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Might Be Seen in the Delaware Art Museum

I am not one that highlights my achievements too much, and I am sure it has cost me some views over the years.

Anyhow, to start the story of this adventure off, one has to go back to early December, when I received an email with the subject of “Image of Brandywine”, and the following thumbnail image.

Fall (2011) image taken of the Brandywine River in Hibernia Park in Chester County PA.
Fall (2011) image taken of the Brandywine River in Hibernia Park in Chester County PA.

In the email, Margaretta said she was one of the curators at the Delaware Art Museum, and she was working with a exhibition designer, Keith, who had found my image online, and they were wondering if I would be interested in allowing the museum to use my image in a exhibition called “Eye on Nature“, comparing Andrew Wyeth and John Ruskin from March 10-27, 2018.

Also included with the email was a PDF file of proposed design layouts, and my image was already included, at a 11 feet by 17 feet!

After finishing the email, I had to walk around to catch my breath, and after a few minutes, I showed the email to my wife, and pointed to the address at the bottom.

Could this really be true?

The next day, I called the phone number provided, and the voicemail confirmed the name in the email, but I could only leave a message.

I did follow-up with an email, and the next day Margaretta followed up with a date and time to chat more about the exhibition.

As the day and time we agreed on, drew nearer, I was becoming more nervous, and when I finally made the call, I made sure that I had a large glass of water with me, so that I would not be too parched during the conversation.

Margaretta and I chatted for some time about the details of the exhibition, the exhibition designer and what I was looking for in compensation.

I remember blurting out a number, and I got the sense that I had blown the opportunity, but she responded back “Normally, I do not deal with living artists, but I’ll look into it.”

Internally, I giggled – “Normally, I do not deal with living artists…”

A couple of day pasted, and I had a change to speak with Keith the exhibition designer, and indeed confirmed the output size: 11 x 17 feet!

I told him of my printing background, but I had never dealt with anything of that size, but I knew of a technique that might allow me to get size required.

At this point, I was still not internally sure if I was in a dream or not, but after another phone call with Margaretta, and a couple days a waiting a check arrived from the museum!

My thought, “Hold S***, this is for REAL!!”

Now I had to start working on getting the image ready for Keith the exhibition designer.

At first, I corrected some image issues on the original image file that were cosmetic in nature because of my use of several images (ghosting), and then I began to tweak some of the various tones, basically reducing some of the ‘hot spots’, and eventually, I created the following image.

Image for the Delaware Art Museum - "Eye on Nature" - Andrew Wyeth/John Ruskin exhibition
Image for the Delaware Art Museum – “Eye on Nature” – Andrew Wyeth/John Ruskin exhibition

Now, the fun part… Getting the image to the right size… 11 x 17 feet…

I used the basic technique that I have outlined before (See my post “Fine Art prints done local“, section “Going Big”), but instead of 110%, I used 105%.

I created a Photoshop action, and repeated, and repeated until Photoshop crashed, and corrupted the image.

In troubleshooting the crash, I found out that I had filled my 128 GB SSD drive used for the Photoshop scratch/VM file! (My machine has 32 GBs of physical RAM)

In Photoshop, I re- targeted the scratch/VM file to one of my 4 TB hard drives and began the resizing again.

After numerous resizes, and quick “save-as” files, I finally reached 16.57 x 11.0 feet or 198.887 x 132.733 inches or 19889×13273 pixels (@300 dpi)!

Within the file, I still had a couple of correction layers, but the file size was approximately 19.2 GBs! By FAR the largest single file I have ever worked on, and had to save it a PSB file (See my post “Large Image Files – PSB vs TIFF“)

Note – Large PSB files are STILL not visible within Lightroom Classic CC, version 7.2. — Adobe, are you listening? It’s been 7+ years since I reported/blogged about this!

Any how, I created several different DPI files (and file size(s)):

  • 100 dpi psb – 565.487 MBs
  • 100 dpi tiff – 773.447 MBs
  • 150 dpi psb – 1,277.122 MBs
  • 150 dpi tiff – 1,740.209 MBs
  • 200 dpi psb – 2,455.681 MBs
  • 200 dpi tiff – 3,093.681 MBs
  • 300 dpi psb – 5,212.382 MBs

and placed them on my FTP server for Keith to download.

Note – For those techno-geeks, PSB creates significantly smaller files, when compared to TIFF, but as mentioned above, Lightroom STILL can not produce thumbnails within light room.

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‘Jewels’ of Chester County

I started this idea for a project a couple of years ago, and lately, I’ve seen an increase of ‘jewels’ and in some very unusual places.

Over the years, it has not been uncommon for me to see small pieces of trash along the way, but there are other times…

In the early days, some of my captures were just looking at oddities that I came across.

Rusty Paint Cans 018
Rusty Paint Cans 018 – Below Marsh Creek Dam in Downingtown, Chester County PA

When the Mark Creek Lake was drained of 8 feet of water in late 2012, I found some more items…

Sometimes, not all is trash!

It is amazing how some folks will just leave ‘stuff’.

These images were taken just last week on a Sunday walk with my son along the Rim Trail in Hibernia Park [Map].

If you can carry it in, you should be able to carry it out!

Here in Chester County PA, we are very lucky to have groups like the Brandywine Valley Association, that organize demonstrations in local grade schools, and several years ago, I even volunteered for a day, when my daughter was in the 4th grade at Uwchlan Hills Elementary School (UHES)!

During the Event, there are several stations with each showing a different phase in how the Water System works  – It rains, the water washes over the roads and lawns, picking up various ‘elements’; flowing into the myriad of streams and creeks then into the Brandywine; the effects on the macro/micro organisms that are used to identify the health of the water; water treatment facilities to drinking water.  Full circle!

In the Fall of 2014, the new Marsh Creek 6th Grade Center (MC6GC) opened here in Downingtown, and one of the first field trips of the new school years, was to Paradise Farm Camps.

During the course of the day, each group of kids was introduced to new skills such as rope courses, teamwork building, collecting live samples and orienteering. By the end of the day my Fitbit had logged just over 9 miles walking!

What was very wonderful to see, that the same skills that were introduced during the Red stream Blue stream at UHES, were now being reconnected ‘in the field’ while the children were tasked to search for various specimens in the pond and stream that are part of Paradise Farm Camps.

But alas, even they had succumbed to the intrusion of the modern vehicle…

Earlier this year, in April, I volunteered again to help the MC6GS Science classes in their first (hopefully continuing) measurement of Shamona Creek.

During each session, the students would record the creek’s temperatures, ph/acidity, velocity, volume and the various macro/micro creatures found in the waterway.

At the beginning of the day, as we approached the testing locations, I noticed a car battery, on the bank of the creek, about 4 feet from the water’s edge.

Some of the cosmetic case had been cracked, and there was no way to tell how long it had been there. I picked it up and moved it closer to the road.

During the rest of the day, the car battery sat there, as a reminder to all what some folks are doing to the environment.

At the end of the day, we took it back to the school for disposal.

Other times, I seem to find items, that have just been swept away…

Then there are days, you still have to scratch your head!

Plastic Doll Head 037
Image taken while on an early spring walk at Stroud Preserve in Chester County PA

Knowing the area, it is very difficult to imagine how this plastic doll head got to this spot!

I did get a nice little note from the Stroud Preserve

“Oh dear! I’ll let our preserve manager know there’s litter out there!”

“As for the dry “ponds,” a few years back we restored the stream running through Stroud by removing the dams, which allowed land to convert from ponds (man-made and not good for water quality) to wetlands (more diverse than coral reefs and wonderful for filtering water).” – Stroud Preserve

Controversy

I have recently been reading several articles about the new Wyoming law that now

makes it a crime to “collect resource data”… including taking a “photograph”…Slate.com

But as the article goes on to say, the law is unconstitutional.

Here is a list of additional Links –

Needless to say, I have been a little anxious about Posting this…

Anyhow…

I hope to encourage you, when out walking about in Nature –

  1. Do Not Litter!
  2. If you see something, Pick It Up!
  3. Try to leave a place better than you found it!

If you have any Thoughts or Comments, please let me know!

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Chester County Downingtown HDR Nature Photo Journal Photography Reference

Large Tree Mushroom

A couple of days ago, I was walking through this area of Struble trail, and saw this series of large orange tree mushrooms.  Unfortunately, I did not have my tripod for the required shot that I had in my head.

Fast forward today…

Large Tree Mushroom

This is a series of (3) exposures for the HDR work, but shot at F22 with my Canon EF 28-135 IS USM lens.

These specimens range in size. The one on the left, mid frame, is easily 12 inches long!

I’m also still trying to identify this species of tree mushroom, so if you know, please contact me!

Updates

2014-Nov-26 16:48Having now skimmed through several of the References listed, I think this is either an “Artist’s Conk, Artist’s Bracket, Flacher Lackporling” Ganoderma applanatum (Fomes applanatus) or a “Sulfur Shelf, Crab of the Woods, Chicken of the Woods, sulphur polypore”, Laetiporus sulphureus (Polyporus sulphureus).

2014-Nov-28 17:03 – By request, I have added another images of these specimens .

Large Tree Mushrooms Large Tree Mushrooms

References

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Black & White Chester County Events HDR Photo Journal Photography

Victory Brewing Company (Parkesburg) – The New Place

On Saturday night, I had the chance to attend a fundraiser for a local politician at Victory Brewing Company in Parkesburg, and of course I had to bring my camera!

This facility has been open for little over a year so it’s spotlessly clean.

It is a beautiful new facility, with some of it still under construction, and there are many plans for the future.

If you have more interest, check-out the Brewery Expansion page on Victory’s website.

When Parkesburg opens, I strongly recommend stopping in, especially during sunset!

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Covered Bridges of the Oxford Area – the Book

I have been playing with the idea of publishing a photography book for some time, and after my experience with producing Madison’s 10th birthday gift, I decided to make a first real attempt.

So what was my first real book going to be about?

Looking back at my recent history, it only makes sense that I do something about covered bridges, and I already had the content from the presentation I did back in October 2012 for Citadel bank.

This time is going to be easier from the standpoint that I only had a limited number of pictures, and a layout with the text.

So after a couple of hours, I was able to put the following together using the simple Adobe Lightroom module, and uploading to Blurb.com.

I invite you to take a look, and let me know what you think.

Covered Bridges of the Oxford Area

With this first book done, and I’m sure that I’ll revisit at some point, I am beginning to put together some ideas on themed books.

This time, using Blurb’s SmartBook application to put together my next adventure, namely because it seems to offer far more options and controls than what is available in the built-in Adobe Lightroom module.

In the meantime, let me know what you think of the book!

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