photography

The Unexpected Rebirth of Adobe DNG: CreativePro.com article

The Adobe Digital Negative (DNG) format started out as an open file format for saving raw image data from the sensor in a digital camera. While DNG hasn’t exactly become a household name, I recently began to notice that DNG has come into wider use behind the scenes in several Adobe and non-Adobe photo workflows, and not just for camera raw files. What makes this possible is the inherent versatility that Adobe built into the DNG format. Are you already using DNG without even knowing it?

Read my full article for CreativePro.com at the following link:

The Unexpected Rebirth of Adobe DNG

Prints on display: “Global Explorations” group photo exhibition

Reception: Saturday, March 18, 2017 at Ida Culver House Ravenna

Images from my travels are part of Global Explorations, a group photography show; I’ll be showing images from India. These are the same photos that were shown from October 2016 through March 2017 as part of the Journey Through the Lenses show; the curator requested that the images also be included in this show. You can view this show from March 18 to July 9, 2017.

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Journey Through the Lenses exhibition featured image

Prints on display: “Journey Through the Lenses” group photo exhibition

Reception: Saturday, October 15, 2016 at Aljoya Mercer Island

I am honored by an invitation to show a set of images from my travels as part of Journey Through the Lenses, a group photography show. I will be showing images from India. You can view the show from October 15, 2016 to February 12, 2017.

The gala reception is on Saturday, October 15, 2016 from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m, with wine, hors d’oeuvres, and live music. If you plan to come, please RSVP to 206-230-0150 by October 12.

The show is at Aljoya Mercer Island, 2430 76th Avenue SE on Mercer Island, Washington, USA.

Thanks to ERA Living for presenting this exhibition, and thanks to curators Ann Macrae and June Sekiguchi for inviting me to participate.

For more information, here’s the show flyer. See you on the 15th!

Journey Through the Lenses show flyer

Update: If you go, you’ll find five of my prints on the second floor, above the reception desk (on the left side of the site photo below). One more print is on the first floor in the lobby; turn right at reception.

Journey Through the Lenses site image

Exploring self-published photo books: InDesign Magazine article

My friends at InDesign Magazine asked me to explore self-published photography books for the June 2016 issue. In my article Manual Exposure: Eye-Opening Self-Published Photography Books I write about photography books from four countries, focusing on the book designers and their creative approaches.

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Two photographs selected for City Panorama 2016

I’m honored and pleased that two of my panoramic photographs have been selected for the City Panorama 2016 public arts program. One of the images is a panorama of a sunset that includes The Needles and Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach, Oregon; and the other is of Dusty Lake in eastern Washington state.

City Panorama is an annual project that displays inspirational panoramic format art on Metro bus shelters throughout Seattle and King County. The art will appear on 8-foot-wide wood panels, and may be displayed for up to ten years. The process of printing, mounting, and siting all of the selected works takes several months.

I shot the Dusty Lake photo from a high point on a ridge above the lake. Dusty Lake sits in a depression gouged out by Ice Age floods, about 200 feet below the top of the ridge. To get a sense of the field of view for this image, the lake is over half a mile long, and the far end of the ridge in the distance on the right is about a mile and a half away.

Both of my images are multiple-frame panoramas photographed in camera raw format, then merged and processed in Adobe Lightroom, with some additional edits in Adobe Photoshop as needed.

Thank you to Photographic Center Northwest, King County Metro, and Youth in Focus as well as the panel of jurors from those organizations who selected the images. Thanks also to 4Culture who fund the program through a grant.

For more information and to see the complete list of photographers and artists whose work was selected, visit City Panorama 2016 (Photo Center Northwest).

Update: Haystack Rock panorama installed

I received word that the Haystack Rock sunset panorama was installed at Stop #9560, a northbound bus stop at Eastlake Avenue East and Harvard Avenue East in Seattle. You can see the work installed on site in the photos below, as well as a map of the location.

Haystack Rock panorama by Conrad Chavez installed on site

A roughly 150-degree panorama of the Cannon Beach photograph shown in the context of the site. The photograph is installed inside the shelter. The right side of this image looks south along Eastlake Avenue East, which is how buses coming from downtown Seattle approach the stop.

A closer look at the Haystack Rock panorama by Conrad Chavez installed on site

A closer look at the panorama installed inside the bus shelter.

Detail of photo credits

Detail of photo credit and sponsor logos. There’s evidence of graffiti, which is to be expected. A maintenance crew has apparently done a partial job of removing the graffiti.

Here‘s a map of the location, it’s under the Interstate 5 bridge:

The artists have no input as to where the photographs are installed, so I was pleased that Metro installed my work at a bus stop that I actually used back in high school to get home.

I’m still waiting to find out where Metro installs the Dusty Lake photo. Installation of the long list of City Panorama works may take until late spring 2017.