Two very special prints at Fort Vancouver NHS a National Park

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I wanted to profile my 2 latest works at Imagekind. These both are within my Gallery called Fort Vancouver, and are titled 'Oregon White Oak' and 'Icy Fort'. I am building a collection of images from Fort Vancouver but slowly and partly becasue I am very fussy about the images I rate 5 stars, and even fussier about how I process the RAW files once converted to TIF format.


Oregon White Oak by Rich Collins

This image Oregon White Oak is very special not only to myself, but to the entire Clark County community. And that's partly why I have it for sale in 8x10" matted, at the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site Visitor Center in Vancouver, WA. But soon, perhaps within another week or 2 at most, I'll have it for sale and on display, along with Icy Fort, in 20x30" matted size at the Visitor Center. These are such special prints to me and the community that I have built a unique frame for them. Once the frame is finished I'll add a photo of it to this post. For now I am still in the process of constructing it from several different wood types, stain, paint and a finish which I hope captures the elegance of not only the images, the prints, but the historic value they both offer to the community at large nearby and world-wide, because of the Fort itself and the Hudson Bay Company it interprets. The tree it is estimated by some to have been here, before it was lost to root rot and had to be removed, for some 170-180 years, living during the same era of the Hudson Bay Fur Company's occupation of the original Fort Vancouver itself.




Icy Fort by Rich Collins

As for the Icy Fort print, this is an image I took in the Winter of 2007, showing the Fort Blacksmith Shop, a still active and working blacksmith shop, which continues to be staffed with employee as well as many volunteer blacksmiths, some in training and some having a long history with the Fort. You'll note the Blacksmith Shop to the left, then just ahead the Indian Trade Store and off in the distance is the Fur Warehouse. This was a day so cold few visitors braved the bitter chill so I took the opportunity to shoot this scene. The National Park is so popular last years visitor count hit just over a million visitors locally and from all over the world.

I hope you enjoy viewing these as much as I had creating them. If you choose to follow the link here to my Store you'll find it very easy to view because of your interest in history or purchase one of these.

Comments

Unknown said…
I have a question about shooting portraits. Which setting would be a good one to use to obtain a kind of soft tone on my subjects?
Thanks 4 ur time.
June 14, 2010 at 5:58 AM
Outsideshooter said…
That can be difficult to accomplish out of the camera, because it is the lens' job to focus on your subject and do so cleanly and sharply. However there are tutorials for creating this effect, you must have some image manipulation application, such as Photoshop or Irfinview (free). Or you can download Picasa, as they have some limited tools for softening. Other than that Lens Baby sells a Soft Focus lens, http://www.lensbaby.com/optics-softfocus.php A very old trick that film shooter used to use was to run vaseline around the edges of the lens glass but the center stayed sharp, kind of a messy risky technique. Thanks for the question.
June 14, 2010 at 8:25 AM
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