Autumn & Art at Bradley FairSave the Date and join me September 13, 14 & 15, 2013 at Autumn & Art at Bradley Fair in Wichita, KS.I will be exhibiting my work alongside artists from 21 states - http://www.autumnandart.com/festival_info.php#cost
I have just returned from Wyoming and will have some images from that trip at my booth. More information about Autumn & Art to follow Thank you for stopping by & please share this with your friends! If you have time visit my fan page on Facebook - you can find it here: https://www.facebook.com/colleensternbergerphotography You can also follow me on Twitter https://twitter.com/ColleenPhotoKS Buffalo Photography WorkshopHave you ever wanted to photograph buffalo up close? Or maybe you would like to go on a photography workshop with other photographers who are enthusiastic about their craft led by a photographer knowledgeable about buffalo, landscapes and workshops. The opportunity for you to do that is right now! June 15, 2013 I will lead a group of photographers in southwest Kansas to photograph buffalo, landscapes and anything else that we might find along the way. Waiting until the afternoon to begin our workshop will help ensure the sweet light of late afternoon and early evening. Traveling along the Western Vistas Historic Byway will allow us the opportunity to explore a side of Kansas that most visitors to my home state rarely visit. The workshop is for all levels of photographers and for any kind of camera. If this sounds interesting to you, information about the workshop can be found on the workshops tab of my web site: http://www.colleensternberger.com/workshops Bison
I took this image of buffalo in Colorado in 2011. Although standing among a herd of 500 plus buffalo was exciting, the image that came out of my camera was just so, so. Buffalo are all big and brown - not very exciting. After applying a creative crop I began working with tools from my digital toolbox and ended up with the image you see above. This is a stunning image printed on satin cloth or smooth photo tex. I have seen it as simple gallery wrap and also beautifully framed. If you are interested in purchasing this print you can find it on my web site here http://bit.ly/XlSQ8v Thank you for sharing your time with me – I truly appreciate it. Colleen If you have time visit my fan page on Facebook - you can find it here: https://www.facebook.com/colleensternbergerphotography You can also follow me on Twitter https://twitter.com/ColleenPhotoKS
Fabulous WomenRecently I have been working on redesigning my web site. I have added a page title Exhibitions - this page is a list of locations where my photography can be viewed. There is also a new link that will take you directly to my Facebook page. Currently I am in an exhibition with other women from Garden City, KS and the surrounding area at the Garden City Arts. The show will close June 8, 2013. Garden City Arts is open Tuesday thru Friday from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm and on Saturday from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm. You can visit their web site by following this link http://gardencityarts.wix.com/gallery An Artists' Reception is scheduled Saturday, May 25, 2013 from 5 to 7 pm. If you are in the Garden City area please stop by. I would love to visit with you.
Thank you for sharing your time with me - I truly appreciate it. Colleen If you have time visit my fan page on Facebook - you can find it here: https://www.facebook.com/colleensternbergerphotography You can also follow me on Twitter https://twitter.com/ColleenPhotoKS
In Like a Lion . . .Welcome to March everyone! Here in Kansas March came In Like a Lion - I hope it goes Out Like a Lamb. I have been busy the last few weeks preparing for the Las Cruces Arts Fair so I have not worked on any new images. March coming In Like a Lion jogged my memory about one of my very favorite fine art photographs - Razi's Rock. I am fortunate that I have seen an African Lion in the wild, but for many people their only chance to see one is in a zoo. The same can be said for elephants, giraffes, rhinoceroses and many other animals. Zoos are great locations to photograph animals, but they also present many obstacles in getting the perfect shot. There are a few things you can do with your camera and lens to come away with a “keeper”. One of the big challenges at a zoo is photographing an animal in their exhibit without also photographing the fence or glass that separates the animal from the visitor. To help with this: get as close as you can to the fence, use a longer focal length, choose a wider aperture and wait for the animal to move back from the fence. This works well for DSLR cameras, but what if you are using a point and shoot with no control over aperture (aka depth of field)? Try switching to portrait mode which uses a wide aperture. A few other techniques that will help you in photographing animals at the zoo are: filling the frame, watch the background, focus on the eyes and treat the animals as moving subjects by using a fast shutter speed (or let your camera do the work and choose sports mode). There are two things you should never do when trying to capture a great image of a zoo animal. First, never climb on the exhibit fence or (gasp) climb into the exhibit. Second, do not tempt the animal to come closer by offering food treats. If you fill an animal up with popcorn or some other treat they will not want to eat the nutrition packed meal that their keeper will offer them later. Hmmm – maybe I will write more about zoos in a later blog. What do you think? Razi's Rock
People often ask me how I was able to get into the exhibit with the lion to take this photograph because they do not see a fence in the image. I was not in the exhibit with the lion (see the first thing never to do when photographing zoo animals above) - I used the same techniques that I mentioned earlier. I used a long focal length - 420mm, wide aperture, got as close to the fence as I could and made sure the animal was back from me. After all of this I took the picture into my digital darkroom and made a few adjustments. I cropped the picture tight and then did some selective dodging and burning. I blurred the background to exclude the fence and then started processing with NIK filters. As the image transformed I decided to add a texture to totally eliminate the background. I added some contrast and a vignette and called it good. Razi's Rock can be found in my Animal Ambassador Portfolio http://bit.ly/13yjz5X. This is an image of the male African Lion at Lee Richardson Zoo in Garden City, KS. Razi is a very handsome guy – and he knows it! Leave me a comment and let me know what you think of my image. You may ask zoo questions too. Thank you for sharing your time with me – I truly appreciate it. Colleen If you have time visit my fan page on Facebook - you can find it here: https://www.facebook.com/colleensternbergerphotography You can also follow me on Twitter https://twitter.com/ColleenPhotoKS Color My World
Wow - right now my world needs some color - it is very white outside! But with the snow comes much needed moisture. In my blog February 12, 2013 I talked a little bit about black and white photography. Today I would like to mention some ways that color wound up on a black and white print. There are two reasons for toning black and white photographs: to achieve greater longevity of the image by protecting or altering the silver in the print or to change the feeling of the photograph by modifying the print color. Sepia toning is the most popular type of toning and the most well known. Sepia toning is a chemical process that turns any silver in the developing photograph into a sulfide, which is more resistant to aging than silver. Originally made from the sepia cuttlefish, sepia pigment was used to treat printed photos to make them more durable. Consequently, many of the old photographs around today appear in brown tones due to the sepia toning that has preserved them for so long. In a traditional darkroom, toning is a time consuming and sometimes frustrating process. Many factors influence the results including the paper and chemicals used. What's more, some of the components used in toners are very hazardous. Sepia toner is a suspected carcinogen, and most dangerous of all is Selenium toner. Selenium is an extremely poisonous heavy metal. As I have studied photography there was an occasion where I used Selenium toner. The entire toning process was moved outdoors - away from the building in a well-ventilated area. Selenium gives a black and white photograph a red-brown to purple-brown tone. It was a great learning process, and the print or two or four that I produced were nice - but not outstanding, and to me not worth the risk involved in tinting the print But in today's world we have digital darkrooms where toning a photograph is merely a few mouse clicks away. It is up to the photographer to decided what tones to use and the opacity of the tones. There are several advantages to using a computer for toning; one is there no chemical danger when you tone your images. What I particularly like about toning on the computer is not only choosing the opacity of the "tone", but I can selectively brush some of it away. In the image "Joy Elevator" I took a photograph, turned it into a black and white image and then added a sepia tone. I then selectively brushed some of the sepia tone off of the silos of the elevator and the scale house, leaving a warm tone to match the surrounding image. Joy Elevator
The Joy Elevator is located west of Greensburg, KS on Hwy 54. Thank you for sharing your time with me – I truly appreciate it. Colleen
If you have time visit my fan page on Facebook. - you can find it here: https://www.facebook.com/colleensternbergerphotography You can also follow me on Twitter https://twitter.com/ColleenPhotoKS If you like my blog be sure and share it with others. And feel free to leave a comment - I would love to hear from you.
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