Getting Started!

Well....after 15 years+ of E-mail I am ready to inch ahead into the electronic fog with a blog.  I have been teaching photography classes and workshops for 7 years and a blog seems to be a great format to follow-up on questions and ideas that come out of the workshop experience.

A new web site is under construction and should be up in 30 - 45 days (Aug-Sept) at http://www.robertpriddyphoto.com/.

Classes and workshops are scheduled for the remainder of this year and the first half of next year.  Upcoming workshops are located at the North Carolina Arboretum and the John C Campbell Folk School.

     John C Campbell                   June 5-10            Photographing the Natural World
     North Carolina Arboretum       August 4-7          Introduction to Photography
     North Carolina Arboretum       Sept 18, 24, 25   Nature Up Close
     John C Campbell                   Oct 2-7               Nature Up Close

     2012

     John C Campbell                    April 8-13           Introduction to Photography
     John C Campbell                    June 10-15          Photographing the Natural World
     John C Campbell                    August 3-5          Image Making - Idea to Art

Check on classes at John C Campbell Folk School at http://www.folkschool.org/
Check on classes at the North Carolina Arboretum at http://www.ncarboretum.org/

Get more information on my workshops at http://priddyworkshops.blogspot.com/

Check back for information on such riveting photo topics as...well I promise I'll think of some soon.

Instead lets talk about a great place for photos!

I shot this image off the Blue Ridge Parkway above Graveyard Fields at sunrise last week.  Shot with a Nikon 300s and Nikon  17-35mm f2.8 lens.  Focal length selected for this composition was 20mm.  I took 3 RAW exposures: one at the meter, one at +1 stop exposure and one at -1 stop exposure.  The images were processed in Photoshop CS4 and then combined in Photomatix Pro 4 to balance the shadowed foreground with the bright background.

I used to think of this type of manipulation as cheating but after thinking more about it I realize that it is really no different from the processes that Ansel Adams is famous for.  Pushing and pulling film, dodging, burning, and all the chemical tricks were developed and used to create on photo paper what the eye could see in the real world.  HDR photography is the same thing with different tools.

More later...maybe