Klausphotos Blog

National Western Stock Show

2010-01-21T23:06:00.000-08:00

The national Western Stock Show is a unique event that Denver hosts every year. It shows a side of Denver that many people don't know about. The event is, as I understand it, the super bowl for farm kids that raise livestock in FFA (Future Farmers of America), an auction and trading center for all things livestock (even very expensive sperm!!), a herding and flyball dog competition, and a world class rodeo. I'm sure it is way more than that, but I am not very well versed in these types of things!!

So this Tuesday I went to try and capture the essence of the show with my camera. The following is my account of the show:

FOOD: there is lots of it, and most of it will either satisfy your gluttonous sweet tooth or your macho side.

The first item is certainly only found in America.

Next we have a few manly meals:

LIVESTOCK: these are some of my favorites, but it is not a good representation of the diversity of animals there. It is strange to see all the cattle completely clean. They are being groomed constantly since they will either be judged or sold at auction.

This was my favorite cow, just bathed, wearing the bling and the hair all done up!

RODEO: Last but not least, here are some pictures from the rodeo. The rodeo was incredibly entertaining and exciting! What these guys (and girls) can do with ropes, while on a horse, is UNBELIEVABLE. Some people don't like rodeo, and after watching this, I can see why. I understand the arguments on both sides, and don't have a strong feeling for or against rodeo but I have to say there were a few times when I felt bad for the calves being tied up and/or drug around. I also understand that I may have felt worse about it than the calf, who knows. And then of course, the horses got to kick ass and give the cowboys a taste of their own medicine during the bareback riding competition. So I guess in the animals vs humans competition, it kind of evened out.

This is my favorite rodeo pic and favorite of the day. This is the part that made me feel bad for the calf, mentioned above. It almost looks like the cowboy does too (I hope he doesn't read this).

The announcer was hilarious and quoted The Big Lebowski after one of the horses bucked a guy off, he said "This aggression will not stand... man". The horse won this one:

Rodeo is definitely a family affair. Here is a father and daughter enjoying the show:

This was a little different kind of photography than I normally do and I really enjoyed getting out and trying something different. The stock show is a fun way to spend a day in Denver during January, there is a lot for kids to do and see as well as adults. There is one more weekend left if you want to go check it out!

For more info: http://www.nationalwestern.com/nwss/home/home.php

A little more post processing

2010-01-10T22:32:00.000-08:00

I am currently trying to learn more photoshop skills with the intention of creating more artistic versions of some of my images. I like a lot of the post processing I see photographers doing these days. Some of it makes the image look like an old image from a film camera.

I decided to try out some of my newly learned tricks on my recently posted Snowy Farm image. Love it? Hate it? Let me know!

Cold as ice, but not willing to sacrifice

2010-01-08T11:17:00.000-08:00

I really wanted to get up for sunrise yesterday morning, but I also knew it was going to be around zero degrees. I managed to rise early enough to watch it out the window and it was spectacular. It had snowed a few inches and the cold had created frost on everything.

Down on myself for not rising early enough, I went out for a drive anyway to see what photographs might present themselves. I came across this little farm scene and am very happy with it:

Contest

2009-11-24T22:26:00.000-08:00

So I am currently unemployed, which sucks. However the silver lining is that I have time to do more photography related stuff. So when Chase Jarvis announced he was having a contest and the prize was a trip to hang at his studio for a day in Seattle, I was very excited! The contest involved taking a picture of his new photo book in some location and he would pick the most clever or interesting or whatever he decided.

So I decided to take a picture of my dog, Frisco, fetching the book. But I also wanted this to be another chance to learn new photoshop skills, so I decided to do a composite shot, merging a bunch of frames together to show the motion Frisco went through to catch the book. Chase and his crew do some amazing shots like this of skiers.

So I took Frisco out in the park to do his favorite thing, fetch frisbees, and mixed the book in for some of the tosses. I used a tripod and took all the shots from the same location to make the merge as easy as possible. Once I felt like I had enough shots, I came home and then spent 2 and a half hours merging them together using layers and masking in photoshop.

Below is the finished product, which actually WON! the week's contest!! Hopefully it will be good enough to win the trip to Seattle because that place is ridiculously cool and I'd love the chance to check out their studio and their workflow etc etc. But if not, I won a signed print and I had a great time doing it and learning new photoshop skills.

And thanks to "Anonymous" for the kick in the pants to start posting to my blog again! (I have the time!)

And thanks to Chase for selecting my photo and inspiring me to shoot!!

Did you Photoshop that?

2009-04-05T11:26:00.000-07:00

Photographers often get asked whether they use Photoshop on their images. There are many blogs out there that have talked about this, but I am going to add my 2 cents. It is often pointed out that Ansel Adams had his own version of photoshop, the darkroom. He manipulated his images using advanced darkroom techniques and even has multiple versions of the same image out there. There is a great Ansel gallery in Santa Fe that has many original prints of same images he did over many years as he gained new darkroom skills. It is really neat to see the different prints hanging next to each other.

Back to today and digital imaging. Most serious photographers shoot in RAW format so that they can make adjustments in the computer later. When a RAW image is first opened in the software, it is often a very dull image because there is no saturation, white balance etc applied to it. SO it is necessary to make adjustments. In many cases, these adjustments are done in photoshop.

Below are 2 versions of the same image I took last fall. The first is the RAW image and the second is my finished version(processed with Aperture and Photoshop).

I look at it this way: the RAW image is the negative and the post-process software is the darkroom. Now, of course there is another question around all this and that is are you striving to present a realistic image or a manipulated piece of graphic art? In my case I am usually striving to present it as it looked when I shot the image (although I admit I sometimes try and make it "pop" a little). If I stuck a giraffe in the above image, and presented it as a picture of Crested Butte, that would be unethical... :)

Photoshop Training

2009-04-04T13:27:00.000-07:00

I am working on getting better at photoshop... I took a class last week but have found that there are so many resources on the internet, that if you just take the time to explore and practice you can learn a lot more that way. So last night and this morning, I was working on a tutorial I found on the web. I added my own elements to it and cut a few corners for time's sake, but here is what I came up with:

and in case you didn't know, grass fed beef is really good for you, in fact it is better than farm-raised salmon.

Spring in Boulder

2009-03-17T21:36:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things about living in Boulder County is seeing all the baby cows running around the open spaces in spring. They are so cute when they are running full speed. I wonder if they know that they are only going to be runners for like 6 months?? Then they spend the rest of their lives just wandering around eating grass and mooing. I hope they aren't bitter at all the running humans in Boulder when they get older.

So I went out into an open space area full of the breeding cows this weekend to try and get some images of the calves and their mothers... I got a few good ones, see below:

There are a few more on my website, under "New Images".

Just Show Up

2009-02-24T08:57:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I have trouble motivating to get out and shoot. It is especially hard to get up at sunrise in winter. This past weekend, we got a light snow on Friday night and I planned to get up and shoot at a lake near Boulder, knowing that it had been warm all week so the lake would not be frozen. In this situation, the lake will have steam coming off it at sunrise, which increases the potential for dramatic sunrise shots.

All of this worked out as predicted, the fog was rising off the lake at sunrise and there were some geese on the lake. However, my favorite shot of the morning had nothing to do with the lake. And that is the point of this post. If you JUST SHOW UP, you could get a completely unexpected shot!! If I had stayed in bed, my body's preference that morning, I would not have gotten this shot:

(can be seen larger on my website under new images)

Ever wonder what it's like to live in NYC??!?!?

2009-02-16T18:55:00.000-08:00

Sara's sister and brother-in-law, two new york artists who are way cooler than I will ever come close to being, got their living and working spaces showcased on a blog today.... pretty fun stuff!!

Beautiful Snowy Sunrise

2009-02-11T21:23:00.000-08:00

I woke up at 6 am this morning in anticipation of a beautiful sunrise after a pretty heavy snowfall. It didn't disappoint. I have displayed many of them on my website.

www.klausphotos.com

Change in America

2009-02-08T19:59:00.000-08:00

The only change Frisco wants is MORE FRISBEE!!

Found a fun website where you can create Obamicons with your own pictures...

Microstock and Taxes

2009-02-08T14:09:00.000-08:00

I just finished my taxes and I am relieved that I am getting a nice refund. It was a crazy year, in that I worked for 2 companies, was unemployed for a while and also made more money than I could have ever imagined selling photography on iStockphoto.com.

Which brings me to the subject of this post. Paying taxes on my stock income was a little tricky, since iStock doesn't give us any 1099's or any other record of our income. I use TurboTax for my taxes every year, partially because they were my best employer to date and partly because I love the ease of use. For my stock earnings, I followed their instructions for a Schedule C which is for Profit and Loss from Business(Sole Propietorship).

I was very conservative about what I deducted as business expenses. I claimed depreciation on my equipment and hotels/mileage on my car for two trips I took last year that were 100% photography. These trips had only one purpose, to get more images into my portfolio. I had the mileage and the hotel receipts so I felt confident in using these expenses.

I'm sure there were many other deductions i could have taken throughout the year but I didn't keep detailed records of everything, so I didn't want to create any red flags in my return.

I'm wondering what other stock contributors do for taxes? Sole propietorships? Other Deductions? Do you use accountants? I'd love to hear!!

My favorite picture of the kids in the Bahamas

2009-01-29T23:21:00.000-08:00

Here is my favorite of the shots I mentioned in the previous post:

Model Release mania

2009-01-29T23:08:00.000-08:00

So I took a bunch of great shots of my cousins in the Bahamas last month and I am uploading them to iStock. This has been quite a headache! First I sent the MR's to my sisters to get them signed. Then I scanned them all into my computer as Jpegs...

Now the hard part, iStock only allows one upload of a release. SO I had to figure out how to combine them in Photoshop. What I did was combine them as a contact sheet. I'm not sure if that is how everyone else does it, but that is how I got all the releases into one jpeg. (they only allow jpeg)

To do this, I followed this path File->Automate->Contact Sheet II and here is what my settings looked like for 2 (change the columns field for more):

New website!!

2009-01-28T22:10:00.001-08:00

I just got my new website up and running!! Check it out!!

Work or Shoot?

2009-01-28T21:55:00.000-08:00

So I was leaving the garage today, heading to work on a frigid morning, when I noticed the clouds were lifting from the Flatirons. The trees and rock were all plastered with snow and looked absolutely beautiful. I had my camera in the car but had to get to work!! Now that I work in Arvada, it is not so easy to stop and shoot in Boulder on the way to work, and I miss it!

So, I decided I could run into Boulder quick, get some shots and then race to work. Maybe nobody will notice if I am late?!?

It was well worth it. I chased a coyote out of a field so I could set up my tripod, got set up and captured some good shots, I think. You can judge for yourself below. And I made it to work by nine so it wasn't too bad.

iStock Ebb and Flow

2009-01-23T15:25:00.000-08:00

Funny, now today I had my best day ever!! I had my biggest Extended License sale which brought my month back on track!!

My big sale was for this image:

iStock ebb and flow

2009-01-19T12:10:00.000-08:00

I am glad that I do not count on iStock income!! My sales have dropped dramatically this month. I was excited since I just moved up to the silver level which means I get a bigger cut of the sales. Oh well, hopefully it is just a cyclical thing and it will come back up next month!

Bahamas in my Portfolio!

2009-01-15T20:36:00.000-08:00

Just got back from a cruise in the Bahamas. I got a few good pictures, one of which was just accepted onto iStock... I think it has some potential...

Welcome!!

2009-01-09T21:27:00.000-08:00

Hello.
I am creating this blog to share my experiences as I prod along in my photography "career". I am currently selling photos on iStockphoto.com and constantly trying to learn more about photography.

I plan to blog about everything photography as well as anything else that strikes me. If anyone reads it i will be pleasantly surprised!!

Thanks,
Ben Klaus