Posts Tagged ‘photography’
Rated ‘Triple S’: A Stroll on the Strange Side
Lara Zankoul & Naeema Zarif (Photo credit: CC Beirut)
We get the week underway with our weekly Stroll on the Strange Side with this ‘Triple S’ post, beginning with the . . .
Spooky!
Yesterday, ‘confirmation’ of ghostly activity was reported in a tavern in New Jersey. The connection to this blog is that you can view it! Click the link to read about and see an ‘orb’ bounce around and run down a hallway. Make that two – you can see two different videos of orbs on the move.
The writer of the article, Kelly Roncace, is a professional ghostbuster of sorts (“paranormal investigator,” to be politically correct) and she says: “a certain traveling, flashing ball of light that was captured may be the real thing. . . definitely an energy orb.”
We’ll take that with a pinch of something else beginning with ‘S’ . . .
Surreal
Lara Zankoul ain’t no ghostbuster; however, she must be a devotee of Dali and Magritte, for she’s that rarity among photographers: a Surrealist.
Lebanese newspaper Al-Shorfa ran an interview with the winsome Miss Zankoul but, unfortunately, they do not do her talents justice: only one photograph adorns the interview.
Not a problem: Zankoul has a portfolio online and it’s a Surrealist sensation.
She has a whole section on ‘Tea cups’, a bigger and better one called ‘Expressions’, and a few images of levitating persons and one of a very unfortunate girl who woke up in the wrong place.
Amazingly, Zankoul does all this as a hobby – and, man, that’s just surreal!
Shadowy
Transitioning from colourbursts to shades of grey – make that shades of black, shadow black:–
Photographer Romain Laurent says that his “series is about the ‘surreal impression’ he felt while walking around on pitch black streets for hours over several nights,” in A Study of Shadows in Manhattan During the Blackout.
This third element of our weekly ‘triptych’ of a kind unites the first two elements: not only are Laurent’s photographs about ‘surreal impression’, they are downright spooky, showing the ghostly side of what appears to be a modern-day ghost town.
A couple of the photographs here, such as this one, are genuinely top-class, evocative, well-balanced images in their own right and that should not be overlooked as a consequence of their novelty appeal or because they are part of a themed set.
Enjoy our ‘Triple S’ Post!
Attention Newbie: A Trio of Tutorials to ‘Up’ Your Game
Today we feature a trio of somewhat related tutorials that are bound to ‘up’ any newbie’s photographic game.
A short and sweet how-to on DPSchool explains how you can nail sharp close-ups every time. The first of three tips Steve Berardi provides has to do with contrast. If your subject and background differ sharply in contrast, the subject will ‘pop’ and, as a result, the image will look sharp.
Next, every lens has an optimal aperture, shooting at which you can attain maximal sharpness for that lens. Finally, Berardi advises that the camera’s sensor be kept parallel to the subject, i.e. the camera should not be tilted or be at an angle to the subject.
ePHOTOzine offers and equally to-the-point tutorial for dog-lovers. Though it offers a couple of tips you can use to make cute portraits, such as lighting and exposure, the emphasis is on capturing action shots of dogs.
Besides providing predictable tips such as shutter-speed, this how-to instructs you to rope in some family members to call or play with the dog so you’re left free to concentrate on capturing the key moment. Another technique is to predefine or anticipate a plane of focus a la athletic photography, and snap the shutter when the dog enters the plane.
Take an ultra-sharp photo of your romping pet by combining what you learnt in the above two tutorials – or perhaps we’ll let Paul Burwell furnish pinpoint advice in Making Sharper Wildlife Photographs.
Practice makes perfect is not an oft-heard tip but that’s precisely what Burwell prescribes in telling photographers to get acquainted with their tripod heads and mounting so that when a kingfisher swoops, you snap – or, rather, squeeze: eliminating the least jerk from your shutter-press so that your action is a swift yet gentle squeeze was one of the key tricks to being able to take handheld photos with low shutter-speeds in the old days when lenses had no stabilizers, and Burwell recommends it to this day.
A counter-intuitive tip to dampen camera vibrations with body weight is also on offer. Now this is one you’ll probably have to practice.
Indeed, every newbie would be well advised to practice, and put into practice, all the diverse tips and tricks these three tutorials provide.
Spotlight on Competitions and Contests
English: Canon EOS 5D digital SLR camera with Canon EF 24 mm f/2.8 lens Suomi: Canon EOS 5D -digitaalijärjestelmäkamera Canon EF 24 mm f/2.8 -objektiivilla (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A few days back the winners of the 56th World Press Photo Contest were announced. See them all on The Darkroom.
World Press Photo is one of the most prestigious photo contests and it is heavily contested by many of the best photographers around the world. A novice’s chances of winning it aren’t exactly bright. Not to be despondent though: today we’re ‘shining a spotlight’ on competitions and contests.
We list several below with a new twist: the heading identifies what you can walk away with should you win that contest!
Before entering any contest/competition, please carefully read its rules and conditions of entry to avoid disappointment.
Pro Camera equipment worth R185,000
That’s an EOS 5D Mark III, 24-105L lens kit with selected accessories, an EF 70-300mm f4-5.6 L IS USM lens, and a Pixma Pro 9500 Mark II pigment inkjet printer for the winner plus fabulous prizes for two runners-up! The prizes are from Canon and the competition is hosted by Sunday Times. This competition is “for South Africa’s best wildlife and nature photographers” and, though the subject can be “anything environmental,” “judges will be on a special lookout for authentic work of less common wildlife and fascinating landscapes.” It is open until 10th December.
Extreme outdoor photography clothing and a two-man hide
The prize of a hide (besides jacket, trousers and gloves) suggests wildlife photography; however, the topic of this competition is broader: the ‘Great Outdoors’. Though you can submit a photograph of a Siberian Tiger on the hunt, photos of “a day out at the seaside” are just as acceptable. The prize is courtesy of Stealth Gear and their ‘Great Outdoors’ Competition is open until 28th February.
Sony NEX-5R compact system camera
Not a bad prize on offer from Chromasia and Goodman Business Parks for their architectural photography competition. Now do you think you’d have an advantage if you entered a photo of a building managed by Goodman?(!) You can submit your photograph of an architectural marvel until 25th February.
Nothing . . . well, ‘Publicity'(!)
If “email marketing, 70+ press release announcements, 75+ event announcement posts, extensive social media marketing and distribution” plus backlinks to your website appeal to you, enter Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery art competition. Photographers can compete with illustrators to depict “‘Nature’ [which] is considered to be anything that was not created by or has been substantially altered by man.” Closing date: 24th February.
The Holistic Photography Approach of Ben Evans
Ben Evans presents, not a tutorial, but, an unusual analysis and a partly philosophical approach in what he calls ‘Holistic Photography,’ published on DPSchool.
Evans’s philosophical bent is made evident by sentences such as “The world is apparently 4.54 billion years old” and “If we were content with what the world presented us with, we would still be living in caves.”
As you read Evans’s article, you may well conclude that he ‘overthinks’ it. Bear in mind that his contribution is an analysis-cum-approach to give a photographer a fresh perspective on our art-cum-science . . . having said which one may as well state that the article opens with exploring the polarity between art and science that some photographers – according to Evans – are wont to fall prey to.
Several questions and position-points demonstrate how and why a strong leaning either toward science or art is taken by a photographer, and how and why it is worthwhile to fuse the two into, shall we say, a ‘holistic’ approach.
Evans says that this can be done “by providing a structure, the Quartet” which comprises of “the Idea, the Light, the Composition and the Timing.”
This structure is nothing if not thorough. Even Composition is subdivided into two parts; ‘Command’ and ‘Significance’. Command can be considered the ‘hard’ and scientific aspect of Composition whereas Significance is the term for the ‘soft’ and subliminal cues in the Composition. When broken up like that, one is provoked into putting in more careful consideration into the act of composing – but one may also run the risk of over-analyzing or overthinking a simple, natural opportunity.
Consider this: over and above a division between art and science, which Evans identifies, many photographers are gravitated toward, and have a bias for, one or another component of Evans’s ‘Quartet’! Indeed, some famous photographers are renowned for their magical lighting (did someone say Adams?) while others are celebrated for ‘capturing the moment’ (Timing) (did someone say Cartier-Bresson?)
Because of this fact – notwithstanding Evans’s advocacy of holism – each photographer may find something in the ‘Quartet’ to expand his/her understanding of his/her own particular liking or bias!
Sentimental, Solitary, and Sunrise Galleries
Sunrise over Stonehenge on the summer solstice, 21 June 2005 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Let’s take in three very different kinds of galleries all beginning with ‘S’: a Sentimental fad that’s catching on; next, a Solitary road trip; and third, a Sunrise ‘Best Of’.
Sentimental: “Dear Photograph”
If you haven’t heard about Dear Photograph yet, you would soon have. This (sickly?) sentimental site is becoming a popular fad to the extent that prestige publishers Taschen have published a book about it!
Dear Photograph quotes TIME as saying, “that idea is taking a snapshot . . . and holding it up against the original setting so that past and present blend into a new work of art.” That description is mostly correct except for the last three words as ‘art’ is nowhere to be found though navel-gazing and self-indulgence are found in abundance.
Wait for the owners of the site to whip it up a la Instagram and then cash out with a multimillion-dollar sale to Google or the like!
Solitary: Slicing across America
Unlike Dear Photograph which boasts about art, The Great and Ghostly American Road Trip, shot by Walker Pickering, does not. Yet it’s infinitely more artistic than Dear Photograph. Consider this moody image of this bit of America frozen in time.
If that’s not to your taste, how about a barren, lonely store coloured powder-puff pink against a backdrop of a dark night? If you’re looking for people, you won’t find any in Pickering’s photographs of a deserted American countryside where you will find a caged, captive vending machine.
Dear Photograph also quotes TIME as using the word “evocative” for itself. Look at ‘American Road Trip’ and see whether that word is better applied to the photos in this gallery.
Sunrise: Fine Photography
Those words, “. . . work of art” – though one cannot find that in Dear Photograph you can find a few in ePHOTOzine’s Ten Top Shots taken at Dawn. Here are three favourites. First, this one of waters that seem to be both soft yet raging depending on where you look, in an image has leading lines, contrast, textures, and foreground and background interest.
This gallery is mostly about light, of course, considering that the subject is dawn. Here, though, is a colour photograph with a very narrow set of tints or a limited palette that entices the viewer into the scene. Again, leading lines have something to do with beckoning us into this misty dream.
Dawn (and twilight) is about the ‘Blue Hour’ and the hour after that is the ‘Golden Hour’. Here’s a photograph that captures the transition from one to other. While the sky and the light is clearly a cool blue, the horizontal rays of the rising sun impart a golden radiance to the earth and rocks to create a photograph of delightful ‘cleanness’ and clarity.
The Good, the Mad, and the Chuckly
This post has nothing to do with Spaghetti Westerns starring Clint Eastwood; it’s about a troika of articles on PetaPixel which make up our (near-)weekly set of all that’s quirky and offbeat in Photography News. This week: The Good, the Mad, and the Chuckly.
The Good
Ethereal Macro Photos of Snowflakes is about the unusual and marvellous art of Russian photographer Andrew Osokin.: photgraphing individual snowflakes.
‘Ethereal’ is the word for captures like this one, straight out of Fairyland. PetaPixel assures us that no trickery is involved, stating that all images are macro photographs.
You’ve heard this before, now see it for yourself: isn’t the wondrous breadth and diversity in the tiniest aspects of nature breathtaking? Compare this intricate detailwork to the delicate fragility seen in this snowflake, both crafted by a master lapidary. Thanks to Osokin for preserving fleeting, ethereal beauty.
The Mad
Is Kerry Skarbakka mad? After all, he photographs ‘self portraits’ in the act of . . . falling! If asking whether Skarbakka is ‘mad’ sounds rude, consider that PetaPixel writes, “. . . you find yourself worrying about Skarbakka health… and sanity” in Photographer Shoots Scary Self-Portraits.
The opening shot shows a man in midair falling off a toppling stepladder!
Here too little Photoshopping is involved: “His trick is that he uses climbing gear, ropes, and other rigging in order to stop his fall before his body actually makes painful contact with the ground” but “when all else fails, he admits to editing out glimpses of his safety gear during post-processing.”
The man’s talents are not limited to photography and falling, he’s a trick cyclist and apparently he can levitate too. Let’s say ‘goodbye’ to Skarbakka with this fine suicide shot.
The Chuckly
Trust New York and New Yorkers to do wacko things that would make the rest of us (more normal people, shall we say?) chuckle and giggle.
Evidently the whole business of not-so-well-heeled diners at Noo Yawk’s de luxe establishments taking quickie snapshots of their entrees and then posting the results on Facebook or wherever is totally out of control now. So much so that several New York restaurants are banning the practice, as reported by PetaPixel in Upscale Restaurants are Starting to ban Food Photography.
That story piggybacks on an NYT story, Restaurants Turn Camera Shy which reports a spokesman as saying, “It’s reached epic proportions. They don’t care how it affects people around them.” He has a point; such behaviour is unmannerly. Throw the bums out!
May Ronen Goldman ‘Live in Interesting Dreams!’
Let’s pay a visit to the René Magritte of Photography: an unique photographic artist, Ronen Goldman.
Goldman is not, per se, a great photographer; he’s a great creator of situations, sets, scenes, tableaux, most of which are, let us say, ‘dreamlike’. How does he do it? All he does is translate his dream into reality – and then photographs it! Haven’t you always wanted to do just that?!
The slumberous inspiration for the photographs gives rise to the project’s name: The ‘Surrealistic Pillow’. Here is where you’ll find fishbowl heads, iguana-laden beds, balloon’ish lanterns, apple barrages, fruity hail, guitar-filled woods, a bench with Kali Ma’s multiple arms, and other photographs that are just too weird to even describe!
The images clearly look like photographs but, even without any special effects Photoshopping (as opposed to the obvious combining and accumulation of discrete photographs and photographic elements), some have a painterly, feel. This arises no doubt because of the nature of the image itself: one is accustomed to seeing ‘unreality’ in paintings whereas one is equally accustomed to seeing reality in photographs.
There’s more to these photographs than immediately meets the eye: though the origin of these images – dreams – suggests a novelty project, these photographs are more than a novelty. That’s because Goldman concentrates his attention and shifts the emphasis from creativity in-camera when making the shot and creativity on the computer when post-processing to ‘creativity a priori’ – well before making the shot. What a concept in the Age of Photoshop!
Also, a few photographs are truly good enough to decorate a lobby. Consider the photograph of a girl lying on a pathway leading to an ivy-covered castle with hands emerging from bushes along each side, trying to reach the immobile girl. Leaving aside whatever Freud or Jung may have to say about this particular scene, this photograph is superbly executed and stands as a work of art.
Ronen Goldman had a really good idea and he has been executing it equally well. Let’s take a twist on that Chinese greeting and wish that ‘he lives in interesting dreams’!
The ‘Dark’ of Crime and the ‘Light’ of Glamour: Gordon Parks
Farm Security Administration photo by Gordon Parks of Mrs. Ella Watson with three grandchildren and her adopted daughter. Washington, D.C. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Where photography intersects race relations, Gordon Parks is a name that stands out, especially in America. Two days back Duke University remembered this multi-talented man with a lecture and slideshow. Parks, among other things, was also one of LIFE magazine’s premier photographers.
His oeuvre is varied, so much so that The Gordon Parks Foundation website has divided his work into eight categories. Though most of his photographs are (rightfully) celebrated, Parks is primarily known for documenting the Civil Rights Movement and the issues of race that sparked and surrounded it. What’s more, he artistically documented the reality of the day – check out this photo of a black woman and child in animated conversation under a sign (of sorts) in the segregated Deep South.
While this photo of Malcolm X documents the age, this one is a gem of composition, framing, cropping, and capturing of a moment.
Parks also documented the lives of the poor – here’s a touching photograph of a Parisian busker. Parks’s photographs of the impoverished do get a little harrowing, as may be seen in this photo of a malnourished little ghetto-dwelling Carioca.
Do you want to comprehend the bleakness of incarceration? Click here to see an expository and painterly image. Parks’s other images in the Crime category are progressively darker, featuring drugs, addicts, and prisons but here’s one expressive masterpiece that would adorn any exhibition.
If Parks’s searing images of Poverty and Crime are too much for you, veer off to the Fashion or Portraits-Children categories. It’s hard to believe that the same photographer who specialized in the seamy and sorrowful side of life also shot this restrained and classy image of the high life – beautifully posed, lit, and arranged. As for this one, it is high glamour portraiture at its finest – from the man who shot drug addicts!
Parks was even a time traveller: shooting in 1948, he somehow achieved an image that screams ‘Art Deco’ from the Roaring Twenties!
Though some lovely images are linked to above, would you believe that some of Parks’s finest are not included – click on Workers to view first-rate documentary ‘street shooting’. All credit to Duke University for commemorating the life of this wonderful photographer.
Seven Tutorials on Capturing Motion and Movement
motion (Photo credit: sramtebilon)
Only two days back our post was about 100 photography tutorials spanning the gamut of topics and subject areas. Today, we look at an article listing only seven tutorials but they concentrate on a single topic: capturing motion and movement. Posted only last week on ePhotozine, these seven how-tos are the very best they’ve published on the topic.
One usually associates landscapes with stillness and rest. It may be a surprise, then, that one tutorial explains how to capture landscapes that show motion. Though the now-common technique of showing water movement and blur is covered, there’s one possibility we automatically tend to shut out. As the author puts it, “So often people worry about wind movement of trees and grasses spoiling their photographs, but why not emphasise it instead of stopping it . . .” The author demonstrates this point with a luscious photo of a tree with that satiny long-exposure effect that is so commonplace for rivers and waterfalls.
The tutorial titled Add Action to Your Photos with Blur begins with the word ‘Contradictory’ – and that’s ironic, because, ‘contradictory’ to the title of this how-to, it offers a few fine tips on freezing motion! The helpful tips on offer are many. Pre-focussing, locking focus, and continuous shooting are a few of them. This tutorial also goes into ‘zoom explosions’.
Though Add Action to Your Photos with Blur covers panning, Camera Panning Technique is dedicated to this subject. What is most useful in this how-to are all the pitfalls that is exposes and even illustrates with example photos. Read it and you’ll be forewarned of all that can go wrong so you can pan like a pro.
These three tutorials seem like the pick of the bunch but check them all out – your preferences may well be different.
In general, shutter speed, tripod, pan, ND filters, and strobe light is a basic checklist of sorts when you’re thinking ‘motion blur and movement’.
Over and above the subjects presented in these seven tutorials, keep your eyes open for day-to-day situations that lend themselves to motion blur that captures the spirit of the moment. For example, children at play and pet dogs and cats make wonderful subjects for capturing movement.
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