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Why You Should Shoot Raw

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If you want to create digital photographs with the highest quality, set your camera to create Raw files.
What are the upsides to shooting in Raw? Raw files contain the widest color gamut (saturation), highest bit depth (gradation), have flexible white balance (color temperature), offer the greatest opportunities for rendering highlight and shadow detail, are free of compression artifacts, and can be reprocessed indefinitely (even with tomorrow’s software) with no loss in quality. There are some downsides to shooting in Raw. Raw files are larger and require post-processing before presentation. They take up more room and they take longer to use. But the higher quality they offer are worth the effort.


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28 Great Quotes On Mastery

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“Practice creates the master.” – Miguel Ruiz
“Energy and persistence conquer all things.” — Benjamin Franklin
“Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.” – Albert Einstein
“Mastering music is more than learning technical skills. Practicing is about quality, not quantity.”- Yo-Yo Ma
“Though you can love what you do not master, you cannot master what you do not love.” – Mokokoma Mokhonoana
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41 Great Quotes On Context

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Enjoy this collection of quotes on Context.
“For me context is the key – from that comes the understanding of everything.” – Kenneth Noland
“Making mental connections is our most crucial learning tool, the essence of human intelligence; to forge links; to go beyond the given; to see patterns, relationships, context” – Marilyn Ferguson
“Critics have a responsibility to put things in a cultural and sociological or political context. That is important.” – Annette Bening
“What we have to do is put this in a coherent form for them at the end of the day, and on the big events, give them the kind of context that they deserve.” – Tom Brokaw
“I do not fear truth. I welcome it. But I wish all of my facts to be in their proper context.” – Gordon B. Hinckley
“Disinformation is most effective in a very narrow context.” – Frank Snepp
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My Top 12 Images Of 2016

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Incubation XV

Antarctica CXCII

Antarctica CXCII

Antarctica CXCIV

Antarctica CXCIV

Antarctica CXCV

Antarctica CXCV

Revelation XXIX

Revelation XXIX

Revelation XXXIX

Revelation XXXIX

Revelation XXIV

Revelation XXIV

Revelation XXXVI

Revelation XXXVI

Revelation XXVI

Revelation XXVI

Revelation XXVIII

Revelation XXVIII

Revelation XXXVII

Revelation XXXVII

Revelation XXXVIII

Revelation XXXVIII

This is a selection of my top 12 images of 2016. This selection doesn’t reflect sales, publication, or activities on the web. It simply reflects my opinion. Click on the titles to find out more about each image.

Geography

While I visited most of the biomes in one year (all seven continents in 18 months), the images I released were drawn primarily from the artic and antarctic regions.

Process

Straight images from Antarctica were processed on location, mostly in Lightroom. Composite images were created in studio, mostly in Photoshop after launching from Lightroom. I date “straight” shots based on the date they were exposed and composites on the date they are completed.

Concepts

I focussed on a long-standing theme, creating symmetries drawn from the land to better reveal the spirit within. The final resolution has prompted me to remaster many related files made in 1996. I released multiple related series of studies, including a series of digitally rendered inkblots.

Magnificent Moment

There was big magic in 2016! In Antarctica there were moments of extreme quietude amid the lifting fogs at Black Head and the glassy reflections in Antarctica’s Plenneau Bay. We experienced the epically varied lands of New Zealand; in one day we moved from a waterfall strewn fiord, through a rainforest, up to a high arid plateau, and finally to the base of a glacier. Sublime light filled hours and hours, as we flew helicopters over Namibia’s Sossusvlei dune fields, which roll out to the Skeleton Coast. All of these adventures were long-held dreams come true.

It’s challenging to choose so few images from so many – but it’s insightful. Try selecting your own top 12 images. Try selecting the top 12 images of your favorite artist(s).

View more of my Annual Top 12 Selections here.

View more images in my ebooks here.

View my full Works here.

View my Series videos here.

View new images in my newsletter Collectors Alert.

A Checklist OF Things To Look For In Prints

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When you’re evaluating print quality, knowing what to look for is almost as important as knowing how to achieve it. Many technical factors contribute to print quality. Here’s a list of things to look for when you’re evaluating print quality – yours and others’.
It’s not that every one of these factors has to be optimal to achieve great print quality. It is that every factor you optimize enhances print quality further.
Well Focused
No Motion Blur
No Sharpening Artifacts
Extended Depth Of Field
Extended Dynamic Range
Appropriate Lightness
Highlight Detail / Separation In Values
Shadow Detail / Separation In Values
Mid-tone Contrast
Gradation
No Posterization
Low Noise
No Noise Reduction Artifacts
 
Believable Color … or … Color Transformed With Intent
Color Without Artificial Color Casts
Variation In Single Colors
Saturated Color
 
Appropriate Materials
Appropriate Scale
Appropriate Presentation Materials
Appropriate Contextualization
Appropriate Price
So what’s ‘appropriate’? That all depends on the statement being made. The real question is, “What is the artist trying to do? And how well did they achieve that?” You can successfully break the rules if you break them for a reason.