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What's New Page 2005
September 1, 2005: The
"Light of Creation Portfolio" was release today. This is a "must-see"
offering.
March 23, 2005: I am extremely delighted to announce the release of "Light of Creation" multimedia presentation on DVD video. This unique presentation has been warmly received by audiences everywhere. Now you can order your own copy for viewing on your TV and home theater or directly on your PC. For a ton of information and free preview, please click here.
March 17, 2005:
The skills learned in landscape photography are now aiding in higher quality
prints with the astrophotography prints. The new Imacon scanner really does
wonders for the transparencies captured over the past few year. I am
beginning to revisit all of the images and have just posted a rework on
North America Nebula taken from
New Mexico Skies in May 2003. I hope you like the image and the print
looks very nice. Stay tuned for many more updates and new images to come.
December 29, 2004: Some OVAS
members took a trip to the East Kentucky Science Center today and here is a
brief review in the "Astrotours" section.
Merry
Christmas and Happy Holidays!
I hope this time of year finds you and your family with great
peace and joy.
December Print of the Month
, my first offering from the 4x5 camera:One of my motivations for becoming a landscape photographer was to capture the beauty of Appalachia and in particular my home state of West Virginia. This past autumn I visited the highlands of WV for two weekends looking for images that represent Appalachia. The Monongahela National Forest represents the rugged beauty that I associate with the Appalachian terrain. The December Print of the Month is my first entry into the “Appalachia Portfolio.” The photograph is of the Lower Falls of Hills Creek near the Cranberry Glades visitor center in the Monongahela National Forest. When on photography trips, once the light is softened by some clouds and mist, I think of waterfalls and that was just the weather for this photograph. The light was very soft and illuminated the falling hillside in a very pleasing way. The movements of the 4x5 camera allowed me to avoid including an intrusive branch that you see in many photos right in the middle of the falls. The falls are majestic and some 65’ in height. There are hundreds of stairs leading to the lower falls overlook which is somewhat challenging to the photographer with a heavy load. The Hills Creek area affords many great compositions and I hope to revisit the area in the spring. The print is a first in many ways; it is the first from my 4x5 camera, first scan with the new Imacon scanner, the first print from the new large format Epson 7600 printer, and the first print on a wonderful new mat paper, the Entrada Natural Mat by Moab. The colors of the print and the detail are remarkable with this paper/printer combination. I have experimented a great deal with papers and the Entrada Natural is a wonderful presentation of this image. I think you will delight in the color, detail, and overall composition that this beautiful setting has to offer. Matted prints are available from 11x14” to 30x40’.
Here is a direct link to the print:
Lower Falls of Hills Creek by Jeff BallArt in the Heart Walk: December 16, 2004:
Downtown Charleston, WV is developing a very attractive art gallery community. There are eight galleries with a wide array of art pieces. The walk is from 5-8 p.m. and offers the holiday shopper a great opportunity to buy a very unique gift. I will be at Distant Mesas during the art walk with the Navajoland Porftolio on display.
Distant Mesas Gallery Show-Navajoland Portfolio:
The Navajoland Portfolio is on display at Distant Mesas Gallery in downtown Charleston, WV. I am very excited by this as the gallery has some wonderful artwork from the Native American cultures in the southwest U.S. The portfolio show includes 5 framed pieces and 14 16x20” matted pieces of artwork. The portfolio includes photographs from Canyon de Chelly, Monument Valley, Montezuma’s Castle, Sedona, Antelope Canyon, and Page, AZ. I hope you can make it out for the art walk and I hope to see you there!
Distant Mesas
221 Hale St.
Charleston, Wv 25301
(304) 720-3287
Astrophotography Multimedia Presentation January 3, 2005:
On Monday January 3 I will be presenting a multimedia presentation featuring my astrophotography to the Charleston Camera Club. The presentation will include a digitally projected show produced with ProShow Gold featuring music by Michael W. Smith, Raphael, and Moby. I will also present some insight into astrophotography techniques. In addition, I will also have a portfolio of astrophotography prints in matted 16x20’. The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. and is held at the Dunbar public library. Directions can be found at the website of the Charleston Camera Club.
HYPERLINK "
http://www.charlestoncameraclub.com/" http://www.charlestoncameraclub.com/New Astronomy Images:
The Imacon scanner has caused me to revisit some astrophotography slides. The
Imacon does a wonderful job at capturing the natural color of the scene and has
helped make two particular images a bit more enjoyable. The images are of the
Orion Nebula area and the M24 region in the center of the Milky Way. The links
are below:
http://www.astro-photography.com/M24_300mm.htm
November 30, 2004:
Hello and Happy Thanksgiving and
Merry Christmas! The past few months have been very enlightening. I
have begun the study of 4x5 photography of landscapes. This has required
me to obtain a new scanner for 4x5 film. The scanner I have is the Imacon
Flextight III. The initial results were so good that I thought I would
look at some of my astrophotography slides with the Imacon. My first scans
are very encouraging. The color reproduction and dynamic range seem to
surpass what I was achieving with my Nikon 8000ED. This has caused me to
revisit my entire 6x7 slide portfolio. Please check back often for updates
or sign up for the email news alerts. More exciting announcements will be
forthcoming regarding the astrophotography portfolio. Here is the first
scan with the Imacon...the M24 star cloud area in the center or the Milky Way
galaxy.
http://www.astro-photography.com/M24_300mm.htm
July 20, 2004:
After seeing some h-alpha images of
sunspot 652, I decided to image with the digital camera after work on July 19.
It is a very nice size sunspot and worth checking out visually if you get a
chance.
http://www.astro-photography.com/ss652.htm
June 11: Venus transit from Myrtle Beach. What a great event. I hope you had a chance to view the transit of Venus across the solar disk on June 8. I was blessed to have a great veiw from Huntington Beach State Park in South Carolina. Here is my report.
http://www.astro-photography.com/venus_transit.htm
June 2:
We have had so many clouds, why not take pictures of
them. Here is the moon and clouds on Memorial Day.
http://www.astro-photography.com/moon_clouds.htm
May 21, 2004:
I will have prints on display for sale at two
upcoming astronomy gatherings. The prints will be available in many sizes
as well as matted or framed. I will also have a small collection of
landscape prints as well. Stop by the vendor area and check it out.
Here are the links to the events:
Laurel Highlands Star
Cruise June 14-21 (I am only able to be there on the 16th and 17th)
Greenbank
Starquest July 18-21
May 14, 2004: We
have been graced with a couple of nice comets lately. The most recent is
Comet C/2001 Q4 (NEAT.) Check it out in the southeast
at sunset. Here is more information and the link to my image with the
Canon 10D.
http://www.astro-photography.com/comet_neat.htm
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040423.html
April 29, 2004: Comet Bradfield graced our skies in April and I headed out to the Greenbank Telescope for a view. The image and page are here:
Comet Bradfield and GBT by Jeff Ball (digital)
Comet Bradfield and GBT by Jeff Ball (film)
April 22, 2004:
I have another rework from start to
finish. This is of my favorite part of the sky in Scorpius. The
color and texture in this area is unmatched in the Milky Way in my opinion.
What a glorious site this area is under a dark sky. I apologize for the
small image scale, but I am trying to manage download times and my ISP disk
space. I hope you enjoy the image. Prints may be obtained be
dropping me an email. Thanks.
http://www.astro-photography.com/scorpius.htm
April 20, 2004:
I am very honored to have an article
published on renown photographer and web publisher, Michael Reichmann's site,
The Luminous Landscape. The article is intended to be an introduction to
astrophotography for those individuals with a working knowledge of photography
in general. I hope you find the article useful and here is the direct
link:
http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/luminous-heavens.shtml
April 20, 2004:
I have added a link to probably the most important
website in my link library,
www.heavenly-light.com
Scott Hammonds has gathered
wonderful devotions accompanied by astrophotography by Christian astronomers for
a unique worship experience. Please take a few minutes to check out the
web site. I believe you will be blessed.
April 9, 2004: The next
image rework is of the M8 and M21 region. I am amazed at how much dust
and nebulosity there is in the center of the Milky Way. This is one of my
imaging goals, to present the Milky Way as a non-black object. It is a
very textured object with a great many subtle color variations. I hope you
like the new re-work. It looks wonderful in the 13" by 16" print.
http://www.astro-photography.com/m8_m20_traveler.htm
April 9, 2004:
Things change, don't they? The focus of
this website continues to be the sharing of God's beautiful creation with
others. The focus on final output has changed, though. At first, I
was happy with an image that looked decent on the screen. Now, nothing
compares to holding a fine 13" by 16" print of the Milky Way in my hand.
This is now the focus of the website, offering fine art prints of the glorious
Milky Way. How will this change the website? My criteria for posting
an image on this website is now: "Is this an image I will have framed and
hang on my living room wall?" If the image does not meet that criteria, it
will not be posted. There are numerous websites of cool and interesting
astronomical phenomena. This website is now dedicated to the final output
of a fine art print of the wonderful heavens above. I hope you find the
changes of value and let me know your thoughts. Thanks and best wishes.
April 3, 2004: Finally got to work on
some astro-photography after some intensive work in landscape. I am
rescanning and processing all shot from New Mexico and this is the first total
reprocess. I think the color and illumination are much better in the new
image of M24 and M17. I hope you like the new image. The web really
doesn't do the star field justice, the print looks very nice.
http://www.astro-photography.com/m24_m17.htm
March 4, 2004: The rework of the images from May
continues. Four reworks have been posted. One was performed with a
duotones process I am utilizing in some landscape work. I think the
process works well for those images that have a nice black and white look to
them. The new images are:
http://www.astro-photography.com/pipe_300mm.htm
http://www.astro-photography.com/pipe.htm
http://www.astro-photography.com/ngc7000_traveler.htm
http://www.astro-photography.com/pipe_duotone.htm
February, 28, 2004: Another rework of an image from New Mexico Skies in May of 2003. This image has been flat-fielded more appropriately which allowed for a little more ooomph to the image. I hope you like it:
http://www.astro-photography.com/rho_ophiuchus.htm
February 20, 2004: Many of the details for the upcoming astrophotography workshop have been announced. The event is at Sunglow Ranch in AZ and will be May 5-11, 2004. Plans are subject to small changes and more information is here.
http://www.astro-photography.com/sunglow_workshop.htm
February 16, 2004:
I revisited the recent Orion Nebulae image to work up
a better luminance channel. I used some new techniques for creating a
luminance with channel mixer and a combination of different mixes layered with
masks. I really like the grayscale version a little better. It also
helped make a better RGB. The grayscale is located here. I hope you
like it. Thanks.
http://www.astro-photography.com/orion_traveler_gray.htm
January 17, 2004:
I never really did justice to the beautiful Pipe
nebula area in my original enhancement. I have learned many new techniques
and thought it would be nice to reprocess my favorite summer time object.
The delicacy of the interaction of dark and light is particularly interesting in
this area. It also brings back fond memories of my time at Sunglow Ranch
in AZ in May of 2003. I hope you like the re-work of the image.
http://www.astro-photography.com/pipe.htm
January 13, 2004:
Discovering new astro-friendly films is a difficult
task. I have two friends who work for Konica and they presented to me some
Konica Centuria 400 about 1 year ago. I never had a chance to try the
film. Wei-Hao images from Hawaii and has some breathtaking results with
this film. I don't believe it is available from US retailers, but I am
working on securing a supply of this film. Here is a link to Wei-Hao's
website. In particular, check out the Milky Way from M16 to M24 and the
Tail of Cygnus shots. Great work!
http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~wang/
January 9, 2004:
I had a chance to check out a nice dark sky
at Grayson Lake State Park a couple of weeks ago. The slides had a little
uneven sky brightness to them and I used several techniques described in Jerry
Lodriguss' book to get this image to look half-way decent. It is of the
great nebulae in Orion. I hope you like the image.
http://www.astro-photography.com/orion_traveler.htm
January 1, 2004:
Happy New Year! I am getting around to processing some work over the past
couple of months. Remember playing Pacman? Well, he is in outer
space now. Here is an image of him or better known as NGC281.
http://www.astro-photography.com/ngc281.htm
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