Fall and Winter Photography Classes

It’s time to talk about my upcoming fall and winter photography classes and workshops.  This year the planning has been affected by my very hectic and over booked summer, including various travels, getting our son moved into a new apartment in NYC and our daughter into her new house in Medford Mass (in anticipation of the October arrival of our first grandchild !!).  Also, I am preparing for the Annual Art in the Park which is coming up this weekend at the Ashuelot River Park in Keene. 

Finally, my I’m packing for and exciting trip touring Ireland with a group of dear friends and, since I will be away for a few weeks, I wanted to get the information out, before I left.  While away I hope to have at least spotty email to answer questions and get people on the lists. 

Again, I will be offering my Introduction to Digital Photography class this autumn along with my annual Fall Foliage Photography Weekend Workshop.  My Introduction to Adobe Lightroom Classic will be coming up in March, in hopes of avoiding the worst of the winter storms.   Here are some details

So, here is what is coming and please let me know if you have a comments or suggestions for future programs.

Hope to see you soon.

Introduction to Digital Photography

Sponsored by Keene Community Education

·         Date: Oct. 29 to Nov. 19, Tue.,

·         Time: 6-8pm (8 hrs.)

·         Location: Room 326 at KHS

Keene High School

My introductory class on digital photography has evolved over the years as I have tried to find better ways to inform and excite students about the amazing capabilities of digital cameras.  The course includes 4 two hour classes and two photo shoots. I cover a wide range of topics from understanding the differences in camera types, to image file formats, file management and archiving. Special emphasis is placed on exposure, composition and the use of different types of light.  All these topics are applied to the results of the photo shoots.  This class always fills very quickly, so sign up early at :

https://www.keenecommunityed.org/classes/digital-photography-intro/

Contact Email Erin White at ewhite@sau29.org  for more information

Introduction to Digital Photography, Online Syllabus

Sorry, for health reasons, I have to cancel this year's Foliage Workshop

Fall Foliage Workshop Weekend

October 18th – 20^th, 2019

Monadnock Region and Southern Vermont

This autumn, I will again be offering my Fall Foliage Weekend Workshop.   I will be following the same format that seemed to work well over the last several years.  Again, I picked the weekend after the Columbus Day weekend craziness.  It is an opportunity to see great color without the same crowds that typically congest our beautiful countryside.  Our base of operations will be around my dining room table in Spofford, NH.  I will host the participants at my home on Friday evening for snacks and a discussion about photography in general, and the specific opportunities and challenges of foliage photography.  It will also be time to plan the shooting for all day Saturday and Sunday morning.  

Saturday, we will head out early to explore as many different locations as possible.  My goal. Will be to place the group in beautiful locations and then help them get the most from the opportunities. Depending on the state of the color we may travel west to some of my favorite locations in southern Vermont, such as Guilford and the magic village of Green River, or we may explore the hills and farm around the Monadnock region and my own village of Chesterfield.

In the evening, we will return to the dining room table for an informal dinner of pizza and some gentle critiquing of the day’s shoot.

We will head out again Sunday morning for more of our exploration of color, and I will finally let people go around noon. I promise you will come away exhausted but thrilled with the experience.  I look forward to sharing my love for photography in this special time of year. 

The three-day program is $195, including the delicious snacks and an elegant pizza dinner.  Please get in touch soon, by email or phone, to assure your place in the workshop. If you are coming from outside of the area, I can send you a list of some the best local accomodations.

• 2018 Fall Foliage Workshop
• 2017 Fall Foliage Workshop
• 2016 Fall Foliage Workshop

jeffn49@myfairpoint.net

603-363-8338  

Introduction to Lightroom Classic – AND the Transition to Photoshop

Six Tuesday Evenings March 3^rd  through April 7^th, 2020

? Monadnock Imaging, Main Street Keene New Hampshire

For the last couple of years, Monadnock Imaging has provided facilities for my classes, but I haven’t been able to confirm that the store will still be available after their business transition.  The alternate site will be around my comfortable dining room table in Spofford.

I am a dedicated long-term user of Photoshop, but over the last few years I have become increasingly impressed with the power of Lightroom, in terms of both its image management tools and its sophisticated editing capabilities.  I still bring almost all my images into Photoshop for final tweaking, especially when complicated masking is required, but I now use Lightroom for 80-90% of my global editing.  Given its power and ease of use, for the majority of digital photography enthusiasts, Lightroom is likely all they will need to get started with image management and editing.

 During the last couple of years., I have offered a comprehensive introductory course covering all the essentials of Lightroom.  I run the class as a live demonstration.  Students are encouraged to work along on their own laptops, but a computer is not necessary to benefit from the material.   I’ve had a great time and, as is always true of teaching a course, I have learned a ton. Over the last couple of years Lightroom has evolved and grown, with increased capabilities, and I have worked to keep up with the changes.  

Recently Adobe has complicated our lives by splitting the Lightroom Program in two.  There are many good discussions of the differences between these very different programs, but simply speaking, the new Lightroom CC is an entirely new cloud-based program.  With a simpler interface, but significantly pared down capabilities.  It is designed for more casual photographers, and those who work primarily through a mobile interface.  For more serious photographers who store larger image archives locally on hard drives and who want to use the full features of the “old” Lightroom, the new program has no significant place. 

For me and most serious photographers, the “new” choice is called “Lightroom Classic”.  It sounds disconcertingly like the old “Coke Classic”, but Lightroom Classic is just the old Lightroom CC with all the amazing features and functions and a few new tricks.  This split seems to be designed to create a simpler path for mobile, and other smart phone photographers, without stripping the power of the “Classic” Lightroom program.  Adobe promises to keep up with innovation on both versions of Lightroom.  We will be watching.

If you, like many, are still confused, just know that the CC and Classic versions are both included among the options in the Adobe Photography Subscription Plan, and still for $9.99/month.  

My course will be covering the full power of the Lightroom Classic Program.

I initially thought that that four, two-hour classes would be enough to cover the program's many features, but because of my tendency to ramble and lots of great questions, I subsequently added a fifth class to cover the Slide Show, Book and Web Modules.

A Sixth Class

Lightroom is a great program which covers most organizing and editing needs of the majority of photography enthusiasts, but there are many aspects of fine tuning that can be performed best from within the scary confines of Photoshop.  My Lightroom students frequently ask, “When are you going to do a course on Photoshop?”.  The prospect of trying to organize a comprehensive course on this massive program scares me to death.  But perhaps an easier approach is to take a smaller bite of the pie.  Some time ago I added a fifth class to my Lightroom course and last year I added a sixth session.

In this additional session I focused on the transition from Lightroom to Photoshop.  Starting with pictures which have been optimally edited in Lightroom, I will again examine some of the important ways that Photoshop can refine those images using more precise selections, layers and compositing.  Consider it a chance to dangle your toes in the ocean of possibilities that is Photoshop, but for many who already own Photoshop as part of the Adobe Photography Plan, it can be an encouragement to take the plunge.

There will be. not five, but six, two-hour, evening sessions, and of course, snacks will be provided. The expanded course will be $225.  Please get in touch by phone or email as soon as possible to reserve your spot on the list.

Stay tuned for this coming spring’s offerings including the Spring Waterfall Weekend Workshop, my Introduction to Digital Photography Course.

Jeffrey Newcomer

www.partridgebrookreflections.com

jeffn49@myfairpoint.net

603-363-8338  

2018 Fall Foliage Workshop

Green River above the Village

Exploring Opportunities 

This last week I have been struggling to work through images from this year’s Fall Foliage Workshop.  The pressure has been relaxed by all the great pictures that my group has already posted to public media.  I have been amazed by the variety and quality of the work. 

Dan Shooting in the Rain 

West Guilford Valley, Vermont

In past years I have recounted a chronological story of the weekend, from our departure early Saturday morning to the reluctant wrap-up around noon on Sunday, but this time I thought I might organize things a bit differently.  Our workshop included a wide range of opportunities, and challenges across the two days and this seems like a good way to share something about the experience. 

Weather: It’s always about the weather

Barn in the Rain, Chesterfield

Saturday morning started over-cast with intermittent showers.  The rain gave me a chance to discuss methods of protecting the gear from the wet, while taking advantage of the special light.  I tried to convince everyone that cloudy conditions were often the best to capture the fully saturated colors of fall foliage, and I was happy to see everyone adapt to the conditions.  

Green River Falls, 16 seconds with ND

We shot on the back roads of Chesterfield New Hampshire and up to the remarkable Roads End horse farm, but much of our day was spent in Vermont.   With many stops, we worked our way to the classic village of Green River in Guilford Vermont.  Within a compact location, Green River provides an arrangement of almost everything which makes an iconic New England village icon; a waterfall, a covered bridge, a white church and more.   Everyone found their own approach.   I had the opportunity to demonstrate the use of a neutral density filter to soften the waterfall and create leaf swirls in the pond below.

Reach Maple, Guilford Vt

As the day progressed, the rain thinned, and we saw some sun, but the clouds were never very far from view.  We had more sun on Sunday which allowed us to appreciate the value of a polarizing filter and the dramatic effect of strong back-lighting.

The Group, Precious Monadnock View

Flowing Water

Broad Brook, Guilford Vt

I am always enthusiastic about shooting flowing water in all its manifestations and the recent rain, provided several opportunities on Saturday.  Brooks and rivers tend to open gaps in the trees allowing light to penetrate, highlighting the color of the foliage and creating contrast with the dark blue water.  We found beautiful views at a couple of locations on Broad Brook, and along the Green River in Guilford Vermont.  Of course, the falls over the wood crib dam in Green River provided many different opportunities to capture the flow at various shutter speed

Sherman's Pasture Jaffrey NH

 

The Human Touch

Shack ion the Woods, Marlborough NH

Our corner of New England is known for its pristine farms and, as always, we found that the autumn colors contrasted nicely with lovely barns, sugar shacks and farming equipment.  The trick was to allow the color to comfortably envelop the human touches.  On Sunday, we completed our tour with a visit to Jaffrey where the streets were lined with hundreds of scarecrows.  The “Scarecrows on the Common” is just part of a family-oriented autumn celebration which included face painting, hayrides and somethings called a “Donut Dash”.

Jaffrey Scarecrows

Animals

There always must be animals.  Horses, sheep, goats, and cows, we found lots of opportunities to capture farm animals.  The remarkable thing is how oblivious these creatures are to the spectacular colors which are all around.  The trick is to get the critters to stop paying attention to the mass of photographers and return to doing “critter” stuff.  It usually just took patience.

Chat Break

Everything Else

Not all the attractions of our workshop fell into neat categories.  It is Autumn and sometimes things where just plain beautiful.   What is not captured in the images is the great fun that we had chatting, often about photography, and sometimes about nothing vaguely related to photography.  Frequently I had to break off the conversations and suggest that we might want to take a few pictures!  

I have more of my own images to process, but much of my time was spent helping the group find great locations and then get the most from their expensive equipment.  From all that I’ve seen so far, the group took LOTS of great pictures!

I am continuing to add pictures to my
2018 Fall Foliage Workshop Gallery

Check it out.

Jeff Newcomer, NEPG

www.partridgebrookreflections.com

Foliage Scouting

Red Bend, Guilford Vermont

Green River Falls, Guilford Vermont

I’ve completed my Fall Foliage Weekend Workshop for another year.  This is the third annual event and as always it was beautiful, exciting, and exhausting.  I’ll assemble pictures from the Saturday and Sunday shooting for a future blog, but, for me, the workshop extends beyond the time spent with my group over the weekend.  Every year the colors vary, and every year I spend several days prior to the weekend scouting for the best colors and locations.  

Jelly Mill Cascade, Guilford Vermont

Within southern Vermont and the Monadnock region I have my favorite spots.  I love taking the group through Vermont to Guilford and especially the quintessential New England village of Green River. 

I usually tour Vermont on Saturday and then discover opportunities around Mount Monadnock on Sunday.  All these plans are dependent on the state of the color, and this year I had the joy of doing my own wandering through the back roads before the big weekend. 

  

I include here a brief collection of some of the images I gathered along the way.  During my workshops I do some shooting, but much of my time is spent working with the participants to get the best images possible.  The good news is that, by the end, the group is much more comfortable using their equipment and finding their own unique vision.  They have less need for my hovering attentions.  This gives me a little time to shoot on my own, but it is during the days of scouting that I have the most time to capture my own images.

Scouting

The Week of Scouting 

Miniwawa Brook, Keene

On Monday I explored locations north of Keene, including Surry and Walpole.  Conditions were overcast, but I found friendly cows and a classic sugar shack.  Tuesday was devoted to my last class for my Introduction to Digital Photography Course.  I had a great group of students who were excited to learn about the opportunities of digital imaging.

Walpole Sugar Shack

To Vermont

Marshmallow Pasture

On Wednesday, I spent much of my time in Vermont driving through Guilford, checking out the fields of “Marshmallows”, and colorful Broad Brook on my way to magical Green River. 

Broad Brook

I was encouraged by the state of the color and the flow in the streams.  I have visited Green River many times.  I always find the experience magical, but I still get confused by the roads that intersect at the covered bridge.  Once again, I managed to get a bit lost.  Getting lost is always a great way to find new and interesting shots, but it is not what you want to do while leading a workshop.  I was glad to get rid of my befuddlement before the weekend. 

East Branch of the North River, Halifax Vermont

The Rain

Thursday the rains came and with the damp came the worry that the foliage would be washed away.  I think there was some increase in the drops, but fortunately there was little wind and the damage was minimal.  Exploring down Route 124 in Marlborough and Jaffrey, I found the color reasonably holding up.  

Friday was spent getting ready for the evening “meet and greet”, and the slide show around our dining room table.  It was a time to discuss the special challenges and opportunities of autumn photography in various weather.  Everyone seemed to have their equipment together.  We decided to meet at my house at 8 AM ready for our first day of exploration. More on this to come.

The Girls

The time spent searching for color proved to be helpful in planning interesting locations over the weekend and it also gave me the chance to do more of my own autumn shooting. As always I have a pile of images which will keep me busy editing through the dark dismal November stick season.

Fall Foliage Workshop 2018

Jeff Newcomer, NEPG
www.partridgebrookreflections.com

2017 Retrospective

It is January, and therefore, it must be time for some retrospection.  As always, I try to focus my “favorites of the year” on experiences and events rather than trying to agonize over what I might consider to be my best images.

This year had its share of great experiences and photographic opportunities.  In the next two articles I will share a few of the pictures which will always remind me of the beauty and excitement of the past year.  Happily, I have no personal images which would document the tragedies of 2017, the natural disasters, the seemingly endless and totally avoidable string of gun related violence, and, of course the national embarrassment of Donald Trump.

Thank goodness, the beauty of New England continues to provide an island of peace in this increasingly crazy world.

Bird Feeder Photography

Tufted Titmouse

I start with one of my greatest joys year-round, watching the birds that cluster around my bird feeders.  They visit in all seasons and weather but are particularly welcome when they bring color to our drab winter.  Although I continue to insist that I am NOT a birder, I am beginning to identify the many species including: Chickadees, Tufted Titmouse, Downy Woodpecker and Cardinals.  And I love the bird watching that I can do from a comfortable chair in my toasty house!

Cardinal

Our Local Bald Eagles

While I am discussing birds, I must mention the family of eagles which, for many years, has nested across the Connecticut River from Chesterfield.  For several seasons I have enjoyed watching as their chicks matured to active juveniles.  It is great to see these majestic birds, but it is most exciting when I have been able to observe their behaviors.  Last spring, I captured an interesting aggressive interaction, over dominance of the nest, between a juvenile and a parent – the parent won.  Sadly, this winter the bare snag, which has been the location of their nest has fallen into the river.  Hopefully, they have found a new location which will continue to be visible.

Spectacular Winter and Escaping South

I love the winter.  It is one of my favorite seasons for capturing the unique beauty of New England, especially in December and January when the white is fresh and is a welcome relief from the drab brown of the November stick season.  But the winter in New Hampshire is long, and by the time March comes along, the persistent cold, snow and sleet becomes increasingly hard to bare. 

Key West Sunset

This year, Susan and I decided to escape the worst of the season and head south for some much-needed warmth. We loaded a rented mini-van and left on a month-long drive.  Susan scheduled a month long, warmth seeking, tour along the coast, as far south as Key West, planning visits with friends and family along the way.


  We spent the majority of our trip in Florida, mostly exploring both sides of the Everglades and relaxing for five nights in a quiet Key West condo oasis.  Our trip back home included stays with friends and family around Naples on Florida’s west coast, in addition to enjoying the beaches and nature preserves.

Everglades Gator

We had a great trip and I came home with over 4,000 pictures.  Many of the green landscape but mostly of animals, especially a great variety of birds.  Yes, I am a birder now.





For more images, check out my Search for Warmth Gallery

Key West Sunset Aboard the Appledore

We were considering another southern trip this winter, perhaps to New Orleans, but another project has come up to claim our time and money. We decided to stay put and enjoy the full winter experience.

White Egret Gulp, Everglades

Classes

In the last couple of years teaching has become an increasing part of my photographic work.  It seems a natural extension of the wide-ranging topics in my weekly blog.  Teaching has always been a goal, and I’m thrilled that my classes have seemed to be welcome.  

Over this last year I have expanded my offerings to include two sessions of my popular Introduction to Digital Photography Course and two Adobe Lightroom Courses.   

The Introduction to Photography program includes 8 hours of classroom time, and two photo-shoot field trips.  We cover everything from selecting a digital camera, to image file types, archiving, exposure, composition and dealing with different varieties of light. I am amazed at the number of people in our community who are excited to learn about the capabilities of their new digital cameras.  The class keeps filling quickly.

Lightroom around the table

The Lightroom Course includes 5 weekly, 2 hour sessions, during which I cover the essentials of this amazingly capable organizing and editing program for digital images.  For many, it is all that is needed to go from snapshots to works of art.  I had previously hosted my Lightroom classes at home, around our dining room table.  I am currently in the middle of my first class of the year and, given the vagaries of our winter weather, I am offering it in Keene.  Monadnock Imaging on Main Street is generously hosting the sessions.

Mt Washington Valley, Lightroom Panorama

In just a few years teaching has become a prominent part of my photographic work and I suspect that my time spent on the classes and workshops, along with my commitment to this weekly blog will only continue to grow.  If you have any questions, you can always check out my Blog Index, which now categorizes over 400 articles on digital photography in general and New England photography in loving particular.

Photography Workshops

I was excited this year to offer two workshops, one exploring spring waterfalls in our region and the other repeating my Fall Foliage Weekend Workshop.  Workshops are very different from classes with some discussion around the table, but much of the learning coming from dealing with practical issue in the field. 

I scheduled the waterfall workshop for early in the spring when I hoped the streams would be flowing at their maximal rate.  In fact, we had heavy rains prior to the weekend and the falls were all amazing.  Of course, being spring in New England, we had to deal with intermittent showers, but I had a great group that was well prepared and excited by the falling waters.

Porcupine Falls

This year the Foliage Workshop suffered from spotty color and from the fact that it began a day after I returned from our three week trip to Italy.  I somehow struggled through the jet lag, helped along by a very energetic and sympathetic group.  We managed to find some excellent locations and I was impressed with the images that my “kids” captured.

I enjoy the workshop format and will be offering my Waterfall weekend this spring.  Other possibilities for the coming year include a winter workshop and possibly one on night photography. 

That’s it for the first five highlights of 2017.  Next week I will collect a few more.  I may need more than 2 weeks to get this all together.

Jeff Newcomer, NEPG
www.partridgebrookreflections.com