ed (c)2004 Ed Book edbookphoto.com


'wonder why I wear that hat all the time?

Peace

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Ed meets Ed (c)2004 Ed Book edbookphoto.com


he was as shocked as I was...

Peace

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Ed pulls the ring - Fort Supply, Oklahoma (c)2004 Ed Book edbookphoto.com


I just couldn't resist...

Peace

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Reply to this entry by posting a picture of yourself in the comment, and post this sentence in your journal. (stolen from [info]cherie who stole it from [info]zookeeper.

ed tripped by snowshoes

take two:

ed up on snowshoes


Peace

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[info]mrbad commented that he liked my "without manipulations" images better than those that I do tweak. Frankly, I do too... but sometimes there's an emotional pull to an image that unmanipulated is really lacking like bright sunshine and dark shade on water. I want to do something with the image but the best thing to do is throw it away and come back on a cloudy day to get a better image. But... sometimes, I want to play with the image to get something else... not necessarily better but something different. So, I manipulate...

Then, sometimes the image calls for fixing and manipulations are the only recourse. Here is an example.

I was up at Mt Rainier sleepy because I didn't get a restful sleep during a very windy night which kept waking me and something I ate talking to me all night. I didn't feel like making images but was sitting by Edith Creek being inspired but unmotivated. I was holding the digital camera and waiting for the sun to find a cloud so I decided to try a self portrait. Baggy eyes from lack of sleep and squinty because they are very sensitive to light-especially sun shining in them. Red face from sitting in the cold as it was in the high twenties that morning. The resulting image showed all that and it looked like I'd left breakfast on my beard for later (I hadn't, but, it wasn't out of the realm of logic for me) Sooo...

ed unmanipulated


ed played with


What did I do? First, I cropped the image to the size I wanted to work with. I then adjusted levels so the image wouldn't be so dark and set neutral on one of the rocks that was supposed to be gray but was slightly tinted blue from the blue sky. (Mac and PC users will see this differently because of differences in monitor gamma)

Then, because the image was lighter overall, my hat was too light. I selected it and adjusted levels so it wouldn't be the lightest thing in the image.

My face still showed some blotchy reddish areas so I used "hue and saturation" and selected red and desaturated a little.

My beard need touched up just under my lip so I used the clone tool to fill it in evenly. (It shows slightly blurry now)

Now, the baggy eyes... I added a duplicate layer and blurred it till the dark areas were minimized and then erased everything in that layer but the minimized bags.

How about that eye that's always so squinty and more so when I smile. (notice that my smile is one of those not quite a smile because when I do my eyes go almost all the way shut.)
Well... When I adjusted levels at the beginning, my right eye was almost ok but needed a highlight. I picked a brush that had a natural pattern and added it the highlight... (In final review here, the eye highlight looks a little too overdone. No, I think, way overdone.) Then the other eye... no fixing that or was there a way? The right eye looked ok so I selected it and duplicated it and pasted it in a new layer over the left eye. Then, I transformed (flopped) it horzontally so it didn't look like I had two right eyes. That made my eyes look like they were looking in different directions so I selected only the center of left eye and transformed it back. Almost ok... but... my eyes still looked a little squinty so I used the liquify tool and made a circle larger than my eye and clicked it a few times to swell the eye and then did the same to the other one.

One more thing... as I was using a camera held at arm's length, it was zoomed to wide angle. Portrait photographers know that using a wide angle lens makes the subject flatter or wider... I selected the whole image and used the transform tool to make the whole image just a little narrower (skinnier).

Final review- the face looks a little too pale and the eye highlights are too bright... uhhh yeah, I should have brushed my hair and beard first. (anything else? class? class?)

Now, was I overdoing it a bit for making an icon? No, I was practicing with my photoshop skills to perfect my trade. (autumn dark late evening sitting in the van wishing Ilene was with me.)

Peace

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