Steven H Gordon

iPhoneography & Art

photography

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What Snow?

Mill Creek and Snow

What Snow Isn’t Loved?

What snow doesn’t fall that isn’t loved or hated? 
Whose first flake isn’t feared or maybe eagerly awaited,
And when finally seen against something dark or on a glove,
Isn’t admired and maybe even loved?

What snow doesn’t fall and blows and isn’t banked deep?
And measured in inches or in feet or up to knees,
Isn’t considered heavy while lightly floating down or away,
And settles but doesn’t promise something new—for one moment or one day?

What snow doesn’t fall that isn’t loved?

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3-in-One

3-in-One Oil

The iconic 3-in-One oil is as popular as a cell phone. You can always find a neighbor or friend who has a bottle hanging around somewhere in home or garage. It’s not hard to understand why. Slip over to the 3-in-One website and browse all the uses that reviewers report: honing blades, lubricating contact points on a guitar, quieting hinges, removing rust. It can handle almost everything.

By blending several apps in my mobile photography workflow, my iPhone has become a 3-in-One. It shoots quickly, slowly, closely, distantly. It can handle almost anything.
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Photograph Water: Don’t Overlook the Small

If you like to photograph water, with its reflections of sky and trees, look for big opportunities by visiting small water.

Shallow puddle deepens the mirrored sky when you photograph water
Shallow puddle deepens the mirrored sky

The urge to see big things is almost inescapable. A big landscape, a big river, a big sky, a big sunset–these all shout like a carnival barker and we often pay full attention.

Photograph Water

I live in northern Alabama where big lakes are 15 minutes to an hour away. A big river, the Tennessee, flows east to west before swinging north to meet up with the Ohio and eventually give over its muddy waters to the Mississippi. Not far away are waterfalls, water pulled frantically over limestone ledges and pushed into rough boulders and fallen trees.
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Lightroom Exports and your Website

monastery doors looking outside

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (Lr) is like a big house filled with kids. We feed, dress, and play with them but at some point we anxiously kick them out so they can make their own way in the world. In Lightroom parlance, that rite of passage is called exporting.

Recently, I used Lightroom to export photos for a website. I wanted several different sizes (dimensions and file sizes) for the exported images. Once I finished, I had learned how a few Lightroom tricks can speed up work and preserve inner peace.

Three Lightroom functions played a big role in my project:

  1. Collections
  2. Export Presets
  3. Virtual Copies

[Read more…] about Lightroom Exports and your Website

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Keywords Improve Your Photography

Keywords will improve your photography by organizing your images, making them discoverable by others. If you plan to sell to your images, they are as necessary as luggage when you travel.

keywords are like luggage
Photo by Erwan Hesry

Most image-editing software shows image metadata. Some, like Apple Photos and Adobe Lightroom allows you to edit the metadata.

Metadata

So what is metadata? It’s all the additional information about a photo that’s stored in your image file. It includes information recorded by your camera, like time and date, GPS coordinates, exposure, focal length and the make and model of the camera itself.

Adobe Lightroom is a popular app for importing, organizing, editing, and exporting your photos. One of its most overlooked areas is metadata. Metadata is like luggage–you plan for a vacation and pack for all eventualities. Like packing for a trip, packing metadata takes time. But not packing properly can limit what you do on vacation. [Read more…] about Keywords Improve Your Photography