Pedro Point Headland and San Pedro Rock. Pacifica, CA 2014. Canon 5DSr. Click to order a print. Next Workshop: Fine Art Digital Printing Hands-on: April 23-26, 2016
Welcome to the April 2016 Edition of the Stephen Johnson Photography Newsletter.
This month's View From Here column discusses the Virtual Pedro Point Project I've been working on the last few years. We hope you find the column interesting and will consider sending us some comments. Our Tutorial Section explores some of the advantages of video editing in Photoshop. LATEST NEWS:
Steve in daily group discussion with his December Image Editing Workshop. Scholarships and Mentoring As part of our ongoing commitment to photographic education, there is one student scholarship spot in many of our classes. Please pass the word along. For discounted time studying with Steve, keep in mind our Mentoring Program. With all of our busy schedules and limited budgets, destination workshops or classes become a challenge, but many of you still have questions you need answered, or feedback on some new work. We want to remind you of our Virtual Online Consulting Program. This service allows all of you out there around the globe to consult online live with Steve on technical, aesthetic and workflow issues using Skype and your webcam. Our Essays and Tutorials from the past couple of years can now be found on our Newsletter Archive and some on Google Blogger. We hope you can come by the gallery and see the new Panoramic Prints we've added to the National Parks Gallery, and the Exquisite Earth exhibition with its accompanying very special Exquisite Earth Portfolio 1. We invite you to join us on a workshop, rent lab space, or just say hello and let us know what you are up to photographically and what you might like to see us offer. We value your input.
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FEATURED PRINT April 2016
11x13 Pigment Inkjet Print on Cotton paper This recent newsletter banner print was so positively received, that we decided to make it our featured print this month. The nearing sunset, misty light and breaking surf made it quite a view.
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Surf. Devil's Slide. 2016. Canon 5Dsr There is endless fascination in breaking surf. When the afternoon breeze blows back the wave cap, combined with the back lighting, the effect can be stunning.
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by Stephen Johnson Documenting and Interpreting a Place. I have been serving on the board of the Pacifica Land Trust for about 15 years. During that time I have been able to help with photography, graphic design and various other ways. As the PLT has managed the prominent headlands here in Pacifica, the Pedro Point Headlands, we have been working on many projects related to its restoration from motorcycle damage, and to get the land managed in a permanent parkland status. Promoting an understanding and appreciation of this place became an integral part of that process. About 5 years ago, I was up on the headlands for a walk with my friends Michael Black and Mike Vasey, flushing out an idea for a cell phone based interpretive program about the headlands. It sounded like a great idea, but none of us wanted to go out and raise the money for it, so the idea incubated for awhile. In 2013 we lost Michael Black. Two years ago, the Pacifica Land Trust applied a grant from the California Coastal Conservancy under their Explore the Coast program to build a cell phone compatible interpretive program for Pedro Points Headlands here in Pacifica. It seemed the money might come from the heavens for our incubating project. I prototyped the project as a website to demonstrate to the state what we had in mind. We received half the funding we asked for, but were happy that the idea would now be made real. Of course my speculative web site started making it real before there was any funding. As we are now wrapping up that project, I thought I would share some thoughts about the place, the project and the role as image-makers we can play in helping to preserve open spaces and natural settings.
A Place. Pedro Point Headlands. walking into solace edge of land enchanted refuge from surrounding towns some dangers
A Few Photographs from the Virtual Pedro Point Scenic Values Gallery
Coastal Prairie and Linda Mar Bay. Pedro Point Headlands, Pacifica, CA. 2014. An increasingly rare example of Coastal Prairie sits atop Pedro Point Headlands. Development and spreading forests have encroached upon the the coastal prairie habit leaving relatively few examples of this environment remaining. The effort to keep the planted Monterey Pine forest from spreading throughout the headlands was in no small part to preserve this habitat.
Eucalyptus Forest. Pedro Point Headlands, Pacifica, CA.. 2016. The introduced Tasmanian Eucalyptus trees dominate the forests of the headland. Many have argued that these non-native forests should be removed. Not only does this devastate the site for decades, it also does not recognize that despite the fact that it might have been preferable not to have California so inundated with Eucalyptus, these forest do now provide their own own unique evolved novel ecosystem where life thrives.
The Devil's Slide Coast. Pedro Point Headlands, Pacifica, CA. 2015. The spectacular ocean vistas are a fundamental part of what makes this place so special. For me, Pacifica's coastline and these headlands are one of the reasons I have stayed in the bay area and Pacifica specifically. When the collapsing Devil's slide portion of Highway One was bypassed by the tunnel, the old highway became a paved pedestrian and bike trail. It is one of the more spectacular trails I've seen. It's connection now to the Pedro Point Headland to the north with the evolving trail system makes possible a true walk through wonderful vistas.
San Pedro Rock. Pedro Point Headlands, Pacifica, CA.. 2014. The upheaval of revealed geography of Point San Pedro, or San Pedro Rock, is one of the most dramatic geologic revelations I have seen. The verticality of the upturned sedimentary layers, the scalloped erosion and the sheer majesty of these stones standing up to the sea, is a rare sight. Couple that with breaking surf and surfing seals and it make for quite a dance as well.
Sword Fern. Pedro Point Headlands, Pacifica, CA. The eucalyptus forest has a rainforest feel with its fog-fed moisture and density. Hosting a wide variety of plant life, from ferns, to wild flowers to poison oak, the springtime is usually very lush. Recent rains have filled the air with a fecundity that mixes life breaking out with decay that feels deeply real earth.
Aerial, Pedro Point Headlands, Pacifica, CA. 2015. The headlands as land form jutting out to sea has been a subject of mine many times over the years. When Canon loaned me their new 50 megapixel 5Dsr a year ago, renting a plane and doing some aerial work above this jut into the sea became a real priority. I was very pleased with what I was able to do, and ordered a camera as soon as it was available.
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The Virtual Pedro Point Experience Go to VPPT.ORG to experience the program. We need feedback, so please let us know your comments, everything from typos, to video feed challenges (which we are working on), to ideas for how to make this a better experience. The Intro page talks briefly about the place and this project
Virtual Pedro Point Introduction Screen. Categories include Maps and Trails, Life (flora and fauna), Earth Sciences (geology, water and weather), History, Restoration, the six Learning Stations, and some contact, credits and donation possibilities.
Earth Sciences Screen. Virtual Pedro Point. Videos and text lead the visitor around the Headlands discussing what they are likely seeing, and explaining how this place came to be, what lives here and how to get around.
Geologist Jerry Davis on Pedro Point We were very fortunately to have biologists, geologists and naturalists help us along in our understanding on the headlands. Although their videos creates it own throughput challenges, we though the first person guides would be a critical touch. Thanks go Mike Vasey who helped the project from the very beginning, Fiona McDonnell for managing the project, John Plutte for the video work and Erick Leskinen for the mobile website implementation. Our credits page on the site ltists everybody who helped. Of course, my fellow board memebers of the Pacficia Land Trust, deserve much thanks for supporting this project. Of course, as you look through the project, and you find that you want to help continued development on the project, you can always make a tax-deductible contribution to the Pacifica Land Trust through the VPP PayPal link. A few more Memories of my friend Al Weber Some additional material on my friend Al Weber who passed away in February. This video is from our last class visit to his studio in 2014.
Here are some stills from a class visit in 2009 and an audio recording from that same visit by my friend journalist Brian Barger.
A Few Al Weber Links
Please let me know any comments you might have on this column.
Recently at SJ Photo Most of my energy lately has been spent finishing up the Virtual Pedro Point project, which required building some more video editing skills in Photoshop where I can actually accomplish some real color correction. (see the Tutorial) I posted a new gallery of my glass plate collection by Frank Day Robinson of the Merced County California region form the 1920s.
Portrait. Merced County. circa 1920s. Many of my podcast and bibliography links have broken over the years. I am slowly rebuilding all of the links as I can. Doing this reminded me of some long-over due video renderings, including my talk on With a New Eye: The Digital National Parks Project at the Eastman House in 2012. All we had was iPhone video, but I have all of the slide show stills and the Museum has high quality audio. So I started assembling the pieces into a prototype of my talk. This, of course, led to looking again a web photo galleries which were created in the mid-1990s, and looked terrible to me. So, naturally, I created a couple of new HTML 5 galleries of my national parks work. Parks Gallery Selections (HTML5) or (Adobe Flash)
Parks Gallery Selections Black and White
The park by park page I used to have in place looked so bad to me, that I pulled it off for now, knowing how much work it was going to take to rebuild it to my aspirations. As this is the 100th. anniversary of the National Park Service. this work has been much on my mind. Getting the planned for full exhibition out would be great, as would getting the basically done book out as well. Having gone through two publishers, that for various reason didn't work out, I have recently gotten some bids to print the book, $100,000 in China, $200,000 in the US. I do think a book about the American national parks ought to be printed in the United States. We will see... |
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Consulting Programs and Speaking Events Virtual Education: Our Virtual Consulting and Mentoring Program is working well. Readers of this Newsletter can still get a discount by mentioning this reference when you enroll. Our One on One Program links you up with Steve at his bay area studio, or when he is on the road near you. Keep an eye on when Steve will be near your town. Catch Steve Live: Steve will be speaking here and there over the next few months..
Canon Sponsors Steve to speak at Universities, Colleges, Photo Groups and various events around the country. If you would like more information on arranging for Steve to do a Canon sponsored event, go to: Canon SJ EOL talk |
Steve Lecturing at Photo Plus. New York City. October 2014. People often want to take workshops and the dates just don't match up with their schedules. Sometimes they watch the newsletter and webpage for years for their interest, free time and the workshop to all coincide. We've decided to be proactive in creating a forum for potential students to tell us what you need and when you can take a class. Please email us with workshop ideas and suggestions. More formally, we are experimenting with a workshop poll to determine when interested people can make particular workshops they really want to take. Currently we have up a few workshops to experiment: |
TUTORIAL |
It seems I learn something everyday. It is a reminder of how much there is to learn, how much possibility that exists, and that I clearly have ambitions to accomplish far more than is reasonable. Having said that, video editing in Photoshop has some unique power, and customization tools that are not immediately obvious. Color correction in video is often near impossible with video editors. In my opinion, Apple's redo of Final Cut made it even worse. However, in Photoshop, you can use all of the familiar and powerful color and tone correction controls, such as Adjustment Layers to tune the appearance of the video to a degree that is astounding by comparisons to other software packages. It is also true that some special effects like pan and zoom are available within Photoshop although not immediately apparent as some controls only become live if the video cut itself is turned into a Smart Object. Adobe has some good tutorials on-line with my friend Julieanne Kost. Video Masks in Photoshop Video |
Photoshop Video with added adjusted audio re-imported, adjustment layers for color correction and a sharpen filter on the video after being transformed into a Smart Object. |
The Stephen Johnson Photography Gift Shop Featured Products |
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Gift Certificates for Prints and Workshops! |
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Life Form Note cards 5x7 inches, $25
12 image Note card set with envelopes featuring photographs from Steve's new Life Form work. Printed by Steve in his studio in very limited numbers on a color laser digital press |
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National Park Note cards
National Park Color Note card Set From "With a New Eye" Beautiful 300 line screen offset reproductions with envelopes in clear box. A great gift. |
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PLEASE VISIT US!  Please come visit us at our gallery and see our original prints in person. The subtle detail of the prints and the beautiful texture of the fine art paper have to be seen to be understood. And while you're here, browse through our books, cards, posters, and specially priced prints. We're happy to mail you a copy of our product catalog, just send a note to info@sjphoto.com or call us. We're located at: Stephen Johnson Photography at the Pacifica Center for the Arts 1220-C Linda Mar Boulevard, Creekside Suites, 5-7 Pacifica, CA 94044 (650) 355-7507 http://www.sjphoto.com |
 Pacifica Center for the Arts from Linda Mar Boulevard We're open by appointment. To find us, use our map online at: |
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Stephen Johnson Photography at the Pacifica Center for the Arts Gallery Hours are by Appointment. |
