Photo Reception Tonight
Sorry for the late notice, but if you are in the local area, we are having a reception tonight from 5:30 to 7 pm for the Tacoma Mountaineers Photography Exhibition at the Catholic Community Services Tahoma Gallery (1323 S. Yakima Ave. Tacoma). Come see some wonderful photography and share some refreshments with myself and the other photographers. You can also enter a drawing to win a free print of your choice from the exhibited works.
Don Thompson, the chair of our photo committee, sent out a list of the judging results along with the the judges notes. The judges this year were two photographers from the local newspaper, the Tacoma News Tribune. My photographers did well. Below are images of mine that won awards along with the judges notes.
1st place – Hand of Man Division — “Into the Blizzard” by Joe Becker.
Judges’ comments: We love the humor and stark simplicity. Cleary the “Hand of Man” is at play here but the architect needs to go back to the drawing board.
Best of Show — “Into the Blizzard” by Joe Becker.
Judges’ comments: There are many fine photos in this exhibit but we kept being drawn to Becker’s shot. It’s such an amusing blend of whimsy and cold-blooded nature. We kept waiting for the house to fall down. Any second now.
1st place – Nature Division — “Winter, Palouse Falls” by Joe Becker.
Judges’ comments: Lovely, ethereal image that made the thundering falls look like a fairy kingdom. Well-composed and opting for B&W was an effective choice. It made the scene chillier and brought out layers of detail that may not have registered in color.
Honorable mention – Nature Division — “Palouse Dusk” by Joe Becker.
Judges’ comments: Gorgeous, subtle color palette. Nice minimalist composition. Light is well-captured. Very dreamy photo.
Nightscapes Lecture
I wish I could say the images accompanying this post are mine, but they are not. They are the work of Royce Bair. Royce is a photographer from Utah who specializes in shooting night-time landscapes that incorporate the Milky Way. He calls these images Nightscapes. He is currently touring the United States give lectures on how to capture such images. I was lucky enough to convince him to come to Tacoma and give his talk to the Tacoma Mountaineers. This will be a great event and a good opportunity to learn how to capture these wonderful shots. As you know if you are a regular reader of my blog, I’ve tried to get shots like these, with limited success. Hopefully, Royce will be able to teach me a thing or two.
The talk will be held Friday, February 13th from 7 to 9 pm at the Tacoma Mountaineers building at 2302 N 30th Street, Tacoma, Washington. It is free to attend and no reservation is needed (though it is first come-first served on seats). If you do decide to come by, be sure to introduce yourself to me as a reader of my blog.
Royce says that many of his shots are captured in a single exposure and have little post-processing. He will be giving a step-by-step recipe for capturing this images. His accompanying slide show will offer a lot of technical, how-to information including planning when and where to shoot the Milky Way, finding dark skies, calculating star alignments, choosing the right equipment, how to calculate the correct exposures, light painting, noise-reduction techniques, and exposure blending.
Royce is a semi-retired magazine photographer who has been capturing nightscapes for three decades. His photographs have appeared in National Geographic, Smithsonian, Reader’s Digest and American Photo, among others. His lecture tour is in advance of his upcoming ebook “Milky Way Nightscapes, A Guide to Photographing the Starry Night Sky.” Can’t make the lecture? You can order an advance copy of his ebook this month at a discounted price by sending him an email. Details are at the ebook link.
Hope to see you Friday!
Tacoma Mountaineers Photography Exhibition Now Open
Colorful door and window in Taos Pueblo, New Mexico. I took this image last fall on my trip to New Mexico and Utah. It won 1st place in the “World of Man” category at this year’s exhibition.
The 10th Annual Tacoma Mountaineers Photography Exhibition is ongoing at the Tahoma Center Gallery here in Tacoma. The exhibition features 40 jury-selected images from eight photographers, including eight of my images. The exhibition runs through October 31st. The gallery is located at the Catholic Community Service building at 1323 S Yakima Avenue and is open Monday – Wednesday and Friday from 8:00 am to 5 pm, and until 8 pm on Thursday. The exhibition was featured today in the Tacoma News Tribune, including one of my images. You can read that story here.
This Thursday, September 27th, is our photographers reception from 6 – 7:30 pm. Come see some great photography and meet the photographers. Hope to see you there.
What Goes Down, Must Go Up
I previously mentioned that I am working on several personal photo projects. One of those has reached its conclusion. As a member of the Mountaineers, I decided to document the “remodel” of the Tacoma branch’s clubhouse. The remodel involved tearing down the old building, except for a portion of one wall, and then building a whole new structure. Approximately weekly from January through August, I took shots of the clubhouse as it went down and back up again. I’ve made a couple of videos with those shots. The club will be showing them at the Grand Opening of the new facility this coming Thursday. However, I’ve posted them on Vimeo with links here.
Obviously to do a series of shots like this, you want to shoot from exactly the same spot with exactly the same setting every time. I found this is easier said than done. When I shot the images, I took two sets of shots from each vantage point. Using my 24-70mm lens, I shot one set at 24 mm and another set at 28 mm. Additionally, I always used aperture-priority mode with the f-stop at f/11 and ISO at 100. I had the camera on my tripod, and I always set the tripod feet in the same spots.
After taking shots for several weeks, I found I was more successful with the zoom set at 24 mm instead of 28 mm. I found that when I set it at 28 mm, it was difficult to set the lens consistently at 28 mm – sometimes it would up being at 27 mm, sometimes at 29 mm. I suggest if you try the same thing, and use a zoom lens, always set the lens at one end or the other of its zoom range for more consistent results.
Another difficulty resulted from my tripod, which has a ball head. With this tripod head, it was difficult to always get the camera pointed exactly the same direction and angle. I used a bubble level on the hot shoe to help and tried to line the edges of the frame at a consistent spot on the neighboring building. Even so, I found considerable variation between shots taken in different weeks. Consequently, I rotated and cropped each image in Lightroom, attempting to get the orientation exactly the same for each image. I was somewhat successful, the building does “wander” a bit back and forth between images, but it isn’t too objectionable in my opinion. Overall I’m happy with the result.
Mountaineers Photos
Mount Adams and Takalakh Lake, Gifford Pinchot National Forest
I’m the chairman of the Photography Committee of the Tacoma branch of the Mountaineers. The Mountaineers is a western Washington outdoors group dedicated to hiking, climbing, kayaking, and doing most other human-powered activities in the outdoors (including photography). Right now, running through October 31, we are having a photographic exhibition at the Tahoma Center Gallery in Tacoma. The exhibition features 42 photographs selected by a jury (including the six images of mine attached to this blog); all were taken by members of the Tacoma Mountaineers.
Come check it out, there’s some great images there. The gallery is open from 8 to 5 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and from 8 to 8 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The gallery is located at 1323 S Yakima Avenue, Tacoma, Washington in the Catholic Community Services building. We are having a photographers reception on September 15th, from 6:00 – 7:30 p.m. Food and beverages will be served; please come by if you are in Tacoma that night.
The Point Defiance Ferry, Tacoma
Skunk cabbage, Blodel Reserve, Bainbridge Island, Washington
Maple tree, Point Defiance Park, Tacoma
Dahlia, Point Defiance Park, Tacoma
Bare maple tree, Ruston Way, Tacoma
joebeckerphoto 