Ahhh, the tedium of office work. A couple of years ago, when I was a livestock producer it usually meant catching up with accounting items like paying bills and updating the register or the statistical work of filling out necessary protocol forms for the daily routine of livestock care and maintenance. Today it involves a little more creativity and occupies the filler time around shooting or inclement weather issues. While there is a small amount of book work in comparison to operating a large farming business, the bulk of office work now consists of submitting work to galleries, call to entries or publications, post processing images on the computer, or doing the final fitting work of matting and framing of work going to galleries or customers. No matter the job we do on a daily basis I'm sure that everyone has that "office work" that seems to take us away from the work that we really enjoy doing. Major league pitchers have to do the conditioning work before they can stand on the mound to perform their athletic ballet and photographers have to do the practice, set ups and scouting before the shutter finally clicks for the final result.
The above image is one of three shots taken, this being the mid range exposure, and was from an excursion at Ft. Defiance State Park. I had deleted it from my primary work flow area thinking that it hadn't come up to what I was hoping for, but last week, the weather being rainy, windy and cold, I was putzing about on the computer working with Nik Silver Efex Pro software, which converts color images to black and white, when I came upon this Spring Creek capture that I had done a couple of weeks earlier. It certainly could use some punch and the Nik software permits the operator to render images with a more film like result and with the ability to use some processing methods with results similar to the wet darkroom techniques that I used several years ago.
I was happy with what I saw after the process and decided that I should revisit the three captures of this image and run them through the HDR (High Dynamic Range) process which expands the range of recorded detail in the light and dark areas. Again, this is not much different than the techniques I used with black and white film photography when I would under expose the film and then push process the film when it was in the developer. Clear as mud, right???
I pulled up the three images and put them through the Photomatix software and then did some final alterations in Elements and got....
this! As you can see it's quite a change from the original, to the black and white, to the final, which is just about ready to go into a frame. This image more closely represents the quality of light that was going on when I was standing in the swirling water watching the sun sprinkle through the background trees. Through the HDR process I was able to hold the texture of the boulder, the white rapids and the darker shadow areas and still have the warm, morning sunlight in the background.
Even though it's exciting to see a capture come full circle to what I saw, the office work...standing in this setting with background sounds of flowing water and bird songs...beats sitting in an office with a pile of papers sitting in front of you.
Remember those vacation days you've been thinking about taking? Well, there's plenty of places like this to roam. Whether strolling down leaf covered paths by yourself or with family, it's a fine respit from piles of work, cups of coffee and dull lunch hours. It beats evening television and is one heck of a morning wake up call. Get your boots, grab your keys and have some fun.
Other sites of my work:
A Piece Of Work Gallery, Spirit Lake, Iowa http://www.apieceofworkinc.com/alcove_3.php
Art Of The Vine Gallery http://www.artofthevinegallery.com/
Artisans Road Trip http://www.artisansroadtrip.com/index.htm
BetterPhoto.com http://www.betterphoto.com/Premium/Default.aspx?id=251674&mp=V1
CR Gallery, Milford, Iowa
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