Day: May 29, 2015

Categories
Photography

How to Make Your Pictures Look Like What You Saw – by Doug Brauner

DSC06582  DSC06582 (1)

Notice anything different about these two photos? They’re the same picture taken with the same click of my camera’s shutter.

My guess is that the top photo looks like pictures that come out of your camera when you’ve upload it to your computer. It’s disappointing when pictures look like this. You know that it doesn’t represent what you saw.

I spend a good amount of time in the digital darkroom trying to create what I remember seeing. Yes, there are times that I “overcook” a photo and it doesn’t look natural. However, photographers need to understand that just because the camera says that you’ve achieved a perfect exposure it doesn’t mean the picture will look like what you saw.

The problem is the difference between a camera’s sensor and the human eye. The human eye, created by God, has the ability to discern a much high dynamic range than your camera. That means the eye can see the details in the clouds while not losing detail in the foreground. A camera can’t do it as well as your God given eye.

To capture that picture you want to share with others you need to spend time in the digital darkroom. What is the digital darkroom? It is software that came with your camera, or like Gimp, Photoshop Elements, Lightroom and others that allow you to edit you photographs. This is often referred to as post processing. In other words, the camera does its thing (processes your picture) then you upload it to your computer and edit the photo using software (post processing).

The evening I took this picture I remembered the detail in the clouds and the softness of the new leaves on the Cottonwoods.

So what did I do to get this photo to look like the image I had in my brain? Funny you should ask. Let me give you quick rundown.

  1. In Lightroom and Photoshop I…
    • … darkened the darks
    • … lightened the lights
    • … reduced the highlights
    • … used the graduated neutral density tool
    • … sharpened the image
    • … added vibrancy
    • … reduced saturation
    • … added a cooling filter
  2. I then saved the image.

Sounds like a lot of work. It took some time but not near as much as it would have taken Ansel Adams to manipulate a photograph in a real darkroom, nor as long as it has taken me to write this blog.

You might not like the edits I made to this picture (you don’t have to), yet over time I have appreciated everything that I’ve learned in the digital darkroom.

You will too.

Join the conversation at Praying With the Eyes on Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/groups/173881749421231/

(Click on picture to enlarge.)

Text and Photographs ©Copyright 2012-2015 Douglas P. Brauner.  ARR.

Categories
PWTE Daily Devotion

“Oh, the Depth!”

Click on this SoundCloud link to listen to an audio recording of today’s Blog.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison 01When you first look at this picture the canyon might look pretty deep, but to get a proper perspective you need to enlarge this picture and see the tiny little man in the upper right corner of the pic. Once you spot him then look down into the canyon.

The Black Canyon of the Gunnison isn’t just pretty deep, it is massively deep.

“Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways!” Romans 11:33 New Living Translation

The depth of God’s person isn’t pretty deep, it is massively deep. So why do we human creatures think that we can understand God? Shouldn’t Jesus choosing of the cross convince us that God’s is monstrously deep. (Okay enough of the adverbs.  I think you get the point about God.)

Maybe the problem is that we can’t imagine anyone, let alone God, loving us. We want a God who makes sense to our human reasoning, but the love of God, his riches, wisdom and knowledge, transcend our understanding.

Yet it doesn’t change the fact: God is God and we are not. Our call is to trust him even when we can’t understand him. “Oh the depth!”

 

Join the conversation on our Facebook group: Praying With the Eyes. You can listen to the Praying With the Eyes podcast on iTunes on the 1st and 15th of each month, as well as at SoundCloud.com by searching for “Praying With The Eyes.”

 

Text and Photographs ©Copyright 2012-2015 Douglas P. Brauner.  ARR.

Categories
Reflection

Lord, I’m So Tired!

by Rev Douglas Brauner

When he was tired, Jesus turned to fellowship with his Father for strength.

(This blog originally posted May 29, 2015)

It is hard for me to sit at the keyboard to type out this blog because I’m tired. I’ve been wrestling with getting the Praying With The Eyes website up and running. There were more obstacles than I had expected, even though people warned me that I would encounter them.

There were various roadblocks to starting a website that I hadn’t counted on, more than simply figuring out WordPress. I didn’t realize that I needed to find a host for the website, then a template. I watched videos that helped me understand how to set up my website.

Once I had picked and purchased a template then I had to wait for WordPress to do what they do (whatever that is). It took more than three days for WordPress to inform me that I could start building the website.

Editing the website was another adventure. I knew how I wanted the site to appear, but getting it to look that way took a great deal of trial and error…mostly error.

At the same time that I’m working on the website, I was busy working on a couple of podcasts that would be submitted to iTunes. Apple doesn’t make anything easy (contrary to all you Apple addicts out there). The simple part was recording the podcasts, the difficulty was getting it connected to the website through the PowerPress plugin and then working through Apple’s requirements. Finally, after a couple of weeks of work, IT IS FINISHED!

If the only thing I needed to do during this time was start the website and record a couple of podcasts, life would have been easy. Yet, there was more going on during that caused me stress during this time of publishing the website. There were the constant demands from my job and family.

I’m not alone in my tiredness. Many of you are exhausted as well. My last couple of weeks might seem like a cake walk for many of you, and it probably was.

We live in a tired culture.

If you’re reading this blog expecting some magic pill, I’m sorry to disappoint you. I’m writing this in midst of my tiredness, and I’m not sure when things are going to get better.

Life continues to happen. If it wasn’t the website it would be something else draining me of energy. Isn’t that the way it goes? We believe that if we get rid of that “something” that’s depleting us of life, everything would be okay only to find that another “something” takes its place.

When Jesus’ disciples returned exhausted from their mission trip, he invited them to join him in a mini “vacation” for some R&R (Mark 6:30-31), however they were not able to rest as a large crowd hounded them, a crowd that Jesus feeds with a mere five loaves of bread and two fish.

At the end of this exhausting day, Jesus retreats to spend time talking with his Father. It is in prayer that he finds his rest. He is rejuvenated by communing with his Father, so much so that he walks on water in the midst of storm.

Right now prayer feels like one more thing on my to do list, and things on my to do list are usually not fun, and that’s why they’re on the list to begin with. I put off those things that I don’t want to do. And to be honest with you, I don’t always want to pray.

Yet I can’t get away from the feeling that even though I’m tired, it’s time to talk with my heavenly Father…but will I be able to walk on water? Hmmmmmm?

Copyright Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado