So, about 2021...

2020 huh? I think we can safely say that we’ve all had better years.

For artists whose main source of income is based on in-person sales at art festivals, the pandemic has been immeasurably damaging. Thankfully, our business has always been a part time venture by design and so we have been fortunate to have avoided the economic pitfall experienced by some of our peers. If you have the means, pick up something from a local artist or jeweler - they’ll appreciate it more than you know.

I am confident that in-person art festivals will be up and running again this summer in some capacity. However, after much consideration, we have decided to continue our pause on in-person festivals again this year to give our family the opportunity to get vaccinated first to ensure that we aren’t hurting efforts to control the spread of COVID-19. The safety of our patrons, our community, and ourselves are the top priority here.

I do mourn the loss of art festivals in 2020, and passing on 2021 will also hurt. I will deeply miss the opportunity to connect with festival goers and enthusiasts - one of the most fun aspects of this business.

I can not wait to be back out there next year. Until then, my online shop remains open, I am working on releasing new work, and am looking into offering new cost effective product types. Stay tuned.

Thanks! -Rich

BLACK LIVES MATTER - how is this even a controversial opinion?

I’ve been trying to write this post for a week, but I simply can not come up with words that adequately convey the fury, sadness, and desire to do something - anything.

Like you, I’ve heard all the stories and seen all of the videos. I can’t take my eyes off of twitter and everything that pops up on my feed is worse than the last. I go to bed each night with visions of black men and women being murdered for no reason by a racist and militarized police force that do not have our best interests at heart, yet are buoyed and protected by a police union that wields entirely too much power and a government too afraid of true systematic change.

We’ve all seen signs and stories of systematic racism in our country and we all know that George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor are just the latest names in a very long list of people murdered due to the color of their skin.

When the protests began, I never expected the police to double down on their ways and crack down on protesters like they have been. Call me gullible, but I thought that a video that very clearly showed a white cop very clearly murdering a man for a very long 8 minutes 46 seconds, they may have realized the protests were justified and show a little humanity.

The system is so broken. The City of Seattle, and this country, need to rethink the current system of policing and social services. Is it appropriate to send an armed and uniformed officer whose training and skillset is completely out of sync with the requirements of their day-to-day job? The vast majority of calls dispatched to the police are non-violent and it is not unreasonable to conclude that officers primarily trained in use of force tactics and worst-case scenarios to reduce potential threats can result in accidental escalation.

Protest. Participate in local elections. Donate. Order a few pizzas and have them delivered to The Chop. Do something.

https://www.kingcountyequitynow.com/

https://blacklivesseattle.org/

https://www.joincampaignzero.org/

https://www.nlg.org/massdefenseprogram/

How to plan your shot for the Super Blood Moon on January 20, 2019 via a bunch of phone apps

A blood moon (total lunar eclipse) that coincides with a supermoon is a can’t miss celestial event for photographers at any skill level.

A total lunar eclipse is known as a “Blood Moon” due to the dramatic red coloration of the Moon that occurs as it falls completely behind the Earth’s shadow. This event is even more impressive when it happens to occur during the supermoon phase, when the Moon is closest to the earth and can appear up to 17% larger than usual. 

In this post I’ll run through some simple tips to plan your shot in advance using an array of phone apps. Yes, there’s an app for that. If only Steve Jobs could see us now. FYI, none of these are affiliated links - not that I’m morally opposed to them, I just don’t know how to get that sort of thing set up.

If you’re all set on the planning front and would like a tutorial on how to photograph a lunar eclipse, I recommend visiting my previous blog post, How to Photograph the "Super Blue Blood Moon" Lunar Eclipse.

When is this thing anyway?

Unless you live in the UK or Iceland, for the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster do not head out to the solar eclipse at 3:30 in the morning. Most websites show the GMT times and are not localized to your time zone.

Do yourself a favor and download Solar and Lunar Eclipses - a free and incredibly easy reference so you don’t get up out of bed at a ridiculous time for nothing.

Solar and Lunar Eclipses - iOS (Free)

According to the screenshot to the right, we know that the full eclipse occurs from 8:41 PM to 9:43 PM in Seattle. This means that in Seattle, we would have a full hour to capture the blood moon. Unless you’re planning to capture all phases of the eclipse, you can ignore the partial beginning and ending times.

Pro tip: For solar eclipses, having localized times is even more critical because of the duration of totality (~2 minutes). The duration varies depending on the latitude of the location and the exact time of totality can shift within the hour depending on where you are in the time zone.

Hey guys, it’s January. Maybe check the weather.  

Nothing, and I mean nothing, is worse than heading out to a night time shoot only to be stymied by cloud cover. There are a few apps for free (or cheap) that can help you out.

Ventusky is a great weather app that has the ability to forecast cloud cover overlaid on top of a map. If you’re looking for a clear night sky, hope to see a bunch of “0%” in your region.

Ventusky - iOS ($2.99)

Clear Sky Chart is an app designed for astronomers that provides a dense and detailed look at the conditions up to 30 hours in advance. It’s a pain to read, but I would say that it’s a must-have to plan a shot involving the night sky. iCSC provides information beyond Ventusky that includes cloud cover, transparency, darkness, and overall visibility quality. Generally, the darker the little boxes in the chart, the better. White bad, navy good.

Clear Sky Chart - iOS (Free)

Being from Seattle, I’m used to weather happily delivering the opposite of what you need when you’re counting on it to cooperate. So it should come as no surprise that, after an early January that has been unusually dry and clear, the clouds finally started to roll in today. Checking the Ventusky and iCSC app, we can see that the cloud cover is predicted to be 100% more-or-less state wide. Personally I would Hopefully you may have a better relationship with the weather gods.

Pro tip: If you tap the “Total cloud cover” icon on the upper right of the Ventusky app, you can check for low, mid, and high altitude cloud cover. High altitude clouds make for wonderful sunrises and sunsets.

It looks like the weather is cooperating in my area! Woot! Now what?

Whether you’re looking to include a foreground element to your shot or just checking to see that the neighbor’s house won’t obstruct your view from your backyard, you’ll need to know what direction the moon will be at the time of the eclipse and its angle to the horizon. As they say, there’s an app for that - PhotoPills.

OK, so I know what you’re going to say (OMG THE APP IS $10?@!?!), but if you shoot landscapes, PhotoPills is worth 10 times that amount. If you are shooting a sunset and want to include the sun in your composition, PhotoPills will help. If you’re sitting at your desk on your lunch break and want to see if you can align the blood moon with the space needle (you could, if we weren’t blanketed in by clouds this weekend), PhotoPills has got your back. Heck, if you were finished with this tutorial and your plan and wanted to figure out when and where this summer you should set up to photograph Mount Rainier with the Milky Way galactic core shooting straight out of the top, it’ll do that too. It’s a truly amazing app that uses a combination of maps and AR to give you the ability to plan your shot on both a macro and micro level.

PhotoPills - iOS ($9.99)

Tired of reading? PhotoPills comes through AGAIN!

A secondary companion app that is incredibly useful for photographers is the Viewfinder Preview - an app that uses your phone’s camera and crops accordingly to simulate the field of view of your lens’ focal lengths. There are a few apps out there that do it, and this is the cheapest one that I’ve found so far.

Viewfinder Preview - iOS ($2.99)

OK, so now that you’ve just coughed up $13, let’s run through an example of using these apps. Since we’ve already determined the time of the eclipse in your region and also the weather conditions, we can move on to using PhotoPills and Viewfinder Preview to plan the shot. In this example we will use my plan for the January 31, 2018 Blood Moon.

Step 1: Open PhotoPills and go to the planner. Here you’ll see a map overlaid with a bunch of lines that indicate either the sun (yellow to orange), the moon (cyan to blue), and the milky way. Use the slider at the bottom to adjust the time and date accordingly and we see that the location of last year’s Blood Moon is due west at about 20 degrees off the horizon.

Step 2: Click the location pin on the bottom to move your physical location around the map. If you’re in the city, try to find an iconic building that could be tall enough to be included in the composition. If you’re in the mountains, try to find, well, a mountain. As you can see in the screenshot, I was able to find an approximate location where I could line up the blood moon and the Seattle Wheel.

Step 3: Leading up to the day of the shoot, check Clear Dark Sky to verify the conditions are still bueno.

Step 4A: Go on location in advance if possible and switch to AR mode in PhotoPills using the button on the bottom of the planner to fine-tune your composition.

Step 4B: If you can’t visit the site in advance, consider the elevation of the moon and the height of the building/local terrain in your plan. I have created a spreadsheet [link] that will help.

Step 1: PhotoPills (Map Mode) Planning the Jan 31, 2018 Blood Moon in advance

Sketch in planning mode

PhotoPills (AR Mode) - Fine tuning the composition on-site

Moon sizes at varying focal lengths (35mm full-frame equivalent)

Step 5: If you’re on location without your camera handy, you can use Viewfinder Preview to test different focal lengths. Generally, the longer the focal length, the better to enhance the moon. Try adjusting to 400mm and see how far you’d have to step back to get both the moon and the foreground element in the frame. I recommend shooting at 400mm, or no less than 200mm on a full-frame camera. FYI many camera stores offer daily lens rentals at a very affordable rate.

PhotoPills - AR Mode to find a composition for the Jan 20, 2019 Blood Moon

Viewfinder Preview, simulating 200mm

Step 6: Show up and shoot. Unfortunately our expedition to shoot the 2018 super blood moon was a bust as Seattle had nearly total cloud cover (remember to check Clear Sky Tracker before you head out). Here’s what the composition would have looked like if we had clear skies:

The January 31, 2018 Super Blood Moon rising over the Seattle Wheel via an advanced simulation using Microsoft Paint. Don’t do what I did and keep an eye on that cloud cover in the iCSC app.

Thanks for reading! I hope this information is useful to those who can make it out on Sunday. If you’re like me and will be completely blanketed with clouds but reeeeaaalllly want a picture of a super blood moon, my image of the 2015 Harvest Moon / Super moon / Blood Moon is available to purchase in a variety of sizes and formats here [link].

If you are looking for a tutorial on equipment setup and shooting techniques, please check out my previous blog post How to Photograph the "Super Blue Blood Moon" Lunar Eclipse.

Alki Art Fair - THANK YOU!

We had an awesome time at Alki Art Fair - the weekend was successful beyond our wildest expectations. We have sent in all of the metal print orders and you should be hearing from us in the next day or two with a tracking number. 

Thanks again for everyone who stopped by to chat and/or view our work. 

Rich

Kenmore Art Show - Awards

I'm honored to have taken home the following awards from this weekend's Kenmore Art Show:

• First Place, Photography
• Kenmore Camera Award
• Honorable Mention, Photography

Kenmore Art Show is active until Sunday, July 1st at 8 PM. Click here for additional information.

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Blood Moon over Mount Shuksan

Blood Moon over Mount Shuksan

• First Place, Photography
• Kenmore Camera Award

Sunset at Monkey Face

Sunset at Monkey Face 

• Honorable Mention, Photography

Art Show Appearances: Kenmore Art Show, June 2018

KENMORE ART SHOW [LINK]
JUNE 28-30, 2018
WED 5:30-8 (opening ceremony) | THU - SUN 10-8
BASTYR UNIVERSITY | 14500 JUANITA DRIVE NE, KENMORE, WA 98028

I will once again be a participating artist with five pieces on display at the 2018 Kenmore Art Show at Bastyr University. This year I will be accepting an award at the artists' meet and greet (open to all) on Wednesday, June 27th from 5:30 - 8 PM.

Pieces on display: 

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Sunset at Monkey Face | 12x18 | high gloss metal print with hand made shadow mount

2017 Total Solar Eclipse Road Trip, 1 of 3 | Smith Rock State Park, Oregon

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Sunset at Monkey Face | 12x18 | high gloss metal print with hand made shadow mount

2017 Total Solar Eclipse Road Trip, 2 of 3 | Smith Rock State Park, Oregon

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The Day the Sun Went Out | 8x12 | High gloss metal print with hand made shadow mount

2017 Total Solar Eclipse Road Trip, 3 of 3 | Smith Rock State Park, Oregon

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Fiery Skies at Alder Lake | 20x30 | High gloss metal print with hand made shadow mount

Putting on a show | Elbe, Washington

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Blood Moon over Mount Shuksan | 16x24 | High gloss metal print with hand made shadow mount

Super Moon / Harvest Moon / Blood Moon / Lunar Eclipse / September 27, 2015 | Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, Washington

#EagleCreekFire Fundraiser Conclusion | THANK YOU

artists for restoring the columbia river gorge | fundraising conclusion

We have successfully concluded our fundraising campaign to support Friends of the Columbia Gorge in their restoration efforts following the devastating #EagleCreekFire. Thanks to your support, we have raised $3902 for the restoration, protection, and maintenance of the Columbia River Gorge.

Thank you so much to everyone who contributed your work and talent, purchased a print, picked up a few raffle tickets, or spread the word. 

Art prints may still be available directly from the participating artists - please refer to the artist bios at the bottom of the fundraising page [link] to access their online portfolios.

- Richard Rhee and Hargis Engineers. 

Art Show Appearances: Edmonds Arts Festival, June 2018

I will once again be a participating artist this month at the Edmonds Arts Festival. Come on out and look for me and my work (shown below) in the Juried Art Gallery!

Edmonds Arts Festival (link)

June 15-17, 2018

JURIED ART GALLERY
FATHER'S DAY WEEKEND
FRI-SAT 10-8 | SUN 10-6
700 MAIN STREET | EDMONDS, WASHINGTON

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Starry Night at Reflection Lake | Mount Rainier Star Trails | high gloss metal print | 20x30

Bull Elephant in Tsavo, Kenya | high gloss metal print | 12x18

How to Photograph the "Super Blue Blood Moon" Lunar Eclipse

We are in for a treat on January 31, 2018 when we will be graced by the rare celestial occurrence of a simultaneous super moon, blue moon, and total lunar eclipse. This event is one to photograph because we’re talking about a…

SUPER: A moon that is closer than usual to the earth is called a super moon. Super moons appear larger and brighter than normal. This boost in brightness is especially helpful for photographing the Blood Moon, which is much darker than other phases of the lunar eclipse. 

BLUE: A full moon that occurs twice in a calendar month is called a blue moon. There is nothing photographically interesting about blue moons except for their increased “rare celestial occurrence” cred.

BLOOD: At peak eclipse, the moon falls completely behind the Earth’s shadow and becomes an amazing shade of orange and red.  

MOON:  Always a fascinating subject to photograph.

Photographing a lunar eclipse can be an easy and fun project for all levels of photographers, from beginner to pro. In this tutorial we’ll cover the basics on how to plan, shoot, and post process a lunar eclipse in a way that is accessible for all skill levels. 

For advanced photographers, feel free to scroll down to Advanced Lunar Eclipse Composition Techniques to learn how to plan a lunar eclipse shot with a landscape or landmark element in the foreground using PhotoPills and a bit of trigonometry. I've also illustrated how to use this GOOGLE DOCS SPREADSHEET CALCULATION TOOL  created by me for use in tandem with PhotoPills to plan shots involving the sun or moon in complicated mountainous terrain.

Super Moon / Harvest Moon / Blood Moon / Lunar Eclipse | September 27, 2015 | [Purchase]

Let’s talk about equipment.  

Nice gear always helps, but you can still get a good image on an entry level camera with a long lens and manual controls. Because the moon is dark at peak eclipse and relatively small in size, the most critical attributes of your camera setup are the focal length (magnification) and stability. Fancy lenses with large apertures and camera bodies that perform well at high ISOs are helpful, but secondary in importance. 

Focal length:

It may be pretty obvious that the size of the moon depends on the focal length of the lens, however it’s difficult to know just how much of the frame will be covered by the moon without stepping outdoors on a full moon and snapping a picture. For those of us who live under permanent cloud cover (hello fellow Pacific Northwesterners), here is a rendering of how the moon will fill the frame at different full-frame 35mm equivalent focal lengths*:

Moon sizes at various focal lengths (35mm full-frame equivalent)

*How to find your equivalent focal length if not using a full-frame camera: 

Step 1: Google "[your camera’s make/model] crop factor.” 

Step 2: Plug them into this equation:

Equivalent 35mm Focal Length = Focal Length [mm] * Crop Factor

Now before you go out and buy a 800mm lens and a 1.6x teleconverter for $17,000, remember that a well-shot image can be cropped down a bit without sacrificing too much image quality.

Additionally, you can increase the resolution of your image by using a method called image stacking, which is described in a very easy to understand manner in Tony Northrup’s tutorial. Image stacking is an amazing method of sussing out extra resolution and detail on static (non-moving) subjects. If you're interested in seeing how this works, check out The Photon Collective's excellent educational video.

Stability:

A nice, heavy tripod and a remote shutter release (or 2-second timer) are critical to minimize blur caused by camera shake. If a tripod is not available, try getting creative, such as by resting the camera on a sweatshirt or beanbag on the roof of your car. You will need to either engage a 2+ second timer on your camera or to use a remote shutter release as the movement caused by pressing the shutter button will result in a blurry image when shooting the moon when it is darkest at peak eclipse.

 

Yeah but what are my camera settings?

See below for a summary of my recommended camera settings. If you're not sure how to adjust your settings accordingly, Google is there to help. If you're not familiar with your camera's functions, I strongly suggest learning how to adjust these settings a day or two in advance. 

Basic Settings:

RAW. Shoot in RAW if you have access to post processing software such as Photoshop, Lightroom, or Apple's iPhoto. This will allow you to make far more serious corrections and adjustments to your image without pushing the limitations of the much more compressed JPEG file format. 

MANUAL FOCUS. Use manual focus via Live View if at all possible. If your camera does not support Live View manual focus, your camera should be ok when the moon is at partial phase but it will likely be unable to focus on the Blood Moon (the moon at peak eclipse) due to the lack of light. Try using autofocus to lock your focus on a street lamp or something else that is bright and very far away, then swing the camera up to the blood moon and take your shot. Note that if you have to employ this method, your AF mode should be set to AF-S. 

MANUAL SHUTTER SPEED, ISO, AND APERTURE. Yes, I know this is beyond some of your comfort zones. To help make life a little easier, start with these settings*: 

Full Moon: 12.64 EV (or 1/200s, f/11, ISO 400)

Crescent Moon: 11.64 EV (or 1/100s, f/11, ISO 400)

Blood Moon (peak eclipse): 1.33 EV (or 1/2s, f/6.3, ISO 3200)

If your lens is unable to achieve these apertures, match the listed EV (exposure values) with different settings by using this handy calculation tool. Note that if you are concerned about camera shake, you can also increase the shutter speed by modifying the aperture. Try throwing some numbers in there and see what happens. 

*Keep in mind that the image on the back of your camera can appear to be misleadingly bright when viewed in total darkness. I have way too many underexposed Milky Way shots because of this phenomenon. 

2-SECOND TIMER OR SHUTTER RELEASE CABLE. As described above, you will need to either engage a 2+ second timer on your camera or to use a remote shutter release. Without employing the use of a timer or remote shutter release, the movement caused by pressing the shutter button will result in a blurry image when shooting the moon at peak eclipse.

OK, let's plan this thing:

When the heck is this eclipse you keep talking about anyway? Use Time and Date to read up on the eclipse and the important times of each event relative to your region. Note that you may have to punch in your location to get the times to show up correctly. 

Keep and eye on the weather. The best way to gauge the viewing conditions is to head over to Clear Sky Chart, where you can see the forecasted cloud cover, visibility (transparency), and darkness (moon phase related). An iOS app is also available. 

What kind of shot do you have in mind? Do you want a shot of the blood moon by itself? Do you want to take photos of the entire event and stitch all of the phases together in a single photograph? Do you want to include some sort of landscape element or landmark in your photo? If looking to do something a little more advanced, consider moving on to Advanced Lunar Eclipse Composition Techniques further down in the tutorial. 

Consider taking multiple shots for image stacking. As described earlier in the tutorial, you can increase the resolution of your image by using a method called image stacking, which is described in a very easy to understand manner in Tony Northrup’s tutorial. Image stacking is an amazing method of sussing out extra resolution and detail on static (non-moving) subjects. If you're interested in seeing how this works, check out The Photon Collective's excellent educational video.

Advanced Lunar Eclipse Composition Techniques

Now THIS is the fun part. If feeling adventurous, you could try including a foreground element such as a landscape, mountain peak, bridge, or building. While it will take some additional legwork, this is a manageable task for those willing to put in the time. 

To follow this part of the tutorial you will need:

this Google Docs Spreadsheet Lunar Eclipse Calculation Tool by me! 

and the PhotoPills app by, uh, PhotoPills.

PhotoPills' lunar eclipse tutorial

PhotoPills is an incredibly powerful iOS and Android app for planning shoots in advance when you need to know where the sun, moon, or Milky Way core will be at any given point of time. My image of the 2015 blood moon rising over Mount Shuksan was planned using this indispensable app. In this section I'll go over my method to getting this shot. All of these steps can be easily replicated for this year's Lunar Eclipse.

Figure 1: PhotoPills Planner for the 2015 Super Harvest Blood Moon

Figure 2: Mount Shuksan from Picture Lake. The red outline represents the peak used as the foreground during the blood moon shown in Figure 4.

Figure 3: PhotoPills AR Viewer to fine tune your composition on-site.

Figure 4: Super Harvest Blood Moon rising over Mount Shuksan, shot at 400mm.

Step 1: Open the planner and adjust the time and date to find the general direction and elevation of the moon during phases of the lunar eclipse [Figure 1]. From here we can see that the 2015 Blood Moon (the narrow cyan line) occurred ESE from 2.1 to 14.7 degrees in elevation. FYI the January 31, 2018 Super Blood Blue Moon will occur due East 14.3 to 26.7 degrees relative to the horizon in the Seattle region. 

Step 2: Brainstorm landmarks or landscape elements that would be complementary in the frame. With the info obtained in Step 1, I thought of hiking trails or roads with photogenic mountain peaks looming to the east at about 6-10 degrees from the horizon. One idea was to see if the 2015 Blood Moon would rise over Mount Shuksan from a point along the Artist Point or Picture Lake trails [Figure 2]. It is best to find multiple location possibilities within a large radius from your base of operations to minimize weather impact, but we will continue with only the Mount Shuksan example for simplicity.

Step 3: Find the elevation of Mount Shuksan and then use Google Earth to check the elevation of points along the trail and distance from Mount Shuksan's peak from using Google Maps. 

Step 4: Did you know that Excel is a mechanical engineer's best friend? Well now you do. Click here to use a spreadsheet I've created to plug in the distances, elevations, and eclipse details obtained from PhotoPills, Google Maps, and Time and Date [9.27.2018] [1.31.2018]. If the elevations check out, try to refine the approximate trail location and elevation by iteratively checking both PhotoPills and Google Maps for moon direction and elevation. 

Step 5: Leading up to the day of the shoot, check Clear Dark Sky to verify the conditions are still bueno.

Step 6: While on-site, use the AR Viewer [Figure 3] to fine-tune your composition. It's best to do this well in advance while there is a sun or moon visible in that general direction. Photo Pills is only as accurate as your phone's GPS, compass, and accelerometer, but it does have a calibration tool that allows you to adjust the sun/moon tracker based on the current location of the sun or moon.

Step 7: Once you have everything set up and have finalized your composition, you just have to wait for the magic to happen. That said, BE PREPARED TO MOVE. Any inaccuracy in Photo Pills' calibration may require you to make final adjustments with your feet. If everything worked out as planned, awesome job! Feel free to press that shutter release [Figure 4].

Post Processing Tips

Coming soon. 

Good luck, and please drop me a line if you found this tutorial to be useful! Also, while you're here, don't forget to check out my portfolio.

September 2017 Art Show Appearances

Arts of the Terrace (link)

Sept 23-Oct 8, 2017

I am a participating artist at Arts of the Terrace. Stop by and see my work in person!

PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBIT
MON-THURS 12-6 | FRI-SAT 12-5 | SUN 1-5
MOUNTLAKE TERRACE LIBRARY, 23300 58TH AVE WEST | MOUNTLAKE TERRACE, WASHINGTON

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Sunset at Monkey Face [awarded third place] | Smith Rock State Park, Oregon

20x30 | High gloss metal print with custom shadow mount and hanging wire.

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Blood Moon Eclipse over Mount Shuksan [SOLD] | Artist Point, Washington

16x24 | High gloss metal print with custom shadow mount and hanging wire.

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