Sometimes I just sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits – #3

This is the third in an irregular series of random musings by this ol’ photographer/artist.

“REALITY. What a concept!” I remember George Carlin using that line in his stand up routines must have been back in the 60s.

And yes, what a concept reality is. I have alluded to some of my conversations regarding reality [...]

Black & White Processing with Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 Creative Presets

I sense a bit of a resurgence in interest in black and white photography. This is probably at least in part due to the introduction of Nik Silver Efex 2 software, a package that makes black & white conversion so very easy. My rather unscientific observations of black and white images presented in competitions, on [...]

Creativity Run Amok

This blog post is based on a series of images that I posted on Facebook earlier this week. I entitled that series “Creativity Run Amok” and I am sure you will soon understand why. Over the course of my development as a photographer (a process that will continue for the rest of my life), I [...]

Black & White Photography (cont)

As I scan back over my “recent” posts, I realize that the way I opened my last post could just as easily be the opening for this one. I started my last blog post by saying:

“Sometimes things just happen and the next thing you know, two weeks have gone by without a blog post. [...]

The Sound of Silence Visualized

Back in May, 2010 I did a blog post entitled “Art & Music” in which I said “They (visual art & music) go hand-in-hand. So often I find myself looking at a composition in the field or in-camera only to have some song title or lyric or musical genre come to mind.”

So it was [...]

Different HDR Plug-ins for Different Situations

We’re half way through January already. I keep reading posts from friends saying what a great start to the year it has been for them and I feel jealous, envious, and somehow cheated. This year has started off very slowly for me. Knock out a week when I was laid up with a respiratory virus [...]

Looking Back at 2010; Looking Forward to 2011

Good Morning Everybody!

Before looking forward, let me wrap up a quick look back at the past two months or so which has been a period of change. First I changed the name of my business from “It’s My Nature: Photography by Ed Vatza” to the much simpler, much more direct and I hope more [...]

HDR Plug-in Comparison: Photomatix 4.0 vs. Nik HDR Efex Pro

Anyone who follows this blog and/or visits my website knows I do my share of HDR photography. I find it very helpful when I have a combination of very bright highlights and very dark shadows in the same composition. When that happens we can expose for the highlights in which case the shadows will be [...]

Outside the Zone

… the Comfort Zone that is!

If you have followed this blog even tangentially, if you have wandered my galleries even a little, you will know what kind of photographer I am and what kinds of images I most enjoy making. Give me a landscape, a sunrise, flowers, something that I can turn into an [...]

Eternal Peace

As I mentioned in my prior post, last Saturday began with Barb and I making our way into a hilltop church cemetery in Durham Township (PA), she to look for the barn owl reported there and I to hopefully photograph a sunrise over the foggy valley below. It was a very chilly morning with temps [...]