047 Photography Tip of the Week (audio)

Eye to Eye

You do it.  I do it.  It’s especially noticeable during birthday parties and family gatherings.  As a photographer you want to be as mobile as possible getting every possible angle.  So you (and I) stand up while everyone else is seated.  Yeah we hover like photographic vultures looking for our next prey.  It’s natural, it’s easy, and it’s very much average.  Looking down on party goers puts you, the photographer, in a position of superiority.  It draws you above the scene and away from the action making your photos more or less snapshots that people will quickly flip through.

Here’s the challenge at your next party.  Sit down.  Sit down as if you’re just another attender and take your photos eye-to-eye.  Just like getting down to the level of your subject in portrait shots, with this point of view you remove your superiority and allow your photos to be ones that draw you in.  You do give up your mobility in favor of a vantage point that makes your photos more like being there.

When I searched for images I’ve taken that’s a good example of the wrong perspective, I couldn’t find any recent shots, so I had to take one at a party today.  This image is nice and close.  You have a well defined subject and action.  The image needs a bit of explaining but that’s not the problem.  The high point of view makes it average and easily skipped when someone looks through your shots.

One thing I like to do is to use my 50mm prime lens so I can get in close and blur out the background.  It also allows me to take shoots without a flash in most indoor lighting situations.  And sitting next to the birthday girl I can easily get great action shots.  Even though you can’t see the subjects eyes in either of these images being in an eye-to-eye level makes it easier to have more compelling images.

This shows how to adjust images in Adobe Camera RAW that will later be stitched into a panorama.

If you shoot RAW and take a sequence of images to be stitched into a panorama, you should do all of your color balancing and tweaking before you perform the stitch.  Once you perform the stitch, you can do some of the color balancing, but you lose the flexibility you have with the RAW format.  Earlier this week I took multiple shots of the sunset over the snow.  Below is that set of 8 images stitched together with no adjustment either before or after.

Now in Photoshop I’ve added various adjustments to try to push the colors to the saturation and hue that I saw that sunset.  But since I stitched before performing the adjustments I lost some of the light data so there are areas around the sun setting that are blown out that I can’t get back.

Here is the same panorama from the same set of images, but I performed all of the adjustments beforehand in Camera RAW and then stitched them together.  The result is a much more vibrant sunset and contrast that I couldn’t achieve the other way.

Later this week I’ll post a video showing how I achieved this look and what adjustments were done.  Then I’ll show you how to synchronize the images and get them ready to stitch.

046 Photography Tip of the Week (audio)

See with new eyes

How do you stand out in a crowd?  There was one time I served on a jury.  Right before the trial I sat back and watched a custody battle for a newborn to a twelve-year-old.  This was truly a sad case to have a preteen pregnancy.  The grandfather was there dressed to the nines wearing a trim and neat Armani suit and alligator shoes.  The grandmother was wearing a baby blue denim suit with yellow plaid cuffs, a bright red blouse and green galoshes.  She definitely stood out in the crowd.  I wish I had my camera because she was a sight to see.  Apparently the judge didn’t like what either of them had to say and awarded the custody to the great grandmother.  And to tell the truth I don’t remember what she was wearing at all.  But she was the one I should had paid attention too.

Sometimes we get into a rut and photograph based solely on what we have been taught or always follow the “rules.”  Today the snow finally stopped and I was ready to get up before dawn and shoot the landscape around my house with the pristine snow covering the ground.  I’ve done this the past several times, and I have some truly nice shots.  But today was different and I wanted to make sure I had different shots.  I wanted to shoot the snow from a completely different angle and in the process create a few images that told a story.  And I didn’t have to bundle up and trek outside to get the shots.

You see sometimes what seems ordinary and normal to you could be the different angle.  Most photographers would have gone outside, but I chose to do something different and shoot what I normally see.  The first is the snow covered backyard and fort.  I’m sure at some point the ground won’t be as pristine.  Since the shot is obviously taken from inside a house, it completely changes the mood.  If it were outside you would put yourself into the image and feel that bit of cold brushing against your cheeks.  But this doesn’t evoke that feeling since you are obviously inside.  You see the landscape and put yourself as a detached observer.

But I wanted something more and this shot gave me what I was looking for.  If I could sum up the emotion and message in this image it would be “Longing.” This is the same window and same scene, but with the girl looking out the window not only are you not cold, you now identify with her and put yourself in her position remembering back to when you were young and seeing the snow on the ground and being told that you had to eat breakfast and put on your clothes before you could go and play in the snow.

This final image is actually where I started.  I decided to use a boy’s messy room to my advantage.  I was looking for a contrast between the disorder of his room and the pristine landscape outside.  And I did get that shot, but it didn’t turn out the way I envisioned.  But then I noticed how the rays of the morning sun were streaming in through the window and I quickly moved and composed for this shot.  What caption would you give for this image?  Please leave a comment below.

As a photographer, at some point you need to take a picture of yourself.  If for no other reason you don’t have anyone else willing to be pictured.  But what do you do to make your pictures different?  Obviously you put something in the frame that you wouldn’t dare to put in anyone else’s pictures.  You may say that you wouldn’t dare to put yourself in someone else’s pictures, that doesn’t count.  You get setup and then you play.  In my case I have a wireless remote for my camera.  This cost about $9 and is much nicer than setting the timer and trying to run to get in the frame.  There’s about a 3 second delay before the shutter clicks so you can easily compose yourself and then you are ready for the next shot almost like you are shooting from behind the camera.
So here is the progression of my photos.  Almost like sitting in a photobooth.  As you can see I chose to have one of my umbrellas in the background.  I liked the idea of a bright umbrella, but I didn’t want it completely blown out so I changed the delay on my flash so it was in the process of lighting up when the shutter triggered.  I had to make sure there was enough flash on my face to balance out the shot.  You can work wonders in post processing, but if your subject is too dark you will get a lot of nose trying to bring out the detail.

This is the one I picked.  I have an alternate as well.  I don’t know that these are the be-all end-all of self portraits.  But they are the shot I conceived and implemented.  And that’s what’s important in this case.

Nah.  I like this one better… actually I got a better idea.  Great, now it’s time to do another set.