About Me

 

My name is Jeff, but my friends call me "Jeffro" or "Fro" for short. The nickname comes from a job I had when I was 18, and my boss used to call me "Jeffro Tull." For some crazy reason, it stuck and has been carried on by friends both new and old... and now with all of you.

 

Around the same time I was given the nickname Jeffro, I also went on my first backpacking trip to climb Pyramid Peak. Pyramid Peak is one of the tallest mountains in the Lake Tahoe Region and growing up in the Sacramento and Placerville area; it dominates the skyline when you look East. As a result, I always dreamed of standing on top of it.

 

While growing up, my parents took my brother and me camping every summer to the mountains and coastline of California, Oregon, and Washington, along with some trips back to Wyoming to visit Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. My love for the outdoors grew with each trip... and when I turned 18 and started planning my outdoor activities, backpacking was near the top of that list, along with skiing. The more time I spent in the mountains... the more they called to me when I was away... and the more I wanted to return.

 

I have also always had an "artistic" side or some creative outlet. In Junior High School and High School, it was drawing and art. In college and for many years after that it became playing, producing, and writing music. Playing and recording music led to an opportunity to play in a local rock band which consumed most of my time for exploring the outdoors. In my mid 30's I began skiing and backpacking again. That was all it took to rekindle my addiction to the outdoors. The one difference was that now I had a compact camera and was taking pictures of all my outdoor adventures. Little did I know at the time that this would become my next creative outlet...

 

About My Photos

 

So, here I was running around in nature trying to capture the beauty from each new ridge, valley, or bend in the trail. I wasn't only trying to capture what I saw, but also what I felt. The outdoors always give me such a feeling of peace and tranquility. It's one of the few places where everything in life starts to make so much sense, and it gets stripped back to its most simple core. John Muir said it best,

 

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares drop off like mountain leaves."

 

If John Muir's quotes said it the best, then Ansel Adams was the one photographer I believe best captured those feelings. His black and white images capture the dramatic and peaceful feelings that I get when in the mountains.

 

Now, I'm sure that anyone who has bought their first DSLR camera has found out when you get back home and look at your pictures they often don't give you the same feeling as being there in person. This was exactly what I found when I would come home and review my photos. I kept asking myself the question, "How can I take better pictures that capture not only the scene's beauty but also the feeling of being there?"

 

I started reading and learning more about taking better photos and along the way learned that in the modern, digital era of photos, almost every picture requires some level of post-processing or editing. Researching post-processing techniques is when I stumbled upon the HDR work that Trey Ratcliff is doing on his website, www.stuckincustoms.com. As soon as I saw his images I felt like I was in a dream world. His images were so artistic, dramatic, beautiful, and had so much feeling. It reminded me of the first time I saw an Ansel Adams photo, only in color. I had to know more about how he created these images. Were they photos or paintings?

 

The truth is that they were photos, but shot and edited using a technique called HDR. HDR images, also known as High Dynamic Range is a way to overcome some of the limitations of a camera. Dynamic Range is why so many photos don't look as good as the image in our brain. The human eye can see many more ranges of light than a camera lens. Besides, with our brains, we can capture not only what the place looked like, but what it felt like. Even a camera's best image sensor and processor do not come close to how our eyes and brain can process images. What we can see and process through our eyes and brain simply can't be done with a camera and only one image. To solve these problems of digital photography is where HDR comes into play.

 

I don't want to bore you with too many details, but basically, with HDR images you are taking multiple shots of the same scene with different exposures and then using post-processing to combine them into one image. In essence, your brain and eyes are doing this for you when you are there in person. Our brains just do this so fast you don't even recognize it.

 

Learning about HDR images was the next major step for me, my art, and my photos. I now was armed with a way to create beautiful images that made me feel something and would generate the same "WOW" responses that I had when I was there in person. Most important though my images now felt like I could just jump through the picture and be back in that same place. Yes, they may not look "real" but do our memories seem real? What's wrong with creating images that look more like our dreams? If you ask me, nothing.