Photographing Through the Cypress © Jay Goodrich

With the announcement of our new website last week, I discussed changing directions. About taking your current status quo and trying to explore new avenues with your photography. Wonderful, right? There is a catch here though, and that is becoming open to the change. You can decide to go for it, decide you can make images in another discipline, but the bottom line is, regardless of your decision, you are going to need to become much more aware of your current surroundings in order to achieve it. And in reality, it’s not even about awareness, but a conscious effort or training even.

Anyone can post the sign “Professional Photographer” at their front door. There is no test that has to be passed. You do not need to go to school for any kind of degree. Hell, you don’t even need to have a closet full of equipment. The reality though, is that you wouldn’t get very far, because in today’s society, people only want to work with people who can prove their experience. In another thought too, you wouldn’t even know how to take a picture if you were that far removed from your title. I am assuming that we can agree that it is not a lack of experience here, at least for what you currently focus on, no it is about stepping into different waters.

You have experience and knowledge, you just don’t have experience and knowledge in the subject you are about to immerse yourself into. So what will it take to get that experience? It will take time and it will take training. This training doesn’t need to be formal though, it can be experience driven. You can take the knowledge you already have and build upon it. Photograph and study, then adjust, then photograph some more. Eventually you will have the experience. It is in that experience then that you will have the consciousness to achieve. Why? Because once you have enough experiences, your brain transforms. It begins to talk to you instead of you talking to it.

When this little switch occurs, you notice things that you may not have noticed before. All of a sudden your level of seeing escalates beyond were you were an hour ago, a day ago, or even a year ago. It is at this point that you realize that heading out into any photographic situation with a preconceived idea is almost ludicrous. Unless of course you have planned and sketched the whole image out, and you are building the concept from the ground up. This holds true for much of the commercial photography out there.

The shot I have included in this post is the proof of this building block scenario. I changed directions for my new website. This took me out of my comfort zone and had me photographing things that I barely touched upon before. The trial and inexperience period happened fast only because I already had the building blocks of creativity laid prior with an architecture degree and fifteen years of photographing. None the less, it was hard to take an image with a person in it, that wasn’t doing something visually exciting – mountain biking, skiing, etc. Fast forward six months – my eyes, brain, and motor skills are teed up in search of these scenarios now. So when I was photographing an abstract of some trees along the coast of California during a workshop last week, my mind was on the lookout.

When one of our participants walked into my composition, I pounced. I shot something that I would have never seen a year prior because my brain would not have possessed the training to look. I would have probably asked her to move out of the scene. And the beauty of the whole situation is that none of the other people standing next to me realized I took the image, until they saw it at the end of the workshop. Go ahead and change directions, but make sure that when you do, you become open to as many situations in your surroundings that your brain will allow you to go after. Your image making skills will definitely show for it.

Peacock Parade during the Solstice Parade © Jay Goodrich

Falling into complacency. Have you ever done it? Or are you doing it right now? As an artist you work extremely hard to better your career, better your offerings. In that focus do you ever forget the who, what, where, and why you decided to pursue this passion in the first place? Is it a steady income stream that brings it upon you? Or the love for the very thing you are pursuing? There are times that I, as a business owner, not only have to make decisions on a financial basis, but at times when I need to make decisions on a creative basis too. It is not an easy task, for the most part, the two do not go hand-in-hand. One can compliment the other and they can intertwine at times. Creativity may add more financial strain to the business than truly necessary, but I have found that if the idea does contain the slightest amount of potential over what is currently being offered by the “competition” the risk could be worth the price of admission.

Let’s say that you are a nature photographer. Have you ever considered photographing a wedding? Or ever tried? Did you like it or hate it? Was the decision made out of financial necessity or out of something else? How about if you are a portrait photographer? Ever ventured out of your comfort zone? Maybe taken some images for an architect? If you have, you have realized that the way the other half lives isn’t as easy as some may think. If you have never ventured from your comfort zone you may be held in place by fear or possibly by saying you are completely happy with where you are right now-which I may even argue is a form of fear as well. Today, I am not going to tell you any of these options are wrong by any stretch of the imagination. “We can never see past the choices we don’t understand.”-The Oracle in the Matrix Revolutions.

What if you put all your apprehensions aside? Discarded fear. Discarded disbelief. And decided to give it a whirl. Change. Give change a try. Would you head down a completely different, unusual, exciting road or would life remain status quo? I am willing to bet, and I am taking this directly from experience, that life would become exiting. More exciting, in fact, than ever before. You would find new avenues to travel and these avenues would lead you to different places. And it is those different places that would give you even more opportunity. How do I know? Because I spent the last year doing just that. Changing Directions.

Today we are announcing a brand new website, one that follows some of the subjects and disciplines I have focused on in the past, but now there are many more. A change in direction, a change in subject matter, a change in style. And for me, a new look into the future. Take a few minutes to have a look around. Let us know what you think. And you can see it all very large. Maximize your browser window and get a little taste of the new Jay Goodrich. Big, bold, in the same light and in new light. And if fear of changing the size of your browser window gets in the way, don’t worry the site will scale to meet your needs. The adventure is beginning, all over again.

Crimson Sunset in the Cascades-Home and Sanity © Jay Goodrich

112,691 total images. I have looked through one hundred thousand images this past week. There is a small amount of drool hanging down from my mouth right now and I tend to knock my head up against the walls as I slowly use them as a balancing device. The drool streaks in the paint to some extent. I was in complete darkness. There was no light at any tunnel because I couldn’t see shit. Finally, after that week, there is a pin prick off brightness off in the distance. Why? Why would I search through the entire catalog blowing a week of my time. Putting everything on the back burner. Blowing off all of the friends. It’s okay, the fantasy snow year has decided to go away so skiing can wait right now. The sun has been out and it has been almost seventy degrees. I am stuck in darkness. This sucks.

Come next week this insanity will all probably be over and there will be a new prized jewel to show for it. A completely upgraded and updated website. All of the images will be organized for optimum SEO compatibility and all of them have for the most part never been seen before. It is a brand new portfolio. One that departs from who I have been, yet puts me exactly where I want to be.

All those images have been looked out, argued over, fretted about, discussed, thrown away, reinstated, moved, archived, keyworded, captioned, adjusted, mastered, and creatively thought through all in Adobe Lightroom 4 on a brand new Mac. It has been a struggle for sure, but now I am glad to cast the stone out there that something is about to be released. I cannot believe that I have over a hundred thousand photographs?! Those are the keepers. During this whole process we adjusted all of the metadata so we can make our first submission to our new stock agency and we have set a series of standards to go by for the future edits. None of this would be possible if we didn’t have Lightroom to help us manage the whole enchilada. I want a beer and a shot now damn it.

As I move forward from this project into the next, I will be able to pick up speed. Images now have more data attached to them and they will be even easier to find. Our video clips will have all of that same metadata and we can chop some of the clips to get them ready for imports into Premier Pro. I never thought that my business would hinge so heavily on one single software for its organization. I never thought I would be looking at such a large collection of images either. Finding simplicity is no easy task these days, but Lightroom has managed to help by pointing the way to that brightness somewhere off in the distance. I remember a construction client of mine many years ago asked me if I knew what the KISS principle was? I looked at him like a puppy about to pee on the carpet. “You mean like kissin’ ur sister?” No dummy, Keep It Simple Stupid. I try to live by those words every day. Mostly, the principle challenges my wits to its fullest extent, but moments of clarity do prevail. Always with the help of some friends. More soon.

Mount Shuksan in Winter © Jay Goodrich

Join Jay as he highlights how he uses the Library Module in Lightroom 4 and multiple Nik plug-ins to simplify his creative vision tomorrow at 10am PST. Jay will cover some of his Lightroom cataloging and digital asset management techniques, as well as how he integrates Nik plug-ins, like Color Efex Pro 4 and Silver Efex Pro 2, into his current image processing workflow.

(Please note that the first 1,000 attendees to join the live webinar can attend and there are only about 100 spots left!)

Register on the Nik Webinar Website to attend the class.

In addition, you can now receive a 15% discount on any Nik Software by entering my discount code of “goodrichnik” during your checkout.

Suset over the Lava Beds Processed in Lightroom 4 Only © Jay Goodrich CLICK TO ENLARGE

Earlier this week Adobe Labs released the first Beta version of Lightroom 4. I am a huge user of Lightroom so I immediately downloaded this new version to have a look at what I can be expecting. I have to tell you that I was pleasantly surprised.

As soon as you open the software up you notice the workspace has changed. There are two new editing modules on the right–Map and Book. You can now tag all of your images on a map brought to you by Google Earth. This also includes the ability to locate your spots via GPS longitude and latitude functions. You can tag whole libraries or just a single image at a time. Very cool. Also included is the ability to create books for publication. Lightroom is offering press printed books through Blurb with all of Blurb’s Proline features, but if want to use someone else, you can layout your entire book and then export it as a PDF. Again, really no limitation.

I was hoping for more video capabilities and it looks like that is on the very near horizon.  The best part about storing your video in the Lightroom 4 Library will be the fact that you won’t need to view the clips in an external editor such as Quicktime. Adobe also added the ability to edit your clips’ in and out points which will really speed up the organization process for film you are planning on editing. If you have multiple clips that you want to use on a single take, you can actually create a virtual copy of the film and change the in and out points correspondingly. Magic. You now have the ability to make adjustments to the clips via the Quick Develop settings and even attach Develop Module presets to them. Not all of the presets work, but most do.

The Develop Module has also gone through some tweeking. Under the Brush and Graduated Tools you now have the ability to locally adjust white balance, noise, and moire. The Auto Mask check box actually works amazingly well now too! Adobe also updated the global adjustments. Exposure and Contrast are together and Recovery and Fill Light are gone. Don’t worry though, Adobe is now giving us Highlights, Shadows, Whites, and Blacks adjusting sliders. The whole process makes much more sense to me. In addition, we now have a 2012 process under Camera Calibration and it seems to be a bit more forceful with its adjustments to the images. Some may not like it, but I do.

Other note worthy additions include the ability to export videos directly to social media pages and the ability to generate a soft proof image for printing on a specific paper and color profile. This is great addition because now you will be able to create a virtual copy of your image with the soft proofing turned on, match it to your original, and you are off to the races. Like I said I am on board with this update. Of course this is a Beta and if I could have my way with Adobe there are some things that I really want.

Give me Content Aware Fill! The best Photoshop add ever in my opinion. Give it to me in Lightroom. I don’t care if directly adjusts pixels and that is not the way Lightroom works. You are Adobe, just do it. I want the ability to adjust the masks that I make with the Brush tool and Graduated Tool. Especially when it comes to Shifting and Feathering my Mask Edges after the fact. Maybe a little Smart Radius too? How about the ability to merge multiple exposures? Curve presets for the Tone Curve Tool. And the ability to locally edit video–adding text, titles, vignettes, and turning the captured sound off or on. Now we are talking. I would also like the ability to export my movie clips directly into Premiere Pro just like I can export my stills to Photoshop. And have the adjusted clip stack directly back in my Library with the original? That’s all, it’s not a huge list. Let’s see what March Brings.

Owen Dudley Drops into the Baker Backcountry © Jay Goodrich

Well, finally, it snowed. It has literally been since November, but on the final day of the year, Mount Baker got hit with a foot of new snow. Owen Dudley, Tyler Hatcher and myself headed out to see what we could make of a perfect stormy day. You can view more of the images on the Mount Baker Ski Area website. Now, we just need this to continue so we can do it again, and again, and again–much like the movie Groundhog Day. I guess if you love it, repeating it is not really a torture. Happy New Year!

Architecture Photography Jay Goodrich Style

Notice that I said winners? Because it is Christmas and I have a soft spot at this time of year and only this time of year, EVERYONE that commented on last week’s post regarding how I shot an interior image is getting a print of their choosing. So Younes, Dave, Ilene, Dick, and Michael just email me your choice from anywhere on any of my sites, include your shipping address, and I will print and ship you a signed print for playing. I also wanted to mention that all of you managed to highlight something that I did to get this image. In an effort to not leave you hanging, here is the full story.

Step 1-Spend over an hour moving all of the homeowners not so great furniture out of the way. This included hundreds of knick-nacks. Assorted bark-a-loungers, pieces of ocean glass, and even the cat. By the way, the cat acted like a dog and I loved that thing. He just always wanted to be in my frame. Then bring in the tripod and camera. In this case I did in fact use a Canon 24mm Tilt-Shift lens on a 1D Mark IV body with a cable release. The tripod and camera were then leveled with a handy hot-shoe bubble level.

Step 2-Use said camera vertically to capture 9 exposures of 4 separate compositions beginning at the left of the frame and continuing with about 50% over lap to the right side of my composition. All images were shot in RAW. No external lighting here.

Step 3-Move all of the shit back into place. Continue photographing house until it was pitch black out and pouring to the point that all of my lens glass was fogged with condensation.

Step 4-Ride the two hour ferry back home. Thank god it was Thanksgiving and not 4th of July–early sunset.

Step 5-Get kissed and hugged by the kids, yelled at by the wife because I am a stupid man. Then kissed by the wife.

Step 6-Upload close to a thousand images into the server.

Step 7-Begin to edit, sort, and process.

Step 8-Process this image. It was a 6 hour long mission. The whole image was mastered completely by hand. First, each of the four compositions needed to be merged to balance the exterior light coming in with the level drop that was present in the interior. Yes, the exterior does really look like what is shown in the glass, but it doesn’t necessarily need to for a lot of my clients. Then, I balanced out all of the lights and darks to make the interior look exactly as I wanted. The Mask Adjustment Palette in Photoshop CS5 is amazing for this. Now, the separate compositions need to be merged together. I have to admit that I did use the Photo Merge function in Photoshop to make this happen. It did a pretty good job. Where this function falls short is in the pattern areas of the plywood and ceiling panels. So after I finalized the crop, I then go back to my separate un-merged exposure images and cut and paste specific areas to make everything line up. Also there was a glass cabinet right above the bench in the fireplace tower that I completely cloned out because it was, yes, full of more ugly shit. This file was then saved as a layered composition file just in case I ever need to move more things around. And it is 1.5GB in size. This is why I use a Mac Pro with 30 inch Cinema Display.

Screen Shot from Jay Goodrich's Computer © Jay Goodrich

Step 9-Flatten the image and go to town removing dust and miscellaneous things that just couldn’t be removed in the field. Then adjust for color, contrast, lightness, darkness, saturation etc. Click the image above to see what all of the layers are. At this point the file is only 630MB +/- something that is workable.

Step 10-Go to bed for a mere 4 hours it was 3am and I had 7 other images that needed to completed before noon to be sent off to the book publisher, who is Australia and they are a full day ahead of me.

Step 11-Today I fixed the leaning mullions in the image that I noticed yesterday when I did an architecture promo. See, it never really ends. Just Morphosises onto to something else. Like crazy mountain biking.

Very long and very lonely. I have finally returned home after eight weeks of continuous travel. I have been to California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, and Hawaii. My wife has taken my balls clean off. I now talk in a much higher voice. You know what though? All was for a greater good. A greater bank account good. During that time frame there has been a flurry of activity. A ton of accomplishments. Success.

Kent Billingsley Leaves it to Faith in Missoula © Jay Goodrich

My whole trip began with a mountain bike mission in Colorado. A story on the riding in Eagle, where I lived for over a decade, mere days after my father’s passing. It was soul cleansing and an experience that will be shared with thousands in the coming year. Then in Montana while shooting for Hilton, I managed to pull an evening of unsuspected mountain bike shooting off, thanks to my assistant in Missoula–Catherine Walters. She rounded up a bunch of her friends who went off for my high speed shutter.

Losh Residence by Prentiss Architects © Jay Goodrich

Then I was told by an unrelated client that I had received the cover of Luxe magazine and a thirteen image spread inside highlighting the architecture of my friend and client Geoffrey Prentiss.

Clouveil and The Cascades © Jay Goodrich

We managed to get on Cloudveil Clothing’s website and in their catalog. Many thanks to Mark Kogelmann, Owen Dudley, Tyler Hatcher, and Peder Bottheim for appeasing the neurotic photographer that day.

Adobe! © Jay Goodrich

As if that weren’t enough. Adobe did a spotlight interview with me for their photoshop.com website. HOW COOL IS THAT!

Owen Dudley Star of NWAC and Mount Baker © Jay Goodrich

Mount Baker Ski Area used two of my images for their advertising on the Northwest Weather and Avalanche Center’s website.

The Mount Baker Experience © Jay Goodrich

And finally, just today I received my copy of the Mount Baker Experience where they featured a bunch of my images on their website and in their print edition. All of this made possible by a (previously) patient wife, grumpy kids, and some amazing people I have met along the way. I am spoiled rotten.

A few months ago I was approached by an online show who’s mission is simple:

“Lets be real.  Photography is addicting.  It’s an intoxicating craftiness that truly has limitless potential for those that crave the art.  It is in its own world of ever-changing possibilities and is constantly evolving.  With that being said, we decided to create a show.  A free, weekly broadcast that captivates as well as educates.  Every week we will bring different photographic talents to you that will share a piece of their wisdom, their work, their process, and their art.

[FRAMED] will take you on location to local, national, and internationally known photographers for the purpose of bringing a behind-the-scenes view of photography to your computer.  All we ask of you is to share, participate and jump on the train of inspirational photography education to inspire you to be unique.  Be careful, you might get addicted.”

I cannot tell you how excited I am to see the final footage and commend everyone who worked with me to create a wonderful 3o minute segment. I hope you have some spare time in your day to have a look. I give you a brief glimpse of some new work and a few techniques to get you started in your own backyard. Let us know what you think.

Heather Goodrich Rolling on Red Hill © Jay Goodrich

Before you ask why the heck is this coming on Wednesday, well I don’t know, I try to make one post, every week, on Wednesday. So there! This is my blog and I do what I want. Most of the time. Sometimes. I have handlers you know. I did write it on Monday though.

I love Mondays. Yes that’s right I do. There was a time in my life when Mondays were the bane of my existence though. I worked for someone. I had a 7am Monday morning meeting. I didn’t drink coffee. And it was a witch hunt for those that didn’t do their jobs in the week prior. It just generally sucked. Now, Mondays are made for coffee and not that Foldgers shit, good barista made, Pacific Northwest craft. 3 shots of pure perfection. And small. 8oz or 12oz. I want octane not cow calories. And on tired days the quad. That’s how it starts.

Then it progresses to dropping my kids at their respective schools and then back to the office too…

Silence and work. Now, typically my Mondays end up being days of insanity. This is because I have emailed tons of people during the course of the previous week and they are now sitting in their offices perusing what they need to take care of from the ending of the last week. Sponsors, editors, commercial clients, all have hectic schedules. Inevitably, they are balancing multiple job descriptions and set specific times to reply to people thanks to our lovely economy. For some reason that seems to be Monday. That makes my Mondays about money. And money means I can feed the dog, the kids, and the wife will have a roof over her head for another month. Today as of writing this I have acquired two new architectural contracts, a 25 image licensing deal, a feature article in a well know mountain biking magazine, and an interview with liveBooks. I have also received the contact info for an editor that I want to propose a story idea to–from another editor that I just finished a job with, ordered some stickers to give out to people to help to further promote my brand, and adjusted my job schedule for the next two weeks. It is only 11am. I type fast when drinking coffee try to keep up.

I know this isn’t the norm on every Monday, but I much rather head into my week aggressively and looking at the possibility of good things to come. This all happens because of the coffee injection and an excitement of getting back to doing what I love doing–photography. My moral here, if I have one, is that no matter what your profession, do what you love. It doesn’t have to be photography. It can be anything. My wife is a teacher. She wakes up at 5am everyday to be at her “office” by 7am. She doesn’t like the wake up, but looks forward to her job and her day, everyday. So if your Mondays suck. Change them. Change your life. Change your career. Change your passions. Make it all turn out for the best, because time is short on this planet and there is no reason not to enjoy every minute of it. Gotta go the phone is ringing–it’s the President. Now, you laugh! And enjoy the rest of your week.