Dog Days of Summer
It's closing in on mid-August. I finally sold that Hasselblad kit and was just about to buy an "old" iMac for the bulk of my photo editing, when the new ones got released! So, I got a 20" new iMac that was released the same day I bought it! How's that for a summer Christmas present? And it's not even my birthday or Christmas! The new iMac is sleeker than last year's version. There's a black border around the main screen and the Apple logo is now black. Instead of the all white plastic, it's anodized aluminum and the keyboard is really thin and is aluminum and sports really nice keys. It's upgraded to a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 320MB hard drive, and better graphics ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB memory. Thank you OWC for letting me upgrade to the full 4GB rather cheaply. For 300$ more I could have gotten the 24" model, and part of me was kicking myself. Then I found a lot of discussions about the difference between the two LCD panels and so I went today back to the Apple Store to get the 24" version without paying the restocking fee because the technology for the new 20" screen is inferior to the technology for the old 20" (TNT versus S-IPS). Luckily, the manager let me do it. So, now I have this monster 24" screen. There's also been a bit of discussion on the photography forums about the new glossy versus the old matte finish. For me, since I keep the light down, I don't get much glare and I actually like the colors better on the glossy. My office/studio space is real nice and inviting for clients. I have my keyboard gear there along with my photography gear and some comfortable seating. I rearranged the photos for better display and am had some electrical work done for better image lighting. I'm using track lighting in the office to show off an open-framed 20x30" print, two matted 10x15's, 12x18, 13x19, and 16x20. Half were shot with film, half digital. I like to let people guess which is which. In the hallway, I'm using gimbal-style recessed lights for two 20x30" and one 16x20" canvas gallery wraps shot digitally.
The image on the upper right was what I consider to be my best image from our trip to upstate New York. It was shot from a very country road (over the span of 20 minutes and 50 frames) with a herd of cows behind me and a very understanding family waiting in the car. The lake in the distance is Cayuga Lake, one of the Fingerlakes and right outside of the Village of Aurora around where my wife grew up. This one was taken with the Nikkor 17-55/2.8 lens at 55mm using my B+W circular polarizer at f/7.1 and 1/125s. In Photoshop I warmed it up a some and increased the vibrancy and sharpened some. Of course I shot in RAW. I used to shoot newspaper work in all JPG but now everything I shoot is consistent: RAW NEF that I then batch convert to JPG. Most of the time the JPGs are fine, but for large prints or when I make a mistake I work from the RAW file. The final image showed up at my doorstep from Millers as a 20x30" mounted linen-textured print and looks stunning. It's now at the framer. This will replace Childe Hassam's Boston Common at Twilight which is a poster reproduction that had brush strokes added and it looks rather nice in a 4" thick frame with a wooden fillet. But I'm trying to get my images in my home and not other people's.
