Image of the Month, August 2018: "A new beginning"

Last month, I released the first image of the series "Image of the month": The Last of Winter.

August is already here, and with a new month comes a new Image of the Month: A new beginning.

This image is a tribute not only to Multnomah Falls but to all the Columbia River Gorge, badly devastated last year by the Eagle Creek Fire.

I spent countless days hiking and photographing the Gorge. It's a very special place to me, and to many more people.

When I returned to Oregon in February of this year, I found most places (those that weren't destroyed) still closed due to the fire. Multnomah Falls was one of them.

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It was a beautiful gray, rainy day. I love this weather, so does this place.

Even here, in a place that was forgiven by the fire, you could see quite a few burnt and dead trees. All this destruction hadn't made it less beautiful and magical, though.

There are few things more fascinating than the sight of the fog swallowing the forest, the feeling of the rain falling while looking at a beautiful waterfall like this one, or breathing air so fresh that your lungs can only rejoice.

I made this image in these conditions. It is a very special image of a very special place, one I miss so much and can't wait to visit again.

It was a moment when the Gorge was being born again. After death, comes new life. It's a new beginning.

Do you want it on your wall? A new beginning is available for purchase starting today, at a reduced price only during this month of August.

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artist contract

A new image will be released every month and offered at a reduced price during that time. After 30 days, it will be sold at full price. They will never be on sale at any time in the future, the rate during the first month will be the lowest, ever.

want to know more?

You can find more information about how I create my images and all the details about pricing on The Art and Craft behind my prints.

"A new beginning" is available for sale here.

Importing photos with iOS 12 is so much better

I hadn't been using the lightning SD card reader for my iPhone much lately. Importing photos used to be a pain and a long process.

It looks like this is about to change, for the better. I've been running the iOS 12 beta for a few weeks now (mainly because it groups notifications like Android does), and I wanted to import a couple photos I had on my camera (I'm in the middle of a trip and I don't have my computer with me).

The new screen caught me by surprise. Not only is it much nicer, but the photos load much, much faster and selecting them by date is straightforward.

A very welcome improvement. I might use it more often in the field now, if only for an extra copy of my images (remember to back everything up before it's too late!).

The extra mile

Yesterday at lunch, I overheard a conversation happening next to me.

Someone was sharing their opinion that the difference between a good basketball player and an outstanding one was -usually- the much better attitude of the latter. They don't give up, they try again. When they get hit, they get up and play harder than before.

That made me think about going the extra mile in photography.

I believe that putting a camera in the hands of a person doesn't make them a photographer. But it's not because of a lack of skills or experience. It's all about the attitude.

A photographer should go where others don't. They should do what others don't. They should arrive before everyone else, and leave after the last person is gone. A photographer should capture what others can't.

And after the work is done in the field, they should be willing to work on the much longer process that begins for some of those images.

In photography, there are no rules set in stone. I do think, though, that hard work, an open mind and perseverance will make anyone go that extra mile.

Landscape Photography in Foz

These are the two videos of my trip to Foz, in northern Galicia. I visited a few beautiful spots, but I had to mention of course the Playa de las Catedrales, one of the most beautiful places in the province of Lugo.

Just take the first photo

Have you ever gone out to shoot some photographs just to get home with none? Is it hard to feel inspired? You are not alone, this used to happen to me as well. I think I have a little trick to fix this little problem, if not all the time, most of it.

For the last two weeks, and for the first time in my life, I've been running a few kilometers every other morning. I never liked running, but doing it early and mere minutes after waking up makes it so much worse.

I don't just jump out of bed and start running though: I walk for at least 10-15 minutes before I speed up. It's my way to warm up and get my body (and mind!) ready for what's coming next.

I believe the same principle can help a photographer to get started.

Take the first photo

Taking the first photo will get you started and your creativity flowing.

It's all about gaining momentum and put yourself "in the zone". This is true for many aspects of our lives: it's hard to start, but it gets easier over time. Why wouldn't it be the same for photography?

When I go on a photography trip, I usually take snapshots of the place before starting to look for compositions. I do it to document the trip, but also to help me get started and focus on what I'm about to do.

My YouTube videos are another example of something I do (among many other reasons) because it actually helps my creativity. I'm constantly thinking about the place and what's different, or beautiful about it.

Next time you go out to make some images, just take a few random photos. You could even do it at home, before hitting the street. The subject doesn't matter. It could be your keys, your shoes, yourself, on the mirror. The car parked next to your home. The clouds. Or the lack of them. It doesn't really matter.

While this little trick doesn't work all the time (there are days where we are just not in the mood to create, and that's fine), I found it has helped me quite a bit.

How to create a contact sheet in Adobe Photoshop CC

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Working on the post Shoot the scene, and then shoot it again, and again, I found out how to create contact sheets in Photoshop CC, and I wanted to share this "discovery" with you.

Contact Sheets are a very useful way to look at and share our work. They are the best way to show the thought process behind an image, the steps the photographer took to get to that composition.

To create one, we need to have our images in one folder. Open Photoshop and select File -> Automate -> Contact Sheet II.

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This is on a Mac, but it should be pretty similar if not exactly the same on Windows.

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The dialog that shows up will offer us quite a few options to customize our contact sheet. Select the folder where your images are, and then play with the number of rows and columns, the spacing between them, and to show or not the name.

It might take a while to process all the photos, but at the end you should have something like this:

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To make it look like a traditional contact sheet, you can paint the background black and use a red brush to indicate which photos you selected from the set.

Hope this helped!