The following page details the life of a Sierra Life photograph. As you may not have known, I am one of the few photographers left who still work with film. The digital train has yet to fascinate me and maybe in the future when I find that the mere aspect of finding film is close to non-existant, then I will be forced to climb on-board. On this page, read the workings and gear-works on how my business runs. Understand how every Sierra Life photograph HAS TO BEGIN with a drive of inspiration; then, read the details in the processing session including scanning and image editing. Finally, learn how the finalization and output to a printer. Drive Behind the Photo The following story extends a time frame of more than a decade, a time when I first discovered photography and its gratifying end results it had with me. As a kid, I traveled extensively with my father, to many places that most kids could only dream of. At the age of 10, I camped in sub-zero temperatures beneath mighty Sierra peaks, and found great pleasure in day hikes through Death Valley and the southern Mojave. I've risked many broken bones in search of giant fish. Deserts, mountains, coastlines... it didn't matter. The day I was born, I was granted a privilege to splendor in the great wonders our Earth has granted us. So far in my 26 year lifetime, I've been to 28 states, 14 National Parks, traveled hundreds of thousands of miles of highway with many more to come. As a teen, I found refuge in photography, a medium that gave me great satisfaction. I began my endeavors with a simple disposable camera and soon upgraded to real gear. I greatly believe that my exposure to the outdoors at such a young age provided me with a drive that extends to all my images today. A typical Sierra Life image always begins with a drive of inspiration. Every photo on this website was taken because I found this drive in my scenes. There've been many a times when I've been at home; I look out my window to the mountains and see the sky burst into color. The heavens light up and although the color is brilliant, the scene unmistakably welcome, it remains just that. A pretty scene, but nothing more. For me to go and capture that life's moment, I have to be inspired. A drive has to fill me to pack my camera bag and head for my subject. If I feel nothing for the subject, it's left to history. I never just go, 'just to capture' that light, or 'just to fill my gallery'. As is the case with most photographers, I hate to see such light and moments escape from me. However, I NEVER go just for the sake of adding to my collections. True. I can't count the number of times I've kicked myself for not going to capture some very breathtaking light shows. However, the end result has always remained the same for me and has never steered me wrong. Once the fun is over, the 'other side' begins. They say that photography only involves taking pictures 20% of the time. Well, that's about right. I spend close to 40% of my time in the editing process. What does that mean? Unfortunately, there's no other way to put it... I spend 40% of my time in front of a computer. For this very reason, I try to expose my photos as best as I can the first time so I spend as little amount of time on the computer as possible. Using film has its drawbacks. Unlike digital pros, I don't have the security of having 60-70 files on a memory card. Nor can I take a picture and delete it if it's not to my liking. Nor can I accurately adjust lighting and contrast via my digital camera. The bottom line is, I have to work a little harder for the images I capture. I only have 36 shots to get it right the first time. If I make a mistake, there is no turning back. This forces me to expose my images right the first time to avoid wasting film. This means finding good composition and correct light exposure. The digital age has revolutionized photography for everyone. Shooting a great picture is much easier with digital because you can control such factors above. This is a great thing for all photographers. I just have yet to jump on the bandwagon! You can view exactly what equipment I use visiting my [   Equipment Tutorials   ] page. Here, you can see all the equipment I use in complete detail, including film and media and the 'whys', 'hows' and underlines that make up this photographer's bag. Processing of the Image Once my photo is captured to my liking, it goes straight to processing. 80% of the time, I expose slide film in grains of no more than 100 ISO. Velvia 50 and 100, Provia 100F and the E100 series are my top 3 films. The other 20% entails monochrome print film; Kodak T-MAX 100, Acros 100 and Ilford Pan F 50 are my 3 black & whites of choice. On occasion, I'll pop in Agfa Scala 200, the only monochrome slide film on the market. For all my rolls, I use mailers when I purchase my film so I insure the film is processed only by the best namebrand processers, companies that have been in the business for up to 20 years. Almost every monochrome print film requires a special processing that can only be done via these companies. Once a week has passed, I burst open the envelope to begin the weeding process. This 'weeding' process is an arduous task. My average time behind the lightbox is in excess of 2-3 hours, just examining which photos are worth presenting as an end product. For my 'weeding', I use an 8X loupe to examine any flaws in the processing session. Lens flare, unwanted spots and machine lines, for example. In this process, I am my own worst enemy and am extremely critical when it terms to which images become winners. I NEVER use the 'ugly duckling' process. In other words, if I have a bad image, it's scrapped right then and there. I never change or or "manipulate" an image back into that beautiful swan. For an image to be a candidate for scrapping, it has to have one of the following flaws. If any of my resulting images has these flaws, it goes into the garbage can without second thought... Severe over or under-exposure The 'Unwanted Big 3' -- Lens Flare, exposer spots, machine lines Cut out subjects Incomplete objects within a scene or landscape Unintentionally blurry subjects Incorrectable contrast Non-adjustable color cast After evaluation, out of my average 34 roll exposures, only 6-7 actually make it to this website. In my evaluation, I also keep in mind the potential improvements my photo editor could make to the image. Color casts and bad contrast are notoriously hard to fix, if not impossible, without ruining the images, which is why I don't bother if I don't get it right the first time. When I'm ready for the computer, I start the digital process, devoting completely and fully to getting that end product as close as possible to the true slide or negative. Since I mostly use slide film, I use a Nikon Coolscan V for my transparencies, importing them onto the latest version of Photoshop, as of now (2009), CS3. If I have monochrome negatives, I send them in for special digital processing at my local photo lab. The scanners they use are high quality EPSON ___________ that can output an image onto a 40x60 print. Each slide is scanned in at 4000DPI and left at that resolution for printing. NEVER is this resolution changed, insuring every image gets outputted with as much detail as possible. All image sizes are adjusted according to height and width dimensions without ever changing the resolution. The scanning process usually takes up to 4 hours alone, again, making absolutely sure I didn't miss any images in the forementioned 'weeding' process by seeing what it looks like via monitor. Rarely are any images scrapped at this point. Unfortunately, even with the highest priced scanner, information is still lost through the digital change, which means even more work for photographers. Once my scanning is done, utter devotion begins to the editing process. As mentioned earlier, despite my devotion, I still like to spend as little time as possible in front of a monitor. This is the reason I strive so hard to get the negative right first time, doing my best to insure color accuracy and everything else the second my cable releases that shutter. Despite this, there is always work to be done in the editing process. In most cases, bringing back accurate color and contrast are my most time-consuming tasks. Everything else is usually accurate in terms of M/S/H and Channels and accurate sharpness. All in all, this entire 'session' takes up to an average of 20 hours. Some images take up to 6 hours individually to digitally 'finalize'. Depending on the complexity of the image, most of my images average 3-4 hours each. Perhaps, the only drawback to today's fast evolving digital world of photography is that it's difficult to display work over the web due to the limitations of the Internet and everybody's unique monitor settings. Even with calibration, color is still altered and what you may say on your screen, may not be exactly what appears on mine. This leads me to the Photoshop Debate... ...Many people use Photoshop to its absolute limits. They utilize as many tools as possible to create works of art. Glory is to be had in many cases. I respect that. On the other hand, true purists swear to banish Photoshop in its entirety. The concept of 'manipulating' an image to bring it back to life is dubbed 'faking' out a photograph. In their eyes, the end result is not the "true" and "pure" image from the negative. I respect that. As for myself, I'm a realist and a bit of traditionalist. I strive only to natural light and to keep that natural light in that image. The brunt of my manipulations never influence that concept. I never use artistic filters, dodge & burn, or gradient fills. The result are images that I've captured from that first second I laid eyes on them. I never advertise a photograph that is not true. What you see in my image is my inspiration, my feeling and my personal photographic knowledge behind the camera. In my images, that truth always remains untampered, even in the tempting bowels that Photoshop has to offer. I personally try my best to produce an image that is clever, beautiful and strikes a key with others. Even better, a combination or all of those things! In the end, my digital 'session' only uses tools that I need to bring back things such as color accuracy, saturation, contrast levels, sharpness and the occasional density fix. Output of the Image When my editing is complete, the times comes for image output. This is a tricky topic and a topic that is never solved. The world of digital output always butts heads with digital input. The files you input from a scanner or your camera will usually differ with what your printer has to say. The standard output resolution on a printer is 300DPI. This means to produce an quality photograph on a printer from your digital file, 300DPI is required as a value on your photo editor. Most printers work on 300DPI, therefore when your ready to print, punching in '300 DPI' on your editor will satisfy most printers. However, information is still lost due to a little thing called calibration. It all boils down to this:The color and image you see on your monitor may be different from what your printer sees without calibration. Calibrating your monitor accurately is a timely process, but one of the most important processes you can do. After spending hours to weeks, finishing my images digitally, it's downright heartwrenching to see all that accurate work lost because my printer calibrations were different from my monitor. Printing calibrations are completely out of our control. Every printer is calibrated to its own uncontrollable setting. Calibrating a monitor, however, is strictly up to you. This is why my monitor is calibrated extremely closely with my printer to insure the color I see on the monitor is the color my printer will register on the photograph. This is a sticky situation, because even the best monitor calibrations still won't exactly match a printer's calibrations. However, the closer you get, the better and more accurate your photographs will print. I've spent a little over a year, just calibrating my settings to my printer, and though still have yet to solve this little dilemna, I find that it's close as possible to match. It's an issue that I'll still tackle to solve completely, although the concept of this like trying to touch every cloud in the sky at once. Even though it's physically impossible, you still try and try again. Calibrations aside, my printer is a Canon i9900 Photo Printer. The largest size output on this printer is a 13 X 19. Images larger than this size are taken to a professional photo lab about 30 miles outside of where I live. Most of the images I sell fall at 13 X 19 or below, so most of my photographs are within my control. The images taken to the lab are printed on EPSON ________, yielding image sizes up to 40 X 60. The files used for output are carefully adjusted, calculating resolution settings which will yield a sharp photograph in the specified size. Typically, the larger the image size, the less resolution is needed for output. Although some people may think this rule is generally erroneous and can never produce a sharp image, it's never steered me wrong. This same rule applies to 4 X 5 Field Cameras, medium format, 35mm film, as well as digital files from a digital camera. For my printer, I use Canon Photo Paper Pro, one of the best photo papers that produces an image with outstanding tonal range and color depth. A print made on CPPP has a permenance up to 120 years and fade-proof rating up to 70 years, enclosed behind UV protected glass and out of direct sunlight. Although a few photo papers on the market can last in excess of 300 years with non-fades at all, such papers also require a printer that needs to be adjusted regularly, set in a temperature controlled room and costs in excess of a person's new Jaguar. Obviously as a home based photographer, this is out of the question. Sending my images off to such a company that has one of these printers, just to have a simple 8 X 10 print made for example, cannot be done strictly out of cost efficiency alone. Therefore, 120 years is considered a reasonable permanence and actually very good for a home-based professional printer. All of the prints are made using this paper, in either glossy or matte lusters, prints ranging from my 4 X 6 samples, to 8 X 10's, up to my largest output size at 13 X 19. Mounting & Framing of the Print Should you choose to purchase a Sierra Life print in matted form, my matting process begins with a selection of a number of quality mattes available to me via 2 online companies. The default matte you will receive is a standard white core cardboard. This standard matte is also available in a variety of white tones shown below...   White     Snow     Ghost White     White Smoke     Ivory     Floral White     Seashell     Old Lace   All of my matted prints I sell at my photo venues only come in these shades of white. However, matte color is completely up to you and at your discretion. The various colored mattes I offer come is fantastic shades of earth tones, greys and black cores. The matting options I offer also come in accents and decorative matboards. Most of the mattes I sell are standard cardboards, but cotton 'RagMats' have become quite popular. The ragmats I offer are museum grade acid-free & lignin-free, double sided 100% cotton board with a fade-proof up to 80 years. Thickness on these mattes are .045" with a solid barrier throughout, although I do offer mattes with embossed linen patterns or textile deboss. Choosing mattes is always a personal preference and with so many colors, styles and varieties, finding one to use as a standard for my prints is a tough ordeal. White doesn't always go with a photograph, nor does it appeal to a home's specific decor. This is why I let the customer decide the matte they want if they order a matted print. All I can do, is assure the matte's permanence and the top-quality finish their photo will have. As for framing, I've found that standard black frames look the best with any of my pieces. Most of the frames I use are black wood and only on occasion, black metal with a frame width of no more than 2". Widths larger than 2" become intrusive and only work on certain subjects, such as my abstracts or Bodie Collection prints. Landscapes are only framed with thin widths and if I can find them, walnut or cherry woods. Custom framing is only done if specified on the photo's page. Otherwise, all prints sold at Sierra Life come in standard sizes that are listed on my [   Purchase Page   ] and shipped to you in black wood frames. Framers in my area are hard to find, therefore the cost of sending them out too becomes a factor. The glass used on my frames are museum grade and UV protected, insuring non-fading of an already non-fade photograph.

"Art is what makes the man, yet man is what makes the art." - Aristotle

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Copyright © 2008 Paul Sebesta