SoFoBoMo 2009 – A Walk around the Pond

Well I finally finished my SoFoBoMo 2009 project. It always seems to take more effort near the end, as those little finishing details do seem to add up.

A Walk around the Pond

This year, due to 2 unforeseen events, I was not able to truly complete it within the 31-day timeframe but I did make it by the closing date of end of June.

Since this is not a judged competition with strict rules I hope it is still acceptable since the primary driver is a self undertaking to learn and grow in your skills and have some fun at the same time.



Thoughts on this Year’s SoFoBoMo Book

As I stated in the previous article this subject material was not my first or even second choice but an opportunity that made itself available on one day. While in Denmark I knew I still wanted to make the book, but I wasn’t sure on the subject. Several things floated around in my head as possible ideas but nothing really gelled as I was not always in control of my destinations during this stay.

One day my brother and his wife decided to take all of us to see some water with high cliffs. At least that was my translation’s abilities. I initially had vision of jagged cliffs with large breaking waves along the bottom.


My translation was not perfect and we arrived at Maglose Lake completely surrounded by land and with no large breakers at the shoreline. In fact to me this was more of a pond than a lake.
It was as we started the walk around the pond that I thought I might be able to make the book out of this adventure and then focused on getting more shots that I could use.

It is not a great photographic book but I did manage to complete it and to tell a story at the same time so I was at least successful with that part.


To produce great photography books I do believe that it requires a great investment in time and perseverance. The time it takes to capture your subject in many lights, at different times of day and even in different seasons. Not an undertaking that normally can be completed, at least the photography, within a few hours.

With my second SoFoBoMo book, I realize you do get experience in creating books, which is more than just a compilation of images. There is a need to tell a story with the images in a specific sequence as they unfold. There is also the need to write prose to support the story.


I know that there are some participants that did not finish their books and I wonder if they felt that their effort was not going to measure up against others. I think it is a big mistake to measure yourself in contrast to the other books. Do it because you love it and others will find good parts if not the whole effort great.


The technical stuff about producing this ebook

I once again used Open office to create my document and save as a pdf file. The main reason is that border can be set right to the edge of the page, which I was not able to do in MS word because of printer default limitations. There was always a residual edge and if choosing a coloured background, the whole white edge would show.

Book format is 18cm x 23cm about 7” by 9”

I chose Century Gothic at 11pts as I find the serf fonts harder to read.

The one thing I forgot from last year’s experience was to set each image to anchor on page. In paragraph anchor the image would sometimes move around when changes were made.

I also inserted my text within a frame and anchored this also to page. This gave me complete control to position text anywhere I wanted without having to think about tabs, margins and line spacing. After all, this is mainly a photo book with some text.


I made jpegs with the utility ‘Instant Jpeg from RAW’ and placed into a folder. There I used Adobe Bridge with star rating to reduce the set. Any images with no stars would be deleted (only jpegs). I would keep doing this until I had a manageable set.

I then placed these all into the document and with view set to 25% I would position the images around as I though the story would unfold. This process would also cull a few images and once I felt the set was right I would then work each image in Photoshop for desired effect and size. At the same time I would start working on the text for the images.



Will I do it again Next Year?

Most likely yes. It does take a significant amount of time and energy but in the end it is worth it. If we are serious about art and photography then it will take commitment and determination to see it through to truly learn.

I had wanted a Top-of-the Chart type book with just exceptional images. I was worried at first that my effort would not be good enough and wondered whether I should still proceed or back out. The word failure was slowly rolling around in the back of my mind.

With some reflection I came to the conclusion that this is mainly a book for me, a project for me to learn and develop as a photographer and now a little as a book writer.

If you are being artistic then in my view there is no word “failure”. There is only your vision, skills and effort. If you worry too much about success then the joy and pleasure this should bring starts to disappear and re-emerge as negative thoughts.

It was an interesting challenge to compile the images from such a short excursion and duration. Not a challenge I plan to do again. Maybe next year I may be able to undertake my original theme.

I hope that in the book you find a few enjoyable images and find the excursion interesting and maybe give you a few thoughts about how the ordinary may seem interesting depending on the view.

Niels Henriksen

Yousuf Karsh and SoFoBoMo 2009 update

I was very fortunate to be invited to the opening ceremonies, Thursday 11 June, for the Yousuf Karsh Image Maker exhibition which is coinciding with his 100th year birthday, were he alive today.

He is mainly recognized with his classic portrait of Sir Winston Churchill at the start of World War II. This is were Karsh had the audacity to rip the cigar out of his hands which left Churchill with the slight scowl on his expression.

The Science and Technology Museum was the first venue to open and the Portrait Gallery of Canada is opening a few days later.

The images are all taken with my iphone. My first real trail with the new phone, and while the images are not great, they’re not bad when you consider how dark it was. Though many were also blurred.



Mrs. Karsh (images above) cut the ribbon into hall and also gave a great speech on the legacy of one of the finest portrait photographers. There sure were a lot of people waiting to get into the exhibit. There is something special in gazing at the beautifully rendered Black and White images that hang through the museum. One room is all black and only large portraits are lit around this circular room. The white dots are the few ceiling lights that provide a measure of safety for movement.

Because it’s a science and technology museum, they not only display his photography but also the equipment he used in the studio.

The set of brushes were a gift from Karsh’s mentor, the Boston Portrait photographer John Caro. There was this giant, almost 9 foot enlarger in one of the rooms. And best of all, there was his 8x10 View camera There is even a positive photograph that is back-lit, of Karsh and Ansel Adams standing side by side and by their expressions, somewhat reluctantly agreeing to being photographed. There will be another exhibit at the National Archives. Mrs. Karsh indicated in her speak that they are now showing some prints from negatives that he had never made a print of before.

SoFoBoMo 2009 Update


Originally I had an idea for this years SoFoBoMo’s project, which was to do a photographic study both in distance and in time as I travelled from the Capital of Ottawa to Algonquin Park. The journey was to show how nature and people are viewed near urban centres and how their lifestyles (external) change as they live more in remote areas.

My trip to Denmark used up a lot of vacation time and I was unable to undertake this journey when I got back. While in Denmark, we went for a walk around this park with a very small lake, almost a pond. I thought at the time that if I got enough reasonable images I could do a book just on this subject. To try and show how one could capture many different perspectives and views from what may seem so ordinary at first.

Many of the images are not great to my standards and I had thought I would try and find another pond near where I live and that way I could do a 2 lake study and hopefully get a better set of images.


Part of undertaking the SoFoBoMo project is to enjoy the process and learn to be flexible in your approach. There are always some things that will pop up that causes a change in the course. If you enjoy what you are doing and are not concerned with what others are achieving or how they will view your book, then adapting should be part of the excitement and not a frustration.

After all it is only another form of a slide show with some text added and I am sure we have all created slideshows from some of our images. This image shows how small the lake is with the other side being so close.

Niels Henriksen

Blog Award and Photographs that You Need to Explore

I was very honoured last week to receive the ‘noblesse oblige’ Blog award from what I consider to be a very fine artist.





Life can seem strange in a good sense at times. Here is a blogger and artist whom I always visit to see his inspirational works of art and at the same time obtain motivation for my own creative juices. With this award from I now surmise that Lorainn finds my own artist interpretations, mostly with a camera, in a similar vein.

Do visit his site loriann signori's painting-a-day as he has an excellent impressionistic approach to rendering landscape scenes. This is a fluid style that I hope to one day to be able to render in my own approach. Even on the web, which tends to dull vibrancy at bit with the sRGB colour space; his images are vibrant and alive. I can only imagine that to stand in front of the original works, the colours must just sing.


With the 2nd pat of the article title I hope to present some images that encourage the viewer to spend some time to take in all the elements. I’ll discuss my approach to creating interest and maybe one or two will create this effect for you.

Many viewers at first glance, especially if you’re looking for that ‘wow factor’, the above image may not grab a hold of you the right way.

If you do take the time to examine and reflect you will realize that this image has many compositional elements that does keep your eyes moving over the scene and that is what many of us try to achieve in our photographs. Wow is great but with my own tastes, this can become boring quickly and an image that causes me to take in the features is one I enjoy more.

At first you see the strong diagonal lines created with the cast showdown of the roof structures. The line of square box shape shadows form diagonal columns, which is repeated with the shape of the brick column. Next the sun lit part of these columns form triangles pointing back to the shadow patterns where texture and colour are strongest. The green bushes support the patterns of the light rectangular patterns and colour is complimentary to the Reddish (orange) brickwork.
The left and right side of the image has darker objects that help frame the pattern. At first, the viewer may be left wondering in what setting this was taken but upon closer inspection you will notice that on the right in the dark recess is a patio with tables and chairs.


The above image is simpler with its harmonious colour scheme. The focal point is the lamp and the texture on the grey pipe, but I am not sure if that is what the eye goes to first. I do find that the lower right pane in the window on the red wall does hold my interest. Working on an image, you sometimes tend to loose your own first impressionistic instincts. There is texture and lines on the left, which is repeated on the red wall but here, there are dark areas to explore and maybe gaze inside these rooms.


In this image, I enhanced the blue/grays of the bridge to compliment the yellow/greens of the distant sunlit area. I also wanted to create a little mystery with the blue cast of the shadow to make you wonder about going over the bridge.


The above bicycle image is fun on many levels. The blue and yellow are complimentary colours, and also, the red and green pair. The red of the bicycle is re-enforced with the red in reflections and on the signs. The strong reflection in window almost creates a portal down another street, like you are on an intersection, which is not apparent just seeing the store front.


I hope you enjoyed the images and the attempt to create a little mystery or intrigue with each of these photographs.


Niels Henriksen

Some Photographs and Notes from Denmark

I have returned home from my short stay in this wonderful county. I did manage take a fair number of photos, probably around a 1,000 in total. About 300 were centered on the wedding event. Another 200 were focused on people images that I could use as reference material for my oil painting studies. The remaining 500, which is not a lot in digital standards, were around town and in the country side. Looking at them now, many just seem ordinary.

One part of me says every image should be great but is that really practicable when you are walking and shooting without giving much though to composition? Especially when you are just grabbing what’s interesting and trying your best to make it reasonable in the viewfinder.

When it comes to landscapes I find perform best when I have a tripod. This forces me to spend more time to pre-think the setup and final composition. This process of examining and feeling really helps me to identify those elements that can excite and stir some passions. I didn’t use a tripod on the trip but instead relied on my trusty 18-200mm Nikon VR lens. This sure is a great tourist lens and coupled with a high ISO capability there is almost no scene you can’t capture.

My brother’s wedding went well and it was great to celebrate this event with him and his new wife and then to connect with some family members that I had not met before. We were lucky that we were granted permission to take images inside the Queen’s church and a few of these I will show on a later date.




While visiting another brother out in the country I came across many fields ablaze in vibrant yellows, which are from the oilseed rape plant blossoms. These fields are quite common in many farming areas and the plant is nicknamed the "sunshine crop”

The above image I find very interesting because there are 2 sets of complimentary colours. The Blue which I enhanced to better match the glow of the Yellow. The other set is the Reddish -Green pair. I muted (de-saturated) the foreground green to better compliment the more muted orange tones. The overall harmony is maintained because there are also greens in the yellows and orange is speckled in the lower greens where there is bare ground.




In Copenhagen I was walking around the historic area of Dragor which was an old mariner’s port and now is a very expensive community. Out in the channel I saw this freighter passing in front of the channel markers leading out of the harbour. I decided to crop the image to pair up the 3 buoys with the 3 white structures on the ship.

The green is as captured and the red and blue only have a slight increase in saturation.

The telephoto lens (200mm) really compresses the scene almost making the buoys seem near the ship when in fact it’s probably 2km away.

In the central part of Copenhagen there are many parks with small lakes that provide a surreal tranquility when you know that just on the edge of the park is the hustle and bustle of a busy city.

There are many people who like to just sit and relax in the afternoons and enjoy a bit of paradise.

I enjoy travelling to new places and exploring the local sites and customs but I never travel well. It’s the getting there part. First since I don’t fly business class and I find the economy seats very cramped (6’3”) and when the time change is more that a few hours sift, it takes me a long to time to adjust.

Denmark has a great train system more like our subways with short stops and frequent schedules (many leave every 20 mins) that traveling around the country is a pure pleasure.

Why does North America have to be so dependant of cars that public transportation is almost an after thought unless you are in large downtown metro areas?

In one of the old king’s parks Frederiksberg Have (garden) there is this tree with thousands of soothers hanging from it.

De-saturated the green and yellow in tree leaves

When your child has out grown the soothers, parents hang these from the tree and a few even add wish notes which I guess is common throughout Europe.


Niels Henriksen

Use ACR Clarity to create shallow DOF

With a few of my previous images I have used the Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) “Clarity” settings to improve the focus (clarity) of the subject and in corollary reduce the detail in the background, which is very similar to using a higher F-stop or shallow DOF.

When experimenting with digital editing techniques, sometimes you realize that you have a new tool of choice that is better than some other method you are using. But with all good things there are limitations and images that are better suited for this technique.

Occasionally, I did use Photoshop blur filter, normally with small settings but I was not fond of the overall effect it created when larger settings (above 10) were used. It is a bit hard to describe but it seems too unnatural even when adding some noise back in.

To demonstrate the effects that can be achieved, I select 2 images to compare using just the blur tool and the blur tool with clarity set at full reduction of –100.

Using the clarity tool is not a one-button-solution as you will need to use layers and a mask to separate the subject from the blurred background. To really see the comparison, click on any of the thumbnail images below, as the originals are 2400 pixels wide.

Normal Clarity set to - 100 Blur only 16 Blur at 16 on clarity layer

Just using the maximum clarity setting has softened the background by removing contrast, which has the effect of leveling or washing out the colours and tones. Better, but still too much detail that is competing for attention with the colours and details of the bird.

The 3rd pane is just using gaussian blur at a setting of 16. Details softened but the contrast in green tones still competes with the bird.

In the 4th pane, I used the same blur setting (16) but applied this to the layer that was set to minimum clarity (-100), which is the best of both effects. Background softened and no highlights jumping out.

Normal Blur only 16 Blur 16 on clarity layer

I used the same settings as the first image but omitted just showing the clarity layer only.

Normal Blur only 16 Blur 16 on clarity layer

With very fine detail not much improvement between versions

When using the clarity setting with or without the blur effect, you may need to adjust the colour saturation, with whole or individual colours, to fine tune to your taste. Certain areas that are now washed out may need to be increased in saturation or lightened or darkened to better match the focal area.

It’s not a perfect or do-all tool but it is something to further help with increasing clarity of subject. It works great in fog scenes such as in this article Winter Fog – Great Photography Weather , and when I used it to soften background with the portrait of the curly-haired kid In the Creativity Article and Candid Portraits .

I will be heading to Demark for almost a couple of weeks this coming weekend as one of my brothers is getting married in the Danish Queens church which is inside the castle.

This is where Crown Prince Frederik and his wife Mary live. Queen Margrethe II will be staying at the castle during this period with her guards.

My brother, whom had been given a medal by the Queen a few years ago for distinguished service, asked permission from the Queen to marry in her private church (Fredricksberg Slotkirke), which she granted.

There is no photography allowed inside the church.

This trip will change my SoFoBoMo plans as I will not be able to do the original theme but now, I might pursue a theme of Copenhagen Bicycles.

Other images


This was taken on the west coast of Denmark and while the sky was heavily overcast there were shafts of light shining through. Since it was taken with a telephoto lens, the kite was not visible within this tight frame, therefore added from another image.

Thanks to all those who have joined this blog lately and a special thanks to those who still come by on a regular basis.

When the readership finally reaches 1,000 members, highest so far has been 885, I will give away 2 singed prints to those readers (random selection) that indicate an interest.

So please continue reading the articles for a little while longer as I am hoping by late summer or early fall to reach that threshold. I don’t actively try to get more members but through our community, it seems to be slowly increasing.

It will most likely be 3-4 weeks before I am able to post again.

Golden Fields of Summer

Lately, I have been busy trying to improve my oil painting skills and I feel I am now starting to see some improvement. I did this image from a photograph. Not mine but a book that is meant for you to practice. I used my own creativity to enhance the glow in the fields by changing from summer yellow to an orange to enhance vibrancy. Also, I changed the gray parts of clouds to purple-red to show reflections from those glowing fields. I


Niels Henriksen

Photographing Black Objects

We were visiting the Vemork Hydroelectric Plant in Rukan, Norway which is now a museum. This is the site were the allies in WWI tried to destroy because the Germans were producing heavy water during the war.

In a previous article, Your Body of Work or Life Long Project , I discussed the train that was sunk on the ferry carrying the heavy water back to Germany. See link

Off camera flash. Blue colour added as a layer in Photoshop and set to color mode and the copper items masked-out Blue and orange are complimentary colours and I wanted to create contrast and conflict with this image. There are lovely tones and shapes in the blue areas and the 2 copper items disrupt these patterns and almost don’t seem to fit.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the hydro plant tour but I thought we would see more of the inner workings of the whole plant, maybe down the water tubes and other good tunnels and underground workings. This was not the case as we first saw a 12 hour film (British movie about the mission to destroy the plant) and then a tour guide explaining about the processes and equipment for electricity generation.

Being an electrical engineer I did not need a repeat of previous general course material and went off to film the generators in the other half of the large singular room. The photo below shows the area I was exploring while others were listening to the museum guide.


The room has very many windows facing the cliff side, which was now in the shade and therefore, no direct light striking any surfaces and thereby creating very large dynamic range from pure black to white, which would make it even harder to show any details in the image.

I only had about a half hour to shoot before the gang moved on. For these types of scenes that are new, complex to shoot and contains a lot of detail, I would have liked to spend at least an hour to walk around and visually inspect all the nuts, bolts and other doodads before planning what to shoot. I think there could have been a nice theme developed if I had the time as opposed to shooting a bunch of what may be interesting views but no connection.

Shooting black objects, unless it is documentary in style, will tend to focus on the abstract in design. There is not much colour available and at best you are probably only going to capture any reflected colours in the objects.


Off-camera flash set on the ground and to my right. The light from window was not striking this area and I wanted more contrast in objects and lines.

I decided to use my SB-800 off-camera and wirelessly triggered in the hope that these extra reflections on the shinny black generators would give more interest.


I would lay my flash all over the place on any other piece of equipment to see what kind of effects this would give.

One thing I did notice is that when the flash was behind me, there was not always enough reflected trigger flash from the camera to overpower the ambient light and the flash would not fire.


Photographing black objects is not much different than photographing any other object but there are a few hints that will make every shot more likely to be successful.


Correct Exposure

First, your camera, whether shooting RAW or Jpeg, will want to make everything mid grey. This means that if your image is mostly black with no specular highlights, it will turn the black object a nice mid grey. This is less of a problem with digital cameras as it is easier with digital editing to lower tones as this doesn’t introduce noise as opposed to white objects when you have to increase tones.

The downside, if not corrected, is that some of the information is lost when clipping occurs.

Camera RAW is very forgiving and in many situations any exposure and colour temperature corrections can be adjusted later.


Do check the histogram if you can. If the subject is shinny then it is ok to have some of the highlights clipped if these are only the edge or point reflections from light source.

Normally reducing by 1 ½ (-1.5ev) to 2 (-2.0 ev) stops should cover most situations.

Colour Temperature

Is the black object you are capturing really black? Black is not really a colour but the absence of colour. This can be achieved by no or little light coming from a coloured object or it could be painted black. I know from my oil painting experience when I lighten what are labelled as black paints with white I get nice blue, greens and browns.

If there is no reasonable areas of reflected light source, your camera may interpret some of the lighter black tones with a colour cast due to the true black colour.

This image has 2 light sources, Bounce flash on the left, which gives natural tones to rust and the blue sky light from the right which adds blue highlights to those edges.


Artistic Merit

For a lot of black items, the focal point will be the abstract lines created by the sources of light striking the object.

Taking images of mechanical or even architectural features may be great if that is your passion but for many others it can be boring if they are not connected in a theme or story. These individual images, since they are not ravaged by time, do not tell a story in themselves but only by connecting them together is a story told.

The direction of bare rock outcropping and shadows help to re-enforce the downward direction of the cascading water. By having the trees block some the bottom of the water we are not completely drawn out of the scene.

What is not apparent from this image is that the waterfall is less than half of the canyon wall. These canyons are very deep.

The power plant is situated half way up the canyon walls and this image captures some of the houses on the other side of the valley that are built precariously (at least for those venturing out late on a dark night) on nooks and outcroppings along steep cliffs.

Niels Henriksen

Creativity Article and Candid Portraits

This week I came across a good article on the topic of creativity. This is something I try to write on and then only in specific areas. As far as I know there are no perfect formulae that all of a sudden will make you creative.

Being creative is mainly about doing. Doing things that help the creative ideas flow and at the same time reduce the interruptions or burdens of everyday life that wants you to be robotic. There are many people whose daily job it is to be creative and even these people I know have to practice at making the creative juices flow.

This linked article may seem a bit long at 49 pages, but I found the writing style enjoyable and with the added bonus of his comical drawings on the back of business cards, it increases the extra entertainment factor. There are many good ideas contained within and where there is a slant towards the advertising industry, it is relevant to photographers and other artists. I would encourage you to read it and pass it along to any others that you think might enjoy it.


Update: I inadvertently included the wrong blog as the source for the link. The article was from Pixelatedimage blog as the link can be found here and Chris Brogan is still a good read.

Chris Brogan’s blog is one of my regular reads. His blog deals with social media and community mainly at the corporate level but it is easy to extract material for our business and personal levels. I think it is important that being a photographer or any artist, that we explore more about business, people and customers.

The article I had originally planned was to deal with shooting completely black objects so now I have an article ready for next week. Feels good to be ahead.

I love this photo on many levels. First and foremost the expression of sheer wonder is what grabs you. If you take the time for a closer look you will see that red is the dominant colour, The red glasses, red chair and the pink bathing straps as well as the dark red in the background all help to re-enforce colour dominance. This is complimented with the green hat and also with its analogous colour of cyan in some of the background and with the reflection of water in her face and the lettering on the lens strap.


To many of my regular readers you are probably aware that most of my images are either landscape or inanimate objects and people rarely are the primary focus. This week I decided to show some of my pure people images.

In this image the colours on the shirt are balanced out with same colours in the background. In this shot I had the lions head on the background wall line up with the boys’ own wild main.

I had noticed the boy and his parents early in one of the rings around the street performers and when they started to leave I asked him and his parents if I might take a few shots. They were pleased by my offer.

A street party or event and this case both since it was a Buskers festival becomes a photo-rick area for getting lots of people in interesting images

The main focal point of this image is clearly the interaction between the 2 women obviously enjoying a good laugh. I removed the lower portion of the dining table as its clutter only detracted from the focal point. I also converted to B&W, as I did not want any background colours to lend the eye away. B&W does a good job of removing extraneous detail and clutter, especially when they are colorful



There are strong focal points for eye movement from first the eyes and then mouth, finger over to flower and then up to highlight on the top of head. I decided to leave in the tiny highlight on top of his head to ensure that you take in his whole portrait and take away from those intense eyes.

When I gave him my images of the evening’s event, both he and his wife enjoyed my images more than the professional wedding photographer.

While there is a pleasing smile, I really enjoy the brown tones.



Addiction Hint:

You know when you’re either addicted to photography or seriously challenged when you take photos of your own wedding. This was the case for me. During the actual ceremony I handed my camera to my son, but I took the before & after ceremony shots plus some group shots. This was an outdoor civil ceremony in the gardens and a fine hotel that night.



Niels Henriksen

SoFoBoMo 2009

This year I am again entering the SoFoBoMo (2009) project and I decided to describe my experiences and tips to those of you who are going to or are still deciding to enter.

Last year was the initial launch for Solo Foto Book Month, which is an online event to create photo books as a community. At the same time, it was my first venture into producing a photography book.

These statues run along the front of the moat or second island, the 3rd being the castle of Frederiksborg. The first island contains the stables and rooms for other workers.

Never having created a book before and with the conditions that there where only 30 days to complete it did seem a bit daunting, at first. Now looking back, it seems easier than my insecurities/ anxiousness permitted.


While I can’t really help much with the selection of your topic regarding theme, there are a few suggestions that might make it easier for you and give you some flexibility with your approach.


The photo book project starts the 1st of May and you can, at your choosing, start anytime during the whole month of May.

My own approach is to plan as follows:

1st week to get out and get the images. For many who have working jobs during the week you could assign both weekends to this.

2nd week for photo selection and editing.

3rd week to layout the book and write a few words.

This gives you an extra week at the end to overcome any problems, like needing more images or more time in the other parts that always seems to go astray.

Taken on the Paris subway. I liked the expressions on the people in relationship to the poster behind them.


Be Creative and have a Backup Plan

My approach is to have several rolling projects that I could use for this year’s book. There are many themes I would like to explore and having several in the thinking about or initial planning stages gives flexibility to really select a topic I can be passionate about. It also gives me the confidence that as I set upon the quest to complete the photo book I have contingencies if the selected subject doesn’t seem to be working.

First week of May project 1 begins. The second week, project 2 could start and the same for the 3rd week project 3.

This may seem like a fair bit of work, but the main object is to have fun and if you’re busy or not excited about the second week’s theme, then skip and wait for the 3rd week. DO what you enjoy.

Some ideas I have this years are:

Along the Ottawa Valley to Algonquin Park

The emerging life in spring.

Still working on other themes.

This was my first use of the Di-GPS adapter for the Nikon camera. I was out on a friend’s property taking a few images as reference points on map he had. In this image I used the Orton effect by first duplicating the layer and then increasing size about 10%. The layer was then blurred (10.0) and set to overlay with 50% opacity. I wanted to create a glowing floor as we are heading down into a valley.


Book Publishing Software

I use Open Office writer to create the book. The main reasons I like this is first it has the ability to have 0.0 margins, which MS Word cannot. Second, and importantly, it allows you to save as PDF file.

I tried Scribus, as others are using it, and it works well but seems more complicated than I need. Also, if I remember correctly, image size was critical. I find Open office easy to use and meets the functionality I need. It you have used MS Word then most of the functionality is the same.

The problem I had with Ms Word is that I could not set the margins to 0.0. It always had a residual size with printer defaults.

I did enjoy creating the book last year but there was some self-imposed stress, as is normal, when you are undertaking some thing new.

This year I have no apprehensions about the approach or time limits. It should all be enjoyable.

I am not trying to create a book that will sell millions or even 10s, but a book that I will enjoy and in the process learn more about what it takes to make a book


Due check out Paul Butzi blog “Mussing of Photgraphy”as he has been instrumental in getting this going.

There is now a flickr discussion group where you can also post questions and share your ideas with others about the book project.

You can sign up for the SoFoBoMo project website to register your book


Niels Henriksen

Why is bAd Art preferable to Good Photographs?

First I would like to clarify the title (bAd) I used, as I don’t really mean bad art in the technical sense, even though it may apply sometimes, but I was referring to impressionist or non-realism styles (heavy brush work where very little detail is present except fort the crude brush strokes with colour mixing).

Secondly this is not based on any scientific study but only from my own experiences in dealing with other people, both buyers and artists.

Raw layer (ACR) for sky clarity set to –10 to soften the noise, which always tend to show up in skies and dark and reduce saturation and luminance of blue channel as this was a bit underexposed.
Another RAW layer for land and water parts, increase clarity for more general contrast, increase vibrance; curves up for mid-tones; large increase in luminance of red/orange/yellow/green/aqua and reduce for green and blue; Increase saturation red/orange/yellows/aquas, reduce saturation for greens/blues. This enhances the turquoise transition zone in the water and for the foliage increases the colour contrast in the yellow/greens by making the lighter grasses stand out more.
Curves layer to lighten the sand/rock-face. Added a brownish-orange layer and set this to colour mode with mask for sand rock face (opacity 29%). Darkened border areas of hillside.


I am in the process of painting the above scene and in the end it may really be bad or mediocre artwork. With a bit of luck in picking the right bush techniques and colours I believe that many people will prefer the painting to a printed image in the same size.

I know that if I used the smudged technique to create a painting effect they might even like that version better that the original especially if printed on canvas.

The images in the article are taken from the north tip of Mors Island, which is situated in the middle of Jutland. Denmark is very flat, but occasionally there are these larger hills normally near the sea, which rise a few hundred feet at max. The next 2 images show the adjusted version, followed by the original RAW. Nothing great but I find a quaint charm in the country setting.

Once again 2 RAW layers. One as above to soften sky. The other increase clarity, luminance for red/orange/yellow. Added curve for white shed to lighten white and at the same time the yellow grass in front on the left. Cloned out a mud blemish in front grass and removed a white object in the back field. Added orange layer and set to colour mode and with mask used to tint the corrugated roof of shed. Lightened front of posts and darkened shadow parts.

This is the original RAW image unprocessed.

I wonder if in people’s minds a painting is perceived as a one-off and with a printed photo there can be many copies. I also have a opinion that people tend to think that with a painting a person is creating something new and unique, but with a camera, its the camera that is doing all the work and we are just along for the ride. As photographers we really do understand the work that can go into creating an image. Yes some are gotcha moments but we do plan for season, time of day, camera position. With studio work are not these one-off creations with all the careful placement of subjects and lightening?

I love the rolling texture on these hills.

I know with my own better photographic images I regularly spend 1-2 hours working on the digital file and this doesn’t include that time to plan and go out and acquire the image.

This is about the same time it takes to a one-session painting. Currently from 1-3 hours. So far my photos are better.

I just don’t know what all this really means to us as artists, but I do know that there is still al lot of work ahead to educate the public about our artwork and by that I mean the images hanging on people’s walls .


When the public sees the licensing of images at the ridiculously low prices which give the owner the ability to print many images how can we justify to them why the should spend more for just one printed image.

I do think, that in this is one area were we artistic control. It is important that we preselect the paper that enhances image qualities we are after and also to ensure the ink/archival qualities. We shouldn’t let the customers choose their own paper and ink system. These are a lot like the skills of a painter (medium and canvas). I think a lot can be done with marketing and branding of our work.

Reduced sky brightness and saturation. Darkened the rocks and increased contrast. Increased contrast of boat.

This image has do more with a standard joke we have in our camera club about judges always seeming to say for a water scene, if there was only a red boat it would add more punch. Well no there is lots of punch.

I would love to here your thoughts on this topic or any suggestion you have where we can promote some of our work more in the artistic vane.



This is a small 5”x7” study I did in preparation for the larger 16”x20” final painting I am in the process of completing (first image above). I wanted to check the balance of the various greens and also ensure that the front ridge (longer grasses) was separated from the middle ground foliage.


Niels Henriksen

Tivoli – Photographing Laser Light Show & Night Photography

Tivoli is an old style garden and amusement park in the downtown core of Copenhagen Denmark. There are many novel cafés and ethnic restaurants (29). There is even live theatre, mostly Hans Christian Andersen stories, trapeze artists, pantomimes, and ballets and concerts mainly performed during the summer. It is open all year round but I don’t know about hoping on a wild ride while the temperature is around the freezing point.

The park was opened in 1843 by the writer-architect Georg Carstensen (1812–59) on the southern part of the old city. A remnant of the former moat became a lake for boating. It still has a feel from that period.

With Tivoli’s extensive flower gardens, fireworks, coloured floodlights, and illuminated fountains, which all tend to brighten the park at night, I thought this would be a good place to take some night photography in between bouts of pure amusement.

Tivoli sits on a one block site and for those walking on the side of the street you wouldn’t even know that it existed except for the main gates and a couple of times you can see these 200 ft towers sticking up.

f3.5, iso 800 .4 sec, 18mm

I set the ISO to 800 which for the D300 gives very low noise visibility and still allowed to capture most of the shots between 1/30 and 1/50sec which I could hand hold with the added vibration reduction on lens.

The top image, I laid the camera on a fence rail as I needed more than ½ sec to really capture some background detail.

f5.6, 1/30, iso 800 170mm

Close-up of central part of light effects. It has almost a curtain like feel and wonderful moving green luminescent patterns.

Thanks to my relatives because they knew the time the laser light show was to start and the best place to position ourselves (on the bridge over the pond) for the best view of the show.

Ten minutes before the start of the show, huge fog guns were filling the pond with huge clouds for the light to strike. We were lucky this night as there was not much wind.

f4.5, 1/30, iso800, 46mm

f4.5, 1/30sec, iso800, 18mm

This image is more of a wide angle showing the layers of fog and the lights striking it. I did add the red center as it was all green. I did this by adding a new layer and painted the central part Red and set the blend mode of color. I tried a rainbow circular gradient but it was a bit too outlandish.

f4.8, 1/30sec, iso800, 55mm

The one thing I like about the above image is that on first impression, I thought I shot this upside down. But it is correct. The lights on the water radiate up and now hit the lifting fog bank.

f4.5, 1/40sec, iso800, 18mm

Many of the buildings are gloriously lit at night. In fact, most of the park is one large visual feast.

f4.5, 1/50sec, iso800, 36mm

On one side of the park are these giant hanging sheets of lights and the above image was an attempt to capture these with some depth.

f4.5, 1/50sec, iso800, 18mm

At the end of the evening we stepped back out on the normal Copenhagen streets and for one image I was able to capture all the street lights turned green. This scene is in stark contrast to the brightly lit park which is very crowded and now this normal street seems like a surreal world almost Outer Limits in theme.



My wife and I did try some of the exiting (scary) rides and while I was able to test one more the 200ft vertical drop, she actually faired better during the course of the ride. The picture below, taken by the amusement park, shows how I was hanging on for my dear life, while she was grinning with excitement. I was enjoying it.



After this ride we went on the H.C. Andersen ride in a chest through his stories. A lot slower and safer on the body!



Niels Henriksen