It is becoming clearer what I’m using this blog for. Today it is an ‘outboard brain’. By that I mean a place to store information and links that I need to refer to in the future. I hope this blog evolves into other uses but I’m satisfied so far.

Today ‘outboard brain’ entry is from Eric Jeschke over at gimpguru.org. If you are a gimp user, gimpguru.org is full of tutorials on digital photography processing. The tutorial that caught my attention this morning is on creating a neutral density filter mask in order to hold back highlights.

This is a fun link to a map of the Apollo Lunar Landings. Reminds me of an old environmentalist aphorism "Map Earth now, we'll get to the other planets later." Cute "Easter egg" when you zoom all the way in.

The photography contained within my "Cambridge in Colour" collection is from in and around Cambridge University in the England. Cambridge is uniquely scenic, however in low-light it comes alive with a moody atmosphere that brings out its charm and character...

Microsoft enter the fray with 'Virtual Earth'. This looks like it will give Goggle Maps some stiff competition. For all of us map phreaks, this is like main-lining the good stuff. Hours of enjoyment ahead.

Palouse waves at sunset.

Last week, I got the opportunity to go for an evening flight over the Palouse. It was fun and I got a couple of good shots. A couple of things to remember when shooting from an airplane.

1. Some planes have tinted windows. Using a polarizing filter will exacerbate this. If this is the case, shooting opposite the sun can help.
2. Shooting at sunset will require a low shutter speed and high iso. This is a problem when the air is rough. Fortunately this flight was very calm.
3. Moving around in a small plane to get into position for a shoot make you more clumsy that usual so having a row of seats to your self is helpful.

Here is the list of my current favorite photography podcast programs.

Podcasts are time-shifted audio programs. Another way to think of it is to equate podcasting with Tivo®, as in Tivo® for radio. Most of the best are amateur productions. No need to have an iPod®, any mp3 player will work and you can even listen at your computer. To get the whole scoop on podcasting check this Wikipedia link. Over the next few days I’ll post more of my favorites from other categories.

Photography Programs

• Lens Work - Brooks Jenson - Brooks produces a frequent short commentary on the art, business or philosophy of being a fine art photographer.
• Media Artist Secrets - Franklin McMahon - Franklin is a multi-media artist with tons of infectious energy. He gives business oriented advise.
• Tips from the top floor - Chris Marquardt - Chris has a polished production and focuses mostly on the beginning and intermediate photographer but always has a nugget or two for everyone.
• Nikonians News - The Nikonians Team- Interviews of professional photographers, not entirely focused on Nikons.
• Secrets of Digital Imaging - Dennis Hays- Dennis produces a podcast that is more technical than the others. He provides software and hardware advice.

Here is a cool free image source that contains high quality agricultural photographs, some even of the Palouse. This branch of our government has made available over 2000 images for direct download. These images are in 4 size - (72dpi) for web use: thumbnail (1.5"), medium (3.5"), and large (8.89") & high-resolution (300dpi) digital images. Simply copy the desired image in the size needed from your browser.

The Image Gallery is provided as a complimentary source of high quality digital photographs available from the Agricultural Research Service Information Staff...

Capital Community College Foundation has a good site on Grammar and Writing which contains a very intensive guide from word and sentence, paragraph to essay and research paper level for grammar and writing...

Poor Color Correction. . . . . . . . . . . .Better Color Correction

Setting your monitor to display images with the correct color, brightness, contrast and gamma is important. You want others to see the images as you see them. I have been having problems setting my monitor to the correct color bit depth and today finally updated my video driver. What a difference! Several of the images I’ve digitally ‘processed’ have color balance problems. Updating the video drivers won’t magically fix everything. I have discovered some valuable resources on the network that I’d like to share.

Somehow, yesterday I got pointed to an article on Linux.com’s website that explains just how easy it is to calibrate your monitor in a Linux environment. Exploring that process lead me to Norman Koren’s highly technical but very useful site. Norman is a fantastic photographer and freely shares his knowledge and experience with digital photography. He comes from a film/scanning background and obviously has a deep understanding of digital color correction. Norman is one of the few photographers that seems to be operating system agnostic. He provides information on PC, PPC and Linux. This is useful no matter which computing paltform you use. He pointed me to a great little Linux utility for calibrating monitor gamma called Monica. There is a lot to explore on Noman’s site.

Click here to see more images.

This last Sunday I got yet another opportunity to photograph the crew from Fountain Inc. spraying my neighbor’s lentil crop. With quicker than usual reactions I got the chance to use two different locations for this shoot. As you can see from the images from this shoot, the cloud cover was near 100% and I think this helped the images. Also I was able to stay well away from the spray and drift zone of the aerial application of whatever he was applying. I now have a fair collection of shoots and I continue to look for opportunities to try again and get that shot I have in my mind’s eye.