Ron Sherman’s new book, Witness – A Photographic Essay of Humor and Heart, is available for purchase. The 140-page coffee table book features 98 images from Mr. Sherman’s vast inventory.
Atlanta-based photographer Ron Sherman’s new book is a testament to his 60 years documenting the people of Atlanta, of Georgia and much of the rest of the country. It’s his fifth book.
Hank Aaron hit his 715th homer to break Babe Ruth’s record and ran the bases as two teenagers tapped him on his shoulders and ran off. (photo by Ron Sherman).
Glamorous dinner for the 1972 Atlanta Steeplechase crowd, referred to as “The Best Lawn Party in Georgia.” (photo by Ron Sherman).
National Grits Festival from 2010, held in Warwick, Georgia, giving children and adults alike a day of fun and games. (photo by Ron Sherman).
The 144-page coffee table book, 10 inches by 12 inches, features 98 choice images from Mr. Sherman’s vast inventory of photographs, some of them quite famous.
— Ron Sherman
ATLANTA, GA, UNITED STATES, December 12, 2023 /EINPresswire.com/ — Acclaimed Atlanta photographer Ron Sherman’s new book – titled Witness, A Photographic Essay of Humor and Heart – is available for purchase, through Mr. Sherman’s website: witness.ronsherman.com. The handsome, 144-page coffee table book – 10 inches by 12 inches, with a cloth-wrapped hard cover – features 98 images from Mr. Sherman’s vast inventory of thousands of photographs, some of which are quite famous. Individuals, bookstores, libraries, colleges, universities and more are all invited to purchase the book.
“Witness – A Photographic Essay of Humor and Heart is a testament to my sixty years as a professional photographer documenting the people of Atlanta, of Georgia and much of the rest of the country,” said Mr. Sherman, who grew up in Cleveland but has made Atlanta his home for the past five-plus decades. “I had the privilege of meeting political figures, sports stars, musicians, school children, college students and corporate executives, who allowed me into their lives.”
Most of the subjects in the book were available for a very short time, but enough time to allow him to finish his assignments. They included such luminaries as Jimmy Carter, Coretta Scott King, Hank Aaron, Muhammad Ali, Maynard Jackson and Andrew Young, among many others.
“But,” Sherman pointed out, “fireman Buzzard Sewell, Atlanta policeman Chester Head, singer Arlo Guthrie or activist Huey Newton are people some may have never heard of, but they will see them in my book,” adding, “Of the thousands of photos in my archives, two assistants, photo editor Amy Miller and designer and publisher Laurie Shock, did a remarkable job of picking ninety-eight enlightening images.”
In the book’s pages, people will experience the evolution of Atlanta and meet some of the city’s most notable public figures, from Jimmy Carter to Coretta Scott King to Ted Turner, and witness the celebration as Henry Aaron rounded the bases after breaking Babe Ruth’s home run record at Atlanta’s Fulton County Stadium in 1974.
The 4 foot by 5 foot enlargement of that iconic Hank Aaron photograph is perhaps the book’s most recognizable image, showing the legendary slugger being congratulated by two exuberant fans as he jogs from second to third base on his way to baseball immortality in 1974. It’s now on display at Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
Witness is Mr. Sherman’s fifth book effort. Three of the previous four were corporate sponsored, while the fourth, published in 2013, had a Canadian publisher. All were photographic retrospectives, with an emphasis on Atlanta. “The new book is self-published,” he said, “because I wanted complete control over its production. I consider it my finest work.”
Mr. Sherman’s photography encompasses much more than Atlanta. In 1968, at the height of the Vietnam war, he volunteered for service in the U.S. Army and was assigned to the Aerial Reconnaissance Battalion in the Signal Corps. His deep understanding of photography played a key role in assisting Army Intelligence. After his service, Ron came back to the states to resume his photography career, which took him to Washington D.C., where he captured hundreds of compelling images of the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam on November 15, 1969.
Ron fell in love with Atlanta even before he moved there for good in 1971. A brief stint working for United Press International gave him a sense of the place as a booming city on the move in the mid-1960s, and provided valuable business contacts for the future. His fascination with Atlanta and its people, coupled with his great skill in capturing its dazzling skylines and cityscapes, as well as the natural beauty of its rural surroundings, form the essence of his life’s work.
Ron’s photography has been published in Time, Newsweek, Forbes, Sports Illustrated, Life, and Business Week, as well as in newspapers throughout the country. Multiple public exhibitions, as well as the four previously published books, have featured Ron’s photography over the past few decades. His portfolio of nearly a half million photographs are archived at Emory University’s Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library in Atlanta.
To learn more about Mr. Sherman, or to purchase a copy of his book, Witness – A Photographic Essay of Humor and Heart, please visit witness.ronsherman.com.
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Atlanta Photographer
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SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 12, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Flickr, the world’s largest photography community and leading photo-management platform, is set to launch a personalized touch to your year in photography, the MyFlickrYear 2023 site experience. Awaiting Flickr enthusiasts in the first week of January 2024 is a custom annual report that invites members to reminisce, celebrate, and share their photographic journey throughout the past year.
What is MyFlickrYear 2023?
MyFlickrYear 2023 is a visual journey encapsulating members’ contributions in 2023. Meticulously crafted by the Flickr team, this edition promises to showcase the user’s most significant milestones, highlight their most cherished photograph of the year, and unveil statistics on faves, comments, views, and users’ closest connections within the vibrant Flickr community.
This personalized retrospective gains even more significance when considering the scale of Flickr’s active community. With nearly 700 million uploads to Flickr this year, averaging an impressive 2 million per day, the sheer volume of output exemplifies the expansive and dynamic nature of MyFlickrYear.
This exclusive report is accessible through the website or mobile site experience of all members who have posted on Flickr in 2023. As members navigate through their unique reports, they’ll find a narrative that tells the story of their photographic year in a way that goes beyond mere numbers.
Seamless sharing with #MyFlickrYear23.
MyFlickrYear is more than a personal account; it connects enthusiasts worldwide. Flickr enables its passionate community to seamlessly integrate their customized annual reports into their Flickr photostreams, creating a dynamic showcase of memories, photos, and achievements.
To further amplify the celebration, users are encouraged to use the designated hashtag #MyFlickrYear23 when sharing their personalized stats. This not only contributes to a collective conversation—it transforms social media into a digital gallery where visual storytelling takes center stage. The most captivating MyFlickrYear 2023 journeys will have a chance to earn a coveted spot on the official Flickr blog and various social media channels, providing members with a well-deserved moment in the spotlight.
There’s still time for those who may have been less active on Flickr this year! MyFlickrYear 2023 is your chance to revive your photographic presence. Dust off those forgotten gems lurking in your camera roll, upload them to Flickr, and watch as your year unfolds beautifully.
Join the excitement, share your story, and make it a year to remember in the Flickr community. Learn more about MyFlickrYear here.
Not a Flickr member yet? Join our community today and find your inspiration!
About Flickr
Flickr, founded in 2004, is the world’s largest photography community, committed to elevating the memories, artistry, and impact of all your photos. Fueled by passionate photographers for nearly 20 years, Flickr provides users with the safest and most inclusive platform for sharing and connecting through photos and videos. Since its acquisition by SmugMug in 2018, these united brands have created the most influential photography-focused community in the world.
SOURCE Flickr
There may not have been studies on the subject but there may be a correlation between procrastination and loving art.
That’s a roundabout way of noting that if you’re behind on your holiday shopping (for others or yourself) there’s a great opportunity coming your way this week.
Although his work blurs the boundary between art and science, Imran Sultan’s photos are always in sharp focus. And that’s not an easy feat, considering that the subject matter can be thousands of light-years away.
Sultan’s photos of our galaxy’s distant, beautiful features recently garnered two awards in the 2023 Royal Society Publishing Photography Competition’s astronomy category. His photo of the Western Veil Nebula received first place, and his photo of the Flower Moon received recognition as the sole runner-up.
An astrophotographer, Sultan is an NSF Graduate Research Fellow in galaxy formation at Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, where he is advised by Claude-André Faucher-Giguère, an associate professor of physics and astronomy. Both Sultan and Faucher-Giguère are members of the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics. Sultan began photographing the night sky in summer 2020 — after receiving his first telescope. Since then, his works have gained popularity on social media and among his colleagues.
“I love sharing the wonders of our universe with others through my astrophotography,” Sultan said. “Whether it’s an interesting look at the moon surrounded by clouds, or long-exposure shots of a nebula thousands of light years away that’s too faint for us to see, photographing the night sky lets me capture and share the breathtaking sights that are right over us.”
The competition, which returned for the first time since 2019, “celebrates the power of photography to convey scientific phenomena happening all around us.” Judges selected winners — from nearly 600 submissions — for each category: astronomy, behavior, Earth science and climate, ecology and environment, and microimaging. Each category winner receives a £500 ($615 USD) prize.
Sultan’s winning image shows the colorful Western Veil Nebula, a stunning remnant left behind from the explosion of a massive star 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. Located 2,100 light-years away, the nebula resides within the constellation Cygnus (the Swan).
“My picture shows a part of the nebula known as the Western Veil, imaged over two nights from the city skies of the Chicago suburbs,” Sultan said. “I was able to overcome the extreme light pollution, a growing problem that is detrimental to stargazing and makes deep sky astrophotography nearly impossible, by using a special filter which only allows certain wavelengths of light to pass through.”
See more of Sultan’s work on Flickr.
Fine art photographer and Lander University professor Jon O. Holloway is sharing a variety of images and showcasing them in his Maxwell Avenue properties, Sundance Gallery and Jon Holloway Photography.
Holloway’s latest photography exhibit, titled “55” and celebrating a lap around the sun, is on view Dec. 14 through 21 at the two spaces. Opening day, the exhibit is on view 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. A public reception is scheduled for 6 p.m. Dec. 15. On Dec. 16-21, the exhibit is on view 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
HDR photography may seem complex, but it is a surprisingly simple tool that can open new photographic doors. Most people have encountered HDR photography without thinking about it since smartphones automatically produce HDR images.
HDR photography allows you to capture all values within a scene, showing more detail than you would otherwise get. Whether documenting interior spaces for real estate images or creating dramatic landscape art, HDR photography can help you get the most out of your camera and photographs. This guide will walk you through how and when to use this technique and the tools you will need along the way.
Before diving into how and when to use HDR in your photographs, it’s essential to understand what HDR means and why it matters. HDR stands for high dynamic range. Breaking it down further, dynamic range refers to the difference between the darkest dark and lightest light within a scene. Cameras are limited in how much dynamic range they can capture — and it is much less than our eyes can see. HDR photography is a technique used to capture the full value range within high-contrast scenes, providing all highlight and shadow information in a single image.
As an example of dynamic range in photography, picture a scene with the sun shining on a snowy mountainside with dark rocks jutting out of the snow in shaded areas. This scene has a large dynamic range between the shadows and highlights. You typically have to choose whether to expose the snow or the rocks and end up with either blown-out highlights or solid black dark areas. This results in no texture or detail in one of those areas, which is undesirable. However, with HDR photography, you can capture that vast dynamic range in a single photo.
There are a few ways to accomplish HDR photography, which will be covered later. But all methods rely on merging multiple images that are exposed for different parts of a scene. Some methods are automatic, so you don’t even realize your camera is taking numerous photos. Your smartphone is an example of this. Other methods require manual work on your part.
HDR techniques expand the dynamic range beyond what a camera can capture in a single frame. They allow you to capture and even enhance detail across the entire luminance range. As a result, HDR photography is a handy tool for any high-contrast scene, though it can also be a stylistic choice.
HDR photography is most frequently used in three genres: Landscape, architectural, and interior photography (such as real estate). All three often include high-contrast scenarios, limiting what you can capture in a single image. When photographing landscapes, it is common to deal with bright skies and dark foregrounds, especially during sunrise and sunset. Likewise, exterior architectural shots will likely involve dark buildings with sunny skies. Capturing all the desired detail in one shot is challenging in the best conditions and sometimes outright impossible, but HDR opens up more possibilities of what you can document.
Interior photography can be even more dramatic than landscapes or exterior architectural work regarding dynamic range. Darker interior spaces with bright windows offer challenging exposure situations. Without HDR photography, windows will be blinding white voids, which is especially problematic if you are attempting to showcase a view. Another possibility is well-exposed windows but excessively dark interiors, which won’t show off the space.
You’ll notice that the three genres mentioned all feature minimal movement of subjects in the frame. The images you take to create an HDR image will be merged, so anything that moves over the course of those images will appear multiple times in the final HDR shot or cause ghosting. Because of this, HDR is not great for portraiture, wildlife, street photography, or other similar genres.
Although HDR photography may sound complex, it doesn’t require much in terms of equipment. The only requirement is a sturdy tripod. As mentioned above, movement throughout creating an HDR image is problematic, which also holds in regard to camera movement. Because of this, you’ll want to keep your camera on a tripod when creating HDR photographs.
Although not a requirement, a wireless remote (or app that functions as such) may also come in handy. Touching the camera to release the shutter, even with a tripod, can result in slight camera movements. This is especially true if you are using long shutter speeds.
The basics of HDR photography are straightforward to learn. To create an HDR image, you’ll need to take multiple pictures of the same scene with different exposure settings, a technique called exposure bracketing. This process results in some overexposed, properly exposed, and underexposed images. You can create HDR images from as little as three brackets or as many as nine or more. Which number is best depends on the scene and the HDR style you are going for, though three to five is the most common.
There are two ways to bracket for HDR photography: Manually or using Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB) settings. To manually bracket, you will need to adjust the exposure using ISO or shutter speed for as many shots as you require. You won’t want to bracket with aperture, as this will change the depth of field in each bracket and will not result in a sharp final result. Alternatively, you can use the exposure compensation setting (many cameras offer a dial) to change your exposure. Typically, bracketing involves consistent stops between each frame, though this isn’t necessarily a requirement. You could underexpose by one stop and overexpose by two if the situation calls for it.
While manual bracketing works perfectly fine, most cameras will offer automatic exposure bracketing (AEB) settings to make the process faster and easier. You can even set most cameras to take all the bracketed shots with one press of the shutter instead of taking each bracket one by one. This is ideal because, as mentioned, any movement in the frame or of the camera can cause issues when merging your brackets. So, the faster you take your bracketed images, the better.
A camera’s AEB mode requires you to choose a number of bracketed images along with the exposure value (EV) between each shot. The EV number indicates how many stops will be between each frame. Each camera manufacturer offers different settings, though most will provide bracketing options of three, five, or nine frames. EV options typically include 0.3, 0.7, 1.0, 2.0, or 3.0 stops. Certain EV settings may limit the number of brackets you can take. For example, on the Sony a7 III, at 3.0 EV, you can bracket a max of five images, while at 1.0 EV and lower, you can bracket up to nine frames.
As with the number of brackets, there aren’t any hard and fast rules for how many stops to bracket. Different situations call for different settings, and the final look you are after will also dictate which is best. That said, one full stop is typically the best bet.
Beyond AEB modes, there are a few other important considerations for camera settings. As mentioned earlier, you will want your aperture to remain consistent throughout the bracketed sequence to avoid any changes in depth of field. Because of this, it is most common to bracket with the camera set to Aperture Priority mode. This will result in the camera changing the shutter speed while maintaining a constant aperture. If you want your ISO to remain consistent, turn off auto ISO and choose the best value for the scene.
Just as you don’t want any changes to the depth of field, you also won’t want any focus shifts throughout a bracketed sequence. So, to avoid this, set your focus before starting your brackets and then switch it to manual focus.
Many cameras offer built-in HDR settings, allowing you to create an HDR image right in the camera. The camera will do all the work for you, including the bracketing and file-merging process. You’ll end up with a fully processed HDR file immediately.
Each camera manufacturer will offer different options and settings for this. For example, Sony’s HDR mode requires .JPG as the file format. Then, you can select between 1.0 and 6.0 EV or Auto EV. Nikon allows you to save the RAW files of the individual shots used to create the HDR image and provides an additional option to adjust how much the boundaries between images are smoothed. Canon offers a special setting built for moving subjects. Be sure to refer to your particular camera’s manual or menus to see your options for in-camera HDR photography.
The most common way to create HDR images is by using software to merge bracketed shots on a computer. To create an HDR image using software, you’ll load a bracketed set into your chosen software. The program will then merge them together into one file, pulling in relevant details from all values. Most HDR software will provide a range of settings to fine-tune the HDR look; you don’t necessarily need to create a dramatic, highly textured HDR image.
There are many programs available to tackle the merging process. Photomatix is one of the more popular options, as it is extremely powerful, fast, and full of valuable features. It offers lots of controls for fine-tuning the look of your HDR images, along with presets to get you started. Plus, it allows for automated batch processing, ideal for an entire shoot of HDR images, such as real estate work.
Luminar Neo is another excellent option, and you’ll also get access to Luminar Neo’s advanced editing tools once you have your HDR image. Or, for a free option, Luminance HDR is surprisingly powerful and versatile despite the fact that it’s free. You can also merge bracketed images to create an HDR photo in Adobe Photoshop.
Although HDR often gets a bad rap, it can be a handy tool. It can allow for even more creativity in your images, but it also serves practical purposes. The key to HDR photography is dialing in bracketing settings for each situation and developing your desired look using HDR software. Perfecting this method may take time, but it is an invaluable skill for landscape, architectural, and interior photographers.
Image credits: Header image by Jeremy Gray. All other photos by Abby Ferguson.
The event is a fundraiser for Portland Track
