William Henry Jackson

We are to create a PowerPoint presentation on a photographer of our choosing.  I probably could have named only two or three mainstream photographers.  So I looked around a little, and I decided the work and contributions by William Henry Jackson could be an engaging topic.

Jackson, circa 1870's (on left) and later in his career, circa late 1920's or early '30s (on right).

Jackson's life spanned nearly a century, incorporating:

• his passion for photography (the focal point of my PowerPoint presentation)
• publishing
• artistic talents
• veteran of the American Civil War (Union)
• Hollywood film advisor

Old Faithful, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

Before Jackson began his work taking pictures for the United States government, the photo above was simply a hot springs geyser in a very unexplored area of the U.S.  Now we know it as Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park.  It was photos like these, shot while Jackson was out on survey teams that helped encourage Congress to establish our first National Parks.

Jackson's work took him throughout the relatively unexplored West, but it did not end there.  Travels took him all around the United States and to different continents.

High Bridge and Washington Bridge over the Harlem River

I look forward to learning more about William Henry Jackson and his work. My passion for landscape photography and especially that surrounding our National Parks and the American West, makes me feel like he will be a great topic for my PowerPoint presentation.

Denver's 5 Points section of town

J210 Unit 3 Name on Canvas Project

For this portion of our photo assignments in Unit 3, we were to take photos of objects to create our "name" out of them.  Each of the photos were shot individually and enhanced using PhotoShop.  Standard, consistent enhancements included adjustments for brightness and contrast, saturation, and lightness.  Cropping and image size adjustment were performed to ensure they "filled" the frame, and were a standard 5" tall for consistency, making it easier to "join" them together.

A new project was created in PhotoShop, with a canvas large enough to group all five of my pictures/ letters into it, with some spacing around everything for the background.  I simply moved the enhanced photos into the new project, changed the background to the red, flattened the layers, and saved the photo as a new, single image.

Each of the letters that I took a picture of were something related to my life.

• C -- I enjoy my video games. Always have since the days of the Atari 2600.
• H -- A valet that was my grandpa's and my dad's, passed down to me.
• R -- A library table that was my grandma's, passed onto my mom.
• I -- Dad taught me how to play chess when I was probably about 8 years old.
• S -- It's great to be a Parrothead.

And the result....

J210 Unit 3 Enhancing an Indoor Photo

This is Dash.  I told my friends I needed to exploit him for homework.  The homework being, an indoor shot taken without flash, and then enhance the lighting.  Below is the original picture before any editing.

 I went ahead using PhotoShop to adjust brightness (an increase) and contrast (very minor increase).  I increased saturation a few ticks, and cropped some of my buddy Sean's gut out of the picture to finish it off.  I like the lighting around the collar and I think the adjustments really show around Dash's eyes too.  Below is the edited photo.

J210 Unit 3 Enhancing an Outdoor Photo

For this portion of Unit 3, we were to take a well-composed outdoor picture and enhance it by making the colors "pop".  In the below photo, I was standing in the tee box on the fifth hole, "Desert", at the Royal Portrush Golf Club in Portrush, Northern Ireland.  All of the holes on the golf course provided similar photo ops, due to the links-style setting (a very natural, coastal dunes, rolling environment)

Hole 5 "Desert" at the Royal Portrush Golf Club, County Antrim, Northern Ireland

After importing this to PhotoShop, I made a few simple adjustments to enhance the vibrancy of the colors, the lighting, and the scope of the image as follows:

• An increase in the saturation across the picture
• A decrease in the lightness of the photo across the picture
• An increase in vibrancy across the picture
• A small cropping of the tee box from the bottom of the photo

Below, you can see the enhanced version of the picture.  I feel it really helps to bring out all the different "greens" that they are known for in Ireland, without appearing manufactured.  Really.  It is that green over there, everywhere.

UW Badgers' Fans Under the Lights

No assignment here.  Just thought I would share a picture I shot while at a football game last Saturday.  Something, sadly, that IPFW appears to not be working toward at all.

I have been carrying my camera quite a few places since class started.  I wasn't sure I wanted to bring it into the Wisconsin--Nebraska football game.  I wasn't even sure I wanted to bring it out of the house, knowing we were tailgating for almost 10 hours.  A lot of destructive stuff can happen that time in that atmosphere.  But I decided to go for it, and I was glad I did.

The below photo has been enhanced with PhotoShop.  I thought that might bring out the colors better in the beatdown that the Wisconsin Badgers put on Nebraska for their official "Welcome to the B1G Ten" game.

Unit 2 Completed

I just wanted to express my own confusion (a state I try to avoid) as Unit 2 wrapped up yesterday.  Almost the entire class (I didn't check to see if it was all of us) did the Unit 3 discussions which weren't due until October 16th.

Did we all just work fervently ahead?  I sincerely doubt this.  One or two people posted to the discussions, and soon we all started doing it, myself included.  It says "Unit 3" right on them.  We all have a calendar and syllabus telling us dates these assignments are due.  And it appears we all just ignored that, panicked, and got our discussions in a good two weeks early.

I'm sure there is a sociological study somewhere in this on group mentality.  And, at least we all find ourselves slightly ahead of the homework for a short while.