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Greetings,
Wow. We just went through the hottest, driest June that I can remember. The Palouse was HOT, but we had some really nice mornings.
And from what I've been hearing, wildflowers in the mountains are early, if they're out at all. Very little snow in the mountains this past winter so I'm not optimistic.
But I'm going to try to get to Hurricane Ridge this week to see for myself.
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Camera Flat!
My recent Palouse workshop was the first opportunity I've had to shoot with my D810 since Lightroom 6/CC came out. The first thing I noticed was that in Lightroom my images looked really flat and lifeless, like there was some sort of haze filter applied to all the images.
What happened is that the newest version of Camera Raw seems to be automatically applying a calibration profile named "Camera Flat" to the images.
By just changing the calibration, the image improved remarkably.
I've got more details over at my blog, including how to set up Lightroom to apply a specific camera profile upon import.
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Using your smart phone to add GPS data to your images.
 Also during my Palouse workshop, instead of turning on my handheld Garmin eTrex to collect GPS information that I would later match up to my images, I used my iPhone.
GPS coordinates are automatically added to any image you take with your iPhone, so my strategy was to import those iPhone images into Lightroom using the same destination settings that I use for my DSLR images. And since the date/time set on the camera is pretty close to the date/time set in my iPhone, this means that the iPhone images end up in the same folder as the DSLR images.
If I sort the images in Lightroom by "Capture Time", then the iPhone images will be very close to the DSLR images in the Grid view.
Hypothetically, all of this means that I could sync the GPS information from the iPhone images to the DSLR images and all the images would be tagged with the correct GPS location. Hypothetically.
Syncing the GPS info is easy. The accuracy of the GPS data embedded into the iPhone images is another issue. Those can be all over the map. Literally.
Using Lightroom's Map Module, I can see where each picture was taken. Or rather, where the GPS information shows where it was taken. This doesn't always work as expected. For example, images taken on the iPhone in just one location showed up in several locations on the map (out in the middle of a field, in the town of Pullman, on some road not even close to where I actually was…). Often the location was accurate too. I don't know how or why this happens; it seems to be a bit beyond the margin of error built in to GPS receivers. At any rate, the locations shown usually got me pretty close and I could then find the correct location by looking at the map. Good thing I've been to the Palouse as many times as I have.
Bottom line: if you want to try this yourself, take several pictures from the same location. One of them is bound to have the right GPS coordinates.
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Still time to sign up for the Auroras trip
 We're just a little over two months away from the second annual aurora photo tour adventure extravaganza. I just renamed it that. And there's still time to get signed up and get your airline tickets to Yellowknife.
After what we saw last year, I'm really looking forward to this year's trip. I want to try capturing some video of the auroras this time. If I can pull my jaw up off the ground long enough to think about it, that is.
And the trip isn't just about auroras. There should be some great fall color to photograph along with an impressive waterfall and forest scenes. And the town of Yellowknife has its own charms, especially the Old Town area and the cultural center.
Visit the Auroras tour page for all the nitty gritty extravagantic details.
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And now, a survey
I'm putting together my 2016 photo workshop and tour schedule and have a few questions. So if you've got the time and the inclination, I've got a short survey posted on my workshops site. It's less than a dozen questions and shouldn't take long at all. No longer than say, finding that lost lens cap at the bottom of your bag. During a night shoot. With frozen fingertips.
Seriously though, it's pretty short.
Take the survey here.
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Bailey isn't afraid
 Bailey isn't afraid of spiders. I am. She isn't.
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