Carol Gering

In addition to a little hiking, I spent a good deal of the long holiday weekend getting (back) up-to-speed on Lightroom. I’ve been using version 1 since it was first released. The first week of June I finally upgraded to version 2—approximately one week before version 3 was released! Adobe was good about it and sent me a free upgrade to 3.

In the process of learning what’s new, I’ve watched a couple dozen vodcasts. I highly recommend the Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips series from Matt Kloskowski. The casts are brief, to the point, and useful.

One of my favorite features of Lightroom 3 is the ability to publish directly to Flickr. It may seem like a small thing, but I’m convinced it will save me a lot of time. This isn’t like an uploader app. What’s unique about Lightroom’s functionality is the ability to take my adjusted RAW photo, convert it to jpg, connect with my Flickr account, and upload all in one step—taking my meta data with it. In the past I made my adjustments in Lightroom, then exported a jpg, uploaded to Flickr, and then deleted the jpg version from my hard drive. Lightroom 3 lets me bypass the jpg part, performing those steps automatically, behind the scenes. (I set preferences for quality, file size, etc. when I established my connection to the service.)

Further, Lightroom keeps track of which photos I’ve uploaded to Flickr. If I alter them later, Lightroom will republish the new version (replacing the old version on Flickr). One caveat: some data travels back to Lightroom from Flickr (tags, for example), but the description does not. So, if you change your description in Flickr and then republish, your description will be wiped out.

Here’s the confession:

I’ve read a half dozen books on lighting, attended workshops on the use of strobes, and frequented the Strobist blog…

I can give you definitions for the common vocabulary: E-TTL, dragging the shutter, slow shutter sync, fill flash, flash exposure compensation, high speed sync, second curtain sync, inverse square law…

…and yet my flash photography remains hit or miss (i.e., try various settings with some level of logic and hope for the best).

Here’s the problem:

Much of the information I’ve read and the workshops I’ve attended have focused on Nikon equipment. I know it should be transferrable knowledge, but I’m just not there yet!

Here’s the plan:

Reading: I’ve found a new book, Mastering Canon EOS Flash Photography. It’s specific to Canon, and I’m loving it!

Research: I’m actively looking for new online sources to follow. I’ve found a photographer named Zach Arias who’s using Canon and producing some training material. (In fact, he’s steaming live on UStream right now.) Not ready to recommend anything yet, but it’s a beginning.

Practice: This is undoubtedly the most important. I’m making a commitment to dedicate time this summer–and I’m saying it out loud to you here, so I’m really on the hook.

That’s it. Just trying to make myself accountable to follow through on this!

I finally got around to purchasing a couple of rolls of seamless paper to use as photography backgrounds. Let me just say that getting them delivered to Fairbanks was painful (mostly due to the cost!). After shopping around and finding the prices from all vendors very comparable, I ordered from B & H. The paper comes in a large roll—9 feet wide—with a length of 36 feet. The cost is $43.99 per roll, and shipping it to Fairbanks is $40 per roll (no significant discount for purchasing more than one roll and shipping them together).

In response to the sticker shock for shipping, I opted to build a homemade stand rather than purchasing one.

Here are my first results:

I should mention that even with the white background paper and good lighting it still takes me about 30 minutes in Photoshop to create a perfectly isolated image.