Photopills: Absolutely Great

I have had the Photopills App for at least two years, and I have used various features of it (by the way, it is an app that is jammed packed with features and information; it really is the only app you need if you are a photographer, hands down). But I was somewhat intimidated on the more involved and powerful aspects of it, namely locating the Milky Way, Moon, and Sun based on certain geographical locations and times. So, I never used these more powerful features.

I finally relented and figured out how to use them by viewing the creative videos that Photopills has on its website. I was blown away at what I could accomplish with this tool (especially how I underutilized it).

My scouting schedule for trying to set up different photo shots for foreground and astronomical events ( e.g., moon, milky way) was accurately filled in for the next year, and gave me a definite schedule for shooting potentially great shots.

The currently posted photo is a serendipitous shot of part of St. Francis Basilica in Assisi, Italy at sunset time. The colors of this part of Italy are unique, and I had wished that I could have captured more of them. But I will have to wait for more magical moments in the future, especially if St. Francis grants this prayer. The photo was taken with a Canon 5DS, EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM @ 105mm, f/10, 1/320″, post processed with ACR, DxO PhotoLab2, Color Efex Pro, and using a Gradient Map.

Calm Within Chaos

The visions of my visit to Venice in the fall of 2018 still haunt me. There are so many moments which live in my visual memory that I was unable to give substance to as far as a concrete photograph. Maybe this is the intentionality that was spoken of in philosophy of previous decades. That is, my mind intending and capturing the world (or object thereof) and trying to give meaning or form or some kind of representation to it. In other words, to capture this reality in some concrete form that the mind perceives in so-called immaterial ideas.

The above tries to describe the process of me trying to take a photo of a unique experience and then translating this into a printed form, viz. photograph. The great photographers have successfully accomplished this process from what their mind’s eye has seen to what exists in their photographs. Every other aspiring great photographer is trying to imitate this process.

Venice was so unique and visually stimulating that it leaves one overwhelmed.

When in Venice I attempted to accommodate myself to its challenges, namely time of day, crowds, time pressure, unfamiliarity of surroundings. In other words, hit or miss “tourist photography.”

The posted photo provides somewhat of a counterpoint to the maddening crowd of Venice. That is, the quiet and calm of one of the finest hotels in Venice, Hotel Danieli. The hotel exists in the heart of the most intense tourist activity of Venice, i.e. right off the Riva degli Schiavoni.

[As an aside to my above post, I must note that in viewing one of Kelbyone.com videos, I was struck by the fact that it was filmed at the Hotel Danieli. Be that as it may, it is nice to know that my membership fee in KelbyOne pays for this type of corporate benefit.]

In any event, I am pleased to a degree that I was able to capture Calm within Chaos in Venice.

The posted photo was taken with a Canon 5Ds, with a EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens @ 24mm, f/6.3, Exposure Compensation -1.33, 1/50″, 6400 ISO, post processed with DxO Photolab 2, ACR, DxO Nik2018 Viveza 2, and a Gradient Map.

The Allure of Venice

While I still have not discarded the regret of not capturing my pre-trip imagined images that I would have taken (and, did not), I’ve come to the realization that that goal was quite difficult to achieve. Let me explain. The Italy trip that I had taken proceeded from northern Italy (Lake Como) to southern Italy (Sorrento) with intermediate stops in Verona, Venice, Ferrara, Florence, Siena, Montepulciano, Assisi, and Rome. All of this occurred within 14 days. On hindsight, this is a lot of geography packed into a short time period. Couple this with the fact that this was not a dedicated photo shoot(s), but a tour of over 30+ people with other interests other than photography.

What the above tells me is that this recent trip was essentially a scouting vacation which exposed and allowed me to be able to zero in on future trip(s) to more adequately capture the spirit of Italian Wonder.

One of those future trip(s) definitely would be Venice, with Florence, Assisi, and Rome not far behind. Also, let’s not forget Positano, as well as, Puglia. All of this is a great segway to the fact that Italy runs deep and true in its beauty and soul.

Venice, though, is the most visibly obvious example of Italian uniqueness and beauty. There is a draw and enchanting allure that defies expression. For myself, I want to explore and discover that vacuous spirit which seems to linger and then vanishes. I want to capture its uniqueness and passing presence.

The currently posted shot of Venice was taken with a Canon 5DS, using a EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens @ 47mm, f/8.0 1/5″, -0.67 exposure compensation, 100 ISO, post processed with Adobe Camera Raw, Photoshop CC using a Gradient Map, DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 2018.

Restoring Equilibrium

The spirit of creativity had left me lingering after my immersion into the Italy culture and countryside. This, by the way, was not due to Italy itself, but to the lack of trying to capture my experiences visually. I felt that I had not accomplished what I wanted. I have been trying to overcome the aftermath of this failure to feel fulfillment in the Italian adventure in my prints, and I believe I may be on my way to shaking this ghost.

Many time during the Italy vacation I used my iPhone SE simply because it was near at hand and less cumbersome than my SLR camera. I must say that compositionally and spirit-wise the iPhone SE captured the moment better than the SLR.

The currently post photo of a night street scene in Rome is an example of capturing the Italian moment, as it were. The shot was taken with an Apple iPhone SE, post processed with DxO Optics Pro 11, Adobe camera Raw, Photoshop CC, a Gradient Map and a PS filter Diffusion Glow.

Pieces & Piecing It Together

It’s been over three months from my epic tour of Italy where I took over 2700 photos. That tour or at least the photographic part of it has been haunting me through that whole time frame. Despite my pre-trip preparations and setting up shooting strategies, I must say that they proved not to be that effective. Was it the strategy, my implementation of that strategy, or other forces that made the shooting aspect less than optimal in its results is hard to say.

I’ve gained some perspective over the three months of processing and thinking about the photos I had taken, and while initially I was quite despondent regarding my results, I have come to see that, in reality, I probably could not have done any better considering the circumstances of trying to shoot “professionally” in a less than optimal environment.

What I am trying to say is that I have had the task over the last few months of shifting through the hundreds of photos I’d taken, and evaluating them more microscopically, as it were. What I discovered is that many times my approach and composition of shots were great, but the ever constant out of focus or blur was present. I anticipated the possibility of these types of circumstances (where I might be rushed in places with new and different lighting situations) and try to compensate for this. My so-called anticipated solution to solve this potential problem was to shoot in manual mode, setting a high shutter speed with an aperture that I could quickly adjust for low light vs high light, and then simply put the ISO on automatic. For some reason(s) this often failed me. I probably would have more keepers if I had used the strategy of using Automatic Mode.

The above being said, I managed to have some success, but not with out working in post-processing to get it. Thus, the above title to this post, Pieces & Piecing It Together. The bright side to this current phase of less than optimal in-camera shots was that I was forced to beef up on my post processing skills. Personally, I much rather get it right in the camera, first.

The current photo to this post is that of wallpaper at the Villa Carlotta on Lake Como, Italy. The Villa was a most wonderful place with artisan craftsmanship throughout. The wallpaper had embroidery type details to cover the seams. There were several types of these embroideries in various room. For this photo I compiled three of them to maximize the effect they produced from viewing them in situ. The photos was taken with a Canon 5DS, EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM @ 65mm, f/5.6, 1/100″, -0.33 Exposure Compensation, ISO 6400, post processed with DxO PhotoLab, Adobe Camera Raw, Photoshop CC, and Color Efex Pro.