Red River Paper Blog
Techniques
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Nikola Olic: Dominates Tall Buildings With A Single Lens!
By Albert Chi— Nikola Olic is a lover of photography– a quintessential “amateur†in the classical sense of the word. He’s free to exercise his artistic vision any way he chooses without restraints of time or client demands. “I was born and raised in Belgrade, Serbia,†says Olic, now 47, “and came to the U.S....read more
Sloooooow Down For More Creative Images
By Albert Chi— Most photographers dread shooting when poor light levels require slow shutter speeds for proper exposure. Chances are pictures will end up blurred due to camera shake, subject motion, or both. And to compensate, you can only up the ISO so much before running into noise and artifacts. Here are some ways to...read more
White Pocket: Millions-of-years-old Fantasy World
By Will Keener and Ron Wolfe— White Pocket is photographer’s dreamland; a remote, other-worldly experience in the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument in Arizona that looks like chef whipped up a colorful concoction from chunks of multi-colored fudge. Writers tend to wax poetic in describing White Pocket, seeing visions of gum drops, ice cream cones, dragon’s...read more
Photojournalist With Soul: Carl Juste
by Arthur H. Bleich— Red River Ppaper Pro Carl Juste has a personal intensity that permeates every photograph he makes. His images speak in a way words cannot, making an immediate connection with the viewer. He is a master visual communicator. Juste, 56, was just two years old when his family was forced to...read more
Nina Katchadourian: Photo Artistry at 36,000 Feet
By Arthur H. Bleich— It’s 2011. On a jumbo jet 36,000 feet over the Pacific headed for New Zealand, night has fallen, the cabin lights are dimmed and most of the passengers have dozed off. Nina Katchadourian slips quietly out of her aisle seat, cellphone in hand, and makes her way down the aisle to...read more
Here comes the sun…and Solarcan’s ready to grab it!
By Albert Chi— Many strange-looking cameras have been produced but Solarcan may be the weirdest, yet. And, certainly, what it’s made to do gives it a leg up on all the others. Basically, it’s a pinhole camera with a twist (curved to be more exact), made to record the transit of the Sun, for a...read more
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Seeing Differently
By Michael Freeman— One of the first tenets of professional photography is that you have to try harder, always and all the time. There’s almost too much said about this, so I’ll restrict myself to one only, from American photographer William Albert Allard: “You’ve got to push yourself harder. You’ve got to start looking for...read more
Favorite Photo Places: An Amazing Wildlife Refuge
By Ron Wolfe and Will Keener– You get to the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, south of Socorro, NM, at least a half an hour before sunrise. You position yourself with back to the wind, so the birds will fly over you; your back to the rising sun, even better. In the near dawn,...read more
A Great Read: “Photographers On Photography”
By Henry Carroll– Let’s consider the visionaries, the groundbreakers, the original thinkers – those influential figures from past and present who pushed photography forward and continue to do so today. How did they – how do they – approach their craft and what matters most? Here we have a selection of quotations, photographs and interviews...read more
Take Great Holiday Party Photos!
By Maggie Kornahrens– There will be a plethora of cameras and smartphones at every party and soiree in the coming weeks and if you want to capture the spirit of the holidays in fresh and exciting ways, be willing to branch out of the ordinary. Cameras these days are advanced enough so that anybody can...read more
Back To Basics: Orientation Can Make Or Break Your Image
 By Suzanne Williams– The composition of a photograph is exactly what the word “composition” itself implies. It is the way the objects in an image are “composed”, or we could say, “arranged”. Composition is, for the most part, subjective to the photographer’s eye. The fact is that there are many ways to arrange the same...read more
Expressive Nature Photography
by Brenda Tharp– Photography is pure joy. The ability to see something special and capture it in the camera is nothing short of amazing for me, even after all the years I’ve been a photographer. From the tiniest detail of a flower to the grand expanse of the Milky Way stretching overhead at night, our...read more
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Spark Up Your Holiday Photos!
By Suzanne D. Williams– We’ve all done it, taken that endless stream of holiday photographs with the same people doing something, only we can’t exactly tell what. Then there’s the familiar, “Oh look at the tree!” only it’s slightly blurry and the top is missing. Sound familiar? Who doesn’t have similar Christmas and other holiday pictures...read more
My Photographic Evolution
By Suzanne D. Williams– My daughter’s graduation from high school some years ago prompted me to comb through files filled with old photographs. She’ll always be my baby and I had several of those “mom moments,” wishing to re-enter my now rosy past. But I was also forced to revisit some really bad photographs. Why...read more
Make Big Images With Small Desktop Printers
By Christine Pentecost– I have a beautiful, scenic image in my collection that begged to be displayed larger than could be output by my desktop printer– which only can use letter-sized paper. Surely, I thought, there must be some way to solve this problem and, as it turns out, there is. Image Splitter is a...read more
Exhibit Your Photos for Prestige and Profit
    By Peter E. Randall– For most photographers, the chance to have a one-person exhibit is an exciting opportunity. Then reality sets in and it’s apparent that having an exhibit is more stressful and difficult than making the photographs in the first place. The most ideal opportunity is to be invited to show...read more
Shooting The Stars, Part 3: Post Production
By Ron Risman– Finishing Your Image As good as your image may look straight out of the camera, it’s really not finished yet. Since I shoot using RAW, the image is captured with a very flat profile. It lacks contrast and sharpness and can easily be brought up to wow status using Adobe Camera Raw...read more
Add Value and Security to Your Images
By Arthur H. Bleich– If you currently sell (or would like to sell) prints of your best work here’s a technique I’ve used successfully to assure buyers that if they resell my photographs some day it can be proven that they are genuinely mine and not unauthorized copies. I began doing this a few years ago...read more
Get Maximum Shadow Detail in Your Prints
By Tim Grey– In many cases a print will not reflect the full level of shadow detail as actually exists in the image file. Instead, that shadow gets “blocked up,†similar to the way shadow detail gets clipped in an exposure that is too dark. You can compensate for this issue by essentially brightening the...read more
Fuse Your Photos to Stone and Tile for Unique Gifts and Stunning Displays
By Christine Pentecost– Finding a unique niche in today’s world of photography is not the easiest thing to do. Fortunately, something as simple as making your own coasters, trivets or hanging wall decorations using inexpensive tile, Mod Podge and Red River photo papers is an easy yet wonderfully creative way to share your photography. I begin...read more
How To Shoot Prize-Winning Photos, Part 2
by Arthur H. Bleich– We continue with Part 2 of How To Shoot Prize-Winning Photos. In case you missed it, Part 1 was posted on 8/1/16. Stash the Flash. Nothing kills a picture quicker than lighting it with on-camera flash. Pasty, washed out faces and big black shadows guarantee it will never achieve prize-winning status. Unless you’ve...read more
How To Shoot Prize-Winning Photos, Part 1
by Arthur H. Bleich– Over the years, I’ve analyzed what separates prize-winning images from the rest and I’d like to share with you what I’ve discovered in this two-part series. Even if prizes are not your goal, you can take a creative leap forward if you keep these suggestions in mind. Every pro has them burned...read more
Frame Your Images for Maximum Impact!
By Arthur H. Bleich– Throughout history, great works of art have been showcased in frames and your best images deserve no less. It’s amazing how they’ll stand out and gain stature; a framed photograph seems to announce: “Look at me, I’m worthy of viewing!†But how do you choose the right frame? For years I’ve...read more
Backup Therapy for Paranoid Photographers, Part 1
By Tim Grey– To me a big part of why I capture photographic images in the first place is to preserve memories that are important to me. By definition, if I intentionally pressed the shutter release button on the camera then the photo I captured is important to me in some way. Therefore, I want...read more
Fine Tune Your Exposures With “Smart†Bracketing
by Arthur H. Bleich– Most digital cameras have an auto-bracketing feature that allows three or more images to be shot manually or automatically in rapid succession, each at a different exposure. The first picture is exposed at what the camera’s light meter determines to be correct, followed by an under-exposed image and then another that’s...read more
Judging a Lens by the Quality of a Print
by Derrick Story– I test a lot of gear over the course of a year, including lenses in all sorts of mounts. I don’t have an optical bench for these reviews. I focus on how the equipment performs in the field. The final step in this process is to make a 13″ x 19″ print...read more
Thru The Looking Glass
by Shelly Katz– “It’s not always about the destination, sometimes it’s about the journey”  Flying Over Central California. Photo by Shelly Katz Often when on my way to photograph at an exotic location, I’m reminded of that cliché as I make a very memorable photograph looking out the window of my airplane. In fact,...read more
Ask Tim Grey – Print Sizing
By Tim Grey– Today’s Question: In Photoshop you can easily juggle image size and canvas size to obtain a print with the image size and border combination you desire. In Lightroom 5 I cannot find a similar set of functions in the print module where I can do the Photoshop equivalent. The presets in...read more
Beginner’s Corner – Crop Sensors
By Charles MacPherson– So what in the world is a “crop sensor” anyway? There are two kinds of sensors in DSLRs – full frame and crop. Full-frame sensors are exactly the size of 35mm film (24mm X 36mm) Crop sensors are smaller and come in different sizes. The reason that the sensor size is important...read more
Beginner’s Corner – Exposure Modes Part 2
By Charles MacPherson– Exposure Modes Part 2 Last month, we talked about the different exposure modes available on your camera, and after explaining the different modes, I said that I use only one mode over 90% of the time. And I challenged you to guess which it was. Sue Abrahamsen was the only one to get...read more
