Old fading wedding photo and digitally corrected version.
I received this question via email from a person worrying about old, fading prints in her scrapbooks:
“I have noticed some of my older photos look like they may be degrading; if I only have the photo itself, what is the best way to restore the print? Do I just take another photo and send it in to reprint? And one other thing, your opinion of Walgreens photo quality?”
Soleece, before and after Adobe Camera Raw.
Cameras, no matter how expensive, do not capture “visual reality”. In other words, what you see with your eyes is not what the camera captures when you click the shutter. The photo on the right is what my eyes saw when I clicked the shutter. The photo on the left is what my camera gave me. I used Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) to turn the camera image on the left into the image on the right. Plus I cropped the final image. The process of turning the camera image into the image you want only takes a minute or two.
Cemetery, The Presidio, San Francisco, California. Photo © Jim Doty, Jr.
Memorial Day began unofficially in a variety of places as people felt the need to recognize those who gave their lives in the Civil War. Memorial Day was officially declared on May 5, 1868, when General John Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic ordered a day of observance when all Union and Confederate Graves at Arlington National Cemetery would be decorated with flowers on May 30, 1868. One state after another adopted May 30 as a Memorial Day observance until all of the Northern states had adopted May 30 by 1890. Many Southern states had picked different days to honor the Confederate dead.
U.S. Flags at Sunset, Rose Hill Cemetery, Lamoni, Iowa
From Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865.
Richard Duane Klug (the name just above the rose) was born January 26, 1946. He died in Darlac Province, Vietnam, November 14, 1967 at the age of 21. He is one of over 58,000 American soldiers that died in Vietnam, and one of over 1.1 million American soldiers that have died in all American wars (almost half of them in the Civil War).
The Maroon Bells and Maroon Lake, Colorado
I wanted to capture the classic view of the Maroon Bells with no photographers in the image. But the shoreline was packed with photographers. No matter where I stood there were at least a few photographers in my image. The only place to get the image I wanted was to stand on a rock out in the lake. But a photographer was already on that rock.
Soleece, Kellerton Iowa.
Soleece picked out this red dress and we headed for my favorite brick wall with metal stairs to do some portraits.
Soleece with the green towel at Slip Bluff Lake. May 16, 2024.
If you are a nature, landscape, or outdoor portrait photographer it is a good idea to keep a towel in your car. This green towel lives in the back of my car. Sometimes I need it if I get caught in the rain or when I wade out into a lake or stream to get a better camera angle. Sometimes I drape it over my camera (and me) to protect the camera when I shoot in a light drizzle.
Soleece, Slip Bluff Lake.
I love water portraits and Soleece does too, so we went out to two of our local lakes. Solace was in the shade for the first two photos so I adjusted the camera’s white balance for the shade. I used Adobe Camera Raw to tone down the highlights a bit.
Sun with large sunspots.
The large sunspot conglomeration at the bottom of the sun is the cause of the auroral explosion here on earth. An immense storm 17 times the size of our planet is going on in that sunspot area and a blast of plasma ejected by the storm headed toward earth. When the plasma hit the earth’s magnetosphere is set off the Northern and Southern Lights around the globe. If you have a solar filter for your camera lens you can go out and take pictures of the sunspots. I took this photo this afternoon using a white light solar filter made by Thousand Oaks Optical.
Northern Lights, Home Lake, Lamoni Iowa.
The Northern Lights were spectacular last night in south central Iowa. The above image was my first click of the shutter. I was at Home Lake near Lamoni Iowa. When I arrived shortly after 10 pm, there were already a half dozen cars at the lake with people looking at the Northern Lights and many of them were taking pictures with every from smart phones and tablets to tripod mounted cameras. Tonight is predicted to be another great night. If you want to take pictures and need some advice, see the first link below. The other links are helpful too. Click any image in this article to see a larger version.
“La Pavillon D’Armide Variation”, Soloist: Ava, Dance Recital, Living Art Studios, Lamoni Iowa.
Living Art Studios in Lamoni Iowa had its annual spring dance recital May 3 at the Shaw Auditorium, Graceland University. More photos follow. Click on any of the photos to see a larger version.