2017 Retrospective Part 3

Bunelleschi's Dome, Duomo, Florence

In this third edition of my 2017 retrospective, I am picking up a few less dramatic loose ends of the year’s activities.   Loose, but nevertheless important parts of my photographic year.  Finally, I will touch on the most exciting part of 2017, both personally and photographically, our family trip to Italy.

Fenway Park

On a good year we will get to Fenway to see the Red Sox several times.  This year it was only once, but we had good seats and a chance to join our daughter Abigail and her boyfriend, now fiancée!!, Grayson.   Before the game, we enjoyed seeing all the team’s kids frolicing on the grass.  It still takes my breath away when I first glimpse the brilliant Fenway green

We had beautiful July weather and, although the sox were not victorious, it was a great time. Photographically I had a chance to use my little Canon SX50HS with its ridiculous 1200mm zoom. At sporting events, I am never sure that my monster DSLR will be allowed into the venue, but my little SX50HS is unobtrusive, and still has that great reach.  Also, its tiny sensor provides a wider depth of field for the action shots.

• I Get My Dose of Fenway

Full Moon Rising

Full Moons provide great opportunities for exposing for the detail in the cratered surface while there is still light in the evening sky.  It is the one time when the bright moon and dark sky do not create impossibly stark contrast.  This year I only got out for one full moonrise.  I planned to catch the early December super moon rising behind the holiday decorated Nubble Lighthouse in York Maine.

Using Photographer’s Ephemeris, I was in the perfect position along the beach south of the light.  Unfortunately, the clouds did not cooperate.  I was only able to see a momentary sliver of moon as it first peaked above the horizon.  It was not yet in the perfect location over the lighthouse, but, zooming in, the reflected sunset light made the moon appear like a golden sunrise.

It was not the perfect result for which I had hoped, but it was still a dramatic shot and a nice trip to the coast, and Susan actually came along for the shoot!

• Making the Most of a Not So Super Moon

Learning Lightroom

The last couple of years has been all about Adobe’s Lightroom.  Lightroom is an amazingly powerful program for managing editing and sharing digital images.  Its database image management system makes it a choice for many professional.  Although Its editing tools are not as robust as those in Photoshop, it is capable enough to meet the needs of most amateurs, and its intuitive workflow makes it much less intimidating to master.

I am now finishing up the fourth offering of my Introduction to Lightroom Course.  The course has been a lot of work, but it is also great fun to share my understanding with so many enthusiastic participants.  Each session has been an opportunity for me to discover more about Lightroom, especially since the program keeps evolving.  Part of the my learning, has been to write blog articles about special aspects of the program, and this year, I have published eight blogs, from the mysteries of the Lightroom Catalog to what’s new in Lightroom CC Classic.

• Sharpening
• Noise Reduction
• Slide Shows
• Lightroom Catalog
• Lightroom Reference Tool
• What’s New in Lightroom CC Classic
• Lightroom to Photoshop, When to Jump
• Ten Favorite Lightroom Shortcuts

Photographic Editing Index

Check out more links to image editing articles in my Blog Index.

Our Villa in Tuscany

Adventures in Italy

Piazza del Campo, Siena

Last autumn, Susan and I explored Italy for a three-week celebration of her birthday.  We traveled to Rome, Florence, Bologna, Lake Como and Venice, but the most magical part was nearly a week sharing a villa with our children and their significant others in the Tuscan countryside.  Beautiful landscapes, great food and even better wine. It was amazing.  After Tuscany the kids followed their own itineraries but still joined us for parts of our explorations of Florence and Bologna.

Gina and Jeremy Florence

Best Family Lunch, Montalcino

Of course, I did bring my camera along and I am only beginning to wade through the 4,000 images.  You can see some in the blog articles and the Italian gallery, but there will be more to see and to write about whenever I can get to it.

Lake Como

• Italy Part Uno, Rome to Tuscany

• Italy Part Duo, Tuscany
• Italy Part Tre, Florence
• Italian Gallery
  
  
  

Bologna Market

Grande Canal Venice

January 2018 Storm

That should be sufficient looking back for now.  When it comes time to review, I am always surprised by how much we have done in a year.  I still have thousands of pictures calling for my attention, but now we must look forward to 2018.  The winter is beautiful and pristine, and Spring is coming!

Jeffrey Newcomer

partridgebrookreflections.com

Image Backup for a Long Journey

       

Out of the Fog, Venice

Tiber Steps, Rome

I have been running about trying to catch whatever is left of this year’s disappointing fall foliage.  I’ve found glimpses of nice late color, but I missed the first half of the season.  I have no right to complain since, while everyone was wondering whether the color would ever come, I was enjoying a perfect three weeks exploring the beauty and history of Italy.  As I struggle to decide whether I should spend my time editing images from our trip or from my increasing pile of foliage pictures, I thought I would take a break and share a little about the challenges of backing up my precious images while on a long trip away from the comforts of my trusty home desktop.

One Dome, St. Peter's, Vatican City

On trips such as our Italian tour, it is my pictures that are my primary souvenirs of the experience.  I also routinely try to collect one coffee mug, a baseball cap.  From Italy, I brought home the mug, but I couldn’t find an appropriate cap.  I observed that Italians don’t generally wear hats, and definitely not baseball caps.  This put extra importance on the pictures.  I’d like to share some of the steps I take to protect (i.e. Back-up) my images, and some of the lessons I continue to learn. It all starts with the camera(s)

Saint Peter's Vatican City

Backup the Camera

Susan on the Wall, San Gimignano

You will have no pictures to backup if you can’t capture the images in the first place. One of my firsts step in preparing for a photography trip (ok, every trip is a photography trip), is to decide how I will back-up my cameras.  I don’t want to be left shooting the coliseum with my iPhone, although many do.  For this trip I backed up my Canon 5D Mark IV with my Mark II body.  This seemed to be a good plan. If my Mark IV suffered a sudden mechanical failure.  All my lenses would work just fine and I would still be shooting full frame.  Time for my first lesson.

Grayson and Cuyler, Cupano Vineyard, Tuscany

Lesson One : Theives don’t just steal camera bodies.

Sunset Together, Tuscany

At some point while walking the dark narrow streets of Florence, it occurred to that my camera might get stolen, and I thought it unlikely that the thief would remove my workhorse 24-105 lens and place it next to my unconscious, bleeding body.  On this trip, I brought my 16-35mm and my old 70-300mm, but neither would be best for the majority of the pictures that I captured.  Throughout Italy, 91% of my images were taken with my 24-105mm.  In case of theft. I would still have my Mark II, and although it is always an interesting challenge to shoot with limited lenses, for many situations, the camera would still be severely crippled. I wouldn’t be totally lost since my second backup was my little Canon G11.  I usually bring the G11 to use in situations where the my massive DSLR might be too clumsy or conspicuous to carry.  The image quality doesn’t come close to my Mark IV or II, but in a pinch, it would serve.

New Light, Tuscan Villa

Asinelli Tower, Bologna

My lesson from this revelation was to plan to equip my backup camera with a capable backup lens.  As it turns out, I am lucky to have a second 24-105 lens.  It’s the one that I drop into a stream a few years back.  Canon did not judge the lens to be repairable, but over time the water has dried leaving only a few imperceptible stains, and happily no mold.  It works well and from now on I will attach it to my 5D Mark II before I throw it into my bag.  Obviously, not everyone will have the good fortune of dropping their camera into a brook, but there are plenty of used and off-brand lenses out there that might be worth considering.  Alternatively, small carry around camera is a good solution.

Street Produce, Bologna

Oh,  and I keep the Mark II in my suitcase away from my other gear.

Am I paranoid?  ABSOLUTELY, but the point is that you should anticipate the possible disasters and plan for their inevitable occurrence.   Of course, if you are ok with recording your once-in-a-lifetime journey with pictures on your smart phone, then you have nothing to worry about.

Image Backup,

No Image Exists Unless It is in Three Places

The old “Three Place” rule is especially important on “Once in a Lifetime Trips”.  For Italy, I backed up twice to memory cards, and then both to a laptop and an external hard drive.  It just occurred to me that five thousand images in four places means I actually came home with twenty thousand images!  It’s all good.

 Memory Cards

Lesson Two : Bring Enough

Lake Como Chop, Como

Memory cards have become increasingly cheap and reliable.  I’m happy that Canon has finally placed two card slots in their newer 5D models and on the trip I saved each image simultaneously to two cards in the camera.  I had enough CF and SD cards to continue this redundancy until I finally had to go to a single card for the last couple of days. The lesson here is that, although memory cards have become extremely reliable, they still could fail, and, if possible, dual recording is a great safety measure.  My personal lesson, is to bring enough cards to get through the entire trip.

Lake Como, Brunate

Laptop

Lesson 3 : Organize your trip images in a separate Lightroom Catalog

Santa Maria della Salute, Venice

I love to review my pictures as I go along on the trip, but the main reason to lug a laptop is to manage the backup to the computer and an external hard drive.  Now that I am a devote Lightroom user, I have learned that my task of moving my images to my desktop at home is made much easier by creating a separate Lightroom Catalog on the trip to organize the images.  At home all I need to do is merge the trip catalog with my main catalog and then, from within Lightroom, move the images over to my desktop storage.  Of course, if you are not using Lightroom, you should structure your backup to work best with you own image management program.

Grand canal Sunset, Venice

External Hard Drive

Lesson 4: Store the Catalog and the Images on the External Hard Drive

Floor Mosaic, Vatican Museum

Over several trips, my daily image upload routine has been to store my special catalog and images to my laptop, but I forgot the rule that Lightroom images should be stored on an external drive and not be allowed to clog the computer.  Since when I get home, I will be moving everything to my desktop, that process is made much easier by keeping both the catalog and the image files on the external drive. On the trip they can still be accessed on the laptop and I will use the laptop as my backup drive while uploading to Lightroom

Getting Home

Towers of San Gimignano, Tuscany

My fiendish plan is complete.  Cards, cards, laptop and external drive, everything is in, not three, but FOUR places.  I can sleep, but there is one final challenge.  All those pixels need to make it home.

While on a trip I usual split my treasures to avoid the chance that a single disaster; lost luggage, stolen camera bag or pick-pocket, could take everything. I typically store my external drive sandwiched among the soft clothing in my suitcase.  The memory cards are in my camera bag and Susan guards the laptop in her backpack.  

One of Many Porticos of Bologna

The flight back is a different matter.  My rule is that I never check my camera gear and I keep at least a couple of copies of my images with me, at all times.  I still carefully pad the hard drive in my luggage, but the laptop and the memory cards stay at my side.  

By now you are certain that I am certifiably paranoid, but think about what you bring back from that once in a lifetime trip.  Besides wonderful memories and that pesky yeast infection, the most important tangible souvenirs will likely be your photographs.  Bring them home safely so that your only physical remembrance won’t be that lonely little coffee mug.

Jeffrey Newcomer
www.partridgebrookreflections.com

Italy Part Uno, Rome to Tuscany

The Vatican Across the Tiber River, Rome

Piazza Trilussa Bubbles, Rome

While preparing for our trip to Italy, friends invariably said, “Italy, I bet you will get some great pictures!”  My snotty response was usually, “I hadn’t thought of that.  Perhaps I should bring my camera.”  Funny- I seemed to have fewer friends.

Abby, Karry, Cuy and Grayson, Tuscan Sunset

We are now about ten days into our three-week tour, and sadly approaching the end of our six days sharing an idyllic hilltop villa in Tuscany.  We are sharing the house with our children, their significant others and friends.  We have been so busy, dawn to bed, that I have had almost no time to process the over 2000 images (so far) nor to write about our experiences.  This evening, I am sitting on our veranda, sipping an Aperol Spritz, overlooking the rolling Tuscan country-side, while a local chef is preparing

Jeremy & Gina,
Morning on our veranda

dinner for the crowd.  I miss the autumn colors back home, but the food, the wine and the constantly changing evening light is reasonable compensation.  I’m trying to write, but I have decided that my travelogue should focus on the images and not on lengthy descriptions of out adventures.  I am desperate to spend most of the limited time available on processing and posting just a few of the pictures that will tell a more elegant story than my poor prose.  I will be editing these images for months to come, but I’m excited to get to just a few of my favorite samples of the tour.

Roman Forum

For this first blog I will cover our few days exploring Rome.  This is my first time in Italy, so of course, we had to tour the Forum, the Coliseum and the Vatican.  All terribly touristy places, but necessary.  Of course we had to see the Pantheon, the Spanish steps and the Trevi Fountain.   

Testaccio Window

More fun was a food tour of nine eateries in the Testaccio district of the city, led by a wonderfully knowledgeable local chef, and, the next evening, a dinner in the home of “Chef Barbara”.  Of course, food and drink has been an essential part of this trip.

Vatican Dome

After four days in Rome, traveled by train to Florence and from there, took a rented a car for the trip to our Villa in Tuscany.  Let me say that again, Our “Villa in Tuscany”.  It was just as magical as it sounds.  A lovely house, on an isolated hilltop, with a 360-degree vista across the undulating country-side.  We were here after the harvest, and the fields revealed less vivid greens, and more plowed earth, but it was still breath-taking.  The weather was perfect and each sunrise and sunset offered its own unique character.  We spent our days wandering the narrow winding roads and visiting the classic medieval hill towns.  Beautiful, but I struggled to avoid the frequent gaggles of tourists that tried to fill my pictures.  I would frame the perfect image and then a group would move right in front, holding their selfie sticks high in the air.  Much of my time was spent waiting for the people to clear, but it gave me more time to appreciate the beauty, besides, I was probably blocking someone else’s view. 

Colle Bianco, Our Villa in Tuscany

Enough talk.  Enjoy the pictures.  I look forward to sharing many more views of Tuscany in my next article, as I try to find time to work through all the images.  It’s a great problem to have.

In the meantime I will continue to add to the trickle of images in my Italy 2017 Gallery on my web site.

Ciao!

Jeff Newcomer

partridgebrookreflections.com