the last word

Today was nowhere near as grueling as yesterday, but there was a lot to do. It started with three reviews back to back. The first one was with a pair of gallery owners with whom I had corresponded about five years ago. I kind of vaguely remembered them, and I showed them the brochure for… [Read More]

I’ve just finished the first day of reviews and I’m a bit overwhelmed. Four formal twenty-minute reviews. Three informal ones by official roving reviewers. Uncountable sharing of pictures with other photographers.  A presentation at lunchtime that took precedence over lunch. And that just got me to five o’clock. The day finished with all 160 photographers… [Read More]

I’m in Portland, after an 800 mile drive yesterday. Between portfolio cases and brochures (probably way more than I will actually give away), I have an impressive pile of luggage. If I were flying, I would have had to ship things ahead. I checked out my reviewing schedule on the web.  I have a total… [Read More]

This afternoon I grabbed an easel and both stacks—glossy and matte—of the Nighthawks pictures. I set up the easel in a room with lots of diffuse daylight and went through the photographs, comparing the two versions. The first thing I noticed was that I’d gotten the editing right: the images looked quite similar. In fact,… [Read More]

While I was printing the matte pictures, I edited the glossy versions. It didn’t take much. Mostly I added a little contrast-enhancing S-curve that strengthened the midtone separation at the expense of the shadows and the highlights. When printed on the higher-Dmax glossy paper, the midtones looked a little dark, so, if the highlights would… [Read More]