It's like this, Cat.

A few months ago we got a new cat. He was sort of a rescue from Texas. We went around and around about a name for him and finally decided. His name is Stanley.

Stanley has quite a personality and seems to have a lot to say. Just wish I spoke feline.

To see more of my work visit www.eliotcrowley.com

Photography workshops

Double T River Ranch
Clyde Park, Montana

Good friends, Addie and Mitch own a wonderful place called the Double T River Ranch in Clyde Park, Montana. Last October we had dinner there and spent the night in the most charming cabin. I took this photo there that afternoon. I began to think wouldn’t it be a perfect place for a photography workshop. The place can handle something like 20 people. The barn would be perfect for classroom style meetings. All the cabins, some on the river others near the barn, have wonderful bedrooms and living rooms. The scenery is endless, and there are two of these red grain-elevators for image making. You can fish right there on the property and close by is the Yellowstone River. If you are interested in something like this, visit my website and drop me an email.

To see more of my work, visit www.eliotcrowley.com

Fast note

It has been too long.

I have been cheating on you. I have been blogging at another address and haven’t paid any attention here. I’m sorry, and I hope you can forgive me for leaving you this way. But I am back. Oh I’ll still be at that other address as well each month, but now I think I can pay attention to both places. From time to time I may fail. I am after all only human. Please be patient with me when I seem to be missing.  

If you are in the Santa Barbara area on the day of one of the SEENs feel free to join.

To see more of my work visit, www.eliotcrowley.com.

New Formatting

Check out the new formatting of this blog!!!!!

A friend of mine, Mark Harmel, came up to Santa Barbara for the day.

Mark as a "stand-in" or sit-in for a 395 portrait

Mark has helped me out many times. He spent a few days with me along US Highway 395 wrangling subjects and working the lighting. Since then Mark has become a real expert in all this social-media-internet-stuff and has done some work recently for the American Diabetes Association along with other clients.

We had lunch in downtown Santa Barbara and then headed for my studio where we spent a few hours working on this site getting it “fixed up” to look even better. Mark also helped me put some Google code in here so I could track visits to the blog. It was great to spend some time with Mark and become one of his clients. I did give him a check for his consulting services. 

You might notice Mark is one of my followers. You too can become a follower. Click on the Follow button in the upper left of this page. 

Thanks Mark. 

To see more of my work check out my web site, www.eliotcrowley.com

Bridge Party

Over this last weekend my wife and I went to Pasadena California to attend the "Bridge Party". Now, the Bridge Party is a fundraising opportunity for the Pasadena Heritage which has as it's mandate "Saving our Past for the Future". The Bridge in this case is the Colorado Street bridge which goes across the "Arroyo" area of Pasadena. This bridge is commonly known as "Suicide Bridge" to the locals as many people have used it to jump because it is so high and you can walk across it. Beyond that the bridge has appeared in many commercials, television shows and movies. it is truly beautiful.

I have made a few photographs of the bridge or on the bridge. Getting ready to go to Pasadena I looked in my archives and found these photos. 

This one is circa 1993 or so.

The one below is about 1978. Notice this is the older version of the bridge. 

It was rebuilt after the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989.

There were bands, food and libations all along the bridge to keep you occupied while just enjoying the weather. This Bridge Party was great fun and I recommend everyone go next time. 

To see more of my work visit my web site at www.eliotcrowley.com

Santa Barbara, California Dreaming

Years ago I made these photos on a whim. Well not really a whim, I had been thinking about making these images for about a year.

One day I went out and made them. They have become a symbol of mine and the most valuable photo session I have ever done.

If you are thinking about a photo you have been wanting to make, get out there and make it. You never know, it could be your iconographic image, your most valuable work.

I believe it is true not only because I have this personal experience but because that is the work I wanted to do. Do what it is you want to do now, and it could work for you the rest of your life.

Beyond Highway 395 in Death Valley

Recently I spent a few days out beyond my favorite highway 395 in California at Death Valley National Park with some former students. Stewart Marcano, Brett Siegel, Liz Thurston and Adam Morris joined me there for some photo safari and adventure. 

When I returned home and started looking at what we saw out there I began playing with the different treatments photographers can do to images. 

First I ingested the files using a program called Lightroom, an Adobe product. I like to use Lightroom because it allows me to put keywords and other Metadata attached to the files as they are being uploaded to my hard drive. Once all the exposures have been copied off the card from the camera I rate the images using the star style rating Lightroom supplies. Once that is complete it is much easier to find those photos worth spending more time with. In the development mode I made adjustments to exposure, color temperature, clarity, vibrance, saturation and some selected colors using the luminance sliders. All this took very little time. Then I exported the images to a file where they appeared with all the development instructions I had assigned using Lightroom. 

At this point I was already happy with how the pictures looked but thought there could be some improvement or at least some difference seen if I opened them using Photoshop, another Adobe product, and made further adjustments. 

These are four different exposures of the same subject, taken one right after another. These were done using a hand held Canon 5d, so there are slight differences in the cropping of the frame, but they are basically the same.

This is how the image looked as instructed by Lightroom. 

Then I added a curves layer to adjust the contrast.

On top of that I added a layer of selective color. In there I adjusted the the black color layer adding more black essentially making the darks even darker. And then the white layer taking away black making the whites even lighter. The end result is an image with more apparent contrast.

At this point I thought what else can I do with this shot. So, I added another layer called Hue/Saturation. Dialing down the saturation of the yellow layer until the sand dunes looked almost sepia. Here though the selective color needed to be dialed back a little and I lessoned some of the black and white layers.

All this was done just through playing around and seeing what happens when choices are made and pushing sliders around. The best way to learn how to use these layers and sliders is just that, to play with them. I have always said the most important part of work is play. You can see more of my playing in my web site.

Very Early This Morning

I was awakened this morning around 2:45AM... "the baby is coming, the baby is coming!" I got dressed, grabbed my camera and headed out to the barn. By the time I got there two of the longest legs I have ever seen were sticking out of Mama and shortly after a brand new horse joined our farm. No name yet, but what a future she will have.

La Quinta Arts Festival

Last Thursday I was a judge at the La Quinta Arts Festival. An old friend from school, Charley Akers lives in La Quinta and got me involved with this gig last year and I enjoyed it so much I volunteered again. It's great to see all the artists and their work, but also I get to hang out with Charley and Julia Akers.

Charley and I were two of the three judges. The third was Randy Bernardi. The three of us were judging only the photography portion of the show but that was plenty. There were over twenty photographers showing their work. Much of it was very interesting and creative. The photographers who were there were Bart Aldrich, Timm Chapman, Zeny Cheslikoski, David Forster, Jennifer Fraser, Chris Honeysett, Roger Isabell, Vern Clevenger, Richard and Jill Jackson, Dennis Kohn, Lisa Kristine who won the best in category award, Doug Landreth, Laurent Martres, David Mayhew, Jeffery Murray, Darren Olson, Youngbok Park, John Richter, Martin Roberts & Dan Witte, Mark Stephenson, Kenny Tong and Marna Zanoff & Chuck Boxwell. 

Each of these artists spent four days there and I hope they all sold a lot of work. 

I have included one of my own photos to accompany this entry. To see more of my work, please visit http://eliotcrowley.com.

01/01/10

Ok its a new year. Time for resolutions and renewal. I am not very good at keeping "New Year's Resolutions". I did quit smoking one year, but I'm not sure if that was associated with the calendar changing. So, with that in mind I am not making any promises here. But what has happened that is marked by the date change for me over the last 25 years is my involvement with the Pasadena Tournament of Roses. This is the organization that puts on the "Rose Parade" and the "Rose Bowl." For all of, or at least most of my life January first was spent somewhere watching or being involved with the parade in Pasadena. You could count on me being there.

This year I was on the Music Committee. I have been on many committees before but music afforded me an opportunity to get up close with the bands. I think the bands are the most fun part of that parade. I still love the drums beating out a cadence and the sound of the brass piercing the early morning air. I am always amazed I can actually hear the piccolos and the sousaphones as they march by. My position along the parade route was at the absolute end where the bands made up of mostly high schools, along with a few college and only a couple of what you might think of as professional bands, (the United States Marine Corp Band and the Salvation Army Band) finished the five and half mile march. The temperature this year was over 70 degrees. 

I thought it would be an interesting study to make portraits of those band members as they felt the elation and exhaustion of that moment.

By the way, there was a band made up of blind musicians guided by their helpers who made the whole walk without a single member needing assistance. Very impressive.

For those of you who have never seen the Tournament of Roses Parade on television, I encourage you to do so. And for those who have never seen it in person, it is a spectacle you will never forget.

To see more of my work you can visit my web site.