The Photography Tip of the Week #046

Posted by Philip in Photo Philosophy, Podcast

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.

Read More

Picturing Yourself

Posted by Philip in Photo Technique

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.

Read More

Backdrop stand on the cheap

Posted by Philip in General, Photo Technique

Photography as a hobby is one pretty expensive hobby.  As a business it’s a pretty expensive business if you really need some of the specialty gear.  I love the fancy new gear, but when it gets right down to it, how much of it do I really NEED.  So when I look a purchasing some new camera equipment, I look at it’s function and determine two things.
1) Do I really need it.  Not want, but actually have a need for it.
and if so
2) Do I need that particular product to fulfill that need or can it be achieved some other way.

I have several little construction projects I’ve done to create some of the things I needed.  I’ll show you some of them, but for today I’m going to show you my portable backdrop stand.   I really need this for portrait shoots.  But since I’m a “mobile” photographer I wanted something that was sturdy, transportable and didn’t require a ceiling for support.  So for about $12 I made my own out of PVC.  Couple that with a $9 set of clamps and I have a complete backdrop stand that breaks down into something I can easily carry and fit in the trunk of my car.  Here’s how I built it:

Required parts:
3/4″ PVC, enough to create 14- 3′ sections, 8-1′ sections and 4-2′ sections.
4-3/4″ elbow joints
12-3/4″ ‘T’ joints
This will make 2 3′x7′ grids that are sturdy enough to hold a full sized canvas backdrop and can be easily reconfigured to be portable light modifiers using standard twin sized fitted sheets.

Two stands bundled up.  Nerf Sword not necessary to construct stand.

One stand laid out on the floor.

The base setup.  There are several ways to make the feet, this is one of the simplest.  If necessary I weigh down one of the leggs to make the stand more sturdy.

Two stands side-by-side are 7′ tall by 6′ wide.  But they don’t have to be right next to each other.  You can easily put space between them to accommodate really wide backdrops.

The final setup.  The hand clamps are great because you can easily use them to pull out most wrinkles (not shown here.)

Read More

The Photography Tip of the Week #045

Posted by Philip in Podcast

045 Photography Tip of the Week (audio)

Catch that eye

In a previous tip, I stressed the importance of focusing on the eyes in portrait photography. Obviously having the eyes in focus is key. But there are secondary factors that greatly enhance the photo, kind of like adding salad dressing to a salad. Sure salads are great without dressing, but they are a lot more tasty with dressing. In much the same way we can add some salad dressing to our portrait photos using a catch light.

Catch lights are those bright spots and reflections you sometimes see in peoples eyes. They are the reflections of lights or brightly lit objects. These catch lights help draw attention to your subject’s eyes.  In most cases they are the brightest spots in your photos and thus draw attention.  To illustrate this I decided to take just one photo and show you the difference.  This girl was at a recent baby shower I shot.  She was very bright an cheery the whole time and this particular shot is how I would have normally processed the image in Lightroom or Camera Raw.  You can see the brightness even in her eyes.
If you zoom in close you’ll see that the catch light is extremely small, because it’s coming from a small bounce card on my flash.  Even such a little hot spot is enough to give you that sense of reflection and moisture that makes you realize that she is a very real and vibrant child.
Now I’d like to show you the same image, processed in such a way to downplay the highlights.  I’ve even removed the catch lights from her eyes.  The bright and cheery personality that was captured originally, suddenly becomes rather creepy and disturbing.  If I showed this image to a hundred people they would have that same sense that something was odd about the photo, but they won’t know what.
If you look at the closeup, there is nothing that stands out as being incorrect or inaccurate about the eye.  It just looks rather flat.  The eye no longer shows any depth.  So if you are noticing that your portrait style photos are lacking  depth and seem flat, add a bright light source in such a way to create that important catch light.  In a future blog posting I’ll go into different ways of creating catch lights of different shapes and sizes.  So keep a lookout on the site for that added bonus.

Read More

Pano from the past

Posted by Philip in Old Photo Critique

Wow.  I was looking through some old digital photos and found a pano I did back in June of 2002 in Shenandoah, VA.  This was taken with my handy Olympus D360L.  That was my first digital camera.  I got it because of it’s really good low light sensitivity (for that point in time) and the fact that it ran on regular AA batteries.  It was incredibly slow to respond when you hit the shutter button, but for a point and shoot it had what I was looking for, wonderfully clear and bright photos.

Even though this was shot midday, there are a few positive points about the photo.

1. It’s nicely framed between the rocks on the right and the sharp drop-off on the left.
2. The clouds made some interesting shadows on the mountains.
3. There is a lot of contrast.
4. The subject is clear… sorta.  In this case I see the subject to be the valley on the left.  The flow of the image takes you that direction.

All-in-all this makes for a good landscape photo, even from a 1 megapixel camera.  What would make this better?  More foreground elements.  You can’t tell if the viewer is standing or flying.  What do you think?  Please feel free to comment below.

Read More