A Moment in Time

Mine is one of thousands of photos included in the NY Times'  "A Moment in Time" website! Here it is.

In April, the Times asked its readers throughout the world to be ready to snap a picture of what they were doing on Sunday, May 2nd at 11 a.m., EDT and submit it to them for inclusion in this project. I knew I'd be in church and it would be at the end of the 10 a.m. contemporary service I usually attend at Peace Lutheran Church in Gahanna, Ohio. I took a seat in the area I normally do, thinking I'd get a shot of one of our pastors closing the service, along with the band and contemporary choir.

That Sunday, however, we had a guest preacher: Rev. Dr. Kevin Dudley, from the nearby Church at North Pointe, a fairly new congregation he had started. About 20 of us from Peace had attended a service at North Point in January as a way of starting to get our congregations to know each other as a prelude to possibly working together on ministry efforts.

Well, Rev. Dudley's wonderful sermon was more characteristic of the African-American style of worship service and ran a little longer than our usual 10-12 minute sermons, so the service was still running strong at normal 11 a.m. ending time. Pastor Doug Warburger concluded the service with a special prayer involving members laying hands on Rev. Dudley. Rather than joining the group laying hands on, I remained at my seat to take my photo. It was exactly 11:00 a.m. and that's the shot I got from my seat.

The idea of capturing a unique moment in time on earth and showing what thousands of people were doing at precisely the same moment in time is an intriguing one, and certainly one in line with my own practice of being a photo documentarian. That idea has been applied to the many books of photographs entitled "A Day in the Life of [country name]." Having admired those books, I felt that merely taking a beautiful photograph wasn't the point. I wanted to capture something happening just there and then - something that couldn't have occurred a moment after or before, or a day or year after or before. (Indeed, the Times reported they excluded photos that clearly weren't taken at the prescribed time - for example, a daytime photo submitted from China, where it was nighttime.)

Looking at many of the other photos submitted - many of them quite beautiful as photographs - I am pleased that my photo was one of a small percentage of those that captured a unique moment in time. I hope you enjoy the photos on the website.

If you like my photo, I hope you'll take a moment to "Recommend this photo" by clicking on the link at the bottom right of the photos in the Times website. Here's a link to my photo (please be patient - it will take several seconds for the page to load): http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/03/blogs/a-moment-in-time.html?ex=1289707200&en=fe1e232b8fb2e13f&ei=5087&WT.mc_id=NYT-E-I-NYT-E-AT-0519-L1#/4bddcc2e0bca2560ba00068f.

From there, you can surf to other photos by geography (click "Return to globe"), or subject (drop-down list). As the site warns, "Make no plans for the rest of the day" - it's a fascinating site to explore.

Photo Editing Software: Photoshop & Lightroom

My friend K.S. Liu blogged on his experience with Adobe's Photoshop and Lightroom software. His blog is in Chinese (which I read using Google Translate), and I offered him my comments on the 2 programs. I'm repeating my comments here in my own blog (with some additions) for anyone interested.

Adobe offers several programs under the Photoshop name. Their most comprehensive product, which started as Photoshop, is now known as CS (for "Creative Suite"), now in version 4 (CS4). It's aimed at professional photographers. At the other end, the most elementary product is called Elements (now in version 7) and provides some basic photo editing tools for casual picture takers with tools much easier to use than those in CS.

I learned to use the old Photoshop (and now CS - I have the previous version, CS3) and it had become my photo editing program of choice. I tried Elements years ago (it was quite inexpensive - sometimes bundled for free with other stuff), but it just didn't have all the tools I needed to touch up my photos to my satisfaction. My niece's husband, Gian, introduced me to Lightroom several months ago (now in version 2: LR2), and I've become a huge fan.

Once you learn them, CS and LR are very powerful. Alas, both CS and LR require some study before you can use them effectively, though LR, being simpler, takes less study. (I like Scott Kelby's books, but some may not like his CS approach which focuses on memorizing keyboard shortcuts and doesn't tell you how to access the commands via the menus).

LR provides a "left-to-right, top-to-bottom" workflow that helps me quickly edit the hundreds of photos I take at an event. The tools work very well with a touchpad or mouse. It lets me correct a photo and then apply the same correction to all the other photos I've taken under the same conditions, thus saving lots of time. I find I can now get the photos done quickly enough that I'll get them done the same evening and onto my smugmug and facebook webpages for everyone to enjoy.

I still use CS for about 5% of my photos requiring specific touch-ups that I can't do with LR tools. However, CS really requires a pen tablet to work efficiently; using a mouse with CS is quite tedious. I like my IBM ThinkPad PC for this work, where I can select areas directly with a pen on the screen. LR and CS are well integrated - they send the photo to and from each other, keeping a smooth workflow.

Photoshop Creative Suite (CS4) is quite expensive - about $700 at retail. Lightroom (LR2) is about $300. They're available with big academic discounts, if you know someone connected with a school or university. Because they're so expensive, they're also pirated (but reportedly riddled with viruses). Also, Photoshop has gotten more diligent about checking valid registrations before allowing downloads of patches to their programs (though such patches aren't frequent or required). I'm happy, though, to pay for software that works well - as these products do, and I've bought LR licences for family and friends.

The only thing the Photoshop programs don't do well is making panoramic photos. I still use my old Panorama Maker program on my PC to stitch together my panoramic photos (the older version, no longer offered, is better than the one they currently have, since it lets me align adjoining photos manually when the program hasn't matched them properly). For those really interested in panoramic photos, look into Gigapan. K.S. did and bought it, creating some beautiful and amazingly detailed photos (alas, zooming into the detail is provided only on online).

Since I usually take 100s photos at an event, editing my photos is a lot of work. But it's worth all the work to be able to share the photos with family and friends. A picture, as Confucius said, is worth 10,000 words (not the mere 1,000 words many misquote him for), so I get say a lot with all my photos!

Jules Alexander & Tiger Woods

I had the pleasure of meeting Jules Alexander last Sunday at K.S. & Gina Liu's lunch and home at the Trump National Golf Course in Briarcliff Manor, NY. Jules recently published his book Tiger Woods in Black & White, a large format volume of his photos of the renowned golfer which he has taken over the past 9 years.

I got to learn about Jules and his book talking over lunch at the Trump Clubhouse. He had published an earlier book of photos of the legendary golfer Ben Hogan in 1994 from photos he took 45 years earlier. He self-funded the preparation of both these books, following the golfers around on tour. Wanting to do the Tiger Woods book in black & white, he couldn't find a publisher to fund his expenses for the book - they wanted color photos. When it was done and they saw how beautiful it was, they wanted to publish it.

Now age 83, Jules has been taking pictures for over 70 years. He told me stories of his studios in NYC and I was pleased that I knew where his favorite studio was: In the Beaux Arts building across from Bryant Park (I've passed it many times while shopping in the area), with its north-facing windows providing wonderful light. We also chatted about both our experiences working with the Ansel Adams studio and learning of his techniques.

Jules' photos of Tiger were taken without prior arrangement or permission. He operated as a freelance journalist, so he was permitted to be inside the ropes. He'd set himself in position at a hole and await the golfers. He showed me a photo he took of Tiger where he had earlier positioned Gina so she would be clearly visible in the crowd in the photo he took. Jules works without an assistant, lugging all his equipment around himself (now, a digital Nikon D3 with a 200mm telephoto and 1.4x telextender), since the assistant wouldn't be allowed to work inside the ropes with him, so he has to have his equipment with him anyway.

I was delighted that I got to help Jules print out some large 13x19" prints on K.S.'s home printer. We had to transfer images from Jules' MacBook Pro (same model as mine) to K.S.'s desktop Mac and PC computers to print with his large Epson printer. K.S. hadn't used the printer for some time, so we had to play with the setup of both desktop computers. We eventually got the Mac to work with the printer, using Photoshop to adjust the photos. It took about 3 hours for the 3 of us to get this all figured out (while Mom, Gina, and others of K.S.'s and Gina's family patiently waited). We wasted a few sheets of Jules' large pro paper (at $5/sheet), but we eventually got the prints done. We finally quit after the Epson ran out of ink.

Jules was especially happy to have gotten a print out of the photo he took of two beautiful girls he took the week earlier so he could present it to the girls' mother.


I'm glad I was of some assistance. Jules' photos are spectacular! I'm honored that he autographed the copy of his book that K.S. gave me, plus one of the new large Tiger prints that he's going to include in his next book.

K.S. also gave me a print of one of his own photos of a wonderful leopard that hangs in his computer workroom.


What wonderful treasures to remind me of two very talented photographers - one professional, one amateur - and a delightful afternoon together!