Hello from Louisiana, the Sportsman's Paradise

[Steve Uffman]

my name is Steve Uffman, an avid outdoorsman that is retired and a year ago resurrected my photography hobby that had been put on hold for 30 years. I spend a great deal of time on the coasts of Louisiana, the plains of Saskatchewan or traveling to great venues around the world such as South Africa, Mozambique, Galapagos and more. I must say the digital world has caught my fancy with its instant feedback and I am passionate about improving my skill. Clearly this site can help me do that . and along the way maybe I can help someone as well. Great site and it looks like a great deal of wonderful, positive folks!

[Daniel Cadieux]

Hey Steve, welcome to BPN!! Looks like you've got alot of travels under your belt, and more to come!! Looking forward to some of your images (and critiques).

[Julie Kenward]

So Steve, is this your first foray into the world of digital imaging?

[Steve Uffman]

I have had the canon 7d about 13 months now and have thoroughly enjoyed the digital world. I also am learning that post processing is an important skill as well. I use LR# and have CS5 but other than organizing mainly do only the easy stuff-cropping, adjust exposure, healing and maybe a tweak with clarity, contrast and such...after seeing how the pros really do it, I challenged to learn more. Plan to put up a few images soon to not so much get but also get others POV on how I should approach the optimization for a particular image.

Have lots of bird photos that I took during the BP disaster off our coast. I had the distinct pleasure of taking out several photographers to see some of the highly vulnerable rookeries off our coast. Turns out that one group of 3 had 4 Pulitzer prizes between them. Only served to whet my appetite more.

So Steve, is this your first foray into the world of digital imaging?

[Arthur Morris]

Hey Steve, I know you! It is great to see you hear on BPN. Get posting!

[Julie Kenward]

Steve, be sure to check out the educational forums then because there's a ton of stuff there related to photoshop. I'd also highly recommend taking some of the Scott Kelby online training courses if you feel they would help (they helped me tremendously) and The Missing Manual for CS5 is a fantastic and easy-to-read resource as well.

[Steve Uffman]

Thanks "Jules" for the feedback. I have recently read/worked through two of Scott Kelbys books-guides to Photoshop CS 5 and Lightroom 3. I do the homework meaning I go through the downloaded examples and its been a great help with the mechanics. I also just finished the book and examples of David DuChemin "Vision and Voice-refining your vision in Lightroom". It too was a big help as is this forum to take a look at the image and refine it to its full potential.

Both this forum and his book are causing me to look at the images differently. right now I don't often initially see the vision suggested in many of the critiques of others photos-until they are suggested. When I come back from shooting and go thru the first pass to weed, I can weed out the bad shots (although there are fewer that are just misses as I practice more). Its the next cull that I really struggle with. Reading this forum's feedback on mine and others shots will be a great help as it gives me "visibility into the vision" that the best of the best have. Clearly by using this tool, I will improve that skill.