Tag: Jerry Ginsberg

Oh Shenandoah, My Shenandoah: Photography in Shenandoah National Park

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West facing view of scenic Franklin Cliffs in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia.
West facing view of scenic Franklin Cliffs in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia.

Story & photos by Jerry Ginsberg

As I write this, the United States, like many other nations, is just beginning to stir after a long shutdown in a Herculean effort to slow the spread of the deadly corona virus pandemic. The great National Parks that I typically write about have been closed to visitors. As spring turns towards summer, some restrictions are easing and people are venturing out of their homes. In the meantime, we’ve spent a lot of time online. I have kept busy editing last winter’s images and re-playing webinars on You Tube while my wife is immersed in Words with Friends and ‘encourages’ me to clean out the garage. We look forward to returning to the gym and continue to diligently do what we can to avoid this horrendous plague.

In late May, Shenandoah National Park took the first steps towards reopening. Conditions vary from place to place, so please check with your park before heading out for a visit. In anticipation of better days ahead, then, it seems like a good time to share the information below.

In the meantime, above all, stay safe!

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Using Blending Modes in Photoshop

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Image of Ginsberg's Photoshop workspace. Perhaps the first task before editing your photos is to arrange the workspace in a way that is most comfortable for you. I elect to lay out my screen like this with the tool palette, layer stack, adjustment panel and properties. Other functions such as actions and info can be selected from the Window menu as needed.
Perhaps the first task before editing your photos is to arrange the workspace in a way that is most comfortable for you. I elect to lay out my screen like this with the tool palette, layer stack, adjustment panel and properties. Other functions such as actions and info can be selected from the Window menu as needed.

Story & images by Jerry Ginsberg

Strange Circumstances

During this crucial time, we nature photographers who feel so at home wandering around the great outdoors seeking great images suddenly find ourselves uncharacteristically spending as much time as possible in our homes. While it is certainly necessary that we do this as a means of avoiding the scourge of the deadly Corona virus, it still feels a bit unnatural to most of us.

So let’s make the most of this unexpected downtime by honing our skills in the ever-evolving digital darkroom.

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White Sands National Park

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Glowing gypsum dunes in White Sands National Park, New Mexico.
Glowing gypsum dunes in White Sands National Park, New Mexico.

Story & photos by Jerry Ginsberg

As I am writing, the country and, indeed, most of the world is shutting down due to the spread of the novel corona virus. There is certainly a lot of information about it in the media so you don’t need me to add to it, especially since, when choosing a career long ago, medicine was not even close to the top of my list.  So even though I write regularly about photographing our national parks and other great travel destinations, it is apparent that park visitation and travel in general will be way down for a while to come.

I hope that you will enjoy my description of our sixty-second and newest national park, White Sands, which appears below and will file it away for a calmer and more normal time. For those of us with the travel bug, now is a good time to do some deep and thorough planning for our next trips.

Until then, stay healthy, safe and keep honing your skills in the digital darkroom.

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Getting Around Alaska: Photography in the “Last Frontier”

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Massive Denali, at 20,340 feet high the tallest mountain in all of North America towers above Wonder Lake in Denali National Park.
Massive Denali, at 20,340 feet high the tallest mountain in all of North America towers above Wonder Lake in Denali National Park.

Story and photos by Jerry Ginsberg

Background

Over the last several years, I have written in this space about each of the eight wonderful national parks scattered throughout our 49th state. Alaska is so big, wild and open that getting from one of these huge parks to another is not as easy as jumping on the interstate highway system in Ohio and smoothly cruising to somewhere like Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. It’s a bit more complicated than that.

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Traipsing through Russia

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Red Square, Moscow
Red Square, Moscow

Story and photos by Jerry Ginsberg

For many years, I photographed only landscapes and natural subjects, being careful to avoid anything showing the intrusive hand of man.

Separately, I have been an avid international traveler for all of my adult life. One day, I suddenly got the bright idea to combine my travels with serious image making. Photographing cities is certainly a one hundred and eighty degree U turn from nature photography but, with the proper mindset and viewpoint, it can be just as artistic. Well, almost.

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Photographing Gateway Arch National Park

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The Gateway Arch rises majestically 630 feet over St. Louis and the Mississippi River in Gateway Arch National Park, MO.
The Gateway Arch rises majestically 630 feet over St. Louis and the Mississippi River in Gateway Arch National Park, MO.

Story and photos by Jerry Ginsberg

One of the nation’s newest National Parks is a tiny speck of land on the west bank of the mighty Mississippi River. At a mere 91 acres, Gateway Arch National Park is by far the smallest of our sixty-one National Parks.

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Take Me Home, Country Roads: Fall Photography in West Virginia

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Spectacular autumn color in Babcock State Park near Fayetteville, WV.
Spectacular autumn color in Babcock State Park near Fayetteville, WV.

Story and photos by Jerry Ginsberg

The Mountain State of West Virginia was admitted to Union in 1863 at the height of the Civil War when the Unionists of the northern and western counties of secessionist Virginia themselves chose to secede from that Confederate state. It was a real public relations victory for President Lincoln and the Union. Don’t worry: That’s the end of the history lecture.

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Great Smoky Mountains National Park

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Bump: Autumn in the Smokies paints these venerable mountains with a riot of brilliant colors.
Bump: Autumn in the Smokies paints these venerable mountains with a riot of brilliant colors.

Story & photos by Jerry Ginsberg

The Basics

It doesn’t have the granite domes of Yosemite or the geysers of Yellowstone, but Great Smoky Mountains National Park attracts over 11 million visitors each year making it the most popular in the nation. That’s more than Yosemite, Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks combined.

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Save the Pixels!

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My wall of steel filing cabinets. These contain thousands of hanging pages holding hundreds of thousands of negatives and chromes. The temperature is held at a constant 60*F by central A/C backed up by a room air conditioner. Both are in turn backed up by a gasoline powered generator in case of a power outage; always a possibility in Florida.
My wall of steel filing cabinets. These contain thousands of hanging pages holding hundreds of thousands of negatives and chromes. The temperature is held at a constant 60*F by central A/C backed up by a room air conditioner. Both are in turn backed up by a gasoline powered generator in case of a power outage; always a possibility in Florida.

Story and photos © Jerry Ginsberg

Once Upon a Time 

As the years roll by, there is an ever diminishing percentage of photographers who spent their early years shooting and archiving film. At the risk of sounding like my pre-TV era father, back in the good old days before the advent of digital photography, we simply stored our film originals, both negatives and chromes, in an assortment of paper and plastic boxes, pages, etc. Absent the house burning down, there was little, if any, concern over losing our precious images.

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National Parks in Appalachia

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The Temple of Karnak is one of the more angular of the many limestone formations deep inside Mammoth Cave, Mammoth Cave National Park, KY.
The Temple of Karnak is one of the more angular of the many limestone formations deep inside Mammoth Cave, Mammoth Cave National Park, KY.

Story & photos by Jerry Ginsberg

The national park movement originally grew out of the 19th century recognition that it was important to protect the spectacular natural wonders of the American west. It took a few more decades for the eastern part of our country to gain some respect for its own scenic gems. Eventually, however, many national parks were established east of the Mississippi and now play host to scores of millions of visitors annually. Three of these, Mammoth Cave, Shenandoah and Great Smoky Mountains, form a line through the Appalachians and were created at the urging of FDR.

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