Jim Zuckerman’s
PH OTO I N S I G HTS April 2013
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One shot HDR Fundamental ingredients New eBook How to make a sketch Cheap flash stand Photo tours Student showcase 1
Table of Contents
4. One shot HDR 9. Fundamental ingredients 14. New eBook 16. How to make a sketch 20. What’s wrong with this picture? 22. Short and sweet 24. Ask Jim 26. Cheap flash stand 30. Student showcase 33. Back issues
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Many amateur photographers feel that using the camera in manual exposure mode means that you have more creative control compared to using Program mode, aperture priority, or shutter priority. Depending on auto exposure, they reason, means you are less knowledgeable about the medium. I disagree. Even if you use manual exposure mode, you still depend on the camera’s built-in meter to give you the correct exposure. You have to set the shutter speed and lens aperture manually according to this reading. So, what’s the difference if the camera turns the shutter speed dial or you do? There is no difference in: creativity, control, or artistry. However, there is one important difference that can make or break what you capture. It’s speed. When you have to manually turn the shutter speed dial and the lens aperture wheel, this takes time. It can take several seconds. With fast changing situations or fast moving subjects, you don’t have the luxury of time. Every millisecond counts whether you are shooting the spontaneous laughter of a child, a bird in flight, a race horse, or a butterfly nectaring on a flower. When you use P, Av, or Tv, you don’t have to waste those precious seconds fiddling with the camera. You can direct your attention to focus, composition, expression, light and shadow, etc. That’s where your creativity and control comes into play, not in turning dials. Jim photos@jimzuckerman.com www.jimzuckerman.com
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S H O T
HDR
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t’s a great time to be a photographer. The technology we have now in the digital realm allows us to be creative like never before. It also enables us to solve photographic problems like never before. One of the most vexing challenges in photography is the problem of contrast. A digital sensor is brilliant technology, but it’s not as sophisticated as our eye/ brain combination in perceiving detail in both the highlights and the shadows in a scene. The dynamic range of a digital sensor is limited. New cameras in the near future will be much improved in their ability to reveal highligh and shadow detail, but for now cameras don’t capture the detail that we can see. High Dynamic Range, or HDR, refers to the expanded ability of a digital sensor to capture detail in both the deep shadows and the bright highlights of a subject or scene. The way this is done is to take several shots of a non-moving subject that are bracketed in one or two f/stop increments. The same lens aperture is used for all of the exposures, thus it’s the shutter speed that is varied. You can use manual ex-
posure mode or aperture priority for this. The technique is usually done from a tripod, but it can also be done hand holding the camera using auto exposure bracketing. When you have taken several frames that range from significantly overexposed (to reveal detail in the shadows) to grossly underexposed (to show detail in the highlights), software like Nik HDR Efex Pro 2 combines all of the images into one perfectly exposed photograph with awesome detail throughout. Shadows are not black and highlights are not solid white, i.e. blown out. The cover of this month’s issue, taken in Tallin, Estonia, is an example. I combined only three frames to create an image with phenomenal dynamic range. What happens, though, if you didn’t think about using HDR at the time you took the pictures? What if there was too much wind, or the subject was moving or you didn’t have a tripod and HDR didn’t seem feasible? Can you still process an image after-the-fact and make it look like you had combined several frames for an expanded dynamic range? The answer is yes, you can. Look at the image at left. This is St. Alexander Nevsky Orthodox Church, also in Tallin, and this is exactly as it came out of the camera. I didn’t change or manipulate this image in any way. Note the dark shadow and diminished detail on the tree. Also note the shadows at the bottom of the church, the reduced detail on the domes, and the overexposed highlight on the triangular design on the yellow building on the left. The colors are too dark and desaturated, also, because the meter tried to balance the exposure between the relatively bright sky and the shadowed side of the church facing the camera. Now compare this photo with the one on page 4. The difference is astonishing. The tree has complete detail, and in fact it is middle toned instead of being so dark that the leaves were hardly visible. The lower stonework on the church has good detail and tone as well, and the triangular feature on the yellow building isn’t overexposed. I did this by using Nik Software’s updated plug-in, HDR Efex Pro 2. I consider this essential gear because it opens up an entirely new way of approaching contrast, exposure, dynamic range, and even color in your pictures. 5
You never see pictures of wildlife done in HDR because animals usually don’t remain perfectly still long enough to be assured you can fire off three or more frames of varying exposures. We are focused entirely on just getting the picture, and high dynamic range is a luxury that seems out of reach. However, with single frame HDR, you can have your cake and eat it, too. The picture of a hunting leopard in Kenya, below, is an example. I have always liked the original photo (the small inset) a lot because of the sunrise light, the intensity of the cat’s stare, and natural environment. The shadows are too dark, however. Even though I shot this picture about 15 minutes after sunrise, the lighting is still contrasty. The digital sensor couldn’t handle this much of a discrepancy between shadows and highlights, and by exposing for the highlights I
had to sacrifice the darker areas of the image. The HDR processed image of the leopard is much, much better. The tree trunk has incredible detail and texture, and the shadow beneath and to the right of the cat is dark, as it should be, but we can see complete detail in those areas just as I could at the time I took the picture. The image of the leopard and the shot of the church in Estonia were both processed the same way. I accessed the plug-in in Photoshop with Filter > Nik Collection > Hdr Efex 2. This opens a dialog box (next page), and from there Nik makes it very easy to get incredible results. On the left there are many presets from which you can choose the look you want. Some of the choices are more contrasty, some are very low in contrast, and several of them offer different types of color saturation, structure (a bold, gritty-type of look), and contrast. Once you choose a preset, you can further tweak the image by manipulating exposure, saturation, structure, the highlights, the shadows, the white and black points, and more. This is done on the right side of the dialog box with sliders. It’s very user friendly and intuitive, and
you’ll be amazed and how you can embellish your work with ease. Another example of a one shot HDR is the elephant I photographed at sunset in the Masai Mara in Kenya. Low angled sunlight has less contrast than an overhead sun, but it still has contrast. You can see that the flared ears are dark while the landscape and the sidelit portion of the elephant is correctly exposed. Using Nik’s HDR Efex Pro 2, I was able to bring out all the detail in the ears and, at the same time, darken the sky for drama and visual impact. This is the kind of tool that photographers have wanted since the beginning of photography. If you buy any of the Nik products, use the discount code JZUCKERMAN and you’ll save 15%. §
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UPCOMING PHOTO WORKSHOPS Baby Wildlife Workshop Hinckley, Minnesota June 14 - 16, 2013
Winter Wildlife Workshop Hinckley, Minnesota Jan. 31 - Feb. 2
Frog & Reptile Workshop St. Louis, Missouri June 22 - 23, 2013
Two back-to-back Carnival Workshops, Venice, Italy Feb. 21 - 27 - 23, 2014 Feb. 27 - March 5, 2014
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Fundamental Ingredients for Great Photography
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hen I teach photography in my online courses, in weekend seminars, and on my photo tours, I often talk about the most fundamental factors that will immediately help people take better pictures. I try to keep it simple, straightforward, and clear. That means I do a lot of thinking about what ingredients go into good picture taking. I try to tease apart my work and the work of other accomplished pros to determine what we do to create successful images. I’ve conclued there are three basic ingredients that elevate pictures to what I would call fine art (photojournalism such as war, demonstrations, political rallies, etc. is a different discussion). There are many other factors, too, that are important, but these are the three fundamentals:
shapes are all about lines. If a subject has beautiful lines, such as the repeating ceiling arches and the elongated railing in the main hall of the Natural History Museum in London, above, the picture will usually be visually compelling. The silhouette of the leopard at sunset, below, is another example of a bold and artistic graphic design. When I have a camera in hand, no matter what I’m shooting, the shapes before me are foremost in my thought process as I look for a good angle, the right lens, and the
1. Graphic design 2. Lighting 3. Great subjects Graphic design Graphic design is all about the shapes of things, and 9
right amount of depth of field. If the subject doesn’t have an artistic shape, chances are it won’t be as strong of a picture. There are always exeptions, of course, and a lot depends on the subject matter. A closeup of a person’s face has less to do with shape than expression and lighting, but for nature, architecure, macro work, fashion, wildlife, abstracts, and so much more, graphic design is paramount. The lobby of the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, right, is a striking example of incredible graphic design. I took this picture looking straight up, and although I embellished this with extreme color saturation, it’s the lines and the design that make this such a striking image. I used a 14mm lens to capture as much of the design as possible. The egret flying at sunset, also, exhibits beautiful lines. Had the wings been partially folded on the upstroke, this wouldn’t have been a successful image. Even in the fashion-like photo on the next page, shape is a main factor. Look at the curvature of the young woman’s back, small waist, and gown. The man’s back is curved in a complementary way to mirror the woman’s curve.
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Lighting We all know that lighting is a key ingredient to good photography, but it’s very easy to be thinking about other things when shooting fast and you forget about the light. So, let me remind you that for virtually all outdoor photography, the three best scenarios are: sunrise, sunset, and overcast conditions. For macro work, I prefer the diffused light of an overcast sky. The sunset shot at Canyon de Chelly in Arizonta, right, is a good example of how the golden lighting from a low angled sun adds beauty and artistry to landscapes. At the other end of the spectrum, the overcast conditions that produced the soft light on the California poppies and lupine, below, is also very beautiful. I actually prefer diffused light for all floral photography. The only exception that I can think of for this lighting guideline is when you are shooting turquoise blue water such as in the Carribean or the South Seas. You want the color of the water to look as good as it does in pictures as it does to your eyes, so in that case you want mid-day sunlight. Only then will the water look super saturated in color without any manipulation. The picture on the next page shows you what I’m talking about.
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Great subjects Great subjects make great pictures. This may sound so elementary that it’s not worth even mentioning, but it is fundamentally important. Boring subjects are just that -- boring. Conversely, great subjects hold our attention. For example, if you photograph a small brown butterfly and the picture is technically correct -- good exposure, sufficient depth of field, complementary background -- people will say, ‘Nice shot’. But if you show them a picture of an neon blue Morpho butterfly, people will exclaim, ‘Wow, that’s awesome.’ Why? It’s the subject. If you pursue great subjects, your photography will take a quantum leap forward. I have spent my life in pursuit of this, and whether I find great subjects in my backyard (at a bird feeder, for example) or halfway around the world, it makes a huge difference. Here is a partial list of subjects that most people would consider great:
• Tall ships • Lighthouses • Perfect flowers • A beautiful face • A child’s laugh • Castles • Skylines of large cities • A nude with a perfect body • Large birds in flight • Colorful butterflies • Beautiful landscapes • Colorful frogs • Old cemeteries • Autumn colors • Puppies and kittens • Dramatic cathedrals • Horses in motion • Leopards • Roman ruins • Models in exotic costumes § 13
A New eBook!
The 52 Best Photo Locations in Europe
If you are planning on traveling to Europe and want precise locations of the best photo locations, you’ll want to keep this ebook on your iPad or iPhone to use as reference and inspiration. It took me decades and many trips to Europe to find these great locations, and in each one you’ll be able to take classically beautiful images. I’m all about great subjects, and that’s what I offer you in this ebook. At the end of each section, I provide the GPS coordinates of where you’ll want to shoot from, and addresses and phone numbers are also listed when applicacable. For the most part, I don’t list the major icons that everyone knows like the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, etc. Europe is so rich in photographic material that I describe other fantastic subjects that you probably don’t know. In addition, I let you know when tripods are prohibited, and I offer stategies for dealing with that challenge. I discuss exposure, lens choice, white balance, image stabilization, ISO settings, and other issues as they pertain to each of the locations.
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Lighting is very important when you travel, and if you haven’t been to a location before you don’t know if it’s a morning shot or if sunset is better. I provide that information, and I also disucss twilight photography quite a bit because European cities and monuments are lit so artfully in the evening. Ebooks are great because you can carry them with you in digital form and they take up no room other than the electronic device that holds them (which you carry anyway). In addition, the photographs on each page are backlit and therefore the colors are brilliant. Even the best quality reproduction in a print book doesn’t come close to the beauty of photos in an ebook. The 52 Best Photo Locations in Europe has 256 photos, and that means for each photo location there are many examples of the types of pictures you can expect to take. I wish I would have had a book like this when I first starting traveling to Europe. It would have saved me an enormous amount of time and money. I think you’ll find this invaluable. §
Check out these great eBooks click each ebook to see what’s inside
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E
How to Make a Sketch
ver since the beginning of my involvement in photography, I’ve enjoyed turning photos into painting-like images. I can’t draw at all -- well, maybe a stick figure -- and when I see great art I feel disappointed that I wasn’t given that ability. So, whenever I discover a digital technique whereby I can convert my photographs into what looks like works of art, I love it. This sketch technique is very easy, it’s quick, and it will give you a new way of looking at your photographs. Here are the steps for making a sketch: 1. Open photo in Photoshop with File > open 2. Make a duplicate layer, Command or Ctrl J
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3. Open the hue/saturation dialog box, Image > Adjustments > hue/saturation, and move the saturation slider all the way to the left. This makes the photo black and white. 4. Make another duplicate layer, Command or Ctrl J, of the black and white image. 5. Invert the image using Image > adjustments > invert. 6. In the layers palette, go to the blend modes (click the tab that says ‘normal’). Choose color dodge. 7. Finally, choose Filter > other > minimum. In the dialog box, select 3 or 4 or any number that makes the sketch look good to you. Now, flatten the layers with Layer > flatten image.
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At this point, you have a black and white sketch. You can embellish it with color such as the landscape, below. To do this, I used Image > adjustments > color balance. The sliders in the dialog box are simple to use to imbue the image with a monochromatic tone. If you want to retain some of the original colors -in other words, combine the sketch with the original photograph -- you can use the blend modes to do this. Once you’ve created the sketch and flattened the layers, use File > save as, and give the sketch a unique name. Then, copy it to the clipboard with Edit > copy and paste it over the original photo using Edit > paste. At this point, go into the layers palette and click on the submenu that shows the word ‘normal’. Scroll through each of the blend modes to see if any appeal to you. The portrait of the young girl, right, was made using the blend mode overlay. This is one of the most useful of all the blend modes. Some of the blend modes will look terrible, but a few
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will turn out to be very artistic. It’s a just a matter of trial and error because there is really no way to predict how the final blend will look. As you experiment with blend modes, you can also adjust the opacity of the layer. This gives you additional control over how much of the sketch shows versus how much of the original image comes through.
Costa Rica Hummingbird Photo Tour Nov. 30 to Dec. 6, 2013 Hummers Reptile/Amphibian shoot Exotic birds galore Macro
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What’s wrong with this picture?
I
photographed this social flycatcher in the rain at the lodge where my photo tour group were staying in Costa Rica. We were at the foot of Mt. Arenal, and the bird life was just amazing. This bird had landed on a railing about 25 feet from me, and although it was fairly close, it’s a very small bird and I wanted the visual impact of filling much of the frame with it. Therefore, I used my 500mm f/4 Canon lens plus a 1.4x teleconverter which gave me 700mm of focal length. The problem with this picture is the railing. Even though this bird was in the wild, the manmade metal railing is too visually annoying. It doesn’t look natural, it’s a strange shade of green, and it draws the eye away from the bird. It also has a sheen on it that I don’t like.
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There was nothing I could do about that at the time, but I recognized the problem immediately. I knew what had to be done in post-processing. I kept inching forward to get as close as possible, shooting from every position, and finally he flew away. I then took pictures of several slender tree trunks and branches in preparation for the Photoshop work I had to do. When I got home, I opened the picture of the bird as well as the one of the slender tree trunk photos. I rotated the tree photo 90 degrees with Image > image rotation > 90° CW to make the trunk horizontal. Then, I chose the clone tool and cloned from the picture of the tree to the picture of the bird on the railing. You can clone from one photo to another if both images are open on your desktop. The clone tool works
as it normally does -- you hold down the alt or the option key, click on the spot from where you want to take the information, then click on the receiving picture and start cloning.
are not cloned over with the bark of the tree. The pen tool puts down a series of anchor points, and the more you use, the more precise will be the selection. I work at 300% to do this.
The key, though, is to constrain the cloning to exactly where you want it. What separates good cloning from bad in this situation are the edges. Many photographers who attempt something like this accept a slightly blurred edge where the edge of the cloned tree meets the out of focus background, but a blurred edge doesn’t look real or believable. That’s not how we see it.
Once that is finished, I feather the edge of the selection by one pixel (Select > modify > feather), and now when the clone tool is used the new information -the tree bark -- stays within the selected area.
The solution is to first make a selection of the railing. This has to be done with the pen tool because this is the most precise method of selecting in Photoshop. The selection has to go around the bird’s feet so they
Notice in the original picture that the limited depth of field (I used f/8) shows the railing out of focus on the left and right side of the picture. I could have simulated that in the composite, but I much prefer as much depth of field as possible. The use of Photoshop made that possible. §
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SHORT AND SWEET 1.
When photographing any kind of flat art, such as this beautiful mural in Pompeii, Italy, make the back of the camera, i.e. the plane of the digital sensor, as parallel as posible with the artwork. This will increase the depth of field.
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When you travel either domestically or internationally, stay in hotels that offer cool things to photograph. You can see all aspects of hotels now online. This staircase is part of the Colony Hotel in DelrayBeach, Florida. The ragdoll was sitting on a sofa in their lobby, and I moved it here for the photo.
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2.
If you want to sell your pictures, remember that color sells. Even if you have to use Photoshop to introduce bright colors, it’s well worth your time. This car was originally a dull, desaturated blue. The electric magenta is like eye candy.
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April is awesome in the Austin, Texas area. The bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush are in full bloom, and the landscape and macro photography opportunities are dazzling. Check out this website: http://www.texaswildflowerpictures.com/update.htm §
Photography Tours 2013/2014 LONDON/PARIS August, 2013
NAMIBIA November, 2013
BURMA (Myanmar) April, 2014
TIGERS & PANDAS in CHINA January, 2014
SOUTHWEST USA March, 2014
KENYA August, 2014
COSTA RICA December, 2013
CARNIVAL IN VENICE February, 2014
MONGOLIA September, 2014
Check out the itineraries and photo galleries from these and other tours: www.jimzuckerman.com. 18
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ASK JIM
Every month Jim will answer a question from his online students, from people who participate in his tours and workshops, or from subscribers to this magazine.
Q: I like to take pictures of clouds out of airplane windows. I know that the thick plastic windows are
not the best quality, but too often my pictures are unsharp. When I look at the clouds, they seem clear and sharp, but that’s not how my camera records them. What am I doing wrong? Bettie Magdich, Nashville, Tennessee
A: Assuming the windows you are shooting through are not scratched and they don’t have ice crystals on
them (two reasons aerial photos are degraded in quality), you have to make the lens as perpendicular to the plane of the window as possible. As soon as the lens axis becomes oblique to the window, the image quality goes downhill very, very fast. It’s best to sit in a seat away from the wing. If you sit above or near the wing, you have to angle the camera away from it to shoot the clouds, and consequently you’ll be disappointed with the poor quality of your pictures. Even if you can shoot straight such that the lens axis is 90 degrees to the plane of the window, expect that you’ll have to sharpen the pictures in Photoshop as well as add some contrast with Image > adjustments > levels. Jim
© Bettie Magdich 2013
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London & Paris Photo Tour Sept. 26 to Oct. 5, 2013
Night photography Awesome interiors Stunning art Great cityscapes
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Simple & cheap flash stand
A
very simple plastic stand on a portable flash turns any room into a studio. It doesn’t matter what brand of stand you have. The only function of this is to allow you to place the flash off-camera so you can side light, back light, or add light from any angle you want. With a slave set up or a remote trigger, you can fire more than one flash for a sophisticated look. For example, to take the picture of the caterpillar above I used a flash on the background (which is a 13 x 19 inch print of out of focus foliage mounted on foam core and placed behind the subject) as well as a flash on the caterpillar itself. For the portrait of a costumed model in Venice, Italy during carnival (this is a boudoir shoot I set up for my photo tour groups), I positioned one flash on a coffee table out of the picture to the right and another flash on-camera to illuminate the front. For just a few dollars and virtually no weight, you can carry a plastic stand wherever you go. You won’t be de26
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oosF pendent on other people to hold the flash for you, and it frees you up to concentrate on the exposure and the composition. If you have a remote triggering system that works on a radio signal like the Pocket Wizard or the Canon 600Ex plus the Canon ST-E3 transmitter (similar to the builtin Nikon commander), you can fire the off-camera flash even if it is placed directly behind the subject. The creative potential is tremendous in this kind of scenario. Look at the silhouette of a frog, right. The flash was directly behind the leaf when it was fired, creating luminous backlighting on the translucent leaf. For the chameleon below, I placed the flash and its small stand to the right of the repitle to create pronounced texture on the skin.
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Get professionalcritiques critiques of yourof work Get professional your work with Jim’s online courses with Jim’s online courses Betterphoto.com betterphoto.com Learn composition, exposure, Photoshop, beginning fundamentals, techniques in low light photography, flash, making money in photography, and more at your convenience and on your schedule.
Strokkur Geyser, Iceland 20
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Student Showcase
Each month, Jim features one or more students who took beautiful and inspiring images on one of his photography tours or workshops. It’s really fascinating how photographers see and compose such different images even though we may go to the same place. Everyone gets great images on my trips.
Ben Pienta (13 years old), Mcnabb, IL Winter Wildlife Workshop in Minnesotaa
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Ben Pienta, McNabb, IL
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PHOTOSHOP WORKSHOP in my home
Sat. & Sun., April 20, 21
Photoshop is a photographer’s best friend, and the creative possibilities are absolutely endless. In a personal and ‘homey’ environment (I have a very cool classroom setup in my home), I start at the beginning -- assuming you know nothing -- but I quickly get into layers, cutting and pasting, plug-ins, using ‘grunge’ textures, modifying lighting, and a lot more. I promise to fill your head with so many great techniques that you won’t believe what you’ll be able to do. I go over each technique several times to make sure you understand it and can remember it.
creative ideas that will inspire you to produce amazing images with the pictures you’ve already taken.
Photoshop instructors approach teaching this program from different points of view. My approach is to be as expansive in my thinking as possible in creating unique, artistic, and compelling images. In addition to showing you how to use the various tools, pull down menus, layers, and so on, I spend a lot of time giving you
Contact me if you would like to participate in the workshop and I will tell you how to sign up (photos@jimzuckerman.com). All you need is a laptop and a lot of your pictures. If you don’t have a laptop, I have two Mac Book Pro laptops I can loan out for the duration of the workshop. §
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I live in the Nashville, Tennessee area, and if you fly into the airport (BNA) I will pick you up. If you drive, I’ll give you my address and you can find my home on Mapquest. For the $450 fee, I include one dinner in my home (prepared by my wife who is an amazing cook and hostess) and two lunches, plus shuttling you back and forth from my home to your nearby hotel.
Click on the past issues of
PH OTO I N S I G HTS you would like to read.
Nov. ‘12
Dec. ‘12
Jan. ‘13
Feb. ‘13
Mar. ‘13
Apr. ‘13
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PHOTO INSIGHTS®
published by Jim Zuckerman, all rights reserved © Jim Zuckerman 2013 email: photos@jimzuckerman.com physical address: P.O. Box 7, Arrington, TN 37014
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