2017 is going to be a great year of teaching and art fairs! Hope everyone gets out and enjoys the arts!!

Charleston, S Carolina – Photographic Workshop Tour                 

April 2 – 6 2017 $695.00, Limited to 8 Students

Charleston’s Gas Lights

Botany Bay – Boneyard Photographic Workshop Tour

April 6-7, 2017 $175/ Limited to 8 Students

Botany Bay’s Skeleton trees processed with Topaz Labs Star Effects

Smoky Mountains –  Photographic Workshop Tour                           

April 23-26 2017 $495.00, Limited to 8 Students

Spring Dogwoods at rustic cabin Smoky Mountains

Amalfi Coast – Photographic Workshop Tour

June 25 – June 30 2017 $1150.00/ Limited to 8 Students

Provence Photographic – Workshop Tour

July 2 – 6 2017 $1,150.00/ Limited to 8 Students

Sunflowers in Provence

Lake Michigan Lighthouse – Photographic Workshop Tour

Aug 13-16 2017 $345.00/ Limited to 8 Students

Big Sable Lighthouse – Ludington

Zion National Park and Painted Desert – Photographic Workshop

Nov. 5-9 2017 $695 Limited to 8 Students

Cottonwoods along the Virgin River

Southwest Slot Canyon – Photographic Workshop Tour

Nov. 9-11 2017 $350 Limited to 5 Students

Tumble Weed – Antelope Canyon – Camera raw

I Hope you rang in the New Year with peace and joy in your heart!!

Click here to get to my Links page for the 15% off discount code for any of the Topaz products

Northern Michigan’s Poplars processed with Lightroom and Topaz Clarity

Most photographers, I find are young at heart but need a little coaxing. I would like to think that I would go out and lay on the ground looking up at the sky through the trees on a beautiful fall day, but it only seems to happen when I am out capturing images. On nice days at home, when I am not preparing for an art fair, I am out mowing the lawn and gardening a little which is probably true for most of us. Luckily I am out shooting more than ever and the garden is a little more natural.

To capture this image, my camera mounted on the tripod, lying flat on my back, I composed the image of the treetops and the sky. Nature in all its glory! The raw image was nice and just needed to brighten the shadows and darkened the highlights in Lightroom. Then I used Topaz Clarity to enhance the color while popping the highlights and shadows.

Northern Michigan’s Poplars processed with Lightroom and Topaz Clarity

This unprocessed image would work but has less detail. Topaz Clarity brought out the details in the leaves and clouds.

Northern Michigan’s Poplars unprocessed

For a list of upcoming Workshops click here

$20 off Topaz B&W Effects allows for stunning black and white conversion and contains unique features like authentic grain and darkroom inspired effects. The discount will reducing the price to $39.99 for the month of March. The coupon code is: MARBW click here

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Time exposures along the rivers in the Smoky Mountains

Spending a day photographing the rivers in the Smoky Mountains is a great way to study movement while capturing great images. Every few feet you will find different patterns in the swirls and flow of the river. By working with different shutter speeds you will find what work best for you.

Rivers Flow

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Madonna’s protect Roman neighborhoods

When I explore the ancient neighborhoods of Rome I am always delighted to find the the lovely Madonna and child that have protect the locals as they travel the streets. Each neighborhood has it’s own unique and beautiful protectors and I have photographed many of them over the years. It is hard to pass them by without taking to enjoy and photograph them.

Madonna and child Rome

Lightroom is a very efficient processing tool for all my basic processing. After lightroom I used Topaz Impressions to give it a painterly effect and make the colors pop.

Madonna and child raw

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Antelope Slot Canyon – Southwest Photo Workshop

Yesterday I had the opportunity to work with JBrad Lewis on a few of the images he captured during my Novembers Southwest workshop. We used Adobe Lightroom developed module to process his image. Lightroom has a fantastic develop module and its cataloging system to organize my workflow is amazing and over the last year it has become my starting point for working on images. Lightroom’s lets you work with a thumbnail of your images instead of the full image storing metadata of the changes and making my workflow lighting fast. When I work with my images in CS6 program the larger files slow me down. Not having to wait for files to open saves me time to go out and do a little more shooting.

Antelope Canyon – Southwest Workshop

The unprocessed image looks good out of the camera but a few Lightroom adjustments makes it a award winning image.

Antelope Canyon Raw unprocessed image

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Charleston Photo Workshop – March 29 -April 2, 2015

After teaching last springs Charleston workshop Jonathan sent me a nice email and a few of the great images that he captured while we were on location.

Civil War Memorial

This infrared composition that Jonathan shot in a Charleston graveyard that we visited is amazing.

Old Charleston Church

Hi Paul, Just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed your workshop.  I learned so much on this workshop that I am looking forward to going out with you to Las Vegas next year. I was really touched by the way you welcomed me and Gina into your group even though I was the only shooter you did not leave out the non shooters. It was a pleasure to meet you and learn from you.  You are a very gifted photographer and teacher. Here are a couple of images I processed.Thank you again for sharing your knowledge and friendship.
Great Workshop!
Jonathan and Regina Davis

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Pictured Rocks – Lake Superior

Last weekend I participated in my last outdoor art fair of the year and after having a day at home I headed to Munising and Pictured Rocks to capture a great sunset. It has been a long season and nothing  refreshes me like a great sunset.

Pictured Rocks Munising Michigan

Bumble Bee, Topaz and Flypaper Textures

 

Bumblebee Flypaper Textures

While spending a little time between art fairs working in the garden I spotted this Bumble Bee collecting nectar from the Irises around the house. I attached my 90mm Tamron macro lens and captured several frames of him at f/11 1/125s   ISO 400.  To process this image I used both Clean 3 and Clarity in the Topaz suite and then I applied a texture in CS6 using Flypaper Textures using the Adobe Paper Texture plug-in.

If you are in Indianapolis for the Talbot Street art fair this weekend stop by my booth #160 to say say Hi.

Bumblebee Camera RAW Image

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