A Day at the Track

This past Sunday RRPT held our first meetup at Summit Point Raceway.  The event was called Drift Nirvana and unfortunately the weather kept a number of people away.  The number of vehicles, spectators and of course photographers were quite a bit less than what I'm told by others would be normal. 

Here at Road Runner we really don't like to cancel a meetup because of weather, since at least half the time the weather is such the meetup could be held.  We won't talk about our last camping meetup, except to say it took a few days to dry out my gear.

I was hoping to get some great shots that included lots of tire smoke, but it rained the day before so the track was still wet.  There was less friction between the tires and the pavement and as such a lot less smoke. 

The Volvo pictured above was not the best looking car of the day, but  it was driven so incredibly well and as such, was one of my favorite cars to watch and of course photograph.

No Trespassing

One of my favorite things to do is explore the back country roads here in Virginia in search of what I call Americana.  I was clicking through my Lightroom Catalog and happened across this barn and tractor that I shot this past summer.  Luckily this scene was close to the road and the farmhouse that owns the property was on the other side of the road.  As I pulled over I noticed a gentleman walking from his car to the house.  I inquired if this was his property and if I could obtain permission to walk on the property to photograph the barn and tractor.  This answer to my first question was yes and the answer to the second question was no. 

The property owner indicated a concern that I could get hurt and bring litigation.   Since I was already standing on the road I just took a couple shots from the road and thanked him for his time.  While I can’t imagine getting hurt doing something so simple, and I’m just not the type of person that would sue if something happened, I think it is always good policy to be respectful and courteous.   

Good Morning Greenland

Our last blog featured a massive iceberg that we shot around midnight on the start of our Greenland Adventure.  After shooting that massive chunk of ice we retired to our bunks for the night.   The boat crew worked in 3 hour shifts while we slept so we would arrive at the Sun Glacier the next morning.

The really cool thing about being on a boat was shooting this massive glacier within a few minutes of waking up in the morning.    The Sun Glacier was such an amazing sight, the icecap that covers much of Greenland just rolled over the edge of this mountain range into the sea.   We watched the glacier calving several times.  Often there was a waterfall that would occur after the initial calving and the waterfall would sometimes run for just a few minutes and in other places the waterfalls were constant.

Little did we know every day for the next week would be an incredible visual treat.

Number One

This is what I call Iceberg Number One.   A couple of weeks ago we landed at Constable Point in Greenland for the start of what one of our participants called “one of the top 5 events in my life”.    This tour was over 2 years in planning and simply amazing!   We will be writing additional blogs and posting additional images as time goes forward, but we wanted to get an image posted here on our blog. 

Be sure to follow Don and Denise on Facebook if you don’t want to miss any of our images from this amazing trip.

Back to Number One.  Our flight from Iceland to Greenland was delayed several hours due to weather in a different area of Greenland and this caused a cascading delay in our departure from Iceland.   Once we finally got on the plane and started to taxi out to the runway, one of the plane’s engines died and we instead taxied to the maintenance hangar.   After returning to the terminal Air Iceland readied another plane and 30 minutes later we were finally in the air. 

Upon arrival in Greenland we had a 20 minute walk from the airport to the zodiacs, we transferred to the schooner Opal and after dinner started our voyage from Constable Point to the main part of Scoresby Sund.  The first thing the crew told us is that distances in Greenland are deceptive.   Number One Iceberg was visible to us on the boat almost 2 hours before we arrived.  It seemed so much closer.  We circled this beautiful hunk of ice between midnight and 1 a.m. before retiring for the night.   

If you would like to be notified when registration is open for our 2020 Greenland Tour drop us an email.

I Love Innovation

I have mentioned many times before that "it is a wonderful time to be a photographer”.  Usually I’m referencing the evolution and innovation of software, but today I’m talking about filters.  Many people probably think that with the advent of digital photography you can apply filters in software.   In some cases this is correct,  but every serious photographer I know believes in getting it right in camera, regardless of how much work they plan to do later in the digital darkroom.



The innovation I’m talking about is so simple, I wonder why it took so long.   Perhaps a decade ago the Variable Neutral Density Filter was invented and then copied by several others and often advertised as offering between 2 and 8 stops of light reduction.   The dirty little secret is none of these gives you 8 stops of light reduction before what I call the butterfly effect happens.  After turning between half and three quarters of the indicated range printed on the side of the filter, you end up with an uneven darkness that roughly resembles the shape of butterfly wings. Obviously, this effect is not photogenic.   I have never taken the time to actually calculate how many useful stops of light reduction I get when using one of these old style variable ND filters, but I stopped carrying one in my bag and instead started carrying a 5 and 10 stop ND filter instead.  After we switched most of our filter use to Breakthrough, I started carrying a 3, 6, and 10 stop filter in addition to a circular polarizer. 



So let’s get back to what impressed me about the Benro Variable ND Filter.   It has physical limits on the start and stop position of the filter. You just can't move it beyond its designed range of use.  The Benro is advertised as a 2 to 7 stop filter, instead of the more commonly listed 2-8 stops by other filter manufacturers.  The physical limits may seem like a small thing, but up until now no other variable filter has this feature.


This past weekend I took the filter with me while hiking White Oak Canyon in Shenandoah National Park.  The filter is fairly thin and caused no visible vignette on the edges of the picture frame.  I set up my base exposure at one second using aperture priority.  This is so any reductions in light intensity will result in longer shutter speeds.  The blog image above was a 30 second exposure.  My camera does not meter for longer than 30 seconds, but at maximum density the meter was showing 30 seconds and underexposed by one to two stops. So I backed off a little from the maximum setting so I could get a 30 second exposure.   I also took a variety of shots at different density settings and could not see any color casts or any other issues that made me question the quality of the filter.




The old Vari-ND filter is sitting in a box at home marked eBay.   The new Benro Filter is occupying a nice space in my camera bag! 



If you would like to try the Benro Vari-ND for yourself or any other Benro filter,  Click here and use the discount code Roadrunner15



Note: A stop is a measure of exposure relating to the doubling or halving of the amount of light.

Spring Snow in the Smokies

I just returned from our Spring Smokies Tour.   We always hope for certain conditions for our clients, but this year we received a special surprise.  It snowed at the higher elevations!   In anticipation of this adverse weather the Park Service closed the road that crosses the park and leads to the higher elevations.   However,  the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail remained open and got us up to the elevation necessary to experience and photograph the snow.


Prior to the start of our tour it rained and as such we had several days of strong running streams.  These streams are always a joy to photograph and I never tire of hearing the beautiful sound of running water in a mountain stream.   We usually venture out into the water, but this year I stayed close to shore because the higher water levels also bring swift moving water and I don’t want my camera gear to go for a swim. 


We finished off the week with a nice hike to Spruce Flat Falls in the Treemont area.   Just about the time everyone was wrapping up their shooting, the sun starting peaking over the top of the mountain and illuminating the waterfall with less desirable light.  One of the many benefits of traveling with an experienced guide who gets you to the right place at the right time.   

If you would like to see some additional images from this trip head over to the Road Runner Blog!

What's in your Toolbox?

We live in a wonderful time to be a photographer.  The options and creative techniques seem more than I can count.  I tend to think of these techniques like tools, and by learning new techniques you add a new tool to your toolbox. 

Several years ago I saw a lot of people online and at my camera club were shooting mirror images.  I took the time to learn the technique and tucked it away in my toolbox.  A mirror is where you take an image and flip the image so you have two halves that mirror each other.

Last year I shot this abstract image and it occurred to me that I should try creating a mirror.  I think it worked and I'm glad this technique is in my toolbox.


If you want to try this for yourself, load an image in Photoshop and duplicate the image on a second layer.  Choose the second layer and go to the Image Menu and choose Image Rotation, then choose Flip Canvas Horizontal (or vertical) and use the move tool to align the image.  From there you may need to adjust the layer opacity or masking to obtain the final result.

It Needed Something

Recently I was searching my Lightroom Catalog for some images from Palouse.   While the image featured in this blog was not the one I was looking for, it is the one that I decided to work on.

When I'm in the field sometimes I will take  an image that I know exactly how I want to process, but not always.  Sometimes it's just about the composition.  That was the case with this image.

I think the composition is fine for the most part.  Although I wish there was a little more detail inside the barn on the right side,  I don't think this is a deal breaker either.  At the bottom of this post is the original unprocessed image for reference. 

Here is my layers palette from the finished image.  I use layers in photoshop so I'm always working in a non destructive workflow.  What this mean is I can always step back or start over without adversely affecting the original image.  Since I'm starting from Lightroom you could argue that I always have the original raw file so no harm would come from working in a more destructive manner.  While this is true, it would also mean that I need to go all the way back to the beginning.  Another option is to use the history palette in photoshop for stepping backward.  Then there is also smart objects, but I'm getting off topic.  The wonderful thing about powerful programs like Photoshop is there are often multiple ways to reach the same destination.

Back to the original image (See bottom of page).  I found the ladder and the tiny triangle of sky to be distracting.  I first tried to remove the ladder with content aware fill in Photoshop.  I was not happy with the result so I then tried Snap Heal from MacPhun and it did a perfect job of removing the ladder.  The triangle was easily removed at the same time.  Some might think the tree overhanging the roof on the left side of the frame is a problem.  I don't in this case because the tree leaves are contained within the roof so the roof line is unbroken, also the direction of the truck moves your eye to the left and toward the car in the background.

Next up I used Nik Color Effects Pro Contrast Filter and the Foliage filter to enhance the green grass behind the truck.  The top of the image was brighter due to the reflective nature of the roof so I used a graduated neutral density filter to tone down the roof so your eye would not be drawn up away from the truck.

At this point I still found the image to be a little uninteresting  so I decided to try a painterly effect using Topaz Impression.  Upon opening in Impression, I liked the initial look and hit ok and moved the image back to PS.  I applied a black mask and at first intended to paint in the background at 100% opacity and the truck at 50% or something less.  After doing this and not liking the result I finished painting the truck and the result was 100% painterly effect from Topaz Impression.

I'm not a big fan of applying a Vignette to my images.  The reason is most of the work I see online, this technique is heavy handed and obvious.  I want to direct your eye without being obvious.  I used Viveza to apply control points to darken the foreground and background without being obvious about my intentions.

If you want to try adding a painterly look to your images I recommend either Topaz Impression or Alien Skin Snap Art.  Links and discount codes are available on our website.

Original Image