Whenever I go on a photo trip I find it takes me a decent period of time to get into the groove of shooting. This is especially true when it’s been a while since I picked up the camera.

Lately I’ve been trying to jumpstart the creative process by literally messing around with the camera early in the trip. The photos I take are never meant to be anything special. I’m just shooting to try and get my head back into photography.

On the trip to Eastern Washington this weekend we stopped at Denny Creek. David, Teresa, and I did some long exposure handheld shooting. It was all about coming up with interesting patterns and textures. No stress about getting perfect composition in camera. No worries about nailing the exposure. Just carefree shooting for the fun of it.

The whole trip to Eastern Washington was hugely successful (as you’ll see in a series of upcoming blog entries). I like to think it was because we stopped for some mindless fun at a creek.

Here’s a photo of all the raw paper stock in a pile after going through the first round of debossing:

From top to bottom the colours are: Chocolate Truffle, Natural, Eclipse Black, Charcoal, and Chocolate Truffle. The press is pretty impressive. The covers run on the largest machine in the place. Here’s a photo of 1/3rd of the machine:

The window is where the action happens. The thing on the right is where the cutting and debossing dies get inserted. Paper is fed from the far right (just out of frame), comes in, gets stamped/cut, and then goes into the outfeed pile just out of frame to the left. Here’s some video of the machine in action just after the last of the folio paper went through:

The new covers will be ready to ship out starting Tuesday, July 27th.

I'm excited because I grew up in central Canada, where there are plenty of wheat, Canola, and flax fields around. I have a fondness in my heart for wide, flat, images, and really miss some of the summer sunsets from back home. Unfortunately I moved away long before I developed a serious interest in photography, so my field shots have generally been limited to winter trips for the hoildays. The Palouse region will finally give me a chance to do some serious farm photography.

I'm apprehensive because the region is a destination for photographers and everyone comes back with the same kind of shot. As I mentioned in an earlier blog entry, it's easy to come back with tulip shots from this part of the state. I'm terrified that I'm going to arrive, take a bunch of really pretty shots, but have none that stand out from the pack.

What am I going to do about it?

Well, for starters, I'm trying to convince myself that I get like this before every trip and that I'm bound to come back with one special image.

I'm also making a focused effort to avoid the cliche shots of rolling fields. I'm going flying with a private pilot to try and get some aerial shots for variation. I'm going to try some extreeeeeemly wide and thin panoramas. And I'll likely do a lot of black and white work.

We'll see what happens!

Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 70-200 2.8 IS + 1.4x extender @ 125mm. ISO 100, 1/500 sec @ f/5.6.

The above shot is from my trip to Antarctica back in January of 2009. I never planned to shoot much wildlife when I was there, and the shots I did take of penguins were halfhearted attempts just so I had a few to show people when I got back.

When we were on Petermann Island I forced myself to take a few minutes to photograph penguins. At one spot I noticed a curving glacier in the background with penguins and rocks in the foreground. I shot a few photos, and then back on the boat found the above image. I was thrilled. Between the glacier, the rocks, and the cute little penguins, I thought I had a spectacular image.

Then I showed it to Seth Resnick. His immediate comment? “Why the %(*! is that penguin sleeping?”

Sigh.

He’s right, and he taught me a valuable lesson. When you come upon an interesting composition it’s useful to just sit and wait for a while. Just because it looks nice now doesn’t mean that’s the most awesome you can capture at that location. If I had waited another 5 minutes there was a good chance the sleeping penguin would have woken up and reached his beak to the sky. Then I would have had an awesome photograph.

This doesn’t just apply to animals, by the way. If you are shooting landscapes pay close attention to the clouds. Very often a 10-15 minute wait means the difference between clouds that are just there vs. clouds that add awesome movement and energy to the image.

The lesson has stuck with me over the last year. It’s a tough one for me to apply, since my natural inclination is to “go go go” and not really stop and take in the overall scene. I’m getting better at it though!

Recently I had the honour and pleasure of sitting on a committee of photographers selecting images for a photo book that will help support the United Way this fall. I reviewed over 1900 images and got to see some truly awe inspiring photography. Along the way I coined a new term: “tulip shot”.

I must have seen 50 different variations of photos of tulips in the submissions. Warnings were given prior to submissions about the perils of submitting a tulip photo, but alas, they came in anyway. What’s the problem with a tulip shot? Well, it may be your best tulip shot ever, but when you submit it to a juried show or book competition, it is going head-to-head against the other 50 tulip shots that were submitted. You better be darn sure that your tulip shot is the super duper awesome best ever of those 50, because chances are if a tulip shot does make it into the show/book/whatever there will only be one.

Ke’e Beach, Kaua’i, Hawaii, 2004
Canon EOS 10D, 24-70 f/2.8l @ 70mm. ISO 100, 1/160 sec @ f/8.

There are many other types of photos that fall into the “tulip shot” bucket. Some that come to mind are: sunsets, mountains reflected in water, flowers, bugs, cute kids, I-used-a-lensbaby-look-at-my-out-of-focus-edges-!, waterfalls, leaves, anything shot in HDR, animals in zoo cages, etc. In the Pacific Northwest some regional variations are “tulip shots” as well: Canon Beach/Ruby Beach/Rialto Beach/Second Beach, cherry blossoms, Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, and the Palouse region of Eastern Washington.

 
Cherry Blossoms, 2007
Canon EOS 5D, 100mm f/2.8 macro. ISO 100, 1/250 sec @ f/4.5.

If you are ever submitting to a competition and your image contains any of the above you should think long and hard about what separates your variation of that particular scene from the rest of the pack. It is exceedingly difficult to stand back and take a critical view of your work, but it’s an important skill to learn.

Can’t decide whether your photo separates itself from the rest of the pack ? No worries: ask a photographer that’s better than you for their candid feedback. I do it all the time and while it can hurt my underbelly a bit I always find it hugely valuable.

This post has three “tulip shots” in it. I throw the comments open to everyone… any of them separate themselves from the pack?

Proofline Photo Chrome

After my original review went live I was contacted by the folks at Shades of Paper regarding Proofline Photo Chrome metallic paper. They’re my go-to source for paper and were nice enough to send out a few samples of Photo Chrome (as well as a few others).

Out of the box it was clear the Photo Chrome was essentially identical to the LexJet and Red River papers. A quick test print was proof: same same.

There is one big difference with the Photo Chrome paper, however: price. The street price for a 50 sheet box of 8.5x11” is only $36.96. A 17”x100’ roll is only $166.46. The per-box price is almost $7 less than Red River, and $20 less than the LexJet version. Considering the papers are identical this seems like the way to go if you like the metallic look.

Pictorico Opalescent

A co-worker mentioned to me that when he was at a Glazer’s demo days event he saw a pack of Pictorico Opalescent in the store. It took me a while to get down there, but I did on Tuesday to take a look at one of their in-store print samples. I didn’t even bother buying a pack. It’s the same stuff again, just under the Pictorico name. The price is way off though, at $28.50 for a 20 pack of 8.5x11” sheets.

Updated Conclusion

So where do things stand? At this point I believe all these papers are manufactured by Mitsubishi and then labeled by the various companies. I’ve chatted with a few other folks in the know and they agree.

I have no idea why the Grace Pearl looks so different than the rest, but if you’re after a metallic paper any of the LexJet, Red River, Photo Chrome, or Pictorico will work fine. The Photo Chrome is the cheapest, and therefore wins in my book!

Disclaimer: Shades of Paper provided me with five sample sheets of Proofline Photo Chrome free of charge so I could test it out. Other than that I receive no compensation from them.

Andy Biggs has been after me ever since I started my inkjet paper list to try Somerset Museum Rag. He kept raving about it, and insisted that if I tried it I would like it. Well, now that the paper’s been launched it’s finally possible to get samples. Thanks to the folks at Legion Paper a few sheets arrived last week and I was able to give it a test run.

I like it.

And that’s really saying something, because I really do dislike matte papers I can count on one hand the number of images I’ve printed on matte paper, and usually it’s just for fun on sample scraps I have kicking around. I much prefer baryta glossy papers for their stunningly deep blacks, especially for black and white work.

But the Moab Somerset Museum Rag is really nice. Why? It has an absolutely awesome feel when you hold it in your hand. For folios, where how the paper feels in your hand is an integral part of the overall folio experience, this paper is a must try. Unlike the baryta papers, all of which have a somewhat plastic feel, the Somerset Museum Rag feels like a true fine art paper.

The prints look great too. I whipped off a copy of my Vine Maple image as a test, and compared it to the same image on the baryta-based Epson Exhibition Fiber. I much prefer it on the Somerset Museum Rag. It wasn’t intentional, but the print on the Somserset Museum Rag comes shockingly close to having the tone and feeling of the darkroom lith prints I occasionally make on (the sadly discontinued) Kentmere Kentona Fineprint VC.

Vine Maple printed on Moab Somerset Museum Rag (left) and Epson Exhibition Fiber (right).

From a stats standpoint the paper is a winner as well. It’s 100% cotton which makes it archival and acid free. The paper is made using a cylinder mould machine which gives it a subtle and pleasing texture. It weighs in at 300gsm which is hefty enough to add to the wonderful hand feel. On the tone side of things I would classify it as “just warm enough”. It’s got a tinge of warmth but it doesn’t scream “I AM WARM” like, say, Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk. I measured a dMax of 1.61 on my test print which puts it at the upper end of all the matte papers I’ve tested. For people that care about OBAs I’m told the paper has “minimal” OBAs in it.

Epson Hot Press Bright, Moab Somerset Museum Rag, and Epson Hot Press Natural.
White balanced using an xRite Colorchecker Passport.

How does it compare to other popular cotton rag papers? Flipping through my stack I’d say the closest competitors are the Epson Hot Press Natural and Epson Hot Press Bright papers. The Epson papers have very similar texture and weight, but feel smoother to the touch than the Museum Rag. From a tone perspective the Museum Rag falls right in between two Epson papers.

The paper will be available in late July with a street price of $37 for a box of 8.5x11” sheets. Rolls all the way up to 60”x50’ will be on the market as well, for those of you with far bigger printers than me!

Moab Somerset Mseum Rag is easily a worthy candidate if you want a lovely matte paper that prints beautifully and feels great in the hand.

Disclaimer: Legion Paper provided me with six sample sheets of Somerset Museum Rag free of charge so I could test it out. Other than that I receive no compensation from them.

Ok ok, I’ll elaborate a bit.

If you own a Canon imagePROGRAF printer one of the benefits of the printer according to the marketing literature is an export plug-in that works with Photoshop and allows a 16-bit printing path. On their web page they claim it supports:

“processing of 16-bit RGB images directly, which dramatically increases gradations and as a result, overall image quality.

I decided to put this to the test using the standard 16-bit test image I use for the inkjet paper list. I made three prints of the image on Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk using the following settings:

• Export plug-in, input resolution 600ppi, input depth 16-bit, print mode highest
• Export plug-in, input resolution 600ppi, input bit depth 8-bit, print mode high
• Photoshop print dialog, high (600ppi)

For good measure I also printed out two copies of a Grainger Rainbow, one at 16-bit, 600ppi, highest and one at 8-bit, 600ppi, high.

All five prints then came with me to a gathering of about 30 photographers. The printing experience of the photographers ranged from “I print at Costco” to years of experience printing both digitally and in darkrooms. Not one person could tell apart the 16- and 8-bit test images. Two people were able to notice an extremely slight difference in the blue tones of the Grainger Rainbow.

Interestingly, two people did see a difference in the standard test prints, but it wasn’t bit depth. It was export plug-in vs. print dialog. Both people noticed that the print dialog version of the test print had better black separations in the black square test than the export plug-in.

So… not only is there no difference with real world images between 16-bit and 8-bit printing, the export plug-in was actually slightly worse with the blacks. This is all good news for me, since I pretty much always print out of Lightroom

The new cart is now live on the page and, fingers crossed, will now provide completely accurate shipping costs to any location worldwide, for any size folio order. There are likely a few bugs here and there to work out, but overall it should really help simplify our shipping!

I also received a sample of the Moab Somerset Rag paper earlier this week, thanks to the folks at Legion Paper. This paper is a favourite of Andy Biggs, and while I'm not generally a fan of matte papers this one is pretty nifty. Stay tuned for more details in a dedicated blog entry.

If that weren't enough paper, I also have two sample packs of Premier paper that arrived earlier this week.

Between the three sets of samples I think I have 30 or so new papers to add to the inkjet list. Yoinks, that's a lot of printing!