Archive for the ‘photography’ Category
Indoor Photography With Directional Sunlight
DP School recently published an ‘exercise’ that encourages you to take indoor photographs using natural lighting from a window, and learn by experimenting. It’s a very useful skill to develop; instead of using flash, ambient light pouring in through the windows makes for a pleasing, natural appearance for photographs of, say, family members playing indoor games or having coffee at the kitchen table.
The crux of A Simple Exercise on Working with Natural Light in Portraits by Mitchell Kanashkevich and Darren Rowse is to “get your subject to move to different spots in relation to the window. Move around with the subject, take photos, and pay attention to what effect the movement of both of you has on the way that light makes the subject look.”
The article steps you through three positional setups of light source, subject and photographer. A photograph and a schematic accompanies each exercise. These basic setups are meant to serve as a springboard for you to introduce variations and experiment.
Notice how the positional setup for exercise 3 results in a photo reminiscent of Michelangelo’s chiaroscuro and also causes ‘wells of light’ in the subject’s eyes.
You can experiment by mixing in the following variables to Kanashkevich and Rowse’s valuable exercise.
• If the room is small, the colour of the walls will have an effect on your exposure. Dark walls will not reflect light and so the window’s uni-directional light will result in hard shadow areas on your subject. White or very light walls will reflect light and you will end up with a less contrasty photo with some natural fill-in.
• Given that sunlight is entering through a window the sun must obviously be quite low on the horizon when its light is generally softer. However, if you find that the light is hard you can put a mesh screen or gauze over the window; that will impart to directional sunlight an even gentler radiance.
• If you have tungsten or blue fluoroscent lighting in your room, keep the lights off else you’ll get an interesting effect: a graduated cast across your photographs. However, if you have daylight-balanced lighting, specially with a dimmer, you could keep it on to fill in the shadows.
• Use props such as glassware on a table or jewellery on a female subject to catch and reflect the uni-directional sunlight for eye-catching effects.
• Depending on the quality of the sunlight and how your room reflects it, try warming or cooling filters or adjusting the White Balance in your camera.
A Medley of Photos from the Past 24 Hours!
Easter Traditions
One holiday, so many traditions. Contrasting photographs in the Baltimore Sun Darkroom show that Easter, associated with eggs and bunnies in the West, means something rather different in Eastern Europe. It is more traditional, religious, and even ‘pre-religious’ – a pagan rite of splashing cold water on women is alive and well in Slovakia.
Wouldn’t photographs illustrating “Easter Traditions Around the World” make for a wonderful coffee table picture book?
‘Aurora Meteoris’
Was it dumb luck that led to Shannon Bileski capturing a once-in-a-lifetime image of a meteor streaking through the Aurora Borealis? Nope. According to PetaPixel, though there was an element of luck, Bileski evinced a real dedication and commitment to what she had set out to do: “. . . at 11:10pm just as everyone else was packing up their camera gear, the green glow in the sky intensified. Bileski began snapping some shots with her Nikon D800 and . . . suddenly” . . . it happened!
The story’s an object lesson for aspiring newbies; as for Bileski, she deserved her ‘luck’.
Canine Connection
Daily Mail has published a fun gallery of (what look like) time-lapse composites of canines spry and limber. The photographer in question, Rhian White, surely needs to be an expert in, besides photography, dogs and Photoshop!
Many of the images, such as this one of a Jack Russell terrier, are pretty sequential action shots. However, a few are quite artistic, none more so than this beautifully conceived and composed creation that could adorn many a hallway.
‘Engagement Photography’
That’s Wedding Photography’s bridesmaid. And who cares about bridesmaids when you, the photographer, have got the bride, i.e. the wedding, to worry about? Laura Babb thinks otherwise, she suggests that pros ought to offer an ‘engagement shoot’ and explains why.
It seems like a good idea, for such a session would be a professionally-photographed record of one of the last few days that the carefree loving twosome were just that and not a Mr. and Mrs. with responsibilities.
A Meaty Tutorial on Flower Photography
Floral Photography is often a great draw to novices and amateurs . . . who are equally often disappointed by the results they achieve. Anyone interested in this field can raise his/her game a few notches by following the suggestions in a meaty new tutorial by Jose Antunes on photo tuts+.
Antunes begins his how-to by disabusing readers of the notion that expensive equipment is essential; he says “it’s not the gear that is important. It’s the photographer,” and goes on to show a few images he shot with compacts.
Point 3, “Sit, Meditate and See” should surely have been Point 2. This is a prerequisite; do this before you touch your camera.
Novice, amateur, or experienced, Antunes wants you to play and experiment with your lens where Flower Photography is concerned. You may be able to get so close that you can get “just get a little bit of the flower. Do it, sometimes less is more.” He actually demonstrates this point in another instruction.
Point 7, “Use Contrasting Backgrounds” (the title is poor; there is only one ‘background’) is particularly important in this area of photography. What is meant is that complementary colours – hues opposite each other on the colour circle – be used as foreground and background colours. Incidentally, Antunes does this to fantastic effect in his photo accompanying point 1 in which saturated orange explodes against an equally saturated azure.
You may miss the lessons that a single image imparts if you focus solely on the written instruction, as valuable as it is. For instance, in “Get Down on Your Knees” the accompanying image is an object lesson in composing, cropping, and positioning of the foreground elements relative to the background. It also indicates the importance of depth of field and choice of aperture.
Read the tutorial through, you’ll surely find one tip you will want to run out and use immediately. For instance, if you want a sharply delineated flower in a splash of vivid colour, Antunes tells you how to do it in “Control Your Depth of Field.”
Point 8, under the misleading title “Get the Whole Picture,” is probably the most important one. Not only is the overarching philosophy appropriate for flowers, it is one of the keys to good photography for any kind of still life and perhaps even portraiture. It is worth closing this post with:
“I can start by doing the photo that attracted me first, but then I go back to general views and move towards getting more detail again. [This] is a good working solution when you are facing a subject you feel has potential, but you seem to not be able to get a good picture of. Slowly moving from general shots to more intimate images helps to, eventually, reach a moment when everything fits in place and you get your picture of the day. From my experience I’ve found that the more you stay with a subject, the more you can discover about it.”
Weekly News: Photography is for the Astute and the Imbeciles!
sipa (Photo credit: isriya)
Today, our weekly three-pack of Photography News is not quirky or wacky but curious – and very interesting and equally diverse. We look at news from the past 24 hours about an alternative energy-source camera, a resurrected photo agency, and a celebrated French portrait photographer.
Sun and Cloud Camera
If you’re going to be in the desert for a month consider taking Superheadz’s Sun and Cloud camera with you. You don’t have to worry about running out of juice because this kit makes its own juice from the sun’s rays or from (your) elbow grease. It has a solar-power panel and a crank which you turn to charge the camera. Who needs batteries or electricity?!
Unfortunately the specs are distinctly underwhelming, as reported by ImagingResource. ISO of 100 or 800. 640×480 video. A resolution of 3 MP. This is either a novelty camera for science labs or that precious fallback you want to keep in your bunker if you’re one of those who wants to be ready for Doomsday. With no batteries and no electricity, you’ll be one of the few to take photos of Humankind’s last few days if you have the Sun and Cloud Camera (or a good old Nikon F3).
Sipa Resurrected
And then there were four: Black Star, Magnum, Gamma, and Sigma were the survivors after one of the ‘Big Five’ Photo Agencies, Sipa, bit the dust in November . . . but only until yesterday: for that’s when a court approved a buyout offer made by Rex Features for 50 percent of Sipa with Isopix of Belgium shelling out for a minority stake.
Sipa will now be known as Société Nouvelle Sipa or ‘SNS’, reports the BJP.
Miguel Ferro, CEO of Rex, says that photo agencies for the most part need to be remodelled: “Selling images accounts for just five percent of [Rex’s] revenues. Today, an agency cannot simply sell photographs, it has to offer different services to its clients. . . . we’ll have to change people’s mindsets.”
Sipa or SNS still has to navigate some treacherous shoals: retrenchment, pending lawsuits, claims on archival material. Still, it’s good to know that one of the original old ‘Big Five’ photo agencies is still alive and kicking, and may make it to its Golden Anniversary ten years hence.
The Photographer of French High Society
Balloonist, Political Cartoonist, Intellectual, Whatnot – if one examines all facts of the man Imaging Resource calls ‘The Incomparable Nadar’ we’d need a multi-part article! Among many other things Nadar was a pioneering photographer who took advantage of then-new collodion plate negatives.
Like a painter, Nadar instinctively understood the importance of the play of light. Like a portraitist, he tried to tease out and present the essential character of his subjects. His intention was not to ‘bring out their best side’ let alone glamourize his subjects, as exemplified by the portraits that accompany Imaging Resource’s article.
He became the photographer for the rich and famous of his day, his clientele reading like a Who’s Who of Nineteenth Century French High Society. He counted among his close friends Futurist Jules Verne. In a way he can be said to have been the Gallic predecessor of, or the ‘model’ for, Cecil Beaton.
Last word to Nadar: “Photography is an art that excites the most astute minds – and one that can be practiced by any imbecile.”
Hey Amateur! Flirting with Going Pro?
A month and a week back this blog brought you a few caveats about going pro. Today, Annie Tao casts light on How To Know You Are Ready To Become A Professional Photographer.
Actually, she does a bit more than that: she proffers some very sound advice on those oft-overlooked prerequisites, those ‘must-dos’ before you take the plunge. Making mention of the plethora of books and courses on the subject, Tao’s goal is to provide “a short list of topline things” that will tell you when you’re “ready to make the leap.”
Tao’s seven-point checklist-style lesson starts off with “You know your equipment like the back of your hand” which she describes in two pithy lines.
Point 2 is the ‘Reality-Check Point’ (or ‘Reality Checkpoint’): Don’t forget that “Being a Professional Photographer means being an Artist and a Business Person” – the ‘and’ should have been emphasized. Tao gives you a heads-up that “a larger portion of your time” will be taken up with business-side – make that boring-side – activities, of which she lists some.
Points 3 and 6 are related and have to do with the nitty-gritty of the business side. The latter point, though its title talks about ‘documents’, enlightens you to the importance of things like contracts, business registration, separate bank account, and consulting with a small-business attorney. Point 3 advises you to get your business plan clear in your head “before you start your business” because changing course later can be difficult.
On these scores, it wouldn’t be out of place to mention that our Australian readers would do well to look up the AIPP for career planning from the very outset. For the pro who’s just getting started the AIPP can be a goldmine of guidance.
Points 4 and 5 are marketing-side items and it’s a pity they’re not fleshed out. It’s all well and good to advise readers that a good portfolio is essential and to use social media to share your images but how do you differentiate yourself from the crowd? Entering contests and getting a win or a recognition, face-to-face networking with everyone from fellow pros to friends, and keeping your own blog ticking with fresh content, are a few concrete ways to market your services and (try to) stand out.
Tao closes out her list with a “ridiculously simple, but . . . often overlooked” essential: Photographer, Know Thyself. She advises you to choose your speciality and do what you do best and love most in the field. Sound advice.
If you’re an amateur flirting with going pro then this very readable article is an excellent preliminary checkpoint.
Portrait Shooting: A Few Smart Ideas
If you’re a portraits specialist, you’re in luck: Jason Weddington offers imaginative tips on framing, composing and posing for portraits in one of those unusual articles that’s short on text but high on ideas and ‘meat’.
5 Tips for Improving Your Portrait Photography starts off by advising you to ‘frame tight’ when shooting faces. Ho-hum, what portrait specialist doesn’t know that? But wait— Weddington wants you to frame so tight that you slice off the top of your subject’s head. He says that that maximizes the tug of your subject’s eyes, referring to it as a covert Hollywood trick. Clever!
Talk about eyes, another technique is to get your subject to position the eyes so that the irises are centred from the camera’s perspective. He’s right. This technique will usually result in a portrait that one would describe as ‘hypnotic’ or ‘arresting’; one that makes an immediate ‘connection’ with the viewer. Better yet: Weddington advises that you try to generate catchlights in the eyes and explains how you can do so.
Here’s another tip: let your model stay in the dark for a few minutes. That’ll dilate her pupils. Then open the lights and work fast, whether you use flash, lamps or natural lighting. The opened-up pupils will result in those desirable catchlights and will also contribute to a ‘hypnotic’ or ‘arresting’ face.
“Have you ever heard a subject complain ‘I don’t know what to do with my hands?’,” writes Weddington. Actually, even when they don’t say that, they often behave that way! The solution is to put hands to work and Weddington suggests using “a prop.” A pen is often used.
Another idea would be to go prop-less and ask your subject to pose in a way one sees so often and is so natural, yet seldom photographed: fingers idly drumming on a tabletop or other surface? Goes well with a blank or happy expression! Want a pensive expression? Goes like salt and pepper with clasped hands or someone looking at her palms, fingers curled.
Weddington goes on to describe two further ideas, one to “let kids run wild” and another very valuable one to “shoot into the sun.” That gives you the backlighting and highlights that you don’t get with the sun over your shoulder. Weddington doesn’t mention that you may need a reflector or fill-flash if you use this technique.
This article is complemented by some very nice images that get across each tip and set you up for your own photographs using these ideas.
Simplicity and Starkness: The Holy Lands in Black-and-White
Yesterday The Leica Camera Blog posted Aaron C. Greenman: A Candid View of the Holy Lands, Part 1. The interview is short to non-existent but this post is worth visiting purely for the images.
Among the qualities of B&W that differentiate it from Colour are simplicity and, sometimes, starkness. Much has been written about how and where the advantages of a kind of B&W can be leveraged. Greenman’s Holy Land photographs shot in B&W demonstrate these advantages. Perhaps it is because prayer, worship, ritual, especially in a centuries-old place such as Jerusalem, can be simple and stark at the same time, the qualities of B&W are a perfect match for the subject matter.
Leica’s post part 1 has only a small selection of images from Greenman’s In Focus: Holy Lands portfolio.
The attributes of the black-and-white medium are ideal for this image of white-clad women in church: there is a photojournalistic quality to the image while B&W accentuates the starkness and simplicity of the sober scene.
Photojournalistic images abound: what is the news-story here – that’s one unwilling worshiper! We do know what story there is here: humour!
Greenman’s gallery is also a virtual tour: we have seen countless photographs of worshipers at the Wailing Wall but how many show us what is tucked into the narrow bylanes of the ancient Walled City? Here’s one such glimpse. —And as for those countless photos of Wailing Wall worshipers like this one, for a change, Greenman provides this arresting composition.
This gallery does not concentrate on the Jewish people; as the photograph of the Christian worshipers may have indicated, Greenman takes a multi-religious, cosmopolitan approach towards a locale that is often considered primarily a Jewish religious experience, while also introducing a few tastes of the lay of the (holy) land.
As wonderful a document as this gallery is for its variety of captures, the finest are surely the sincere, superbly-composed, ‘fleeting moments’ such as the one of doorman and visitor or patriarch and worshiper, each one an exceptional documentary photograph.
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.
The AIPP Wants ‘All Hands on Deck’
AIPP (Photo credit: *pic)
If you’re a serious amateur, at some point or another you will have flirted with the idea of going pro. And if you have, joining the AIPP (Australian Institute of Professional Photography) ought to be a serious consideration. But why? – you may rightfully ask, “What’s in it for me?” That rhetorical question is also the title of a post by Kylie Lyons on the AIPP blog.
To begin with, the number of discounts and promotional offers available to members means that AIPP membership partly pays for itself. Next, as a photographer your ability to display the AIPP logo is a guarantee to clients of certain minimal standards of quality and service. However, the unquantifiable and non-monetary benefits are even more valuable, Lyons suggests.
For instance, though a professional photographer can – of course – learn a new technique or two from a specialist in another area, over and above that, those pros who have perfected the business side of the profession are often willing to assist those who do not possess business nous. In addition, availability of a Code of Ethics which members must abide by ensures that professional photographers do not fall into error and stay on the right side of ‘the line’.
One thing that is no longer a membership benefit is the annual APPA book. AIPP has just announced that the 2012 Canon APPA book will be available as a paid-for PoD (Print on Demand) in two formats: “a comprehensive and stylish 2-volume set that contains all the Gold award winning images . . . or as a single edition comprising 4 categories of your choice.” AIPP explains the financial and marketing reasons behind this change in their blog post.
In any event, the book, printed using Canon’s cutting-edge DreamLabo technology, promises to be a sumptuous treat for the proverbial coffee table. One wonders if the AIPP did not miss a trick in not arranging for a smaller-sized, limited-plate version of the book so that it could be purchased by pros in bulk at a discounted rate to be given as gifts to clients? That would have been a triple play: money into the AIPP’s coffers, a delightful surprise present for clients, and the AIPP and pro photogs earning brownie points from the general public! Oh well, next year maybe?
If one wants to keep looking beyond the obvious, many more hidden benefits of membership lurk beneath the surface, says Lyons, none more critical than for a member to gain and enjoy the supportive community of fellow professional photographers. As she extols the virtues of AIPP membership, perhaps this is Lyons’s most compelling argument.
The AIPP is “largely a volunteer organization,” and is also at heart a community; therefore, there is a consequence which is made evident in the ‘sea-nic’ analogy Lyons uses for the institute and its members: “We all own the boat and we all have to paddle.”
If you’re an amateur shaping up to join the pro ranks, the AIPP could use you as an ‘able-bodied seaman.’ We wish the AIPP friendly seas!
Of Scanning Cameras and Martian Panoramas
It’s time for our weekly fix of odd and unusual photography news and today’s three-pack is surely one of the most eclectic yet connected ones we’ve had thus far.
The Mother of all Panoramas
Yesterday on our pro blog we brought you a tutorial that explains How to go Big, one method behind which is to Stitch a panorama.
Dan Havlik seems to have stumbled across the mother of all panoramas, created by Andrew Bodrov. And this is no ordinary panorama, it is a 360-degree interactive panorama. But here’s the kicker: it’s on . . . Mars! Bodrov apparently stitched it together from NASA images.
Take a spin and check out the Red Planet. As fascinating as the terrain is, what’s most interesting is to tilt upward and see what the ‘sky’ and the Sun look like on Mars.
‘Oh Snap!’ or ‘Oh Claptrap!’?
There’s another way to be ‘interactive’ – interact with the exhibits at an exhibition! That’s what Oh Snap! Your Take on Our Photographs at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh attempts to do. In this “collaborative photography project” that got underway one week back, visitors to the exhibition are invited to return with their own photographs that ‘respond’ to or have some connection with a work at the exhibition, and submit them. If accepted, they’re set on the wall close to the ‘parent’ “inspiration.”
According to Nikita Mishra’s news story there was quite a ‘response’.
Hmm. Is the intention to spot photographic talent? Is it a new fad that panders to egos? Is the goal to reel in those all-important admission fees? Or is this a valid mode of exhibiting and artistic expression?
The ‘Scanning Camera’: John Neff’s ‘Camera-Scanner’
Confusing, isn’t it? Whatever it is, there’s no ‘Oh Snap’ here, rather, there’s an ‘Um Whirrr’. That’s because John Neff’s cameras are “made without shutters or viewfinders, [instead they] capture images using a slow-moving linear scanning array, rather than a full-field sensor,” explains Chicago Artist’s Resource.
The idea is to allow time to elapse while the scanner scans the composition and creates a photograph with an antique look. These cameras took a lot of time and trouble to construct for photographs that look like ones you can see in this slideshow.
Art or gimmick? Knotty questions once again! The Renaissance Society, however, likes Neff’s camera-scanner photos well enough to host a solo exhibition. One thing’s for sure: they have an unusual tonal range and texture.
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