copyright © 2010, Richard Lovison

I felt like trying something different by toying with a couple of the Nik filters. The final result was a mixture of Glamor Glow and Duplex.

Pure Joy; copyright © NBC

What a beautiful though awkward moment last night when the Blackhawks finally won the Stanley Cup. Instead of jumping for joy at the precise instant Patrick Kane’s shot landed inside the Philadelphia Flyers net in overtime, I was stunned and confused. It seemed the puck should have been stopped or pushed wide of the net though the puck wasn’t visible nor had the goal judge or referee indicated a goal. The only one who knew for sure a goal was scored was Patrick Kane. He immediately made a dash for the other end of the ice, celebrating with immense joy while everyone else was as stunned as I was.

When the video review showed what really happened, it had finally sunk in… these guys had done it. They had brought the Stanley Cup back to Chicago after 49 years.

I was only five years of age in 1961 when the Hawks last won the Stanley Cup. I don’t recall watching any of the series with other family members though I do remember watching them lose to Montreal back in the 70′s and later to Pittsburgh back in the 90′s in the Stanley Cup finals. So this win was special. And it couldn’t have happened to a better bunch of guys.

The above image says it all. The happiness on that young girl’s face while John Madden helped her hold the cup sums up the feelings of all that played for that moment and for all that supported them.

And I bet some of you reading this post were wondering what this all has to do with photography. Here is an explanation to satisfy your curiosity. The digital image was taken of an old CRT television screen (yes, we still live in the stone age) at 1/25th of a second (click here for an explanation of why this speed was chosen) with a bit of “blur” applied (to minimize picture artifacts) in CS2.

Behind the Veil; copyright © reserved 2010, Richard Lovison

The above image was the result of a little playfulness on my part and inspiration from a fellow photographer, Ed Vatza. It was created using a slow shutter speed (1/1.6 of a second) while panning vertically during the exposure.

One of digital photography’s strengths is that one can experiment and instantly receive feedback on the results. In this case, pausing briefly before panning upwards after pushing the shutter button produced a far different effect than panning immediately.

Berkshire School entrance early 1900; © Berkshire School

Berkshire School entrance as it appears today; © Berkshire School

I haven’t posted in a while as a huge portion of my time has been allotted to scanning and restoring old negatives and photographs for a project for my wife. She’s putting together a collage type presentation of the history of Berkshire School development.

The restoration of old b&w photographs is challenging due to deterioration and damage. Many hours were spent experimenting with the numerous options in the scanning software to achieve the best results and retouching the scanned images in CS2. None of the techniques were difficult, just time consuming.

Another challenge presented itself in the printing process. I purchased an Epson R1900 back in May with the thought that I would be doing little if any b&w printing. The R1900 is not the best choice for b&w printing as it uses color ink instead of multiple shades of black ink to produce shades of gray .

I had a custom profile made for Ilford Gold Fiber Silk paper as it came highly recommended for b&w prints and got some pleasing results. I liked the overall tone of the prints though I got the usual slight “color shifts” when viewing under different lighting conditions (due to using color ink).

A problem occurred when I had to change an empty cyan ink cart — actually the cart wasn’t empty but I was getting the dreaded “this cart is not a genuine Epson ink cart” error message even though it was an Epson cart. After the change I had a major color shift toward cyan. After talking with Epson tech support I never did discover the true reason for this though I suspect there is a variance in Epson inks and it shows up more strongly when printing in b&w than color on the R1900.