Category: Updates

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Added thoughts on Adobe software plans

The following is a guest commentary from Teton Photography Group Steering Committee member Nick Wheeler:

I feel compelled to enlarge on my comments the other night about the new Adobe subscription model. Here is a link to one place you can still get the physical version of Photoshop if you want it.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=850333&Q=&is=REG&A=details

It’s also available from Amazon and many traditional software vendors. It is being sold now for less than what I paid in 1992, never mind inflation.

There are some users who have been resisting the latest “upgrade” to subscription pricing. These are typically long time users who have been updating since v2.0, so admittedly we have long since amortized the upfront cost. Our monthly cost was more along the lines of 5.00, so even the current discount of 10.00 per month looks like a ripoff. It’s a double whammy as we did pay the upfront cost and now we are forced into the subscription model.

There have been no worthwhile upgrades to Photoshop since version 5, everything since has been window dressing. For me personally the CS6 upgrade has been a terrible rehash of the interface, burying features (such as command-shift-option-E) in an undocumented no man’s land and rejiggering key shortcuts in some of the traditional dialogs (such as curves) as to make them much slower and more inconvenient to use.

Another poorly understood and undocumented feature of recent versions of Photoshop is the growing disparity in functionality between ACR in Photoshop and Lightroom. This will only be exacerbated as time goes on, and not necessarily in a positive way. Is Lightroom to become a dumbed down version of Photoshop + ACR? Will the slightly better version of ACR in Photoshop be eliminated because it’s a bit harder to use?

It may prove that the average user is far better off with the last physical version of Photoshop, combined with more advanced Beyer interpolators such as Raw Developer and more robust media management, my favorite tool of the past decade or so is now owned by Phase One and is sold as Media Pro. The end user would be far better off right now with CS6, Raw Developer and Media Pro than subscribing to the Adobe program alone.

I think it is in every photographers best interest to maintain a two horse race in software development for photographers. Blindly subscribing to the Adobe solutions may be a long term lose lose unless more competition enters the space. It would be great if enough end users agreed with this notion, did not subscribe and forced Adobe to hit the pause button on this strategy.

Admittedly it has been a great strategy for Adobe insiders with giant stock options on the line, providing them with a gratifying short term bump in the value of their options. For the rest of us – maybe not so great.

Nick Wheeler

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Social Consciousness: Giving back to our environment

The Teton Photography Group is privileged to have its home in Jackson and the beautiful greater Yellowstone ecosystem (GYE.) We have some of the most beautiful public lands and diverse flora and fauna in the lower 48 states. We, as photographers, gain from our environment every day that we visit, shoot, or show our photographs.  What cost do we pay for the privilege of living and photographing in our public lands? Actually, very little or no cost above that of any transient visitor to our area….

If we enjoy our public lands and the ecosystem that is supported and relatively protected at very little or no cost, how can we give back to our environment?

Most people living and visiting our area are aware that we should always practice low-impact, non-consumptive use of the resources – “take only photographs; leave only (very few) footprints.”  That is a common sense, no nonsense approach to protecting our environment but, is it enough for the privilege of living here every day? I don’t think so and I think we, as hosts to the world, have a greater responsibility to our environment. I think we can be leaders and role models for others, the three million visitors who are in awe of our home lands each year. How can we lead and model for our guests?

First, I think we should hold ourselves to a higher standard in support of the GYE. We should be more careful about our activities and our impact on the wildlife and their habitat. We are visitors in the habitat of our diverse fauna and need to respect it assiduously.  

Second, we who enjoy the area daily and proudly drive our too-too (22 – Teton County) vehicles should be stewards of the land and role models for other, more transient, visitors. By holding ourselves to a higher standard and behaving in an exemplary manner, our guests will see how we value and respect our environment and they, too, will show more respect.

Third, while these are laudable goals, I think we can, should, and have the responsibility to do even more to protect and preserve our ecosystem. I believe that we, the TPG membership, can take a lead role in developing ethical standards for wildlife photography in our area. In early December I had the opportunity of meeting with representatives from the National Forest Service who have concerns about the stresses placed on our wildlife by visitors and photographers getting too close.  While they have the regulatory power to prevent this by closing sensitive areas to the public, they clearly want to maintain nearly unlimited public access to our wildlife as long as the wildlife are respected and their natural behavior is not disrupted. They would like the TPG to take the lead in developing and promoting appropriate ethical standards, and educating the public as we become role models for these ethical standards.

Last week I set up a Liaison Group to work to develop a proposed list of ethical wildlife photography standards to be supported by the Teton Photography Group. We have collected references and ethical behavior models from other organizations and will use these as a backbone for principles that we believe are most appropriate for our environment. We hope to have a draft list before Christmas and have the list compiled and edited for review before the end of 2013. We will partner with representatives from federal, state, regional, and local authorities and agencies to review these ethical principles at a meeting before the end of January 2014.  I will bring the results of this meeting to the TPG membership for review and approval later this winter, with the hope of developing and distributing a document outlining our ethical principles for wildlife photography in the GYE, no later than this spring.  We plan to schedule a special public meeting of the TPG for an open forum discussion of this project and its recommendations this spring.

I hope that this effort will be supported by the Group and we can work together to discuss and distribute these principles to governmental agencies and the public before and during the busy summer tourist season. Working together, it is my belief, will allow the greatest access to our public lands and the greatest protection for our beloved wildlife.

Please let me know your thoughts by posting comments below.

I thank TPG member Chuck Schneebeck for stimulating this discussion with the National Forest Service representatives Dale Deiter, Thomas Matza, and Kerry Murphy. I also thank Barbara Hayton, Mike Cavaroc, Roger Hayden, Mac McMillen, and Karen Perry for serving as members of the TPG Liaison Group.

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Our Partner – the Art Association of Jackson Hole

From the beginning, the Teton Photography Group recognized the need for strategic partnerships to become a viable, long-term organization in the greater Teton region.  Discussions with established photographers, community and organization leaders, and existing ‘brick and mortar’ institutions helped us to understand why previous photography ‘clubs’ had struggled and ultimately failed.  We explored many partnerships with existing not-for-profit organizations in the area with a goal of avoiding the expense and time needed to become an independent organization with federal 501(c)3 tax status and to acquire a stable venue for our meetings and programs.  These discussions all pointed to an obvious and critical partnership with the Art Association of Jackson Hole.

The AAJH is a stable, 50-year old organization that has been the community leader supporting the arts in all forms.  They have strong community support, a proven financial base, and a versatile and flexible location that can support activities from small group meetings to large educational programs.  They also have a well-established communication and community education history.  In a word, the AAJH is a perfect partner for the TPG.

Over the past six months the AAJH has hosted our monthly public presentations, planning and organizational meetings, and our first large educational symposium.  They have provided infrastructure, staff, equipment and supplies, and communications to support our activities. They serve as our bank and financial resource to help us pay our bills.  Our partnership sounds good, but over the last month, it has changed – for the better.

Detailed planning for our first Outdoor Photography Symposium exposed some issues with the infrastructure of both organizations and the AAJH immediately stepped up to the plate to address these issues in a very positive way. We have had discussions about the computer equipment and software in the photography lab and the AAJH developed a plan to update hardware and software to a state-of-the-art system that will better serve their educational programs and the needs of our members. The AAJH has carefully listened to the TPG needs for improved video projection and audio systems for large programs. They have found methods to meet our short-term needs and expand their long-term capabilities. We have had discussions about the AAJH membership database that will better support partnering organizations with their communication and financial needs. But more important and longer lasting changes have also begun.

We have entered in strategic planning initiatives with the AAJH that will help optimize community educational goals of both organizations by streamlining and coordinating our respective programs.  This will be evident in the new AAJH catalog to be released this winter.  There will be expanded coverage of the TPG programs and marketing and promotion for our major educational activities. This will start with the support of two new educational symposia in February and April.  Based upon the feedback from members and attendees of our first symposium, we will present a more basic and a more advanced symposium this winter and spring. The basic symposium will address introductory issues of how to make better images with dSLR cameras. The advanced symposium will explore the details of post-processing image editing software.  Additionally, the AAJH has committed to support for our monthly public presentations scheduled on the third Monday of every month. We have a plan to expand the breadth of the photographic subjects presented and expand our membership using resources of the AAJH.  We hope that these initiatives will allow the TPG to explore cutting-edge introductory programs that will lead to expanded educational classroom activities from the AAJH.

Our partnership with the Art Association of Jackson Hole has been a win-win proposition for photographers in the region.  The membership in the TPG has grown steadily from about a dozen last April to more than 150 in October. The partnership is stronger than ever and I hope that every member of the TPG will support the AAJH by becoming a supporting member – only $35 per year – for full membership and all of the benefits provided by the Association as well as full privileges of the TPG.  It is a win for art and photographers in the region, the community, and you as someone who wants to improve photography as an art through education and networking.

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Once in a lifetime

Every once in a while life throws something at you that is so unexpected and yet so wonderful that you can't pass it up.  That is what happened to me in mid-August as I was planning my sixth photography trip to Yellowstone National Park since April this year.  Several wildfires were burning in the park and some of the campgrounds were on a short evacuation alert so our plans changed several times but we finally settled on a "safe" campground at Canyon Village. As we packed the RV for the two-week trip we were notified that the road between Fishing Bridge and Canyon was closed due to smoke and the threat of the Alum Creek fire. That meant a two-hour detour and a trip over Craig Pass on the western side of the Grand Loop. Well, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do and we made our plan to leave on a Tuesday.

On Monday I received a call from a friend who is a Regional Director of the Yellowstone Association and who was in need of some part-time help to replace two employees who had to leave on urgent family business. We could come to Yellowstone, bring the RV, camp for next to nothing, and get paid in exchange for working part-time at the Old Faithful Visitor Education Center. It took about 30 milliseconds to say "Yes" and we cancelled our Canyon plans and drove to Old Faithful for a 6-10 week stint living in Yellowstone.

The campground was a hidden gem for employee housing about 1/2 mile from the OF Visitors Center by bike or a 2 mile drive by car. It had full hook-ups, a laundry, the employee's Pub, and its own collection of wildlife from Snowshoe Hare, to Grizzlies, to Bison - every day was an adventure.  Can you imagine calling into work that you will be late because there is a bison blocking the bike path?

Work was generally fun - working with the public and retail sales was far outside my realm of experiences but the Rangers, employees, and a brief orientation made jumping-in a positive learning experience. We worked about 30 hours a week on a schedule that allowed photography for several hours every morning or afternoon and two and a half days off for more extended landscape and nature photography each week.  Needless to say that we had a great time, met some interesting people and shot a lot of photographs.

We had the opportunity to learn more about the history and operation of the park and more about the thermal features at the major geyser basins that we had ever known - that in spite of our combined many months in other parts of the park.  We hiked new trails, saw new geysers erupt, explored back roads, and found new animal locations that were previously unknown to us.  I was able to shoot photos from locations that I had never visited before and travel leisurely in the huge park.  The Yellowstone Association allowed us to purchase maps and books at a discount and see the inner workings of the Association from its Gardiner, MT headquarters to the Lamar Buffalo Ranch.  We were even able to book free courses from the Yellowstone Institute and will be back to the Lamar Buffalo Ranch in January and February to enjoy these employee benefits.  

We had hoped to stay into mid-October or even early November but cold weather, snow, and, finally, the government shut-down and closure of the park shortened our time to "only" 6 1/2 weeks. What a wonderful, unexpected experience that will leave a warm spot in our hearts for the rest of our lives. I am finishing the processing of the photos and hope to have some posted in the National Parks and Public Lands section of this site soon.

Thanks for visiting.

 

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