photography by wasim.

Author: Wasim Muklashy

The Proof Sheet – Photography News In Review For The Week of August 11

Wasim of Nazareth_Wasim Muklashy Photography_Photography News_Proof-Sheet_August-11

Welcome to The Proof Sheet, where each week I’ll post some of the more notable photography news in sweet, chewy, bite-sized, easily-digestible morsels. Click the Read More for this week’s stories.

Cinematographer John Brawley posted the first frames shot using Blackmagic’s new 4K URSA camera this week. This is the one Blackmagic announced at NAB in April that has a 10-inch, 1080p pop-out display, shoots 4k at 60fps, and comes in a camcorder form factor for a fraction of the price of the RED. Uh…yeah! Needless to say, the footage is drool-worthy. Click here to see it.

Petapixel reports that the New York Police Department has sent out a memo to it’s officers reminding them that so long as they don’t interfere with police operations, “members of the public are allowed to record police interactions” and any attempts to stop it “constitutes censorship and also violates the First Amendment.”

A team of researchers from Japan’s University of Tokyo and Keio University have created the world’s fastest camera. It’s so fast in fact, it can record a chemical reaction in a single shot. That is 1000 times faster than the previous best, and is essentially 1/6 the speed of light. “Its optical shutter shoots images consecutively in less than one-trillionth of a second,” Gizmodo reports.

Don’t know how I missed this one earlier this year, but just in case you did too, Digital Photography School posted “15 of the Best Cheat Sheets, Printables, and Infographics for Photographers.”

And because, just because, I haven’t said anything yet here about Robin Williams, but it’s taken a bit to sort of soak it in. It wasn’t until listening to Marc Maron‘s interviews over the past 4 years with just about every comic under the sun that I’ve truly realized that all good comedy come from a dark place. It’s the most transparent and vulnerable way of dealing with life’s insecurities and, well, constant bullshit. I think Robin Williams was one of the ones that seemed to resonate with me most. I’m not sure why, but something about him…it was always apparent he was deeper than what he chose to show on the surface, and it seemed subconsciously obvious that a vein of pain fed that deeper part of his soul. I did not see this coming. And it hurts. I don’t think I can really say anything that will trump how Marc Maron opens his tribute to Robin Williams earlier this week:

“Depression is real.’

And the dialogue surrounding this awful disease needs to be louder and more profound and in everyone’s face. If the day soon comes that depression and mental illness becomes an integral part of the public dialogue, and the shame surrounding them crumbles away, Robin would not have died in vain. Let’s do our part to give back to Robin a fraction of what he gave to us. Rest in peace Mr. Williams. You’ve definitely earned it.

Anyhow, it’s a tribute worth listening to, as is the interview with Robin that Maron reposted following his tribute. Click here or on the picture above for transcript and the interview link

August 15, 2014
5 Photo Projects You Can Start And Finish In A Weekend

So this one’s going to be a little different. I recently had the insanely humbling experience of being a guest on the popular Improve Photography podcast with Jim Harmer. We recorded the show with the understanding that it could, or could not be, posted. Well, the team at ImprovePhotography.com were gracious enough to post it this week. The topic we discussed was ‘5 Photo Projects You Can Start And Finish In A Weekend,’ and rather than list them here, I’m going to direct you over to the podcast link so you can listen away! There’re some good ones in that sucker I must say!

The image above is of Topanga Canyon artist Robin Becker working. She is a mixed media artist who enhances her photographs with paint. Needless to say, it’s incredibly stunning. Check out her work at www.RobinBeckerArtist.com

And for more of my madness:
Instagram: @wasimofnazareth
Twitter: @wasimofnazareth
Google+: www.Google.com/+WasimMuklashy
Facebook: www.Facebook.com/WasimOfNazareth

August 14, 2014
How To Perform A Quick Minor Composite In Photoshop

As I was standing in Yosemite’s Tuolumne Meadows a few weeks ago, awaiting the sunset, I was on a sandbar off to the north side of the Tuolumne River east of bridge leading towards Soda Springs. As I stood there framing the shot, I got the elements I liked, and the light was just about to be perfect. The focus of this one was the light dancing upon the top of Cathedral Peak and Unicorn Peak and the trees on the ridgline below it. As the light started to bounce off those treetops and the peaks, I began to snap a few frames. I was delighted.

About 2 minutes in, a lone deer decided to wander up and pose directly in the bare patch of grass in the foreground of my image. I damn near lost my mind. It looked at me, I looked at it. It turned away and just stood there. There was no doubt in my mind this was all about vanity, and it wanted its portrait taken. Who was I to argue? I immediately adjusted the exposure and

Snap.

Got the bugger.

As soon as the shutter fired, he looked back at the water, up at the mountains, and walked away. It was like a gift from the Yosemite gods.

After the deer left, I was still noticing the light on the top of the ridge line, so went back to my original plan, sans deer, and fired a few more frames.

When I got to the computer to check out the images, I noticed elements from each frame that I loved. In the one with the deer, I loved the light bouncing off the tops of the trees and, well, of course, the star of the show, the deer him/herself. But what I liked in the images I took after were the sharpness of the ridge-line that was lacking in the frame with the deer because I was focused on that element of the composition. Problem is, this frame didn’t have that second row of light on the trees, and well, it didn’t have the deer. This is were I thought to myself, it’s about time. Time to get my feet wet with composites. And this seemed like a relatively easy enough situation to do it. I was going to take that deer and the lights on the treetops from the 2 minutes earlier, and put him in the frame with the sharp mountain tops.

My first attempt was to try to use the selection tool. Nope. Then I tried the magic wand. Definitely nope! Then I took the two layers, put the deer-less one on top, and tried using the eraser where the deer was. Absolutely nope!!

At this point, I knew I was going to have to break down and figure out how to use a layer mask, but I had never really done it before. I first checked out a few tutorials on YouTube before I ended up consulting with my brother, who, as an animator and illustrator, has had some considerable experience in Photoshop. He walked me through it, and it seemed to work out perfectly. Here’s a brief video describing the method that I used to get the resulting image you see at the top of this post:

The image was shot on a Samsung NX30 and a Samsung 18-200mm lens.

And for more of my madness:
Instagram: @wasimofnazareth
Twitter: @wasimofnazareth
Google+: www.Google.com/+WasimMuklashy
Facebook: www.Facebook.com/WasimOfNazareth

August 13, 2014
A Surprise Journey Through The Range Of Light – The Eastern Sierra Nevadas – Part 3: Mono Lake

Day 3 of this unplanned impromptu journey into the Eastern Sierras thing was a tough choice. While I was happy with what I got in Yosemite’s Tuolumne Meadows yesterday, now that I knew the lay of the land a bit better, it couldn’t hurt to head back again, which I would have been absolutely HAPPY to do. However, I was also dangerously close to Mono Lake, California, another one on the bucket list, so I had to decide whether to turn this into 2 days of Tuolumne or 1 day of each, Tuolumne and Mono Lake, both of which, in my opinion, would have been WIN! I know, I know, tough decisions… But ultimately, the side of me that loves new things chose Mono Lake, figuring that, since the job got botched, I’d most likely be back up here again soon, so I’ll get another shot (major pun intended).

Once again, I left the motel in Mammoth Lakes around 4. Seeing as how Mono Lake was only about 30 minutes from Mammoth, I figured I’d have a solid 2 hours to get the lay of the land, find my shot, set up, and hang out. I drove through Lee Vining, stopped at the visitor center to find out how to get to the Tufas, the landmark landscape of the lake, made a mini-detour to the ‘Upside Down House,’ (don’t ask…here’s the photo and the sign, which I haven’t even read…kinda don’t want to ruin the desert rat mystique of this one…), and drove the 10 or so miles to the section of the lakeside I was going to call home for the next several hours.

I parked in the lot, and started walking down the path towards the shore, and the closer I got, the weirder everything started to get. There was a moment there where the wooden footpath ended, and the sand began, and it literally seemed like that one step took you from Earth, to Mars. These geological formations were the weirdest fricking things I’ve ever seen with my own eyes. I thought the hoodoos in last years trip to Bryce Canyon were from another planet, but these things just took things to a whole ‘nother galaxy.

Apparently what they are are dried up hot springs. The calcium-rich springs come out of the ground, pushing through the limestone, mixes with calcium carbonate, creating what are essentially, underwater hot spring volcanoes that eventually calcify and leave these…things…behind. While they’re naturally created over millennia, and happen underwater, the water level at Mono Lake has dropped so much since water diversions began in 1941, that it has exposed the wonders of the tufas for the world to see.

And those, my friends are what grace the top of this post and the gallery below. All of those images were also shot on a Samsung NX30 using a Samsung 18-200mm lens.

I hope you enjoyed my posts from this random trip at least a fraction of how much I enjoyed making them.

If you missed the first two parts, here they are:

Part 1: Mammoth Lakes
Part 2: Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park

And for more of my madness: Instagram: @wasimofnazareth Twitter: @wasimofnazareth Google+: www.Google.com/+WasimMuklashy Facebook: www.Facebook.com/WasimOfNazareth

August 12, 2014
A Monday Motivational Kick In The Yahoo – August 11, 2014

“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wises grows it under his feet.” -James Oppenheim
**
From me to you, There’s This Week’s Monday Kick In The Yahoo!
**
Feel It!

August 11, 2014
The Proof Sheet – Photography News In Review For The Week of August 4

The-Proof-Sheet_August-5

Welcome to The Proof Sheet, where each week I’ll post some of the more notable photography news in sweet, chewy, bite-sized, easily-digestible morsels. Click the Read More for this week’s stories.

Nikon finally settles (some of) the D600 madness. In a recent settlement in favor of participants in the Zimmerman & Reed class action lawsuit against Nikon for faulty D600 sensors, Nikon will replace their D600 with a D610 free of charge. Read the full letter of the settlement at PetaPixel.

A spacecraft that was launched 10 years ago to capture a comet (yes, I’m actually saying that seriously) has, well, captured the comet! The European Space Agency’s Rosetta has successfully caught up with Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko halfway between Jupiter and Mars, and has already sent back images. To see them, head over to the European Space Agency’s site by clicking here.

Finally! Image usage rights for dummies all thanks to The Visual Communication Guy, Curtis Newbold. In an infographic flowchart, he explains everything from copyright to creative commons to fair use and public domain, efficiently demonstrating what’s right and what’s wrong usage of any particular image. All you have to do is answer a couple yes’s and a couple no’s to keep the lawyers from knocking on your inbox. Click HERE for the chart.

In addition to launching a new website dedicated to Apple Aperture users who are deciding whether to migrate to Lightroom or not in wake of Apple’s announcement that they will be discontinuing their photo editing software, Adobe has also officially released a guide explaining how to perform the migration to Lightroom. Additionally, as reported by PetaPixel, they’ve hinted at new software that will help with the migration as well.

Speaking of Adobe, they’ve announced a partnership deal with photo sharing site 500px, bundling together Adobe’s photographer’s package, which includes Lightroom and Photoshop, along with a 500px Awesome account for an annual fee of $165. Click here to learn more about it directly from 500px.

August 8, 2014
How To Photograph The Super Super Moon!

So all that hype about the ‘super moon’ that we’ve heard not only this month but last month and sometime back earlier this year as well? Well, this is more of it! Apparently this weekend, on Sunday, August 10, is the superest of all super moons (at least in 2014). Scientists like to get all loose and crazy and call it a ‘perigee full moon,’ basically meaning it’s the closest the moon will be to earth this year. Anyhow, along with all the hype about the super moon itself, for us photographers, comes all the hype about how to photograph the super moon, so here are my obligatory tips on how to photograph the super super moon.

1. TRIPOD!! USE A TRIPOD!!! This is one you can’t get away from.

2. Tighten Up! Use as tight a focal length as you have (or can afford). At the very least you’ll want to use a 200mm (remember on a crop sensor, that’s roughly 300mm). If you can get away with it (and your wife /husband or boy/girlfriend won’t kill you, or your creditors aren’t already hot on your tail), get yourself a 400mm or even longer lens.

3. Spot Meter!!! Only Spot Meter!! The moon is quite the bright bugger, meaning, the camera will have a hard time metering properly as the big bright thing surrounded by darkness will confuse it, making the moon completely washed out, causing your shot to miss out on the details, the contours, the lines, the mountains, the valleys, the moon men curiously pondering the mars rover tracks, wondering if there’s other life ‘out there.’ This is also where you might want to use exposure compensation. Take a few test shots, and if the camera still isn’t metering properly, drop the exposure compensation by a stop or two to -1 or -2 (manually underexposing) to make up for what the camera thinks it’s seeing.

4. How Low Can You ISO? Use the lowest ISO you can get away with, which, if you refer to tip #3, can be the lowest ISO your camera supports. Shoot using an aperture between f5.6 and f11. That should allow sufficient light to hit the sensor while giving you a crisp image of the moon’s surface, as the middle apertures tend to give you the sharpest images.

5. Augment Your Reality! Grab an app like PhotoPills or Sun Seeker or Rick Sammon’s Photo Sundial or for Android, there is Sun Surveyor. These are essentially augmented reality apps that you can point at the sky and know exactly where the moon is going to be at exactly what time on exactly what date. Kind of handy eh?

6. Size Matters! Try to find a foreground, like a hill or a tree or a structure for a sense of scale. Even if it’s just a silhouette of that foreground object. Otherwise it can look just like any other full moon, and when the super moon is essentially called that because of the considerable size difference in comparison to other full moons, it would be pointless. This is easiest achieved with timing, as you’ll want to capture the moon just as it begins to rise above the horizon. If you wait until it’s directly overhead and there are no other elements in the image, it’s just another moon…

7. Look Up! Don’t forget to look away from the camera. As a photographer, it’s easy to get caught up with what’s inside that little frame of yours, easily forgetting everything surrounding that frame. Stop for a few minutes. Just breathe. Soak it in. At the very least, it’s a nice reminder of you why you do what you do.

When you’re all done, moon me! Post links to them suckers here, would love to see ’em!

And for more of my madness:
Instagram: @wasimofnazareth
Twitter: @wasimofnazareth
Google+: www.Google.com/+WasimMuklashy
Facebook: www.Facebook.com/WasimOfNazareth

August 7, 2014
A Surprise Journey Through The Range Of Light – Part 2 – Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park

This is just one of those places. You hear about it, you see pictures of it, you read about it, and if you’re a nature-lover or photographer, or better yet, both, you’d be hot damned if you that’s the one you didn’t get to cross off your bucket-list.

Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park.

The mystique around this place runs high. It’s been called a ‘photographers paradise,’ as well as one of ‘the most difficult places to photograph.’ The thing about it is, it’s closed off most of the year. The picture-perfect gentle alpine meadow bordered on all directions by soft granite domes and spires, and blanketed in pines and wildflowers and berries and natural grass, lies in the highest of high countries in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, so Tioga Road, the only one that passes through, is snowed in on average of 7 months a year, and on top of that, the meadows are ‘meadowed’ for only about 3 months of the year (as a local park guide so eloquently put it). Furthermore, those 3 months just so happen to be the absolute busiest months of Yosemite National Park’s schedule, but, as stated in Part 1 – Mammoth Lakes, there was no way I was not going to seize this unexpected and completely spontaneous opportunity to make my way to this alleged garden of Eden.

I pulled onto Tioga Road at about 4pm, with about 4 hours before sunset, which I figured was enough time to at least explore a bit and find a place I was going to call camp for sunset. As I wind my way up and through the Tioga pass from Lee Vining on the Eastern Sierra side, I slowly rolled through the sort of landscape that dreams and fantasies are made of, the kind of place you thought only existed in cartoons and psilocybin – crystal clear sky blue cascading streams and rivers snaking their way through saturated green grasses and tress of various sizes and varieties, flanked by sun soaked rolling hills comprised of rolling granite domes and lodgepole pines.

As I drove through at about 10 miles per hour, I literally found a tear in my eye – I was in absolute awe of some of the most striking, insanely unreal scenes that would trump a psychedelia-soaked dream. I won’t lie. I was overwhelmed. How the hell was I going to only spend 5 hours here?

I figured since I only had this afternoon, I’d stop by the visitor center and ask for a few tips. The nice lady was hesitant at first to give out one of her favorite spots and secrets, but after she found out I was a State Park volunteer, she figured she was in safe territory and loudly ‘whispered’ a tip. I thanked her kindly, and went to follow her tip as I made my way around a particular dome. I hiked in for about 35 minutes before realizing I had no flashlight to get back out, and this was bear country, and I was finding myself in a maze that wouldn’t be ‘fun’ to try to scramble out of after dark. While the landscape was absolutely breathtaking as I followed the river through a forested part of the meadow, I had a scene in my mind and this was taking me away from it. I wasn’t going to be able to get the sunset colors with the snaking stream through the meadow I had envisioned. After a quick glance at the clock, I had to make a decision quick as I was less than an hour from sunset. I hastily decided to hike back out, and head down the road to a more open part of the meadow and just hope I can find something I’d be happy with.

I truly felt so overwhelmed, that I was absolutely certain that I wasn’t going to get a shot because I made the fatal mistake of running around looking for the best one, but made peace with it when I just figured I’d come back the next day now that I have a bit of the lay of the land. And I certainly wasn’t going to cry about that. Plus, I may not get the shot I had envisioned, but, I’m in Tuolumne Meadows at sunset, I’m sure as heck not walking out with nothing!

So I slowed my roll, took a breathe, and decided I was just going to enjoy this one. I hiked into the riverbank, sat on a rock to soak in this paradise, and right at that very moment, is when I found and saw my shots. All within striking distance of where I started walking around like a crazed half-bearded madman. The most surprising was a shot that ended up being one of my favorites, it was well after the sun had set, and I had already packed my gear and was using my phone’s flashlight to find my way back out to the road. That’s when I ran across the purple twilight light reflecting in a small pond and playing with the shadows of the landscape just off the path. I had to do it – I pulled out my gear, set up, and spent about another 30 minutes after dark playing right there in that area.

So here’s a bit of a gallery of my favorite images from that afternoon, all of which were shot on a Samsung NX30 using a Samsung 18-200mm lens.

For Part 3, Mono Lake, click here .

And in case you missed A Surprise Journey Through The Range Of Light – Part 1 – Mammoth Lakes, click here .

And for more of my madness: Instagram: @wasimofnazareth Twitter: @wasimofnazareth Google+: www.Google.com/+WasimMuklashy Facebook: www.Facebook.com/WasimOfNazareth

August 6, 2014
Lenstag – A Free Extra Layer Of Protection For Your Camera Gear

There is nothing scarier for a photographer than the prospect of losing or having their gear stolen. Just typing that sentence brought on the beginnings of a panic attack. Between the bodies and lenses, it’s not out of the ordinary to be carrying 5, 6, tens of thousands of dollars or more of equipment in that bag strapped across your back. And it’s not the money that’s the important part, it’s the fact that for many of us, it’s our livelihood. We lose our gear, we lose our jobs. Granted we now have great outlets like BorrowLenses.com and LensRentals.com to help tide us over until we can replace our gear, and there are great insurance options geared towards photographers, but Lenstag proves to be the ultimate free extra layer of security.

The idea is this. You create an account, you log in, you register your cameras and lenses and gear by entering the serial numbers and then uploading pictures of the gear with the serial number visible. They verify the gear and from here on out, if your gear gets stolen, you can immediately notify Lenstag through the app or through the site, and any images that show up anywhere in the world that were taken using that gear, will show up. Additionally, they’ll help get the word out about your stolen gear through their well-connected channels in the photography world.

I signed up for this thing about 2 years ago, and quite honestly forgot all about it. Then recently, I received an email from them informing me of their new mobile app, and along with that, it had a list of notifications of some of my images. That caught my attention. As I looked closely at the images, the EXIF data from the cameras I had registered with them have the serial number of the camera embedded, so there was literally a list of links to pages where people were posting my images after grabbing them from somewhere else. I was impressed.

Lenstag’s service is an absolute must for any photographer, and considering that it’s free, there’s really no reason not to. It might not be the cure-all, but it is a nice extra security blanket that’ll help you sleep a bit easier every night.

Check ‘em out. www.Lenstag.com

And for a breakdown of options for insurance designed specifically with photographers in mind, check out my post Cover Your Bases – Here Are Some Of The Best Photographers Insurance Options.

For more of my madness:
Instagram: @wasimofnazareth
Twitter: @wasimofnazareth
Google+: www.Google.com/+WasimMuklashy
Facebook: www.Facebook.com/WasimOfNazareth

August 5, 2014
A Monday Motivational Kick In The Yahoo – August 3, 2014

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination.” -Albert Einstein**
From me to you, There’s This Week’s Monday Kick In The Yahoo!
**
Feel It!

August 4, 2014