I’ve had a busy summer, but I’m trying to get back into the habit of writing for my website PhotoHow2.com more often.

If you would like to read the latest on organizing your Lightroom library by deleting old files and on converting your raw format images to DNG, then have a look at the latest article.

Still, I persevered, holding the shutter open with my finger as the light faded.

I ended up with a bunch of shots that were either over or under exposed and which didn’t look the way I wanted them too.

After uploading the shots to my laptop I realized that I had what looked like a set of photos intended for HDR processing, so I dusted off Photomatix Pro and set to work stitching a few together to see how they would look.  I really like what came of my accidental HDR shoot (you can see the original on my Flickr site).  The moral of the story — even the worst day taking photos on the lake is better than the best day fishing.

Greg Aitkenhead Photography has been getting a few images out there in the last couple months.  I just found out that Curecanti National Recreation Area in Colorado decided to use one of my HDR panoramas (taken near Dillon Pinnacles) for the header image on the front page of the park’s website.

Also, Oprah magazine ran a very small, very round portrait of friend and author Christie Aschwanden for her contributor’s bio shot.  Oprah — imagine that.

One of my shots made it into “O”!

And this month Occidental Magazine, the alma mater publication for Occidental College, will run an article by Robyn Morrison about the March Fourth Marching Band.  Two of the band’s members attended Occidental, and I was lucky enough to have a chance to tag along to shoot portraits and three shows.

Last but not least, Wyoming Outdoor Council, an organization I admire, in part because it was founded by Tom Bell (who also started High Country News), but mostly because they do great work protecting Wyoming’s wild lands, picked up one of my shots for their 45th anniversary calendar.

But after another long round of searching the WordPress and OneDesigns.com forums for clues, and after subjecting my Minimatica test site to various plugins (if you’re running a Mac I highly recommend setting up a local MAMP server to test changes to your WordPress site before going live), I finally found Michael Clark’s Ultimate Category Excluder, and everything clicked. After excluding the “blog” category from the main page slider (or the “front” page) and labeling blog posts with the same category and a quick trip to Appearances>>Theme Options to change the Gallery setting to “Blog,” it was over. Time for a beer.

Here’s a quick rundown of some of the other methods I tried, in case you’ve tried to set up your website in the same way and don’t know why it didn’t work.

The first clue I followed appeared on Brandon Anderson’s website, Brandon Anderson’s Node On The Net.  His site was designed exactly like I wanted mine.  Clean and zen-like in its minimalism. Easy to navigate. His blog post on restricting the slider to certain categories sounded promising, but his code didn’t work. I’m assuming it has something to do with WordPress updates. Drat.

Then I found a Minimatica theme support topic at the main forum. I recognized the the code that Brandon had used, and that there was a lively discussion going on around only allowing certain items to appear on the front page slider, but again no dice (even after adding a snippet of code offered by Daniel, Minimatica’s designer). Again, all of the posts appeared pre-update, so I figured the problem with the code went too deep for me to decipher.

On page two of the forum discussion I found a reference to a plugin called “WP Filter Post Category” (I don’t want to provide a link because this one broke the test site).  I try to avoid plugins whenever possible, even though monkeying with code is not my forte. I’ve always felt like plugins were dangerous, break things, and might possibly contain malicious code. Still, I was desperate, and, once again, I was only monkeying with my test site.

Here’s what I did. After downloading WP Filter Post Category directly from Plugins>>Add New, activating it, and navigating to Settings>>WP Filter Post Category, I selected “featured” under Page>>Default Post Page and then just after saving the settings I noticed a note at the bottom of the plugin editor. “WordPress 3.1 introduced some changes that broke this plugin. In fact the shortcode stopped working. The plugin still works with WordPress 3.0.5 but if you need it for WordPress 3.1+ please upgrade at Filter Posts in Pages”

No problem. Tried it. Fail. For some weird reason the plugin seemed to kill the option in Settings>>Reading that allow you to select static pages. Those options just disappeared.

I checked out the provided link, but it took me to a page with the dreaded words, “Trail Version.” I know that code developers work hard on this stuff, but I just didn’t want to get that invested in figuring out this problem.

In the end the solution just came to me serendipitously, as solutions often do. Months of struggle seemed to waft off into the ether like a thin thread of smoke.  Lifehacker ran an article recently about how problem solving is sometimes improved by drinking and not getting enough sleep. I’m just sleepy, I promise.

And the big news this week is that a photo I took this summer of a friend and wonderful writer named Christie Aschwanden is being used as her bio shot for an article coming out in Oprah magazine!  Christie’s work is featured in a great blog called The Last Word On Nothing, in case you’re scientifically minded and looking for something entertaining to read.

Thanks for visiting the blog.  And please, have a look at PhotoHow2.com if you’re interested in learning more about how this website is set-up, or if you would like to find out more about using Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, or WordPress.

The photographs in this section of my web portfolio represent the types of images I create for myself.  Many of the photographs here got their start on my Flickr site, where new photographs face a real world test run, but a few are here just because they so closely matched my original vision.  In my eyes photography is art, and these photographs attain the overarching goal of my work–they capture thoughts with an image.

The Grand Canyon is famous for its monumental views, its awe-inspiring terrain, and its treacherous river running.  Working as a guide in the Grand Canyon, however, taught me to find stories in small details.  The guiding life also introduced me to a host of talented souls, including influential photographers like Kate Thompson and Allen Gilberg.  My interest in adventure photography springs up from a passion for the wild lands of the desert southwest and a respect for the people who know these places well.

“ Who will bear witness to these small islands and oases of wildness as land is divided and sold to become strip malls, housing developments, and parking lots?  What happens to the natural history here?  We must bear witness.” –Joni L. James

If you don’t own one already, buy a beat up old Toyota pickup truck (that way you won’t worry about the paint job), drive it out anywhere in the West, pick a dirt road at random, one that’s guarded by a cattle gate with a mustard colored BLM sign dangling loosely, have your passenger open the gate for you, wait patiently on the other side, and then drive until your two track road runs up on a canyon.  Park on the rim, look for a route down into the abyss, pack some water and bars, your camera, of course, and strike out.  Using my method may not guarantee that you’ll get that perfect landscape photograph, but at that point it won’t matter.

Landscapes aren’t static and flat–great landscape photography shouldn’t be either.  For me the message that landscape photography conveys must always work toward protecting the wild lands of the West.  Without a reference to protection, landscape photography falls short of finding true meaning.