"The West Coast Steelhead River, Fall'

Steelhead are ocean-going rainbow trout which are almost indistinguishable

from silver salmon except for the placement of one or two small fins on their

tail area, and grow to about eight pounds or so with characteristic pink flesh

from feeding on Pacific krill where they go after spawning, then return to

spawn in the creek and/or river where they hatched. This is Washington

State's Kalama River, famous for its steelhead fishery. Your ratings,

critiques and observations are invited and most welcome. If you rate harshly,

very critically or wish to make a remark, please submit a helpful and

constructive comment; please share your photographic knowledge to help

improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! john

From the thumbnail I felt like I was seeing a Sally Mann image from her Deep South Series.  However, after viewing full size I find that your work has something hers does not, focus. ;-) Beautiful, tranquil scene and very well done in b/w... Mike

Wonderful Blacks! 

Well done,

Regards,

Mário

At first i misread your comment by not seeing the comma, and said to myself, 'how did he miss that this is IN FOCUS.   And after returning to your comment I saw that you had a comment, and it was a comparison to Sally Mann, whose work was more out of focus (dreamy, ethereal -- my words) and out of focus  that you were comparing it to.  This is a very old capture, from the first months that I re-took up photography, taken with my first digital camera.  Not bad for a 'first effort', hunh?

Through a mutual friend of old, I know a number of stories about Mann and her work habits/the man printed for her, and he was world class.

When I took this I had no idea who Sally Mann was and had never viewed her work.  Later I was taken to meet her at the Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills by that art critic/Lucie Award winner who was mentoring me.  He failed to introduce us, but I met her anyway, and she was a nice, charming and unprepossessing person, not the kind you would expect to be the queen not only of photography, but of photography turned into 'fine art'.

Her series on her kids put her kids through college, and at that exhibition she was selling Collodian photo/transformations of her children taken long ago.

Any time any work of mine, let alone work taken when I first re-took up photography ten or more years ago, is compared to the doyenne of photography, is a big feather in my cap - thank you for the comparison.

I do take landscapes from time to time, maybe just to confound my critics, and say 'I can do that too'.

Thanks for a highly flattering comparison.

john

John (Crosley)

I took this over ten years ago with a D70, but my processing skills then were just not up to showing this photo in its 'proper light' so to speak.

Now my processing skills have grown, as I long ago predicted they would, which is why I never discard or delete anything.

This is now among my premier works, and a landscape yet.  I'd show it with my very best work -- the color version was not shabby either, and if life were different, I might have become a landscaper.

However, I like my sleep and lansdcaping is best done in the early morning often after long, sometimes treacherous hikes or even mountaineering.

As it is, I take great shots just by taking a Metro!

Which I'd do anyway.

Go figure.

Thanks for the vote of encouragement.

john

John (Crosley)

If you had seen the original 'matrix meter' exposure of this scene, you'd never imagine this scene as it's seen here.

This scene was darkened extremely from 'matrix meter' exposure, as everything was lightened in that exposure, and at that time I was not experimenting with alternative exposure methods.

Only after I began processing old JPEGS in the Adobe raw converter (It can be used as a 'filter' even on JPEGS and not just 'NEFs' and other 'raw' captures) did I routinely start lightening and darkening scenes in an attempt to zero in on their best view, and in doing so, I darkened this and kept darkening this until it appeared (in the color version) proper though it was almost two stops darker than matrix metering.

The same for this view . . . . which to my mind is the non-homogenized view, and literally the very, very best view.  It's the only view I'd show to the world.

john

John (Crosley)

Mike, I made a correction, but it did not reproduce.

It said, in essence, that I later saw the 'comma' not 'comment' which I fixed but the PN software did not record for some reason.

I try to correct mistakes when they are brought to my attention, or I see them.  You put trouble and effort into making a comment, and in this instance, care in the placement of a comma, and for me not to acknowledge it, or to appear to confuse it in my response, must have seemed confounding to you.  Rest assured, I did read it correctly and this is my second effort to make a proper correction.

Best wishes.

john

John (Crosley)

No problem, I understood your comment fully.  Thanks... Mike

Beautifull composition

'Impressive, beautiful composition'

There's nothing to say to that but thanks for letting me know your thoughts.

Incidentally, not everyone thinks this is a great shot, or even a mediocre shot.

Although we're not supposed to be able to figure out the 'hidden' ratings, simple math and occasionally watching the averages bounce up and down, has shown that this photo has received both a '7' (I think) and almost certainly a '3' or more than one three and several '4's from raters.  It debuted at near 5.6 on ratings which under today's very conservative ratings system is almost knocking the roof off, but soon it was knocked down by seven ratings to 4.75.  It shows on the ratings engine at less than 5.0, but my own view (not visible to members at 12 ratings) shows an unrevealed rating that raises it by .08 per cent to 5.08 per cent, a long way from 5.60 -- probably after 12 ratings (not doing the math the inferred '7' probably was not  credited (at least yet) because it probably was from a new member or was from a frequently rating member who likes my work, or otherwise the rate is is being scrutinized.  This is all surmise, but I'm uncannily good at figuring such things out.  I don't rate and would never consider 'mate-rating' so one can rule that out.

In the end, it all means nothing, because the real thing that matters to me is that it moved you, and just as importantly, I rank it among my absolute best works ever, from over 2,000 posts.  It certainly is one if not my top rated landscape ever (though there's not much competition in number, but the quality of them is pretty high.)

I mean it; this to me is probably the best produced black and white I've ever processed.

I pay attention to Lynda.com, Adobe.com, and other tutorials, and I absolutely do read and pay attention to members when they make suggestions.  It's not wasting words when in my critiue request I state:  '. . . photographers please share with me your photographic knowledge so that I may improve my photography'  Special commendation to Meir, who helped teach me some things about histograms though not all he tutored me was correct as I learned in a Corbis tutorial -- one need NOT fill out the histogram at all from shadow to highlight in a black and white and/or color shot, though for a shot like this it's highly desirable.  Meir taught me differently, or so I thought.  Pity he cannot respond except by e-mail in case I misstate his 'lesson' but I regarded it as valuable.  He does not contribute here any more by my wish, but credit where credit is due.

The color version is posted elsewhere and was rated quite highly; the words about disregarding the matrix meter version were also applied to that version, and this is a desaturation of that version -- very much darkened, and showing off the highlights in the shrubbery to the right which was kissed by sunlight.

If you look at the reflection of the sky in the riverbed, you realize that either the fog was extremely thin or it was nonexistent over the middle part of this rather narrow but important fishing river, and I'm standing and photographing from a foggy place, and in the distance, with morning mist rising, it's also foggy, while some sunlight is shining through to the shrubbery, near right - but just a smidge.   All in all, it was a very fortuitous scene to come upon, and if I just relied on my camera's meter to capture it, I'd have been sunk with a 'neutral' capture with lots of detail all over, instead of something much more contrasty and (to my mind) interesting and dramatic) like this.

In all, this entire scene evaporated -- just disappeared -- within five minutes, and away I drove from the bridge on which I was standing.  Every time I pass that way (or nearly so), I drive across this bridge which parallels Interstate 5, as sometimes there are fishermen underneath, and an ever changing scenery, often with water often of different colors, from blue to deep green and foliage which changes shades and colors during various seasons - fairly rare on the West Coast where conifers predominate.

Too much information?  Well, it's an important shot to me . . . , I love photography . . . and have envied those who could get those B&W Magazine quality black and white reproductions without my previously being able to attain that quality, but now think I've finally achieved near that level, I think.  

Or at least I hope.

Thanks for the recognition.  I'm quite appreciative.

john

John (Crosley)

You've seen my work over time, so you know I like to 'mix it up' from time to time, so I'm not completely predictable.

I also like to showcase my best work no matter in what genre -- If I were in some showcase gallery I could not do that, or if I had a 'name' for myself as creating one sort of image only, it might not be possible to find space to show images out of the niche people place me in (in their minds).

I also like to think, that although 'street' and 'documentary' are my first loves, that I can do a work(person)like job for just about any genre except digital enhancement, where I'm willing to cede the crown to even the more modest producers of digital work.

And I don't have the foresight of a Sally Mann, to create works like this and create them with old astigmatic lenses that don't focus all colors correctly on a view camera, and let them blur somewhat, as happened and which is referred to by the commenter above.

 A former mentor, a Lucie Award winner and Mann's friend, told me a story about her and her view camera as they were sitting in her garden.  The old, uncorrected supposedly unastigmatic lens just fell off to the ground of her garden, she picked it up, and she taped it back on without fluster or ruffle.

She was not a pixel picker; she just made great work, and if some was blurry, it was meant to be, and if she made colloidal prints, they looked like they were made in a morgue, even though they were of her (very much alive) children, but they were fantastic and loaded with suggestion, and not looking at all like 'family snapshots'.  I saw them in the Beverly Hills Gagosian Gallery where i met her briefly.  

I realized I don't have her artistic vision, and I can't learn it.

I'm learning tonalities, and try to give credit where credit is due . . . . learning to image edit (Photoshop) has been a long, hard process for me, because I don't have so much patience, and let's be frank, the perfect image for doing such work, such as this, doesn't come along every day.  

Some photographers can do such magic with every image, but I just cannot, though I'd love to know their secrets.  I don't use plug-ins, which may be part of the secret.

Plug-ins can work magic, if used right.  I've tried them and got wonderful results, but done badly they can ruin a photo.  It's harder with Photoshop to over contrast an image -- the range of contrast just isn't there (with plug-ins, it's there in spades, usually).

I highly value your judgment, Jack, and am most thankful for your contribution; it lets me know I'm on the right path in my quest to become an able image editor (Photoshopper).

Best to you this new year.

john

John (Crosley)