Emerald Bay Photography News and Updates

There are not too many places anymore you can see a wolf up close and personal.

A hike in Yellowstone National Park may provide you with a glimpse - if you're lucky. If you're a farmer in Western Idahoe, you might have had an encounter. Plus, a variety of cheesy game farms in Montana have them, so photographers can get closeup shots of the creatures without actually having to go track them down (boooo!).

And finally there are the rescue operations, many located in the Pacific Northwest, that take in injured or sick animals - providing them with a safe place to heal up, and ultimately releasing them back into the wild. For the few unfortunate souls who are not deemed fit to fend for themselves in the great wild anymore, these rehab centers essentially become comfy retirement homes. These animals sometimes also serve double-duty in breeding programs, but mostly, they are the attractions that supply the rehab centers with the necessary tourist dollars to continue their good work.

Ultimately, centers like Wolf Haven in Tenino, Washington, and Wildlife Images in Grants Pass, Oregon, serve as the last places for the general public to experience wolves and other wild creatures up close.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Southern Oregon, and a friend suggested we'd go to Wildlife Images. Seeing wolves, bears, cougars, bobcat, eagles and an assortment of other wild animals in their small caged areas, I was reminded more than anything else of all this wild splendor lost - of how we humans, in our infinitely deluded faith in being a supreme race, wipe everything that even remotely threathens us from the face of the planet. What we don't hunt to complete extinction, we shove into remote corners of the wilderness, giving it a half-ass chance to survive, but never a full chance to thrive.

Luckily, the wolf is making a comeback, and studies have been published, highlighting the negative impact the disapperance of the wolf from the eco-system has had.

So maybe instead of wasting your money this holiday season on some meaningless toy or other useless piece of material crap, consider instead giving the gift of true joy and life and adopt a wild animal from one of the rehab centers (Wildlife Images, Wolf Haven).

Or - you can buy a print of the one of the below wolf photographs (all taken at Wildlife Images), and Emerald Bay Photography will donate 100% of the sales price to the wildlife rescue organziation of your choice.








8 x 10 Prints are $45
11 x 14 Prints are $55
11 x 17 Prints are $65

All prints are unmatted and unmounted, prices do not include shipping.

Labels: oregon stock photography, photography

I have a love-hate relationship with snow.

Growing up in frosty, urban Switzerland, I was taught to fear the havoc snow (and its companions, slush and ice) can wreak upon the roads, the public transportation system, and the busy city life in general.

And while all those components are still very much a consideration, life in La Pine on the other hand is teaching me now that snow can also bring unexpected pleasures.

Such as the first moment in the morning after a nocturnal snow storm, when the sun rises and brings the cold white expanse alive with her golden light. When the thick virgin snow blanket glitters as if millions of lazy diamonds were strewn across its velvet coat. When the weight of the snow transforms the trees in your yard, the bushes in your driveway, the long grasses along my riverbank, into new and astonishing shapes and forms. When you step out of your house and you find a new world, so completely different from the one you left yesterday, and its beauty is overwhelming.







Yes, those are things I try to remember as I trudge through the slush ...

Labels: oregon stock photography, photography

... because some of my pictures are featured in there. :-)

I photographed this splendid house in Bend for the magazine's "Home and Garden" section, and was blown away by what the owners had done to the circa 1950's house. It had gone from a mediocre house on a nice Aubrey Butte lot to a simply terrific craftsman-style home that was able to take total advantage of the awesome location.

But don't take my word for it - go read the article and see the pictures for yourselves.

Labels: architectural photographer Bend Oregon, commercial photographer Bend Oregon, photography

UPDATE: I figured out the feed problem. The new feed url is: http://emeraldbayphoto.com/blog/feed/atom.xml

Since changing my site hosting from a Canadian server to a local one (thanks, Jake!), the feed for this blog just hasn't been the same. As a matter of fact, it has ceased functioning.

I'm still getting to the bottom of this, so all you alert readers out there - come and visit the site instead of just sucking the content down to your feed readers.

To boot, most of my images are currently hosted on yet another remote server, and for some reason, that one's been down for over a day now, and I haven't gotten an explanation back from the host. Hence - 99% of all the images on this site are dead links right now. I'm working on rectifying that quickly however.

On the bright side - it seems I have finally gotten the blog archive back on track. Too bad Blogger support is so totally useless - they really haven't been able to give me any more information than what I was already able to distill out of their help site....

Any nerdy advice can be directed to me.

Labels: photography, photography gear

Should I just rename this blog "I love Epson"?

Because it's true. I do love Epson. And the reason why I love them, is that they continously make my work easier, better, and - dare I say it? - more profitable.

First, I bought their Stylus Photo 2200 printer. At first glance, the $700 price tag seemed a bit steep - but in those short 19 months I've had it, I have been able to supply my clients with high-quality portfolio and fine art prints I would have had to pay a fortune for at the photo lab. Instead, my only costs incurred were ink and paper. And the best part - for the first time ever, the printer gave me 100% control over my images. Now I was able to produce prints that exactly reflected my vision and sense of color.

The second Epson feat was the Perfection 4870 Flatbed scanner. I wrote a bit about it in a post last month, and while I maintain that the Digital ICE function could be better, I'm still very happy with the overall performance of the scanner.

Now however, Epson has come up with a gadget that is truly making my heart beat faster: the P-2000 Digital Wallet. For a while now I've been looking for a digital storage device I can take out into the field with me. The two 1-GB CF cards I have for my 10D are nice, but on an extended trip or vacation (like the one last September to Europe), even the 2 GB don't cut it. On a commercial shoot, especially if I shoot RAW, I tend to max them out as well.

So far however, all the storage devices I've encountered were either simple external hard drives with CF slots, or the kind that burns your data directly to CD. None of them offered any kind of visual assurance that what you had just downloaded was *really* on the drive or CD. That kind of uncertainty just doesn't cut it when a client has just paid you a good fee to do a shoot for them, and you end up losing the images due to a read-error on the CD or similar. Sure - a laptop would remedy that. But the thought of schlepping around an additional 7-8 pounds of gear (especially out in the field) just isn't exactly my idea of an ideal temporary storage device.

As pointed out in the very thorough review by Luminous Landscape, the P-2000 solves all of those problems: it's small enough to click into a belt, has a large 4-inch screen that lets you not only verify your download, but also look at your images in greater detail, and best of all - a really long battery life. A 40GB harddrive and a fast download time give plenty of storage and speed in the field. And at 500 bucks, it seems a small investment for that all-important peace of mind.

So it's perfect. Just what I need. It's going on my X-mas wishlist.

Labels: photography, photography gear

Yeah, I know - it's been a while.

But between work and travels up and down the West Coast, sometimes precious little time remains for creative writing (I should know - I'm soooo behind on writing an article for O'Reilly Media on digital image restoration ...).

Nonetheless, here's something that probably all folks who either already own a digital SLR or are thinking about owning one will be (and should be) interested in: The-Dust-On-Your-Sensor Issue.

For the uninitiated: the CMOS sensor is that delicate part behind your camera's mirror that digitally records the image in a dSLR. During lens changes or while working in dusty conditions, particles can slip behind the mirror and cling to the sensor. To gain access to the sensor, a function in your camera menu will lock up the mirror indefinitely.

Today, the Photography Blog posted a press release by a company named IMS (short for "Intelligent Mobile Solutions Limited"), trumpeting their new and fabulous "specially created cleaning stick for removing dust from digital SLR camera sensors". Supposedly, it works by "using a unique micro-pore swab to create a mini vacuum effect, gently lifting dust from both CCD and CMOS type sensors".

To that I say: Ha! They obviously don't know about those stubborn stuck-on oily particles!

You see - I've had my Canon 10D for roughly a year now. After the first few months of ecstatic shooting pleasure (with an utterly clean camera), I started noticing small and fuzzy dark spots appearing in my photographs. I blamed them on random dust on the lenses, and at first they were so insignificant, that I was able to simply and quickly rubberstamp them in Photoshop.

Over time however, the spots started to become a serious issue. Especially when I had a client project on a tight deadline, the luxury of removing spots from roughly 50-60 shots became a time-consuming chore I couldn't afford. I obsessively cleaned my lenses. To no avail.

Then I started hearing in forums and from fellow photographers about the one issue, camera manufacturers will rather swallow their tongues than talk about: pesky dust on the glassy sensor of your dSLR. Sure enough, it turned out, this was the very cause of the dark fuzz in my pictures. Guerilla cleaning techniques ranged from using cotton swabs with alcohol, to those little blow brushes, to the "Copperhill Technique" (see below).

I had a little blow brush, so I thought "what the hell", and very gently tried to blow-brush the dust off my sensor. The brush must have had a tiny bit of oily residue (no doubt from being handled by me) on its tip however, and it readily deposited it on my sensor. Great. Now I had a very visible oily smear on my sensor too.

Not knowing if I had scratched the sensor as well, I panicked. After all, a new sensor is rumored to run about 500 bucks.

For kicks, I emailed Canon Support for advice on how to go about resolving the problem. Sure, they got back to me within an hour - but their only lame suggestion was to have the very delicate sensor professionally examined and cleaned, i.e. send the camera in to their service center. Ha. Good one. Like I can do without my work tool for weeks on end. Besides - online horror stories abounded about sensors coming back from "cleaning" dirtier than they had been delivered. So - no.

Then, my buddy Luke suggested the Sensor Brush from Visible Dust, based on a favorable review by one of my favorite sites, Luminous Landscape. Desperate as I was, I rushed out and ordered the brush for 60 bucks (incl. shipping). Visible Dust turned out to be a very slow company for shipping, and so the brush took almost 3 weeks to arrive from Canada. (I've had gear ordered from Canada be at my doorstep within 3 days!)

Knowing the root of my problem now though, I went digging around online for a more immediate solution. And so I came across the Copperhill technique. The reviews were so glowing, I decided it would be worth the few bucks in supplies to try it out. It turned out to be the one and only (and sane) way for me to clean a sensor.

For 36 bucks (12 for the squeegee, 24 for the cleaning solution and 100 PecPads) I now had a kick-ass setup. Sure, rubbing the squeegee across the sensor was a bit unnerving at first. But I got the hang of it pretty quickly, and adhering religiously to the prescribed method yielded a scintilliating sensor - free of dust, oil, and whatever else decided to accumulate there.

The Sensor Brush turned out to be a dud though. Shipping was slow, there was no documentation included (not even an invoice!), and the brush did exactly zip. I tried it a few times, but not once did it make a noticable difference.

So for those out there with dSLRs: read the Copperhill tutorial. Sure, it's a bit long-winded, but it really works.

Either way - you're gonna have to bite the dust. Or the dust will bite you.

Labels: photography, photography gear