Out of Focus

This post has been a long time coming now. Ever since I decided some months back that I wanted more from my gear than what the X100 was providing, I started researching my next camera purchase. As any one that knows me can tell you, I'm big on research. Big on reading up on anything I want to buy. Once I start, I can become obsessive with my need to know just about everything there is to know about whatever I'm researching. Maybe it's the engineering part of my brain. Whatever the reason, I have a tendency to get lost in the details. Long story short, my X100 now sits along side an X-Pro1 and a 35mm prime. One heck of a collection, but what gets me is that I'm still researching. Still unsure if I made the right decision to stick with Fuji. Still wondering if I should have gone back to a DSLR or given micro four thirds another try.

It didn't really hit me how lost in the weeds I was until I read this post on Patrick LaRoque's blog. Now granted, I have never obsessed about the sharpness of any lens I have ever owned, but I have and am obsessing far too much about the gear in my bag. I have completely lost focus of what I want to do with my photography and the fact that it's the photographs that matter. I know very well that no one really cares about what I'm shooting with. No one cares if a photograph was made using a full frame camera or an iPhone, with a super sharp 35mm lens or a cheap plastic 50. What they care about is the photographs I share and the fact that they make me want to go create more photographs. 

It's funny how many times I have been down this road in the past five years. As much as I enjoy the craft of photography, I'm also fascinated by the tools that I use to make the photographs. I really do love the technology behing it all. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm still very much a geeky engineer at heart. I know that I'll continue to obsess because it's just in my nature, but hopefully these words will serve as a small reminder of what it is that I should be obsessing about. 

Rework with Silver Efex Pro

Since I didn't an opportunity to shoot this week, I spent some time reworking one of my photographs posted a couple weeks back of the Newport Pier using Silver Efex Pro 2. The original image I posted was converted and edited using Lightroom 4. Since I shot the original image in raw, I started by converting it to black and white using the Red Hi-Contrast Filter preset in Lightroom. From there, I made the normal tonal adjustments using the Basic panel and finished by applying a Graduated Filter to the top, left, and bottom of the image. I did this instead of applying a vignette because I wanted to darken the edges slightly without completely losing the blacks in the pier. 

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Newport Pier original

To compare the results from Lightroom and Silver Efex Pro, I created a Virtual Copy of my original image and reset all the adjustments I made except for cropping. I then opened the image in Silver Efex Pro from Lightroom and applied the Full Contrast and Structure preset. Of all the available presets, this one seems to be my favorite so far. As you can see in the screenshot, the image quickly took on a very different look from what I created in Lightroom.

After applying the preset, I did some fine tuning using the Brightness, Contrast, and Structure sliders available in the right pane and used the Burn Edges adjustment to slightly darken the edges.

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Newport Pier in Silver Efex Pro 2

Here's the final image from Silver Efex Pro. Comparing the two outputs, they're obviously very different. But that has more to do with the edits I applied and less to do with the tools I used. I've been using Lightroom for years so I have a good idea of what I can and can't do. Since I've only been using Silver Efex Pro for a couple weeks, it'll take some time to get my workflow down. Seeing and comparing the results from both tools, I can imagine lots of possibilities when using the two together and look forward to many, many more images created using this combination.

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Newport Pier rework

Revisiting Silver Efex Pro

I downloaded a trial for Silver Efex Pro a few years ago and was blown away by the black and white conversions I was able to create. Up to that point, I was using Lightroom to do the conversions and was satisfied with the workflow and results. After seeing what I could do with Silver Efex Pro, I never looked at my black and white conversions done in Lightroom quite the same way. The only problem was this was back in 2010 when the plugin for Lightroom cost $199. As good as it was, I just couldn't justify spending that much on a single plugin.

With the recent announcement that Nik Software (now a part of Google) had dropped the price of their entire collection to $149, I decided to give the latest version of Silver Efex Pro a try. Using Silver Efex Pro 2 as a Lightroom plugin is still quick and painless and the results it helps to create are still stunning. The presets provide a great starting point for the conversion and the localized adjustments make it possible to really fine tune an image. I'm only 5 days into my 15 day trial, but I've pretty much already decided that this time around, Silver Efex Pro is here to stay. Here are some of the conversions I did of my recent long exposure photographs made of various piers around Southern California.

Long Exposures at the Newport Pier

I have always been intrigued by long exposure photography and the sense of motion that can be conveyed in a photograph. I have fond memories of sitting in the Philadelphia Museum of Art trying to capture the movement of the museum's patrons with my Sony Cybershot camera. Since the camera didn't have manual mode and I wasn't yet familiar with the effects of shutter speed on an image, I simply experimented by changing the settings I could control to create photographs that showed the movement of the people around me.

Fast forward a few years to 2008. Armed with my first DSLR and a better understanding of the use of shutter speed, I visited Newport Beach to capture some of my first long exposure photographs of the Newport Pier. Since that time, I've visited the Newport Pier many times and made many photographs of this fascinating structure. I'm not really sure what it is about this particular pier, but I never seem to grow tired of photographing it.

Having recently acquired some ND (neutral density) filters for the 35mm lens of my X-Pro1, I thought it was only fitting to head down to one of my favorite places to create some long exposure photographs of the Newport Pier. Luckily, the weather cooperated and provided a beautiful backdrop for creating some of my favorite long exposure photographs to date.

Finding Inspiration

Inspiration is one of the most discussed concepts amongst photographers, and artists in general. It is something that we say alludes us when we fail to create work we are proud of. It is something that we wait for to get us out of the creative ruts we fall into. And its absence is something that we use too often as an excuse not to go out and explore our creativity.

The problem with this way of thinking is that inspiration becomes a crutch, rather than something uplifting. It becomes this mythical concept that we assume only the masters know how to find. And it becomes a reason not to aspire to the level of the photographers we admire. The truth, however, is that inspiration can be found all around us. It can be found at the park around the corner. It can be found at the museum a short drive away. And it can be found everyday in those that we care for. 

The real secret to inspiration is that there is no secret. It comes from observing life around us. It comes from seeing the work of others. And most importantly, it comes from creating work. It’s true that often times the work we create is not as good as we’d like. But that’s natural when we’re working to bridge the gap between our taste and our work. The fact that we realize our work is not as good as our taste should be all the inspiration we need to make more, and better work.