Postcard from Tucson

A Very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to One and All.

Thank you for being here. See you next year! - JRC

Postcard from Italy

To be honest, I took the original photo somewhere in Northern Italy…possibly in the wine growing region of Piemonte, not far south of Torino. I took it on one of my rips to Italy, but I could not tell you exactly where or when. It was originally photographed on slide film, then digitized by scanner.

The title of the photo is, “Fearful Tower.”

Of course it was not all doom and gloom that day. Actually it was a beautiful day with some wonderful clouds in the sky. When I looked at the original slide, I knew I wanted to do something different…and I thought the image was perfect for some sort of moody, doom and gloom photo. 

I worked on it a few years ago and could never get it the way I saw it in my head. But with all the new post processing tools that came out this year, I thought I would give it another shot…and this was the final result. Not bad…I think I achieved that “gloom and doom” look.

I also can’t remember what we did that day, but I am sure wine and some great Italian food was part of it. There was a wonderful little deli and grocery store in the Alba town square where we would buy our goodies for a day of exploring. The two ladies that owned the place were extremely friendly and helpful, even though they spoke no English. Just part of many great days in Italy.

Even the gloomy dark tower here cannot spoil my happy memories.

(To see a larger version of this photo, just click on the image)

To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com or at my Flickr site.

Postcard from Grand Coulee

I bet you were expecting to see a picture of a dam…the Grand Coulee Dam, to be precise. Sorry, this photo was taken in the town of Grand Coulee, WA, just south of the dam. The plethora of power lines in the photo all originate from the dam. The huge dam supplies a great deal of electricity and irrigation water to Central Washington.

However, this is a sunset photo, as you can easily ascertain. And while I normally avoid photographing power lines, they work in this image. The photo is titled,”Power” and refers not only to the electrical power flowing through these lines, but to the power of the sun and the power of a forest fire.

You see, the sun is behind a thick veil of smoke which consumes the entire horizon…the result of a massive forest fire several miles away near Lake Chelan. Nature uses fire to replenish itself and renew the cycle of life in a forest. It takes a long time for that process to unfold, which probably explains why it took so long for man to understand the value of these great conflagrations.

Once, up in the Canadian Rockies, I took a nature walk through a burned out forest. It had been at least 10 years since the fire…and I could see nature replenishing itself with lots of new growth. The undergrowth had all been burned away, but the ashes supplied vital nutrients for the new trees and plants. Nature is a miraculous process.

Another unintended consequence of a large forest fire is that is supplies plenty of smoke to make beautiful sunset scenes for photographers. Smoke blocks much of the sun’s intensity…so much so that it is easy to stare directly at it. Thank God I had my camera with me this day so I could take advantage of Mother Nature’s gift.

PS: This photo was originally taken on film, then computerized with a scanner.

(To see a larger version of this photo, just click on the image)

To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com

Postcard from San Francisco

As you can see, this is another one of my photos from the America’s Cup races last summer. As I said in previous blog, it was such a joy to be there to enjoy the races and take some photos with my new camera. After all, you don’t see these kinds of boats very often.

This photo is of the back of the New Zealand Kiwi boat. What makes this photo so special for me is the use of a new post-processing tool in Adobe’s Lightroom that brought the photo to life.

Its called the Radial tool, but I just refer to it as the Spotlight Tool…with it you can highlight a certain area of the photo with a “spotlight” and at the same time, lower to exposure of the surrounding areas.

In this case, I created an oval-shaped area around the center of the boat and made it slightly brighter, while lowering the light of everything else, including the background of the America’s Cup Park. Notice the water underneath the boat and extending out to the white sailboat in the background…see how much brighter it is and how the rest of the water (and the park) are darker? The sun helped, but so did the Spotlight Tool.

That is what the Spotlight Tool does…it brings the eye to exact place I want it to be when you view this photo. The whole focus of this picture is the boat, with the rest only serving as a backdrop. 

The digital tools available for processing photos these days are amazing. It is hard to keep up with all of them. But I try. I hope I didn’t bore you with this bit of technical stuff. Sorry if I did…but please enjoy the photo anyway.

Postcard from Tubac

This is one of those photos I took knowing I would have some fun with it in post-processing…which is exactly what happened. This is a wind sculpture, designed to sit on a pole and spin when the wind hits it.

There are several of them in Tubac, the art town 40 miles south of Tucson (if you missed my 11/25/13 blog about Tubac, you can read about this fun little town by clicking here). This particular one sat on a pole and was a few feet above my head, so I had to shoot up to capture the image. In fact, it was spinning a little, so I had to use a fast shutter speed. Thank God there were some clouds in the sky to break up a boring background.

But the real fun came in post-processing. Using several of my digital tools, I was able to create this unusual image that I believe turned out rather well. Of course, I didn’t create it on the first try. I had to keep experimenting until I got this final image. But, that is the fun of it all.

Sure hope you enjoy it.

(To see a larger version of this photo, just click on the image)

To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com

Postcard from Tucson

Did I ever mention that we have fabulous sunrises and sunsets down here in the deep Southwest? Of course I have. Sorry, bad joke. But one of the prices we pay for living down here are some extremely hot summer days. Tucson is higher in elevation than Phoenix so we are a little cooler, but still temps can hit 110 here…day after day after day.

Now I like to get in a daily walk no matter what time of year it is. Today, for instance, it was only 67 degrees. Except for the wind, it was a great walk. But on those hot summer days, I have to get up before sunrise to get in a walk.  Even then, I could be walking in the high 70’s or 80’s. But at least I get my exercise in before heading inside for the day.

That explains why I get to take a lot of sunrise photos. Many days are not worth shooting, but occasionally I get lucky…like this one particular morning…August 10, 2013. I took this shot, then immediately headed out for my walk before the sun got into my face.

There is no Photoshop magic here other than to darken the not-very-interesting foreground. This is the way it was. Sadly, the rays did not last long…they never do. Still it was a lovely morning with a very enjoyable walk. 

(To see a larger version of this photo, just click on the image)

To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com