Me very early again… I prepared this blog post in exactly one hour, finishing up just before 4am on Thursday morning. Jet lag has gotten the best of me; yesterday was the first time that my afternoon jet lag nap (4 hours) was longer than my evening sleep (3 1/2 hours). Right now my plan is to load up the car and head to Gatorland for a few hours to see how the nesting Great Egrets are doing.
600 II
I still have a Canon 600 II in excellent plus condition for a Canadian buyer at a ridiculously low price. Please contact me via e-mail if you live in Canada and are interested.
The Streak
Today’s blog post marks 121 days in a row with a new educational blog post. As always–and folks have been doing a great job recently–please remember to use our B&H links for your major gear purchases. For best results use one of our many product-specific links; after clicking on one of those you can continue shopping with all subsequent purchases invisibly tracked to BAA. Your doing so is always greatly appreciated. Please remember: web orders only.
Center AF point/AI Servo Expand/Rear Focus AF on the bird’s eye and re-compose. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Roseate Spoonbill in non-breeding plumage
Pink Possible 365 or 366
I have written often over the years that Fort DeSoto is about the only spot that I know of that has the potential to offer great bird photography 365 day a year, or 366 days in a leap year like 2016. Not to say that it will be great every day, but the potential for greatness exists no matter the season. In the same vein, it is also possible to photograph Roseate Spoonbill on any given day at any season. The trick to maximize these opportunities is to be in the right spots and to arrive very early and stay very late.
7D II ISO 3200
I converted the RAW file for today’s featured image in DPP 4 with Click White Balance and used Arash Hazeghi’s Luminance and Chrominance values from our DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide. Regular readers know that since I expose well to the right that I am rarely concerned with noise. I am currently editing Arash’s latest effort, the Post Processing Guide. The main thrust of the book deals with Arash’s high level noise reduction techniques using NeatImage. Arash recommends and uses only the NeatImage plug-in for advanced noise reduction to maintain maximum fine detail in his images. Both artie and Arash recommend only the Proversion as the Homeversion does not work on 16-bit images.
While Arash is a brilliant scientist and a brilliant photographer, writing clear and easy to understand how-to is not his forte; that is why we team up on these e-books. For the past few days I have been working hard at re-crafting his section on noise reduction. I am almost there. I did feel comfortable enough with what I have learned about the NeatImage plug-in so far to run it on today’s image. Though my efforts were surely crude, I was quite impressed with the results on this 7D II ISO 3200 image. We hope to be finished with the guide within about two weeks.
You can order your copy of “The Photographers’ Guide to Canon Digital Photo Professional 4.0” (aka the DPP 4 Raw Conversion eGuide) by Arash Hazeghi and Arthur Morris by clicking here.
The DPP 4 eGuide (PDF)
The RAW file for today’s image was of course converted in DPP 4. Learn how and why I and many other discerning photographers choose and use only DPP 4 to convert their Canon RAW files in the DPP 4 RAW Conversion Guide by Arash Hazeghi and yours truly. The latest version supports all of the newer Canon camera bodies and several older models including the EOS-7D and the EOS-1D Mark IV. The DPP IV Guide is the ideal companion to the 7D Mark II User’s Guide, a runaway best seller.
The DPP 4 eGuide (PDF) Updated for 1D Mark IV and the original 7D
The DPP 4 eGuide was updated a while back to include the luminance and chrominance noise reduction values for both the 1D Mark IV and the original 7D. If you purchased your copy from BAA please e-mail Jim and request the DPP 4 1d IV/7D update. Please be sure to cut and paste page 1 into your e-mail as proof of purchase.
DPP 4 Kudos
From Richard Gollard via e-mail:
I have been doing tons of studying the books and PDFs that I have purchased from BIRDS AS ART. And I have to say that after reading the DPP 4 conversion guide that you did with Arash Hazeghi I tried DPP 4 and was blown away by the differences in the conversions that I made with Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. Thanks for the consistently great information.
Photographing at the Beach?
Check out the new Beach Stuff page by clicking on the tab in the middle of the upper yellow/orange menu bar at the top of each blog page. You can learn about both surf booties and Wheeleeze. Do note that the link for the Used Photo Gear page has moved to the left end of the second line of the menu bar.
Fort DeSoto Site Guide
Whether you are soon going to be a first time visitor or you live just up the block you will learn a ton by getting yourself a copy of the Fort DeSoto Site Guide. Learn the best spots, where to be when in what season in what weather. Learn the best wind directions for the various locations. BAA Site Guides are the next best thing to being on an IPT. You can see all of them here.
DeSoto in spring is rife with tame and attractive birds. From upper left clockwise to center: breeding plumage Dunlin, dark morph breeding plumage Reddish Egret displaying, breeding plumage Laughing Gull/front end vertical portrait, breeding plumage Laughing Gull with prey item, Laughing Gull on head of Brown Pelican, screaming Royal Tern in breeding plumage, Royal Terns/pre-copulatory stand, Laughing Gulls copulating, breeding plumage Laughing Gull/tight horizontal portrait, Sandwich Tern with fish, and a really rare one, White-rumped Sandpiper in breeding plumage, photographed at DeSoto in early May.
Fort DeSoto IPT: May 10-13, 2016. 3 1/2 DAYS: $1399
Meet and Greet at 3pm on Tuesday May 10.
Fort DeSoto is one of the rare locations that might offer great bird photography 365 days a year. It shines in spring. There will Lots of tame birds including breeding plumage Laughing Gull and Royal and Sandwich Terns. With luck, we will get to photograph all of these species courting and copulating. There will be American Oystercatcher and Marbled Godwit plus sandpipers and plovers, some in full breeding plumage. Black-bellied Plover and Red Knot in stunning breeding plumage are possible. There will be lots of wading birds including Great and Snowy Egrets, both color morphs of Reddish Egret, Great Blue, Tricolored and Little Blue Heron, Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, and killer breeding plumage White Ibis. Roseate Spoonbill and Wood Stork are possible and likely. We should have lots of good flight photography with the gulls and terns and with Brown Pelican. Nesting Least Tern and nesting Wilson’s Plover are possible.
We will, weather permitting, enjoy 7 shooting sessions. Our first afternoon session will follow the meet and greet on Tuesday May 10. For the next three days we will have two daily photo sessions. We will be on the beach early and be at lunch (included) by 11am. At lunch we will review my images–folks learn a ton watching me choose my keepers and deletes–why keep this one and delete that one? If you opt to bring your laptop, we will be glad take a look at a few of your best images from the morning session. We will process an image or two in Photoshop after converting them in DPP. Our lunch learning session will be followed by a break that for me will include Instructor Nap Time. Afternoon sessions will generally run from 4:30pm till sunset. We photograph until sunset on the last day, Friday the 13th… Please note that this is a get-your-feet and get-your-butt wet and sandy IPT. And that you can actually do the whole IPT with a 300 f/2.8L IS, a 400 f/4 ID DO lens with both TCs, or the equivalent Nikon gear. I will likely be using my new 500 II as my big glass and have my 100-400 II on my shoulder.
DeSoto in spring is rife with tame and attractive birds. From upper left clockwise to center: Laughing Gull in flight, adult Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, copulating Sandwich Terns, Roseate Spoonbill, Great Egret with reflection, Short-billed Dowitcher in breeding plumage, American Oystercatcher, breeding plumage Royal Tern, white morph Reddish Egret, and Snowy Egret marsh habitat shot.
What You Will Learn
You will learn to approach free and wild birds without disturbing them, to understand and predict bird behavior, to identify many species of shorebirds, to spot the good situations, to understand the effects of sky and wind conditions on bird photography, to choose the best perspective, to see and understand the light, to get the right exposure every time after making a single test exposure, and to design pleasing images by mastering your camera’s AF system. And you will learn how and why to work in Manual mode (even if you are scared of it).
The group will be staying at the Magnuson Hotel/Marina Cove, 6800 Sunshine Skyway Lane South, St. Petersburg, FL, 33711. Tel: 727-867-1151. I use Hotels.com. The best airport is Tampa (TPA). A deposit of $499 is required to hold your spot. Your balance will be due on March 10, 2016. Please call Jim or Jennifer at 863-692-0906 to register. The $5 park entry fee is on you. Tight carpools are recommended. The cost of three lunches is included. Breakfasts are grab what you can on the go, and dinners are also on your own due to the fact that we will usually be getting back to the hotel at about 9pm. Non-photographer spouses, friends, or companions are welcome for $100/day, $350 for the whole IPT.
Why Join an IPT?
For many folks, hands-on, in-the-field instruction is the very best way for them to learn to improve their skills… To see some more early spring DeSoto images, click here.
Shorebirds/Beautiful Beachcombers
If shorebirds give you pause, get yourself a copy of my Shorebirds/Beautiful Beachcombers. Includes ID tips, shorebird biology, migration, and tons more. All in my simple-to-read easy-to-understand style.
birds as art: The Avian Photography of Arthur Morris/The Top 100
The companion e-book to the solo exhibit at TheNat, San Diego, California
The new e-book on CD is available here. The new e-book via is also available via convenient download for $20 by clicking here.
From Rod Anton via e-mail
Dear Artie, Beyond the superlatives you have received for your beautiful presentation, all of which I agree with whole heartedly, I would like to add my thoughts about your exhibition. I see the dedication, the determination, the passion and the tenacity that drives you, as well as your love of the birds and of your love of photography. Congratulations. The exhibit-companion CD deserves a shout out. Sincerely, Rod Anton
Please Remember to use our Affiliate Links 🙂
To show your appreciation for my continuing efforts here, we ask, as always, that you get in the habit of using my B&H affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your photo and electronics purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod heads, Gitzo tripods, Wimberley heads and plates, LensCoats and accessories, and the like. We sell only what I have used, have tested, and can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know what you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And we are always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail. I just learned that my account was suspended during my absence; it should be up and running by Monday at the latest.
I would of course appreciate your using our B&H affiliate links for all of your major gear, video, and electronic purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above we, meaning BAA, would of course greatly appreciate your business. Here is a huge thank you to the many who have been using our links on a regular basis and visiting the BAA Online store as well.
Facebook
Be sure to like and follow BAA on Facebook by clicking on the logo link upper right. Tanks a stack!
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors. Just be right 🙂
I prepared this blog post in about 3 hours after arising at 4am on Wednesday morning. As it has warmed up nicely I am planning to swim at about 12:30pm today. I just learned that the sale of Asta Tobiassen’s Canon 100-400mm IS L lens in very good condition for $599 has been completed.
600 II
I still have a Canon 600 II in excellent plus condition for a Canadian buyer at a ridiculously low price. Please contact me via e-mail if you live in Canada and are interested.
The Streak
Today’s blog post marks 120 days in a row with a new educational blog post. This post took me about 90 minutes to assemble including the time spent on the image optimization. As always–and folks have been doing a great job recently–please remember to use our B&H links for your major gear purchases. For best results use one of our many product-specific links; after clicking on one of those you can continue shopping with all subsequent purchases invisibly tracked to BAA. Your doing so is always greatly appreciated. Please remember: web orders only.
I selected the AF point that was two AF points above the center AF point and used AI Servo Expand/Rear Focus AF. For this image I held the star button in so that AF was active (as framed) at the moment of exposure. The selected AF point was on the bird’s neck. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
This is the optimized version of my top pick, Image #16
Editing Practice and Principles Follow-Up
In the hugely popular Editing Practice and Principles blog post here I presented 16 images. Folks were asked to pick five keepers and their very favorite image. The response was gratifying.
My five keepers were #s 1, 10, 11, 15, and 16. My very favorite was #16; the optimized version opened this blog post. My four other keepers can be seen below with a brief comment.
I selected the AF point that was two AF points above the center AF point and used AI Servo Expand/Rear Focus AF. For some of the images I held the shutter button in so that AF was active (as framed) at the moment of exposure and for others I set the focus via rear button AF, released the button, and re-composed slightly (if at all). Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Image #1
Image #1
Image #1 was similar to my top choice; it features a nice look at the bird’s left leg and foot but Image #16 has a better head angle and, in addition, we get a much better look at the feather in the gull’s bill in #16 than in #1.
Image #10
Image #10
In retrospect #10 is the weakest of my five keepers. The head angle is nothing special and the eye is not as sharp as it should be. If I did this over again I would likely lose this one and bring in #12… See same well below.
Image #11
Image #11
I love the head angle and position in #11 as well as the fully splayed body feather on the left side of the bird (also seen well in #10).
Image #15
Image #15
Though the bird is not actively preening this is my #2 pick for the dead perfect head angle and the fully splayed scapulars on the right side of the bird. These two factors made Image #14 a quick reject.
Image #12:
Image #12
In retrospect I would have included this image in my five best and gotten rid of Image #10 as noted above. The head is much closer to parallel than in #10 and the open bill is a big plus.
My Rejected Losers and Why
Images #2, 3, 4, 5, 8, and 13 all feature a very similar and very poor head angle; folks who picked any of these images in their top five need to go to Head Angle School. Best advice to them: study the BPN Head Angle Fine Points post here with due diligence. There are lots of other excellent tutorials in BPN’s Educational Resources forum here.
With #6 I like the outstretched grab of the feather but the gull’s face is angled well way from the plane of the imaging sensor. With #7 the face is pretty much hidden. Image #9 is close but again the head needed to be parallel to the plane of the imaging sensor. #12 is very strong and in retrospect I should have had it in with my top five while losing Image #10. (See Image #10 just above.)
Bar Graphs courtesy of Warren Howe
Editing Picks Bar Graphs
My choices are in red. In retrospect I would replace Image #10 with Image #12 in my top five. I would say that overall the folks who participated did a great job. Note how many folks agreed with my top choice, #16. I have said this often: “If you have ten photographers lined up with the same gear photographing the same bird and each picks their top three images there will usually be 90% agreement on the single best image (out of the thirty). Editing (picking your keepers) is a skill that can be learned. We will do another one of these soon.
Questions Welcome
If you have any questions about my picks or any of the images or image comparisons, please feel free to leave do so in a comment.
San Diego offers a wealth of very attractive natural history subjects. With annual visits spanning more than three decades I have lot of experience there….
2017 San Diego 4 1/2-DAY BIRDS AS ART Instructional Photo-Tour (IPT) JAN 11 thru and including the morning session on JAN 15: 4 1/2 days: $1999.
(Limit: 10/openings 8)
Meet and Greet at 7:00pm on the evening before the IPT begins; Tuesday 1/10/17.
Join me in San Diego to photograph the spectacular breeding plumage Brown Pelicans with their fire-engine red and olive green bill pouches; Brandt’s and Double-crested Cormorants; breeding plumage Wood and Ring-necked Duck; other duck species possible including Lesser Scaup, Redhead, and Surf Scoter; a variety of gulls including Western, California, and the gorgeous Heerman’s, all in full breeding plumage; shorebirds including Marbled Godwit, Willet, Sanderling and Black-bellied Plover; many others possible including Least, Western, and Spotted Sandpiper, Whimbrel, Black and Ruddy Turnstone, Semipalmated Plover, and Surfbird; Harbor Seals (depending on the current regulations) and California Sea Lions; and Bird of Paradise flowers. And as you can see by studying the two IPT cards there are some nice bird-scape and landscape opportunities as well.
With gorgeous subjects just sitting there waiting to have their pictures taken, photographing the pelicans on the cliffs is about as easy as nature photography gets. With the winds from the east almost every morning there is usually some excellent flight photography. And the pelicans are almost always doing something interesting: preening, scratching, bill pouch cleaning, or squabbling. And then there are those crazy head throws that are thought to be a form of intra-flock communication.
Did I mention that there are wealth of great birds and natural history subjects in San Diego in winter?
Though the pelicans will be the stars of the show on this IPT there will be many other handsome and captivating subjects in wonderful settings.
The San Diego Details
This IPT will include five 3 1/2 hour morning photo sessions, four 2 1/2 hour afternoon photo sessions, four lunches, and after-lunch image review and Photoshop sessions. To ensure early starts, breakfasts will be your responsibility.
A $599 non-refundable deposit is required to hold your slot for this IPT. You can send a check (made out to “Arthur Morris) to us at BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL, 33855. Or call Jim or Jennifer at the office with a credit card at 863-692-0906. Your balance, payable only by check, will be due on 9/11//2016. If we do not receive your check for the balance on or before the due date we will try to fill your spot from the waiting list. Please print, complete, and sign the form that is linked to here and shoot it to us along with your deposit check. If you register by phone, please print, complete and sign the form as noted above and either mail it to us or e-mail the scan. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me via e-mail.
Please Remember to use our Affiliate Links 🙂
To show your appreciation for my continuing efforts here, we ask, as always, that you get in the habit of using my B&H affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your photo and electronics purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod heads, Gitzo tripods, Wimberley heads and plates, LensCoats and accessories, and the like. We sell only what I have used, have tested, and can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know what you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And we are always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.
I would of course appreciate your using our B&H affiliate links for all of your major gear, video, and electronic purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above we, meaning BAA, would of course greatly appreciate your business. Here is a huge thank you to the many who have been using our links on a regular basis and visiting the BAA Online store as well.
Facebook
Be sure to like and follow BAA on Facebook by clicking on the logo link upper right. Tanks a stack!
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors. Just be right 🙂
I took another 4 hour jet lag nap late on Monday afternoon. I got into bed at 1am and was wide awake at 2am. I read for a bit, dropped the book, and slept like a baby until just before 7am. Not bad. On Tuesday afternoon I took yet another 4 hour jet lag nap… I am up and working feeling great and then wham, just gotta sleep. If I set an alarm for 30 minutes I wake up feeling like a zombie and get right back to sleep.
Eight of the ten items that were listed in the Everybody’s Doing It blog post here sold within two days; the Used Photo Gear page is on fire! We need some Nikon folks to take advantage of some of the great buys on Nikkor bodies and lenses. There are still lots of great buys available; you can see all of the listings here or by clicking on the Used Photo Gear tab on the yellow/orange menu bar at the top of each blog post page.
The Streak
Today’s blog post marks 119 days in a row with a new educational blog post. This post took me about 90 minutes to assemble including the time spent on the image optimization. As always–and folks have been doing a great job recently–please remember to use our B&H links for your major gear purchases. For best results use one of our many product-specific links; after clicking on one of those you can continue shopping with all subsequent purchases invisibly tracked to BAA. Your doing so is always greatly appreciated. Please remember: web orders only.
Center AF point (by necessity)/AI Servo Expand/Shutter Button AF as originally framed was active at the moment of exposure. This is a small crop from the left and below. The selected AF point was squarely on the base of the bill. Click on the image to enjoy a larger version.
Sandhill Crane chick head portrait
Home Sweet Home
Indian Lake Estates can be mighty fine for bird photography in late winter and early spring. I got down to the lake for the first time this year on February 28 only to be greeted by two very cooperative Sandhill Crane chicks that were well less than a week old. I photographed them again the next morning. Other subjects included Great and Cattle Egrets and Limpkin. What fun.
The BLUBB
BLUBB is an acronym for Big Lens Ultimate BeanBag. There are lots of similar knock-off beanbag-type supports that cost half as much as the BLUBB but as all things BIRDS AS ART, you get exactly what you pay for. Only the BLUBB offers the support and stability that you need to work at 1200mm from your vehicle. Only the BLUBB has a layer of heavy duty cotton duck fabric sewn on top to eliminate scratchy nylon noise. And only with the BLUBB are the inner surfaces of the bag, the surfaces that are placed over the door-frame or car window, covered with a large piece of Toughtek non-slip fabric sewn in place to help keep the bag from slipping, especially in vehicles where the driver’s window angles downward to the right. Learn more about the only beanbag to use with your big lens by clicking here.
Worth a Try…
Confronted with the mess in the lower right corner I circled it with a Patch Tool selection and then hit Edit > FIll > Content Aware. For the most part it did a very good job. At times, as with today’s featured image, Content Aware fill works just fine. At other times, the results can be horrific. But when confronted with a rather complex repair job as in the lower right corner of this image, it is always worth a try.
Careful folks might note that after I created the animated GIF I noted that there was a pretty ugly horizontal line left by Content Aware Fill. I re-worked the original with a few swipes of the Patch Tool. The improved optimized image is represented by the JPEG that opens this blog post; the “original” version in the animated GIF features the ugly lower right corner. I opted not to re-do the animated GIF so that folks could see the improvement.
The Image Optimization
The lower right corner clean-up and some of the bill clean-up was via Content Aware Fill. The rest of the clean-up was with the Patch Tool and the Spot Healing Brush. I got so tired of reducing the opacity of a layer of my NIK Color EFEX Pro 50/50 recipe that I created a 25/25 recipe. I applied that to today’s image and reduced the opacity by about 50 %. I finished the image off with a Contrast Mask of the face; with mega mega-pixel 5DS R images I have upped my traditional settings from 15/65/0 to 20/80/0 with excellent results.
Digital Basics
Everything that I did to optimize today’s featured image is covered in detail in my Digital Basics File–written in my easy-to-follow, easy-to-understand style. Are you tired of making your images look worse in Photoshop? Digital Basics File is an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. It includes my complete digital workflow, dozens of great Photoshop tips, details on using all of my image clean-up tools, the use of Contrast Masks, several different ways of expanding and filling in canvas, all of my time-saving Keyboard Shortcuts, Quick Masking, Layer Masking, and NIK Color Efex Pro basics, Digital Eye Doctor techniques, Content Aware Fill, using Gaussian Blurs, Dodge and Burn, a variety of ways to make selections, how to create time-saving actions, the Surface Blur settings that I use to smooth background noise, Divide and Conquer, protective cloning on a layer, and tons more.
Subject and focal lengths clockwise from upper left around to center.
Palouse Falls: 11mm; homemade kiddie race car: 105mm; barn siding pan blur: 798mm; Rolling fields diorama: 110mm; Crayola drums: 343 mm; Hay barn interior: 19mm; vintage gas station: 40mm; Dilapidated farm building: 13mm; Denise’s tree Infrared: 20mm.
Images and card design by Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART.
The Palouse ~ A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART Instructional Photo-Tour (IPT)/Eastern Washington State. June 3-7, 2016/5 Full Days: $1699/Limit 12/Openings: 6
The Palouse ~ A Creative Adventure/BIRDS AS ART Instructional Photo-Tour (IPT)/Eastern Washington State. June 10-14, 2016/5 Full Days: $1699/Limit 12/Openings: 2
Double Header!
Maximize both your travel dollars and your learning experience by signing up for both IPTs.
Images and card design by Denise Ippolito/A Creative Adventure.
The Palouse IPTs
Rolling farmlands provide a magical patchwork of textures and colors, especially when viewed from the top of Steptoe Butte where we will likely enjoy spectacular sunrises and possibly a nice sunset. We will photograph grand landscapes and mini-scenics of the rolling hills and farm fields. We will take you to some really neat old abandoned barns and farmhouses in idyllic settings. There is no better way to improve your compositional and image design skills and to develop your creativity than to join us for this trip. Two great leaders: Denise Ippolito and Arthur Morris. Photoshop and image sharing sessions when we have the time and energy…. We get up early and stay out late and the days are long.
After 6 days of back-breaking scouting work in early June 2014 we found all of the iconic locations and, in addition, lots of spectacular new old barns and breath-taking landforms and views. On three additional scouting days in 2015 we discovered several more truly amazing locations. We will teach you what makes one situation prime and another seemingly similar one a waste of your time.
What’s included: In-the-field instruction, guidance, lessons, and inspiration, our newfound but very extensive knowledge of the area, all lunches, motel lobby grab and go breakfasts, and Photoshop and image sharing sessions when possible. There will be a meet and greet at 7:30pm on the evening before each workshop begins.
You will learn and hone both basic and advanced compositional and image design skills. You will learn to get the right exposure every time. You will learn to develop your creative eye. You will learn the basics of HDR (high dynamic range) photography. You will learn a variety of in-camera creative techniques. Most importantly you will learn to see the situation and to create a variety of top-notch images. Do see both of our blogs for lots more on that in the coming weeks. You will learn how the quality and direction of light combine to determine the success of your images. And–please don’t gasp–we will be working quite a bit with sidelight when creating landscapes. Lastly, we will be doing some infrared photography.
To Sign Up
A non-refundable $699 deposit is due now. The balance will be due on February 15, 2016. If we do not receive your check for the balance on or before the due date we will try to fill your spot from the waiting list. Whether or not your spot is filled, you will lose your deposit. If not, you can secure your spot by paying your balance.
With the spectacular success that we enjoyed in 2015 it seems quite likely that both of these will fill up soon. Please let me know via e-mail that you will be joining us. Then you can either call Jim or Jennifer at 863-692-0906 during business hours or send us a check to leave a deposit; the latter is preferred. If by check, please make out to “Arthur Morris” and mail it to: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART, PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL, 33855. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us via e-mail: artie or denise.
Travel Insurance Services offers a variety of plans and options. Included with the Elite Option or available as an upgrade to the Basic & Plus Options. You can also purchase Cancel for Any Reason Coverage that expands the list of reasons for your canceling to include things such as sudden work or family obligation and even a simple change of mind. You can learn more here: Travel Insurance Services. Do note that many plans require that you purchase your travel insurance within 14 days of our cashing your deposit check. Whenever purchasing travel insurance be sure to read the fine print carefully even when dealing with reputable firms like TSI.
Please Remember to use our Affiliate Links 🙂
To show your appreciation for my continuing efforts here, we ask, as always, that you get in the habit of using my B&H affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your photo and electronics purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod heads, Gitzo tripods, Wimberley heads and plates, LensCoats and accessories, and the like. We sell only what I have used, have tested, and can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know what you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And we are always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.
I would of course appreciate your using our B&H affiliate links for all of your major gear, video, and electronic purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above we, meaning BAA, would of course greatly appreciate your business. Here is a huge thank you to the many who have been using our links on a regular basis and visiting the BAA Online store as well.
Facebook
Be sure to like and follow BAA on Facebook by clicking on the logo link upper right. Tanks a stack!
Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors. Just be right 🙂
