Happy October

Its early evening of October 2nd and I felt a sudden need to put thoughts/feelings into words and on our blog. Tomorrow, Friday October 3rd will be my 5th year anniversary of my retirement from the federal government boy times flies by especially when you’re having fun. An awful lot of water has gone under the bridge in the past 5 years; if it weren’t for the sudden passing of a closest friend I’d say the past 5 years have been really really great; instead I’ll just say they’ve been really great. A lot has been accomplished during this period beginning with the startup of Iron Creek Photography which has turned into a full time career; I now couldn’t even begin to think of anything I’d rather be doing.

Sandy retired November 2004 just 13 months after I did and since that time we’ve been going to some beautiful places to practice our new found trade/love. We’ve visited (sometime many times) places like Moab UT, Monument Valley, Yellowstone, Big Sur just to mention a few places; and we can’t forget the almost 60 day trip to Alaska (which we plan to return to in 2010).

So what are we doing now? Well for one thing I’m waiting till tomorrow and FedEx to arrive; our great friends at Capture Integration have loaned me a technical camera to try my landscape images with. We’re talking about the new Cambo RS1000 along with a couple lenses and a Phase One P45+ digital back. I’ve always shot DSLR’s and going to a Cambo has me slightly worried and greatly excited at the same time. I equate shooting the Cambo much the same as “old time” meaning that you can’t really see where you’re aiming at (unless you have the extra accessories which I won’t), there’s no auto focusing, and all the controls are on the lens to include the shutter control, sound neat…

What better place to try this new (for me) landscape system out that the North Rim of the Grand Canyon; we head up there next week for several days. With any luck we’ll be able to see nice Fall colors but even if we don’t we’ll still have the canyon; so wish us luck.

Just a heads up for our upcoming travels; we’ll be returning to the South Rim and Furnace Creek in Death Valley in December, then I’m off by myself in January to Northern California to the Redwoods and some coastal photography as well. I should have my own Cambo for the January trip if I find that the Cambo camera system works well with my workflow or in other words I find that I can understand all the stuff I need to know to make it work for me …..

We’ve just about finished putting our Alaska images on the website; we’ve got some great wildlife images as well as some nice landscapes.

It’s been great sharing

don

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Sometimes you just have to step outside the box

Every once in a while you need to shake things up a bit; step outside the box so to speak. Anyone who knows me knows that I shoot landscape and very rarely anything else; and all my landscape is done using medium format digital. Yes, I will occasionally shoot wildlife but that's shot using an older digital 35mm. And even rarer still is the occasional person; so rare is the person or family shot that I call then human or family landscapes.

What am I leading up to? How about restoring (or attempting to) a 95 year old image that has seen better days. I was asked a couple days ago if I could "do anything" with a wedding photography of a friends grandparents that was taken around 1910. The image was torn, faded, missing pieces, dirt, dusty, and scratched. I said sure I'll give it a try....

Warning: Technical Information:

The image was too large for my Epson scanner to I decided to set it up in the studio and copy it using my Phase 645 medium format camera and digital P30+ back and a 75-150 lens. What you see was taken at 1/7 at f/4.5 at a focal length of 90mm. The image was processed using Adobe Photoshop CS3; the finished image was printed on Hahnemuhle Fineart Baryta paper on an Epson 9800.

Bottom line? I liked the finished result and Jim the grandson loved it.

Don

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"Billy"

We haven't been posting as much as we had in the past simply because we've been a little busy (still) working the Alaska images as well as getting ready for a trip to the North Rim of Grand Canyon next month where we hope to catch great fall colors.

Billy is a buffalo that we found while in we in Yellowstone National Park in March 2006. We just revisited the images of that day and decided to do a little reworking on Billy (don't ask where the name comes from as neither of us could tell you). Billy has been added to our wildlife gallery where it's for sale. The image size is 11x14 and will be shipped matted.

Just a note regarding next month's trip to the North Rim. Don's camera dealer, Capture Integration of Atlanta GA has offered a totally different camera system for testing; while this kit is still a medium format the lens quality and Phase One digital back is promised to have much better resolution that what he'd currently using which is stunning so stay tuned for developments.

Hope you enjoy Billy and don't forget to visit our website and galleries.


Sandy & Don