Hello and thank you very much for listening to this episode of the Billy Newman Photo.
Yeah, this summer I've been trying to do a lot to work to get together some new photos, some new stuff to try and kind of build a base and then move from there a little bit, but I'm really excited to try and put up a bunch of the older portfolio photographs that I have and I was really happy to work on the website a lot this summer I kind of redesigned a bit of that. You check that out. Tell me what you think of it's a billion human photo. the Instagram stream so I'm so I'm trying to.
And adjust that into the website so I don't have to do it as much. And that's kind of been fun actually, or it's kind of been cool doing that. But the thing that I need to do, the part that it's still left is I need to go through my photo portfolio, kind of the long-term portfolio of images I have, and I'm trying to go through and select what would be good to show the work that I've done so far.
So in one level I'm trying to find all those photos and then I'm trying to sort of remake those photos or re-edited them or you know kind of republish them in a way that looks sort of new and that's cleaned up a little bit in the way that I can I can edit and create stuff now so part of the step is that and then the other part is to sort of learn what people like of the photos I make and then I want to go out and try and try and try and try and try and dig.
That's a part that I'd really like to get into and push for more of what seems to be a draw, the photos that I take. But on the other side of that too, I really want to do more fine art photography. That's what I really liked and was kind of drawn into when I first started taking photos. Even way back on film, before I knew how at all. But I really like the fine art side of it where you could go through and try and put the nicest elements together,
Has been interesting. So I'm trying to use this program called Scrivener and maybe I talked about it before or maybe a while back I talked about it but Scrivener is kind of interesting. It's this and I talked about it yesterday now but it's this writing application that I'm trying to get into and it seems like it would take a few I've learned it. It's more specific to the essay format of word processing. We're trying to get a page accomplished and you're trying to edit.
To sort of assemble a larger writing project from there which I think is kind of interesting like I'd figure like book authors would use a writing program like this to work on their character outlines and their story outlines their plot summaries and then they would work that into the little bit to see which photographs really seem to connect with me or connect and connect with an audience the most.
The ones that you can make money from like let's say portraits let's say business portraits for some company could get you could get some money for that but you wouldn't really want to post that in your portfolio of work necessarily you'd want like at least in my case what I'd like to do is show some photos from the you're sort of stuff that's all going to be on one side of it and then the other is going to be you know senior.
Time it's sort of like two different routes that you have to work on at the same time until they sort of merge together and unify. So it's kind of an interesting part of it and that seems to be part of the process that I've been right now is trying to figure out stuff out. So some weeks it's I'm working really hard on the aesthetic side of the photography and then some weeks I'm working really hard on the last couple of years so I can organize those and do a little bit of what I'm talking about so I have this kind of tighter collection to maybe the top 100 top 200 top 50 some number in there of well laid out.
Photo essays and stories with an image. You know, that's kind of what I'm trying to get to, especially for like the social media content side of it. I want to try and have that ready to go with a higher frequency almost all that time. So I'm trying to get everything kind of pre-produced, right? So that makes sense. When all the portfolio photos, pre-selected, over to Instagram. I think that's where most of the stuff goes. That's where all the current content goes anyway too, so it's fine. And, um, up on who...
You can see more of my work at Billy Newman Photo.com. You can check out some of my photo books on Amazon. I think you can look up Billy Newman under the authors section there and see some of the photo books on home on the desert, on surrealism, on camping, cool stuff over there.
Really trying to do a lot of scouting stuff which I've enjoyed too doing some scouting stuff through the summertime has been pretty cool where I'm really trying to go through some of these back roads I'm trying to like mark spots on the map where there's good campsites which I hadn't really done before you know there's a lot of places I've driven a lot of a lot of roads especially you know like backcountry to check out that area and stuff but I think there's been or at least when at least when I was I was a.
The difference between National Forest Land and BLM land or National Park Land and State Park Land or wilderness areas, national wildlife refuge areas. Man there's just so many different distinctions of different things and then also just private property so I didn't really have a clear recollection of any of those things and really a lot of time when it's public land you can go on it but there's some things you can't do on it like to draw a tag for that location I think that's what it is but yeah it's kind of interesting so learning about that learn how these things go and also finally getting.
Can do and I don't I mean have had those map books you know like that that 50 page or 100 page book of Oregon and you know every every page is a 25 mile map of that area is always super useful how they kind of grid out everything and show you the you know the mile by mile marking and the topography of the area the different little roads and stuff but even those it was in between private and public lands.
Land that's more managed and some of it cuts back into BLM land as this little road sort of meander through it but I remember being out there and noticing that the map on the page was just totally different than the map or than you know the real world ground truth of where the road went and I thought oh wow you can't really trust the maps to show you the information that you want to see when you know you'll see like it shows there's a road right here.
And I think it's a natural process of erosion that occurs that creates these waves in the material you know as I think as a rainwater comes down it's sort of naturally over time generates these these little ripples and that's the washboard effect that you get when you're driving. That's also the thing that kind of kicks your car sideways and I threw it into four-year drive after that and I was able to cruise around out here pretty freely.
So I walked around and kind of went along the perimeter of the meadow and then I noticed that, you know, I mean it's cloudy, it's been kind of cloudy today and there's been thunderheads that have been building up over the location that I've been ever since I kind of came over the past of the Cascades. I've been in like a pretty solid string of thunderheads that have sort of coalesced into big mass over the cascades. Some of it here over the Fremont National Forest, whatever mountains these are these are, what these are that I'm in the mountains these are that I meant,
And years probably you know where it just kind of stays and hangs and rolls for 10 seconds 15 seconds it seems like you know you just really count like whoa is can it really still be just cracking and rumbling and rolling and there was enough activity enough lightning activity that was going on there where you'd hear if you're at these higher elevations I think I'm floating around up in the I don't really understand the weather enough say I know how a thunderstorm starts or doesn't start.
Now. I'm just gotten cold enough. I'm trying to throw a jacket on. I know. You got to lift through it. I'm really camping. It's been good. But I'm going to be out here for two nights I think is what I'm going to do. And then I'll cruise out and I'll try and hit some of these forest service roads for a bit. Drive around, do some of these I think it's a drainage over from here from here.
I've been working a lot with this 17 to 40 millimeter wide angle cannon lens and it's a pretty inexpensive lens that you can get it for like 400 bucks maybe a little less if you're lucky and you get it on a sale time sometimes in the fall as they're kind of ramping down toward That was interesting to get a new set of photographs. That was interesting kind of learning about how specific they wanted all those those photographs, those.
How much I can do with that wide angle lens and then you know 40 millimeters isn't different than 50 millimeters it's certainly different for the effects of portraits and stuff but when I'm out here doing landscape stuff and I'm trying to take pictures of a lot of this stuff is kind of sketch photos too where I'm sort of going around in midday I'm taking some photos of things I want some camp photos in my truck and my little cooler setup in the back here. I would do that really because I was.
I was really trying to get as much effect out of that bouquet, out of that soft background as I could. So I was really trying to lean into that and get some photos with it. And I noticed with my camera equipment at the time that it just looked better. It just did look better when it was at, you know, F-1-8. I think I just had that nifty-50 Nikon, 50 millimeter for the longest time, that's what I did my early trips on that.
Little fatter that are bonded together in this little plastic pack and then you pop that in there and shoot for a little while I guess and it runs a meter okay so I'm I'm getting by with it but I've noticed the film camera stuff it's it's fun to have an the variety of the variety of lenses I can do tell the photo I can do I can do, I can do really wide angle, all with the modern digital cannon lenses that have, you know, chips in them that read well, that meter well, that make contact with the, or the send information back and forth, or at least from the lens to the camera thing. That works, that works in the autofocus stuff for the digital camera. This is, this is autofocus, so yeah, it's an autofocus digital camera,
That's something I didn't really have available to me for a long time you know I think when I've found this podcast if you go way back in the archives I'm talking a lot about film with a Nikon F4 you know I mean I just had auto focus I was the first camera I like 88 to get autofocous period so it's cool to have that in a more flexible way now but what I'd remember talking about in the past a lot was that I had like limited options with glass a lot of time I didn't really.
So that I'm not really carrying as much stuff with me. I've also started carrying them, like when I'm out here in the woods and stuff, I'm carrying a binocular harness with me, which is kind of cool. You can get them in different sizes, but it's sort of, if you imagine, like a backpack, but what they do is they strap on to the front, so it's right on your chest. And what you can do is fill, like a pair of your binoculars, and pop them back into your, into your harness, into your harness, into your harness, into your harness, into your harness, into your harness, into your harness, into your harness, into your harness,
Travel where I just have to pack everything in and weight's going to be something I'm more conscious of then I think that's really like the way to go as I was almost nothing as it is anyway but but if you're carrying like an SLR or something that you want to try and do some.
An A6,7, 7R3 or whatever it is, something that size with a lens attached to it, you know, that could fit in one of these binocular harnesses, harnesses and carry kind of right on your front. And then, oh, you see something, you want to take it, pop that open right on your chest, pull it right up to your eye, it's ready to shoot, and you can take photos, you know, as quick as you want to, so. It's kind of a cool process.
With that's worked really good and it's been a pretty flexible kit for me to go around and take a bunch of photographs with so pretty easy pretty lightweight to work with and I can kind of move back and forth between those things strapped around my neck around my neck you know it's not everything just hanging around my neck with a lanyard it's all kind of put somewhere that's how they do it you know when you get those like magazine photos back in the day of.
It was like a dark out you know or pretty dark out so they'd set the camera up for just a cycle of long exposures and then they would just kind of let it ride you know so they'd have a couple seconds to expose the image to whatever you know would work and then they was kind of have that it's just cycling the shutter on a four-second exposure let's say something like that and so you know it takes a four-second.
Going to wait for this event in the future when we boom, see a lightning bolt, and then that light then exposes the sensor or the film and the camera. And then you're left with an image that has that lightning bolt represented in the frame when you're shooting on a tripod or something like that, with like a short cycle long exposure. I thought that was pretty cool. But I didn't really get a chance to get all that stuff set up before the storm kind of pass me by.
So I got some photos of the thunderheads the sunset the big field out here it's cool it's a nice area But I was also thinking about Some of the other stuff that I want to be doing tomorrow so I'm out in the Fremont National Forest Beheaded I think maybe south from here and I'm gonna try and explore a couple areas that are still open this whole area the northwest is is is just there's a lot of public land.
Terrain and stuff with some good notes and I'm able to kind of move around and get out to a lot more places than I have for so it's been cool. The app that I'm using is the on X off road app. It's I think 2999 a year and so I pitched that out picked up this app and then you can download that is supposed to show you all the trails, you know, all the roads, all of the like the pieces of information you'd need for kind of moving around in the backcountry and really as surprising as it is as out, fill in the pot holes, all that sort of stuff.
These areas are known about and manage in a pretty significant way. In fact, I think more so to come in the future. I think they just have announced yesterday or the day before that I think part of my understanding is that it's supposed to change some of the funding mechanisms that go into supporting the maintenance of these public lands that are out here across the country, but really significantly out here in the Western states.
I think they've said three billion dollars a year of mandated funding for projects.
I think here in the backcountry, BLM land, forest service land and like national wildlife refuges and stuff. So pretty cool, but yeah, I think that's gonna, well maybe we'll see a change in that. I think it's supposed to better fund the operations of BLM and Forest Service people as they're going through I'm not sure at all. But it's pretty cool. I'm excited about being out here and doing some camping and stuff, dealing with this thunderstorm. I think it's one, I think it's one of those things,
Podcasting I'm in the back of my truck right now. Like I was saying, it was raining earlier after the thunderstorm. So I got that canopy on my truck and I'm nice and dry and nice and warm. I'm ready to go. So I've been having a good time out here and I don't know. It's been a pretty good trip so far. So I appreciate you guys checking out this podcast from me. I'm gonna do a couple more podcast while I'm out here on this camping trip and I'll try and I'll try and set up a little backlog of them on my.
Tried to put together which is maybe what I'm going to try and do out here too. I'm trying to photograph part of the good book. You can check out more information at Billy Newman Photo.com Newman Photo. If you receive some value out of some of the stuff that I was talking about, you're welcome to help me out and send some value my way through the portal at Billy Newman Photo.
So I've been checking out the IPFS network. I've been talking about it a few times before here on the podcast, but it stands for interplanatory file system. It's kind of a cool way of sort of creating a distributed hash table. I don't know how works. It's something that works like a distributed network, which is pretty cool. It's kind of interesting. So I downloaded it on a couple computers here at home and I was trying to use this key to.
The IPFS stuff is pretty interesting. I've been trying to put up some media stuff onto that over the last couple of days. I've been using a site called D-Sounds. audio and I'm trying to upload a bunch of MP3 files of my podcast. And it's just kind of interesting to check it out. But yeah, it looks like a lot like SoundCloud or something when you'd use it, but instead of any of those...
They exist distributed across the world, United States. I don't know how far it's really distributed yet, but those files are distributed on different computers so it can be reproduced from different areas of the network. It's interesting, I don't know, I'm kind of curious how it works out. I'm also using this video program or a video website called D.2, I think is what it is. It's supposed to really just be like a YouTube clone and it works pretty well.
Free, it's crypto, decentralized. It's really, it's interesting, like when you log in, you don't really even use your email address or anything like that. It's just, it's just cryptographic key that you log in with, and that's like your account data. And if, and no one has it, so if you lose it, then it's gone, and it's kind of cool checking it out out. You can kind of upload media like you would on YouTube or something, it's a little slower, it's a little slower, it's n't. now and it's going fine, but I think it's a little bit slower than maybe some of the other like YouTube or something like that. If you're uploading a 10 ADP video, it'd be more robust as a service. This is definitely like something. Some piece of the internet that's being made by people like you with me. So it's kind of cool that it works at all, really. But yeah, I think these D. T. T. T. T. sounds sites are going to be kind of interesting, media players,
But just interesting kind of media side features that I think are kind of interesting as people are starting to maybe consider moving away from centralized services like Facebook and Microsoft and Apple and Amazon and all that. So yeah, it's kind of thing Google, Google and all that, but it's cool trying to check out I think it's like, you can you can download sort of a lower resolution, you it's a.
Buy stuff a lot though too I think of the way the service works I was also trying to check out this thing called the YouTube dash D. L which was like a YouTube downloader so I was trying to go through and download some of the videos that I had on YouTube but that I don't really have like the same same clips from on my computer so it's cool I don't know but go through it's like it's like.
It's also cool too, I guess you can just, you can publish websites to the IPFS hash tables also. Like if you write like a static HTML site or an HTML site or an HTML site, I guess you can package that and then upload that and you will have a web link to go to that this uh, this uh, this photo sharing website that I was checking out, which is kind of cool. It's still, all these are still in alpha. I was having hard.
But I'm going to try and use steepshot.io to get you doing some stuff too. That's another distributed photo sharing site which is kind of cool uses the I think I think when you post a photo it posts it to the blockchain ledger This is still sort of something that's out of my depth it seems to me but I think it's kind of cool that yeah you're able to do stuff like that yeah you're able to do stuff like that and yeah put up on the web on the web and download it from the web whatever really going through centralized.
I'm going to do. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.