Make one-of-a-kind creations During the second pandemic winter, I began dabbling in a new hobby: photo painting. It goes by many names—digital painting, digital photo art, mixed media, etc. Rather than simply enhancing the original image using the usual settings like brightness, highlights and shadows, or color saturation, photo painting creates an entirely new piece of art. There are apps for transforming your photos into pieces that resemble, for example, a Renaissance painting or a watercolor or a vintage illustration, but since I was only tinkering for my own pleasure one long, dark, December evening, I didn’t bother finding new software or reading up on technique. In fact, I stumbled upon this pastime by accident. Reviewing folders of images from the fall, I opened a slightly blurry mid-October image of some dead leaves with river water rushing by in the background, a downright dull picture. For kicks, I tried the…
The smallest beauty from the biggest state by Bruce Welkovich Alaska is a nature photographer’s paradise: Denali and glaciers, moose and bears, whales and eagles. But there’s more to Alaska than its mega-scenery and mega-fauna. Kneel down, look closely, and there’s another world of natural beauty: flowers and insects, mushrooms and slime molds, mosses and lichens. Advances in technology allow us to get closer than ever. Mobile phones take great macro photos now, but can only get you so close. For the serious photographer, extreme macro requires a technique called “focus stacking,” which solved a problem that has plagued us since the dawnof photography. Focus Stacking The Problem: The closer a lens gets to the subject of a photo, the smaller the depth of field (the portion of the subject that is in acceptable focus). For extreme macro photography, the lens is so close that only the slightest portion of the…
The Lure of a Mountain Peak I fell in love with my house immediately, thanks to the 6,398-foot-tall Pioneer Peak jutting into the sky behind it. Pioneer looked like Alaska incarnate to me. It dominated my view, rising abruptly from the flat valley floor as the kind of peak you might see if you look up “mountain” in the dictionary. Over nearly five years of living in my home, I tried once, twice, five times to make it to the top of the mountain that loomed above my house. Each time, I fell short. Then, one bright morning in September 2021 after a full summer of strenuous hikes and runs, my husband and I set out for a hike on the Pioneer Trail. We started early, with cool temps leaving dew on leaves underfoot. We climbed at an unhurried but steady pace, gaining elevation as the sun rose higher into…