Sunrise in the Grand Tetons with the DII

Just back from our first trip to Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Parks where Helene and I were teaching this past week. We had a great group of attendees for the Digital Imaging Institute’s second annual “Imaging in Ophthalmology” workshop. Our days were long, but very rewarding as we started each day around 4 a.m. to be on the road by 5 for photographing in the best morning light. Instructors and attendees then spent the late mornings and early afternoons in digital imaging classes. Topics ranged from basic photography and Adobe Photoshop Extended, to advanced medical imaging and Raw capture processing workflow. Then it was back outside in the evenings to photograph again. Longest days of the year gave us good shooting light till almost 9 pm each night. Then we would meet back in class again to download and process images until late at night. From landscapes to wildlife, we had our hands full every day. Got lots of new material to work with for future tutorials and webinars. Thanks to Cathy and Mark Maio and all the instructors for making it a great week! Here’s just a sample of some of the images I did.

(click to enlarge images)

Lots of opportunities to photography the wildlife all week in the two parks.... Elk, deer, bear, moose, bison.... They got it all.... But there's more to it than that...

All week long, this grizzly bear and her three new cubs were hanging out up the street from the lodge we were staying at. Everybody got such good images of them except me.... When it came tho the best animal shooting situations, I never seemed to be in the right place when they were close to the road. Wasn't going into the woods after them, so I got what I got and have to work harder at it... Besides the photography skills, you need some luck mixed in with a lot of patience to be good at this. I got a whole new respect for this speciality in photography.

I am going to need a lot more practice to get good at wildlife photography. The only wildlife cooperating with me this week was this little guy.... Still never saw a moose....

Of course we had to stop and watch Old Faithful go off. It draws a big crowd.

I always find time to shoot some textures. Yellowstone was full of great color and texture. I will use these in other composite illustrations in the future. There kind of cool all by themselves as well.

On the last night of the workshop, we had a nice gathering with great food and wine, and watched the sun set from the open deck of the lodge. We all viewed samples of our week's work in a revolving slideshow as we excitedly planed for the next DII Imaging workshop.

The New Book Has Arrived!

After three years of location photography, and several years of research and writing by author Doug Frey, “Marietta The Gem City of The South” has finally arrived. This 400+ page book illustrating the homes and history of this southern city was the largest photography project I have ever taken on. The printing was done in China and is just beautiful. Even better than I had hoped. Just goes to show you that properly applied color management really does work.

We had our first official book signing Friday night at the DK Art Gallery Friday night to a full house of excited Marietta residents wanting to get the first copies of the 6 1/2 lb coffee table book. The response from everyone was just incredible, and this book is something the entire city can be very proud of. Doug, book designer Michael Leidel, and myself signed the first copies for over 4 hours as the first books were picked up by people who bought them in advance along with local residents coming in on the First Friday Art Walk they have at the square every month. Some people bought several copies as gifts. There are still a lot of copies to be signed, so I will be busy getting all of that done in the next week.

I have a new portfolio section on my web site dedicated to the project that can be viewed at www.DiVitalePhotography.com. I also have been working on some black and white versions of the images and have posted them on a web site if you would like to see at www.divitalephotography.com/marietta_homes.