Broken Back, Brain Tumor, & A Parasite | Stoke-Ness
I’d say happy fall, but I’m not sure we will have one here in Montana.
Last weekend it snowed four feet in Glacier National Park. It even snowed at my house in Bigfork, but quickly melted. It’s looking like a classic early winter here in Montana. I’ll be dusting off my backcountry snowboarding set up earlier than expected.
In this month’s issue, I share a man you won’t want to miss following, a story about the last remaining Giant Golden Spruce and my first impressions of the new Sony a7R IV.
Be stoked,
Isaac
Who I'm loving on Instagram
Eskil Digernes
There are 3 Things you need to know about Eskil Digernes:
1: He is a real adventurer. He has climbed huge peaks in the Himalayas and isn’t just another “Instagram Banger Hunter”, but a dude who gets it done in the mountains. His images from climbing Ama Dablam are my favorite mountaineering photos of all time.
2. He wears old school leather boots on his treks. No joke, with the tall wool socks, knickers and everything.
3. He has had a few years of crazy health battles and is incredibly positive about it. He fell from a cliff, found out he had a brain tumor, and a brain eating parasite. These challenges would cause any normal human to have a less than happy demeanor, but Eskil doesn’t seem to dampen.
Give him a follow Here
Photo/Video Technique
Saturation VS Vibrance in Adobe Lightroom
I’ve seen a lot of videos Titled “10 things I wish I knew when I started editing” or a similar title. Personally, everything I’ve learned I wish I knew earlier, so these videos never made sense to me.
But then I learned the difference between the vibrance and saturation sliders in Lightroom. I had always assumed that vibrance controlled the luminance and saturation and saturation was just the amount of color in the image. When my intern asked what the sliders did, I realized that I had never actually verified my assumptions.
Boy was I wrong to assume! Here is what they actually do, as I read on FStoppers.com
“Both sliders increase and decrease the intensity of colors in an image. Saturation increases the intensity of all colors simultaneously. Vibrance increases the intensity of muted colors more so than already saturated colors while also protecting skin tones and preventing posterization (which occurs when colors are so maxed out that transitions are destroyed, creating the blocky, banded look). You can think of vibrance as a sort of smart saturation on the global level.”
Now when I edit I can use the vibrance slider to help my images look less washed out while keeping the colors that are already colorful from looking too much. This is a game changer and I use to achieve the same thing with each color slider on the HSL panel. It is so much faster to do it this way!
After talking about this find with a few photographer friends, I found that most didn’t know about it. Let me know if you knew or if you just found out.
New Places
Camp 2, Ama DaBlam, Nepal
With the internet showing us every angle of every beautiful place in the world 24/7 it’s hard to see an image of a landscape that really takes your breath away. Every once in a while I come across an image that stops me in my tracks and makes me research everything about it.
@digernes photos of Camp 2 on Ama Dablam had me googling instantly. The scale of the mountain is what really stands out, it’s massive and stands by itself in the sky.
I’ve added it to my future trips list.
Gear
Sony A7r Mark IV
A week ago I attended a day at the Sony Camera Camp. I’m not a Sony user typically, but the new a7R IV had my curiosity.
Sony claims it has 15 stops of dynamic range, which in laymen terms, is the cameras ability to see the bright and dark areas of a photo with out losing information. This makes it easier to shoot in conditions where light isn’t the best. The camera also has a 61 megapixel sensor and in body stabilization, making images crazy sharp.
I was only able to shoot with it for a day but was impressed with the way the photos turned out. The focus in low light doesn’t seem to be as accurate as my Canon 5D mark IV, but the stabilization means I can shoot at way lower shutter speeds and get sharp photos. Since I typically shoot a lot of low light photos, I am very curious to try the Sony on future shoots.
I should have more time with the camera in November, so expect a longer term review here in December.
Here are few of the shots from the event.
Music I'm Diggin'
Our Keepsake by Donevan Adams
My friends will tell you that I am constantly recommending new things I’ve found. I’m a one man hype machine and I feed off of their reactions when they enjoy what I recommend.
So, it gives me some joy to list here what I have been pithing my friends for weeks. Not much to say here except I’m hoping you like this fall jam as much as we have.
10/10 would recommend
Give it a spin on Spotify here.
Videos, Movies, and TV
Winter Islands - Tim Kellner
I’ve recommended Tim’s videos before and after watching this one I had to share it as well.
The video is like all of my favorite photos have come to life. Not only is it beautifully shot, but Tim creates all the music for his films as well. Not one detail on his films is overlooked.
10/10 would recommend.
Reads
The Golden Spruce
I recently read THIS New Yorker article based on the book the Golden Spruce.
It tells the story of a man that cut down the worlds only giant Golden Spruce. It takes place in the remote Queen Charlotte Islands, BC and the man who cut it down is still missing. This is one read that will have your eyes glued to the page and you’ll forget about your phone for a while.
Buy it Here
or Listen to it for free using a library and the Libby app
Be stoked and have a great month,
Isaac
