Sunset Blues
This is from the same session as this shot. I really didn’t do much. Bumped the contrast up. Pulled the blacks toward “more black”. Tiny bit of saturation and vibrance to the overall image and then bumped up the saturation in the purple and blue range. I also applied some noise reduction due to the higher ISO value. This may sound like a lot of work, but it wasn’t.
I’ve cropped this one to fit a panoramic sized print. This is entirely selfish. I’m going to print this for my own wall. This may get me unstuck in my printing dilemma… I still can’t decide which shots to print. This one practically jumped out of the Lightroom grid, even before my tweaks.
Daily affirmation: Quit whining and smile. It will do you good to smile.
End of the Day
Took this awhile back. Drove out to the Great Salt Lake on a whim and then realized that I wasn’t going to make it to the shore. I found a log, set up the tripod and slapped on the 12-24mm. I fired off a bunch of shots, fully manual. I need filters to pull off a decent sunset. Instead of filters, I have Lightroom. Out of the camera, this image had the nice sun rays, but was very nearly black across the bottom. I did a lot of work on this one. Mostly spot removal and adjustment brush work. It’s a beautiful mess.
I plan on doing a lot more of these kinds of shots. That’s the thing.
Plan.
Working on it.
Daily affirmation: I will make today great, even in the face of anything bad that comes at me.
If I Could
This shot was only grabbed because I had the big camera at my side. So happy to see this vista, I stopped my car, jumped out and fired off a bunch of frames, hopeful that I captured in the silicon what I had seen in analog. I love the light and this may be my favorite sunset shot of the year to this point. Mostly because of the color and the light behind the center clouds—on top, the still blue sky of daylight, on the bottom, the amber tones of the approaching night. You can’t get the shot without a camera. Noted.
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I’ve had a moratorium on any songs that are either painful or overtly romantic for the past several months. Last night I was hacking away, the girls nestled all snug in their beds, and I decided to be my own St. Nicholas and put on a song I haven’t heard or felt in a long time. In the past, the song has been more romantic than painful for me, seeming to come from a place of yearning rather than outright emotional pain.
Take a breath. We’re going down the rabbit hole into a land of cliches and dark closets full of music that is so personal, it is shared with very few people, if any. Did I mention we are also landing firmly in a place of paradox?
If I was really pure, untainted by commercialism and I wanted hipster cred, I’d say I busted out a weird Bob Dylan b-side, a gravelly Tom Waits bag of rocks or an earnest Neil Young song. But we are not in that place. We are very far from there in a darker, less clear place. If I chose a more indie-accepted musician and talked about a song we could all remember, the journey would not be worth taking. This is a place where you and I will likely diverge. It’s going to be fine.
I’ve got a soft spot for Pat Metheny the size of… Mars. Metheny is a polarizing figure in the music world, but especially to jazzers/jazzholes; either he’s a guitar god and compositional genius or a purveyor of ginned up elevator music. And I hear you on all counts. There’s one song that on first listen embodies these two argumentative sides. “If I Could” from First Circle. Containing the most heart breaking acoustic guitar sound produced in the last 30 years, the melody of “If I Could” is simple, restrained even. The synth pads behind the guitar almost tip the song into an area the hipsters would never dare venture, much less acknowledge even existed.
I heard Metheny play this live in Berkeley, 1989 at a show I attended alone. The notes were all different. There’s something about his note choices in the studio. The live performance was stellar. But the studio version is epic. He laid the tastiest shit down in the studio and he could have retired in full bloom before the sustain on his last notes went quiet. People would still be talking about his work on this song if he’d have retired or died young.
If you’ve never heard of Pat Metheny and you are a fan of the punk, don’t say a word here. Shut up. Walk away. Or go to a thrift store and buy Metheny’s mind bombs, Song X & Zero Tolerance for Silence. Dig on Ornette Coleman exploring the outer realm of consciousness on the former and on the latter, what Thurston Moore called “The most radical recording of this decade [the 1990s]. A new milestone in electric guitar. A challenge to the challengers.” Zero Tolerance was rumored to be an indulgent middle finger to his record label. You go enjoy these records while I’m over here exercising what remains of my fancy liberal arts major words.
For the remaining, if you are a sucker for an achingly beautiful paean to jazz balladry, the acoustic guitar and an unparalleled collection of the saddest, most right notes? Put on your headphones, close your eyes and let the song be the soundtrack to your pain.
Could this be elevator music? Maybe. I don’t care. When I saw this live back in 1989, there was a couple in front of me dressed more hip than most of the yuppies who were at the show, present company included. I was surprised by their attendance. Certainly, somebody had given them tickets to the show and they would be bored and leave? But they didn’t leave. They were into it and snogged super hard when “If I Could” tip toed out into the crisp night and licked our ears; the very first make out session where you discover what barely touching tongue across an ear can do for the senses. I felt the deepest longing I had ever known during every second of that song. The couple in front of me were clearly fans. And this was their song. And it was beautiful. And I was alone.
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Spain, 1987:
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Daily affirmation: Give it a rest. It’s Saturday.
Sunset Coda Redundancy
I titled the image and then realized it was redundant. So I upped the redundant. I’m not sure Lightroom or Photoshop has a slider for that yet. This image is a failed attempt at an HDR shot. I think I’m clearly doing it wrong. It was better to take the best exposure from the bracket and work on it. I like the results so much better than the HDR attempts. Granted, I’m using the Photoshop built-in HDR mechanism, so I’m sure that I could get better results with a different tool. At least that’s what I’m hearing on the street.
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One of the biggest, non-computer interface-related adjustments I’m making is the swing from solitude to single parenting. I’m loving the alone time (trying not to be too hermit-like) to work on this site, brush up my portfolio, learn some new tricks and shoot photos. I’m also loving having the girls at my place. When they walk in, it’s like the condo comes alive with their energy. I love it so much from that first turn of the door knob and then as they walk in, they drop everything right by the door and make themselves at home. Love it.
Ideally, I want a middle ground where I manage the alone time better and I manage the together time better. I know that routines are good for everybody, so I’ve worked hard to build a routine for the girls. We maintain their established bed times and bed time routines. The biggest change for me is to not make the mornings insane getting both girls out the door with all their stuff for the day. Leta is stellar at getting ready, even if I have to remind her a few times where we are in the routine.
Marlo is very into the “no” phase and my inner Secretary of State wants to start negotiations, but I know it’s best to give clear instructions and keep the expectations high. I forgot some of the parental pangs around this age. The time outs are helping; the choice of either the thing I’m asking her to do or the time out is one of the best things I learned from Leta. I think the threes will be just as rocky as they were with Leta, who has a front-row seat for the shenanigans and histrionics. If Leta is paying attention, I let her know that she was just like Marlo in regards to pushing the boundaries. I explained that it’s what toddlers do. She wants to see how far she can push me and that Marlo isn’t being mean, she’s just developing as a person.
I might need to tone down the didacticism. Leta is marinating on the toddler aspect of childhood development.
The routines are helping me as well. I’m feeling better about managing the personal difficulties of this time and being able to create a space the girls feel good about. Right now, I feel like my needs are secondary to the girls. I know that a happy dad is a good thing and that I should spend time on myself so that when I’m with them, they get the best of me.
Daily affirmation: Be okay with the “I don’t know” part about the future.
Cold night
Catching the Final Rays
Inferno
Sandy Barbs
