Doris Ford’s Biography

Doris Ford is my name, and Photography is my Game!

Photography is my passion, and improving my photography and working in my Digital Darkroom consume most of my day except when traveling and taking more photos!

My first camera was a Brownie Hawkeye. No I haven’t scanned all the old photos, either negatives or slides–Maybe someday!

My current gear includes a Nikon D3, and a Nikon D300. For a pocket camera I took Ken Rockwell’s advice and bought a Canon S90, (www.kenrockwell.com). When flash is needed I use  SB-600 and SB-900 Nikon Speedlights.

Since HD video is all the rage I also spend time shooting movies with a Canon Vixia HF S100.

I print my photos with an Epson Stylus Pro 4000 using archival paper (quite often Luster) and archival inks.

I am a member of NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals, and continually work to perfect my skills through Kelby Training (kelbytraining.com), NIK niksoftware.com), lynda.com, and Creative Live (creativelive.com) training videos. I usually shoot in RAW and since Lightroom has come out I  tweak the RAW photos in LR and don’t use Photoshop unless needed.  I also rely on Lightroom to keep my thousands of photos organized.

Magazines to which I subscribe include Photoshop User, Layers, Digital Photo, Outdoor Photographer, and Shutterbug.

Helpful books include those by Scott Kelby: Adobe Photoshop CS4 Book for Digital Photographers,  his 7-Point
System for Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop CS4 Down and Dirty Tricks and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

Layers The complete Guide to Photoshop’s Most Powerful Feature by Matt Kloswski, Adobe Photoshop CS3 Top 100 Simplified Tips and Tricks, and Lessons in DSLR Workflow with Lightroom and Photoshop by Jerry Courvoisier were also helpful books.  Through the years I also have worked through several of the Adobe Series Classroom in a Book for Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Illustrator and InDesign. The Hands-On Training series and Digital Classroom books  have also been helpful. Martin Evening’s Adobe Photoshop for Photographers , Dan Margulis’ Photoshop LAB Color and Real World Compositing with Adobe Photoshop CS4 by D. Moughamian and Scott Valentine are great reference books.

For Improving  Photography skills:

Within the Frame The Journey of Photographic Vision by David duChemin is an excellent book.  Hot Shoe Diaries by Joe McNally and The Nikon Creative Lighting System by Mike Hagen are a must for improving the use of flashes.

In recent years I have concentrated on Travel Photography, but there are also many pictures of GrandChildren that have been added to my Lightroom Catalogs!  I sell my work on-line, and at Art shows in New Mexico .

With Photoshop CS5 new improvements have been added to 3D menu as well as HDR. I now have the choice of working with HDR using Photoshop, Photomatrix and NIK, with NIK being my favorite. I currently have HDR photos for sale, as well as displayed on 500px and Google +.

To be Continued;