WELCOME!

Welcome to the October 2005 edition of the Stephen Johnson Photography Newsletter. As always, we hope you enjoy this edition. Thanks to those of you that ordered last month's Featured Print, as it allowed us to donate funds to Katrina Relief.

Don't miss the the Yosemite in Autumn workshop October 14-16.

FEATURED PRINT OFFER
October 2005

Desert Slopes, Maui, Haleakala National Park, Hawaii. 1996. 11x14 Pigment Print on Rag paper I was circumnavigating Maui with my friend Bill Schwegler after a few days up on the volcano of Haleakala. The desert side of the island facing Hawaii provided a real change of scenery, high winds, dry rocky expanses and an almost surreal solitude. We're offering an 11x14 inch print, matted to 16x20 and ready to frame for $195, framed for an additional $75. This print at this price is offered through October 31. We'll be taking orders until then, and shipping them out by November 15th. Featured Print Web page

WORKSHOP NEWS * Upcoming Workshops

Yosemite Valley in Autumn October 14-16, 2005 The fall colors of Yosemite offer photographers a wide variety of hue and texture. As the weather cools, the valley begins to change, subtle and beautiful colors start to emerge. People begin to disappear, bright greens turn to browns, yellows, blacks and golds. The valley smells fresher, the air clears and invites the walking we will be doing during this workshop. We'll spend three activity packed days in the valley, sometimes rising before dawn and lingering for the last moment of twilight. The trip is designed to be an in-depth landscape photography workshop in the context of this digital age. We will discuss technical and aesthetic issues, tapping into your emotional response to this landscape, working toward images that are uniquely your own.

The Landscape of the California Coast Highway One San Mateo: A Digital Photography Field Workshop November 12-13, 2005. The coastline of San Mateo County is one of the most beautiful stretches of land and sea anywhere. From eroded, rocky shorelines, to cliffs, long beaches, redwood forests and small towns, this coast is complex and varied. We'll spend the days roaming the coast and mountain roads, stopping at state parks, county parks and checking out the lunch options along the way.The workshop will be a dynamic combination of a traditional landscape photography workshop while diving deep into the digital age. Technical and aesthetic considerations will be discussed in detail. Our concentration will be on controlling your camera's operation to achieve your desired technical results, while building composition and visual skills to make the photograph what you want it to be. Digital exposure and dynamic range, composition, emotion and amazement-all will be part of our 2-day excursion into the evolving world of digital photography. Enrollment limited to 10 people.

Photoshop Illustration with Bert Monroy Friday November 18, 2005. 9am to 5pm. $250 Register by Credit Card for questions email: info@sjphoto.com You are offered a chance to attend an intimate small workshop with photo realist master Bert Monroy. In this one-day workshop Bert will lead you on a journey taking the blank screen and, with the power of Photoshop, turning it into a work of art. You will learn the techniques he's developed over the years to create realistic images that boggle the imagination. It's the perfect seminar for Photoshop users, photographers and illustrators alike! You will master features overlooked by most people, yet powerful enough to make any imagined effect a reality. Bert will inspire you to look at Photoshop in ways you never thought possible.

* Death Valley in Winter January 14-17, 2006 with the Magical Digital Bus Transformed from a searing 120 degree desert in summer to January's mild 60-70 degree weather, Death Valley is filled with intriguing landforms, delicate flora, strange mineral deposits and expansive views. Mile high Dante's View overlooks the patterned salt flats of Badwater and the Amargosa River below (the lowest point in the United States). Badwater's still water in turn mirrors the blue and white Panamint Mountains to the West. The lunar landscape of Ubehebe Crater's black volcanic fields rise from the rolling desert at the valley's north end with the steep gorge of Titus Canyon and Red Pass to the southeast.

Ireland’s Spectacular West Coast - 2006 June 24 – July 4, 2006 Seats limited to 12 students Join Stephen Johnson and Anthony Hobbs for an unforgettable journey along the rustic West Coast of Ireland. This workshop will include hotel stays in several towns along our route from County Clare towards Connemara and Achill Island. Along the way, participants will explore western Ireland's landscape with its lush greens, rocky islands and remote castles.  If you are interested in joining the reservation list for this workshop, please email us at info@sjphoto.com.  We are limiting this workshop to 12 students. Photography instruction, transportation, lodging and some meals included. Airfare to and from Shannon will be participant's responsibility. A $500 deposit will reserve your place in the class for 30 days. Please see Irish Workshop link above for details.

UPCOMING EVENTS with Stephen Johnson

PhotoPlus, October 20-22, 2005. Javitts Center, New York City

Large Format Digital Printing
9am-12 noon. Thursday, October 20, 2005

Ask the Experts: The Latest Developments in Digital Printers, Inks and Media
Henry Wilhelm, Stephen Johnson, Joseph Meehan
1pm-3:45pm. Thursday, October 20, 2005

Digital Camera Fundamentals: An Overview
9am-12 noon. Saturday October 22, 2005

48 bit Color: Stephen Johnson and Bruce Fraser

High bit depth color (16 bits or more per channel) is an important step forward in the evolution of digital photography. Original assumptions of an 8-bit gray-scale being sufficient to render scanned film and prints have not proved sufficient, and as digital imaging moves forward with both sensors and A/D converters becoming more capable, their ability to deliver good high-bit-depth data makes them ever more able to scan existing images better and record the real world more accurately than film.

From Film
Film scans present many challenges. The hardest films to scan for detail are transparencies with critical low-end shadow detail. These photographs are often scanned right at the edge of a scanner’s dynamic range, with a desire to edit shadow detail in order to make it more visible. Providing more distinct levels of gray so that nuances of detail (brightness differences) can be assigned during the scanning process, allows image editing software to keep those differences intact during editing without truncating values into little or no tonal differences.

For Editing
Major editing of a digital 8 bit image file creates the distinct possibility that as a result of moving data around to achieve a desired edited appearance, large gaps in the histogram can be created. These gaps are good graphic indicators of likely posterization in the final image. Such posterization may not show on the monitor, but may well show on final, often expensive, output. Higher bit depth editing simply gives more values for the edited file to assign and hold the transformed data. This is a benefit even if the file is eventually going to be assigned only 8 bit values. Using 48-bit color significantly increases the ability to do a series of edits with far less damaging consequences.

For Digital Cameras and the Real World
The real world has a much more continuous gradation of tonality than 8-bit data can record and render. As digital cameras become ever more capable, their ability to deliver good digital data at 10, 12, 14 and even 16 bit precision is increasing. Currently there are cameras on the market that deliver a good 12 and 14 bit data, and scanners delivering up to 16 bit data.

Additionally, as more digital original images are created, the challenges of only 8 bit color become particularly visible in photographs of smooth tonal gradations like a sky transitioning from horizon to zenith, or colored product backdrops where tones have to transition smoothly in the final photograph. A smooth tonal transition requires having enough data values to render an illusion of continuous tone. Higher bit depth files with capable camera systems are simply more capable of achieving this goal.

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