A selection of photos

[Wolfwood]

I've been a designer for over 14 years, but this June marks the fourth anniversary of when I bought my first camera. I've worked with a lot of photographers over the years and finally decided to delve into the field myself. I'm self taught, which is probably clearly evident here, but I take my study seriously and have been learning more from a traditional standpoint of film even though I shoot primarily digital. Probably because I worked with so many old school photographers who touted a strong foundation in the basics, I've always been a believer in leaving the camera on manual and figuring out the exposure for myself. Needless to say, in the beginning a lot of my shots were pretty rough! In fact, some still are. At any rate, I enjoy shooting subjects of the southwest... mainly because that's where I live. My cameras of choice consist of a Canon 20D, a Mamiya 645AFD, in which I shoot both film and digital with a Leaf Aptus back, and a Holga, in which I shoot 120 film. I have an old Yashica Mat TLR and some other older cameras I'd like to start using as well.

Below is a sampling of my photos. I tried to keep the file sizes relatively small, and since this is the first time I've posted images to a forum I hope I haven't screwed it up.

http://www.jlsgraphicdesign.com/photos/shoemaker_chumash.jpg
Grand Entry, Chumash Powwow, Malibu


http://www.jlsgraphicdesign.com/photos/shoemaker_kelso_depot.jpg
Kelso Train Depot, Mojave National Preserve


http://www.jlsgraphicdesign.com/photos/shoemaker_tumacacori.jpg
Mission Tumacacori, Arizona


http://www.jlsgraphicdesign.com/photos/shoemaker_yosemite_valley.jpg
Winter Sunrise, Yosemite Valley


http://www.jlsgraphicdesign.com/photos/shoemaker_egret.jpg
Egret, Malibu Lagoon


http://www.jlsgraphicdesign.com/photos/shoemaker_hummingbird.jpg
Rufous Hummingbird


http://www.jlsgraphicdesign.com/photos/shoemaker_bristlecone_storm.jpg
Bristlecone Pine, Thunderstorm, White Mountains, California


http://www.jlsgraphicdesign.com/photos/shoemaker_tree.jpg
Tree and Walkway, San Pedro, California

[Satchel]

http://www.jlsgraphicdesign.com/photos/shoemaker_yosemite_valley.jpg
Winter Sunrise, Yosemite Valley

Great shots! This one seriously looks like a painting!!!

[cnic]

yeah, great pics.

[white]

Love the last picture! And the first one.

[garricks]

Great shots!

[DesignerScott]

Those are great shots. Keep up the good work.

[Red Kittie Kat]

Those are really great pictures ... I love your style.

I love the way that train station looks deserted and a bit eerie :)

[Randomhero]

http://www.jlsgraphicdesign.com/photos/shoemaker_bristlecone_storm.jpg
Bristlecone Pine, Thunderstorm, White Mountains, California


This picture is absolutely stunning, excellent work.

[urstwile]

Very nice work. :) My favorite is the train depot, but they're all very cool.

It'd be interesting to read some of your post-processing techniques, as some of them do appear to have quite a lot of post-processing work going on with them (not that that's a bad thing).

[Wolfwood]

It'd be interesting to read some of your post-processing techniques, as some of them do appear to have quite a lot of post-processing work going on with them (not that that's a bad thing).

Thanks for the comments, everybody. My post work wouldn't impress any hard-core photoshopper. When it comes to processing, I try to keep it within the realms of what could be done in a wet darkroom (dodging, burning, contrast adjustments, etc.) but there are always exceptions. The amount of any retouch work depends on what I envisioned the photo being when I looked at the scene: will it be a literal (although hopefully artistic) representation of what I saw, or will it border on photo-illustration? Case in point would be the Tree and walkway shot, in which I removed a stone fence that ran behind the tree and retouched the grass a bit to even it out.

The black and white photos I process to look similar to selenium, which I do simply with quadtones and levels. The photo of the native american is done the same way only I reintroduce some of the color of the original photo. I like the idea of capturing a sense of an Edward Curtis photo while at the same time modernizing it. The Yosemite shot is a straight HDR, which is what gives it it's painterly effect. (Usually when I do HDR, I make them look more realistic to what the human eye would see, but sometimes they just look cool when they have the "Lord of the Rings" hyper-reality effect.) The hummingbird and Egret are straight out of the camera aside from enhancing the saturation of the color and adjusting the contrast. The Bristlecone pine/thunderstorm shot has one levels adjustment layer to darken the midtones. For architectural and landscape shots I generally stack graduated ND filters as needed to bring everything within the latitude of the film or digital sensor, so usually I don't need to go to heroic measures to get the tones where I want them. I also shoot almost always with a polarizer for these kinds of shots, which helps give me the dark skies and good cloud separation.

Wow. That's a lot of words. It's definitely more fun to make photographs than to talk about making photographs...

[Kristine65]

Great shots, wolf. My favs are the Indian man and the Yosemite Valley sunrise. I don't mind reading how folks post process. As in a wet dark room (minus them smelly chemicals ;)) it's an ongoing learning curve and 6 PSers can get the same results 6 different ways. And I love learning new stuff (mu sig is a ded giveaway :D))

[Disallowed]

Your photos are awesome, I think this one I like the best:

http://www.jlsgraphicdesign.com/photos/shoemaker_chumash.jpg
Grand Entry, Chumash Powwow, Malibu
If I saw that pic somewhere in full size, I'd be looking at it for a loooong time.



As a Photoshop vet though, one thing sticks out in both these photos, your overall white point for the image:

http://www.jlsgraphicdesign.com/photos/shoemaker_yosemite_valley.jpg
Winter Sunrise, Yosemite Valley

http://www.jlsgraphicdesign.com/photos/shoemaker_egret.jpg
Egret, Malibu Lagoon

Yosemite Valley: The snow on the ground to the right is blown out to a perfect white, but the snow in the middle is not. Allowing for the additional light from the sky above that area and the upwards reflection off the water below that area that doesn't seem right? Could also be due to the low-res versions you have posted here?

Egret: Is that just me or is the bird blown out with no detail, while in his reflection you can see feathers/lines and contrast?

[tuliptree]

Very beautiful!! My fave is the Bristlecone Pine.

[Typically]

sweet shots

[Wolfwood]

As a Photoshop vet though, one thing sticks out in both these photos, your overall white point for the image:

Yosemite Valley: The snow on the ground to the right is blown out to a perfect white, but the snow in the middle is not. Allowing for the additional light from the sky above that area and the upwards reflection off the water below that area that doesn't seem right? Could also be due to the low-res versions you have posted here?

Egret: Is that just me or is the bird blown out with no detail, while in his reflection you can see feathers/lines and contrast?


Thanks for the comments. In the actual photos there are no blown out highlights. I rarely make a photograph "by the numbers", but I don't like blown out highlights or blocked up shadows in my work. It could be an effect of the low res photo or possibly the way your monitor displays it. They both look okay on my screen, but I assume it's probably a case of the former, since if you're a photoshop junkie you probably calibrate your monitor at least as much as I do.

The Yosemite valley photo is HDR, so it has abnormal amounts of detail throughout the entire tonal range. You won't get the same sense of highlight and shadow that you will in a conventional photograph. I guess I should amend that by saying that it depends on how you tone map it after creating the HDR image. I wanted this photo to look like a fantasy painting, and processed it that way.

But hey, I'm just a beginner at any rate. Give me a few more years of shooting under my belt and I may be able to show you something interesting. :)

[Chicomoralessxm]

Awesome pictures just wondering which ones are digital shots and which are film? Really impressive shots!!!!

[D-Frag]

stunning photos, im impressed!

[Wolfwood]

Awesome pictures just wondering which ones are digital shots and which are film? Really impressive shots!!!!

All of these shots, except for Mission Tumacacori, were shot in digital using a Canon 20D and a Mamiya 465 AFD with Leaf digital back. Tumacacori was shot on a Holga 120N loaded with Kodak Tri-X 400. It was scanned and the levels and sharpness were adjusted in photoshop.

[derek3228]

Winter sunrise is my favourite - an amazing shot!

[snowalker]

my favorites: birds pictures.
I like the blured background ;)