According to them, blogs are ranked according to a variety of factors, including search rank and domain authority, but that’s only for the actual ranking number. It’s an honor to even have my be considered and selected for the list by such a prominent outdoor focused website.
The Adventure Junkies Provide a wide array of resources, recommendations and tips for people who are interested in exploring the world of outdoor adventure and learning more about things like climbing, hiking, padding cycling, snow sports and outdoor photography.
They have a great learning mindset, which reads: Belive it. Learn it. Live it. With this way of thinking you can achieve anything you want in life. If you believe in your own mind that your an accomplish something, take the steps necessary to actually learn how to do it and then actually get out there and try, then you will succeed.
This applies to all areas of life, and it closely mirrors the method I use when I write my blog and teach photography. I want you guys to succeed and become great photographers. I want you to find the same kind of enjoyment with photography as I do, and that’s why I put so much effort into my blog and dedicate a large part of my photography life towards teaching others.
So huge thanks to The Adventure Junkies for recognizing and rewarding my efforts. Be sure to visit the outdoor photography section of their website to see a range of articles, resources that can help you explore the craft even more.
Outdoor and travel photographers, take notice: This week, Western Digital unveiled their brand new My Passport Wireless SSD and it’s something you’ll want to check out.
So much more than just a hard drive, the WD My Passport Wireless SSD is a powerful, multi-function tool that solves a number of very important issues for photographers who like to travel with minimal gear. In other words, leaving the laptop at home.
It’s a durable, shock resistant SSD hard drive that has an SD card slot, a USB port, Wi-Fi connectivity and and 6700 mHa charging battery built right in.
Here’s what you can do with it:
Download images from your memory card for backup right to the drive.
View/transfer your images (even RAW files) to your mobile device via the WD My Cloud App.
Stream 4K video from the drive to your phone or tablet.
Charge your mobile device via the powered 2.4A USB port.
So yea, this thing is pretty awesome!
For a long time, the main crux for photographers who like to travel with only a phone or tablet has been how to backup your images. Apple has the camera connection adapter, which lets you copy photos from an SD card, but it takes a long time to transfer and it eats up a lot of battery power.
And aside from that, do you really want to store all your shot images on your phone or iPad? Probably not. Most mobile devices aren’t really made for that. Download a couple of decent sized cards and you’ll fill up your iPad in a real hurry.
If you have a Fujifilm camera or any other wi-fi/Bluetooth enabled camera, you can transfer your images that way, but that’s only a realistic option if you’re transferring a few select images, not your entire card.
Built-in SD Card Slot & Wi-Fi Connection
With the WD My Passport Wireless SSD, you just stick your memory card into the SD card slot, press a button and your images will automatically be copied to the drive. With a 65MB/s transfer rate, it moves about 4GB per minute.
Then, you initiate a wi-fi connection from the drive and boot up the WD My Cloud App on your device. This allows you to view and manage your files, and transfer images to your mobile device, even RAW files. From there, you have all of your regular options- share, email, send to printer, open in third part apps, etc…
You can also connect the drive to your computer via USB and transfer image to and from the drive. When you’re back home, this offers an easy solution to get all of your images to your computer, instead of having to copy them card by card.
Back up To or From Your Computer
Another way to use this device is to put a batch of images onto the drive before you go on your trip, then you’ll have access to them when you’re on location.
I have the first generation My Passport Wireless and I used it this way during a trip to Labrador and on my 5-week Romania trip back in 2015. I put a folder of my best images on the drive, so if I client contacted me and needed some images, or if I wanted to access my photos for social media/blogging use during the trip, I’d have ready access to them.
It worked like a charm, although being the first version, it was a little clunky and quite slow. Being an SSD drive, this latest version is WAY faster, with speeds of up to 390 MB/s, and I imagine the software performance has been improved as well.
4K Streaming – Up to 8 Devices
In addition to letting you transfer your images back and forth, the WD My Passport Wireless SSD also lets you stream movies and 4K right from the drive to your mobile drive. You can connect up to 8 devices. You could either use this to preview video clips or show your work to clients, or use it as your travel entertainment hub and store movies on it that you can watch in your hotel, on the plane, or yes, even in your tent.
10 Hour Battery Charge
The 6700 mHa battery inside the WD My Passport Wireless SSD has a 10-hour life. This give you pretty decent amount of working time between charges when copying, transferring and viewing images. You can also use some or all of that charge to power up your mobile devices using the 2.4A USB port.
I carry a Goal Zero Venture 30 everywhere I go when I travel. It’s a 7,800 mHa battery pack, and I use it all the time to charge my phone and and camera batteries. The My Passport could potentially replace that on some trips, or else double my charging capacity. If you don’t already have a battery power pack like the Venture 30, this would give you a great charging source.
Durable and Shock Resistant
Not does the SSD design eliminate moving parts, which makes the drive more durable and reliable, it has a removable rubber bumper that makes it even more crash-proof. With the bumper on, it’s built to early survive a 1-meter drop on to the rocks. You can also take the bumper off if you want the unit to be a bit more compact and streamlined. So, again great for outdoor shooters and people who are rough on their gear.
It’s already a pretty compact device for all that it does. It’s just over 5″ square, and 1.2″ thick. The smallest configuration only 14 oz., while the largest 2TB version weighs about 22 oz.
Great All-Around Travel Photography Device
With wi-fi enabled cameras, better apps, and the occasional adapter cable, true mobile photography workflows have inched closer to hitting that sweet spot, and this new WD My Passport Wireless SSD finally gets us there with a unique, but extremely useful and well thought out offering.
I definitely plan on getting one of these and I see it becoming an essential cog in my own travel and outdoor photography setup. If you’re travel or outdoor shooter who is looking to put together a more mobile, laptop free setup, then I highly recommend giving this thing a look. It comes in three sizes: 500GB, 1TB and 2TB, although it seems like the 500GB would get you by in most situations.
WD still has their regular non-SSD, non-shock resistant version of the My Passport Wireless, which comes in for sizes, 1, 2, 3 and 4TB. They’ve been upgraded considerably from the original version, which is the one I have. If you’re looking to save a little money and are ok with slightly slower transfer speeds and don’t need 4K video streaming, you might consider this model.
Even if you do take your laptop with you on your trips, this unit could still come in quite handy.
See these two photos? I shot them last year around the same time. Actually I shot them two years ago, but to make it simple for the sake of this post, we’ll just say last year.
They’re aerial photos of the frozen mud flats of the Cook Inlet, captured shortly before sunset. I love how the golden end-of-day light adds texture on the boulder sized ice chucks and creates a fiery glow as it reflects in the water.
In the bottom image, I love the way the lazy streams meander through the landscape. That’s so Alaska and it’s a sight that can only be fully appreciated from the air.
Both images were made with my Fujifilm X-T2 and XF35mm f/2 lens, and are straight JPEGs with no processing. I really like these two photos, so of course, whenever I fly over the Cook Inlet in wintertime at sunset, I can’t help but try and recreate them, or at least get something similar.
This Year’s Version of the Same Scene
OK, now let’s move onto the next two shots. I captured them yesterday afternoon. Again, Cook Inlet mud flats at sunset, in pretty much the same location at around the same relative time of day. Same camera, same lens.
What do you think? How do they compare?
Personally, I think the first two image are stronger. They have more drama in the light and color, and a although the sun was in the same position, and potentially could have created the same type of golden glow in the water, the magic just didn’t happen like it did in the first two shots.
So what happened? Surely I’m a better photographer now than I was last year, or even two years ago, so why would I not be capable of shooting an even more brilliant or interesting photograph of the same subject?
Therein lies the whole point of this post. For whatever reason, my vantage point and shooting angle relative to the position and angle of the sun was just a little different. For whatever reason, the light may not have been exactly the same. For whatever reason, the situation, the time of day, my mood, my creative mojo…
blah blah blah
STOP.
Why are we even talking about this?
What does it matter if your pictures from last year are “better” than the ones you shot yesterday of the exact same subject? Why would you even try to “recreate” the exact same scene and try to match what you did previously?
Because that’s what we human people do. If we experience a glimmer of creative success on any given day, in any given situation, we inevitably try to recreate it in the future and try to match it, or improve on it. Few people are immune to this completely natural compulsion. I’ll bet that Joe McNally even does this sometimes.
It’s one of those things that’s probably hard wired into our brains. If our ancestors managed to bag dinner on any given day, you can bet they wen’t back to the same place the next time then went out to hunt, fish or pick berries.
And that leads to the whole circle of expectations and disappointment. We would expect, or at least hope that we can improve on what we did last time, but sometimes it just won’t happen, for whatever reason, and that’s ok. This doesn’t mean you didn’t actually improve or that you’re not any “better” than you were last year, it just means that creativity and photography are vastly fluid activities, and when you combine that with the virtually endless variations from one day to the next, it would be foolish to think that you’ll match it perfectly every single time.
And why on earth would you want to? Is that why you do this?
It’s perfectly ok to revisit the same scene and try to capture it again, but don’t get caught up trying to compare you and your work to your own past. Instead, focus on the idea of different day, different photograph. And of course, focusing on having fun.
When you open your mind to seeing the world differently and focusing on aspects of your scene that you might not have noticed before, your creativity will flourish just like you would hope it does. Immerse yourself in that and chances are very good that you will get a great shot, it just might look different from your “old great shot.”
And that’s a good thing, right?
That’s what you want from your photography, right?
And even if you don’t, you’ll still enjoy the process, and that’s what really matters. Having fun.
So, after I got done trying to recreate those first two photos above, I moved on, flew a bit further down the inlet and shot these two photos. They’re different, but I like them a lot. I’ll bet that next year I’ll try to copy these as well. Because that’s what we humans do.
Having burned thousands of frames throughout any given 12 month period, it’s quite a task to narrow them all down to your 12 favorites, or the 12 best. However, I can’t resist the temptation, and besides, it’s always fun to look back.
So, in the spirit, here are 12 of my favorite images from 2017. I’d love to see your favorites from the past year, as well, so please post links to your fav shots from 2017 in the comment section below.
January – Dreamy Snow Biking, Alaska
After three dismal, icy winters, we finally had a great snow year here in Anchorage. To me, this photo epitomizes the magic of fat biking through dreamy winter landscapes under gorgeous winter light. Here are a few more from that day.
February – Looking straight down at a crevasse field
I love chasing good light over the mountains in my little Cessna, and sometimes it turns into a treasure hunt when light, landscape and viewpoint all come together with a once in a lifetime convergence. This was one of those times.
March – Northern Lights over a Cabin in the White Mountains
During the second night of a 3-day winter fat bike tour of the White Mountains outside of Fairbanks, Alaska, we were treated to an amazing aurora display. The lights turned on like a switch as soon as the sun went down, and although we would have wanted to stay up all night watching, we still had a lot of miles to ride the next day and chose sleep instead.
We still had great views throughout the early evening, and I shot this one-second exposure with my X-T2 and XF18mm f/2 lens, using my Joby Gorillapod as a support.
March – Fat biking in a Glacier Ice Cave
Nobody said I could only post one photo from each month. Besides, I couldn’t leave this one out. March in Alaska is glacier riding season, and this was my favorite image from a particularly awesome day out at the Spencer Glacier. Again shot with the X-T2 and the little 18mm lens, of course using Velvia film simulation.
April – Who Said Photography had to be Serious!
I LOVE this portrait of my friend Laura, which I shot during a fun afternoon adventure. We were laughing about how some photographers take their craft way too seriously and I grabbed this moment using Miniature Mode on the X-T2 using the XF35mm f/2 lens.
May – Camping at the Edge of the World. Shetland Islands.
The first Scotland trip – 3 weeks of bike touring. Such a fun adventure! There are way too many to choose from, but this picture was made on the morning after our first night of camping.
Perched at the very northern edge of the British Isles, we enjoyed the most awesome campsite ever and unbelievable weather. If you’ve seen the show “Shetland” on Netflix, then you know it pretty much rains all the time there. I guess it always works out for Dan. 🙂
June – Sunrise over The Palouse Washington State
I spent a couple days in June as a guest instructor (in other words, I crashed) a Palouse workshop led by Jack Graham and Bill Fortney and shot this photo during one of our morning sessions. I have other shots that are little more dramatic, but to me, this shot stands out because it looks like a painting.
July – Mountain Bike Racing!
Summer is mountain bike racing season in Anchorage, and this was the first year I actually managed to make all the races. Ok, so I missed the first one while I was in The Palouse, but I made all the others, raced my way into shape and even shot a couple of the expert division races.
I like this one because I’m shooting against the light, and you can see all the mosquitos and dust in the air as they ride through the thick, hot Anchorage forest.
August – Seattle Photo Walk
At the end of August, I taught two X Series classes at Glazers in Seattle and we capped the evening off with a photo walk along the waterfront. There’s a lot of fun stuff to see and shoot during a beautiful summer evening, but there’s something about this shot I really like. Color, shape, simplicity and something you don’t normally see with your regular eyes. And trying something different, because… why not?
My winter aerial photography season usually begins in November, an I managed to get up for a couple of flights that month during brief spells of good weather. Here’s a shot of that magical end-of-the-day light hitting the Chugach Mountains, captured using Miniature Mode on the X-T2.
I like using this mode because it allows me to get shallow depth of field effects at infinity, when this would normally be impossible.
December – Winter Beach Riding, Anchorage
I sneaked this one in under the wire! During the last day of the year, I rode fat bikes with some friends along the frozen beaches of Anchorage.
Aside from a few hundred feet of pushing and carrying our bikes over some “unrideable ice,” we managed to find some quality terrain and enjoyed a splendid afternoon of pedaling, camaraderie and some really cheap whisky.
I case you hadn’t noticed, I just tricked you into looking at 14 pictures. I hope you don’t mind. It’s always fun to look back at what you shot during the previous calendar year, although if you’re really excited about your work, it inherently sets the bar higher for next year.
This is a natural thing, and I get around it by letting myself being inspired for the future, rather than putting pressure on yourself to do even better next year. You know you will. If you made great photos in 2017, then you’ll make great photos in 2018.
Of corse, the most important thing is to have fun. Don’t worry about whether you’ll be able to match your previous work. And again, if you have links to your favorite images from last year, please share them in the comment section.
Well, we made it through 2017. There’s no doubt that in many ways, it was a “interesting” year. As soon as the 7 turned into an 8, I saw many people around the world express their excitement about finally leaving 2017 behind for good. It’s no surprise why people would feel this way.
That being said, if you spent a significant amount of time outdoors, at least enough to balance all your activism and any frustrations you might have experienced, then perhaps you found plenty of personal reward and positive experiences during the past year.
For me, 2017 was a banner year and I love the photos I shot during the past 12 months. Starting with some wonderful snowy conditions here in Alaska, I reveled in the magical winter light we often have during our shortest days. I took many fat bike rides with the camera and braved the cold up high while shooting some magical winter aerials of the Chugach Mountains.
I taught quite a few workshops and gave a number of presentations and Photo Walks in 2017, in the Great Smoky Mountains, Austin, Alaska, Seattle, Portland and Edinburgh. My Scotland photo walk was particularly notable, as it was my first international photo event.
In July, I released my comprehensive Fujifilm guide, X SERIES UNLIMITED, which quickly became my bestselling eBook of all time. Thousands of X Series users have downloaded the guide and I’m pleased and humbled that so many people have told me how much the book has helped them better understand how to use their Fuji cameras.
I also won another Top 100 Photography Blog award, which makes three years in a row that my blog has been recognized as one of the best photography blogs on the web. This was a great honor for me, since I put so much effort into my blog and providing you guys with tips, insight and visual entertainment.
At the end of November, I took a wonderful trip to Boston, where I revisited my photography roots and took a huge stroll down memory lane. I hadn’t been back to Boston in about 20 years, so this was an especially meaningful experience.
I pretty much laid low for most of December, enjoyed the holidays, which I hope you did too, and took quite a bit of time to reflect on the past year. Now that 2018 is upon us, I’m excited to see what it will bring!
I always like to say that new years are like blank journals, and so now that we stand on the front end of another one, I hope you’re also excited about the infinite number of possibilities and opportunity that potentially lie ahead for you as well.
Maybe you’ve already got some cool trip ideas for 2018. Maybe you’ve got some new camera gear that you’re dying to try out. Maybe you’re just feeling refueled after the extended holiday downtime. Whatever the case, I hope that 2018 starts in a positive way, and I wish you great success, prosperity, peace and lots of adventures and creativity in the coming months.
Thank you so much for all of your support in 2017. Much of the success I experienced last year was due to you reading my blog, buying my ebooks and attending my talks, so I’m grateful for your following. I’m thankful for all the new friends I made last year and I look forward to meeting even more of you in 2018.
I’d love how your year went. If you’d like to share one or two of your best photography moments or accomplishments from 2017, post them in the comments below!
Fujifilm has created their own free RAW Conversion software program called FUJIFILM X RAW STUDIO. Designed as an alternative to the many existing RAW converters out there, Fuji’s new app takes an entirely different approach.
Instead of using the processing power of your computer to perform the conversions, you connect your camera via USB cable to your computer and use the camera’s image processor to do the work. Essentially, it’s just like doing your conversions in the camera, (found in the Playback Menu), except you’re converting RAW files that are already on your computer and using the computer screen instead of the camera LCD.
This means you can adjust the following parameters, which match exactly with what you have available when you do your in-camera conversions:
Push/Pull Processing
Dynamic Range
Film Simulation
Grain Effect
White Balance
WB Shift
Highlight Tone
Shadow Tone
Color
Sharpness
Noise Reduction
Lens Modulation Optimizer
Color Space
Rotate
If you’ve done any in-camera RAW conversions with your Fuji, you’ll recognize all of these settings. They appear in X RAW STUDIO exactly as they do in the camera. This gives you a lot of flexibility for adjusting your captures before exporting them to JPEG.
What you don’t get, are sliders. For better or worse, X RAW STUDIO doesn’t have any sliders, which means you can’t make fine tune adjustments like you can in other programs. In addition, aside from the film simulations, there are no presets or tool palettes. However, it does have batch processing and it lets you create and save Custom Conversion Profiles.
This mean you’re options are limited. However, this might appear to some people who get bogged down and find themselves spending lots of time sliding sliders and trying to choose the right preset. There’s something to be said for opening a RAW file, making a few simple tweaks and calling it good.
This is especially true for Fuji users who might already be happy with their images and colors, and who only want to change the film sim or make adjustments to things like HIGHLIGHT and SHADOW TONE or WHITE BALANCE. This offers an easy way to do that.
With this in mind, and given the fact that there are numerous, high quality RAW converters on the market, why might you choose FUJIFILM X RAW STUDIO? Let’s take a brief look at what it offers:
The program works with both Mac and Windows, and the the current list of compatible cameras includes the X-T2/3/4, X-Pro2/3, X100F/V, X-T20/30 and GFX models.)
With the three newest models, the X-T4, X-Pro 3 and X100V, you even have the option to save your current adjustment recipe as a preset within the program, and also save it as one of the CUSTOM presents inside the Q Menu.
1. Processing Power
RAW files from the newest X Series cameras and the GFX are quite big. They contain a ton of color and tonal information, and if you don’t have an extremely fast computer, it can take awhile to open and convert, especially if you’re editing lots of images or doing batch conversions.
By taking advantage to the powerful X Processor Pro chip inside your camera, you can offload the work to your camera and potentially decrease the time needed to perform your conversions. The Fuji cameras already have the capability to convert RAW files, and unless you have the newest, fastest machine, your camera may actually be able to do it faster.
I haven’t conducted any scientific benchmark tests, but in my quick and dirty view, once you connect your camera, open the app and choose your desired folder of images, X RAW STUDIO opens the file remarkably fast.
It only takes a minute or two to load an entire folder of 1,000 RAW files into the browser, and only 3 seconds per image, from the instant you click on a RAW file to the moment it’s ready to make adjustments.
Compare that to the latest version of Luminar, which takes about 20 seconds to open a RAW file on my Mid 2010 Mac Pro, or the time it takes to import a large number of RAW files into Lightroom, which could take as long as a decent coffee break with your New York Times app.
Previewing ACROS Film Simulation on a Fuji RAW file.
2. FUJI-Specific Adjustments
As I said, X RAW STUDIO doesn’t have sliders, but it does have those Fuji-specific adjustments, like HIGHLIGHT and SHADOW TONE, WB SHIFT, and all the Film Simulations. If you find yourself using those adjustment on your X Series camera or GFX, or if you like to do your RAW Conversions in-camera, then X RAW STUDIO will let you create a workflow that looks very similar to what you’re already used to.
In a way, those adjustments are like presets, they’re Fuji presets, and although they’re limited, they still give you a lot of flexility with regards to adjusting your images.
3. Fine Detail Reproduction
As many Fuji photographers have discovered, not all programs do an excellent job demosaicing the X-Trans files. While most RAW conversion programs do a decent job, some shooters are unhappy with the way that programs like Lightroom “smudge” fine details like foliage, skin and hair.
X RAW does a fantastic job here. I’ve been impressed with how good Luminar 2018 does with regards to sharpness and fine details on the X-Trans RAW files, but in a side by side test at 100%, X RAW STUDIO is noticeably shaper right out of the box.
This doesn’t mean that it’s “better.” Extreme pixel peeping is never the measure of what makes an image great, and while I’m very happy with how good X Trans files look when processed in Luminar, some more “critical” photographers may find that X RAW STUDIO give them the sharpness they desire with regards to fine details.
VELVIA in X RAW STUDIOPhotoshop’s version of VELVIA.
4. Oh… Those FUJI Colors
This is perhaps the main reason that many X Series photographers my decide to use X RAW STUDIO. As we all know, the Fuji colors are awesome, but not every software gets is right. If you shoot RAW, you’re at the mercy of Lightroom, Photoshop, Capture One, Luminar, Iridient Developer, etc… to demosaic your X-Trans sensor RAW file and try to match your Fuji colors.
Color is a very subjecting thing and there will always be differences when you cross devices. RAW conversions are also quite subjective. Extrapolating sensor data and converting it into an image is not a perfect process. There’s some “interpretation” going on there, especially when it comes to color.
And when it comes to the Fuji colors… between the inconsistencies of color reproduction and demosaicing the X-Trans RAW files, nobody gets it perfect. This fact leaves many Fuji photographers frustrated by the color inconsistency between what they saw in their camera and what they see on the screen.
This is where X RAW STUDIO has a serious advantage. A Fuji-designed software program demosaicing a RAW file from a Fuji sensor and reproducing the Fuji color profiles, using the Fuji-designed image processor in a Fuji camera to perform the conversion gives you as close a consistency as you’re every going to find.
Who knows the Fuji colors better than Fuji? Since X RAW STUDIO effectively keeps all of the work “in house,” you’re going to see the colors of the Fuji film simulations match from camera to screen with a degree of exactness that you’ll never see with any other software. This is compounded by the fact that when you open up a RAW file in any other program, it trashes your film simulation profile, and you can’t get it back.
CLASSIC CHROME in X RAW STUDIOPhotoshop’s version of CLASSIC CHROME
Lightroom has their own Fuji Film Sim profiles in the Camera Calibration tab, and Iridient Developer has a pack of Film Sim profiles you can get, and while they’re all very close, they’re not perfect. With any other program you have to start from scratch if you want to try and reproduce those Fuji colors.
With X RAW STUDIO, VELVIA looks like VELVIA, ASTIA looks like ASTIA and ACROS looks just like ACROS. That said, programs like Luminar and Lightroom do a pretty good job. Also, not every Fuji shooter who shoots RAW cares about the Film Simulations, so this issue becomes a moot point.
However, if you crave those Fuji colors and haven’t been able to get the consistency you desire between camera and computer, this might be your solution.
ASTIA in X RAW STUDIOAdobe Photoshop’s version of ASTIA.
The best thing is that FUJI X RAW STUDIO is a free program, so you don’t have to make any hard commitments. You could download it and only use it as needed. If you’re having issues with a specific image and can’t seem to get the color or sharpness you desire from your main RAW conversion software, you’d have this as an alternative solution, which is just how Fuji is describing it.
A “new” view of one of my classic early photography subjects: Reflections in the John Hancock Tower.
Last month, I visited Boston for the first time in about 20 years. If you’re a regular reader, then you probably know that Boston was where my photography journey began. So, for me, this trip was a significant stroll down memory lane.
Although I had taken outdoor vacation and hiking pictures during my Colorado Outward bound trip when I was 18, using my mom’s borrowed Kodak Instamatic, (the one that looked like an ice cream sandwich), Boston in my early 20s was where I started doing photography as a serious hobby.
I bought my first real camera on February 2, 1990 while I was a music production student at Berklee College of Music. After shopping at numerous Boston area cameras stores for weeks previous, including Stone Camera, International Camera, Ferranti-Dege, which was a Harvard Square mainstay, and that little used camera store that used to be in the Atrium on Church Street, also in Harvard Square, I went for the ultra classic starter setup, a silver Nikon FM-2 and 50mm f/1.4 lens.
I bought it at Bromfield Camera on Bromfield Street, between Boston Common and Downtown Crossing. This photo below is the first photo I shot with the camera. After paying, I bought a roll of Kodak, 200 Gold print film, loaded it up and took a picture of John, the man who sold it to me.
My first photo I shot with my brand new Nikon FM-2 on 2/2/90. This is the guy who sold it to me.
There were quite a few camera stores in that section of downtown Boston, but not surprisingly, many of them are gone. However Bromfield is still there! (Stone Camera is still open too.) They have a new sign, but inside, the store looks very much like it did back in 1990, except for the fact that those shelves behind the counter aren’t full of film anymore. It’s probably looked very much the same during their entire 51 year history.
During my recent trip, I walked in and told my story to the owner. He even remembered John. Here’s what Bromfield Camera looks like now. If live in Boston and buy camera stuff, pay them a visit and help keep them going!
My Roots as a Street Photographer
After I bought a camera, I spent countless hours during the next few years walking around downtown Boston and Cambridge shooting photos of whatever caught my eye.
Living in an urban setting, the stuff that caught my eye was “city stuff,” which essentially means I got my big start as a street photographer. I loved taking pictures of buildings, reflections, street scenes, cool sculpture and my friends. Below are a few of my old photos I shot during my first few months of photography. I dug them out of the photo box that lives on the top shelf of my closet.
Reflection in the John Hancock Tower. One of my favorite subjects back then.A foggy evening on the Boston waterfront. I entered this photo in a competition and even won a prize!A few of Fenway Pack, seen from the window of my dorm room.The John Hancock Tower again!Discovering the magic of good light for the first time.Climbing competition at the Boston Rock Gym, which was the first rock gym in the nation. One of my very first “action photos” ever!Red Sox Game. Another early sports photo.My first roll. I still have about 20 of these yellow envelopes in my photo box.
It’s amazing to look back and see how far I’ve come. I still remember shooting most of these photos, and it’s fun to look at the style that was emerging even during my first months as a photographer. I also remember the wonder and dedicated excitement and enthusiasm I felt when I first started. Those things have never waned, and really the only thing that stands between these images and the photos I shoot now are 27 and 3/4 years worth of practice.
27 years is a very long time to learn and practice a craft like photography, and if you do it on a regular basis, you’re bound to improve. That’s exactly what happened to me. I even see a huge difference between this first “climbing photo” above and the climbing photos I was shooting five years later after I had moved to Colorado.
Ten thousand days.
Adding up the years, I’ve been shooting photos for over 10,000 days. It’s a remarkable thing to ponder when I put it in this context. Malcolm Gladwell is famous for stating that it takes 10,000 hours of “deliberate practice” to become world-class in any field. It’s not the only measure of how to achieve mastery and success in your craft, but it certainly holds that if you spend enough time practicing anything, you’ll see great improvement.
I haven’t spent one focused hour of every single day doing photography in the past 27 years, but if you average it out, I’m pretty sure I’ve hit that 10,000 hour mark. I guess this means I’m finally really good at taking pictures.
Looking back at my history in this way, it also reminds me how much enjoyment, adventure, personal satisfaction, and professional success photography has brought to my life for the past 27 years. When I plunked down $550 at the camera store on that fateful day back in 1990, could I ever have imagined where it would take me or how it would end up being the defining factor for over half of my entire life?
When you look back, what do you see? What do you see when you look forward? How far have you come with your photography? Where can you imagine it taking you during the next couple of decades? This is a fun game to play, isn’t it?
I hope that this post inspires you little bit and shows you that anything is possible. If a young music student can pick up a camera when he’s 22 and end up finding success, what’s to say that you can’t achieve success as well? It just takes a few hours of practice. Every day. For years.
It starts now.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief walk through history. Here are a few of my recent Boston pictures, (and one old one), all shot around Berkeley and Boston Common. Enjoy!
Me with my Nikon FM-2 and my “1990 hair U part wigs.”
I love the “Social” part of Social Media. One of my favorite thing about platforms like Twitter and Instagram is that they have allowed me to connect and become friends with other photographers around the globe.
During my two recent trips to Scotland, I met up with a number of people I knew from online, and I now consider those people to be good friends. I even met up with two followers during my 2015 Romania/Transylvania trip, which amazed me, considering how far around the world Romania is from Alaska.
While in Minneapolis this fall, I met up with Nicole Melancon, a travel photographer and freelance journalist who runs the site Thirdeyemom.com, a site dedicated to “Traveling the World and Doing Good.” We’d been communicating via Instagram for over a year and a half, so it was great to finally connect with her in person.
Nicole and I had a wonderful chat over lunch, talking about cameras, blogging, and of course, traveling. (She’s been to over 40 countries and is in Chile right now.)
She’s also a member and volunteer of Travel+SocialGood Media Network, an alliance of journalists, content creators and social media influencers around the world who are passionate about sustainable tourism.
Anyway, during our chat, Nicole expressed the desire to feature me on her blog. After our chat, she sent me a list of questions, which I eventually got around to filling out during breaks from editing Scotland photos, and now her exclusive interview with me is up as the latest post on her blog.
I had fun answering her questions, so I hope you enjoy the interview. And I hope you take some time to check out and be inspired by some of Nicole’s other posts and her photography as well.
You can follow Nicole in Instagram, she’s @thirdeyemom.
One year ago this month, Macphun released a brand new Mac photo editing app called Luminar. It was designed to offer photographers the powerful creative tools they need and the simplicity they desire from their software. And although the program functions as a Lightroom & Photoshop plugin, the standalone version gave photographers a viable photo editing alternative to the complex, and often frustrating subscription based model that Adobe software has burdened us with.
Not surprisingly, Luminar turned out to be a huge hit. Photographers loved the simple, adaptive user interface and the wide range of creative filters, presets and customizable workspaces. They also won numerous awards for best photo editing app, including a Lucie Technical Award for Best Software Plugin for 2017. (Fun fact: Many of the USA Luminar people came over from NIK software when NIK was acquire by Google.)
During the next few months, Macphun, who just changed their name to SKYLUM Software, (“The SKY is the limit” plus part of the word “LUMinosity”), put out a handful of updates and performance upgrades. They also spent a lot of time listening to peoples’ concerns and wish lists, and now they’re about to release Luminar 2018, which offers significant performance enhancements, new filters and a Windows version.
Today I thought I’d review the program, show you what’s new, and let you know what’s been improved in the new version.
Luminar is based on a very simple, yet highly customizable interface, which allows you to edit in a way that matches your own preferred workflow. You get a main image window, which can be resized to full screen, a Tool Panel on the right and a Preset Panel at the bottom. Both the Tool and Preset panels can be collapsed so you can view the image in the entire window.
Customizable Workspaces
One of the best features about Luminar is that you can easily customize your workspace. The program gives you a number of possible starting points: Quick and Awesome, Essentials, Aerial Photography, Black and White, Landscape, Portraits and Street, each of which gives you a selection of tools and filters that are generally applicable to working with that type of photo.
For example, Essentials gives you Color Temperature, Accent- AI Filter, Tone controls, Saturation/Vibrance, Polarizing Filter and Clarity. From there, you can add any of the other 40+ tools and creative filters to your workspace, and if you tend to use the same tools in your workflow, you can save that combination as a custom workspace.
Powerful Creative Tools & Filters – Plus 3 New Tools
The tools in Luminar 2018 have all been optimized for both speed and performance, and there are a number of new tools in the collection. One noticeable addition is the new RAW Develop toolset, which gives you all the basics for adjusting White Balance, Exposure and Clarity, in addition to a Lens tab for correcting for Distortion, Chromatic Aberation and Lens Vignetting, and a Transform tab.
In addition, color handling, sharpening and noise reduction have all been optimized so you get very high quality RAW Conversions.
One interesting note, if you’re processing JPEGs, the RAW Develop panel is simply called Develop, and you get the same tools. That’s a nice touch.
The Accent – AI Filter, which does an amazing job of giving you a “Quick Fix” with a single slider. I’m amazed how well the slider works, and I find myself using it all the time. The lead off photo on top is nothing more than a quick slide of the AI Filter.
Dodge & Burn lets you selectively refine the light and shadows on your subject. Just as in the darkroom, you choose a brush size, “paint” whichever part of your subject you want and then adjust the lighting parameters and amount.
Hue Shift is another new filter that lets you eliminate wanted color tints or roll it all the way for dramatic, stylistic shifts.
Brilliance/Warmth adds richness and warmth to your image. Dial up to make your photos really pop, or dial it back to tone down your image and create a more subtle look.
The Polarizing Filter adds contrast and increased depth to blue skies, just as if you were using the real thing on your lens. Again. I’m quite impressed at how smart this filter is. I’ve also used it to deepen shadows on distant mountain peaks to give the shot more depth.
Below is an example of a straight image, a processed image, and a processed image using the Polarizing Filter.
Matte Filter Lets you quickly tone down your photo and give it a vintage look. Think portraits, wedding photos, street photography and any other subject where you want add a more muted style to your images.
LUT Mapping is another new tool that’s been added to Luminar 2018. This means that Luminar now supports Look Up Tables and brings pro-quality color grading for emulating classic film styles and giving your photos a cinematic look.You can download free LUT files from numerous sites around the web.
The New Sun Rays filter lets you add volumetric lighting to your image and create beams of light in your image. You can use the X and Y Axis controls to fine tune exactly where your sun appears in the frame, and you can control the intensity and look of the God beams.
Ok, before you roll your eyes, I’ll be the first one to admit that Sun Rays is not going to the filter choice for many (most?) serious photographers. It’s essentially cheating and adding a fake sun to your image.
However, when used with discretion, you can use it to enhance images that already contain a hard sun in the frame. Plus, it’s kind of fun to see what it does to your image, especially when you drag the X and Y sliders and watch the sun move through your frame with a surprising level of realism. Either way, it’s an intriguing effect.
Here are a couple of examples of how I’ve used the Sun Rays Filter. You won’t use it very often, but with the right image, it can be a highly creative tool.
And c’mon, we’ve already lost the battle that photography has to be 100% Real. HDR? I rest my case. Why is this any different? As I said, it’s fun, and it’s an impressive testament to how good the Luminar engineers’ coding skills are. If they can do this, then that says a lot about the quality of their “Serious Filters,” Like RAW Develop.
Highly Adjustable, Non Destructive Editing
All of the Filters and tools in Luminar are highly adjustable and they offer non destructive editing. They’re also very well thought out and well executed.
Each tool does one of three things: It either solves a very specific problem you’re likely to face with certain types of imagery, whether it has to do with tone, color, sharpness, noise, it gives you an easy way to quickly adjust and refine your photos or it offers your a highly creative effects you can add to your photos in order to give them the style and look you’re going for.
Your tool choices are categorized in five sections, based on type. Here are all the tools contained in Luminar 2018: (Click each heading to see the full tool menus.)
[reveal heading=”%image% ESSENTIAL“]
Accent – AI Filter
B&W Conversoin
RAW Develop
Saturation/Vibrance
Structure
Tone
Vignette
[/reveal]
[reveal heading=”%image% ISSUE FIXERS“]
Clarity
Dehaze
Denoise
Details Enhancer
Foliage Enhancer
Polarizing Filter
Remove Color Cast
Sharpening
[/reveal]
[reveal heading=”%image% CREATIVE“]
Brilliance / Warmth
Cross Processing
Dramatic
Fog
Golden Hour
Grain
High Key
Hue Shift
Image Radiance
Matte Look
Orton Effect
Soft Focus
Soft Glow
Split Toning
Sun Rays
Texture Overlay
[/reveal]
[reveal heading=”%image% PROFESSIONAL“]
Advanced Contrast
Channel Mixer
Color Balance
Color Contrast
Curves
Dodge & Burn
HSL
LUT Mapping
Microstructure
Photo Filter
Split Color Warmth
[/reveal]
[reveal heading=”%image% UTILITY“]
Adjustable Gradient
Bi-Color Toning
Brightness / Contrast
Color Temperature
Exposure
Highlights / Shadows
Top & Bottom Lighting
Whites / Blacks
[/reveal]
Creative Presets
In addition to all of the powerful, professional quality image editing tools, Luminar comes with a selection of highly creative and well-designed presets. This give you the option of working with an extremely easy “One-Click” workflow, where you can simply choose a preset and then dial it anywhere from 0-100 and fine tune the image to your liking.
Having never been a preset guy before, I love using the Luminar presets. Not only do they make for a very fast photo editing workflow, they actually inspire my creativity in a big way. With a variety of different and unique looks, I often find myself opening an image, quickly browsing the choices and finding one that takes the image in a creative direction based on my ideas in that particular moment.
Sometimes it’s a direction I night not have thought of, but that’s the beauty of it. Sometimes the best idea is the one that comes from spontaneous creative decisions, as opposed to agonizing over your adjustments and endlessly sliding sliders and second guessing yourself.
With the nice diversity of the Luminar presets, I like to pick one that inspires me in the moment, dial it to my liking and call it good. Open, click, slide, done. That’s liberation. That’s efficiency. That’s trusting your own creative impulses.
Luminar comes with a selection of presets organized by category: Basic, Outdoor, Street, Portrait, Travel, Dramatic and Aerial, and you can download additional presets from the SKLYUM website. You can even create and share your own presets. If you come up with a really cool look through a combination of tools and settings, you can hit the Create Preset… menu item and save it as a user preset.
Powerful, Professional Tools
In addition to the tools and presets, Luminar 2018 comes with an impressive and full-featured selection of professional editing tools, including Layers, Blending Modes, History Panel with Unlimited Undo, Curves, Adobe Plugin Support, Opacity, and Native File Format, which means you can save all your edits and open later with full non-destructive editing.
You also get a selection of image tools, including Crop, Transform, Clone & Stamp and Erase. (The Erase tool is where do your dust spotting.)
Multiple Export Options
The Luminar Export Panel lets you save your image to your desired folder, you can export to Mail, Messages, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, SmugMug or 500px, or you can Open In and send your image to any of the other Macphun/SKYLUM apps like Aurora HDR, Tonality CK or Snapheal CK or to any other Image editing software on your system.
In short, Luminar 2018 has just about everything you would need for all of your image editing needs from start to finish, no matter if you want to make quick changes that help your image pop, or make complex, professional edits to your photography.
It also has Batch Processing, you can save/export to JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, PSD, JPEG 2000, PDF, and you can choose from three color spaces: sRGB, Adobe RGB and ProPhoto RGB.
Performance and Speed Enhancements
Much of Luminar 2018 has been re-written from the ground up so that they could optimize all of the tools and make the program run faster. For starters, it has a vastly improved RAW engine. Along with the new RAW Develop panel, RAW images now open up to 200% faster than they did in previous version of Luminar.
To give you an example, on my 7-year old Mid 2010 Mac Pro with 24MB RAM and a Solid State Hard Drive, Luminar Neptune, which was the most recent version, would take about 50 seconds to open a RAW file from my Fujifilm X-T2. It takes just over 20 seconds in Luminar 2018.
While at PhotoPlus Expo, I saw the guys at the booth open RAW files on brand new MacBook Pros laptops and it barely took a few seconds.
All of the tools, like Crop, Erase and Transform function much more quickly and and they’ve been refined for increased image quality performance. Advanced noise reduction and sharpening algorithms produce better quality photos and new masking options let you blend filter and layers for even more precise control.
I’ve been using Luminar for a year now, ever since the first version, and I can attest that Luminar 2018 is WAY faster, more comprehensive and more user friendly. The user interface has a more refined, professional look, and yet it still retains the very easy and simple form factor which has made Luminar so appealing to a large number of photographers.
As a RAW Processor, Luminar 2018 does an exceptional job, especially when it comes to demosaicing the Fuji X-Trans sensor RAW files. As we all know Lightroom isn’t the best Fuji RAW converter. In my tests, Luminar 2018 renders find details with sharpness that compares WAY closer to Iridient Developer than Lightroom, and Iridient is definitely one of the best, if not one of the best RAW converters out there.
RAW and PSD Support
Luminar 2018 supports RAW files from just about every camera on the market, including the new Nikon D850, and the Fujifilm GFX. In fact, the Head of Product Development is a Fuji X-T2 user and when I met with the team in person last month at PhotoPlus, both he and SKYLUM’s CEO, confirmed that they’re committed to providing full support for Fujifilm X-Trans sensor cameras and the GFX.
This was welcome news, since Adobe has left many Fuji users disappointed and frustrated by their unimpressive support for the X Series cameras, and also for Capture One Pro users, since Phase One has said that they won’t support the GFX.
Luminar will open PSD files and it will also open TIFF files that have been saved with multiple layers in Photoshop. However, it won’t save the layers; instead the image will open as a single layer that combines the layers as you had previously set in Photoshop.
This is hardly a deal breaker, and in fact, Photoshop won’t even open Luminar’s equivalent of a PSD file, with has the .lmnr extension. So there.
Upcoming DAM Catalog Module
The Luminar developers are currently working on a Digital Assent Management Catalog feature they plan to add to Luminar in early 2018. The timing of this couldn’t be better, since so many Lightroom users find themselves frustrated by Adobe’s recent moves.
These are the only glances we have of their new catalog system, but it appears to be a very good start. Looking at the interface, they support star ratings, color label and even the “pick & flag” system that Lightroom uses, which most catalog software doesn’t support.
The system also appears to run on a very straightforward and user friendly model, with a simple folder structure, grid and full size window option. No word yet on things like keywording and metadata or export/share options, but we do know that it will works seamlessly with the Luminar Develop tools and with their other photo editing apps like Aurora HDR.
Also, no word yet on when this will come out, but I think they’re hoping to get it out before the middle of 20118, if not sooner. They’ve also said that if you preorder Luminar 2018, you’ll get the catalog module for free when it comes out.
For how well they’ve done with Luminar in the past year, I’m banking on it being a great system and I can’t wait to see it.
My Overall Thoughts
I am so impressed with how Luminar 2018 looks and functions, and I’m excited about all the changes, tweaks and refinements they’ve made to the program. I’ve been using the new 2018 version exclusively for nearly a month now and it seems like a night and day difference over the previous version.
What’s missing?
As good as it is, Luminar isn’t quite perfect. As of right now it doesn’t do text. Then again, neither do Lightroom or Capture One, so is that really a thing? Probably not.
It also lacks a fast, workable watermark function. This is a big one for me. Yes, it’s totally possible to embed a logo or watermark on your image using Layers, but they need to have a fast solution like Lightroom. This would really help speed up the workflow.
I brought this to their attention recently, and the response I got was “I know and agree. We are already working in this direction.” So, yea… expect to see this feature added soon. Again, the Luminar team is very open to suggestion and they’re committed to making Luminar a full-featured professional quality photography workflow and editing solution.
Overall, Luminar 2018 is an excellent update to an already great program. Their slogan is “Everything you need to make perfect photos in less time.”
I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment. Having used the software extensively, I think it’s an ideal solution for just about any kind of photographer; it’s fun, easy to use, it offers extremely flexible workspace options that can be customized to your own workflow style or mood, or you can even set it up to give you multiple workspaces for editing different types of images or if you just like to vary your editing approach.
SKYLUM has already won numerous awards for Luminar and they have demonstrated a commitment to giving photographers the best program they can. They keep tweaking and streamlining the software and making it perform better with each update.
And unlike some software, which requires the fastest computer and most up-to-date OS, Luminar works on a wide variety of machines and operating systems. Like I said, I’m running it on a 7-year old Mac on OS Sierra, and their specs say that it will run all the way back to Mac OS Yosemite.
The new Windows version will run all the way back to Windows 7 and it just needs an Intel Core i3 Processor or better. (Note: when Luminar 2018 launches, the PC version will be missing some of the tools and features, but they will be added through a number up updates in the next few months.)
And, you can install Luminar on up to 5 computers, even if you run both Mac and PC with a single activation code. This is Huge. Adobe only allows 2.
Photography should be fun, and therefore photo editing should be fun. It’s doesn’t need to be complicated and it doesn’t need to be overly time consuming, if you don’t want it to be.
Luminar gives you that. It’s fun, easy to use, efficient and powerful enough to do just about anything you need or want with your photos. I’ve enjoyed using it during the past year, and I’m even more excited about this latest version. The bottom line is that I love the images that I’ve processed with Luminar and I love the efficiency it offers, since I don’t want to spend tons of time at my computer edging photos.
No matter what kind of photography you do, I can highly recommend Luminar and I think that once you try it out and get a feel for how it works, you’ll like it as much as I do. And remember, it works as a standalone or as a plugin for Photoshop or Lightroom.
Luminar 2018 has now been released.You can order the program here, and remember, if you use discount code DANBAILEY, you can get a special $10 savings on the software.
Just gone with Luminar, working through the tutorials etc, got to say I am impressed!
Thanks for your continued hard work in bring us mere mortals great information, help and advice.
Last month, we spent a week cycling and exploring in northern Minnesota. The 200+ mile bike route we followed from the Lutsen area down to Pine City started on the Gitchi-Gami State Bike Trail, which parallels the north shore of Lake Superior and passes through part of the Superior National Forest. South of Duluth, we picked up the Willard Munger State Trail, another wonderful paved bike trail which took us all the way down to Hinkley, just north of Pine City.
This part of Minnesota contains a rich diversity of pine forests, rivers, lakes, rocky shoreline, beach and waterfalls, and we hit it right during the peak colors of autumn. Although I shot a variety of landscapes on this trip, the waterfalls were definitely the highlight of our mini northern adventure.
Right before we got there, a series of torrential thunderstorms had passed through the area, so the rivers were all swollen well above normal levels, which made for awesome and unique photography opportunities. Between the rivers and the Superior shore, I spent the much of the trip entrenched in the blissful experiences of shooting slow shutter water landscapes.
I called it my Slow Shutter Minnesota Water Photography Extravaganza.
Since this was a continuation of our two-week September Scotland bike trip, I had an extremely minimal selection of gear with me. This comprised of my Fujifilm X-T2 body and a trio of small primes, the XF18mm f/2, XF35mm f/2, the XF50mm f/2, and mini tripod and one filter.
In place of a regular tripod (I left the Gizto behind), the only camera support I had was my tiny Gorillapod Flexible SLR Zoom. Yes, it’s tiny, and most serious landscape photographers would probably laugh at me when they saw me running around with this little “toy tripod,” but what it lacks in stability it makes up for in size and weight.
Translation: it’s tiny, but in a pinch, it’s better than nothing.
However, I made it work for me, despite the fact that nearly every photo I shot was taken from near ground level. Sometimes limiting your creative options can actually force you to be more creative and come up with compositions and imagery you might not have thought of.
In this case, since I was pretty much limited to a singular vantage point, I was forced to look for the ideal rock to set up my little mini tripod, which made me focus solely on light and framing. As much as I might have wanted to at a few of my locations, there was no way for me taller, and although this frustrated me at times, I got what I got and am extremely happy with what I got. That said, I did wrap the Gorillapod legs around a tree one time, which worked ok.
To help me get the silky, slow shutter effects, I used my Hoya 10-Stop SOLAS IRND filter. What I like about the Hoya SOLAS filters is that they cut all infrared light, which can leak in during long exposures. This makes them truly neutral, where some ND filters can actually leave a slight reddish cast on your images. This is especially troublesome when shooting water, since the red cast shows up more prominently on white subjects.
Also, nearly all of the scenes in this post were shot with the XF 18mm lens.
Some of the areas we hiked in during the week were Gooseberry Falls, Temperance River State Park and Cascade River State Park. Further down, away from the shore, we also went to Jay Cooke State Park. Although the general topography in all of these locations was fairly similar, they all had such a unique set of features to explore.
I played around with different shutter speeds, ranging from around half second to 30 seconds. I often find that the sweet spot lives around 2-8 seconds when shooting rivers and waterfalls, because there’s still some definition in the water without it getting too silky and soft.
However, you can get really cool results with just about any shutter speed, so I would encourage you to experiment whenever you’re shooting this kind of scene. It’s interesting to see the effects that each type of exposure impart on each type of subject.
This was a really fun photography adventure for me, and it was wonderful to explore a part of the country where I haven’t spent much time before. I’d been to Minnesota before, but I’d never seen the north shore in all it’s big water autumn glory.
Also, it was my last chance to shoot waterfalls for awhile, since I’m heading into wintertime here in Alaska. I won’t get to see actual running water for the next few months, and any new waterfall photography that happens before next spring for me will need to involve a plane ticket.
I hope you enjoy this photo collection, and I hope you get a chance to shoot some long exposure water images for yourself in the next few months. It’s a very fun style and highly creative style of landscape photography.
I’m excited to report that I’ve made another “Top Bloggers List.”
See these two photos? I shot them last year around the same time. Actually I shot them two years ago, but to make it simple for the sake of this post, we’ll just say last year.
This Year’s Version of the Same Scene
Personally, I think the first two image are stronger. They have more drama in the light and color, and a although the sun was in the same position, and potentially could have created the same type of golden glow in the water, the magic just didn’t happen like it did in the first two shots.
Well, we made it through 2017. There’s no doubt that in many ways, it was a “interesting” year. As soon as the 7 turned into an 8, I saw many people around the world express their excitement about finally leaving 2017 behind for good. It’s no surprise why people would feel this way.
Fujifilm has created their own free RAW Conversion software program called 
This was a really fun photography adventure for me, and it was wonderful to explore a part of the country where I haven’t spent much time before. I’d been to Minnesota before, but I’d never seen the north shore in all it’s big water autumn glory.
