Author: danrouth

Greensboro, NC based commercial and editorial photographer.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden in Greensboro

Greensboro


Coming off the first presidential debate held in Mississippi on Friday, Barack Obama and Joe Biden held a rally in Greensboro yesterday and it was an unbelievable event. Thousands of people (the police said 18-20,000 plus, it looked like a lot more to me) crowded in front of the Depot to hear the candidates speak. The diversity of the crowd amazed me. The skies threatened rain all morning but everyone remained and as Obama spoke people were lined up for blocks. Maybe there still is hope for North Carolina.






Yesterday’s event gave me a lot more respect for full-time photo-journalists. I am primarily a commercial photographer, though I do editorial work for magazines. Normally when I shoot, I am in complete control of what I’m shooting, or at least close to it. The logistics of working around such crowds and security as there were at the rally and being able to come up with good coverage and good photos are extremely difficult. 





(images copyright 2008 by Dan Routh)

Friday Portrait

Portraits

(image copyright 2008 by Dan Routh)

Portrait of Devin.
A question that often comes up is how much post-processing should be done to images. For me, it is as “much as it needs” to give the effect I am after. I shoot in raw format, which is basically like using a digital negative. Every file I shoot is processed in raw conversion software (I use Adobe’s Raw Converter) and corrected for color and contrast. If I’m doing editorial work, I pretty much stop there. If I’m doing commercial advertising or art, I may do a lot more. I am not in the least bit opposed to manipulating an image in Photoshop to create a feel that I’m trying to create, such as producing a gritty or poloroid type effect. I try to be subtle, but I can push things pretty far. Do I ever overdo things? Sure, sometimes; but usually I try to keep things under control. How much post I do usually ends up being determined by what mood I’m in that day. I will say that very seldom have I seen an image come straight out of a digital camera that didn’t need at least some basic post.

Scottish Castle

Scotland, Travel

(image copyright 2008 by Dan Routh)

If there is one place I would like to be right now it would be Scotland. My family is of Scottish descent (circa 1750) as is my wife’s. It is said that there are more people of Scottish descent in North Carolina now than there are in Scotland itself. During the “Clearances” of the 18th and early 19th century, thousands of Scots left Scotland and many settled here in North Carolina. Names such as Chisholm, McMasterss, McCallum and Wallace are prominent in our genealogy. We attend highland games. In fact North Carolina has the world’s largest such games at Grandfather Mountain each summer. My older son is a piper and my younger son plays the flourishing tenor drum. When my older son was married recently, the males wore kilt.

One of my favorite spots in Scotland is Eilean Donan Castle near the Kyle of Lochalsh on the western coast near the Isle of Skye (where my family originated). It’s a misty place that shouts “Highlands” and is near the Kyle Bridge that leads over to Skye. The day we were there, it was a normal Scottish day, slightly cool and rainy or as they say, “fresh”. The BBC produced a television show back in the 1990’s called “Hamish Macbeth” which was filmed near there.

Postscript: I got an email from Peter Hunter from Fife just north of Edinburgh. He had some very kind things to say about my blog. If Scotland interests you, check out his website at http://www.scotlandinoils.com

The Yancey House

Food

I recently had the pleasure to shoot and eat at the Yancey House Restaurant in Yanceyville, North Carolina. Owners Michael and Lucindy Willis operate a wonderful establishment in a beautiful Victorian house that was the home of Bartlett Yancey, US Congressman and UNC Trustee, and the namesake for Yanceyville. The hospitality is exceptional and the food is to die for. Loved the sea bass and the crab cakes. For more info, go to http://www.yanceyvillage.com.

Lucindy is a retired English professor and does all the cooking.

(images copyright 2008 by Dan Routh)

Packhouse Window

Family

I went for a walk yesterday afternoon and passed an old tobacco packhouse on our farm.

A packhouse is a structure with an attic for storing cured tobacco and an earthen basement for adjusting the humidity of the leaf, or to get the tobacco “in order” so that it can be graded and packed for market. I spent a lot of my early youth watching my grandmother and the other women in my family grade tobacco leaf by leaf. My grandmother also used the packhouse to hang her quilting frame and I can remember the ladies gathering there to work on their quilts.

Not far from the packhouse is an old curing barn, where the harvested tobacco was hung and cured, first by wood heat and later with oil or gas-fired heaters. As you can tell, neither structure is in use today, but both stand testimony to another time.

(images copyright 2008 by Dan Routh)

Nobel Prize

Portraits, UNC

(image copyright 2008 by Dan Routh)

Recently I had the pleasure of photographing Dr. Oliver Smithies, Excellence Professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in physiology/medicine. Dr. Smithies shared the prize with a UK scientist “for their discoveries of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells.” Smithies has been at UNC for 19 years and is the first full-time UNC faculty member to win a Nobel Prize.

At age 73, Dr. Smithies is also an avid pilot. He owns a Grob 109B motorglider that he often flies out of the Chapel Hill Airport. It’s sort of like a Piper or Cessna with really long wings. You can fly it like a small plane, or if the conditions are right, cut the engine and use it to soar. Dr. Smithies told me, “It’s not a great sailplane, nor is it a great airplane, but it is a lot of fun.”