This is one of my most popular photos among people who've hung my photos in their homes. The "starburst effect" is created by using a relatively small aperture and compensating with the other 2 exposure variables, shutter speed and ISO. For this shot I used a tripod and the night was nearly calm. My aperture was at f/25, ISO 3200, and shutter at 6 seconds. You'll find that effects like this require some trial and error because of the variations in ambient conditions and in the cameras, of which so many now exist. It's the blades of the aperture that cause the effect and each lens has an aperture made specifically for it.

In photography the adjusting of colors to match reality is called White Balancing based on the original technique of using a pure white or pure gray source to establish real colors in developing software such as Photoshop and Lightroom. How do you create the correct white balance for 2 competing light sources, like this scene from the 2019 Tax Executives Institute 75th Anniversary meeting? I do it by separating the elements and adjusting their balance independently before saving the composite as a JPEG. You can also save the layers as a .psd or .tiff file if you plan to do more work on them. In this case separating the image on the screen behind the ladies wasn't difficult in Photoshop. For more complicated images the selection tools available in Photoshop will make most selections pretty straight forward even if consuming more time. In both the Photoshop Camera RAW filter and the developing tool I use most, Lightroom, also from Adobe, the white balance tools change the "color temperature" of the image. That's the first thing I'll try but other tools exist in both applications that will allow fine tuning of the element in question so you can match the look of the main image quite well.

Portrait photography includes editing, like most photography, for the sake of the finished product. In journalism you don't dare do this but for a family portrait, the reflection in the screen behind the 4 of us just had to be quickly removed in any of the available software.

Yes, on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's destructive charge through Southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast on her way to versions of the same in other states, Hurricane Ida made an admirable attempt to duplicate her devastation. Two things combined to make the chaos left by Ida less widespread than what Katrina left. First; Ida took a different path as she slowly weakened over land. Second; our levees and other flood protection have been dramatically improved since 2001. Nevertheless, the term "back to normal" will have varied meanings. For me and mine it will mean the return of drinkable tap water, the repair of some roof damage and the removal of dead tree parts from our property. For others it will mean clinging to a few remaining possessions while trying to rebuild a place to live from the ground up. Some ask why we live here. The answer is the same as for everyone. We live here because of economics, family, familiarity, and climate, not necessarily in that order. On Wednesday, while Ida was ruining and taking lives North of us, we gathered with neighbors and enjoyed a staple of local menus, red beans and rice. It was the first hint of our return to habits and plans. As we plod toward a more mundane life my posts will return to more photographic content. Like our state bird, we live here because it's home.

I serve on the board and often travel with a group of good humans called New Orleans Medical Mission Services. Our mission is to bring medical treatment, equipment, and education to people in other countries who would not otherwise have it. When on these missions I look for any shot that defines and helps us promote our mission, helping to generate more volunteers and funds. My friend and fellow Rotarian, Jennifer Esler, is on the right in this series of pictures. She's a Spanish speaker so she's super helpful when she joins a mission even though, like me, she's a non-medical volunteer. In this sequence I found Jennifer consoling a young mother as she waited for her son to awaken after surgery. the young woman had been through so much stress that she really needed someone to sympathize and listen. Jennifer proved more than up to that task. As I worked on this shot I went through the three stages you see here hoping to convey the helplessness of the young mother and the helpfulness of my friend in this situation. I know that grayscale is often used to mimic drama, but I think it shows how different this hospital, in Guayaquil, Equador, is from those to which we've grown accustomed in the USA. Finding compassion, like up-to-date medical care, is difficult.

When my friends learned that I'd be flying to Dallas to shoot the annual Smoothie King Franchisee convention, the consensus was that I'd be enjoying unlimited smoothies the entire 3 days. That's not how it turned out. Shooting the Smoothie King franchisee meeting means I'll be shooting all the expected elements of a convention you'd expect except a parade, which is often included when conventions are in New Orleans. Smoothie King's V.P. of Training Education, Katherine Meariman, puts together a very complete set of varied experiences including a casual party with family oriented games and food on the first night and a dance party with a great cover band on the second night. It's a great challenge and, actually, a bunch of fun. By the time I finish shooting the exhibits, the last activity on day 3, I'm ready for a nap. Oh yes; the only sample smoothie available was a sample from the exhibits of a new flavor you can expect to see in the coming months with a great orange flavor and which is intended to help support your immune system.

To freeze a moving thing clearly in your photograph you must simply use a shutter speed fast enough that the object will not have time to move noticeably while the shutter is open. As an example; if you were shooting some kids playing, running and jumping, a shutter duration of 1/500 of a second would probably be enough. To freeze that golf ball that's just been launched by Fred Funk in the photograph below I used a shutter speed of 1/4000 of a second. I wasn't at all sure what I would need and I was told that asking Mr. Funk to do that again so I could try another exposure would be really bad. As you can see, the sun shone brightly so I could compensate for the lightning fast shutter speed with my f-stop and ISO. Fred Funk at the 2011 Zurich classic, shot for the Fore Kids Foundation.

Photographers have been practicing physical distancing for a long time. We do it so we can shoot the center of everyone's attention without becoming the center of attention. If you're reading this you're probably well aware of the capabilities of modern telephoto lenses. I, however, still like to show off what my lenses, Canon's world famous "L" series, can do. This shot of Peyton Manning was made as he delivered a keynote address in 2017. The camera is the Canon's 50mp, EOS 5Ds. The lens is Canon's EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM. I was shooting from (I think) about 15 ft. at 55mm. With this equipment I can get a good closeup shot while staying in the shadows. Peyton Manning delivers a keynote speech to the Aclara company convention in 2017

I'm as ready as anyone to ease back toward a more normal existence. I think it can be done rather easily for a photographer with the use of some long lenses and a little PPE. With telephoto lenses and a good tripod there's no need to get within 6 ft. of any subject. Add a face mask and eye protection and all we need is for the people around us to stay a responsible distance away. In my experience that's the difficult part. People who don't wear masks want to get close to everyone and seem not to recognize that the person wearing the mask really takes this virus seriously and fears infection. When that happens I try to be polite when I say "Please stay back." If they scoff, I've been scoffed at by the best scoffers. No problem. This is my ad aimed at meeting planners.

Since ancient times every photographer has struggled with separating a full head of hair, with lots of fine strands sticking out, from a background. Like many photographers, I've been using Adobe products for what seems like centuries and I've marveled at the advances they've made in making such separations. Well Erma Gerd reports that the latest update to Adobe Photoshop brings a truly giant leap for photographer-kind in separations. Using only the "select subject" command I made the separations you see below that, last week, would've taken me 20-30 min. of trying to find the best combination of settings in "select and mask" and then settling for something that lost about 15% of the hair. Selecting a blonde head on a white background was the worst. If you're an Adobe Photoshop user and haven't checked out this latest update, issued this week, you're in for a few moments of happiness. Pick your most challenging hair selection possibility and see what happens when you use "select subject". This selection was made using only the "select subject" command in Adobe Photoshop.

I the photo below, shown within Adobe Photoshop 2020, I found the ground area to be a little dark and the sky to be a bit washed out with brightness. One way to get the exposure you want in a scene like this is to put the camera on a tripod and shoot 2 identical shots, one exposed for the peeps on the ground and one exposed for the sky. The first reason I didn't do it that was was that the peeps on the ground were not holding still. The second reason is that I knew I could balance the brightness in developing, another reason to shoot RAW files. I might have used a targeted adjustment brush in Lightroom to get more detail and a deeper blue in the sky while bringing detail out of the shadowed area on the ground. I chose to do the same in Photoshop after making a "virtual Copy" in Lightroom. In the screen grab below you'll see 2 layers in the layers panel and the white rectangle of a layer mask in the top layer. I adjusted the lower layer to get the sky I wanted and then, using a brush painting black, removed the mask over the sky from the top layer. I think the resulting image looks about like what the human eye would see. This is the late afternoon crowd at the New Orleans Greek Festival in 2015.

Those sliders in developing software can turn a young person old or turn a new photo into an old photo, visually speaking. A photographer can do so much more with any given photo today than when I was shooting film that I don't think you could accurately put a numerical value on the change, such as, "We can to 200% more with a photo today." The method is completely different and the key fact is that you can always go back and start over. Adobe likes to say that their tools are "non-destructive" but you never destroy your original unless you delete it or save something with exactly the same name in exactly the same location. This video is just me having fun to provide some examples. I've used the sliders in Adobe Lightroom Classic and those in an adjustment brush to make changes that I really hope this lovely lady never sees.