Looking at Your Old Images with Fresh Perspective
As photographers, we are on a never-ending quest to create something new and unusual. After so many years of taking photos, you more than likely have terabytes of archived raw files or boxes upon boxes of negatives – most of which you haven’t looked at in years. Even those photos that we once chose as our favorites are sometimes buried under a wave of new, exciting images.
At some point, though, we all need to go back to our photographic roots. When you next have the chance, sit down to browse your old images. Go back and take new photos of old subjects. Simply examining the contrast between your new work and the old will prove to be a wonderful learning experience, and you may find that your archives are packed with hidden gems and surprising sources of inspiration.
Going through Your Archives
There are several good reasons to revisit your archives from time to time. For one thing, your archives serve as a record that tracks the progression of your skills. You’ll also have the opportunity to see how your style has evolved over the years. If you’ve been a photographer for many years, you’re quite likely to see some old yet interesting techniques that fell by the wayside for one reason or another. What you find might just be interesting enough for you to give those old techniques a second chance from a new perspective.
More importantly, however, is that as you look at your work with fresh eyes, you may find something special that you never noticed before. Since you’re also more experienced as an editor, you’ll be able to fine-tune some of your early work in ways that would not have been possible in your early years as a photographer.
Visiting Old Subjects
Our archives aren’t the only things we should be looking at. Consider some of the subjects you photographed in those early years. I know that the temptation is strong to move on and photograph new things, but there is nothing wrong with going back and taking new photos of old things.
Think about this: As the years passed, your skills as a photographer have grown, and your style has changed. You have far more experience with your camera and your editing software, and you probably have new equipment that lets you push boundaries a little further. Most importantly, though, is that you’ve had years of life experiences, which means that you will be looking at those old subjects from an entirely new perspective.
What this means is that when you go back to create new images of old subjects, you won’t simply be creating a slightly improved version of your previous work. Instead, you’ll have a chance to create something entirely new and unique, and something that also calls you back to the beginnings of your career as a photographer.
New knowledge, more experience, better equipment, and a fresh perspective – bring all of these things to your early work, and surprising things may happen. In fact, if you find yourself stuck in something of a photographic rut, simply looking at your old work may be just what you need to give you a fresh burst of creativity. After all, sometimes moving forward means looking back on your past.
Now go . . . and enjoy the beauty of God’s creation through your lens.
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]]>Classical works teach us that art has timeless value—and that includes photography. This is why we spend time with images in order to fully understand them.
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Inspiration doesn’t have to come from photography alone. Look for it in all aspects of life and from all kinds of people.
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Inspiration is such an interesting subject, and one of the reasons why? In my opinion, it’s because we miss a lot of what there is to be inspired by. Looking at the photographs of others is a prime example. I’ll be willing to bet that much like me, most people do the same. We look at photographs of others for the artistic inspiration. Perhaps there are techniques within them that we’d like to learn, or maybe we’re getting ideas for our own photographs. It could be that we’re admiring colors, compositions, and so on. Aside from the simple enjoyment of art, this is one of the primary reasons to look at photographs or study a historic photographer’s body of work...
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Magic numbers rule the world, or so it seems. And I’m not talking about money, although I’m sure accountants and investors would beg to differ. Rather, I’m referring to numbers that are so commonly seen in design...
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You’ve heard me talk about gear before and how we’re so often lured into buying more gear or more expensive gear than we absolutely need in this sort of “keep up with the Joneses” race to the best camera. And here’s another thought related to extreme gear—the cameras with crazy high megapixels, the ones that can shoot at extraordinarily high ISOs without much noise, and so on. I think that there’s a good reason why marketers market these extreme cameras so hard. And it’s not because they’re trying to take us for everything they can... ]]>
We don’t think of old age as having many benefits, but it does! We grow wiser, and through patience or other means, we slow down to observe the world.
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We often give photographs a passing glance when searching for something to study. But is it worthwhile to dig deeper even when images don’t initially grab us?
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No matter who you ask, every photographer will have a different answer as to what they prize most highly. Today I’ll talk about the most valuable resource of them all.
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https://moneymakerphotography.com/time-is-valuable/
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You don't always need to create images that stand alone. In this episode, we’ll talk about creating wonderful works of art by combining several photographs into one cohesive story with Diptychs, Triptychs, and More.
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https://moneymakerphotography.com/photos-stand-alone
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Photography is an interesting art in that we blur the lines between mediums more so than most. Today I’ll share my thoughts on this, and you’ll see what I mean!
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https://moneymakerphotography.com/blurred-mediums/
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It is surprising, with as modern as our technology is today, how old photography really is. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the history of lenses, specifically. In fact, lenses have been around for hundreds of years, even though the camera itself came much later. Let’s take a quick walk through history to show you how the lens has evolved over the ages.
The Lens Before the Camera
The first experiments with lenses are ancient, often attributed to an Arabian scientist named Abu Ali Hasan. Hasan lived more than 1,000 years ago, between 965 AD and 1040 AD. In his experiment, he looked through a glass sphere, noting how the shape of the sphere itself changed what he was looking at. Though this experiment is primitive by today’s standards, it was considered a lens nonetheless.
Hasan’s experiments led to more experiments with optics and by the 1500s, it was well known by researchers that if you applied an aperture to a lens, the things you would see through that lens would be higher quality. At the time, however, scientists were unaware of why this was. It was only later discovered that an aperture helps to prevent distortion.
The next major development to photographic lenses also came in the 1500s with the camera obscura. The camera obscura was essentially a large room with a lens in one wall. As light would shine through that lens, an image of whatever was before the lens was projected onto the wall. Developers of the camera obscura refined lens designs, creating such things as the biconvex lens. A biconvex lens is simply a glass element that curves outward on each side.
Obscura designers, vintage engraving.Obscura designers, vintage engraved illustration. Industrial encyclopedia E.-O. Lami - 1875.
Photography is Born and the Lens Evolves
The very first camera lens, as we would know it today, was invented by the maker of the first camera, Charles Chevalier. This was shortly after Louis Daguerre invented photography in 1839. Chevalier’s lens was an achromatic landscape lens — basically, a lens with two elements that reduce chromatic aberration. This lens had two apertures only, f/14 and f/15 and in order for it to work, exposure times needed to be incredibly long, on the order of hours or days.
Lens produced and designed by Charles Chevalier in 1840 (Museo Nicéphore Niépce)
The Lens Undergoes Rapid Development
From 1839 on, the photographic lens underwent a transformation. In 1840, Chevalier developed the world’s first variable focus lens, specifically for portraiture. This lens sported an aperture of f/6, requiring shorter exposure times. This design was shared among the newly born photographic community and Max Petzval developed an even better portrait lens, also in 1840. This lens was made by Voigtlander.
After these came lenses like the panoramic lens, which was developed by Thomas Sutton, the globe lens, by Charles Harrison and the Orthoskop, developed by Petzval. For the next 100 years, lenses such as these would be developed and improved upon or scrapped depending on the faults or strengths of each.
Selectable apertures were first invented in 1858 by John Waterhouse. Unlike today’s aperture stops, the Waterhouse stops had no adjustable ring. Instead, to change the aperture, photographers used brass plates with holes of different sizes, changing plates between shots to adjust the aperture. It took about 30 years for this innovation to become the new standard — it was the 1880s when photographers began to realize that aperture affected the image’s depth of field and therefore, depth of field could be used to create various effects.
Lenses in the 1930s
Between the 1830s and the 1930s, lenses steadily grew more complex, adding more elements and more ways to adjust them. The telephoto lens was invented in 1905 in Germany, known as the Busch Bis-Telar with an aperture of f/8. However, these were all small steps compared to the rapid development of lenses in the 1930s. During the 1930s, cameras were becoming more and more common. No longer was the camera a tool used for portraiture or science but also for art. Amateurs had cameras, there were aerial cameras, movie cameras had been invented and even a few hobbyists had their own cameras to make home movies or still pictures.
With this proliferation of cameras came the proliferation of lenses. The first reversed telephoto lens was produced to create close-up images. Photographers with 35mm movie cameras could now buy zoom lenses for their cameras.
Interestingly, by 1934, the first non-glass lenses were appearing. It started with the Perspex lens, which was a plastic lens created in 1934 by KGK Syndicate. Then, Plexiglas hit the market later in that same year, the first ever lens made from acrylic. Major companies, many of which are still in operation today, like DuPont and DOW Chemical, started their own lines of cameras and lenses. By the end of the decade, it was assumed that glass lenses would become a relic of history while plastic, acrylic and Lucite lenses would be the way of the future.
World War II and the Photographic Lens
The development that brought us lenses as we know them today was World War II, or more specifically, the aftermath of World War II. You see, during the war, the Japanese economy was devastated. Afterwards, during the U.S. occupation of Japan, billions of dollars were poured into the nation’s economy. With close to half of the country’s factories destroyed — and a large population of soldiers entering a workforce that did not have the jobs to support them — the Japanese turned themselves into a technological powerhouse.
Japanese cameras and lenses became the standard that all manufacturers around the world used to forge ahead. Even today, Japan is a major force in the market for cameras and lenses. These long decades of competition are what led to the technology that we have today.
Focusing much of her photographic work of the 50's, 60's and 70's on those spurned by society or viewed as aberrations and curiosities, Arbus brought forth the bliss, trepidation and woe of the human condition, not only in her subjects but in those who viewed her work. She famously said, "A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know." This singular statement offers a glimpse into the innermost workings of her mind and the message she speculatively tried to convey through her work. Her lesson to the world and other artists was one of relative truth - that nothing is what it appears to be and though beauty can be veiled, mysterious or seemingly lacking, it is ever present in every living thing. It is this human condition and understanding that every photographer must find to create the undefinable essence that is art.
By photographing the downtrodden, the lonely, the "freakish" and the strange, her photography takes on a surreal quality, almost Tress-like in many ways. Arbus touched on the imagination, bringing fantasy to life, although for her subjects - the fantasy was life. As was her nature, she often grew close to the subjects of her work and followed their lives for years at a time, speaking to the depth of her passion. This quality and intensity is as poignant today as it was during her relatively short lifetime, leaving all who view her work with a lasting impression of inexplicable depth. During her lifetime, Arbus was not always viewed as a visionary, with some of her earlier work being described as "middling quality." True to form, Arbus was not deterred and in 1967 her work was shown at the Museum of Modern Art.
Today, when so much photographic art seems to offer little more than a cookie-cutter quality and a spurious nature, many artists are left looking to the past for inspiration, finding the work of Arbus and others waiting in the shadows to be discovered and analyzed. The drive to create, along with the insatiable search for artistic mastery and truth lies within each individual, who must ask himself whether safety and accepted forms of beauty are somehow more valuable than the portrayal of the tender, wounded or defiant. Diane Arbus had the courage not only to ask herself this question, but to act upon her convictions.
Although some photographs have the power to disturb, provoke or horrify, isn't this the very quality that breathes life into one's work? The thing that drives an artist from within? The obscure necessity to breathe life and truth into what lies beneath the superficial? Every person has the capability to show others the world through new eyes. Arbus put it best when she said, "I really believe there are things others would not see if I did not photograph them." This could be viewed as fanatical or grandiose by some, but in reality it is a simple and profound truth spoken by one who saw the world in contrasting entirety.
From The Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley's words ring true in regard to the life and work of Arbus, " We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone....The mind is its own place, and the Places inhabited by the insane and the exceptionally gifted are so different from the places where ordinary men and women live, that there is little or no common ground of memory to serve as a basis for understanding or fellow feeling."
Through her portrayal of others, Arbus ultimately bared her own soul, as each photographer does, often unknowingly. She displayed the courage that few dare to, sharing herself and her vision with the world in a ferocious clash against all that was acceptable, flaunting the misunderstood in unkempt ragged beauty. For this, she reaped infamy, although her own life was fraught with pain and depressive episodes, ultimately resulting in death by her own hand. Perhaps Arbus was one of the exceptionably gifted individuals that Huxley refers to, living in a torturous limbo, caught between craving life and loathing it - unable to find common ground or fellow feeling with the masses that swirled around her daily. In spite of her personal tragedy, Arbus branded herself and her vision on the world, manifested in unembellished transparency for all to see, speaking for her fearlessness and perhaps her need to connect.
What lessons can fellow photographers garner from the life and works of Diane Arbus? If it must be singular, the lesson is perhaps one of courage and truth; daring to do what others dare not, listening to the call of one's passions and seeking understanding of the self through others. While her photographs awaken differing levels of emotion in those who view them and provoke debate still today, the work of Diane Arbus speaks to the heart of all that is good, wretched and indomitable in man.
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We’ve long made the assumption that photography is, in itself, an art. And in a general sense, that is true, the same way that painting is an art or that writing is an art. But I think that we need a little bit more specificity in what, precisely the art of photography is. Surveys from 2014 showed that 1.8 billion photographs were uploaded online each and every single day. Now just imagine how many photos are taken every day, most of which will never be uploaded.Are all of these images art? Of course not, just the same as not every written word is considered art, either. Even within my own collection of images, the external hard drives with gigabytes upon gigabytes of image files. Is each and every one of those files something that should be considered art?
I don’t think so. To me, those files are simply assets. They are a tool that I could use to create art but in and of themselves, they are not actually art. It is similar to the painter who goes to the art store and buys the paints, brushes, and canvas that he or she will need. These three things are the assets that the painter will use, not the art itself. In that same way, image files are not necessarily art. Just an element that can become art.
I realize that this must sound confusing so let me explain my thought process a little more. Photographs, to me, photography, is potential. I’ll show you some of the things that I think need to be done in order for those assets to realize their potential.
It Takes a Creative Process to Make Art
I don’t know about anyone else but a lot of the photos in my collection are images that were taken with the idea that perhaps I could turn them into something, not necessarily that I would. Other images are parts of projects, assets that fit a chosen theme that may or may not become part of a grouping of images later on. As I’ve said, these, to me, are assets. Sitting untended on a hard drive somewhere, they will not become art until I have applied my creative process to them.
In other words, this means that pressing the shutter release is only the beginning of the journey. Later on, those images will need to be dragged out of their folders, thought about carefully, processed — do whatever you need to do in order to turn them into something other than a RAW file that no one will ever see. It is only after you have applied your creative process to these images that they will potentially become art.
Art Should Be Seen
This reminds me of that old rhetorical question: “If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” In my opinion, it doesn’t really matter whether it made a sound or not. No one was there to see, hear or experience it so it may as well have never happened.
Ask yourself this about art: If an image exists but no one ever gets a chance to experience it, is it really art? Photography, or any art, is not so different from the question about the tree. You may be very fond of a photograph. Perhaps you’ve spent hours upon hours developing it, refining all the details, going back and redoing things until everything is just right.
However, if that image never sees the light of day, if others never get to experience what you have created, then is it still art? Of course, to you, it is — likely you enjoy the image or you would not have put the effort into it that you did. But I would argue that if you are willing to put that effort in, then perhaps it is time to show others the effort you have put in as well. At its heart, art is communication and you communicate with no one when you keep your work to yourself.
Now, this does not mean that you must have your work hanging in a museum or a gallery in order for it to win the vaunted title of art. It doesn’t have to be so complicated as all that. If you’d rather, simply turn your image into a PDF and share it with friends or photography enthusiasts via email or dedicated photography message boards. Print, mat, and frame it to hang in your home. Or, consider making a self-published book of images. Many companies nowadays make beautiful books on an individual basis — no need to print more than one if you’d rather not. Once you’ve had that book made, now you have your very own coffee table book that you and your family can enjoy and that you can share with visitors if you so desire. Whatever you choose, don’t let the effort go to waste on you and you alone. Share the beauty you have created!
Art is Labor
In this day and age with billions of photographs taken each day, it comes as no surprise that there are a lot of would-be photographers out there who call themselves artists but all they are doing is snapping photos as quickly as they can and then hitting that print or share button. And sure, amazing photographs will be created this way. With the sheer enormity of the numbers, there are likely many groundbreaking snapshots produced each day. It is like winning the lottery, however. The chances are there that it can happen but those chances are very low.
Real art, made by real artists, no matter the genre or medium, is a time intensive thing. It is a labor of love, one that requires the artist to spend inordinate amounts of time in the making of the piece. It is the kind of labor that doesn’t end until the artist is satisfied — if, indeed, it is even possible to satisfy him or her.
Bear in mind that these are only some of the necessities for creating art — and they aren’t always entirely essential. Once in a very great while, a photograph turns out wonderfully with minimal work required to make it ready for printing. Displaying images isn’t always easy, either. These thoughts, the viewing of images as potential art, are part of what helps me turn a photograph into something that I consider art, not necessarily the method that everyone needs to use.
Raymond Depardon, a famous French photographer, was once noted as saying, “The photographer is filled with doubt. Nothing will soothe him.” I’ve found over my career that this is very true. There are lots of reasons to be doubtful, reasons that, if you let them, will stop your creative pursuits before you get underway.
It starts with the dive into photography itself. You may feel like you are not artistic enough to become an artist or the very thought of learning all of the things that you will one day need to know might seem overwhelming. Then, as you progress, it can be difficult to work up the courage to display your images, to ask for constructive criticism. Photos might languish in a folder on your computer simply because you don’t have the confidence to do much else with them.
Later on, confidence issues arise when you ponder sending submissions to websites, magazines or galleries. Maybe you’ve thought about starting a photography based business but you are worried that for one reason or another, it won’t be a success. You think you are not good enough or your business skills are not where they need to be — there are many things over the course of your career that will erode your confidence. And frankly, it does take a lot of confidence, courage even, to put yourself out there, be it as a hobbyist with a passion for art, a professional artist or a commercial photographer of some kind.
So how do you overcome a lack of confidence? Fortunately, there are lots of ways to go about it. Here are some of the methods that I recommend.
Gain Confidence through Valid Opinions
The opinions of others are a dangerous thing — though they are also vital for any artist. Let’s say that you show your artwork to your friends or family. Because they love you, they gush over it, whether it is actually good work or not. Compliments like this can work against you because the temptation is there to believe that these compliments are given simply because these people are trying to avoid hurting your feelings. Without critique, you don’t know what is wrong with the images, what you need to improve, and thus, you begin to doubt yourself.
Conversely, this can also lead to overconfidence followed by a serious blow to the ego. Imagine having your work buoyed by people who simply want to make you happy. So much so that you proudly strut off to the nearest gallery, believing you’ll almost certainly make that sale, only to have your work torn apart by a completely uninterested gallery owner.
This is why valid critique — not just the things you want to hear or the things that people want to say in order to avoid hurt feelings but real, honest constructive criticism and compliments — is absolutely essential. Find people that you trust, that you know will give you such critiques. Then you can work with the critiques you hear, learn from your mistakes and in the end, feel more confident in the knowledge that you are producing better artwork.
Sometimes a Lack of Confidence Stems from a Lack of Knowledge
You’d not perform a lifesaving surgery on someone without years upon years of medical knowledge gained. In that same way, a lack of knowledge can lead you to doubt yourself when it comes to photography — though that lack of knowledge about art or photography is not nearly so dire as the metaphor I used. Even so, when it comes time to submit your work, you might be tempted to think that you don’t have the years of experience that are backing other submissions. If you want to start a business, you might stop yourself before it gets off the ground because you think that you don’t know enough to become successful.
This is the time to sit back and look at how far you have already come. Appreciate your progress for what it is and then stop and understand something: If you have already learned as much as you know now, then there is nothing stopping you from learning that much more. Never let a lack of knowledge be a barrier. Instead, pursue more knowledge until you gain from it the confidence you need to proceed with your goals.
Avoiding Comparisons
Where to begin with comparisons? In this day and age of social media, perhaps you have heard of a new phenomenon that is being talked about, sometimes called “obsessive comparison disorder” or “social comparison disorder.” In a nutshell, this is a term that refers to the way people sometimes view social media. They look around and see only the bright points of other peoples’ lives, which leads them into a kind of depression concerning their own lives. They’re comparing only the good things that they see on their friends’ timelines with the entirety of their own life experience, which is made up of both good and bad things. Unsurprisingly, when people examine their own lives against the picture-perfect world of Facebook, they often feel as if their life comes up short.
Photographers do this same thing. We look at the accomplishments, awards, and accolades of others and we use those comparisons to tear ourselves down. We don’t look at the hard work, the struggle, that went into those accomplishments. All we see is something that another has that we don’t. We fault ourselves for that lack of achievement instead of working to achieve the same.
Instead of comparing your accomplishments against the accomplishments of others, remember that it isn’t the gear, the accolades or even luck that makes the artist. Artists are born because they have the confidence to push onward despite obstacles in those other categories. If you find yourself looking at a photographer who has had six gallery showings where you have had none, think about this: Perhaps that photographer has been turned down by scores or even hundreds of galleries to get into those six where his or her work is featured now.
Most importantly, don’t dwell on what everyone around you is doing, thereby letting those comparisons erode at your confidence. Instead, push forward. Do what you want to do, not what you think you should be doing based on your observation of others.
There are many more things that can eat away at your confidence in this business, this art form. And for each of those things, there is a way to get past the bad, to build yourself up and push past the issue. Examine the source of your lack of confidence and then use whatever tools are at your disposal to move forward.
If you’re a photographer, then you’ve probably noticed by now that social media is problematic in many respects. Certainly, it can be a great marketing tool. However, it isn’t really designed to show photography at its best. It also comes with the problem of theft – images posted to social media are exceptionally easy to steal even though you may have put a watermark on them. But there are other aggravations, larger, in my opinion, than the possibility of theft. Let’s take a look at some of the issues with social media as it stands now. Perhaps there are other, better ways for you to display your photography online.
Viewing Art Takes Time
The thing about social media is that it is designed for mass consumption. Users are supposed to look at as much as possible when they are using a social media platform. Because we have limited time in our days, that leads to flipping through posts, clicking over and over, absorbing a little bit of information but not really giving ourselves time to fully take in the things that we see. We surf to Facebook or Twitter, click a few “like” buttons, make a comment or two and then we are moving on.
Imagine behaving that way at an art gallery. Would you walk in, point at the first thing you see, tell the gallery owner that you like it and then proceed to purchase it? You would not because you know that art needs to be viewed over a period of time. There is nuance to it, details to notice, meanings to learn. When you have a thousand other distractions all clamoring for your attention, it becomes very difficult to give art the time it requires.
Speaking of That “Like” Button…
Another thing that I find troubling about social media is those “like” buttons. Art, whether it is photography or any other kind of work, is a language, a way to communicate without speaking. It is meant to make people think and it is meant to start conversations. In my opinion, social media has a nulling effect on that.
The problem is, instead of starting conversations, people click that “like” button and then they are gone again. No conversation is had, at least, nothing deeper than a few comments. For the artist, there is no critique of the work. For the viewer, there is no deeper meaning.
That is why I think there are better ways to share digital images. It is far better to send a PDF to someone who is interested than to post a JPEG to an audience that may not even see the image, let alone take the time to really study it. This way, you can have a back and forth over email rather than just posting in the hopes of gaining a few likes and no other meaningful conversation beyond that.
Social Media is Not Great for Displaying Images
Photographers of yesteryear spent countless hours and untold sums of money on the darkroom, on print making, on matting and framing, everything that they needed to do in order to display an image at its best. Today, we still tend to do this sometimes but sometimes we simply display the images digitally because it is easier – and better yet, cheap or usually free.
And here again is the problem with social media. These platforms are simply not designed to display images professionally. It can be difficult to enlarge an image to full-screen displays. You may not be able to have your images displayed over your ideal background color, you will likely have ads over top parts of the images or at least in the sidebars, distracting viewers from the images. Buttons, the number of likes your post has received and so on.
When all is said and done, no matter how powerful the imagery, it is diminished by all of the distractions. It is the difference between hanging a piece of art in a busy hallway where people simply don’t have the time or interest to enjoy it versus hanging that same piece of art in a museum, where people go specifically to look at things like that.
To that end, there are other digital mediums – the PDF, the online portfolio, a custom designed website for your photography, even a video designed like a slideshow – that will display your images to much greater effect.
Social Media Leads to Requests You Cannot Fulfill
This is a pet peeve and one that is somewhat unavoidable because everyone in this age is expected to have social media accounts. Sometimes you will get that request, particularly if you do wedding or portrait photography, the request from your client to just upload the files digitally to your social media account so that they can share and do as they like with them.
Imagine shooting a wedding in which you’ve taken 800 photographs. Do you really want to spend the time uploading the whole lot of them to Facebook so that they can be shared easily? Of course not!
Worse, social media platforms often come with image compression during the upload process and other factors that degrade the quality of the images – thus degrading your reputation potentially. On top of that, there is the issue of theft. Anyone can simply copy and paste the images or take a screenshot of them.
In my opinion, posting clients’ files on social media is much too problematic. And yet, there are some people who still assume that photographers should be willing to do this. It is much better, in my opinion, to give a DVD, a thumb drive or some other digital device to a client that wants digital copies. This is easier on the photographer, provides a better quality product to the client. And, let’s face it. No one is going to share all 800 photos from a wedding and even if they did, no one but the people directly involved in the wedding will take the time to scroll through them. The client can pick and choose their favorites to share from the digital files you give them offline.
Of course, social media isn’t all bad. It is, in fact, an incredibly valuable service for photographers and really for anyone that wants to stay in touch or take advantage of marketing opportunities. However, when it comes to displaying images on these platforms, don’t expect that they will be treated as art because the platforms themselves are not designed for people to behave as if they are in an art gallery.
Henri Cartier-Bresson (August 22, 1908 – August 3, 2004), French photographer (Wikipedia)
When people think of Henri Cartier-Bresson, there is a very good chance that the first thing to come to mind is The Decisive Moment. Not only is that the title of a book by Cartier-Bresson but it is also the philosophy that he is most famous for. Essentially, the decisive moment that Cartier-Bresson refers to is that split-second creativity that happens when a photographer presses the shutter release at just the right time. Blink and you’ll miss it.
Cartier-Bresson’s philosophy about the decisive moment is a good one, one that is well worth your attention as a photographer. However, the decisive moment is also a bit problematic in some respects. We often find ourselves remembering Cartier-Bresson for this philosophy alone and not all of the many varied contributions that he made to photography. In the interest of learning something new, let’s take a look at some of the other things we can learn from Cartier-Bresson.
Art Was in Cartier-Bresson’s Blood
One thing that is not well known about Cartier-Bresson is that he grew up immersed in art. As a child, he had an interest in a variety of arts, due in large part to a wealthy father who urged him to learn and enjoy the more creative things in life. Cartier-Bresson’s uncle was a painter, another strong influence in his life.
Through this example, we can learn something extremely important. Not only do we all need to enrich ourselves as creatives but we also need to pass that interest on to future generations, enriching their lives with the arts. If you have children or work with young people, foster that creative spark and who knows — perhaps you will be an influence to the next great artist just as Cartier-Bresson’s father and uncle influenced him.
The True Nature of Candid Photography
1952 US edition of Cartier-Bresson's 1952 book, The Decisive Moment
Cartier-Bresson was a founding father of “street photography,” which, in a nutshell, is photography on the streets. It is something meant to be real, not posed or artificial in any way, though subject material can vary between people or the objects you might see as you walk around through a city. As Cartier-Bresson created these images, he had one over-arching goal in mind: To make sure that his images were as real as they possibly could be.
He was not one to post process his images and sometimes, he didn’t even bother with cropping them. Most importantly, however, Cartier-Bresson learned how to take a true candid photo. He would often dress himself to fit in with a crowd, he was dexterous and fast, and he had a habit of covering his camera, making sure chrome was hidden and sometimes putting a cloth over it to make it less apparent that he was photographing.
None of this is to say that we all must stop post processing our images and start sneaking around city streets trying to take photos without being noticed. Rather, I think it is important to think about why Cartier-Bresson was so careful to hide what he was doing. He wanted truly candid photos, nothing artificial about them, no people in the background of the image looking directly at the cameraman. In this way, Cartier-Bresson was able to document real life as it actually happened.
Henri Cartier-Bresson's first Leica (model Leica I)
Dispense with Formalities
For a creative to fully exercise his or her creative mind, it helps to break out of the mundane. As you look at Cartier-Bresson’s life, you can see that this is exactly what he did. As a young man, he spent time working with a cubist painter. He also enjoyed the growing avant-garde scene in France. After a spell in the army, he spent time tracking boar and antelope in Africa, not because he wanted to kill and eat the animals but just because he wanted to have the experience.
You don’t have to follow Cartier-Bresson’s exact path but it does help to break with convention once in a while. Step outside of the ordinary and try something you wouldn’t normally experience. Then, with luck, you’ll be able to draw inspiration from what you learned, saw or felt.
Know When to Stop
Cartier-Bresson was a world-famous figure, renowned for photography and photojournalism — and that is why people are often surprised to find out that Cartier-Bresson quit photography. That was back in 1966 when he was still a part of the Magnum agency. He set aside both the camera and Magnum, then went back to his first love, which was sketching and painting. Despite his fame, he would not even speak at length about photography, believing that he had seen and done all that he could with the camera.
If you are like most photographers, it is unlikely that you will up and quit photography suddenly one day — although it is always a possibility! The larger lesson here is not that you should quit or that you one day will. Instead, it is important to know when to stop temporarily, to know when to take a break.
The thing about creativity is that it isn’t an endless fountain of ideas. Just like you need to sleep after a long day at work, your creativity needs a rest sometimes, too. Don’t pressure yourself into anything that you don’t feel like doing and when you feel the urge to set the camera aside, then set it aside. Come back to it when you are good and ready.
Henri Cartier-Bresson was a fascinating man living in fascinating times. There is certainly a lot more to his legacy than the decisive moment. When you have the opportunity, you’ll find that it pays to read his biography and learn his life story. Draw what lessons you will from the things that you learn — and remember that there is no single image, philosophy or trait that can come close to summing up the whole of a photographer!
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W. Eugene Smith and Aileen, 1974Consuelo Kanaga, via Wikimedia Commons
There are many photographers who have made monumental contributions to the art. One of those photographers was W. Eugene Smith, a man who became famous for taking the photo essay and turning it into the beautiful in-depth story that we know it as today.
Born in Wichita, Kansas in 1918, Smith’s photography career began early, when he was just 15 years old, taking photographs for local newspapers. He went on to attend Notre Dame, winning a scholarship in photography that was designed exclusively for him. By 1937, he was working with Helene Sanders of the New York Institute of Photography. That same year, he also began a new job with Newsweek.
Smith favored the 35mm camera, even though at the time, many photographers and photojournalists still used medium-format cameras. Newsweek ended up firing him over this so Smith struck out on his own, becoming a freelance photographer for the Black Star agency.
From there, his skill with the camera landed him a job with Flying magazine, then by 1945, he was working for LIFE. By this time, he’d become a war correspondent, working in the Pacific theater during World War II. When the Americans went on the offensive against Japan, Smith traveled with them, documenting prisoners of war and other imagery at Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Saipan and elsewhere.
That same year, however, Smith was gravely wounded by a mortar while photographing a battle at Okinawa. His work was put on hold for the next two years as he underwent several surgeries and recuperated. By 1947, he was back with LIFE, beginning his work on developing the photo essay genre. Smith continued his career with LIFE until 1955 when he quit the magazine to join the Magnum agency.
It was while Smith worked for LIFE and for the Magnum agency that he really developed the photo essay into what it is today. While there is so much that we can learn from the life and artistry of W. Eugene Smith, the photo essays that he created between 1945 and his death in 1978 are what really stand out, giving all of us meaningful insights as to how we can effectively tell an enthralling story through the printed photograph.
To see an example of this kind of storytelling, look no further than the essay Country Doctor. You can see some of the images here. This essay opens with a photo of a man in a suit, carrying a doctor’s bag. This one image sets the stage for the entire story. By examining it fully, you can get a sense of how the story might progress. For instance, the doctor walks through weedy grass, past a weathered fence — obviously, as the name implies, he is in the country. Behind him, the sky is dark and ominous. The doctor himself walks with shoulders slumped, an interesting expression on his face. He is tired. The more you study this image, the more you come to know the doctor and his setting before you move on with the story.
And the rest of that story is told in rich detail. Throughout various images within the essay, you get to see the doctor treating everything from bumps and bruises to major injuries and terminal conditions. The photos don’t shy away from the concern of parents or any of the things that the people within the images are feeling. Settings vary — you learn that the doctor travels from his own office to the homes of others as needed. You even get to see the doctor at home, taking calls in the middle of the night, ready to hit the road and help a patient.
Woven into the stories about each of the patients is the story of the doctor himself. You can see the concern and concentration on his face as he works with each patient. You get to see him at rest after a hard operation, drinking a cup of coffee as he leans on a counter, pensive. He works long, hard hours, a tale that is told by an image of him sleeping on his own operating table.
You can see similar themes and ideas, a similar style of storytelling, across all of Smith’s photo essays. When you have the time, I suggest you look into his Pittsburgh Project, Minamata, which documented Japanese mercury poisoning, and whatever other essays interest you. In each, you’ll find a gripping, intricate story, carefully told.
So how did W. Eugene Smith achieve such a rich and detailed story in a handful of images? There are two lessons we can take from this. Well, there are probably hundreds of lessons that we can learn from Smith’s work but there are two that I would like to focus on.
First, Smith took time, lots of it, to learn his story. He spent years overseas, documenting World War II, in the thick of the action, learning and observing. His Minamata essay was the result of two years’ worth of work, as was the Pittsburgh Project. To produce Country Doctor, Smith spent 23 days living and working with the doctor, gaining intimate knowledge of Dr. Ceriani’s life and line of work.
This is why I always say that good photography takes time. You’ll not create a photo essay, not one that features the depth and meaning of Smith’s essays, in an afternoon. To really capture the essence of a story, it takes days, weeks and sometimes even years just learning, observing and thinking.
The other key lesson to learn from Smith’s work is to not shy away from the intimate. Throughout each of his essays, you’ll find heartfelt images, images in which emotion is clear to the viewer. These are personal moments that tell us exactly what the people in the image are feeling — not artificial, posed shots that come across as melodramatic. Even in the images that don’t feature people, Smith shows you a side of things that you would normally not see. This is particularly apparent in the Pittsburgh Project, where Smith documents tumbledown buildings, filthy factories, complex networks of rail lines and more. He didn’t bother documenting Pittsburgh from the viewpoint that a visitor might see. Instead, he explored the city’s depths, its underbelly, so to speak.
I also think that it is important to point out that while Smith had a habit of documenting the darker things — war, sickness, poverty and so forth — his lessons hold true for photographers that seek to tell happier tales. A poignant, meaningful story can always be told, no matter the subject material or the emotions attached to it, if only the photographer is willing to take the time to learn his or her story fully and then document the most interesting, intimate and meaningful aspects of that story.
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The stereotypical image of the artist is one that spends a large portion of his or her life not producing anything. Then, when the inspiration strikes, the artist goes to work, spontaneously producing works of art. Perhaps the artist finally had the exact right sequence of thoughts. Whatever the case may be, the work is something that just came to them, spur of the moment.
With photographers, that mental image of the inspired artist is sometimes even stronger because it is assumed that all a photographer must do is keep pushing that shutter button until something magical happens. Perhaps in a fit of inspiration, the photographer figures out just how to create the perfect piece of art and with a few quick snaps, the job is done.
However, that isn’t how art works. Any art, not just photography, but painting, writing and so forth. More often than not, the greatest works are those that took the most time. They are the works that the artist spent days, weeks or even years producing.
In photography, a lot of that time is time spent waiting. Thinking, digesting, letting ideas coalesce and evolve. What’s more, there are several points throughout the photographic process where you should find the time to wait, to let the image percolate in your mind, to give yourself the time to forget about it just enough that you can look at an image more critically. Let me show you the three stages of the photographic process where I find myself simply waiting and thinking.
1. Think Before You Snap
So, you’ve had an idea for a photograph that you’d like to make, or at least you think you have an idea. Now is the time to stop yourself, before you rush out to create the photograph. Ask yourself questions. Is this really the best idea? Is there another angle that you can approach this from? Have you thought of all the best ways to utilize your gear, your knowledge and all the other tools at your disposal?
Wait, think things over, let the idea cook, so to speak. Give yourself the needed time to go over various concepts, to distil and solidify the final image in your mind before you embark on the photo trip. This prevents you from wasting time in the field, from forgetting a lens or a piece of gear that you could use to really enhance the image. Who knows, you may even decide that the idea is not worthwhile after all — or better yet, you may decide two or three days after you developed the idea that you know of a few things that can take the image you intend to make from good to amazing.
2. Take the Photo, then Wait Some More
Once you’ve actually taken the image, now is a great time to wait for a little while longer. Go ahead and load the image on your computer. Do some basic processing like exposure correction or color correction. Then, let the image sit for a few days or a week before you delve into serious post processing.
Why? Because this process allows you to do two things. First, you’ll have a little bit of time to forget about the image, which means that you can sit down and look at it with a fresh perspective later on. This is important because as artists, we tend to get attached to our ideas. It is hard to be appropriately critical of an image when it is fresh and we are still in love with everything about the concept. So, let it sit, then come back to reevaluate.
The second reason to wait before post processing is that this gives you some time to come up with additional ideas for things you can do in post. Perhaps you originally decided that you were going to create an HDR image, but after a few days of the idea percolating, you decide that the image might really be better off as black and white. Who knows, you may even realize that you could have taken the photo slightly differently, so you end up heading back out to your subject material and starting over. Whatever the case may be, allow yourself the time to have these thoughts.
3. Print the Photo and Live with It
The last step of this process comes with the completion of the photograph. Once the post processing is done, once all of the ideation is over with, when everything is complete, print the image, then display it somewhere prominently where you can observe it daily over the next few weeks. It doesn’t necessarily have to hang on a wall but put it somewhere where you will see the image day in and day out.
I even make the image my desktop background on my computer for a while. This saves printing costs and I still get to see it and think about it each day when I use my computer.
The important part of this is to get to know the image more intimately. Understand its strengths and weaknesses. Think about all of the things you could have done differently, things that might improve the image. Make mental notes of what can be done to make it better. If you have any of these kinds of ideas, act on them. Take a new photo or go back to Photoshop and process the image differently. Give it a different crop or whatever you think it needs, just so long as you have taken the time to look at the print or finished digital image and truly learn what it is that you need to do to refine the concept.
And, be aware that sometimes, you will find nothing to change. Sometimes, no ideas come to mind about how you can improve upon what you have done. That is fine — the important part is that you’ve taken the time to be introspective about the image and perhaps you can take whatever lessons you’ve learned and apply them to other photographs in the future.
Photography is largely a waiting game — waiting for the idea, waiting in the thick of the action until you get the shot, waiting until you are ready to call the image complete. Don’t rely on spontaneity to make things click into place. Instead, be prepared to wait, and be prepared to think long and hard while you wait.
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Photography isn’t all fun and games. Sometimes there are things that we find annoying. Chief among them? Assumptions. There is something about creative professions — photography, writing, painting and so on — that allows people to jump to conclusions about what it is that you do. If you tell someone that you are an insurance agent, that you work in a factory or that you are an E.R. doctor, people understand almost immediately what it is you do.
However, when someone asks your profession and you tell them that you are a photographer, well, let’s just say that you can expect a barrage of questions, many of which you’ve probably already heard and are tired of hearing. Here are some of the questions that I often hear when people make assumptions at what I do. Give them a read and then hopefully you’ll be able to laugh with me and brush off some of the annoyance at the assumptions people make!
1. Can you photograph my wedding?
This is one of the first questions that comes up when you tell friends or family that you are a photographer — and it is one of those questions that can make any photographer’s hair stand on end. Why? For a few reasons!
Number one, wedding photography is a lot of time, effort, expense and responsibility on the photographer’s part. As your friend, I don’t want to be held responsible if you don’t quite like your photos. And sometimes, you get that rare family member who expects you to do it for free, totally unaware that one wedding shoot can turn into days upon days of work for the photographer — plus expenses, of course.
The other thing that many people don’t think about is that not all of us are wedding photographers! What if you are a landscape artist or you work in the abstract? What if your primary line of work is commercial photography that centers around products and not people. It’s like asking a professional basketball player if he could also play soccer professionally — there are some who will do both, but not very many. The bottom line is, if you don’t already happen to be a wedding photographer (or have the desire to become one) then it is unlikely you’re going to appreciate this question when it is asked.
2. Why are your photos so expensive?
This goes back to the time, money and effort. It’s a question that you’ll hear often if you work professionally as a portraitist of some kind. People see your package pricing (or however you charge your fee) and immediately get sticker shock. As annoying as it is, it’s also easy to understand where these people are coming from.
You see, they aren’t thinking about how much your camera costs or how much you pay in insurance each month for your gear. They don’t see the hours you’re spending behind a computer screen, processing the work. The time spent driving, printing, maintaining gear — it all adds up. The only thing the customer sees is you spending an hour or two taking photographs of them. So, as much as this question may get on your nerves, it may help you to look at it from the other side of the coin — and explain to the asker why it costs what it does!
3. Can I get all the original RAW photos from the shoot?
Let’s get one thing clear: The answer to this question is always NO! I always find myself wondering, why would anyone want all of the RAWs? What do they plan to do with them? And, I refuse to give them out, not because I’m being mean-spirited but because it just isn’t a good idea.
Number one, RAW images are big files. I’m not in the business of buying massive amounts of digital storage just so I can hand over all of the 800 photos I took in a given shoot. But even if that were not an obstacle, it still isn’t wise to give out RAW files. Here are some reasons why:
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RAW files often need special software for processing and conversion. They aren’t something that an average non-photographer with shareware editing software is going to be able to work with.
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RAWs are the unfinished work. If you’re a writer, you don’t send the roughest of a rough draft to an editor, full of misspellings, plot holes, and bad punctuation. You first polish the work and then send it on. It’s the same with photography. We first process the photos because if we don’t, then there is a good chance that we’ll lose prospective customers when unedited RAW files are shown around amongst others.
4. Can you do this thing I saw on Pinterest?!
Would you ask a surrealist painter to paint you an ultra-realistic painting? Or a sketch artist to drop his pencils and paint for you in oil? This is why it is important to meet with several photographers before making a decision. Each photographer works with his or her chosen style and if that doesn’t happen to be the latest gimmicks from Pinterest, then you should look for someone else rather than forcing it on them!
5. Can you take that picture again with my smartphone?
We, photographers, know that you are excited to share your photos as soon as possible. However, it is impossible for us to simply “take the picture again” with your phone. This is because pressing the shutter button is merely the beginning. We’ll go back to our office or studio and begin the work of post processing and polishing. If you want to share selfies as soon as possible, the photographer is not going to take photos with your phone any better than you will!
6. Where can I buy a professional camera like yours so I can take beautiful photos, too?
The asker of this question generally means no harm but it comes across as offensive anyway. Why? Because it’s not the camera that makes the photos. The camera is simply the tool that you use. Better cameras will produce slightly better work, sure. But most of the beauty in a photograph comes from elsewhere.
Think about the years of reading, training, practicing, studying that goes into learning all about composition, the manipulation of light and the manipulation of gear to make it produce what you want. The hours that you’ll spend walking, getting up very early in the morning or staying out well past any reasonable person’s bedtime just to catch that perfect shot. The time you feel you’ve wasted (even though the experience is still generally fun and memorable) when you come home empty handed — something that happens all too often.
You just can’t go to the nearest store that sells cameras and become a photographer with the swipe of a credit card.
7. Do you edit your photos?
In this day and age, I sometimes stop to wonder what this question even means. Coming from some people, it is often suspicion — the suspicion that you are taking a realistic photo and creating something unrealistic, causing the viewer, if they know the photo has been edited, to feel like you’ve lied to them.
But the actual reality is this: Of course we edit our photos! It’s impossible not to. Even photographers throughout the decades of film edited their photos by cropping, dodging, burning, pushing exposure, pulling and so forth. Photographers today do much the same thing and they aren’t doing it to lie to their audience but to produce a better-finished product — a product that is often both more beautiful and more realistic than a poorly exposed image or one where the colors aren’t right.
And that leads me to the next part of the peeve, which is this: So what if a photographer does manipulate an image past the boundaries of reality? Does it really make any difference? Is there some law against this? Is the image now deceptive or somehow not really art anymore? I don’t think so. That’s what creative license is all about. We have the ability to choose what we want to portray and how we want to portray it.
To put it in different words, would you criticize an impressionist painter because their paintings are unrealistic? You would not. There is no reason that photographers cannot do the same.
Assumptions are a difficult thing to deal with, especially when you are close to the people that are making them. Do your best to laugh about them when you can and when you can’t, then try to think about the question from the perspective of the asker. And, it doesn’t hurt to inform someone whose assumptions are wildly different from reality!
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As a photographer, you may think of yourself as an observer. It’s an easy mindset to fall into because that is sort of what we do. We go through this world looking for things to photograph. We watch, we wait for the right moment, photographing the objects and actions that stand out to us. And there is often a disconnect there. We are not part of the scene. We are merely the observer of the scene.
But, immersion is important, even though it is an often overlooked step. Part of what we photograph is emotion or a particular thought. So, how can we do that if we ourselves are outside the scene looking in? When we immerse ourselves, invest our emotions into the things that we are experiencing, connect with the scenes, that is how we learn them better. That experience, that knowledge is key. It is essential if you really want to pour meaning and depth into your photography.
That connection doesn’t always come easily, however. Here are a few of my thoughts on the subject, ideas that may help you make that connection with the things that you photograph.
Learn How to Work with Your Camera
Photographers, of course, need to know how their gear operates, how to make adjustments to various settings and so forth. What’s not so obvious is how you should use your camera to see. There’s only a couple of options: the viewfinder or the live view. The trick is to pick the one that works best for you.
For instance, some people prefer shooting with the live view. Why? Because to them, peering through a narrow viewfinder shuts them off from the world, breaks that connection they’ve made with the scene. Now, they are no longer a part of their surroundings, but a stranger, examining through a microscope.
On the flip side of that, other photographers prefer the viewfinder. They may find it easier to immerse themselves in this way because the viewfinder minimizes distractions. The photographer who prefers the viewfinder wishes to prioritize the things that he or she is looking at, connecting with the objects that are most relevant while blocking the distracting things, like cars passing on a nearby highway.
Experiment with both methods and choose the one that works best for you. It won’t be the same between all photographers. In fact, it may not be the same from one scene to the next. Simply be aware that the way you look at the world through your camera can affect how you connect with your surroundings.
Only Take Pictures When You are Comfortable
Some photographers would rather be alone when they are creating art. A companion, even a spouse, as well loved as they are, prove to be a distraction. Chatter intrudes and the solitary photographer loses the train of thought. Others find comfort in the companionship, finding themselves more open to experiences when others are around. They’ll bounce ideas back and forth, engage in conversation until they’ve come up with something good.
Comfort is important – not only in your choice of companions or lack thereof but also in your other choices as well. If your shoes are pinching, you’ll be less focused on what is around you. A camera bag that is too heavy proves to be annoying and exhausting. Take water, a couple of granola bars so that you can eat and drink as you need.
Whether it’s your companions, your choice of gear or anything else, think about the choices you’ll make as you prepare for a photo outing. Make yourself as comfortable as possible so that you can avoid the distractions that would normally remove you from your environment.
Spend Time Experiencing the Photograph
Let’s say that you’ve traveled to a beautiful place — a forest of massive trees, a canyon. Anywhere that interests you. Should you start snapping photos as soon as you get there so as to not waste time? Maybe not. Instead, take the time to fully experience your surroundings. Sit down against a tree trunk or a boulder, look, listen and learn. You’ll notice details you hadn’t seen before and more importantly, you’ll come to better understand how a place feels. With that knowledge, you can better capture its essence.
This holds true for most types of photography. If you’re photographing crowds of people, get into the thick of things. Don’t merely observe, separating yourself from the scene. Become part of it because that is the only way to learn and feel the things that you need to document not only shapes and colors but thoughts and feelings. This is why sports photographers are on the sidelines, not high in the stands with a telephoto lens. Closer is always better and that’s not just a rule to create better exposures. It also applies to the understanding of your subject material.
Think of it this way: An actor, when learning a new part, often finds a way to live that part before acting it. So, if an actor is practicing for a character that comes from a certain region, he might spend weeks or months in that region, living it, learning the mannerisms and the details that will bring his character to life. Learning your scene is not so different from this. You immerse yourself in it, learn what you can about it and then photograph it with this new perspective.
The main idea to remember is that the connection you make with the people, places, and things that you photograph is all important. Perhaps some of the things I’ve mentioned here will help you make that connection. But, even if not, don’t lose hope! You’ll surely find other ways to connect on a deeper level as you practice your art.
So many discussions surrounding photography come back to that old chestnut: What is art, exactly? It is impossible to define art and in fact, I would say that it is against the very nature of art to try and define it. However, there are a few things that seem to fall less in the category of art, mainly because these things don’t have thought, vision or inspiration behind them.
Often, these things are merely techniques or methods that have become so overused that they are now a gimmick. In other words, artists merely use a particular technique to create something that seems unusual or shocking at first glance but upon closer inspection, the actual work seems to have no meaning or it doesn’t move a broad selection of viewers to think more deeply on the “art” that they are looking at.
The difference between art and gimmicks that are mimicking art are difficult to understand, even for people who have been enmeshed with the trade for decades. Allow me to explore this topic more deeply and perhaps we can all come away with some insights as to when something is actually artistic and when a work is just using a gimmick to draw a quick look.
Does the Technique Add to the Art?
In the photography world, there is a subset of techniques that have the reputation of being gimmicky. This includes things like selective coloring, HDR photography, sepia and monochrome imagery, desaturation, specialty filters and more.
Now, let me just say this: There is no such thing as a technique that is, by default, a gimmick.
Rather, the techniques I listed above are examples of techniques that some photographers will overuse or use inappropriately in order to create something flashy, something that stands out at first glance, but on closer examination, is otherwise meaningless.
Let’s use selective coloring as our example. When this technique first hit the photography scene, photographers everywhere experimented with it, trying to learn ways to put selective color to work in order to draw more meaning out of an image. And there are a great many selectively colored photographs out there that are beautiful works of art. However, the problem was that the technique became something of a trend for a few years and suddenly everyone was applying it to their photographs willy-nilly, without considering whether or not the technique really added anything to the image. At the height of the selective coloring craze, most photographs that made use of the technique, were not something that I would have considered art. Instead, they felt more like a quick and easy bid to gain attention.
The same goes for HDR photography. Our longstanding struggle, as photographers, is to document real life as we see it with our eyes. Unfortunately, camera equipment is not always capable of catching a broad range of lighting in one image which is why, historically, we would use multiple exposures with film or neutral density filters – both attempts to create a balanced exposure in somewhat extreme lighting conditions. HDR gave us a solution to that problem, finally giving us a relatively easy way to display an image with a high dynamic range.
But again, at the height of the HDR trend, the technique gained that reputation for being gimmicky. Why? Because photographers were using it not to expand the dynamic range of an image but instead to create gaudy colorful images, images that looked needlessly over-sharpened, images that had strange halos around prominent objects. The technique was not necessary to display the contents of these images at their best. It became a way to take otherwise ordinary subject material and turn it into something that wasn’t necessarily meaningful, but nonetheless grabbed your attention through the use of wild colors and other strange effects.
That is why I maintain that there are instances when these techniques are used to great artistic effect. But, these are the instances when the technique really adds something to the photograph, when the photograph just wouldn’t have as much meaning or depth without it. Used in this way, no technique is a gimmick.
Are You Following a Trend Because It’s Trendy?
I’ve already touched on the idea of trends in photography but I think that it is a subject requiring deeper examination because, to me, trendy things and artistry are almost opposite concepts. Photography is supposed to be a personal artistic expression. How are you expressing yourself, your original and unique ideas, when you follow a trend? By following a trend, you are expressing the ideas of whoever started that trend.
For example, one thing that is popular, at least in certain areas, is “old fashioned” photography. These images typically feature something old, like a car, a battered chair or a distressed sign. The colors in these images are de-saturated or given a distinct cast, often in blue or sepia tones even though they may not be monochromatic. The idea, I gather, is to mimic the colors of films like Kodachrome, but many of these photographs don’t quite look like Kodachrome or another of the famous old films.
Can an image like those I’ve described be considered art? Of course they can, provided that they are made with the idea of provoking thought, providing an intensely satisfying visual experience, or conveying some meaning. However, if you are simply following a trend because that is the current hot item at craft fairs and in home décor stores, then perhaps it isn’t art. Then it becomes more akin to mass production, something that is common enough to be considered a trope, a gimmick.
Art is original and trends, well, trends are the opposite. Trends are unoriginal because everyone is doing them.
The most important thing to take away from this discussion, after everything that I’ve said, is that there is nothing wrong with using tactics that have a reputation for being gimmicky and there is nothing wrong with creating art that just so happens to fit with a trend. When dealing with art, we cannot generalize so much that we dismiss legitimate works of art. The problem is not with the trends and the tactics but with the intent. If it is your intent to create something meaningful, then you have created art. But, if it is your intent to create something to make a quick buck, without a lot of thought, simply because the subject material or techniques you have used are a popular aesthetic, then you’ll need to consider for yourself whether or not the works you have created can be considered, in every sense of the word, art.
If you’re a photographer, then at one time or another, you have probably felt the urge to create abstract art. It’s an alluring genre, one that draws you in because it allows you to express creativity to the utmost. But among a general viewing audience, abstract art of any kind, whether it’s photography or another medium, just isn’t popular. In galleries, it hangs on the walls unsold for long stretches of time. In museums, people scratch their heads at it and move on. Artists are drawn to it, but a great many other people are willing to give it a pass. Why? Let’s analyze abstract art to learn some of the reasons behind its lack of popularity.
Abstract Images are Incredibly Subjective
So many photographs are of landscapes, people, buildings, pretty flowers or trees, still life images — they are based on something concrete, something that is easy to recognize and thus easier to interpret. With abstract art, the artist is working, well, in the abstract. It is a very personal expression of creativity, one that is unique to the artist that created it. When you create a piece of abstract art, you are essentially saying that in your opinion, this is what makes an image art. The things that you find to be beautiful and interpretable in their own strange way are very likely to come across as odd and indiscernible to the next person who looks at your imagery.
Abstract Art has a Bad Reputation
Have you ever walked the halls of an art museum and overhead someone talking about an abstract painting? “What is this? The artist just splattered paint everywhere! This isn’t art!” Abstracts often come across that way, as something arbitrary, easy to produce. The uninitiated may look at abstract imagery and just see a pretty wash of colors or a random jumble of shapes and assume that the artist wasn’t trying. This is because it is hard to see what went into the image before it was ever committed to paper or canvas. The planning, the hours, days, weeks or months of thought. The selection of colors and their placement. Perhaps the artist has an entire garage or studio full of paint-splattered canvasses because he or she worked and worked until it finally came out perfectly, at least in the opinion of the artist.
The viewer sees none of this. The viewer sees the shapes, colors, splatters and so on and thinks, “This looks like the kind of thing I made in preschool art class.” This ties in with my first point: Without a concrete subject, something to anchor the viewer in the image, the viewer has no idea what to make of this abstraction and thus assumes that the artist never intended the work to be meaningful. The common assumption goes counter to this — art should be meaningful, therefore, the viewer assumes, if this work is not meaningful, then it is not art. It is arbitrary.
How Do You Judge an Abstract?
This is something that everyone struggles with, even aficionados of abstract photography. How can you judge an abstract work? In a photograph that isn’t abstract, you can pore over the image looking for technical faults or you can enjoy how the subject and other elements are arranged. It is easy to look at a portrait or a verdant landscape and appreciate the beauty while making a judgement on technical or artistic merits.
But abstract photography often dispenses with rules entirely. Did the photographer mean for this wash of color here or for the white balance to look so off? Is that element supposed to be blurry or not? Abstract images are hard to judge according to conventional rules and thus, they are very easy to dismiss unless you like the image on a personal level.
Art is Complicated
Finally, there are a great many people, maybe even a majority of people, that prefer art to be uncomplicated. And there is nothing wrong with that. Many people don’t want to walk past the art in their living room and ponder the deeper meaning of life. Instead, they’d rather see a sweeping vista or wildlife playing in the forest instead of being burdened with the idea that there is some deeper significance that they are missing. As much as we photographers and art lovers might obsess over meanings, for a lot of people, it just isn’t that important. Many prefer art that is beautiful, simple and easy to enjoy.
My Thoughts on Abstracts
For these reasons and more, abstract photography just isn’t as popular as other types of photography. The genre has gained a bit of ground over the years, particularly among people who love modern aesthetics. However, it is easy for someone who isn’t that into art to simply not “get” an abstract image.
However, none of this is to say that you should not bother with abstract photography or that you should find yourself discouraged. I simply mean to say that you should be prepared for the idea that an audience broader than your artist friends may not have the same appreciation for the work. If you want to create abstract art, I say go for it — it is an incredibly rewarding experience.
There is one thing you should take to heart, though.
Don’t produce cheap abstracts. What is a cheap abstract? It’s the kind of image that commonly pops up at craft vendors or on department store shelves. In other words, it is just a mass-produced image that wasn’t made with much thought about composition or meaning. These are the types of images in which someone with a camera saw something unusual and decided to snap a photo and move on. In the world of painters, cheap abstracts truly are just splattered paint with no thought other than a paycheck behind them.
True abstract imagery takes time, lots of it. It isn’t meant to be easy. When people make it easy, they cheapen the genre, degrading the work of those who have devoted inordinate amounts of time to it. Worse, they contribute to the idea that abstract images are not art at all.
I think that if you go about abstract photography in this way, by putting serious effort into creating a satisfying visual experience, by taking the time to think and feel the emotions you are trying to portray, then your art will be much more well-received than mass-produced abstractions. And sure, there will be people who won’t “get” the image, but that is true of abstract images no matter how much effort is put into them. It’s the nature of the best, in this instance.
That is why most photographers who pursue abstract photography create abstracts for themselves alone. It isn’t the goal to create an image that other people like. The goal is to create something that you like. If you like an abstract image, then certainly there will be others out there who like it, too.
Last week, I talked about my trip to the American Sign Museum, an interesting destination packed with the world’s most beautiful neon lighting. Hopefully, the history lesson I gave you provided some inspiration. Now I think it’s time to talk about how to photograph neon lighting. These tips and tricks can be applied to other kinds of lights but for now, I’d like to focus on neon lights because they are a beautiful, colorful part of our history.
Be Prepared for Low Light
It sounds strange, I know, that in a museum full of neon lights, you would run into a low light situation. However, neon lights (as well as other types of lights, like indoor incandescent lighting) are not meant to provide bright illumination. Instead, these lights are supposed to be colorful, eye-catching, not too bright to look at — just enough light to provide ambience in the space that they are displayed. In the American Sign Museum, in particular, it costs extra to bring along a tripod and I didn’t want to be burdened with extra gear. Instead, I used some other tricks to capture the lights despite the low luminosity.
First, I found myself bracing often to take photos. Bracing is a technique that you can use when you don’t have access to a tripod or a monopod. To brace, all you need to do is find a way to support or stabilize yourself so that you can minimize shakiness at slower shutter speeds. Lean against a wall, prop yourself on the back of a chair or ask a friend for a steady shoulder to lean on. It depends on the person and the capabilities of your camera’s image stabilization, but in general, you should consider bracing at shutter speeds between 1/100 to 1/60 and lower. In fact, you should consider practicing ahead of time so that you know which shutter speeds require you to brace and which are slow enough to make a tripod a necessity.
Another thing you’ll find in situations like this is that it really helps if your camera can handle low light situations at high ISOs without producing a lot of noise. I found myself several times shooting at ISOs of 25,000 or greater. On top of that, make sure that you have a good noise removal tool at your disposal. For the neon light images, I used Luminar to reduce noise.
Now is The Time for Automatic Settings
It’s hard to let your camera do all the work. We photographers often find ourselves unsatisfied with full automatic controls because the art making process doesn’t feel complete unless you’ve carefully chosen shutter speed, aperture, ISO and all the other necessary settings. However, in a place like the American Sign Museum, automatic settings are your friend. In a place like this, the lighting can change with every step you take and if there are flashing lights, then it is changing between each shot. If you stop to adjust your settings between each and every shot, you are likely to spend more time fiddling with your camera than creating artwork. Turn that dial to “Aperture Priority” and let go — let your camera decide the settings so that you can focus on composition and most importantly, enjoying the experience.
The same goes for white balance. Now, if you are in a place with consistent lighting — incandescent, fluorescent, what have you — then you can set your camera up to achieve the white balance you need. And, if you are going for a certain set of colors or a certain look, then, by all means, set your white balance to get that look, if it helps. But when you are in a setting that features lights in red, yellow, blue, green and every other color imaginable, then, here again, you’ll find that the decision-making process is better left up to the camera rather than attempting to make adjustments between each shot.
What about Post Processing?
For this type of project, I cannot recommend Adobe Lightroom enough. When you rely on automatic settings and creative ways to brace yourself, you will likely take a lot more photos than usual just to make sure that you get a nice collection of great images to work with. Software that can handle images in bulk will make your life much easier.
To do this project, I started by importing the images into Lightroom so that I could flag those that I liked. Then, I left them for a few days so that I could sort my thoughts out, come back and look at the flagged images with a more objective eye. After that, I did a basic processing routine, making adjustments to exposure where necessary, and boosting or lowering highlights — a task that you will likely need to do a lot when photographing lights of any kind.
With neon lights, color is just as important as exposure. Don’t hesitate to go over each image, boosting the saturation of certain colors, enhancing the overall vibrancy or making other color corrections as needed to really make the lights pop. You may also choose to selectively sharpen some of the most important elements of each image. When all of this is done, move on to noise removal, if necessary.
Finally, the most important part: cropping. In a place like the American Sign Museum, there are innumerable elements that you can’t physically move out of the frame and believe me — those distracting elements will make their way into your images. Fortunately, modern technology makes it easy to crop out those distracting bits and pieces. Take your time on this task, trying different orientations, aligning the most important elements with various compositional rules and removing objects that are making their way into the edges of the image. Most importantly, go about your cropping with the idea that you are telling a story in each image or across a series of images. This mentality will help you determine what needs to stay and what needs to go in each photograph.
If you ever have an opportunity to do a project like this, keep these tips in mind. Hopefully, the things that I have shared will help you enjoy the experience even as you capture a beautiful series of images that you can enjoy for years to come.
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I recently had a fantastic opportunity to visit the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati — a fascinating experience, let me tell you. I spent a good amount of time taking photographs and I’d like to share with you everything that I learned. First, however, because these signs are so interesting, and because there is a lot of history behind them, I’d like to share that history with you. Perhaps this will help you with inspiration should you ever find yourself photographing neon signs.
The Art of Neon Lights Started as a Science
Much like photography, which started with scientists experimenting with chemicals and sunlight, the neon light started with scientists experimenting with different types of lighting. The precursor to neon lighting was invented in 1855, the Geissler tube, which was named for Heinrich Geissler. Geissler was both a physicist and a glass blower. These tubes were used in experiments with electricity and different kinds of gases. Essentially, scientists were trying to find out what happened when electricity was applied to the gas contained in a Geissler tube.
The Discovery of Neon Gas
The invention of neon lights, back in the 1800s, was hindered by one thing: The gas neon had not yet been discovered. That discovery came in 1898, by M. W. Travers and William Ramsey. Neon is an incredibly rare gas, present in air at rates of about 1 part per 65,000. In order to collect neon, researchers needed to use a process called liquefaction, which collects gases that are then separated in another process called fractional distillation.
From that point, it would still be a little while before the first true neon light was invented. Georges Claude was the very first scientist to experiment with neon gas in a Geissler tube. Claude was French, an inventor, engineer, and chemist by trade. He first applied electricity to sealed neon gas in 1902, thus creating the very first neon light. He continued to refine his design, and on December 11, 1910, he put his first neon light on display in Paris.
Neon Lighting Becomes an Art
Claude’s first light, much like the first cameras, wasn't anything fancy. It would take a couple more years of developing the technology in order to turn these lights into the beautiful neon lights we know today. Originally, neon lighting was red, a very distinct color, so Claude and others worked on ways to create lights of other colors.
Meanwhile, Claude set about trying to market his neon lights. In 1912, he sold the world’s first piece of neon advertising, a sign for a barber shop in Paris. Then, in 1913, he sold a sign that spelled “Cinzano” in massive 3 1/2-foot letters.
Claude knew he was on to something so he filed for a United States patent in 1911. He also started his own company, Claude Neon Lights, Inc. Over the years, he developed both red and blue lights, one of which rested at the entrance of the Paris Opera House.
In 1923, Claude’s big breakthrough came. An auto dealer in Los Angeles by the name of Earle C. Anthony ordered two signs for his dealership. Each sign read “Packard” after the cars he sold, costing him about $24,000, a sum that would be worth more than $300,000 today.
With that, the neon sign as we know it today was born. Georges Claude became famous, and neon signs were common everywhere by the mid-1900s. Claude passed away in 1960, but not before that most famous of neon cities, Las Vegas, was already starting to roll out its bright lights.
Neon Lighting and Photography
The invention of neon lighting parallels the invention of photography in so many ways. Both art forms started as a science experiment and both went through decades of work before becoming a commercially available tool that businesses and individuals the world over use. Just as photography went through a period of development that brought us the color image, so too did neon lighting. Originally, these lights were red, then red and blue. Later on, other gases were added to these tubes to create the beautifully colored lights that we know and love today.
The most interesting parallel, I think, is that both art forms are based solely on light. Neon lighting is the production of light in beautiful colors and shapes. Photography is the capturing of that light, the recording of those shapes and colors. Perhaps that is why it feels so natural to create art centered around these lights because the two mediums complement each other so well.
If you ever have the chance, I highly recommend that you visit the American Sign Museum and capture the beautiful lights yourself. If you won't find yourself in Cincinnati any time soon, then in the meantime, perhaps you could start your own project based around photographing lights. If you know of businesses that still use neon lights to advertise in your area, check them out — you may be able to come away with interesting artwork. Even if you don't know of a good place to see these lights in all their beauty, you could focus your efforts on other types of lights, like candles, chandeliers or interesting lamps. No matter what you decide to do, hopefully, what I've shared here today inspires you to create something amazing.
It is so easy to stick with the thing that we know works. In fact, that’s why photographers have all of these rules, like the Rule of Thirds or the rule to never crop a portrait subject at the knees or elbows. And don’t get me wrong — those rules are a good thing. They're a set of standards that photographers adhere to for a reason, because in most instances, abiding by those rules will produce a better photograph than if you go against them.
But, sometimes that strict adherence to the rulebook leads the best of us into a creative rut. We must never forget that experimentation is paramount. Experimentation is the reason why photography went from science to art and it is the reason why we have advanced as far as we have. The experimentation of photographers, engineers and researchers throughout the decades is why we can use DSLRs, it’s why we have a broad base of well-known techniques to use — and experimentation is what will drive us into the future, helping us to create new gear, new techniques and at the end of the day, brand new artwork.
And that is why I call on all photographers to experiment. Keep experimenting and perhaps you will be the next photographer to create something that all of us can use. Not sure where to start? Here are some ideas!
Experimenting with Elements
One way to experiment with photography is to experiment with individual elements of a photograph. The subject, or a background that you like, a particular color, a detail that you would like to include. Narrow your scope down to that one element and then see what you can do with it. I see many photographers creating projects centered around one particular thing and the idea works for them because it allows these photographers to narrow in on something new and creative rather than shuffling through a large jumble of ideas. One photographer may create daily images centered around a child’s toy, taking the photographs from the toy’s perspective while another may spend weeks collecting images centered around shades of blue.
In fact, this is one reason why photo-a-day projects work so well. When you are determined to take one photo each day for a year, you have no choice but to let go of your grand plans. There just is not time to sit down and hash out the details for a new photograph every single day. Instead, the photographer has to work on the fly. See something interesting, take your photo for the day. In this way, you learn to really focus on one element, or a small group of elements, and experiment with them until the image clicks.
Of course, you don't have to do an entire year in photographs if you don't want to, but it does help to periodically do a study on one of your elements. By study, I mean that you should choose your element and then work with it until you feel that it has run its course. Examine the element from all angles, if it is a subject or a background piece. If it is a color, a lighting style or something else, then apply your chosen element or theme to whatever you can think of. Experiment with your element and you will certainly end up creating something interesting.
Experimenting with Gear
Experimentation doesn't have to happen within the photograph. You can experiment in a wide variety of ways with your gear. Gear experimentation is why photographers love gaffer’s tape so much — because one day, someone got tired of tripping over lighting cords or not being able to hang a backdrop, so they grabbed a roll of tape and used it to solve the problem. Always ask yourself the question, in what way can I use the tools that I have differently?
Let’s say, for instance, you are out in the field, with a couple of portable flashes, wireless triggers and light stands to mount everything on. What can you do to modify your lighting? It depends on the tools that you brought along, like umbrellas or what have you. And it also depends on how much you are willing to experiment and what bits and pieces you can scavenge to aid you in your experiment. For example, in a pinch, photographers have been known to fashion Pringles cans, straws or corrugated cardboard into DIY emergency snoots. They’ve put sheets of paper or even frosted plastic from milk jugs over their lights as a diffuser. If you happen to have plastic shopping bags, particularly in colors other than white — tan or blue, for example — then you can fashion yourself a way to warm up or cool down the light from the flash.
Reversing rings for macro photography were born from this same sort of ingenuity. Someone got the bright idea to mount a lens backwards and discovered an entirely new way to create extreme close up photographs. Most of the tools that we have at our disposal came about because someone was willing to experiment, to try new things.
As a final thought, I want you to remember that there are still more things to experiment with besides gear and elements within images. Post processing is one avenue. Experiment by combining prose with images, or by trying as many different genres of photography as interest you. That is how we innovate, and it is in fact, the only way we can innovate. Everything that we have today, even things outside of photography, all come from someone, or from a group of people, who were just daring enough to try something new. That same enterprising spirit will lead you into trying new methods, new types of photography and most importantly, into creating works of art that you would not normally have dreamed up.
Photography is a fascinating hobby that can be started at an early age. There are no limits, other than the ability to hold and aim a camera at a subject and press the button. And from this small beginning, children can learn and experience a whole new world of wonder and excitement.
Now you can help your child to understand all the aspects of this amazing hobby through Teaching Children the Wonders of Photography, which contains chapters which includes:
- Showing children how the basics
- Encouraging them to take lots of photos
- The basics of composure
- Using lighting
- Shutter speeds, aperture and ISO
- Learning to be a comfortable photographer
- And much more…
Whether you are teaching your own child or whether you are a volunteer who works with groups of children, teaching them about photography is a wonderful way to interact and spend time together.
And with Teaching Children the Wonders of Photography you have a ebook which is suitable for complete beginners who have never held a camera before.
Get your free copy now and start sharing your knowledge with the next generation of budding photographers.
I've set a minimum contribution to FREE and you're welcome to give a donation. Thank you so much!
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Change is a factor that permeates every part of our lives. Everything changes as the days, weeks, months and years go by. Many people, maybe even most people, are resistant to change, at least to certain types of it. In photography, for instance, change can sometimes feel aggravating. Who wants to learn all about a new camera system when the one you are already using once worked just fine?
The problem with resistance to change is this: If we all refused to change, then we'd still be lugging around giant cameras like photographers did more than a century ago. We’d be printing our fuzzy monotone images on sheets of metal. Maybe we'd never have moved on to color photography.
And that is why we embrace change. Because even though it is scary sometimes, it is generally for the better. In photography, change means innovation, learning and moving forward. When I stop to think about how far we’ve come since the first photographic image was produced, I’m somewhat awed by the progress. And then I think, what revolutions, what changes, will we see in the future? Will the photographers of 100 years from now look back at our primitive DSLRs, lenses, post processing and printing processes with the same sense of awe that we feel when we stop to reminisce? Possibly so.
But that’s beside the point. Let’s take a look at the ways that our art changes so that we can hopefully come away with a greater appreciation for new and different things.
Cameras Change
If you're like most photographers, you love the camera that you currently use and all the rest of the gear that goes along with it. After all, one of the most essential parts of finding the right system is finding one that you can use with relative ease. However, one day, that camera, or your favorite lens, or some other piece of gear will break (or become obsolete) and you'll be forced out to go and buy something new. Something that you will likely end up enjoying just as much as what you have now, but that you will find irritating as you try to learn the new controls and quirks of the gear.
The thing is, that newer piece of equipment? It will almost always be better than the original thing that you had. If it’s a new camera, you’ll probably have better resolution, the ability to shoot noise-free at higher ISOs or a greater range of features that you can put to work in the field. New flashes will likely give you, even more, control over lighting than your old flashes and new lenses might have wider apertures. In the end, though you may miss your old pieces of equipment, though you are frustrated with the idea of learning how this new and different thing works, the change is almost always positive.
Techniques Change with Trends
Technique is another big part of photography that is subject to rapid change. With each new trend comes the potential for a new technique that is added to our repertoires. For example, back in the old days, flashes produced whatever color lighting they produced and that was that. If it was yellow hued or greenish, that’s just what photographers had to deal with. Then, as the trend of flash photography grew, manufacturers began refining the hardware, producing flashes with consistent, complementary lighting.
Then a whole new trend came along. Photographers began modifying their flashes with whatever they had on hand, sometimes with materials like colored gels that are used in stage lighting. Today, photographers can buy color filters or gels specifically made because of the trend of colored lighting that went on to become a technique so many of us still use.
When you stop to really examine all of the various techniques that we use today, I think you'll find that they all started with someone that was willing to do something different. By themselves changing the way they did things, they started trends that took off and become mainstays for the photographers of the future.
The Meaning Changes
In the 1800s and early 1900s, it was a common practice among people with the means to afford it to create post-mortem photographs. Bodies of loved ones were prepared, dressed and posed, usually sitting or lying down. Then photographs were taken, printed and given to the surviving family, who cherished those photos as fond remembrances of their lost loved ones.
Today, we look at reproductions of these images in an entirely different way. These aren’t fond remembrances. They weren’t even people that we knew or were related to in some way. Now, the images feel chilling, grim. They're a stark reminder of mortality, they are uncomfortable to look at yet oddly fascinating in a morbid way.
So it goes for all photographs. The meanings can and likely will change throughout the years. Even without the passage of time, the meanings will likely change depending on who is looking at the photograph. And, that’s a good thing. Photography, and most other art forms for that matter are mediums meant to be thought provoking. The fact that these meanings change with time or with different audiences means that the images are not stale. Their effect has not worn off. Instead, they are provoking new and unique thoughts every time someone stops to ponder them.
I, for one, am glad that photography is not static. With each new thing, we gain more knowledge, better technology, improved methods, and techniques. Change is what keeps our viewers interested and it is what makes the art come alive. If it helps you, keep this in mind the next time you’re feeling frustrated with something new.
Stephen King’s On Writing is one of those required books that I had to read in cinematography class many years ago. While this book talks about the craft of writing, the pages are filled with insights that are applicable to just about everything. We photographers may not necessarily care so much about such things as grammar, dialogue and other technical elements that go along with the written word. It is in King’s methodology that the real value is for photographers — and truly, creatives of all types.
I know I’ve talked about the creative process previously. It’s a subject that comes up quite frequently because frankly, there is no one size fits all answer. Your creative process will be different from mine and from everyone else, too. But there is value in looking at the creative process of others because it helps us to pick up new ideas and develop our own individualized process from there.
King’s methodology is one that is full of ideas and inspiration for photographers. You see, when King writes, he doesn’t sit down and outline a full story before he starts to flesh out the book. He doesn’t have a book in his mind, from start to finish, waiting for the right time to be committed to paper. Instead, he starts with one scene. In this scene, he has all the things a scene requires — the characters, the setting, the dialogue and exposition. But it’s still just a scene, with no backstory surrounding it, no events leading up to or following it. It is just one piece that will eventually become a moment in the broader timeline of the story. It is only after this scene is completed that he builds on it, adding the rest of the scenes to create a book.
How can that possibly translate to photography? At first glance, it seems like it doesn’t. That’s because each image that we create is a scene. So, if you tell a photographer to try creating one scene, he’ll be puzzled by what you’re asking him to do. Likely, that’s what he was already doing. And sometimes, creating that scene is easy. The creative ideas are flowing and we know the where, when and how of the photograph. Everything just falls into place. Other times, we're stuck, without a direction, unable to create the scene that becomes the final image. King’s methods can help you get through this and applying them to photography is simpler than you might imagine.
Think of King’s creative process in terms of how it relates to a finished book. That first scene that he creates? It might only be a few paragraphs or it could be an entire chapter. Whatever shape or size it takes, it is just one small part of the finished book — one small element, if you will.
Therein lies the way that we photographers can put King’s method to work. In much the same way that King’s scene is one element that works with the rest of the story as a whole, you can choose one element that works with the rest of a photograph to create a whole image.
What I mean by that is this: Rather than trying, as we so often do, to plan an image completely from start to finish, envisioning the setting, the subjects, all of the other details and even elements like lighting, color and composition, instead, when you find yourself stuck, just let all of that go. Sometimes, when we find ourselves in a creative rut, the problem is that we're just trying to juggle too many elements at once and there seems to be no satisfactory way to smash them all together. Choose one element to work with, distill your ideas to one small part of the image and let the rest of the story flow from that.
What element should you chose as the first piece of the puzzle before you? It could be anything. Perhaps you want to create something that involves a bird. Now you can use that element to start adding other elements. Think about the types of birds you might encounter. Which ones would you like to capture? What kinds of habitats do these birds live in, or what kinds of activities do these birds engage in? Can you find supporting elements for the final image in those lines of thought?
If you want to create an image featuring a crow, perhaps you should capture one that is playing with a shiny object or using twigs as tools. Or if you want to create an image of a parrot, perhaps you should capture him at play with a favorite toy or when the parrot speaks the words that his owners have taken the time to teach him. In this way, you can choose your one element and then start thinking about how that element relates to the rest of the story you could create, thus letting the image form organically from that one starting point.
Of course, your starting element doesn't have to be a bird. It doesn't even need to be the main subject of the image. Your element, the piece that you will build the rest of the story around, could be a setting, like your favorite woodland hideaway. It could be a type of lighting, like the golden rays shining through evening clouds. It could even be a color. What happens if you decide to make purple the central theme of the image? What kind of elements can you pull together that fit with this color to tell a story in your image?
As you can see, it is possible to apply Stephen King’s methods to your own work. The method is a simple one, when you get right down to it. Start with one small part of the project and then let your creativity branch out to create the whole.
There are all kinds of things we can talk about when it comes to photography. Multitudes of techniques, basic to advanced camera controls, compositional rules, lighting, gear and even the artistic eye. There is post processing, software, file storage and all of the other technical details. You can boil it down further and talk about papers and inks. There are many different elements and all of them work together to create works of art in much the same way that a jigsaw puzzle’s pieces work together to form a whole. Without one element, one piece, the whole picture loses something.
But there is one part of photography that is very rarely talked about even though this piece of the puzzle is the key to everything. That element is determination. Gear, techniques, knowledge – these aren’t the things that get you out and learning, thinking and creating. In fact, you could have the gear of your dreams along with an entire library of knowledge at your fingertips but without determination, it would all be for nothing. Determination is the driving force behind everything that we do. Let me show you how determination is key to a long and successful photographic career.
Determined to Fight Through a Creative Block
What does a successful photographer do when he or she is simply out of ideas? You take pictures anyway because you are determined to create something, no matter what that something might be. The location, the subject material and all of the other variables matter less when you’re stuck in a rut. What matters is that you go out and do. Sometimes, the sheer will to go out and take photos despite a lack of direction is all you need to get the creative ideas flowing again.
So, when you find yourself without a plan, make up your mind to go capture something anyway. Once you find yourself out and examining the world with the photographer’s eye, surely something will capture your interest.
Determined to Never Stop Learning
It is impossible to come to a point in your career where you can say that you have learned all there is to learn. In fact, a photographer that has this attitude quite clearly has not learned much at all about this art. In order to continue to be successful, you’ll need to keep an open mind, ready and willing to take in new information for the rest of your career.
The fact is, there are hundreds, thousands of well-recognized photographers and authors out there, all with something of their own to offer. You’ll have a lifetime of experiences to learn from — and many lifetimes of everyone else’s experiences, too. With this wealth of raw information, it is impossible to learn it all.
What’s more, no photographer, not even those leading the way on the cutting edge, has learned the things that photographers of the future will know. In the years and decades to come, new discoveries will be made and new technology will be released. You’ll have to learn about all of these things if you want to keep up with everyone else. Learning is a process that should never stop because that is how advancements are made.
Determined to Improve
What about the photographer who says to himself, “This is it! I’ve improved to the point that I can no longer do better than I am right now.” Well, that photographer is in a predicament, possibly because arrogance has led him to believe that he has reached some kind of pinnacle when in actuality, that arrogance will eventually lead the photographer down a stale path of mediocrity. Or, perhaps the situation is grim, the photographer is frustrated and fed up because he feels that he has hit some kind of artificial wall, a roadblock to his progress.
This is why you must always carry with you the determination to improve. No photographer, not you, not I, not even the greatest photographers in the world, will ever reach a point where we can stop and say, “good enough!” There will always, always be room for improvement. Look over your work with a critical eye and keep your sights set on the future with the idea that tomorrow, you will be determined enough to create a work of art that is even better than the one you created the day before.
Be Determined to Invest
I know — this sounds like you should be determined to invest lots of money in gear and equipment. And trust me, you probably will. Most photographers spend more money on must-have toys than is sane or reasonable. We do it for the love of the art because we are determined to make something incredible.
When I say that you should be determined to invest, however, I’m not talking about money. I’m talking about investing yourself. People like to think that photography is a quick and easy art. After all, it takes less time to snap the shutter release than it does to place paint on canvas. But you know the reality, that photography takes long hours of preparation, waiting for the perfect moment. There are hours devoted to creating and refining ideas and hours put into post processing and pouring over the perfect papers on which to print. Creating a piece of fine art is no easy feat, no matter what medium. Thus, you’ll need to be determined enough in your pursuit of art that you are willing to set aside all of the time it requires.
Every aspect of photography requires your determination. It’s the one tool, beyond knowledge or gear, that will see you through to the end. When you’re feeling yourself in a slump, remember what it takes to be a successful photographer and use your determination as the motivation you need to move forward.
Posing, for instance, is vital. Whether you're doing headshots or creating a full body shot, you’ll need to know how best to pose your subjects so that the final project doesn't look awkward, forced or contrived. It is also important to build a rapport with your subjects. If they feel uncomfortable during the photo shoot, then they'll almost certainly look uncomfortable in their images. Let’s jump in and get started with posing!
Position the Chin
When you are creating a portrait, the first thing you'll want to do is ask the subject to bring his or her chin forward. When we sit or stand naturally with our heads in a normal, neutral position, it doesn’t look particularly odd. However, if you use that same posture in a photo, under off-camera lighting, then strange things happen to the head and neck.
First, because the lines along the jawline are shorter than they would be if you asked the subject to bring his or her head forward, there is less shadowing. Less shadow, in this case, isn't a good thing because without that shadow under the chin, the chin and neck blend together. It can make the subject look like they have a weak chin or a larger neck than they actually have.
The other issue is that when the chin is back, the forehead tends to be pushed forward. This is how you get that infamous “fivehead” look. More light will fall on the forehead than on other areas of the face, which emphasizes it, making it look much larger than it actually is.
Relaxing the Posture
Another trick is the lean. Have your subject lean to one side just a little bit, almost imperceptibly, against a wall, a tree or some other object — or if they are comfortable with it, have the subject put their shoulders back to give the impression of a slight lean. You don't want the subject to be slouching or seriously leaning to one side. Instead, just a little bit to give the image a slightly more casual, relaxed look. When finished, a portrait done in this way will feature a subject that looks like he or she is comfortable in front of the camera.
Arms and Legs
There are lots and lots of ways to position the arms and legs. Have your subject place a hand on a railing or fold their arms loosely in front of them. Legs can be captured while the subject is taking a step, crossed or in any other configuration that is comfortable. The one thing you never want to do, however, is crop photos at the joints.
Let’s say that you want to take a picture of your subject’s head and torso. You have three options: Preferably crop the image above the elbows, or you can crop below the elbows. Failing that, make sure all parts of the arms are visible. The same goes for the legs. Crop them above or below the knee or include the entire length of the leg.
The reason for this is simple: Images that are cropped at the joints just look strange. The viewer of such an image, although he or she may not realize it, might see the knee or elbow and want to look at the rest of the limb. They're left with a feeling of incompleteness. Additionally, cropping mid-thigh or halfway between the elbow and shoulder looks more flattering and less awkward for your subject.
Building a Rapport with Your Subject
One of the most important parts of portraiture, even more so than posing or refining other aspects of the image, is making sure that your subject is comfortable with the process. When someone is camera shy, there’s a good chance that the images will not only show this but highlight it.
So how do you make your subjects feel at ease? Well, some are naturally at home in front of the camera but most will feel awkward from the moment you get started. It’s tough to give advice about how to establish a rapport because everyone has a different personality — photographers and all the various people that they will make portraits for.
There are a few general things tips and tricks which I will list below:
- Bring along plenty of grooming supplies. Clients are generally in a rush to get ready for their portraits and likely to forget key essentials, which is just going to increase their stress levels while they're onsite. Makeup remover wipes, tissues, disposable makeup applicators, combs — these are all things that will come in handy and clients will feel relieved if they happened to forget a basic item or two.
- Make the process clear ahead of time. For instance, if you will be going through several outfits during a shoot, then inform the client that there will be a private place to change clothes. Let them know how long the shoot will take approximately along with any other details that a non-photographer might not know.
- Posing for the camera is hard work! Give your client breaks, ask them to “shake it out” if they've been standing or sitting in a particular position for a while.
- Listen. Portrait subjects are curious about the process and some may have had a bad experience in the past. Be attentive towards any concerns and don't brush aside questions no matter what your opinions are of the questions asked.
As you can see, portraiture is complicated and there are so many details that I can't possibly cover them all even in a lengthy series of posts. However, these four posts will lay the groundwork for your forays into portraiture. Now it’s time for you to corral your friends and family members so that you can start practicing your art!
In the previous two posts, you learned how to photograph the eyes and the skin to their best advantage. The final major element to portraiture, particularly headshots, is the hair. You probably know, as do I, just from getting ready in the mornings, that hair has a mind of its own. Because of this, it can be difficult to photograph well. However, if you make the right preparations — both with your subject and with your equipment — then you can ensure that a subject’s hair complements the rest of the photo nicely rather than standing out in an unflattering way.
Start with Styling
In most cases, you won't be responsible for choosing hair styles — unless, of course, you are working with models to round out your portfolio. However, there are some things that you can do to ensure that hair looks great before you start taking photos, no matter what style the subject chooses.
Great hair can make a photo, but hair with lots of flyaway strands can break it just as easily, especially if you are using off-camera lighting, which tends to highlight each and every last out of place strand. Fortunately, for hair that is long and loose, you can use a smoothing spray or serum to help hold those flyaways down. Shorter hair or hair that is more intricately styled can be held in place with a quick spritz of hairspray.
Alternatively, if you are dealing with a large number of loose hairs that just can't be tamed, you may opt to use a soft focus effect to blur out individual strands.
You'll likely do what you can to prevent flyaway hairs during the photoshoot but certainly a couple of stray hairs will make their way into the image regardless of the measures you've taken. Make sure that when you are post processing, you pay attention to details like this so that you can eliminate those hairs using Photoshop or similar software.
Positioning Hair
Hair positioning applies when your subject has a long flowing mane. You'll want to make sure that the hair is arranged around the shoulders in a way that complements the face and provides for a nice transition between the head, neck, and torso. Depending on the subject, you may want to let hair hang behind the shoulders, in front of the shoulders or let one side stay in front of one shoulder wall the other side falls behind.
The one thing you should never do is allow the hair to drape onto the shoulders and down over the arms. Not only does this make the transition along the neck and torso seem more awkward but it also has a widening effect, making the shoulders seem larger and blocky.
Lighting Hair
There are a couple of great ways to light hair. The first is to use backlighting, which creates a glowing halo around the edges of the subject’s hair. This type of lighting is typically used for more glamorous shots, especially for models or high schoolers for their graduation photos.
The second method is simpler: Just use a light source that is devoted to the hair. This is usually a studio light, but you can use an off-camera flash or whatever you have. Place this light about three feet above the subject’s head and make sure to experiment with positioning. The light can be at the front, side or even behind the subject — all positions will give a slightly different look. You’ll likely also want to diffuse this light with an umbrella or softbox and it may be necessary to use a snoot so that the light doesn’t cause lens flare. Make sure that the light isn’t too bright because it can blow out the highlights in the subject’s hair.
Now that you know what a hair light is and how to use it, you’ll need to know when to use it. The general rule of thumb is this: If the subject’s hair color needs some separation from the background of the image, then you’ll need to use a hair light. So, for instance, if you are photographing a brunette against a dark background or a blonde against a light background, then you should use a hair light so that the subject’s head doesn't blend into the backdrop.
Even if you don't need hair lighting for separation, don’t hesitate to use it anyway. When done well, it can really bring a head of shiny locks to life.
Post Processing Notes
There are several things to remember as you go through the post processing stage. As I've already said, now is the time to nix all of those distracting stray hairs!
You should also pay close attention to the hair’s texture if you plan on sharpening the image. Because hair has such a fine texture compared to other parts of the face, it is very easy to make it look over sharpened in comparison to the rest of the image. If need be, use a layer mask to mask out the hair as you sharpen elsewhere.
Another major concern is color. Here, white balance is key and you should also take care to maintain the correct hue as you adjust saturation or do other post processing tasks. Typically, someone with blonde hair does not want a brassy look but that brass color is very easy to achieve with lighting that is somewhat off or a botched color correction. Similarly, redheads typically want true red while people with black hair would rather it didn't take on a brownish or even bluish cast. Do as much correction as possible on camera through white balance adjustments or filters and then take care to make sure that the hair doesn't turn an odd tone as you work through your post processing routine.
Eyes, skin, and hair — if you have been following the series so far, then you should have the knowledge you need to get started with portraiture. However, there still are a few more things to learn and that’s why I intend to show you the basics of posing and some other tips and tricks next week!
In the last post, I covered some of the tips and tricks that you can use to make the eyes pop in a portrait. While the eyes are an important element, they are by no means the only element to worry about. Skin is important, too. Depending on the type of portraiture you are doing, you may want to either smooth the skin as much as possible or you’ll want to highlight texture.
When would you smooth and when would you allow texture to hold a prominent place in a photograph? Skin is typically smoothed to make the subject of the image look more glamorous. You'll see smooth skin in fashion portfolios, graduation pictures or anywhere that emphasis should be placed on form and expression over details like texture.
Texture should be prominent when it adds to the story. For instance, if you are portraying a weathered cowboy or an elderly person whose lined face belies the wisdom that comes with age.
For our purposes, let’s focus on the tips and tricks necessary to produce smooth, properly toned skin. If you decide that you need to add texture, then I’ll show you which step to adjust in order to do so.
First and Foremost, White Balance is Essential
Before we get into the tips and tricks to help you smooth skin, you'll need to know a little something about white balance. In any image, achieving the proper white balance helps you to represent colors as they really are in real life. In portraiture, correct white balance is absolutely essential to prevent strange looking skin tones.
Fluorescent lighting, for example, can result in greenish skin, while incandescent lighting can make skin look reddish or even somewhat orange. Even natural lighting can bring out odd colors. For instance, on an overcast day, it is easy to make a fair skinned subject look washed out or bluish, while golden sunlight can make someone with a pink or golden complexion look red or sallow.
There are lots of ways to correct white balance. Start by correcting for the type of lighting you are using on camera. You can also use filters that mount on your lens that are meant to correct that color casts caused by different types of lighting. Lastly, if these measures are not enough, then you'll need to correct white balance in Photoshop, which is a fairly simple task.
Lighting is The Key to Smooth Skin
If you think back to those times that you and your family went to a photographer for family photographs or when you had your high school yearbook photos taken, one thing probably sticks out: The photographer doubtless had several light sources arranged all around the area in which he or she placed the subject of the image. Those lights were meant not only to illuminate the photographer’s subject but also to help smooth out textures.
Smoothing is all about avoiding shadow. When you are photographing skin, obviously there are the large shadows that you'll want to avoid, like around the nose and the eyes. But shadowing goes much deeper than that. A pimple, when photographed under harsh, directional light, looks much larger than it actually is simply because of the shadow it leaves behind. This is also true for wrinkles and even pores, which look larger the more shadowy they are.
In other words, if you want to smooth skin, then you'll need to use several sources of light. For instance, one common setup would be to place a strobe in front of the subject, and two more to the front left and front right of the subject, each diffused with an umbrella. With lighting like this, you'll have soft lighting and smooth, even skin.
Now, what if you do want to add texture to the skin? Simple! Use directional lighting from only one or two sources so that enough shadowing remains to make wrinkles, pores and other features of the skin more prominent.
Post Processing Tactics
There are several ways you can go about smoothing blemishes in Photoshop. The healing, spot healing and clone stamp tools are invaluable. To use these tools, make a new layer so that you can do the work in an overlay. Then, to remove a blemish, like a pimple or a mole, you'll want to select your tool and sample an area as close to the blemish as possible so that the tool picks up skin of the proper color and texture. Make your corrections in the blank layer and adjust that layer’s opacity to make the fixes look perfect.
Another tool that you can use is the high pass filter. This filter is normally used to sharpen images but it can be used to soften them, too. In a nutshell, the high pass filter is a tool that detects sharp edges within an image. I'll quickly show you the basics.
To soften using a high pass filter, start by creating a duplicate layer of the original image. Then, apply the filter to that layer. In the high pass dialogue box, you’ll see options to adjust the filter. Make adjustments until the duplicate layer is mostly gray, but clearly showing defined lines such as the eyes, nose, mouth and edges of the face. Now, you can change the filter’s lighting to linear lighting and apply a Gaussian blur to the duplicate layer. Then, adjust the opacity of the duplicate layer so that the original layer is visible underneath.
At this point, your image will look like it has been wildly over-sharpened. Look for the option to invert the duplicate layer, which is in the Images menu of CS6. Now, instead of an over-sharpened image, you'll have an incredibly blurry image.
In the upper right corner of the Layers panel, there is a small menu box which you can click to open a menu that features blending options. Click into the blending options and you'll find options and sliders that you can use to blend the two layers together properly.
There are many, many more ways to smooth and soften skin – and some of the tools discussed here today could use tutorials in their own right! However, the things that I have mentioned will be enough to get you started. Next week, we'll move on to the tips and tricks that help you photograph hair beautifully.
If you are looking for a great way to breathe life into your artwork, portraiture might be the way to go. For those of you that previously enjoyed landscape photography or another genre, then you know that it is a challenge to come up with new and refreshing ideas. With portraiture, there is always something new to document. Different people have their own unique traits and quirks that you can bring out. Even if you photograph the same people over and over, you'll find that different moods or different activities that they are engaged in gives you a new perspective.
Portraiture does come with a few rules, however, and there are many tips and tricks that you can employ to create beautiful portraits. To that end, I'd like to give you a series of articles that talks about all of the different pieces and parts of portraits. It is often said that the eyes are the windows to the soul, so let’s start there.
Perfect Focus is Essential
The first and most important thing to understand about portraiture is that the eyes are the first thing that viewers will look at – and with good reason since the eyes tell us a lot about what a person is thinking or feeling. What this means is that the eyes should always be in perfect focus, no matter what other techniques you are using. Photographers often use soft focus effects to smooth skin, for instance, but if you wish to do this, make sure that the effect does not touch the eyes.
Learn About Catchlights and How to Use Them
Catchlights are what makes eyes sparkle. That little bit of twinkle is enough to ensure that the eyes aren’t dull and flat but instead, full of life. To put it simply, a catchlight is the reflection of your lighting source. It could be square if you are using a window’s ambient light or a softbox, or it could be in the shape of your flash or reflector. Some of the most interesting catchlights are circular, perfectly ringing the pupil of the eye, usually produced when the photographer uses a ring light.
The shape, however, matters less than the quality. Those small reflections in the eyes should be fairly bright. They don't necessarily have to be bright white highlights (although they can be), but they do need to be bright enough that they are readily apparent. Viewers, particularly those who are not photographers themselves, may not overtly notice the catchlights that you have created, but they will enjoy the image more because the eyes will appear more lively.
Lighting the Eyes Well
When lighting the face, think about its form. There are high spots and low spots and the eyes are normally the most recessed parts of the face. It is very easy to let shadow creep into the eye sockets. Unless you are leaving the eyes dark for dramatic effect, it is best to do whatever it takes to ensure that the eyes receive plenty of light so that they don't look hollow or sunken – or worse, like a raccoon mask.
Photographers love using fill flash or reflectors to make sure that the eyes are well lit. If you are using very bright ambient lighting, such as sunlight, a reflector may be all that you need to fill in the shadows around the eyes. If the lighting is not so bright then fill flash is what you'll need. Use a softbox or a diffuser of some sort so as not to create harsh shadows.
Post Processing the Eyes
When it comes to post processing, there are a lot of dos and don'ts. Concerning the eyes specifically, you'll want to focus on three areas: the iris, the whites and the eyelids and lashes.
Start with the iris by making any adjustments necessary to bring out the catchlight. You may also consider sharpening this area to enhance the natural texture of the iris.
The whites of the eyes are very often over-processed. That is to say, photographers will go through and make sure that the whites are blazing white and they'll even go so far as to remove the veins to make the eyes appear even whiter. However, this leads to a very unnatural look in most cases. I recommend brightening the whites of the eyes only when necessary, and only by a little bit so that they are not bright enough to distract from the rest of the eye area. You can also minimize veins by selectively lowering the contrast or saturation of the whites only, but I do not recommend removing veins entirely because again, this looks very unnatural.
Finally, there are the eyelids and lashes to deal with – and two ways to go about handling them. If part of the point of the image is to highlight intricate makeup, then you may want to selectively sharpen or adjust colors and lighting on the lashes and the areas featuring makeup, which often includes large portions of the upper and lower eyelid.
If you are not featuring makeup, then you may want to go a different route. Sharpen the waterline of the lower eyelid only to bring it into clear focus along with the rest of the eye. Then, you can leave the eyelids and lashes softer, or not, depending on your preferences for the image. This may mean sharpening the lid areas anyway to bring out the interesting textures of the skin and lashes.
The eyes are just one element of the face, but as you can see, there are a lot of details to think about here. The same goes for other areas of the face. In the next post, I’ll be covering some of the basics you'll need to know to photograph skin beautifully.
What is it that makes photography so enthralling? When you think about it, there isn’t anything that we photograph that we can’t just look at. Certainly, photography has a sort of convenience to it. Once you take a photograph, you don’t have to return to the spot you took it because now you have a visual record. But if that is all photography was, merely a visual record, then most people wouldn’t find it quite so interesting.
I think that a large part of the interest comes from the way the human eye works. To put it simply, we just don’t see the same way that a camera does. A photograph gives us a whole new perspective on the subject.
To see what I mean, you can try a little experiment. Wherever you are sitting, pick an object and focus your eyes on it. Choose a small object on the other side of the room from where you are. Something like a doorknob or a piece of paper. Notice how, as you look at that object, the object is in focus but everything else in the room remains blurry until you turn your eyes to focus on specific areas.
That’s how the human eye operates. When you take a photograph, the camera is capable of seeing everything with clarity, across an entire frame. The human eye, on the other hand, only focuses on the small spots that it is directed at. When we take in the world around us, we don’t generally fix on a panorama with a steady gaze. Instead, our eyes unconsciously flit around, scanning to collect as much data as possible – building an image one piece at a time rather than capturing it all with one press of the shutter.
This is what makes photography interesting. There is a lot of clearly focused data presented in one rectangular image and that data is presented in a way that our eyes are not used to seeing. When you look at real life, you are glancing 180 degrees around you. However, when you fix on a photograph, the image only makes up a span of a few degrees directly in front of you. You can take in more information at once because it is easy to focus on more objects.
In short, this gives us an unusual new perspective on common subject material. There is more brought in to focus, and because it is directly in front of you instead of all around you, it is easier to scan and pick out individual elements for further study. This, I think, is a large part of the reason why we enjoy looking at photographs.
Keep the Human Eye in Mind When You Take Photographs
Now that you’re thinking about the way the human eye works, it is time to apply that to the creation of photographs. By this, I don’t mean composition – although good composition does certainly make it easier for our eyes to take in information. I am referring to the tools that photographers use to direct the viewer to look at certain things within a photograph.
Simply put, our eyes glance around to create a full image. As the photographer, it is your job to direct those eyes, to not allow them to wander because that makes an image less impactful.
When you give an image a narrow depth of field, for instance, you are directing the viewer to look only at the parts of the image that you have left in focus. The pretty washes of color from blurred areas serve to add ambience to the image but more importantly, since there is nothing there for the eyes to fix on directly, they serve as a way to isolate the subject material. You’ll spare a moment or two on the background and then go back to looking at the perfectly focused details.
Isolation is one tool that we can use, but what about those times when you don’t want to introduce a narrow depth of field to images? Another tool at your disposal is the logical progression. In fact, if you want to create images with impact, then you’ll find yourself relying heavily on logical progressions.
To understand logical progressions, think about some real-life examples of the way you observe the world around you. For instance, if you are standing in the middle of a street, then the natural temptation is to look down that street.
When you are at home, sitting in your living room, what do you look at first? Generally, the things that are most interesting. The TV, which is flashy, followed by your loved ones or a pet playing on the floor. You may stop to glance at a lit candle or a lamp. If something is happening outside, such as the neighbor’s children playing in the yard, that will be interesting enough to look at, too.
Now, this is the heart of the matter: As you are building a logical progression, think about things that you want the viewer to look at. Using your living room as an example, what subject do you want? Let’s say it is your wife, sitting in an armchair reading a book. All of those other things – the pet playing on the floor, the TV, the lamp and whatever is happening outside your windows – it is up to you to decide whether they are part of the logical progression. Do these elements add to the story in some meaningful, logical way? If not, keep them out of the frame so as not to give viewers unnecessary distractions.
Further, you will need to decide how best to organize the image. To do this, you’ll need to place each element in the proper position of prominence. In other words, make the element that you want viewers to look at first the most prominent, with each other element following becoming less prominent based on the order in which you want them to be seen.
When you understand how the human eye observes the world, you’ll have a much better understanding of photography, too. Not just how we observe photographs but also how you can manipulate the way we look at those images through effective organization.
There is a lot we can learn from history, particularly painters and other artists throughout the ages. One topic that I find endlessly fascinating is lighting and how it evolved throughout the centuries among painters. If you look back at the early Middle Ages and the High Middle Ages, a period spanning between roughly 400 AD and 1300 AD, you can see that paintings were dramatically different than those produced in the Renaissance and modern eras.
Back then, paintings were more what you or I would consider illustrations today. They were flat, seemingly one-dimensional. Lighting was either not present at all, or it was a sort of general, directionless lighting that left shadows in odd places, making it difficult for you to tell where, precisely, light would be coming from.
In fact, you could compare those early lighting techniques to the diffuse lighting that we photographers sometimes use today. To those painters, paintings were less about technical accuracy or realism and all about documenting or telling a story. In the same way, we use diffuse lighting when we don’t want the focus to be on highlights and shadows, but instead, on the subject material itself. For instance, if you wanted to take a picture of an airplane, the diffuse lighting of a cloudy day allows you to capture the airplane in great detail while minimizing glare on glossy glass and metal.
An Old Man in Red (Rembrandt)
Move forward in history and you can see how thought and technique changed and brought us more types of lighting to use in our artwork, no matter the medium. Chiaroscuro was the technique that changed the way artists thought about light. This technique arose in the 1500s and it produced and quickly became popular, with artists such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Caravaggio and others all working to develop this revolutionary technique.
What is chiaroscuro? In Italian, the word means “light-dark,” and that is exactly how chiaroscuro got started — with artists using dark paper and light pigments to create a sense of light. Da Vinci’s Study for the Kneeling Leda, created between 1505 and 1507, is an excellent example of this. Dark coloring is used to provide the suggestion of form while light coloring provides the lighting, giving the image depth and dimension.
Da Vinci provides early examples of chiaroscuro. Later examples of this technique show just how much it grew and changed among artists of the Renaissance. Rembrandt’s work provides excellent examples using both color and shading. Look at his painting, An Old Man in Red¸ and you’ll see what I mean. Here, not only do we have depth and dimension, but we also have realism and precision. The painting is almost photographic in nature.
This became the underlying principle for chiaroscuro: Add lighting, tonality, to make forms and figures three dimensional. The best way to show form, according to the masters, was not through color or even necessarily through precise rendition but through the way light fell upon the subject. Directional lighting was the key to accomplishing this.
Look around through the works of famous Renaissance painters and you’ll soon see that chiaroscuro quickly became a complex technique, one that required skill and imagination to accomplish. Painters soon discovered that lighting not only gave dimension to subjects, but also to settings. Artists began placing light in unconventional places. Instead of placing a light source to the front or side of the subject, somewhere just outside the boundaries of the painting, some painters started placing the light source directly in the center of the painting.
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Gerard van Honthorst - Adoration of the Shepherds 1622, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum
One prominent example is The Matchmaker by Gerrit van Honthorst. The lighting in this painting is a candle directly in the center of the image and you can see immediately that this light gives depth not only to the figures surrounding the candle, but also to the room itself. Another excellent example of this is The Orrery by Joseph Wright of Derby. Here, light and shadow give the painting an amazing sense of depth and realism.
It might surprise you to learn that chiaroscuro is still in use today. It’s not merely an ancient technique developed by history’s masters. Every single time you take a photograph that uses a type of directional lighting, you are using chiaroscuro. The difference between today’s directional lighting and the lighting used by Renaissance artists is that today, we don’t always think of lighting in terms of depth and dimension. Instead, we think of lighting as a way to show detail, or to provide contrasts. Sometimes we even seek to remove dimension from images, like when we work to ensure a portrait subject doesn’t have shadows around his or her eyes, or when we wait for the cloudiest day possible so that we can create photos without shadows.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with removing dimension or shadow when it is necessary or when it makes the art better. That’s the beauty of modern art. We are completely free to pick and choose between all of the techniques that were developed by the artists that preceded us. However, as we experiment with lighting techniques, we should not forget the lessons taught to use by the Renaissance masters. Lighting is not just a tool to draw contrasts, or depict details. Lighting is what breathes life into art. It’s the difference between a flat photograph and one with deep dimension that draws viewers in. Perhaps this is why black and white photography is still a popular medium today despite the old-fashioned connotations surrounding it — because it is the light, not the color, that makes the photo interesting.
Whatever your thoughts may be on the subject of lighting, it pays to study the work of the artists who came centuries before us. It is their work that laid the foundation for the lighting techniques that photographers use today.
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Photography is the art form of painting with light, which means that it was only natural that someone would invent the flash, enabling us to paint with light even where there was none. Let me show you how today’s wonderful world of artificial lighting came about.
Origins In the 1800s
In the very earliest days of photography, only sunlight would do. Candlelight or lantern light just wasn’t enough to expose film, not unless you were willing to wait extraordinarily long times for results that simply weren’t that great. Artificial lighting took the photography world by storm in 1839 when a man named L. Ibbetson used the first artificial light to illuminate a photograph. This was the oxy-hydrogen light, created using a ball of calcium carbonate superheated by a flame of oxygen.
This lighting method was commonly referred to as the limelight. Interestingly, this is also the origin of the phrase, “in the limelight,” which we use to describe famous people or people under public scrutiny — because back then, famous people were photographed using actual limelights!
The problem with the oxy-hydrogen light was that the light produced was very harsh and bright. In portraits, people often featured bright white faces because the lighting was overpowering. Because of this, inventors continued working with the medium, developing new ways to provide lighting for photography.
Along Came Flash Powder
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Demonstration of a magnesium flash powder lamp from 1909
The next major development began in 1862, with the development of flash guns that used magnesium and potassium chlorate powder. These flash guns were little more than a stick with a platform that you could use to hold the potassium chlorate and magnesium. They were connected directly to the camera, usually with the photographer holding the flash aloft, so that when the camera’s shutter actuated, it triggered the flash.
The flash itself was extraordinarily dangerous. These flash guns could produce more controlled bursts of light than the oxy-hydrogen lights, but the light was caused by the explosion of the materials. Needless to say, many photographers were injured and some even died attempting to use magnesium flashes.
Still, there were no better options at the time, so photographers continued using the magnesium flash well into the 1900s. All the while, researchers continued improving on the technology, making the magnesium flashes safer and working on other lighting technologies.
The First Flash Bulbs
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Flashbulbs have ranged in size from the diminutive AG-1 to the massive No. 75.
It wasn’t until 1930 that the first flash bulb became commercially available. These bulbs were created by Johannes Ostermeier and they were quite large compared to the flashes of today — roughly the size of a typical lightbulb that you would use in your home. The first bulbs were made using magnesium filaments and oxygen encased in a glass bulb. Again, they weren’t a perfect solution — sometimes the bulbs detonated to early, and sometimes the glass exploded — but they were definitely an improvement over the magnesium lights.
Around this same time, synchronization improved, making it much easier for photographers to produce the light when needed, during shutter actuation so that fewer shots were missed.
Over the next 30 years, bulb technology improved as well. Plastic replaced glass as containment for the bulbs since it was less likely to shatter on detonation. Eventually, zirconium replaced the magnesium because it provided a much stronger light. One major issue remained, however: Flashes could only be used once. Detonate it and you had to replace it.
Flash Cubes Solve the Single-Use Problem
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Flashcube fitted to a Kodak Instamatic camera, showing both unused (left) and used (right) bulbs
The iconic Kodak Flashcube, a lighting device that almost every older photographer remembers with mixed emotions, was the next revolution in lighting technology. When it hit the market in the 1960s, it meant that photographers now had a flash that could be used four times instead of once. This nifty little device featured four compact bulbs, so once you used one, it was necessary to rotate the cube and use a new bulb.
This led to other manufacturers creating similar devices, such as the General Electric Flipflash, featuring up to 10 bulbs that could be fired, one after another.
Modern Flashguns
Even though Flashcubes and the Flipflash were taking off, photographers and researchers were working to develop yet another technology in the 1960s: The electronic flash. This was a battery-operated device that was mainly only available to professional photographers who valued it highly because it eliminated the need to buy expensive bulbs or cubes.
Over the next decade, improvements to flash gun designs were made, including the ability to adjust the quantity and quality of the lighting. By the 1970s, the public was starting to buy into this new technology and by the 1980s, bulb and cube-style flashes were rarely used in favor of electronic flashes.
Today, we still rely on those electronic flashes for lighting, particularly when we are mobile, unable to drag all of our always-on studio equipment out into the field. The technology has continued to improve, giving us more control over lighting, but the principle is the same as those first electronic flash guns developed in the 1960s.
As the technology has improved, so have our methods. Once, it was necessary to connect each flash to the camera in some way, either via the hotshoe or through a cable, but now, many (probably most) photographers are using wireless technology to trigger their flashes. We also have more tools available to modify the lighting, either through adjusting settings on the camera or the flash or through tools like umbrellas, gels, and diffusers.
It’s hard to say where we will go from here. Some say that LED flashes will be the next big thing, especially since some smartphone cameras have multicolored LED flashes to produce a more natural effect. No matter what comes next, we’ve come a long way from the days when lighting meant risking your life to create a bright explosion.
Laray Caverns, Virginia
We all assume that HDR (high dynamic range) photography got its beginnings in the digital era — that it is a construct born of the ability to freely take many different exposures of the same scene without worrying about wasting film and also the ability to easily and seamlessly layer those photos in photo editing software.
In actuality, HDR is far older. This type of photography comes from the very beginnings of the art form, with some of the first examples coming from Gustave Le Gray, who was creating HDR images as early as the 1850s. Even then, photographers knew that certain scenes were impossible to capture in one exposure. Gustav, in particular, fought to maintain proper exposure of both the sky and the sea in his famous ocean photography.
Because of this, he decided to start producing two images of these scenes. In the darkroom, the negatives were put together on one print, effectively extending the dynamic range of his images.
Then came the dodging and burning techniques — another thing that some assume came along with the dodge and burn tools in Photoshop, but actually stems from film photography. Make no mistake — dodging and burning is a type of HDR photography. Remember, HDR doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to layer images. It only means that you are extending the dynamic range past what the camera can capture in one exposure. It is the final product that you end up with, not the methods you used to get there.
Dodging and burning was a popular technique in the darkroom for decades. To dodge, a photographer used something to shield light when creating the print, thus lightening the shaded area. Burning involved exposing photographic paper to light longer so as to “burn in” more light, thus making an overexposed area, such as the sky, look darker.
Interestingly, HDR, whether through layering images or darkroom dodging and burning, was mostly done with black and white imagery. Although possible with specialized films, most felt it was just too difficult to dodge and burn or layer images to create HDR photographs with color film.
Along came Greg Ward, in 1993, to revolutionize HDR photography once more, this time ensuring that color photographs could become HDR images. He created an innovative digital file format, the RGBE file, which could be used to create tone maps in similar shots with different exposures so that you could merge the images.
By the 2000, photo editing software designed specifically for creating HDR images, Photosphere, created by Ward, was released. Then, Adobe expanded HDR capabilities with the release of Photoshop CS2, which featured built-in HDR merging tools. From then on, tools to create HDR images have been standard in photo editing software.
Why Create HDR Photography
Now you know the history, but what about the application? A big misconception about HDR photography, in my opinion, is that it has a narrow application, only suited for landscapes. In reality, HDR photography is needed any time you cannot capture the full range of luminosity. If an exposure would have over or underexposed areas, then HDR is a tool that you can use to correct that.
For instance, let’s say that you are indoors. Indoor photography is tricky — you often can’t capture everything between bright sparkling lamps or lighting all the way to shadowy corners. The solution to this is to bracket your images. Create exposures for the brightest of the bright, the darkest areas and everything in between, then merge those images later.
Laray Caverns, Virginia
HDR Photography Can Also Be Surrealist
There are lots of photographers out there who eschew the types of HDR imagery that come across as wildly colorful, or the images that have odd halos or seem to have an over-sharpened look. However, if you can get past the over-processed look, then you will find that HDR photography is one of the best ways to create surrealist images. I find that this is particularly interesting given that it is very difficult to use a medium based on real-life imagery for impressionistic or surrealist purposes.
Where is this type of surrealism helpful? Anywhere that you want to create something fantastical. Maybe you are tired of regular images of sunsets, particularly those in which the foreground is underexposed and entirely black, creating a silhouette. This is a perfect opportunity to use HDR to make sure that the foreground is properly exposed while preserving or even enhancing a blazing, fiery sunset. Does it look a tad unrealistic? Of course, but if you want to create surrealist imagery, then that’s the point!
Similarly, HDR can help you to recreate old fashioned images or it can help you to turn the interior of an otherwise ordinary building into something palatial. Of course, I do think that you need to remain careful — push the unrealism too far and people may be tempted to disregard the image as merely a cartoonish illustration.
Laray Caverns, Virginia
Go Back to the Roots of HDR with Black and White
Finally, if you really want to create something amazing, you may enjoy creating black and white HDR images, just as the fathers of this photographic technique did. Here, you will not need to worry about going wild with colors. Instead, you can focus on what is really important: Creating an image with an incredible dynamic range, from the brightest sources of light to the deepest shadows. This is a great tool if you enjoy monochrome images with lots of texture and extraordinary contrasts.
As you can see, HDR imaging is not a modern concept. It is, however, experiencing a resurgence because modern technology makes it easier than ever to create these types of images. HDR is a useful tool, one that proves to be a lot of fun to experiment with. Experience a vast range of luminosity or use HDR to create surrealist images — the choice is yours.
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What is photography without meaning? Most would argue that the more meaning, the more symbolism a photograph contains, the more valuable it becomes. This leads to an odd interpretation of philosophy in photography. Some take this to mean that you should leave photos open to any number of interpretations — whatever multitude of things that the viewer can possibly think about the image. The photograph itself has no point, other than to hopefully encourage the viewer to do all the thinking.
I think this is the lazy way of doing things. If you leave a photograph’s meaning open, if you don’t give the image a defining purpose, then you are essentially telling the viewer to do all of the work. All you have done is provide a vehicle for thought, but not necessarily a device that provokes deep thought about a given subject. When the meanings behind an image are muddled in this way, the temptation on the viewer’s part is to not think about it at all. Instead, he or she is much more likely to gravitate to images associated with strong feelings or lines of thought rather than trying to ferret out what they think the photography may or may not have meant.
This is why I think that a photograph without a clear and obvious meaning is just not as powerful as one that lays everything out on the line. To me, a powerful photograph is one that has a strong foundation. The intent and philosophy are unmistakable. There is no risk that the viewer comes away thinking that perhaps the photographer had no idea what he or she was trying to convey. The viewer, whether they agree or disagree with the sentiment behind the image, knows exactly what is meant by the image. A powerful image is not wishy-washy or hard to piece together. It is an image that is strong, that grips the viewer and pulls them in, forcing them to see the message.
So how does one go about creating powerful images? You cannot narrow it down to a specific subject or even to a certain genre. Rather, it is all in the way that you approach your art, no matter what it is that you are photographing. It’s about taking your own personal philosophies and using the photographic image to convey them for everyone to see.
Expressing Opinions and Philosophies Through Photography
If you want to create a photograph that has an impact, that gets people to think about the things that you have captured, then you’ll need to be decisive. Create images that have a purpose. Approach each subject with your own feelings about that subject, and use every tool — equipment, composition, post processing and so forth — to insert your own thoughts and feelings into that image.
As an example, let’s say that you are out on a photography walk and you come across train cars that are covered in graffiti. How do you feel about it? Is this the work of vandals, thoughtlessly scrawling all over something so that now it is someone else’s unpleasant job to painstakingly scrub away the mess? Or is this a work of art, a form of free expression that coveys whatever the person with the spray paint was thinking at the time?
I’m not saying, in this instance, that the graffiti artist was right or wrong or that you need to feel one way or another about it. I am saying that you need to examine how you feel about it and then apply what you feel to the image. Decide what you think about a subject and then use that perspective to create the piece of art that you feel.
Photography with a Cause
Having said all of this about determining your feelings and then using those feelings to create decisive photography, I now feel it necessary to say that you will likely not have a decisive feeling one way or another about each and every subject that comes before your lens. Life just isn’t black and white to that degree. So many things have positive, negative and neutral qualities.
This is why I think that it helps to start out by photographing things that you feel strongly about. When the emotion isn’t there, when you are not inspired by a passion, it becomes much more difficult to identify your precise philosophy on a given subject and then insert that into the artwork. When you have a passion, strong feelings about certain things, then there are no uncertain terms. You know precisely how you feel about a given subject and you can use those feelings as your guide while you put the image together.
This way, the image is not up to interpretation. Sure, a viewer can interpret the image, but only to a degree. The overriding theme of the image solid and powerful. The viewer is not stuck with the task of finding the overriding themes, nor does he or she feel uncertain because the intent is clearly on display.
Practice Makes Perfect
Here comes the rub: You can’t spend your entire life photographing only the things that you feel most strongly about. This means that your passions are practice. What is it that you feel strongly about? The environment? A political topic? Animals? Architecture? Whatever your passions are, you’ll need to examine how you think and feel about them. Then you’ll need to think about how you came to those conclusions. Once you understand how you develop strong opinions or philosophies about certain things, then you’ll be able to apply that knowledge to anything that you want to photograph. In other words, once you better understand how it is that you form opinions, you’ll be able to apply that opinion-making process to subjects that don’t necessarily inspire you from first glance.
Photography is not just imagery. Photography is an art form that uses imagery to express ideas. This means that in order to create powerful photography, we must express powerful ideas. Don’t be afraid to express the way that you feel because the more interpretive an image is, the less likely it is to make an impact.
Monument Valley
I’ve talked a lot about composition and landscape photography in general because I feel that it is a wonderful genre that everyone can benefit from. I would like to delve into some of the more advanced concepts — the things that will really make your landscape photography shine. Some of the concepts I will discuss tend to “break the rules,” but as you know, sometimes you must break a few rules to create something unique. Let’s dig in to some of these concepts so that you can learn how to apply them to your photography!
Don’t Neglect White Balance
As you are looking for interesting elements and colors and putting your image together, white balance is one of those things that is often ignored. In fact, sometimes, it is deliberately ignored because photographers are after certain overall tones that alter the mood of the photograph. For instance, it is not at all uncommon to see landscape photography with a blue cast in an effort to make the photo seem more old-fashioned, or with a reddish cast that makes the image feel warmer, like it was taken during a golden sunset.
The problem arises when these tints are taken too far, and the white of the image is lost. When the white balance of a photograph is off, it takes on a very surreal quality that can detract from the overall effect of the image. It takes away from the realness of the scene, which makes it easier to disregard the image.
Making sure that your white balance is correct is a simple thing to do. Simply look for the white or light colored elements of your photograph and make sure that the color is true to life. In some cases, the color may be so off that it is immediately evident, even in darker areas of the image. There are a couple of ways to go about this. You can either adjust your camera’s white balance settings or you can do it in photo editing software, as you prefer.
Perspective Doesn’t Always Need to be Wide
We love to spend all kinds of money on the widest lenses available so that our landscapes are sweeping, filled with as much of the view as we can possibly fit into the frame. And there is no denying that a wide angle shot, when done well, is a thing of beauty that almost defies the imagination. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t use a narrower perspective in your images when you want to. Sometimes I find that the narrower perspective is actually preferable because it eliminates elements that might otherwise distract from a particularly interesting main subject.
So how do you know when to choose a wide-angle lens for a broad perspective or a telephoto lens for a narrow perspective? I like to think of it as “space or object.” This means that you’ll need to study your subject material. If you feel that the image requires a sense of space, then use a wide-angle lens for the widest field of view possible. If you want to place emphasis on an object like a tree or a mountain, then go narrow with a long lens or a telephoto lens.
Should You Always Eliminate Foreground Object?
There are two schools of thought on foreground objects in photography. Traditionally, photographers have eschewed foreground objects — like a cluster of flowers or tree branches to the immediate front of the image. This is because these elements are viewed as a distraction. The thinking is that you want the viewer of your image to look at the sweeping view you have created and not the objects that were only a few feet away from you when you created the image.
There is a lot of merit to the traditional viewpoint, and it is true: If you want people to focus on the middle of the image or the background, then objects in the foreground will be distracting. However, layering is also important. A layered image is one that is interesting from front to back, with foreground elements, mid-ground and background. Images that make great use of layers tend to have a nice progression, with the viewer looking at the front first, and then exploring deeper into the image as they go along.
Additionally, foreground elements can often have the effect of a frame. You may want to include a small shrub at the front of the image if it provides a nice frame to the photograph. Tree branches creeping in from the sides of the image are sometimes reminiscent of vignettes, or photos where the center of the image is brighter, fading out to darker colors or to black around the edges.
Whether a foreground object is necessary or not is completely up to you. Don’t hesitate to include them when it feels like a welcome addition!
Add Dimension with Light
Layering is one way to add dimension to images, but on it often isn’t enough. And, how are you supposed to add dimension to an image that only has two or three layers? That’s where directional light comes in. This is one tool that you can nearly always use to bring images to life.
Directional lighting is lighting that comes from an angle. For instance, you are unlikely to have directional lighting on a cloudy day because light is being diffused through the clouds evenly over the entire landscape. Shadows are minimal at best and often absent. Shooting at midday won’t give you good directional light either. With the light directly overhead, shadows will be directly underneath the objects you are photographing.
To make use of directional light in landscape photography, time your shots for the morning or afternoon. The sun will shine into the scenery at an angle and cast longer shadows along the ground. Those shadows will go a long way towards preventing images that seem flat and uninteresting.
There is always a lot to learn about landscape photography. This is one of the most diverse genres which means that the skills you learn here can easily be put to use on other types of photography. The opposite is also true. Try out skills you have learned elsewhere on your landscapes to see what happens. Most importantly, have fun as you go outside and experience the wide world around you!
Grandfather Mountain, North Carolina
What makes a black and white image effective? In my opinion, it takes more to create an effective black and white image than it does to create an effective color image. By removing the color, you are taking away one of the major elements, quite possibly the element that is most distracting or that takes away from all of the other parts of the image. This leaves you with things like composition, tonal range, shape and texture to rely on — all important parts of an image that sometimes just aren’t as noticeable when objects within the frame are brightly colored.
Let’s dig into the nuts and bolts of black and white photography, and by the end, you’ll have a better understanding of what makes an image effective.
Understanding the Zone System
This is a system that was pioneered by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer, and even if you don’t use it actively, understanding how it works will give you some insights into black and white imagery. In other words, learning about the Zone System will help you to see, as you create the images, where the light and dark spots will be.
In a nutshell, the Zone System breaks an image down into 11 different shades (numbered from Zone 0, which is black, to Zone 10, which is white) along the white to black tonal scale. Middle gray, which is the tone that is exactly between white and black, is Zone 5. For the most part, the thinking is that in order to have a correctly exposed black and white image with a broad tonal range, the lightest parts of the image should fall around Zone 7 while the darkest parts should be right around Zone 3. Anything past these ranges, and you’ll start to lose texture and detail.
Now, you don’t necessarily have to adhere strictly to the Zone System as you create black and white images. My point in explaining this was to illustrate the spectrum of shades between black and white — and how necessary it is to include a wide tonal range in order to create an effective monochrome image. You could take a photo that is mostly black and shades of dark gray, or you could take a photo that is at the lighter end of the Zone System, but the most effective black and white images generally make use of shades that span the entire spectrum, from white or light gray to black. Pay attention to the tonal range as you create your monochrome images and you’ll end up with visually diverse images and striking contrasts.
Without Color, What is the Point?
Once you have removed color from an image, what value remains? Many people simply enjoy the contrasts or the play between black and white and all of the shades in between. But I would argue that the value of black and white imagery goes far deeper than that.
As I mentioned, when you strip away the color, you are removing a distraction. Now, instead of looking at the difference between red stones and the blue sky, or the shades of green in a leaf, you are forced to look for something more. That something more, if present, is what helps to make the image more effective.
If you intend to create black and white images, then here are some of the major elements you could work with in order to make the finished image visually interesting:
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Texture: Black and white is almost the ideal medium to display texture because, without the play of colors to distract you, you must now focus on the shades of gray and the details that create the texture. Rough stone, the texture of rope or twine, tree bark — rough textures tend to stand out in black and white images, and they also make interesting contrasts when paired with smooth textures.
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Contrast: Contrast is probably the most obvious element to toy with, and there is a lot that you can do with contrasts between dark and light. The most effective images that utilize contrasts don’t necessarily leave out the middle shades of gray, but the middle shades may not be as evident. Additionally, a good, high-contrast image doesn’t mean that you should lose detail in bright whites or dark blacks. As you experiment with contrasts, make sure to expose for both dark and light ends of the spectrum.
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Shape: Geometric designs are always fun when you are creating black and white images, but you aren’t limited to these alone. Take, for instance, a photograph of a flower. Remove the color, and what is left for you to look at? The shape of the petals, the sweep of the stem, the flower's profile, the leaves and so forth. Removing color is a great way to draw attention to shapes and shapes within shapes that may have otherwise been overlooked.
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Composition: Composition should be strong in any image, but more so in black and white. A little compositional mistake here or there can be forgiven in images that make use of beautiful colors because a large part of the intention of such an image is to enjoy those colors. In monochrome images, you only have shades, not hues, to enjoy — composition, and any flaws therein will be much more evident.
Clingman's Dome (Great Smoky Mountains)
Perhaps this is why there is still such a mystique surrounding black and white images. I’ve heard it argued before that color photography is easy compared to monochrome. No photography is easy, in my opinion, not even color photography. If it were, all art would have already been made. However, I do think that black and white photography requires you to pay stricter attention to all of the details.
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Ark Encounter, Williamstown, KY
Once you move on from basic photography skills and into more advanced techniques, you’ll find that few things are so useful as sky overlays. No matter what type of photography you enjoy — portraiture, landscapes, architectural photography or any genre — sky overlays will help you to correct those dull, flat skies that so often occur in day-to-day photography. The fact is, you’ll often have very little control over the weather when you decide to take a few photos, and if you are a professional photographer, then you will need to adhere to the appointments that you have set up no matter what the sky looks like.
Fortunately, sky overlays are easy to use, and they are even easier to create. I’ll show you, step by step, how to create your own sky overlays and then use them when needed in your images.
How to Create Sky Overlays
To create a sky overlay, it is as simple as taking a photograph of a beautiful sky. There is no need to search for (and then purchase) stock photos to do this. Simply make a point to take photographs whenever you think the sky looks particularly beautiful. Likely, you’ll want to create several different types of sky photographs — different kinds of clouds, and at different times of day so that you have a collection of overlays to simulate a variety of different weather and lighting conditions.
To take your sky photographs, make sure to just photograph only the sky. Avoid trees, hills and other background objects as this will just create more work for you later on when you need to remove these elements from your images. Additionally, if you exclude background elements from your image, then you will have an easier time creating a balanced exposure. As we all know, it is often difficult to balance an image of the sky that includes a shadowy foreground — often necessitating neutral density filters so that you can manually darken the sky and bring out trees, hills, and other less bright objects.
If you follow this process, making sure to take photographs of the sky whenever it looks particularly interesting to you, then before too long, you’ll have a large collection of photos that you can use as overlays.
Ark Encounter, Williamstown, KY
Using Your Overlays
To use your sky overlays, start by opening a photo that has a sky you want to replace. Open the sky overlay that you want to use, copy it, and paste into the photo file as a layer. Create a duplicate layer of the original image (the one that needs to have the sky replaced). In Photoshop’s layer panel, the original image should be marked with a small lock symbol. Go ahead and click the small eye symbol by the background layer to hide it, then make sure that you drag each layer so that the duplicate layer is on top of the layer stack, the sky overlay is in the center of the layer stack, and the background layer is on the bottom of the layer stack. When this is finished, click on the duplicate layer to select it so that you can work with it.
In the duplicate layer, use the magic wand tool to select the sky that you want to replace. If the sky has a few clouds, then you’ll need to either adjust the tolerances of the magic wand tool so that it picks up more of the colors in the sky, or failing that, use the lasso or quick select tools to select the sky. Depending, if you need to click more than once to select the entire sky, then you’ll need a tool that allows you to do additive selection either from the tool’s menu or by holding Shift while clicking.
As you select parts of the sky, don’t forget all of the little details — gaps that show between leaves and so forth. Once you have the entire sky selected, then go to the Select Menu and click Inverse to reverse the selection. Now, the foreground elements of your image should be selected, while the sky is not selected.
Making sure that the duplicate layer is still selected in the Layer panel, go to the bottom of the layer panel and click the Layer Mask icon — it should look like a small rectangle with a circle inside. If your layers are in the proper order (duplicate on top, sky overlay in the center, and background or original image on the bottom), then the selected foreground parts will be effectively masked, while the original sky will be replaced with the overlay.
Ark Encounter, Williamstown, KY
At this point, you may notice that some of the details around the edges of the foreground, where the foreground meets the new sky overlay, aren’t quite right. You can do cleanup with the paint brush tool. Simply select a brush size and fade effect that works well to give the edges between the foreground and overlay a nice blend. Then, make sure that the paint tool’s color is set to either black or white. Black will add to the layer mask, so use it if you need to add more sky to the mask. White removes parts of the mask, so use this color if you have bits of sky where it is not wanted. Make sure to do this work on the duplicate layer, which should have a small layer mask thumbnail next to it in the layer panel.
Once your layer mask is perfected and the sky overlay is blended perfectly to the image, you can move on with other post processing needs, like color correction, or you can export the finished image as a JPEG or other file type for printing or posting online.
Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption, Cincinnati Ohio (Gothic Revival Architecture)
Architectural photography is a difficult genre with lots of little details that need attention. In my opinion, this kind of imagery relies heavily on geometry, more so than many other genres. Because of this, and because of the limitations of cameras and lenses, it can be tough to bring an architectural image together so that it becomes a piece of art. Because this is a genre that everyone struggles with, let me show you some of my favorite tips and tricks!
Composition Must Be Stellar
In architectural photography, the composition must be on point. With all of the geometry, the straight lines, there is simply nowhere for compositional flaws to hide. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you must always abide by the Rule of Thirds. In fact, in many architectural photos, you’ll find elements like a staircase or doorway centered.
What it does mean is that you will need to place elements carefully. Think of all the lines in each image before you take the image — the line where the floor meets the walls, where the ceiling meets the walls, where the walls meet each other and so on. Whether you are using the Rule of Thirds or composing by another method, make sure that each prominent element like this fits into the photo in an organized, deliberate way. Where possible, make sure floor and ceiling lines are perfectly horizontal and lines, where walls meet, are perfectly vertical.
Making Use of Leading Lines
Lines are a common theme in architectural photography — an almost inescapable theme, in fact. Leading lines, or lines that draw a viewer’s eye into an image, are especially common.
The first thing that you will want to do when using leading lines is to locate them. Indoors, it might be something like the curve of a stairwell leading up to a balcony, or rows of benches with a path in between that leads the viewer’s eye to the background of the image. Outside, leading lines may look similar, like a road or sidewalk leading to the building you are photographing.
Whatever the leading lines are, your job is to make sure that they have a purpose. If you notice a line that draws your attention from one part of a photograph to another, then make sure that wherever the line draws you to is interesting. Think of it in terms of going on a journey. Whatever is at the end of your route is hopefully worth the trip that you took to get there. Leading lines should be utilized the same way. If you include them, make sure that they lead the viewer on a worthwhile journey.
Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles California (Art Deco Architecture)
Other Ways to Use Lines
Lines don’t necessarily need to lead viewers through the image. They can be used in a variety of ways, so always be on the lookout for interesting effects that you can accomplish.
As an example, one of my favorite ways to use lines is as a frame. Imagine if you are standing in a cathedral, looking down a long row of pews into a basilica. The pillars arching up into the ceiling provide the perfect frame for the pulpit. Doorways and windows can also be used in this way.
On the outside, look for framing elements like rooflines. Even though they may not frame the entire building, they will still give the building that “framed in” feeling. Roads are another way to accomplish this from the outside. If you happen to be standing in an intersection, you may be able to use those two converging roads to frame the building in from the bottom.
Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption, Cincinnati Ohio (Gothic Revival Architecture)
Shoot Wide
Indoors or outdoors, it is wise to take wide-angle photos whenever you can, even if it means you must crop images later on. There are two good reasons for this. First, wide angle images let you capture a lot more of the details around the edges. This is particularly helpful when you don’t have a great vantage to shoot from. If you can’t back farther away from the room or building that you are photographing, then the wide-angle lens will help you make up for that by giving you a wider view.
Secondly, architectural photography, particularly indoor photography, has a natural tendency to feel cramped, almost like the walls are closing in. In extreme cases, it almost makes you uncomfortable to look at the finished image. Wide angle lenses help to combat this claustrophobic feeling by altering the perspective somewhat. When you take a wide angle shot, the foreground objects will seem a little larger or nearer to the camera, which makes the room feel more open.
Architectural Photography Outdoors
The things I have talked about so far apply to outdoor architectural photography as much as they do to indoor photography. However, outdoor photography adds one additional challenge: the weather. If you are able, it helps to plan around the weather, and around sunrise and sunset so that you can get the perfect exposure. By and large, the most common issue is an overexposed sky or underexposed foreground, so by choosing days to photograph according to the weather and the position of the sun in the sky, you can help minimize exposure balance issues.
Cincinnati’s Union Station, Cincinnati Ohio (Art Deco Architecture)
Sometimes, there is just no help for it — the sky is too bright no matter how well you’ve planned. In these instances, there are a few options you can try. A neutral density filter, if you have one, may help balance the exposure. Alternatively, you could create an HDR (high dynamic range) image by exposing one frame for the building and another for the sky so that you can combine the two later in photo editing software. Or, you could simply use a sky from another photo in your collection as an overlay.
Architectural photography is tough, but the challenges are certainly worthwhile. It is a unique genre in that few other types of photography allow you so much freedom to explore interesting geometry. Practice, and before too long, I am sure you will see the beauty in your architectural photographs!
When you buy your first DSLR, one of the first questions you’ll be asking yourself is what lenses to buy next. My advice is to remain patient. Don’t let gear envy take over because you might end up with an empty bank account — and worse, lenses you don’t necessarily need or enjoy.
Of course, you’ll have to buy lenses someday. But, let’s take a minute to look at the lenses you could have in your kit (including the kit lens that came with your camera) so that you can choose which purchases to make and when you want to make them.
Spend Plenty of Time with the Kit Lens
Photographers often come across as scornful of kit lenses. They’re the first lens you’ll get, and the impression is that they are often lower quality than other lenses that you could own for a comparable price. However, you have to think about this from the perspective of the manufacturer. The manufacturer wants you to have a good time with your new camera, and take lots of great photos in the hopes that you will continue buying their equipment. So why would they stick new camera owners with bad lenses?
Sure, kit lenses aren’t generally a top of the line product, but if they were, your camera kit would likely cost thousands of dollars instead of hundreds of dollars. Instead, these lenses are meant to be a quality tool, and most importantly, a versatile tool. They generally come in an 18-55mm range or thereabouts with apertures ranging from f/3.5 or slightly wider all the way up to f/22. This lets you fully explore not only your camera’s features, but also a wide range of photographic techniques.
So, instead of rushing out to replace your kit lens, my recommendation is that you instead use it. Take pictures, learn about photography and find out what you can do with your new gear. When you finally run into something that you can’t do effectively with the kit lens, then it is time to start looking at your options.
Wide Angle Lenses
The definition varies slightly depending on the camera body, but in general, wide angle lenses are those that are wider than 50mm, or for cameras that have a crop factor, wider than 35mm or more. There is also variation between wide angle, which could be anywhere in the 20mm and smaller range, or super wide angle, which could be something like 12mm or wider.
In general, the purpose of these lenses is to include more subject material in the frame. If you look through your kit lens at different focal lengths, you’ll notice that when you are zoomed in, you’ll lose some of the space around the edges of the photograph as compared to a photo taken with the lens fully zoomed out. Wide angle lenses magnify this effect, allowing you to capture even more, which makes them a popular option for landscapes and other genres that require wide fields of view.
Standard Prime Lenses
These lenses are right around 50mm, or the equivalent to 50mm if you have a crop factor camera body. This is the middle ground between wide angles that include more details around the edges and telephoto lenses that cut off the edges of a frame in favor of zooming in close. Typically, a standard prime is one that can photograph about what humans can see with their eyes. If you look straight ahead at a scene without turning your head, you’ll be seeing roughly what you’ll get with a standard lens.
This is considered by many to be the “all purpose” lens. You can easily take a landscape photo with a standard prime and not lose so much around the edges of the frame that it makes the image feel cramped, but at the same time, you won’t lose too much detail in the distance, even if you aren’t able to zoom in on faraway objects. These lenses are the standard for portraiture or any other type of photography that requires a similar sort of view as one would see with their own eyes. Additionally, standard primes tend to have very wide apertures, making them great for low light situations like concerts and also for creating a narrow depth of field.
Telephoto Lenses
Telephoto lenses cover the range between 67mm and up — all the way to super telephotos which can be anywhere between 300mm to the extreme high end of 5,200mm or more. The longer the lens, the more rare and expensive they come, and those with seriously long focal lengths sometimes start looking a bit less like a lens and more like a telescope.
Regardless, these lenses are meant to do one thing, which is to zoom in on distant objects. The more you zoom in, the narrower the field of view will become. Most beginners start with telephoto lenses anywhere between the 67mm to 300mm range, which allows you to take great long distance photos. Use these lenses when you can’t get closer to an object — for instance, when there is no way to hike closer to a subject that you’d like to photograph, or when the subject material requires you to stay far away so as not to disturb the scene, such as with wildlife photography.
Other Types of Lenses
The above lenses are the basics that will help you cover a vast range of focal lengths, but there are many, many types of lenses that you may want to purchase in the future.
Here are some examples:
- Macro lenses, which help you to take extreme close ups.
- Extreme high aperture prime lenses, which are usually standard or wide-angle lenses that allow you to have tighter control over an image’s depth of field.
- Fisheye lenses are specialty wide angle lenses that give images an extremely wide field of view along with a distorted look.
- Tilt-shift lenses, which are famous for making photos of real scenes look like they are miniature models.
Beyond that, there are many more types of lenses, each with their own unique purpose. But again, although you may be hungry for gear now, it is always better to wait and fully explore the possibilities with your current gear. When you run into limits that you can’t get around with your collection of lenses, that is when it is time to consider a new purchase.
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A few years ago I had the opportunity to take photos of the powerful Supermarine Spitfire (as I like to call it, the tiger of the skies). The Spitfire was the iconic British aircraft of the Second World War and perhaps the most famous aircraft of the entire war of any of the participating nations. It formed the backbone of the Royal Air Force (RAF) following the Battle of Britain in 1940 and consistently outperformed many of its opponents. Its performance and importance cannot be understated and the romantic notions it inspired, with its distinctive elliptical wing shape and the throaty roar of its Merlin engines, are still deeply embedded in the national psyche of the British people to this day.
The men who flew these planes were like the knights of medieval times, seated on their powerful war horses and often engaging an equally skilled enemy in a one on one confrontation, often resulting in the death of one of them.
The first test flight of a Spitfire took place on March 5, 1936, and was born of the need for a fast interceptor fighter which could take on enemy bombers and shoot them down before they reached their intended targets. It was an era when the large-scale bombing of military and civilian targets was becoming a very real possibility and the RAF High Command had already envisioned that this would form a part of any future war. The fear of cities laid waste by waves of unstoppable bombers was something which offered many sleepless nights.
As it turned out they were right. The new and modern aircraft of the German Luftwaffe demonstrated this potent threat when they destroyed the Spanish city of Guernica in 1937 and, although this was a small raid in comparison with what was to come, it served as a reminder of the threat and the need for a way to face it.
But it wasn’t until mid-1938, and 24 months after the initial order had been placed, that production of the new fighter saw the first operational units being delivered. This, it transpired, was probably just in the nick of time, as the aircraft were able to be tested and experienced by many pilots before they would have to be flown in combat missions.
During World War II the production of the Spitfire increased and around 20,000 were eventually built. The £12,000 price tag for each machine was hefty, but it was to pay dividends in the coming years as Britain reeled from successive blows from a far better equipped Germany.
The Spitfire remains as the only British fighter plane to have been in constant production throughout the course of the war and it remained in active service until it was eventually retired from the Irish Air Corps in 1955, with more than 30 nations employing it and its variants at times.
WWII
With the outbreak of war with Germany on 3rd September 1939, the Spitfire was soon on the front lines and the first reported ‘kill’ from one of the aircraft was when it shot down a Heinkel 111 over the Firth of Forth in eastern Scotland.
As the war progressed, from the Phoney War following the defeat of Poland, through to the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, the Spitfire slowly but surely began to take on an ever greater role, and by the summer of 1940 the new mark II models were beginning to make an appearance in the skies over Britain.
With more armor to protect the pilot and a better engine, the Mark II could climb faster than the original version of the aircraft, giving it an advantage over its competition and other Allied designs.
The Battle of Britain
With France and the Low Countries defeated by June of 1940, it was left to Britain to carry the fight alone. At that time it was impossible for the British army, following the near disaster of Dunkirk, to have contemplated taking on the Germans in a large-scale land engagement. They had now been defeated twice in campaigns on mainland Europe, in Norway and in France, and they would soon be forced into another ignominious retreat when the Germans invaded Greece in 1941.
It was, thus, left to the Royal Navy, which was far stronger than their German counterparts, and the Royal Air Force to provide morale-boosting victories to give the British public something to cheer.
Unfortunately for the RAF, in 1940 they were still vastly outnumbered by the German Luftwaffe, which could muster a grand total of some 4,000 aircraft of various designs by July 1, 1940. Although not all of these aircraft were employed in the Battle of Britain they still heavily outnumbered the RAF fighters, which stood at just 900 of all types.
Of these 900 fighters, only some 250 were Spitfires as they were less numerous than the Hawker Hurricanes, which were of a comparable age but could be produced much faster.
When it came, the Battle of Britain was a bloody and violent campaign which left cities in ruin, thousands of civilians dead and injured and even greater numbers of homeless. The German High Command was acutely aware, as was the British, that in order to be able to execute a successful invasion of the British Isles they would first have to have command of the skies.
The RAF pilots, who took to the air in the Spitfires, Hurricanes, and others, less well-known fighters faced enormous odds and a life expectancy which was miserly at best. That they achieved what they did remains a testament to their bravery and skill.
The Germans began the Battle of Britain by assuming that they could obtain air supremacy in no more than 4 weeks. On June 26, 1940, the Luftwaffe began its campaign by carrying out probing attacks. This was followed up by attacks on shipping and airfields, as well as aircraft manufacturing in mid-July and then with an increased intensity of attacks from mid-August until the beginning of September.
During this time the Spitfire was generally employed against the excellent Messerschmitt Bf 109 as it was deemed to be superior to the Hurricane. This allowed the more numerous Hurricanes to target the waves of bombers.
The Spitfire’s work against the 109’s of the Luftwaffe was part of the reason for it achieving its legendary status during the Battle of Britain. Despite there being little to choose between the two machines (in fact, the Bf 109 was slightly faster) the Spitfires managed to retain a slight advantage in victories. This was due to several factors, including the organization of the RAF which allowed for proper rest for pilots, the fact that the defenders could wait until the last moments before taking to the air and their ability to be repatriated if shot down over their own territory.
Other new innovations, like radar, also helped, but the fact remained that the Spitfire was a potent weapon and when handled by an experienced pilot it was likely to come out on top in the majority of occasions. All of this contributed to the attrition rate of Spitfires being lower than that of the Hurricanes and other units when it came to a one on one dogfight with an enemy aircraft.
As the Luftwaffe began to incur serious losses and began to weaken, they saw the opportunity to attack major urban centers as being the way to proceed and, just as the RAF were beginning to feel the effects of sustained attacks on airfields, losses in trained crew and fighters, they were suddenly given the reprieve of what became known as The Blitz.
Now, with a breathing space for the pilots, they were able to regroup and the Spitfire squadrons exacted a heavy toll on the attackers at every opportunity. Other ideas such as the ‘Spitfire Fund’ set up by Lord Beaverbrook, meant that ordinary people could contribute to buying their own Spitfire and these savings raised more than £13 million, an astronomical sum of money in those days and enough to build over 1000 of the aircraft.
As the reality of the situation set in, Hitler was forced to abandon his plans to invade Britain and relied on sporadic bombing raids to harass the civilian population and armaments industry. The victory for the British, during the Battle of Britain, and the performance of the Spitfire, in particular, was what pushed it to the very forefront of the public’s admiration.
Performance
When it came to performance it was generally accepted that the Spitfire was the best British fighter of the war and among the best aircraft from any side, with one two notable exceptions.
With a good pilot, it could certainly match anything in the European and African theaters and remained as such until the Germans could employ their new jet propelled aircraft much later in the war, by which time it was too late.
Other Theaters and Other Uses
Following the success of the Spitfire during the Battle of Britain, it went on to be employed in other theaters. It was used in the conflict in the Mediterranean, where it took on the defense of Malta and caused enormous casualties to the Italian air force, before leading the invasion of Sicily and Italy in 1943.
In the Far East, the Spitfire saw service in the defense of Singapore, where the RAF pilots encountered the impressive Japanese Zero. The Zero, it turned out, proved to be a match for the Spitfire, with its better turning circle and ability to climb at a steep angle.
Spitfire pilots were forced to adapt to this shock by using a hit and run tactic, then using their superior speed and diving ability to avoid classic dogfight situations.
Despite the limitations, they experienced against the Zero, and the fact that they remained outnumbered by them due to the low priority offered to that theater, the Spitfire still performed well in Asia and helped to defend Darwin against bombing raids in 1942.
The aircraft was also used by the Royal Canadian Air Force throughout the war, the USAAF until 1943 and in significant numbers by the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front.
As the war progressed, new jobs were found for the planes, including in a reconnaissance role far behind enemy lines. Their speed made them ideal for this type of role and it was a Spitfire which confirmed the existence of the German V-weapons in 1943.
A V-1 is rolled out.
Defending London From V Weapons
As the war raged on in Europe and beyond, the Germans began resorting to the V weapons to try to tip the balance back in their favor. The V-1’s, or doodlebugs, which were the original ballistic missiles but were slow and could occasionally be shot down, but Spitfire pilots soon develop their own methods for dealing with the menace.
Flying alongside the weapons they would position their win tip under the wing of the flying bomb and then tip it to one side, fouling the delicate navigational systems inside it and causing it to crash. This tactic was successful on many occasions but was useless against the V-2 when it made its first appearance.
This supersonic weapon could not be caught by a Spitfire, or any other aircraft and often the only knowledge of it came when it hit a target and exploded.
Notable Pilots
Well-known Spitfire pilots included ‘Johnnie’ Johnson who shot down a total of 34 enemy aircraft during a career which saw him piloting Spitfires right through until 1945.
Douglas Bader, who became famous after losing his legs in an accident in 1931, was another who flew the aircraft and shot down 20 enemy planes before he himself was downed over France in 1941, The loss of his legs did not prevent Bader from making escape attempts and was eventually incarcerated in the infamous Colditz Castle.
But pilots came from all over the British Empire and indeed from beyond. An entire fighter wing of Polish airmen made a significant contribution to the fighting effort, as well as men from France, Belgium, Czechoslovakia and many others.
The Supermarine Spitfire was the iconic British aircraft of the Second World War and perhaps the most famous aircraft of the entire war of any of the participating nations.
Variants
Because of the success of the Spitfire, it continued to be adapted and improved and several variants sprang up from the original design, changing engines and armaments in response to changing needs. The Supermarine Seafire was essentially a Spitfire which had been adapted to operate from an aircraft carrier. This aircraft proved to be better than the Japanese Zero but it became available too late in the war to have made any significant difference.
Since World War II
Following the war, the Spitfire continued to serve in the air forces of several nations, although with the advent of the jet age its days were quite clearly numbered. Indeed the Germans had developed a jet aircraft towards the end of the war which was the better of any propeller driven plane and it was only because of the low numbers produced that they failed to make a greater impact.
The final operational flights of Spitfires in the RAF came in 1955, but it carried on working until 1961 when it was finally retired from the Irish Air Corps. Today there are around 55 of the aircraft which still have the ability to fly, mainly kept in the air by a small army of enthusiasts who are determined to keep alive the memories of this iconic aircraft.
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When gift giving season rolls around, the temptation is always there for photographers to give their art as a gift. Birthdays, holidays like Christmas – you name it, it just seems like the best way to give someone a meaningful gift... But is it really such a good idea?
On the surface, it seems like you are giving something wonderful, something that is valuable sentimentally. After all, you are giving part of your creative vision, something that you spent hours of your own time crafting. Moreover, photographs can be highly personalized, which is something that you just can’t do with the majority of off the shelf gifts. Your gift of a photograph seems like something that your friend or loved one would be happy to hang on a wall and enjoy for many years to come.
That is how we imagine the gift giving process will go, but the reality is something else entirely.
The Problem with Giving Art as a Gift
The major problem with giving art to your friends and family is that art is an incredibly personal thing – very subjective in a way that most other material goods are not. No one individual will enjoy all of the same pieces of art as any other person.
For instance, lets say that a person you know loves horses. Can you guarantee that they will love all artistic images of horses? Unlikely. Rather, your horse-loving friend probably enjoys certain styles, colors of horses and other variables that will change from one piece to the next.
So should you really give your own art as a gift? In my opinion, no, you should not. We simply are not equipped to know the precise tastes that another person has. You can’t guarantee that someone will love an image enough to hang it on the wall, so it may end up collecting dust in a closet instead. This, of course, sets both the gift giver and the recipient up for disappointment – the recipient disappointed that they received a gift they don’t particularly want, and afraid that they might disappoint the gift giver, and the giver is disappointed that the recipient didn’t enjoy their present as much as hoped.
Now, there is one exception to this rule. If someone has expressly asked you for a particular image, then they will almost certainly enjoy receiving it as a gift. But to avoid hurt feelings around the board, you should only do this if the person has truly expressed interest. If you have shown images to your friends or family, and someone has talked about how much they love a specific image, if they have taken the time to examine the photograph and point out details that catch their eye, then you’ll be relatively certain that your recipient is going to continue to enjoy that photograph for years to come.
What Kinds of Photography Can You Safely Give?
I’ve made the case that you should not give art as a gift when it is unsolicited, but does that mean you should avoid giving photography at all? On the contrary, there are many things you can do that aren’t related directly to fine art, but will be enjoyed by almost everyone.
I’m thinking of things like family photos, candid photography of their children playing in the backyard, photos of a person’s pets, or a prized hot rod that they have been working on out in their garage for years. Something personal, something contains subject material that means the world to the recipient. These types of images are almost always appreciated because the recipients can’t help but love the subject material since it is something that is precious to them.
Further, there are lots of ways to give these images. Make a collage, or put together an album or scrapbook. Give single large prints, or a series of smaller prints. The choice is yours, depending on the subject material and how you feel it should be displayed.
How Should You Give Prints?
I talked about photo albums and other ways to give out images, but the most popular way to give photography as a gift is as a print. Sometimes, however, photographers take that too literally and give only the print, assuming that the recipient would rather handle the matting and framing themselves.
To my mind, this is an incomplete gift. Photographers should always handle matting or framing unless the recipient specifies otherwise ahead of time. Frankly, professional matting and framing is expensive. If you decide to give the print only, then you are placing this financial burden on the recipient, and they may not appreciate that.
So how should you go about framing? In many instances, you’ll probably know the kinds of décor that your family and friends enjoy, and if not, then pay close attention to the types of frames that they use the next time you visit.
If you are still unsure, then choose frames in neutral colors – medium to light wood, silver toned matte metal, black frames and so on. Avoid ornately carved frames since these can be hard for people to match with the rest of their furnishings. When you choose the mat board, you can’t go wrong black or white, or complementary but neutral color that plays on a color found within the photograph.
When you go through the effort so that your gift’s recipient doesn’t have to, then it is much more likely that you’ll see your gift proudly displayed the next time you visit their home.
Photographs as gifts can be a wonderful idea, but for the most part, only when the images are personally relevant to the people that you are giving them to. Take care to mat and frame your images properly so that the proud new owners can display them easily. If you do it right, you’ll be giving someone an heirloom that they will cherish for years to come.
What causes inertia, or procrastination? I think that there are many different causes. Sometimes, it is something simple, like a holiday or a vacation. After some time off, a few lazy days with the family, it can be hard to get back into the swing of things. Some of us are perennial procrastinators, always feeling unprepared and undisciplined. Other people just don’t know what to do next. And then there are those of us that are disorganized by nature — without a plan, and because of that, not much gets done.
No matter what causes inertia for you, there is a simple solution, and that is to schedule your photography so that you know each day what you will do and how much time you have to get it done. This is doubly important for hobbyists. Those of us with a career in photography almost certainly already have some semblance of a schedule, even if it is a sketchy one. But for the people that photograph around another job, photography is one of those secondary activities that tends to get lost in the shuffle of daily life.
Let’s discuss the things that should be scheduled and how to build a schedule so that you can avoid inertia.
What Do You Need to Make Time For?
The most effective schedules are detailed ones. Of course, planning down to the minute is impossible, but on any given day that you plan to work on photography, you should know what you’ll be doing in the morning, afternoon or evening. This means that you should break photography down into its component pieces in order to organize your time.
- Think about camera maintenance and how long the process takes you. Make sure to schedule time for camera maintenance as often as needed.
- Time to brainstorm ideas or experiment with images is an absolute must. In a previous post about creative processes, I talked about how some famous people would take walks or do other things so that they could have the time they needed for thought.
- When are you actually going to take images? Some people want to photograph every day, while others save the photographing for one day and use the rest of the week to attend to other tasks.
- There needs to be time reserved for post processing, and it should be a time that complements your own personal workflow. Some photographers get excited and find themselves wanting to post process images almost as soon as they’ve taken them, while others would prefer to let the images rest a day or two before post processing. Figure out your ideal time to accomplish this task and make sure to build it into your schedule.
- When will you back up your image files? For many of us, this is the thing that is placed on the backburner, when in reality, it should be one of the most important tasks. None of us wants to lose a memory card or hard drive full of images!
- You’ll also need to think about all of the little finishing touches. When will you print your images, mat them and have them framed? Where will you display them?
- Business owners will have a whole host of other tasks to schedule: Website design and maintenance, finances, marketing and more. If photography is your business, then each of these things should have their own time slot.
As you can see, there are a lot of different things that require time and attention. Skipping or putting off any one of them is detrimental to your art.
How to Create Your Schedule
When it comes to actually putting your schedule together, it is totally up to you. Use a calendar, daily planner or a smartphone app, whatever you prefer. Scheduling activities for different days and times is completely up to you as well.
One piece of advice that I would give, however, is to have a flexible attitude about your schedule. Build in some extra time to make up for unplanned delays, and don’t adhere so strictly to your schedule that you miss out on your child’s school play because you had already planned to spend the evening post processing. That bit of extra make-up time is essential. Things rarely ever go exactly as planned, so if your schedule has some leeway, you won’t end up with an enormous backlog of work to do.
The other important thing is to approach your schedule with the idea that it can be changed any time you need. That isn’t to say that you should just throw out your schedule whenever you’d rather procrastinate. Instead, it means that you should constantly evaluate your schedule from day to day and week to week. Perhaps you’ll find that post processing last week’s images on Monday evening just isn’t working out because you’d rather get that work done directly after you’ve taken the images. Or, maybe you just feel the need to mix things up and make life interesting. The reasons don’t matter, really. What matters is that you have the ability to design new schedules that suit your workflow as you go along.
The last thing to remember about scheduling is that you should always leave yourself with some time off — the weekend, a couple of evenings, whatever you can manage. For hobbyists, this is in particular a challenge because there just isn’t much time left after work and day-to-day chores, so in order to really engage in photography, it almost must be scheduled on days off. In these cases, perhaps a weekend away from photography each month, or a similar arrangement, is just what is needed to get that much needed break.
You’ll find that the most productive people are the ones that make schedules and stick to them. This is the biggest tool in your arsenal that can be used against procrastination and inertia.
Our art is the image, or so most photographers think as they are creating new photographs. But is that the end of it? Or can we add something more to our images? In fact, for many photographers, photography is intertwined with writing. It doesn’t necessarily need to be this way, but sometimes pairing imagery with the written word is a great way to give the viewer a more complete artistic experience.
Of course, there are other reasons to write as a photographer, too. Artists’ statements or biographies — not everything you’ll write will be centered around an image or a photo project. Since there are several different types of photographic writing you may run across throughout your career, let’s take a little bit of time to discuss them.
The Artist’s Statement
If you are pursing fine art photography as a career, then you almost certainly will need to write an artist’s statement someday — or more likely, several, as you publish new books or have gallery showings. That is precisely what these statements are: A short biographical sketch meant to accompany a body of artwork, whether that artwork is on a website, in a gallery or published in a book or magazine.
What should be in your artist’s statement? An artist statement usually tells a little bit about your artistic self — your experiences and inspirations, perhaps a brief mention of formal education, prior publications or most notable works. But the most important thing is that you express who you are as an artist and why you created the work that is on display. Artists’ statements are almost always used for groupings of images, either a specific project you’ve been working on or your body of work as a whole.
The Biography
Unlike the artist’s statement, the biography is a bit more formal. Usually, you’ll write one if you plan on publishing books or having a photography website. Instead of describing your inspirations for a particular project, you can talk about some of the things you believe in — the driving forces behind your art in general. In addition, you will want to mention things like relevant schooling and notable achievements, including book or magazine publication, art prizes, gallery showings and so forth.
The Essay
The essay is quite easily the largest and most diverse topic. And, I think, perhaps it is the most important topic. Lengthwise, an essay can be almost anything — a short paragraph, or several pages, hundreds of words describing your thoughts. Generally, shorter passages are reserved for single photographs, while essays that span multiple pages accompany larger projects.
Sometimes photographers misconstrue the intent of the essay. We have a habit of listing off all the gear and settings we used to take an image. It reads something like, “Canon MKIV, 70-300mm, f/6, 1/250. Now, fellow photographers can appreciate this because now we know the gear and settings used to create the photograph. But what about the non-photographers that make up a vast portion your viewer base? To a non-photographer, these cryptic notations have little to no meaning.
So, when you write an essay, short or long, what do you write about if not the gear that you used? This goes back to what I talked about earlier, how writing can help complete the artistic experience for the viewer. There are any number of things that you can write about, but most commonly, photographers choose to write about what the photograph or group of photographs means.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to spell it all out in plain language. On the contrary, leaving something to the imagination is what drives people to think more deeply about art. However, if you describe the photograph’s overtones, it’s major themes, this helps steer people in the right direction if the meaning is somewhat ambiguous.
If you want to get the meaning across in no uncertain terms, then by all means, describe exactly what the image means to you and what you want others to take away from it. This is common in photography that deals with some kind of activism, but is not necessarily limited to those genres. Rather than debating meanings, this gives the photographer the power to lay it all out for viewers to understand.
Finally, you can take a completely different route. Talk about ideas that aren’t inherently evident in the photographs. These ideas could be tangential, or they could be the underlying force that first led you to creating this image. Talk about several different meaning that the photograph could have, or talk about the various unrelated things that you were thinking about during the creative process. This gives viewers that much more to think about, and they can take away from the image what they will — either the meanings you hinted at, or their own special meanings that your work evoked.
Should Photographs Stand On Their Own?
Some photographers will debate that the entire point of the art is that the images stand alone, telling their own story to anyone who may look at them. And, that is perfectly fine. In fact, that is how most photographers operate, by simply letting the images do the talking.
But, as I have said, text can help to make the experience more complete. There is simply more information available for the audience to take in. They aren’t just examining the details of the image. They are also looking at what you have written, and using that to guide the way they experience the image. Perhaps your words will point out details they would not have otherwise noticed, or it will make them think more abstractly.
And it isn’t just the viewer that benefits. You, as you sit down to compose an essay, or even a biography or artist’s statement, will have the change to reflect. Use that time to think more deeply on your work and what it truly means to you.
Writing: You may never need to do it, but chances are, you’ll at least have to produce an artist’s statement or biography. Essays are a personal choice, but many photographers find that they enjoy the essay writing process as much as they did creating the photographs that the essay is based on.
Taking a great photograph is something that many of us would love to be able to do. Courses designed to show you the best ways of mastering the techniques involved are a great way to learn, but they can be time-consuming and expensive.
But with The Joy of Photography, Volume 1, you’ll get all the tips and advice you’ll ever need, all in one handy reference guide. And with in-depth explanations, all written in plain English, you’ll be able to learn and master things like;
- Apertures and getting the hang of them
- Tips for vacations
- Composition
- Respecting culture
- Learning to balance exposure with ISO
- Building interest in your images
- Developing your own photographic style
- 8 Tips for Taking Great Wildlife Images at the Zoo
And with a background to the history of digital photography, making the most of the diorama effect and backup options to make sure that your precious images are retained and saved this is the perfect book for beginners and those who may need some additional help.
The Joy of Photography, Volume 1 is the ultimate guide to taking better photographs and enjoying your hobby for years to come.
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"Blackbird" Lockheed SR-71
As photographers, our work revolves around perspective. Day in and day out, we use this tool to improve our images. But, we don’t always think about all of the meanings attached to “perspective.” Likely, the word makes you think of the angle at which you take your images, but there is more to it than that. Perspective is not only the angle that you take relative to your subject, but also, your own personal perspective — your personal views or thoughts about the subject. And, there is the subject’s thoughts, feelings and experiences to consider, their perspective.
Each of these three types of perspective are vital if you want to create beautiful, meaningful images. So, I’d like to dig a bit deeper into this subject and show you what each type of perspective entails.
Perspective is the Angle at Which You Take the Photograph
This is the simple meaning of perspective: The angle you use to portray the subject when you take a photograph. There are all kinds of ways to put this to work. Shoot from above, below, in front, behind or head on. Different perspectives highlight different aspects of the subject and apply different meanings to the final work.
When talking about this type of perspective, it is important to note that it is based on your location as well as the angle at which you shoot. So, for instance, one kind of perspective is to shoot through a window in such a way that the viewer of the image feels like they are looking through the window. Or, perspective could mean using leading lines — like a road, a path or a fence — to lead the viewer through the image.
It’s all about angle and the location from which you are shooting, so in order to utilize this type of perspective, it helps to experiment with your subject material. Stand nearby, or faraway, kneel or climb up on a ladder. Look for leading lines or interesting places from which to view the scene. It is up to you to choose the physical perspective that best complements the message you are trying to send.
Perspective is the Subject’s Thoughts, Feelings or Experiences
The greatest photographers know that simply creating an image of a subject at a complementary angle is not enough. In order to properly document the subject, you’ll need to put something of that subject’s perspective in the image. Think about what a subject may experience, think or feel in its lifetime. A statue, for instance, may commonly have pigeons sitting on it. Perhaps it is more meaningful to wait for a pigeon to land so that you can create a photograph of this experience rather than of the statue alone.
If you are photographing people, this means that you should be looking for clues that can add a bit of their perspective to the image. Can you photograph them doing an activity, or with the subject facing in the direction that they are looking? What thoughts or feelings might they have that you can express within the image? And, how can you express those thoughts or feelings? Facial expressions are a common way to do this, but body language, gestures, the activities the person is engaged in, and even things like color and lighting can help express these fleeting details.
Perspective is Your Thoughts, Feelings and Experiences
Finally, there is your own perspective to consider. Your experiences, your life — all of it is unique to you, and as such, it gives you a unique viewpoint that can never quite be replicated. What’s more, these days, originality in photography is key. Sometimes it feels like every image has been created and recreated hundreds of times. So, how can we create original images of the things around us when everyone else has already tried to do the same? Originality comes from your perspective.
To that end, when you look at a scene, evaluate it, not just for its physical attributes, but for how it makes you feel, or what it makes you think about. To you, watching a dog and a child play fetch in a park might be a happy, beautiful thing. Another person may feel wistful for their own childhood, while a third person feels wistful for the family that he or she hopes to one day build. And so it goes — we each experience these things somewhat differently than everyone else. This is why you need to use your perspective, your thoughts and feelings, to enrich the image.
To build on this, you can use your own perspective along with the perspective of your subject, the physical perspective, and all of the rest of the tools of the photography trade to give an image meaning and depth. In other words, if a subject puts you in awe — let’s say it was the statue that I mentioned above — then perhaps you can photograph it in a beautiful, inspiring way. Maybe you can use beautiful bright lighting and photograph from low to the ground in order to make the subject seem larger than life. If you are including the subject’s perspective, that pigeon that likes to sit on the statue, then maybe it is worth your while to wait and capture the image as the pigeon lands or takes flight.
In this way, you can see that by looking at an image with all three types of perspective in mind helps you to add a little something more to the final photograph. Speaking of your own personal perspective, it is important to note that there are all kinds of ways to add it to an image. Color, light and darkness, shadows and bright spots — these are just a few of the tools that you can use to add your thoughts and feelings, your perspective, to the image.
Perspective has a variety of meanings. Use it to the fullest extent possible to add depth and originality to your images.
Last year, I talked about photo-a-day projects and their benefits, and many of you reading my blog decided to take on the challenge. Taking a photo each day for 365 days — that is commendable, an extraordinary feat that requires a lot of hard work and dedication. The benefits from the work that you have done are many. A photo-a-day project teaches you to observe your surroundings, looking for something interesting, and along the way, you pick up valuable skills, improving your composition, understanding of lighting, colors and more.
Not every photo in a photo-a-day project is a masterpiece. Most photographers produce very few masterpieces over long careers and hundreds of thousands of images taken. And that is another important lesson to take away from this type of project. You likely came away with a few images that you love, and many more that just don’t make the cut.
So again, congratulations on completing these daunting projects! If you feel up to the task, there are plenty more projects that you can do to improve your photography skills. For this coming year, instead of doing a photo-a-day project, why not work on learning a new technique each month?
With this new project, instead of taking at least one photo each day, you’ll pick out a new technique for the month and do your best to learn all about it. The options here are limitless. You can learn about lighting one month, shooting with a narrow depth of field the next month, and utilizing motion blur the month after that. To give you some ideas, I’ll list a few techniques that you can learn — but feel free to choose any techniques you like!
1. Front, Side and Back Lighting
Front, side and back lighting are normally one of the first things that a new photographer learns, but more practice never hurts. To learn more about this technique, you won’t even need additional equipment. Instead, practice with the sun, or with a light source like a lamp. Position the light source to the front, back and either side of the subject to see how the different lighting types affect the final image.
2. Off Camera Lighting
For this technique, you will need some extra gear — flashes or strobes and light stands, certainly, and possibly umbrellas, reflectors, gels and filters for the flashes if you want to pursue different lighting effects. You’ll also need a way to operate those flashes, so purchase flashes that are made to work remotely with your camera, or invest in cables or wireless technology to make sure that the camera can communicate with the flashes. If you are on a budget, Vivitar makes a great assortment of inexpensive flashes that you can buy new or used.
Once you have the gear that you want to work with, then take it out in the field and start experimenting. You’ll quickly find that off camera lighting gives you hundreds of possibilities when it comes to photo effects.
3. Using Motion Blur
Capturing motion blur can be tricky, and there are two ways to do it. You can either freeze the subject in the frame and blur the background, or blur the subject so that the background is crystal clear. If you choose to keep the subject in focus, then you’ll need to learn to track the subject. And if you want to freeze the background, then you’ll need to learn how to adjust the shutter speed and other settings to get a nice blur. To practice, try this technique out on your kids as they run through the yard, or your pets, wild birds, running water, even cars speeding along a highway.
4. Nighttime Photography
Nighttime photography is another valuable technique that can be used to create unusual images. For this, you will be best off with an inexpensive remote shutter release for your camera. In a pinch, you can use your camera’s timer so as not to jostle the camera while the image is being exposed. With this technique, you need to have an incredibly slow shutter speed so that the camera’s shutter can take in as much light as possible. Often this also means opening the aperture wide and increasing the ISO to higher numbers just so that you can capture as much light as you can.
5. Using Neutral Density Filters
Neutral density filters (and many other types of filters besides) are essential parts of the photographer’s kit. These filters are meant to balance an image where lighting is highly uneven. If you have ever taken a landscape photograph with a glaringly bright sky and dull, dark foreground, then that is the perfect image to illustrate the need for neutral density filters. You can use them to darken the sky so that the exposure is properly balanced. I also enjoy using them to take photographs of waterfalls because they let me use longer shutter speeds in brighter light so that I can capture the blur of rushing water.
6. Taking Candid Photos
If you are a fan of photographs featuring people, then candid photography will be right up your alley. With this technique, you will be taking photos of people as they are engaging in an activity rather than formally posing them as you would for a portrait. Just make sure that you follow the laws about photography in private and public places, and when in doubt, ask for permission before you start taking photos.
7. Macro Photography
Macro photography is the art of extreme close up images, and most photographers at least flirt with it at some point over their careers. Some even turn macro photography into a full time career. This technique can be accomplished any number of ways. Use macro filters, extension tubes, which extend the length of a lens, a reversing ring to use your lenses backwards or an actual macro lens. Macro filters tend to be the least expensive way to get started, but the magnification isn’t as high as it is with other types of macro equipment, and many consider the lower level of magnification to be a step shy of true macro photography.
On the high end, macro lenses will produce some of the highest magnification, but they can be prohibitively expensive. In some cities, you may be able to rent a macro lens for a month or two, but most beginners stick with the cheaper technologies as they are learning.
There are many, many more techniques that you can try. I recommend creating a list for the year — 12 techniques, one for each month. As you choose techniques, think about the weather, vacations you may be taking and other opportunities to practice a given technique. Nighttime photography, for instance, is much more common in the summer months when it is comfortable to stay outside at night for hours on end. Most importantly, however, have fun with this new project and you’re certain to learn many valuable new skills!
Christmas is almost here and I think that it is an appropriate time to talk about how we, as photographers, have a duty to capture special moments. How do you do it? Many photographers employ a “spray and pray” kind of approach. Or, they do “trophy photography.” Both of these things mean that the photographer takes tons and tons of photographs, hoping that by sheer random chance, they got the one that made it all worthwhile.
This can be a valid way to create an artistic photograph. However, it can turn into to a whole lot of work, always burst firing, and accumulating a vast trove of images to evaluate. I think in the end, you are missing out on the ability to train your artistic eye. In my opinion, it is far better to wait, and to learn how to capture those special moments as they happen, rather than rapid firing your way through as many frames as possible, hoping that just one turns out well.
To that end, let’s discuss a few different types of photography. You’ll see that in each type, there are similarities and there are differences, but for every genre, there is a method that will help you capture the moment.
Candid Photography
At Christmastime, many photographers find themselves taking family photos around the Christmas tree. If you plan to do the same, then you’ll definitely want to try candid photography. Candid photography is all about capturing the moment. You are taking a photo of a person as they are engaged in an activity, and the entire point is to not disturb their activity, but to instead record the emotions that they experience without interfering.
Think about it this way: Which photo is better? The photo of a child opening his or her Christmas present? Or the photo that you take five minutes after the event is over, when you ask the child to hold up his or her present so you can take a snapshot? In my opinion, the first photo will almost always be the better one because you have not interfered in any way with the scene. You are capturing the real joy and happiness that the child is experiencing as they tear apart the wrapping paper. The end result is less contrived and more meaningful.
Capturing the moment in candid photography requires two things. You need to be able to wait and watch, until you judge the time is right to take the image. You’ll also need to make a sacrifice. In the example I used, instead of sharing in the child’s joy, you removed yourself from the scene so that you could study it. Instead of simply sitting back and enjoying the moment, you were reaching for your camera, thinking of settings and what angle to shoot from. In the end, however, it is a sacrifice that is worth it to create a meaningful, lasting image, I think.
Capturing the Moment in Nature
Similarly to candid photography, capturing a moment in nature requires patience. Waiting for the right light, or for the breeze to die down so that leaves stop moving. Or, waiting for the breeze to bend blades of grass in a certain direction.
The difference here is that the waiting can take a lot more time. You may spend hours, days or weeks waiting to capture a wildlife image. Perhaps you want to photograph a deer standing a certain way, but no matter how many days you wait for him, he just doesn’t seem to be showing up. Or maybe you are waiting for an eagle to land on a particular tree, but every time you spot him, he isn’t at a good vantage point.
In addition, you’ll need to get to know your subjects, particularly wildlife. What are their habits, or where are the places they visit most often? Can you capture them eating, frolicking or doing some other interesting thing? Patience and knowledge of the animals and objects you are photographing will help you to capture the moment.
Sports and Events
Sports and events — airshows, historical reenactments and so forth — are less about patience and more about anticipating the moment. The action is happening pretty quickly, you won’t have long to wait, but you will need to understand enough about the event to know when something interesting might happen so that you can document it properly. Get a program or leaflet to learn about the event and what things will be happening at each point in time. Or, if you are photographing a sport, then learn how the sport is played, if you don’t know already.
This way, you’ll be able to anticipate when reenactors will be firing their muskets so that you can capture that moment before the smoke clears. Learn about football, and you’ll be able to see when a player attempts a touchdown run. You’ll be able to anticipate the winning moment and capture it before it is too late.
There are many, many more types of photography to explore and each has its own unique special moments waiting to be captured. If you enjoy photographing food, for instance, then photograph it while the steam still rises from a hot platter. Photograph flowers before the morning dew dries away, and take photos of the night sky when the stars are shining bright. In most cases, you’ll need to wait for the moment, but when you aren’t waiting, you’ll need to anticipate instead.
Learning to do this — to capture the moment — is one of the most important things that you’ll learn as a photographer. Yes, some of us do like to shoot several consecutive frames rapidly, and that is a valuable tool in certain instances. However, I prefer not to rely on that method and instead would rather learn to watch for those moments that can make a photograph truly special.
Taking the perfect picture and learning the basics of fine art photography, in a way that will give you the most control of the subject, are all vital components of camera work. Now you can take perfect photographs every time you press the button, with The Joy of Photography, Volume 2.
Within the pages of this 162 page e-book you will learn how best to operate your camera to its optimum efficiency as well as how to think and work like an artist, with lots of tips and advice on aspects of photography which include;
- Cutting out the cliché photographs
- An introduction to photographing the night sky
- Portraying raw emotion: A lesson from Helen Levitt
- Improving your skills with a Photo-A-Day project
- 3 essential principles of color photography
- 7 tips for your next autumn portrait session
- 4 ways to create a powerful portfolio
The Joy of Photography, Volume 2 is a fabulous resource for any budding photographer who wants to be able to take better pictures. It will provide you with endless inspiration for your own projects and covers any photographic opportunity you might encounter.
Learning to critique your work is also a part of the learning curve, as well as troubleshooting the problems and challenges you’ll undoubtedly face.
Download your copy of The Joy of Photography, Volume 2 today!
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Mathew Brady (1822-1896) was a photographer whose work is quite well known and famous today. In addition to taking photographs of 19th century politicians, who we would otherwise have no images of except paintings, he also documented the American Civil War in photographs. In fact, the Civil War is the first war to be documented and disseminated to the public via newspapers using photographic accompaniment. The vast majority of those photos were taken by Mathew Brady or one of his many, personally trained assistants.
He and his assistants marched out across the country during a very dangerous time for travel, in search of the most compelling, truthful images of the war. Amongst them, they took more than ten thousand photographs of the war, letting the average civilian American see in real, graphic detail just what was happening to the men on the battlefields of the nation.
Those images were important for the American public. Without them, most Americans who weren't in the fray relied on letters from loved ones who were in the military to describe the war to them. Naturally, most men wouldn't want to overly concern their wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters, so often downplayed just how difficult conditions were, and how gory the conflicts between North and South could be. With Mathew Brady's photographs appearing in newspapers across the country, people could see the truth for themselves, and it motivated quite a few civilian groups to form to give supplies and relief to the soldiers in different ways.
Because of his work, and due to the fact that photographing a war in progress was an entirely new thing, Mathew Brady gave a more defined structure to the role of photographers as historians. By documenting modern life in photographs, photographers were creating valuable historical resources for future generations to use to understand the past, and know what it was like with more intimacy than a painting could provide. Because of him, photography became a powerful tool in the world, not just for family photos, but in politics, society in general, and the culture of the times and places in which the photographs are taken. This is still true of photography today, in the digital era.
Photography was officially invented by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre in 1839. That is the same year Brady left his home in upstate New York, and his Irish parents, to come seek his fortune in New York City with so many others. He worked briefly in a department store as a clerk, and then made jewelry cases, including those in which early photos, called daguerreotypes, were displayed. In 1844, he decided to get in on the photography craze himself, and opened his own studio and the corner of Broadway and Fulton. As an expert marketer, Brady was soon recognized and sought after as one of the best known photographers of the era, attracting high-profile clients.
He was even mentioned in the first issue of the new Photographic Art Journal in 1851. The article on him in the journal described Brady as a "fountainhead" of the new photography business. He also won a gold medal in a prestigious photography contest in London that year. Interestingly, the other two winners in that contest were also American photographers. He expanded his business to include paper prints as well as daguerreotypes, moved his studio into a more luxurious one, and even opened a second studio in Washington, D.C. In this location, he was able to attract prominent politicians, and his famous 1860 photograph of Abraham Lincoln is considered instrumental in making Lincoln a more famous and recognizable figure nationwide. Brady's photographs were beginning to have actual influence on current events, and this just increased his reputation and desirability among the elite as a photographer.
When the Civil War started, Brady saw an opportunity to document the war in photographs for all Americans to see. He assembled a group of photographers who he trained, and sent them out following the armies on both sides of the conflict. Not only are the photographs that were produced the first photographic documentation of a war, they are the first photographic documentation of any major historical happening. Brady invested a ton of money into this venture, all of it from the private fortune he had accumulated over the years as a top "celebrity" photographer.
However, even though his photographs of the war were widely published, he never made the money back he invested in the project. Newspapers couldn't afford to pay him what he needed to recoup his financial losses, and as a result, he became nearly destitute after the war, without even enough money to continue operating a prestigious photography studio. Without even one nice studio to his name, his fame rapidly disappeared following the war, and he was never the go-to name in high profile photography he was before the war began.
Though his work in photographing the war practically bankrupted him, it made him famous to future generations. This is because his Civil War photographs became a part of the national archives, and gained a reputation as the best source for visual information about the mid to late 19th century and the Civil War. Scholars revived their interest in his work in the 1930's during the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps in documenting the history of photography and the Civil War itself, and his work had a big influence on those who were using photography to document the Great Depression. In fact, Mathew Brady was their inspiration.
Today, Mathew Brady is once again the famous photographer he was before he began his Civil War photographic documentation project. He would likely be very happy to know his name, fame, and excellent reputation live on among photographers and historians alike. He provided something unique to history... the photographic documentation of a war and distribution of those photographs to the public while the war was happening. His name will always have a place in American history because of that valuable project.
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For so many photographers, the dream is to see their work hanging in galleries. To become a renowned artist, living by creativity, making a living wage, however large or small, on the photographs that they produce. Even those of us who are satisfied with other types of photography have harbored this dream, even if only briefly, or only as a daydream and not as a serious venture.
It can be done. Fine art photography is marketable, and plenty of artists do make a living from their art. However, many more photographers don’t make that living. Quite frankly, it is extraordinarily difficult to make a living on art and art alone. But, it is a great dream, and if you work hard, and make wise decisions, then it is perfectly doable. Let’s talk about how to make a living through photography, whether through fine art work or other ventures.
Where to Market Fine Art Photography
The first thing that many photographers think about when they think about selling fine art photography is a gallery. You can go directly to galleries and try to make a sale or get representation. Depending on the gallery, your work may hang for weeks or months before it sells and you get paid. Other galleries may buy the work directly from you to resell.
However, the issue with gallery sales is simply that demand is low. Art is not one of those things that is deemed absolutely necessary by society. People are too busy paying bills, putting food on the table and so forth, so they simply don’t have much extra money left to spend on art. Consequently, galleries tend to only choose art that they know a collector might be interested in, and because of that, not only are opportunities rare, but you’ll often be limited to certain postmodern genres of photography. It is incredibly difficult to get gallery representation, particularly at a high-end gallery that would be able to sell your art for enough money that your commissions are large enough and frequent enough to make a living.
Of course, there are other ways to sell fine art photography. However, they come with their own challenges. Many photographers try to sell photography online, through places like Etsy or SmugMug. The markets here prove challenging for a variety of reasons. Again, the demand is low, which means there aren’t that many sales to go around to begin with. And, without a gallery owner approving or denying pieces of artwork based on quality, style and subject material, there are hundreds of thousands of prints up for sale, which lowers your chances of a sale even further.
There are places like Etsy often develop their own sort of style. One photographer might make lots of sales on a particular type of photograph and then before too long, other photographers start copying that style in order to get sales, too. Just as with galleries, you’ll find that online, there are limits to the styles of photography that is bought and sold.
Finally, there are places like art or craft fairs, or local restaurants and coffee shops that are willing to display your work. These can be a great alternative to gallery or online sales, but there are challenges here, as well — particularly if you live in an area with few coffee shops or craft fairs. In coffee shops and restaurants, the challenge is simply that people aren’t always expecting that the art on the walls is for sale, but you can avoid this challenge simply by making price tags clearly visible. Still, people don’t expect to buy art as they eat lunch, so chances of a sale are fairly low. Art and craft shows require you to invest a lot in printing, framing and booth space but they don’t give you a guarantee that you will recoup that investment.
Is There Another Way?
These difficulties are why so many up and coming photographers end up doing something other than pursing fine art photography. On its face, the fine art business looks hopeful, and there are a multitude of websites out there that will give you guidelines and make it sound easy — like anyone can sell artistic photos and make a living.
The reality is quite different. You’ll face lots of hard work, photographing, marketing and so forth. At the end of the day, if you are serious about fine art photography, then there is another way, one that determined photographers use to pay their bills and chase their dreams at the same time.
That option is to turn your photography into a business. There is no shortage of demand for photography in retail and commercial markets. You can become a wedding photographer, or a portraitist for families or graduation photos. There is event photography, product photography and real estate photography. Public places like hospitals and office buildings are always looking for commercially produced art by local artists that they can use to brighten their halls, as are places like hotels. You can even become a photojournalist.
Choose one of these avenues, and hang on to that dream of fine art photography. What better way is there to do it? By pursuing a practical retail or commercial path, you’ll still have the opportunity to hone your skills and produce artistic images for people, families or businesses. What’s more, you’ll have the equipment and the spare time in evenings or on days off to pursue your dream. If you so desire, your spare time can be devoted to producing the art that you love, and to marketing it to galleries.
Of course, this path is not an easy path. Nothing in photography ever is. But, it is a valid and respectable way to earn your living and immerse yourself in your art. In fact, if I had to hazard a guess, I would think that most career photographers aren’t in the fine art field, at least not full time. Instead, they are the people that are out documenting news, making sales images or creating family keepsakes.
There are few joys greater than taking an amazing photograph. From the wonders of nature to the holiday snaps we covet and the family galleries we create, photographs have been a major part of our lives since the art was invented, helping to mold history in the process.
Now you can learn many of the basics of this great hobby through the pages of this informative and educational book, The Joy of Photography, Volume 3, including things like;
- Structure and creativity
- Photography workshops and why you should attend one
- What it mean to focus to infinity
- 10 awesome tips for beginners
- Helpful tools for creating dynamic product photo
- Teaching children the wonders of photography
- And much more…
There is much to learn about the basic concepts of photography, including composure, manipulating your camera to the best effect and how you can start to think like an artist.
The Joy of Photography, Volume 3 is the one-stop resource you need, whether you are a complete novice or a budding amateur who is stuck for some inspiration on your own project.
Download this free 176 page e-book!
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One thing that isn’t discussed often is the different phases that photography, as an art, has been through. Art prior to photography, for instance, has a long history with several distinct periods. Classical Antiquity, came directly before Renaissance Art, which was followed by the types of art that were produced during the Age of Enlightenment — Rococo, Neo-Classicism and others. Photography has distinct periods like this, but the art form isn’t nearly as old, so they are fewer and shorter.
To date, we have passed through three distinct phases: traditional photography, modern photography and postmodern photography. Some would even argue that we have moved on from postmodern to post postmodern, but that is a discussion for another time. For now, let’s take a look at each of the unique phases and the kinds of photography that they are known for.
Traditional Photography
Photography started as a science. It was discovered that with light, and the right chemicals, you could document the world. Once this new science became more refined, however, creatives started using it to create art, and traditional photography was born. This type of photography features things like sweeping landscapes, still life images, portraiture that adheres to strict artistic guidelines and so forth.
An example of a traditional photographer would be Ansel Adams. His photos have the documentary quality that the first scientific photographic images featured, but they are also more than that. Rather than simply documenting, Adams’ work is meant to show you the great beauty of nature. Unlike modernism and postmodernism, traditional photography doesn’t necessarily require deeper meanings. Traditional photography’s purpose is often nothing more than to showcase beautiful subjects in an artistic way. This is done through adherence to compositional rules, stark contrasts in color and tone and so forth.
Modern Photography
Modern photography is really where we start to see the deeper meanings behind the imagery. It isn’t dissimilar to modernist painting in that the work is often conceptual. Among painters, Picasso’s work, particularly that which came after his Cubist phase, is considered modernist. Not necessarily realistic, but a conception of reality that bears deeper meaning. In modernism, you’ll find scenes of great beauty, but they are often arranged to make you think about more than the scenery that you are looking at. There is also a lot of abstraction, and photographers of this period also started experimenting with effects like motion blur to add to the images.
Henri Cartier-Bresson is the perfect example of a modernist. To get a sense of what modernism is all about in photography, look at Bresson’s photo of a cyclist. From the first glance, you’ll see that this image is not so much about documenting everyday activities as it is about making you think more deeply.
Postmodern Photography
Postmodern photography arose in the second half of the 20th century, and it encompasses a variety of themes. First and foremost, postmodernism builds on the themes and conceptual ideas that began during the modernist period. This type of photography also often features surrealism, expressionism or other similar themes. Finally, we also sometimes see a departure from traditional rules of art. Compositions might break rules by placing subjects in odd arrangements, or there may even be an absence of a definitive subject.
An ideal example of the kinds of abstraction, unconventional compositions and surrealism that you might see in postmodern photography is Ken Josephson’s Drottingholm, Sweden image. Bear in mind that this type of image is by no means the extent of postmodernism — instead, you’ll find an unending array of genres, subjects and photographic styles.
Which Period is Right?
Photographers often question whether they should be creating images that belong in one period or another, but honestly, the choice is up to you, and there is no reason to stick with only one. I myself have taken plenty of traditional images because sometimes simple beauty is enough. However, when the need to be more thoughtful arises, I don’t hesitate to create according to the standards of modernism or postmodernism.
Other photographers wonder if they can somehow bridge the gap between traditional and modern or postmodern imagery. In my opinion, no, this cannot be done because once you start adding something conceptual to the work, it is no longer a simple, traditional, documentation of reality. By default, anything with an abstract or conceptual bent falls into the modern or postmodern categories.
When it comes right down to it, choose the subjects and styles that you feel like working with in the moment. Of course, gallery owners will tell you that postmodern photography is the only way to go because that is the current style. It is what happens to be selling for the most money because it is the thing that art collectors want to see. This doesn’t mean that there isn’t market for photography from older periods. In fact, I think that all three types of photography are equally important to both photographers and art enthusiasts, and they should be expressed at the discretion of the photographer who is taking the photos.
In fact, I encourage photographers to try all three: traditional, modern and postmodern. There is something to be learned from each period. Traditionalism, for instance, will teach you all about compositional rules because in large part, that is what traditionalism is — following the rules to document the things that you see.
Modern and postmodern photography will teach you how to bend those rules that you’ve learned. In addition, you’ll also learn how to think in the abstract, and how to use various effects to enhance the meaning of the work that you are producing.
The bottom line is this: All three types of photography are valuable. They will each teach you something unique, and even though trends dictate that the art world wants to see postmodernism, you’ll find that plenty of other people will enjoy photography of all types.
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Permission is one of those things that every photographer will face at some point. You'll need to understand the laws in your region, and you may even find yourself asking for permission to take a photo. In most, if not all places in the United States, you are generally allowed to take photos of the things that you can see from a public place. This means that if you are standing on a public road, but your photo includes private property, that is perfectly legal.
However, the caveat to that is people. When it comes to photographing, you need to think about the “reasonable expectation of privacy.” In other words, even if the person is on public property, you shouldn’t take a photo of that person if that person has a reasonable expectation of privacy. For instance, if they are in the bathroom, a dressing room or a similar area.
Those are the laws, but experienced photographers know that permission for photography is a much more complicated subject, which is why they find themselves asking for permission even if, legally speaking, they don’t have to.
You see, permission, and the acceptability of photography in large part has a cultural basis. In different regions in the United States — in different regions of Ohio, even, where I live — some people might be totally fine with photography, and others will be against it. Let me give you some examples.
Portraits and Permission
To illustrate the complexity of permission, I'd like to talk briefly about a trip I recently took to Amish Country in Central Ohio. I did not take my professional DLSR camera along this time, since it was a family trip, but I would certainly love to someday because it is a beautiful area.
In Amish Country, there are lots of opportunities to document the Amish culture. But, it is important to note that there simply aren't many opportunities to document the Amish themselves. In fact, if you try to photograph the Amish, you may end up in hot water — not necessarily legally, but with the people that you are photographing. You see, one of the primary Amish tenets is that they are about community, not individuality. As such, they tend to view photographs as a bad thing. They will not often display photographs in their homes and they absolutely do not own pictures of themselves because that brings attention to the individual self, which they view as a bad thing. Some members of the Amish community are entirely against graven images in all forms — photos, paintings and everything else.
Because of these beliefs, you'll run into Amish with wildly differing views on whether or not it is OK for a photographer to take pictures. In some Amish communities, you may find a rare person that will allow you to take a photograph of him or her. Other times, however, the Amish will ask that you obscure their faces, only taking photos from the back, or with the face otherwise hidden. Still other Amish will flatly refuse to let you take a photo. They may not say anything if you do it without permission in a public place, but they certainly will feel bad about it. Finally, you’ll find some a few who will ask to destroy your roll of film or delete the images on your memory card if they catch you taking photos of them.
As you can see, in Amish Country, yes, it is technically legal to take photos of the Amish people so long as you are in a public place and not violating reasonable privacy standards. However, is it ethical or acceptable to photograph these people without their permission? It is not, because by not asking permission, you are very likely to violate an important part of Amish culture.
Property and Permission
By now, I'm certain that you are wary of taking portraits without permission, but what about property? It turns out that different cultures and different life experiences can dictate whether or not you should as for permission before taking photos of private property. Even though you may be standing on a public road or in a public area, depending on the situation, some people may still take a dim view of you photographing their property.
To use the Amish as an example again, they have recently faced a lot of trouble from animal rights activists. I won't debate here whether the activists or the Amish are correct, but suffice it to say that activists have been known to go on to property or use long range lenses to take photos of animals so that they can attempt to collect evidence to shut down Amish farms and businesses.
Now, the Amish are used to photographers. Each year, they come in droves to photograph the gorgeous countryside. Someone standing along the side of a county road with a camera is not an unusual sight. However, the Amish are also becoming more suspicious about photographers. They may see you on the roadside, photographing a farm, and wonder. Are you an activist trying to get them in trouble or a photographer who is simply trying to take a beautiful photo?
And it isn't just the Amish that are suspicious of photographers. Particularly in rural areas, but also suburban areas or really anywhere that isn't a popular photography destination, some may feel inclined to wonder what you are up to. For all these know, you aren't making art. Because of their experiences or cultural assumptions, they may assume that perhaps you are up to no good, busy creating a reference that you can use to plan how you might rob them later on.
Culture and Permission
You can see through these examples that culture has a lot to do with whether or not you need to ask for permission. If you are standing in Times Square in New York, then most likely, no one will bat an eye at you or the multitude of other people taking photos. But if you are in Holmes County, Ohio, then an Amish person you are photographing may take issue with you snapping an image of him or her. In a seldom visited rural area, people might wonder why you've pointed your telephoto lens at their house or barn.
This is why it is so important to get to know the culture before you go on a photo trip to a region that you aren't familiar with. You may find out that portraiture violates a cultural or religious belief, or that photography of private property is frowned on by a property owner who only wants to protect their property, livelihood or their family.
If you know photography is frowned upon in a given area, or if you are in doubt, then it is always better to ask. Be honest and explain why you are taking photographs: Because the things you see are meaningful in some way and you want to create an image that other people can enjoy. If you don’t ask permission, people tend to make assumptions about you and your intentions based on the things that they have experienced in the past. Perhaps, if you are photographing a herd of cattle, you look like an animal rights activist to a farmer that doesn’t want any trouble. But if you ask permission of that farmer, then he knows that you are simply enjoying the beauty of the animals grazing amongst the rolling fields.
Asking for permission and explaining your intentions will open doors. You'll find that many people, who may otherwise have been suspicious, will welcome you. And, if they can't allow you to take a photo because of a religious or cultural belief, they may find some other way to accommodate you. The Amish, for instance, will sometimes pose happily for the camera so long as they can turn their backs to you or obscure their faces. Most importantly, in gaining permission, you’ll be comfortable in the knowledge that you are doing the ethical thing instead of potentially offending someone.
When I’m packing a camera bag for a photo trip, I work from a list that details all of the camera gear that I’m going to need. I’ve thought about which lenses to take, what filters I might need, I have spare memory cards and batteries, and I’ve planned out whatever lighting gear the day may call for.
This is how most photographers operate. We know ahead of time what we’ll need, so we plan accordingly. Sometimes, however, a few mundane objects get lost in the shuffle. There are many, many little things that we ought to take along — things that aren’t necessarily related to the camera or lighting setup — that can make the day go much more smoothly.
To that end, here is my list of non-camera related things that may prove extremely helpful on your outings.
Journal, Paper and Pens
These three items often prove indispensable on a photography trip. The journal makes it easy to jot down notes about different shots or write ideas down while you’re on the move so you don’t forget them. A legal pad, stack of sticky notes or small spiral notebook can be used for a variety of things. People sometimes ask if they can get a print or digital image, so the paper lets me write down their contact information, or tear off a sheet to give them my contact information (although if this happens often, consider making yourself some business cards, which is what I have done). If I need to stop and ask for directions, then I have a handy place to write this down also.
In addition to this, pens, not pencils, are a must. Too many times I’ve written something in pencil, and then as the journal or piece of paper rattles around in a pocket all day, the lead wears right off the paper. Ink ensures that whatever you’ve written will still be readable at the end of the day.
Keeping Phone Batteries Charged
It’s hard to go without a smartphone these days. The ability to look up maps, call, text or even do a quick Google search is invaluable. If you’ve ever been stuck in an unfamiliar area with a dead phone, then you know exactly how important it is to keep those batteries charged. I found an inexpensive external charger for my phone online, and it is a great way to keep the phone charged when you don’t have access to wall or car chargers.
Creature Comforts Are Important
You might find yourself on a long hike, miles away from the car or a restaurant. Other times, there just isn’t time to take a break between photographs to grab a bite to eat. Either way, once you get hungry, you’ll likely start feeling less creative and energetic. Maybe you’ll even end up a bit grumpy. Keep a couple of energy bars in your camera bag to keep everything running smoothly when you’re out in the field.
Food isn’t the only nicety to bring along, either. Sometimes photography gets messy. You may end up soaking wet from wading a steam, muddy from tramping through fields in the spring, or your knees are covered in grass stains and debris from kneeling in the grass. Whatever the case may be, take along a change of clothes and any outerwear you might think you’ll need. Rubber boots for mud, rain gear or even a beach towel so you can kneel or lay down while keeping yourself and your gear clean. Some baby wipes for cleaning muddy or dirty hands won’t hurt either.
Electronics Can Help Smooth the Process
What if you find yourself shooting in the dark or in deep shade? Or, what if you’ve dropped a memory card underneath the seat of your car and can’t find it? These situations call for a flashlight to illuminate the area. LED flashlights work well and take forever to run out of battery power. However, sometimes the batteries can corrode and break the flashlight, so if you are worried about this eventuality, try a crank-style flashlight. A few turns to charge it, and you (or your focus lock) will be able to see what you are looking at.
By that same token, a digital voice recorder can be a nice alternative to keeping a journal. They are inexpensive nowadays, so even a Cheap Olympus recorder will give you a chance to take some notes when you don’t have time, inclination or a good place to stop and write.
Be Safety Conscious
All kinds of things can happen on a photo trip. Hopefully, nothing ever will, but it is better to be prepared. For things like cuts and bruises, you should definitely carry around a small first aid kit. It doesn’t need to be anything bulky or fancy. A small box with various kinds of bandaids, gauze, tape, and a small pair of scissors will come in handy should you cut yourself as you are exploring an area.
In addition, even though this isn’t something that you can take along, you should always make sure to tell someone where you are going, particularly if you are going alone. Be sure to also let this person know what time you expect to be back so that they know to call for help should you be late. And, as I mentioned above, a charged phone is almost a necessity. That way, you can call for help if you need it or you can simply let a worried loved one know that your photo trip is taking longer than expected and that they shouldn’t worry.
There is certainly a lot more, besides these things and besides camera gear, that you can take along. However, in the interest of space inside your camera bag, I have limited it to the things that I feel are most important. Feel free to add in any other necessities that you can think of.
As photographers, we learn lessons in all kinds of ways. We read them in books, take classes, attend workshops, view the work of other photographers and experiment in the field. It is tempting to think that all of these things offer a complete learning experience — that by utilizing some or all of these things, we are learning everything that we need to know, or at the very least, we are learning to the fullest extent possible.
However, upon thinking about it further, I’m sure that you’ll see that there are many more ways to learn, probably more ways than you can count. One method that is often overlooked is the type of learning that we can do by examining the creative process of others. I don’t necessarily mean learning the creative process from other photographers, but from anyone who has a creative hobby or profession.
Whether a person is a writer, painter, musician, photographer or even a businessperson, everyone has, or should have, a method or trick that helps to fuel their creativity. These people could be people that you know personally, or they could be famous creatives. It doesn’t matter who you look at or talk to. The most important thing is that you gain a window into the tools that person uses to create their art.
To show you what I mean, here are a few famous creatives and the methods that they used to produce their works. Through these examples, you’ll be able to see the kinds of things that you can learn from friends, colleagues, famous artists and anyone else that pursues creative ventures.
Ludwig van Beethoven
Beethoven devoted his life to creating music and as a composer, he is the author of some of the world’s most famous music. The more that you learn about his habits, the more you’ll see that he did not leave his creations up to chance. He absolutely did not rely on those stereotypical “bursts of creativity” that you so often see in stories about creative people.
Instead, Beethoven scheduled his creative time. Each day, he made sure to go for a walk after lunch, always alone and always through the forests of Vienna. To him, this was a time to look at his ideas in depth and it was also a time for reflection and introspection. And, because he did not want to miss out on any ideas that came to him on these walks, he made sure to always carry paper and a pencil so that he could jot down a few notes as he walked.
Franz Kafka
Few writers have achieved the fame of Kafka. Though his work is complex and thoughtful, his creative process was simple: He designed a daily schedule and adhered to it without fail. And, he’s not alone. Many creatives have strict schedules because they know that creativity doesn’t necessarily come from random inspiration but instead, from teaching yourself to turn on the creativity when the need arises.
In Kafka’s case, he worked as a lawyer between the hours of 8:30 AM and 2:30 PM each day. Then came lunch, and a nap until 7:30 PM. Then dinner, and by 11 PM each night, he was ready to sit down and write for a few hours. Essentially, he set aside a certain time, the same time each day, for his work so that he could train himself to let the creativity flow when it was the proper time.
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin delved into many creative fields — politician, scientist, inventor, musician and more — and like others, he was also a stickler for organizing his days. However, there are a few things about his routine that set him apart from other creatives.
First, when he awoke in the morning, he asked himself a simple question: “What good shall I do this day?” This helped to put him in the right frame of mind for creating something. He worked throughout the day, then, between the hours of 6 PM and 9 PM, he said aside time for household chores, entertainment, and also a bit of time to examine the events of the day. This gave him a chance to look at his successes and failures, and think of ways to tackle his creative work on the following day.
Finally, at bedtime, he asked himself another question: “What good have I done today?” This once more gave him a chance to reflect on his successes of the day and perhaps think about how he could build on those successes the next day.
Pablo Picasso
Picasso had a theory on creativity, one that came to light during a conversation with his friend, photographer Brassai. Brassai asked Picasso whether his ideas for paintings came to him “by chance or by design.” Picasso responded, among other things, “To know what you’re going to draw, you have to begin drawing.”
In essence, this means that when he started a new painting, it didn’t matter to Picasso whether he had a good idea or not. His creative process was simply to start working, even if he was at a loss. In fact, he often found a lack of direction to be better than being inspired, stating, “What I capture in spite of myself interests me more than my own ideas.”
The lesson to be learned from this is simple. Picasso’s method dispensed with ideas and inspiration, instead relying on the work itself to guide him. In other words, for photographers, that means you should start taking photos, even if you don’t know what you want to photograph, and the ideas will surely come to you.
As you examine the creative processes that various people use, you’ll find that most people’s process is similar to that of others, but each person also has unique aspects that prove helpful when it is time to create their art. Organizing time and introspection are common themes, but there are other, more subtle aspects to an individual’s creative process that you can use to build your own process. So, don’t hesitate to look deeper into the lives of famous artists, and by the same token, don’t hesitate to ask your creative friends and colleagues about their own process. Each person will have some new offering that you may want to incorporate into your own process.
For those of us that have been around a while, the days of film seem like they weren’t all that long ago. But, once in a while, something happens that makes you realize that film is becoming something of a dinosaur to photography. For instance, when you are taking photos nowadays, chances are good that someone will ask, right then and there, to see your photographs, immediately after you’ve taken them.
Only 20 to 25 years ago, this feat simply wasn’t possible. When you took a photo with your film camera, you had to wait — hours, days, weeks — for the film to be developed. Back then, it simply would never have occurred to anyone to ask a photographer about the photos they had just taken because they hadn’t been developed yet. If anything, people might exchange contact information with you so that you can send them developed images later on, but that was it.
If you really want to feel old and dated, think about this: You may remember film fondly, but we have entered an era now where all of us older photographers can meet younger photographers who have never once shot a roll of film. To me, that seems almost incredible. And, in a way, I feel a bit sorry for those who have never really had to work with film. Certainly, digital photography is an easier, more efficient way to create art. There is less physical work standing in between the photographer and the prints that he or she desires.
But at the same time, film — and all of the things that you had to do to produce a photograph with that medium — was a long process that became almost ritualistic. So many photographers enjoyed, and still enjoy, the process of film photography. So, whether you are a photographer that started with film or one that has never had the pleasure, let’s take a moment to reminisce about some of the joys of this medium.
Film and Film Cameras
Of course, film comes in a whole lot more than just the 35mm format, but that is the format that most photographers are familiar with, so much so that the rolls of films that we once bought for our cameras have become something of an icon. When buying film, there was a lot to consider. You needed to select a film speed, or ASA, for whatever conditions that you thought you might be shooting in — no switching ISO settings as you drift between dark and bright settings! And, you had to be careful with the film. Excessive heat, age, moisture, light, general dust and dirt while you are traveling — there were so many things that could damage it.
Then there were the colors. Since you couldn’t simply convert a photo to black and white on a computer, you needed to buy black and white rolls of film to create these images. Or, you needed to buy films that would give you the color renditions that you wanted. Kodachrome, for instance, was known for its rich, saturated colors. Each brand and type of film had its own unique properties that today, we simply mimic with quick camera setting changes or easy Photoshop effects.
And that was only the first step of the process. Once the film was purchased, it needed to be manually loaded into the camera, much like we need to put memory cards in digital cameras today, only more complicated. Because you had a leader of film that stretched over the back of the camera to be wound on a spool as you cycled through exposures, the first couple of frames on every roll of film were always wasted. Once the film was loaded and the camera back secured, you had to take care to never open the back of the camera until you had re-spooled the film back onto the cassette, otherwise the light would ruin whatever film was left exposed.
And your exposures were limited. Nowadays, we can have hundreds, even thousands of images on one memory card. The roll of film, the analog equivalent, gave you 24 to 36 exposures, maximum. Photographers were driven to take a photo the right way the first time, and to always bracket exposures just in case the first exposure didn’t turn out. Otherwise, you risked wasting lots of film and lots of money. If you wanted to take hundreds of photos, then you needed to carry around a very large and very costly pack filled with all different varieties of film — and maybe even an extra camera or two just in case you wanted to use a different kind of film before you had finished shooting the roll that was in your camera.
The Mysteries of Darkroom Development
To the average person, the darkroom was a mystery. Most people, for their snapshots, would drop their rolls of film off at a laboratory or a drugstore to have the film developed. Serious photographers, however, learned their way around chemistry and the darkroom. With few exceptions, such as Kodachrome, which had a patented development process, a photographer could take photos, and then later in the evening, retreat to the darkroom to develop his or her images.
The process was so complicated compared to today. The modern equivalent to development is probably loading images onto your computer, which can be accomplished simply by plugging your camera or memory card into the computer and clicking through a few things.
With film development, however, you had to work in complete darkness, or under a specialized safe light, unspooling the film, and then using chemical development agents at precise temperatures to start the process. After carefully monitoring and developing film in its tank of developer for several minutes, you then needed to place the film in a stop bath so that you didn’t over-develop the film, again, at a precise temperature and in darkness. Then came the fixer, which was a chemical that stabilized the film, ensuring that no part of the image could ever expose to light again. And finally, the bath — carefully cleaning the film in water without damaging it.
Once all of this was completed and the negatives were dry, it wasn’t simply a matter of printing the images. Instead, you used an enlarger, which was a device that you used to shine light through a negative, exposing photographic paper below, which created the print.
On top of all of this, there were ways for photographers to edit images in the darkroom, not dissimilar to some of the things we can do with Photoshop today, but much more difficult to accomplish and with no “Undo” button like we have now in modern photo editing software. There was little room for experimentation since at times, a technique done poorly could ruin an entire roll of film.
Of course, there is a lot more to reminisce about when it comes to film. However, these two larger aspects make me wistful for the days of film. Was it harder than digital photography? It certainly was, but the process was deeply enjoyable. And, there was something about all of the work that needed to be done that made a completed print feel that much more satisfying.
When we talk about producing fine art photography, there are many different aspects that are routinely covered. Things like composition, the use of color, expression and emotion are all things that we use to make images more powerful. One thing that is rarely talked about, however, is symbolism, which is strange because in my opinion, symbols are quite possibly the most powerful tool at your disposal.
What is symbolism? In a nutshell, a symbol is something used to represent something else, something meaningful, so it follows that symbolism is the use of symbols to express the meanings that you desire.
The most interesting thing about symbolism is that it extends across all forms of art and design. Some symbolism crosses cultural boundaries, and other symbols are only known to the people of a particular culture, living in a particular period of time.
The Victorians, for instance, had the Language of Flowers. It was commonly understood during that period and culture that you could use flowers and their associated symbols to send messages to people. A sprig of the baby’s breath flower represented purity and innocence, while a pink rosebud represented a new love. Combine the two, and the receiver of these flowers understood that the sender was sending a message of pure, innocent love.
You can see these same sorts of meanings throughout the art world. In Medieval and Renaissance art, for instance, you could look at horses within paintings to see the deeper meaning. Pale horses represented death, black horses stood for famine and red horses meant war. Candles tended to represent faith when burning, or death or corruption when painted as extinguished. Baskets of fruit meant abundance, and more, particular fruits told a tale about the kinds of abundance that the painting’s subject enjoyed. Lemons, for example, were a rare and expensive fruit, so if you saw them, you knew that you were looking at wealth symbolized.
Of course, nowadays, we don’t recognize all of these symbols the way the people living in those times did. Our culture and worldview is utterly different, so we have our own symbols. In fact, many modern artists seek to break away from common symbolism and decide to make their own meaning with objects, colors and more. Let’s take a look at modern symbolism and how you can use it to great effect in your work.
Common Symbols in Modern Photography
Symbolism spans a broad range of not only subjects, but colors and other qualities that can be used to create something meaningful. I’ve talked before about the meanings of colors, for instance. This is one type of symbolism that you can use to build on a theme or hint at emotion. Blue, for instance, is a calming color and makes people think of the sky, while orange is an exciting color that is sometimes used to represent ambition.
Beyond colors, the use of light and shadow can be symbolic. High contrast images can represent good and evil, day and night, duality, opposites and so much more.
Then there are objects. Lakes are sometimes used to represent mystery or depth, and just as Renaissance painters taught, food still represents abundance. Here are other common symbols for you to think about:
- Eyes can suggest wisdom, intelligence, creativity or understanding.
- Mountains impart a sense of grandeur, and they can be used to suggest ambition or lofty goals.
- Rocks and earth tends feel solid and reassuring.
- The Sun, when pictured, can have a variety of meanings — optimism, divinity, knowledge and more.
These symbols are generalized and as such, are widely recognized across a variety of cultures. Other symbols, however, are most pertinent to the culture that gave rise to them.
To get an idea of what cultural symbols are all about, look no further than the American Flag. On its face, the American Flag represents freedom, liberty, patriotism and so forth. You can use it within photograph as such, or you can use it in a composition to create a larger meaning.
Take a look at Robert Frank’s Americans 1, Parade – Hoboken, New Jersey 1955. Here, the flag is used prominently, as a powerful symbol. Two people are shadowed, one partially hidden by the flag, suggesting that they are less important than the flag itself. This image can mean lots of different things. Perhaps the photographer is saying that Americans themselves are overshadowed and hidden behind the world’s conceptualization of America. You could look at this image and think that perhaps Americans are simply a faceless mass standing in unison behind their country. No matter what you take this image to mean, there is no denying that cultural symbols can be very powerful indeed.
Making Your Own Symbols
There is nothing saying you have to use established symbols within your own work. On the contrary, creating your own symbols is how we, as a culture, develop new symbols, ideas and meanings. So don’t hesitate to create something of your own and use it to tie your body of work together.
For some photographers, the symbol is an object that is always included in the image. An action figure, a chess piece, a flower or something else. A photographer may choose to always include the sky in some way, even if it means the sky must be on a reflected surface. When it comes to choosing symbols, it is very hard to go wrong. Simply choose things that mean something to you.
How to Use Symbolism
If you are looking for an answer as to how you can use symbolism, the answer is simple: There is no right way. There is no way to tell a photographer or any other kind of artist how to use symbolism. You, yourself, can look at the works of others in order to better understand the meanings, but in the end, it is a personal choice. The symbols you choose should feel right for the work that you are doing.
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When you look around at photography, whether it is printed or digital, your work or someone else’s, you’ll see that most prints are one of the common standard sizes or aspect ratios, and nearly all of them are rectangular, either horizontal or vertical. Those certainly aren’t shapes that we are limited to, so why is it that prints nearly always come in these sizes? Let’s examine some of the reasons, starting with a brief lesson on how some of the most common print sizes or aspect ratios came to be.
Print Sizes and Their History
When you look at some of the most common sizes — and the proportional aspect ratios that match them — you’ll find that most of these sizes originate with a historic camera type that used film of that size. Take, for instance, the popular 8x10 size. This size comes from the old large format cameras, such as one of the camera sizes that Ansel Adams would have used, which used film that came in 4x5-inch sheets. One popular large format 4x5 camera was the Graflex Speed Graphic. From those cameras, we got the 4x5, 8x10, 12x15 and 16x20 print sizes. All of the larger measurements are simply larger aspect ratios of those 4x5-inch sheets of film.
The 5x7 aspect ratio came into being this same way, starting with cameras like the Rochester Optical Co. Universal Camera, which was a 5x7 folding view camera that was first introduced in 1890. At the small size, you’ll find this format as 2-1/2x3-1/2-inch prints, while at the larger size, you’ll find 10x14 and 20x28. This aspect ratio comes another type of large format camera, such as the cameras used for documentation by the National Park Service. Like 4x5 or even 8x10 large format cameras, these used sheet film, but film that measured 5x7 inches.
Later, with the advent of 35mm cameras, the 2x3 size started to become more popular. Among first 35mm cameras available to consumers was the Tourist Multiple in 1913. This size is an old one, but nowadays, this is the aspect ratio that most modern DSLRs use, giving you 4x6, 6x9, 8x12, 10x15 print sizes and up.
The bottom line is, for almost every print size that you can choose, it has a historic basis in a camera that made use of and popularized the aspect ratio.
Are There Other Reasons Why Rectangular Prints Are Standard?
One reason that prints are usually rectangular, or at the very least, square, could very well be because compositional rules are often designed to work better with the rectangle. Think about the Rule of Thirds for a moment. How would you apply it to a triangle, or a circle?
Circular designs, in particular, tend to feel more normal and easy to understand when the subject material is centered, but as photographers, we are taught to avoid centering our subjects unless the image really calls for it. Consequently, you really only see round or oval images in portraiture, and even then, usually among older portraits and not modern works.
So are these the reasons why images tend to be rectangular? Certainly older film formats played a larger role in deciding print sizes, but perhaps the reason we don’t stray from those old print sizes has to do with compositional difficulties.
Another issue may simply be ease. Today, with all of our technology, it is still easier to cut prints with nice, straight edges, and it is still easier to make a square picture frame than it is to mold wood into a round or oval shape. In the digital age, everything, from our phones and computer monitors, to televisions, billboards and digital picture frames, is rectangular. What better way to fill a screen than to use an image that is a similar shape to that screen? It is simply easier to make and display a rectangle than it is to do any other shape.
Should We Hesitate to Make Unusual Shapes?
As with any other rule of art, the answer to that question is maybe, and maybe not. Certainly, the rectangular shape is popular for all of the reasons I have listed and then some. But, perhaps it is time to bend the rules a bit.
We already see this happening with some image types. Panoramas, for instance, are becoming more popular, and even though they are rectangular, they are longer and narrower by far than any of the more common aspect ratios. Square imagery is another option, one that allows you to delve into the idea of centric photography without creating circles.
Then, you have the idea of multiple shapes. Diptychs and triptychs, for instance, are also still mostly rectangular. However, in designing these, you have the option to use rectangles of differing proportions.
But what about the more unusual shapes? Circles, ovals, triangles, even trapezoids. Is there value to these shapes, artistically or practically? The only way to find out is to experiment.
I tend to believe that in most instances, unusual shapes are likely to make the subject material feel constrained, or “boxed in” simply because we are used to seeing the edges of the image that you will end up cropping out to make your new shape. I also think, however, that this could prove to be an interesting challenge to the rules of composition. Perhaps even a way to develop new rules, or add to rules that haven’t changed in centuries.
Throughout history, it has mostly been the photographers who are willing to challenge the rules of composition that are able to make something new and revolutionary. So, perhaps this idea is one worth a little more thought. And, for those of you bold enough to break the rules, perhaps it is an idea worthy of experimentation!
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The Biltmore Estate is a very popular tourist attraction in Asheville, North Carolina. In fact, while Asheville is known for many wonderful things, it is perhaps best known for this unique American estate.
The Biltmore encompasses 8,000 acres with a 178,926 square foot Chateauesque-style mansion. Built by George Washington Vanderbilt II over a period of six years spanning 1889 to 1895, it is still a privately owned house today. It also holds the distinction of being the largest privately owned house in the United States. Even more remarkable for an estate of this size, history, and value, it is still in the Vanderbilt family, being currently owned by a descendant of George Washington Vanderbilt II. It is considered a remarkable architectural example of America’s Gilded Age.
Vanderbilt was the youngest son of William Henry Vanderbilt and Maria Louisa Kissam. As a young man, he began making regular visits to Asheville with his mother, and fell in love with the region, as so many others do. The scenery in the Asheville area is gorgeous year round, and the temperature is always pleasing because the city is in a picturesque valley. It rarely gets too hot or too cold, regardless of what temperatures the surrounding towns are experiencing.
Young Vanderbilt loved the area so much, he decided to build a summer estate for himself there. His elder siblings had already built their own summer estates up and down the eastern United States; this one was to be George’s special retreat of his own, and he referred to it as his “little mountain escape.” However, the estate was, and is, anything but little. Vanderbilt chose the name “Biltmore” for his estate, because the word “Bildt” (which he Anglicized to Bilt) was where his father’s ancestors came from in the Netherlands, and because “More” was the Old English word for open, rolling hills (which perfectly described the terrain of the region).
Because the estate was so big, it required enormous resources to build it to Vanderbilt’s specifications. The construction crew actually had to build a saw mill, a woodworking shop, and a kiln for making bricks on site. The brick kiln produced more than 32,000 bricks a day during the six-year construction period. Getting other materials to the site required adding three miles worth of railroad tracks leading to the estate. During the period the estate was being constructed, over 1,000 construction workers and 60 stone masons worked on the project.
Vanderbilt spared no expense when it came to decorating his estate, either. While it was being built, he traveled all over Europe just to buy things to use to decorate his new mountain getaway. The things he purchased included valuable antiques dating back to the 1400’s and up to the 1800’s. There were very few American-made items in the house; the ones that were made in this country were mainly pieces of furniture made out of native trees, as well as a few bronze and wicker items.
The Biltmore was officially opened on Christmas Eve in 1895. George Vanderbilt invited his friends and family from all around the country to come visit it and enjoy its pleasures. Over the years, the Biltmore proved to be a popular destination among George’s many friends and acquaintances. As a member of the upper echelon of society, he had connections with the nation’s elite; some of the people who visited and stayed at the Biltmore are still well-known today. These guests included author Edith Wharton, ambassador Joseph Choate, novelist Henry James, and three U.S. presidents… Theodore Roosevelt, William McKinley, and Woodrow Wilson.
George married Edith Stuyvesant Dresser in 1898. Their only child, a daughter named Cornelia, was born at the Biltmore in 1900 and grew up there. In the early 1900’s, the new income tax made managing such a large estate economically tougher than it once was. Because of this, George Vanderbilt sold 87,000 acres of the estate’s lands to the federal government. The sale was made with the promise that the land would be unaltered, and it became the center of the Pisgah National Forest.
After George died in 1914 following complications from an appendectomy, his widow lived at the estate part-time. When she was in residence, she occupied an apartment made from the original Bachelor’s Wing. She continued to do this until the marriage of her daughter, Cornelia Vanderbilt, to John Francis Amherst Cecil in April of 1924. Cornelia and her husband had two sons together, who were both born at the Biltmore, in the same room in which Cornelia herself was born.
Cornelia and her husband, who inherited the Biltmore from her mother, opened the estate to the public in March 1930 in order to strengthen the estate’s financial situation at the beginning of the Great Depression. However, this decision was not made alone. The City of Asheville requested Cornelia and her husband to do this in order to attract more visitors to the area and improve the city’s finances. It was a win-win situation for both parties.
During WWII, the Biltmore was closed to the public once again. While the war was going on, many important paintings and sculptures were moved from Washington, D.C.’s National Gallery of Art to the Biltmore, in hopes of protecting them against an invasion of foreign troops on American soil. The famous Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington was one of the national treasures stored at the Biltmore until it was safe for them to be returned to Washington, D.C.
Cornelia Vanderbilt Cecil and her husband eventually divorced, and Cornelia, though the daughter of the original owner, left the Biltmore and never returned to it. Her ex-husband remained living there for the rest of his life, occupying the Bachelor’s Wing until his death in 1954. Cornelia and John Cecil’s eldest son, George Henry Vanderbilt Cecil, also lived in the Bachelor’s Wing of the estate until 1956. After that, the Vanderbilt descendants stopped occupying the mansion as a family home, and turned it into a historic house museum. As the years went on, more areas of the house were opened to touring by the public.
Cornelia’s second son with John Cecil, William A.V. Cecil, Sr. joined his elder brother in managing the estate in 1960, and together, they made it a profitable and self-sustaining estate, which was the original vision their grandfather, George Vanderbilt, had when he commissioned its construction. William A.V. Cecil, Sr. inherited the Biltmore when Cornelia died in 1976. His elder brother, George, inherited the dairy farm attached to the estate. The dairy farm was the more profitable enterprise, and it was spun off into Biltmore Farms. During the 100th anniversary celebrations of the Biltmore in 1995, William A.V. Cecil, Sr. gave control of the Biltmore to his son, William A.V. Cecil, Jr.
Of course, the nation knew about the wonders of the Biltmore long before it was turned into a business. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1964. Today, it is one of western North Carolina’s most popular tourist attractions, with more than a million visitors every year. That is an excellent legacy for any family, and the people of the United States are continuing to enjoy the vivid vision George Vanderbilt brought to glittering life.
What is the path to artistic success? Some would argue that it is simply practice – and not just practice overall, but practice at a specific genre of photography, always honing and fine tuning that one small piece of the larger art form.
I would argue otherwise. I think that the keys to success are in diversity. Diversity of style, of techniques and even among many genres, even some of the genres of photography that may not interest you as much as others. Let me give you a few reasons why I think this is true.
Looking at All Kinds of Art is Beneficial to the Artist
If you aren’t diverse in the kinds of art that you’re looking at, then you may run into some problems. This goes not only for photography, but all art forms. There is inspiration to be had from any medium. Look at sculptures and you’ll instinctually learn about lighting just by observing the way shadows fall across the marble. Paintings can teach you a lot about the deliberate use of color and sketches have something to say about the use of precise lines. And, that is just the beginning.
The other reason that you should be looking at all kinds of art is that if you aren’t, you are certainly going to miss things that interest you. Let’s say that you only look at portraits because that is your genre. The problem is, there is a whole wide world out there of landscapes, street photography, architectural photography, abstractions and hundreds of other genres. One or many may pique your interest and inspire you to try new things.
Diversity Broadens Your Perspective
When you are exposed to a narrow range of things, you tend to think more narrowly. If, for instance, you only take landscape photos, then you will think in terms of horizon lines, layering the front, mid and background, various types of sunlight and the colors that are most commonly found in nature.
The same is true if you only work in color photography and never create black and white images. You won’t have as much of an opportunity to appreciate high contrast or the tonal range between the deepest blacks and brightest whites.
This is how working in a wide variety of genres can benefit you. You’ll develop a broad range of thoughts and ideas that can be applied to your favorite genres later on. Sometimes creativity is simply seeing and doing things that you’ve never done before.
Narrowing Down Your Genres Narrows the Scope of Your Creativity
When you confine the work that you do, you may think that you are honing that particular subject, but you might instead be confining your creativity. If you delve into other subject materials, and other types of photography, then you’ll learn many new things that you can apply to your favorite material.
It helps to think about the different traits of particular genres. For instance, portraiture often relies on impeccable focus to capture the expression of the eyes and the textures of skin, hair and clothing. How can you apply those things to another genre?
Another example is landscape photography. Colors feature prominently here, whether it is black and white imagery or color. With color, you’re often looking for things like blazing sunsets, glistening blue water and various shades of green. Black and white landscape photography shows you how to look for the contrasts in your landscape. These are creative skills that you can blend with other genres.
In my mind, some of the best photography pulls ideas and influences from a variety of genres. This way, each piece of art produced has its own unique flavor.
You’ll Develop a Broad Set of Skills
Just like each subtype of photography comes with elements that you can use to boost your creativity, each subset also comes with different skills that can be used for a variety of types of images. If you only do street photography, for instance, you won’t have much experience with off camera lighting. As you are roaming public places, there simply isn’t time or a good place to set up lighting. Plus, lighting equipment makes you more conspicuous, which is exactly what you don’t want to do if you are trying to capture candid imagery.
But the same is true in reverse. If you never shoot anything but carefully lit portraits in a studio, then you aren’t taking advantage of the skills that you can learn from street photography. For instance, street photography teaches you to be observant and quick. Look for those amazing candid moments and snap a few shots before it is over.
Each genre has a different set of skills, so by practicing a wide range of them, you can learn lots of skills that can be applied to the types of photography that you are passionate about.
You Don’t Have to Do Anything You Don’t Want to Do
This is the greatest thing of all about photography. Is it helpful to delve into as many different genres and types of subject material as possible? Of course it is, but that doesn’t mean you have to take those things up permanently. Try as much as you can, learn from it, analyze what you like and dislike. Even if you never go back to a particular form of photography, the skills you will have picked up will be valuable.
Just keep in mind that you don’t have to force yourself. Do what you want to do, keep an open mind, and diversify as much as you are comfortable with.
So in the end, which is better, diversifying or sticking with one thing until you’ve mastered it? For me, the right choice is to diversify, but you may have a different answer.
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Which camera is right for you? We could talk all day long — and in to next week — about various camera brands, models and the features that each has to offer. At the end of the day, however, the best camera is the camera that works best for you.
Chase Jarvis said, and in fact titled his book, “The best camera is the one that’s with you.” These are wise words, because with no camera at all, obviously, you won’t be taking photographs. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Certainly, if you are just beginning, then any camera will help you get started. But as you advance, you will need something more.
So which camera will fit your needs? It’s simple: The best camera for you is the one that helps you out the most. It should be intuitive, and give you features that you’ll use often to make the photographic process easier. It shouldn’t hinder your work in any way.
A camera is a tool, first and foremost. Think about it like a pencil. If you are trying to write something, then you don’t want a pencil with an eraser that doesn’t work well. You won’t want to fight with the lead breaking all the time. You just want it to work, to write well without a lot of fuss. The same goes for your camera — you want a piece of equipment that doesn’t get in your way.
Of course, this is a bit generalized, so I’d like to talk about some of the specifics. Here are some of the things that I look for in a camera.
Opt for Simplicity
When I talk about simplicity, I’m not talking about a camera that is lacking in features. Instead, I mean that the operation of the camera should be simple.
Take the camera’s menus, for instance. Are they laid out in a way that is easy for you to navigate, or is the menu design counterintuitive? Obviously not every function on a modern camera can be assigned its own button so that you can access it immediately, but you also shouldn’t feel like you are wasting time sifting through the menus in search of what you need.
Speaking of the buttons, are they all marked in a way that is easy to read and understand, or will you spend undue time pressing the more obscure buttons, trying to remember what they do? In addition to this, the buttons — really, the entire interface — should be laid out so that you can navigate them easily. This is particularly true of the shutter release. Most cameras are designed to place the shutter release in the same general spot from one camera to the next, but if you have larger or smaller hands, test the shutter release on each camera that you look at to make sure it fits your hand.
Finally, does the camera allow you to use program buttons? Many photographers have certain settings that they use frequently, so customizable program buttons help you get to those settings easily.
Make Sure the Camera is Comfortable to Carry
Some photographers are perfectly happy with a heavy backpack or one of those Red Rider wagons that they can use to wheel around a massive camera and all kinds of equipment. Other photographers don’t want to feel like they have an anchor around their neck. They’d prefer something lightweight so that they can travel farther with ease.
As you shop for cameras — and the rest of your gear, for that matter — keep this in mind. Buy only what you are willing to carry into the field.
Do You Need an Articulated Live Screen?
For some, the answer is no. Perhaps you are comfortable bending into different positions so that you can view the camera’s screen as you are shooting. However, if you aren’t comfortable bending into odd positions, or if you simply want the convenience of a screen that is viewable at any angle, then an articulated screen is definitely worth your while.
Think About Ergonomics
Simply put, a camera that doesn’t fit your hands well is not going to work for you. Try out a bunch of different cameras, regardless of features or brand names, and evaluate your level of comfort with each. Here are some factors to take into account:
- Do the grips fit your hands well, or are they too large or small? A camera that is too large for your hands will feel hefty, and various features will be difficult to reach with your fingers, while a camera that is too small feels like you could easily drop it on accident, and you are likely to press buttons on accident.
- What about the lenses? Large fingers find it difficult to operate narrow lens rings. Another issue is the way that the lenses attach to the camera body. Make sure that you are comfortable with the lens mount system that you choose.
- Make sure to look through the viewfinder, even if you prefer using the live view a lot of the time. Make sure that it is clear and bright, and that the LED displays to the side are easily readable.
What Will Your System Cost You?
Cameras come in all budgets, from extremely inexpensive new and used DSLRs to DSLRs that cost tens of thousands. The cost of your first kit shouldn’t be your only consideration. How much will future lenses cost you? Will the high cost of your system prevent you from collecting the lenses that you need later on? You’ll need to choose a camera that fits both your budget and your needs as a photographer.
Then there is the cost of future proofing. Camera models, brands, and lens mounts change all the time. Today, you might decide on one of the cheaper, lesser-known brands, but what happens in ten years, when you have a large collection of lenses for that brand, and the manufacturer is no longer producing new camera bodies? You’ll save money now by opting for one of the major brands that will continue to support the lenses and gear that you buy now long into the future.
Whether you are buying your first camera or your fifth, it isn’t a choice to be taken lightly. Weigh all factors and buy the camera that works well for you.
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Whether you, yourself are a photographer, or simply an art enthusiast, we all must admit that there are certain things about the art world that are incredibly frustrating. Some of those things are the myriad barriers that stop us from enjoying artwork. I’m not sure where this problem comes from, whether it is born out of a sense of elitism or perhaps the demand simply isn’t high enough to make it easy to purchase art.
Whatever the case may be, let me tell you about some of my frustrations when it comes to enjoying art. If you are an enthusiast that wants more art in your life, then maybe some of the solutions that I’ll propose will work for you!
The High Cost of Prints
If you’ve ever been to mid-range or high end galleries, then you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. The cost of a photographic print is sometimes astronomical, unaffordable to all but the wealthiest people. Sometimes costs will be $1,000 or $3,000 or more, and even at the lower end of the range, costs around $500 can make it so that you may buy a piece once in a very, very great while, if at all.
Sometimes the costs are tied to the name of the photographer, with famous photographers often getting much higher prices for their work. Other times, the costs are simply what the artist and gallery feel the work is worth, or what is needed to pay the high costs of producing and marketing it. The images aren’t necessarily artistically better than less expensive pieces of art, although there are instances of groundbreaking artistic vision.
So, with the cost of prints so astronomically high, how can you enjoy them at an affordable price tag? My answer is to go out in search of local artists. Number one, local artists certainly need the support of their communities in order to keep producing their work. Two, you’ll find local art that is often just as beautiful and thought-provoking as the expensive stuff, but priced more reasonably. Here are a few places to check:
- Look for local artist’s cooperatives. These are businesses co-owned by all of the artists involved, so they have a vested interest in bringing art to their communities that sells.
- Go to art shows. This is where you’ll find a lot of up-and-coming photographers looking to make their way in the world through print sales.
- Small-time galleries will often have great photographs at much more reasonable prices than high-end galleries who spend much more money on advertising and overhead.
- Check out the images at locally owned coffee shops and restaurants. Often, artists will ask the business owners if they can hang their prints up on the walls, and in cases like this, the prints are usually for sale.
Framing is Expensive
So you have purchased a print, or perhaps you had one of your own images printed for display. Now you want to frame it and hang it. Unfortunately, the costs of framing are yet another barrier that can prevent you from enjoying artwork.
Fortunately, however, there are inexpensive framing options, although some of those options aren’t always the kind of quality that you would like to hang on your wall for years to come, particularly when it comes to department store frames that can be had for a few bucks apiece. Another issue with factory-made frames is that you won’t find them in unusual shapes or sizes. That leaves you with high-end custom framing, which can cost just as much as a high-end print.
There are some other options, however:
- If you frequent thrift stores, make sure to check out their frames. It will be tough to find a collection of matching frames, but for a single image, you can often find very well-made frames that you can reuse or save in a closet until you have a need for it.
- If you don’t want to pay the high cost of custom framing, you can always make your own frames. In fact, many photographers have small wood shops devoted solely to making frames. If you don’t print many images, however, this can be a costly and time consuming process.
- Look into alternative ways to display photographs. You can have your own images printed as gallery wraps, or you can use thumb-tacks to pin them to the wall for a more urban look. If you don’t want to cut your own mat board, you can also display your images in floating frames, sandwiched between two pieces of glass that you had cut to fit a frame that you have chosen.
There are many, many alternative framing options out there. Simply search online, and you’ll find an affordable and creative option that is ideal for your own work or the art that you have purchased.
We Believe Art Isn’t Necessary to Survive
Sometimes we are our own barriers against purchasing or printing and framing art. If you have ever admired an image, and thought to yourself, “No, buy it or print it, there are bills to pay,” then you are certainly not alone. We are, by necessity, focused on the big stuff – paying the bills, putting food on the table, and so forth.
Amid all that, it doesn’t always occur to us to go out and find photographs to decorate our homes with. Sure, many people hang art on their walls, but it is often the kind of mass-produced art that is purchased on a whim while browsing a department or home décor store.
The simple fact is, however, that art enriches our lives in meaningful ways. It is just as important to your mental wellbeing as a nice bed or cozy chair is to your physical wellbeing. For that reason, you should always make sure that you are leaving room in your life for the enjoyment of art. If you aren’t in the habit of going to galleries or art shows, then try it and purchase a piece or two that you can enjoy for decades to come. And if you have produced your own images, but haven’t gotten around to displaying them, then do so, and reap the benefits of being able to enjoy your newly displayed work each and every day.
It seems like something always comes between people and their enjoyment of photography and other art forms. Use these thoughts, and your own creative ideas, to bring down the barriers that are preventing you from enjoying the printed photograph.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary describes photojournalism as “journalism in which written copy is subordinate to pictorial usually photographic presentation of news stories.” This is how the genre is defined, but it seems to me to be a bit lacking in detail. It doesn’t tell the whole story, which incidentally, is what photojournalism is supposed to do.
So what is photojournalism, really? At its heart, it is storytelling. Photojournalism doesn’t usually rely on one single descriptive image. Instead, it presents images in a sequence that tells a robust story.
What makes this genre different from, say, documentary photography is that photojournalism relies on a strict code of ethics. In other words, you present the story as you see it, not slanted in one direction or another, and without skipping over details that, if left out, might give the story a completely different meaning. Photojournalism is the honest documentation of life.
To understand the true meaning of this kind of photographic storytelling and honesty, let’s take a look at a few legendary photojournalists.
Robert Capa
Looking at Robert Capa’s work, life and philosophy will give you an excellent understanding of what it means to be a photojournalist. This man is perhaps history’s most famous war photojournalist. However, Capa himself hated war with a passion. In fact, he had a particularly strong reason to hate war. He was born Andre Friedmann — a Jewish man in Budapest — and in his 20s, he was driven from his home by the Nazis.
Nevertheless, despite his hatred of war, Capa took no shortcuts. He documented what he saw with brutal honesty. To see what I mean, click through some of his photo essays — but be warned, because Capa did not shy away from documenting war’s horrors.
James Nachtwey
Mr. Nachtwey is a contemporary photojournalist, and in his own words, he says, “I have been witness, and these pictures are my testimony.” You’ll find his galleries by clicking here. As with Capa’s work, Nachtwey sticks to the photojournalist’s code of ethics. Even though the things he has witnessed have been horrific, they are documented clearly and honestly.
Gina Lollobridgida
Gina Lollobridgida is another famous photojournalist that started her career as an actress. In the 1970s, however, she switched career paths and began documenting life as she saw it. She wasn’t a war photographer, but she did capture lifestyles around the world. You can see a photo essay of life in Rome and Italy here.
Tips and Tricks for Photojournalism
You’ve seen how the professionals do it, so now it is time to learn how to refine the craft. Here are a few of my favorite tips.
- Plan your trips well. Any story, whether it is a book or a series of images, needs a plan or an outline. Don’t expect to simply take your camera along and hope a story emerges.
- When you are actually taking the photographs, timing is everything. Look for opportunities to add motion and expression to the images. In sports photojournalism, for instance, you can capture the expressions of the winning or losing team, and you can capture athletes in the midst of the action.
- Pick a lens and stick with it. You likely won’t have the opportunity to change lenses as you are in the thick of the action, and carrying around a heavy gear bag will slow you down. This is why you’ll often see photojournalists carrying two cameras around their neck, so that they have both long and short lenses readily available.
- Make sure to stay aware of your exposure settings the entire time. In fact, when you move to a new location, it is wise to go ahead and adjust your exposure so that you won’t miss shots trying to make adjustments when something photo-worthy happens.
- Don’t be afraid to move around and try different angles. Lay down and shoot upwards, or take a high vantage point for a bird’s-eye-view. As you start putting your essay together later, you’ll find that the different vantages help make the story more interesting.
Those tips will help you take great photos, but there is a lot more to know. I’m speaking of things like lighting, exposure, picture quality and clarity. One of the keys to great photojournalism is photographs that are incredibly clear and easy to look at and understand.
In terms of lighting, this means that you should avoid artistic effects, even though it may be tempting. Instead, make sure everything is brightly and evenly lit so that you aren’t losing details to shadows or highlights. The same is true of exposure: Don’t over or under expose images for artistic effect. Make sure that your exposure is correct so that the people who view your photojournalism can examine every detail and get a sense of the atmosphere you are creating.
When it comes to picture quality, make sure that you use the highest resolution possible on your camera, and aim to use an ISO setting that doesn’t introduce noise. Shoot in the camera’s RAW format and not as JPEGs so that you have that much more data to work with when you are post processing. And speaking of post processing, don’t overdo it since people are looking for the story in these images rather than pure artistry.
Finally, make sure to take images that are as sharp as possible. Unless it is absolutely necessary, avoid wide apertures that create a narrow depth of field. Your audience is going to want to see the setting in which you are telling the story. In addition, make sure that your focus is as perfect as possible because again, your audience will want to see every detail.
We spend a lot of our time on fine art photography, but photojournalism is just as important. Not only does it give you a chance to document history, but it also allows you to accomplish this task with great detail and complete honesty. I recommend that all photographers create a journalistic series at least once because it will improve your storytelling skills.
Last time, I talked about how to work with color casts, and the effects that they’ll have on your photos. One way to add color casts to your images is with your lighting. However, that is by no means the only thing that you can do with the different types of lighting at your disposal. To that end, I want to talk about each type of lighting, and how you can use it.
Natural Lighting
Natural lighting is sunlight. Now, you might think that this is only one type of lighting, but in actuality, it can be several, depending on the time of day and on the weather.
For instance, if you are shooting on a sunny day, then you’ll need to understand how natural lighting works at different times of the day. In general, morning light is often cool, but can sometimes be warm, and the later in the day it gets, the warmer the light is likely to be. By late afternoon and early evening, the lighting turns golden. Then, in the twilight hours between sunset and full darkness, you’ll be back to cool lighting. Of course, this is also dependent on your surroundings. Sunlight in a snow-covered landscape will appear cooler than sunlight falling on trees and other greenery.
In addition to the colors of sunlight, it is helpful to know the kinds of shadowing you can expect. Natural sunlight on a sunny day tends to create harsh shadows, and those shadows get even longer when the sun is low in the sky.
What about cloudy days? On those days, the lighting is what we call diffuse. New photographers often look out on a cloudy day with disappointment, but actually, this kind of lighting is more versatile than warm sunlight. Here are a few things to remember:
- It is often said that diffuse lighting gives you a truer representation of colors, since you aren’t working with the golden quality that a sunny day has. The light is whiter, which helps you photograph the real color.
- If you apply certain tones to your image, light on a cloudy day can look very chilly.
- Diffuse lighting is extremely even. In fact, on a truly cloudy day, look for shadows on the ground. If the lighting is really diffuse, you aren’t likely to find any shadows except in the deepest shade. Because of this, you can take photos that have really even lighting without having to resort to fill flash.
Artificial Lighting
Artificial lighting is a different beast entirely. To start with, there are four main types that you will run across as a photographer: incandescent, fluorescent, LED lighting and flashes or studio lighting. Each type of light, on its own, is entirely different from the rest, and each type can be modified to give you even more versatility.
Incandescent
Though it is becoming more rare, incandescent lighting used to be the most common type of lighting found around the house, and it was also commonly used as tungsten lighting to add warmth to studios. Where natural daylight has a warm, golden color, incandescent lighting is even warmer — often with hints of orange or red.
Fluorescent
Fluorescent lighting, which is the type of lighting that you’ll find in offices or large public buildings, is on the other end of the spectrum. Traditionally, fluorescent lighting, because it was cool, gave images a greenish or bluish tone, which a photographer could correct simply by using filters in the opposite color.
Nowadays, however, fluorescent lighting runs the gamut. While many fluorescent bulbs still produce blue or green light, you’ll find others that produce whites and warmer daylight tones. In fact, some of the newer curly fluorescent light bulbs come in color temperatures that are quite useful in the studio.
LED Lighting
LEDs (light emitting diodes) are a relatively new thing for photographers. There is a lot of confusion surrounding them, and rightfully so. The thing about LEDs is that they come in a wide variety of colors. Photographers often use LED light boards with cool white or warm tones, but custom lighting can be made with hints of any color you desire.
There are a couple of things to note about LED lighting. For one thing, it can be very harsh lighting, washing out your subjects while leaving dark shadows. For this reason, it is sometimes best used with diffusers. Some people have also said that LED lights aren’t stable in their color temperature. In other words, plain white LED lighting may shift between cooler bluish tones or warmer yellowish tones as you work.
Flashes and Studio Lighting
This is the last type of lighting, and it is the one that most photographers use, particularly indoors. Flashes, strobes and studio lights are usually a bright white, and in the case of flashes and strobes, they are exactly that: A quick burst of light that illuminates your subject.
These lights tend to be very harsh, and the light is very directional, meaning that it is easy to cast deep shadows if you so desire. It is also possible, with enough lights in the right positions, to have absolutely no shadow at all.
The biggest advantage to this type of lighting is that it is easy to modify. Not only can you adjust intensity, but you can use specialized gear like reflectors, diffusers and more to change the quality of the light.
In addition to that, lighting colors can be changed easily. With filters or colored gels, you can modify your lighting so that it has the same color as sunlight, incandescent light or any other type of lighting. In fact, you can modify these lights with any color you so desire, so if your image calls for bright purple light coming in from one direction, and deep green light from another, you can make this happen quite easily.
Photography is essentially all about capturing light. That’s what makes knowledge of the types of lighting that you can use crucial. The ability to manipulate light in any way you desire gives you the ability to create a broad range of images in different styles.
There is so much to consider each and every time you take a photograph: Lighting, composure, the subject material, colors and more. Tone is another thing to consider, an aspect of photography that isn’t as commonly discussed as other, more popular topics.
Yet, tone is incredibly powerful. It is a large part of what sets the mood of the final image. And, there are all kinds of ways to achieve the perfect tones in your images. Use lighting of different color temperatures, or off-camera lighting with colored filters. Use your editing software to change or deepen the tone of the image. In film photography, famous films such as Kodachrome were known for their uniquely beautiful tones.
No matter how you choose to tone your photographs, it is important to understand what those tones will add. Here, I will discuss tones for both color and black and white photography so that you understand how to choose the right tones for your images.
Tones in Color Photography
In black and white photography, the tones are a lot more obvious since it changes the photo to sepia and white or another color and white. However, that doesn’t make the toning of color photography, even though it is subtler, any less powerful. With color photography, it all comes down to enhancing the mood and meaning of the image.
As you’re thinking about tones, start with warm and cool colors, and think about their properties. Warm colors — reds, yellows, oranges and browns — can lend a variety of different feelings to an image, ranging between excitement and welcoming warmth. Cool colors, like green, blue and violet, on the other hand, tend to be more relaxing and refreshing, although blue can be used to indicate sadness.
Color tones can be broken down even deeper than that, however. As you are choosing a tone, it helps to think about the psychology behind colors — in other words, how colors affect people. Here is a quick list of the meaning of various colors to help you choose the perfect tone:
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Red is a rare color to use as a cast in a color image, but it has been done before. In general, red has warmth and energy to it, and it can also be used to convey a sense of strength or danger. When you see a red color cast, most often, it will be a shade that trends towards brown.
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Orange tones make people think of comfort — good food, warmth and a sense of security.
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Yellow is a commonly used tone, and in fact, it is the tone that you’ll get when you take photographs as the sun is getting ready to set for the day — that rich, golden color that makes everything seem more cheerful.
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Green is the color of harmony. It tends to make people feel refreshed, so when you add a green cast to an image, make sure that the subject material matches the fresh and tranquil tone you’ve chosen.
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Blue is likely the most versatile color. Depending on your subject material, it can indicate serenity or tranquility. Because it is such a chilly color, however, it can also lend a depressing sort of feeling to your images.
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Violet tends to make images feel more authentic, and with certain subject material, the image may see more upscale or luxurious. In fact, in monochrome photography, this hue is popular since it conveys a sense of grandeur or motion.
Be aware that shifts in shade mean a lot, too. For instance, a red that trends toward brown, a completely brownish cast, or a yellow-green color can all give the image a completely different feeling than their parent colors will. Experiment in post processing with various shades, and you’ll quickly see what I mean.
Tones in Black and White Photography
As I mentioned before, when it comes to tones in monochrome photography, they tend to be a lot more obvious. There are also three ways to add tones to your monochrome images: Add the color to the lightest areas of the photograph, keeping your blacks black, change the color of the blacks and middle tones while leaving the highlights alone, or tone all of the colors across the range.
When it comes to colors, there are several popular options. For instance, sepia is used to soften the image, or to make the image resemble an old-fashioned photograph. If you browse sepia photos, you’ll notice that some trend more towards black, with brownish highlights, while others are sepia all the way through. Here are some other popular ways to tone monochrome images:
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Selenium, which is a blue to purple tone that adds a lot of drama to a monochrome image.
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Gold toning, which has an orange-red effect, with blacks that are actually blue.
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For a vivid blue, try cyanotypes, which replicate the old process of photographs on glass plates.
Of course, when it comes to monochrome or even two-tone images, you aren’t limited to these options. Use any hue that you desire — but make sure to reference the colors I’ve listed in the color photography section so that you can get an idea how those colors will affect the final image.
A Note on Subtlety
The biggest issue with toning is its overuse. The temptation is there to create blazingly bright images, and with certain toning techniques, such as cyanotypes, this may not be the right path to choose. However, other times, a subtle tint is all you need to influence the image. In general, when it comes to toning, less is usually more.
With every image that you create, don’t hesitate to tinker with the tones. You’ll be amazed to find that slight adjustments make a huge difference. And, since most of us aren’t attempting to apply tones using obscure and old-fashioned processes anymore, you’ll be able to experiment endlessly to learn what works best for each individual image.
When you’ve been a photographer for as long as I have, you start to realize that not only does this art give you joy, but it also comes with its own share of frustrations. It seems strange at times to be so frustrated with something that you enjoy so much, but it definitely isn’t an uncommon feeling. Let me share some of my frustrations so that you can see that you aren’t alone!
The Best Art Takes Time
You’re probably thinking about all of the time that you spend on trips, on planning, on setting everything up to take a photo, on post-processing and more. Sometimes it would be nice if we could skip that whole process and get right to the finished photo.
There is, however, another span of time that I am talking about. One that can be even more frustrating. That is the time that it takes to mature as an artist. Did you know that many of the world’s most famous photographs, such as Ansel Adams, didn’t produce their iconic images until they were in their 50s or 60s? Of course, some of us will produce amazing images early on, but for the rest of us, that is a frustratingly long time to wait.
The Plague of Elitism
Elitism is rampant throughout every aspect of photography, and I can safely say that this attitude does more harm than good. It starts with new photographers purchasing the gear that they can reasonably afford, while photographers that have spent years and thousands of dollars turn up their noses at the equipment of a beginner.
Sometimes, elitism makes a photographer resistant to critique, or resistant to new ideas because “the old way is better.” There are still photographers that eschew digital because it can never replicate the look of film, and while that is true, it doesn’t make digital inferior to film or vice versa.
The Money You’ll Spend
That last point leads me nicely to this point. Sometimes, you’ll pay more money for something for no good reason at all. You’ll know exactly what I’m talking about if you look at the difference between a generic replacement lens cap or one with the name brand emblazoned on it. Lots of things can vary in cost just based on who made it.
As if that weren’t enough, think of the new systems that you will buy over the years. If the camera line or brand or lens mount style that you use happens to be discontinued, then you’ll need to reinvest in a new camera and lenses.
The same goes for the artwork that you buy. We all love to invest in the work of our peers, but sometimes, a particular piece of art is priced well out of the range that it is worth. This can defeat the purpose of creating art, because if art is meant to be enjoyable, then thousands of dollars just to own a print makes that art less enjoyable for the people who can’t afford to purchase it and look at it.
Real Critique is Often Incredibly Rare
Serious photographers know that the only way to become a better artist is to have your work analyzed. Each fault and each bright spot should be picked over thoroughly so that you can learn what you’ll need to do to improve. But, that kind of honesty is so hard to find.
You won’t find it among your non-photographer family and friends. They love you, which edges them to the most optimistic side of things by default. And, without lots of experience in photography and compositional rules, it can be difficult for them to point out specific details that need work.
Even among your photographer friends, critique can be hard. No one wants to hurt your feelings, which makes people tempted to gloss over some of the bad points that you really need to see. And, as you know, it is incredibly difficult to be completely impartial.
Perhaps a friend will ask you to critique one of their photographs, and because that photograph is of your favorite butterfly, it goes up a few points in your estimation by default. Or maybe your friend looks at one of your images but doesn’t particularly like the color red, which is featured prominently. Regardless of the skill, it took to take the photograph, it isn’t one of their favorite things, which leads to an underwhelming response.
Whatever the case may be, you will find that frustratingly enough, thorough, impartial critique, which is one of the most important tools to help you learn, is a very rare and wonderful thing.
The Way Non-Photographers Treat You
Have you ever showed someone a photo, and their response is, “Wow, that’s amazing! You must have an awesome camera!” It is statements like this that set the photographer’s teeth on edge because we know that it isn’t the camera that makes the art. The camera can certainly help, but in the end, it is the skill of the artist that makes all the difference in the world.
What about taking photographs in crowded public areas? We’ve all felt that awkward feeling, and we’ve all had people cast looks our way. Sometimes, those looks are dirty looks, as if we are intruding on a person’s life simply by documenting our surroundings. Once in a very great while, someone may even approach you to tell you that you aren’t allowed to take photos in the public space that you are in, even though it is a perfectly legal and acceptable thing to do. Having the will to take photos no matter what the people around you think becomes easier with time, but being treated differently for practicing your art in public always somewhat frustrating.
We all have our frustrations — these are simply some of mine. If you have a few different frustrations, make sure to share them with your friends and fellow photographers. Not only is it nice to have the chance to vent, but airing your frustrations and listening to those of others will help smooth the path ahead for all photographers.
I’ve said many, many times that photography is a never-ending learning experience. Even the best of us will still find more and more new things to remember as we traverse this art form. And as photographers, we are well aware of the fact that we’ll never stop learning. But, one thing that you might struggle with is the mechanics of learning.
You see, learning is not the same for everyone. Different people use vastly different ways to learn more efficiently. Experts across the field of education agree that there are three main styles of learning. I’ll explain those learning styles — and some examples of how to apply them to photography — so that you can learn all about your particular learning style and how to work with it.
Visual Learning
Someone that is a visual learner does best with things like diagrams, pictures, videos, charts and more. If, as you are learning, you find yourself saying “show me that,” you could very well be a visual learner. Rather than reading text or listening to lectures, visual learners what a list of instructions, some diagrams to illustrate the new knowledge, and most of all, hands-on access to the tools they are learning to use.
To subdivide this a little further, there are two types of visual learners: visual-linguistic learners and visual-spatial learners. Visual-linguistic learners tend to do a lot of reading and making marks with a highlighter, or note taking, while visual-spatial learners are more likely to want conceptualized knowledge like charts or diagrams.
A visual linguistic learner, when learning how to use off-camera lighting, will want to read about the subject first. The reading materials they choose will be rich with diagrams and other illustrations, and once they feel they have a firm understanding of the material, they will want to experiment with the lighting themselves.
A visual-spatial learner, however, is more likely to dispense with the books and instead watch an instructional video about off-camera lighting. Perhaps they will look up diagrams that show where to place lights for different effects, or they’ll want to see light levels displayed as graphs. As with visual-linguistic learners, a visual-spatial learner will want to get his or her hands on the equipment to complete the learning process.
Auditory Learning
Auditory learners are vastly different from visual learners. Rather than relying on books, images and videos, they learn best when they can use their ears to learn. Lectures, podcasts, videos with great explanations, speakers at seminars or workshops — these are all things that will help the auditory learner to learn more efficiently.
Let’s say that you are an auditory learner that wants to learn all about composition. Visual learners will want to look at diagrams showing compositional rules, and they’ll want to read plenty of books about it. However, you, as an auditory learner, may do better by listening to an audiobook or engaging in a conversation with an expert on the subject matter.
Kinesthetic Learning
This is often referred to as “tactile learning” because a kinesthetic learner is all about the hands-on approach. Forget the books, the lectures or the diagrams. Kinesthetic learners have little patience for these things. Instead, they want a quick overview and then they want to snatch the camera for themselves so that they can experiment with it.
Instead of saying “show me that,” as a visual learner might, they will say “Give me that. I want to try.” This is the “learn as you go” style, and as such, kinesthetic learners benefit from quick reference materials in case they get stuck while they’re experimenting with the tools that they are learning to use.
When first learning how to use a camera, a kinesthetic learner doesn’t want someone to point at buttons and explain what they all do. They want to press the buttons themselves and find out. When it comes to composition, they’ll look at a few examples, and then go out and practice creating their own images following the compositional rules they’ve seen.
Using Your Learning Style
When it comes to learning styles, we’re all different. Some of us may even use a combination of learning styles. But we could all stand to follow the example of the kinesthetic learning style.
That isn’t to say that we should all be hands-on learners. We should each follow the learning styles that work best. However, kinesthetic learners tend to jump right in to projects so that they can figure things out as they go along. Sometimes, I think that is the best way to force yourself to learn new things.
Let’s say, for instance, that you want to polish your skills with lighting. Perhaps you should come up with a project idea that will help you accomplish that. Rather than waiting until you’ve accumulated the knowledge you need, just get started on the project. As you run up against gaps in what you know, then you’ll feel the urge to start filling in those gaps in whatever way works best for you, be it books, graphics, hands-on experimentation or a combination of these things.
Think about it this way: If you have a stack of books or DVDs that have been sitting around for weeks, or if you just haven’t quite had the chance to go out and experiment in a hands-on way, then the temptation is there to continue to procrastinate. But, if you simply jump into a project, you’ll be able to set goals and increase your motivation. Before too long, you’ll be going through all of the learning material that you have neglected simply to gain the knowledge that you need to finish your project.
Sometimes knowledge comes easy, and sometimes it is a struggle to understand various concepts. If you find yourself struggling, take a look at the three learning styles and see which fits you best. Then apply those tactics to your art, and make sure to motivate yourself by doing projects, even if you feel that you don’t know how, and you soon be surprised by how much more you are learning.
As the old saying goes, “You get what you pay for.” I find that nowhere is this more true than in photography. It’s not just the gear that you are paying for. In photography, you are also paying for art with your time, creativity, and effort. And, if you don’t pay out much with those currencies, well, then this saying rings true. Here, I will talk about all of the ways that you get out what you put in when it comes to photography.
Your Equipment
When it comes to your camera, lenses, lighting and all the other bits of gear that you’ll need over the years, you’ll certainly get what you pay for. It is wise to remember that the cheap option isn’t necessarily the best option.
However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to buy the best of the best, or else you won’t create good photographs. More, I’m talking about prices as they are relative to the piece of equipment.
For instance, if you have is $500 to spend right now, you would be far better served to buy a good used camera and lens than you would be to buy an extraordinarily cheap camera and a few cheap lenses. You would also be better off buying the good used camera over a battered, broken professional camera that is only at a low price because it is in such terrible shape.
Costs can also mean the difference between a top-notch lens with fungus growing between the elements versus a slightly lower quality lens that is in perfect condition. Any time you purchase a piece of equipment, you’ll need to weigh the cost compared to the quality that piece of equipment will produce.
Paying for Art with Effort and Thought
Photography should be hard. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be fun — it should be both difficult and enjoyable. If it is difficult to create a particular image, then you will know that not many other photographers have created such an image. Frankly, it takes a lot of thought and consideration to create any kind of art.
In photography, you’ll need to put time into thinking of an idea. Then more time into composing the image, taking the image — not just once, but many times from multiple angles and perhaps even with different kinds of light. Then, you’ll spend yet more time thinking about and trying post processing techniques and deciding how you want to have the image printed, matted and displayed.
If you aren’t putting a lot of effort into all of these things, then you’ll certainly get what you pay for, though it might not be what you wanted.
Make Each Step Count
I talked a bit about the collective effort of creating a photograph above. But what about each individual step? What I mean to say here is that it does not matter if you put lots and lots of effort into most of the steps, only to cut corners on one or two of the steps.
An example would be to spend hours composing an image, then spending only a few minutes on post processing — if you do any processing at all. Or perhaps you spent all kinds of time perfecting the lighting on a hurried composure that you later realize wasn’t that great.
If you are willing to put the effort in at all, then make sure to take it all the way. It is far better to explore all of your options when post processing rather than cropping the image and calling it done, and if you are going to spend all kinds of time setting up lighting equipment, then you’ll find it worth your while to spend a decent amount of time simply composing.
Perhaps this is an instance where you don’t get what you paid for. After all, if you are only cutting corners on a couple of steps, then you have certainly paid at least some of the cost of creating art — just not enough of the costs to produce the absolute best art that you can.
Planning and Patience Are Costs, Too
Once in a while, inspiration strikes you and allows you to create something amazing. More often, however, those amazing images are the result of days, weeks, months or even years of thinking and planning. It isn’t always good enough to suddenly think to yourself, “Today, I will hopefully make art with whatever subjects are at hand.” That method relies too much on luck to be at all reliable.
When an idea comes to you, be patient. Don’t run right out and try to produce that idea. Write the idea down and let it turn over in your head until you have a few more ideas to make the original idea better. Then, wait some more. Wait for the right moment, the right emotion, the right place, the right quality of light or season of the year. As you wait, you’ll be able to perfect the image in your mind’s eye, and create the image when everything is just right.
Waiting is valuable elsewhere in your photographic process, too. After you’ve taken a great photograph, if you are like me, you are excited to go home and start tinkering with the post processing. Of course, there is nothing wrong with this. But, you might find that the best post processing ideas come to you days or weeks after you took the photograph.
You may even print the photo, look at the final print, and realize that you could have done something differently. It happens to the best of us — probably more often than not. But now that you have waited all this time to see your photograph printed, you’ll be able to go back, improve the image, and print it again.
Every part of photography has a cost — money, effort or thought, usually all three at once. The best photographers pay those costs willingly, even happily, because they know quite well that the old saying is true. You’ll get what you pay for.
We all know how things like folktales, legends, or even rumors work. The story gets passed around via word of mouth, and with each retelling, that story evolves. If you’ve ever seen a rumor run through the “rumor mill” of a workplace, then you know what I mean. As the rumor spreads, each person tells it just a little bit differently. A rumor that originally said something like, “Bob wore a shirt I didn’t like today” ends up as, “Bob came in to work wearing pajamas” after enough people have passed that rumor along.
As you can see, the end result is something totally different from its origins. Legends and folktales that have been around for decades or centuries usually suffer from a vastly larger distortion.
By now, you are probably wondering what on earth this has to do with photography. Well, I think that this example is an ideal comparison to the way that the things that you have learned as a photographer can change.
You see, your habits, thought processes and the ways that you do things are all subject to the same kind of evolution that a rumor is. Moreover, because these things change so slowly over time, you’re not even likely to notice the changes in yourself. Perhaps the way you grip your camera is different from how you used to hold it, or maybe you’ve gradually become a bit more careless with the safety of your lenses — careless enough that you forget to clean them every now and then when you’re putting them away, which is something that can eventually lead to ruined lenses.
Of course, this process of habits isn’t limited to the ways that you handle your gear. Your thoughts on proper composure may subtly shift over time, or you might handle lighting differently than you did when you first learned about it.
This is why I think that, as photographers, we should be reflective about the things that we do. We should always set aside a little bit of time for an honest self-examination of the ways that we do things. Of course, introspection of that kind can be difficult, so I will outline some of the things you should look at below.
How Has Your Application of Compositional Rules Changed?
Composition is one of those things that feels like the rules were made to be broken in order to make something groundbreaking. However, there is a reason these rules are in place, and you might find that your new ideas are creeping in to your compositions more than they should be. I’ve always found that it is a wise idea to go back and look over the compositional rules of art. Reread any texts that taught you composition just to refresh yourself and your knowledge of art.
How are You Treating Your Equipment?
As photographers, we become impatient. We’ve handled our gear for years, and sometimes, all those little precautions you take to keep your gear safe go by the wayside. Are you not cleaning your camera and lenses as thoroughly as you once did? Do you hastily rig your light stands, strobes, and other equipment so that you can start taking pictures more quickly? Perhaps there are some obscure camera settings that you so rarely use that you’ve forgotten exactly how they work.
If you neglect these things, whether it is the knowledge of your gear or the actual care of your gear, you could be setting yourself up for trouble. Perhaps you'll really need to use that obscure setting when you're out in the field, but you don't remember how. Worse, what if your camera or lenses require repair or replacement after years of mishandling? Moisture, dust, dirt and even the oils from your skin can wreak havoc on your gear if not cleaned properly, and invariably, when your gear does decide to break, it will do it when you need it most.
Don't get caught in these situations! Whatever the case may be, you should periodically reaffirm everything you know about your gear and how you should treat it.
How Do You Use Lighting Nowadays?
Lighting is a tricky thing, partly because you are always learning new techniques, and partly because there are a lot of lighting tricks or fads out there that can become a part of your routine if you aren’t careful. Some things, like extremely harsh lighting that causes dark shadows and blown out highlights, are things that are popular as a novelty. If you don’t take care to re-evaluate and re-educate yourself on proper lighting, you may find yourself relying heavily on lighting tricks and novelties rather than great compositions and interesting subject material in order to make images striking.
Speaking of Fads…
All photographers should evaluate their recent images and think about what they have produced that is simply a fad, and what was produced using standard artistic techniques. The fact is, fad photography isn’t enduring — once the fad goes out of style, your work becomes less relevant, and no photographer wants that.
So look at your work and be honest. Are there things like selective coloring, crazy angles, washed-out colors or other gimmicks? Sometimes these tricks do work to make a photograph interesting, but more often than not, they are designed to be what is currently popular but not necessarily enduringly popular. I can’t state it enough: If you rely on a fad too much, it can become a part of your style, but once that fad goes out of style, so too will your artwork.
Of course, when you are examining yourself as a photographer, there will be a lot to look at. Certainly, you may not be able to pick out all of the habits that have evolved over the years. When in doubt, look for outside critique and take it to heart. No matter how you learn these introspective lessons, they are incredibly valuable lessons to learn.
If you’re like me — or if you are even the slightest bit serious about photography as a hobby or a career — then photography becomes the reason why you do things. It can be an all-consuming thing. You’ll find yourself planning trips around photography. Instead of visiting a natural wonder simply for the joy of seeing it, you go so that you can look for the photographs.
While you are there, are you enjoying the scenery? Or are you setting up equipment, taking photos and wondering how you’ll process and print them?
As you can see, the things that you do for fun quickly become a quest to make art and nothing more. Would you go on all of these trips if you weren’t a photographer? If you are like most non-photographers, you would likely travel and explore less often. Photography becomes the reason to do these things, and the sheer joy of the experience becomes secondary.
It is easy to get wrapped up, not only in the pursuit of art, but also in the mechanical aspects of photography. When you’re out taking photographs, you are focused. You’ve set yourself a goal to bring home wonderful images, and to that end, you are busy composing, searching for details, checking camera settings and mulling over the quality of the light. As you’re doing this, you forget to actually experience the world around you. It simply doesn’t occur to you to put the camera down, look, breathe and exist as one with your surroundings.
Here is an example: I recently had the privilege of traveling to my hometown to take photographs of waterfalls. Now, you’ve probably seen it in the news. West Virginia has recently experienced flooding of near unimaginable proportions. The waterfalls that I was photographing were powerful, dangerous beasts.
I could have simply gone about my business and photographed the waterfalls in whatever way I saw fit at the time. But I didn’t. Instead, I spent time just watching the raging water while experiencing the raw power of God's creation. The experience was amazing, and I feel that simply being there and looking, without taking hundreds of photos, helped me focus on my surroundings.
That’s not to say that you have to skip the photographs entirely. But when you do visit an area that inspires you, do what I did and take the time to become a part of your surroundings. Then, with your improved understanding and heightened emotion, you’ll be able to take better photographs.
So, why is it that placing yourself within your surroundings is so important? And how, exactly, do you, in our fast-paced world, immerse yourself? I have a couple of thoughts, which I will share with you.
Life is Too Short
Imagine the person that goes to a concert, smartphone held high to record every minute of the action. What does that person end up with? A recording that they may never watch, and a lesser experience at the concert because they spent less time enjoying it and more time working. After all the money this person spent to go to the concert, and all of the excitement leading up to it, they come away with an experience that was less than perfect, which is especially tragic when you consider the fact that there are only so many concerts one can reasonably attend in a lifetime.
Learn from this example. Don’t be the photographer that always removes him or herself from the moment in order to coldly calculate how best to take pictures. Life is too short, so always remember to take at least a little bit of time to experience the wonders that you are photographing.
Complete Immersion Makes Better Images
Placing yourself into the moment and truly immersing yourself in your surroundings might be the best way — or, possibly the only way — to truly get a sense of the art that you might find. The reason for this is simple: By immersing yourself, you can really get a sense of all the details around you, from the insects crawling through the foliage to the clouds in the sky.
One exercise that I recommend is one that is sometimes taught to new photographers. To do this exercise, pick a spot. It could be anywhere — a forest, a national park, an urban area or even your own backyard. The location doesn’t matter, and in fact, sometimes, it is helpful if the location is somewhat mundane so that you can understand the idea that beauty is everywhere.
Once you’ve found your location, find a nice spot to sit down. Spend an hour or more just observing, listening and looking. Smell the scents that are on the breeze, listen for the sound of wind, birds or vehicles passing in the distance. Pay close attention to all of the little details, be it the way the grass bends in the breeze, or how sunlight plays in the trees. You won’t need to concentrate hard. Just be there, taking it all in.
Once you’ve had that chance to truly live and breathe in your surroundings, then you can use what you’ve seen, heard and felt to take a few pictures.
Think about it this way: How can you create a photograph that reflects the scent of flowers or the sound of trickling water? You’ll only know the answer to that question once you’ve taken the time to be a part of the world that you are photographing.
Perhaps as photographers, we are too detached from the world that we live in. We look at everything with an eye that is tuned to search for the photos in our surroundings. Maybe this is why we struggle to find the beauty around us. It could very well be that we just haven’t taken enough time to stop, enjoy ourselves and experience life before we attempt to photograph it.
Did you know there was a army of artists during WWII named the Ghost Army? It was a troop of special forces with a unique mission that helped the allies get the better of Hitler in one of the most creative ways. This is their story.
The Ghost Army of WWII
The men of the Ghost Army were members of the U.S. Army’s 23rd Headquarters Special Troops. They were no different than other men in the war. They had no special strength or skills beyond the ordinary soldier. But, what they did was completely extraordinary.
Their mission was first made known to other allies just after the D-Day invasion of June 6, 1944. This was when a couple of French citizens riding bicycles happened upon them. The soldiers were turning a 40-ton Sherman tank in place, something that was not easy to do without attracting notice. Yet, they were working quite stealthily. The French bicyclists were amazed, and when they questioned the Americans about what they were doing, a member of the troop simply told them the Americans were quite strong.
The members of the 23rd were hand chosen for their unique non-combat-related skills, as this mission would take abilities not usually prized in soldiers. The 1,100 members of the troop were made up of artists, illustrators, sound specialists, and radio experts. They were specially chosen directly from art schools in New York and Philadelphia in January of 1944. Their unusual mission was to trick the enemy into thinking the Americans had a larger force and more powerful weapons than they did. They would do this with hand-made inflatable tanks, fake radio transmissions, and sound equipment blasting the recordings of the sounds of assembling troops.
While most of the other allies, including other American troop units, did not know about the Ghost Army until decades after the war, the 23rd is credited with more than 20 missions and with saving between 15,000 and 30,000 lives. They worked stealthily in the background, keeping their mission secret, and performed practical wonders with their illusions. Their anonymity while doing real good for the allied cause is the reason they are called the Ghost Army. The existence of the 23rd and its mission was only officially confirmed in the April 1985 issue of Smithsonian Magazine, when an illustrator for the magazine, who was once a member of the Ghost Army, told his story. The U.S. Army and other members of the Ghost Army corroborated his tale.
While deception in war is nothing new (the Trojan Horse of the Trojan War is an excellent early example of this), the Ghost Army took it to a whole new level, setting up what may likely be the world’s first multimedia combat deception. Not only was it a multimedia experience, it was portable, so the 23rd could take it on the road with them. They set up inflatable tanks, then set up their speakers fifteen miles away from them, blasting the noises of assembling troops, to give the illusion that a large regiment was setting up nearby. With their decoy radio transmissions, the Axis troops and leaders fell for it nearly every time. The actions of the Ghost Army often caused Axis troops to back down before a battle even began.
The Ghost Army was involved with a lot of action in WWII. During their downtime, they sketched. Members of the Ghost Army are credited with producing over 500 sketches of everyday scenes in France and other places in Europe during the war, capturing the stories of the everyday people caught up in it. In this capacity, they served as chroniclers of average people, whose stories often got lost amid the tales of heroic soldiers. Thanks to the Ghost Army and their sketches, these people’s stories can be told and remembered by history. We know a lot about how WWII affected everyday civilian citizens in Europe thanks to the Ghost Army.
The members of the 23rd not only had to keep their mission secret from the enemy, they had to keep it secret from the rest of the U.S. army. Their isolation from other units enabled them to have time to make those sketches, as they were not always needed with their unique skills, and only had each other to talk to. When they traveled, they usually pretended to be members of other units, even going so far as to decorate their trucks with the insignia of other units, or sew fake badges onto their uniforms. This allowed them to keep their mission and identity a secret in places they spent their time when they were off duty.
While the Ghost Army was involved with a lot of other missions, their most important one was near the end of the war. The American army was getting set up to cross the Rhine river to go deeper into Germany. The 23rd was tasked with luring the Germans away from the area. The members of the Ghost Army posed as members of the 30th and 79th divisions, and, with their special equipment and set-up, convincingly made a troop of 1,100 men appear to be a troop of 30,000.
The mixing of real tanks with the inflatable ones of the Ghost Army, the Americans appeared to be an imposing force about to slash its way across Germany, taking anything in its path that got in its way. The fake army was so convincing that American pilots attempted to land next to them. The Germans, knowing they could not match an army of this size, did not put up any resistance to the Americans crossing the Rhine. The Americans easily crossed the river and occupied its banks, and the 23rd received a commendation for this incredibly successful mission.
Many members of the Ghost Army went on to have careers in the arts after the war. And, as those who were involved have said, they were forced to keep the real nature of their mission secret from even their wives and children for decades until documents about the mission became declassified. Even now, those who were part of the Ghost Army say there is still much more tale of its adventures left to tell.
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What are our motivations for making photographs? If you ask around, among friends and neighbors, you’ll quickly find that many photographers harbor dreams of making money or becoming known for their art. But are those the right reasons for creating photographs?
I don’t think they are. Sure, a photographer of reasonable skill can make a living with photography, but will you make millions? The chances of that are very, very slim. Just as slim are the chances that a photographer will go on to become a household name.
That isn’t to say that you shouldn’t have dreams. But sometimes, it is better to think of photography as something other than a path to fame and fortune. Perhaps we should be making art for art’s sake, or maybe even to pay the bills, but not with the goal to become rich and famous. After all, such a pursuit can take a bit of the joy out of the art.
So, if not for fame and money, then why do we make photographs? There are many reasons, as I’ll outline below.
Photography is Fun!
Photography is a never-ending learning process, and it has so many small steps that go into the creation of the actual image. From brainstorming ideas all the way to making the prints, photographers should enjoy most, if not all, of these steps. Even though there are other reasons to take pictures, the fun of it all should be reason enough to be a photographer.
Photography Challenges You
Life without challenging aspects would be bland. As I mentioned above, there is a lot to learn about photography. Even experts are still learning and growing, and that, in and of itself, is a challenge.
However, a larger challenge exists, and that is the challenge of producing an art-worthy photograph. Many photographers become discouraged when shot after shot just doesn’t seem good enough. However, I view this in a different way. Sure, a majority of photographs aren’t perfect. It is a challenge to create a photograph that is perfect, and once you’ve met that challenge, the reward feels so much sweeter because of all the hard work that you’ve put in.
Expand Your Imagination
When you think of something unimaginative — like an uninspired meal, or some other bland thing — you realize something. Unimaginative objects are boring. In the same way, an unimaginative life can be boring.
Photography forces you to break away from that dull, unimaginative lifestyle. Everywhere that you go, you’ll find yourself thinking, photographing and creating. What’s more, we can’t all travel to exotic locales to take photographs that defy the imagination. So, we must make do with the surroundings that we have, and that requires a broad imagination in order to create new and interesting photographs. By necessity, your imagination will expand, which is never a bad thing.
Photography Encourages Exploration
In this day and age, when it seems like almost everything has already been discovered, photography offers you a way to keep on exploring and discovering beautiful new things. It is one thing to go out and look at the world but it is quite another to go out with camera in hand, looking for all the beautiful minutiae that can be turned into beautiful photographs. When you take an interest in photography, you’ll soon find that ordinary, everyday photographs will never do. You’ll need to become an explorer to find the hidden aspects of ordinary subjects and capture them with your camera.
Photography is Something You Can Share
With this, I’m not talking about sharing your photos on Instagram or Facebook — although you certainly can, if you like. When I talk about photography as an easily shared medium, what I mean is that you can make prints or put albums together. Then, when family or friends visit, you can share your art with them. The thing about photography is that just by existing, and being in a place where everyone can see it, it is something that people are naturally drawn to. So, when you hang those images on your wall, you won't even need to ask for people to look at them. They'll be drawn to your art simply because it is interesting and they are naturally drawn to it.
Those aren’t the only places to share your photography, however. If you’re feeling a bit more ambitious, try entering local, regional or national photo contests. Join a photography club and share your work with your peers. Submit your best images to galleries, magazines, newspapers or other publications. Once you start sharing your work to a wider audience, you’ll soon see that the possibilities for spreading your artistic ideas are endless.
Photography is Your Life, in Images
You can always keep a record of your life by writing a journal or a memoir. But these things just cannot compare to a record of your life in images. Not only did you experience a wide variety of interesting things, but you have the photographs to prove it. These images not only tell the story of your life, but they tell it in an easily accessible way. It is something that your children, their grandchildren and anyone else can look at and immediately understand what you experienced.
Even if photography isn’t something that you share — and I highly recommend that you do share it — then it is something that you’ll always be able to look back on. Imagine, 20 or 30 years in the future, being able to not only imagine the things that you experienced earlier in life, but being able to experience those things all over again through the photographs that you have taken.
As you can see, there are many, many reasons to be a photographer. The reason that so many of us take photographs isn’t solely the idea that we’ll become rich or famous. Instead, we do it because we enjoy photography and everything that comes along with it.
Are we losing the ability to create photographs that have lasting value? What I mean by this is that at times, I fear it is becoming ever more difficult to create a purely artistic photograph that becomes iconic based only on the merits of the photographer who created that photograph.
The simple fact of the matter is that when you look around at today’s most famous photographs, so many of them are images that have some kind of celebrity to them. These images are famous not necessarily because of their artistic quality, but because they’re of a famous person or a famous event like a battle or a gathering of some sort.
At the same time, I can’t help but compare these famous images to famous paintings. Although some paintings feature celebrity of some kind, many more are simple scenes or paintings of people who aren’t necessarily even real, let alone famous. You can look at hundreds of paintings by many, many great painters, including modern painters, and the subject material isn’t famous, but the work is valued as thought-provoking art.
Could this be because photography is imagined as a disposable medium? To a non-photographer, our art seems easy. Press the shutter button and there you have it — a piece of artwork that took you very little time to imagine and create. This perception isn’t helped by the fact that almost everyone in the modern world has a camera, at the very least a cellphone camera, and it is very easy for anyone to snap images of mildly interesting objects or events.
Further compounding the issue is the fact that not everyone has the time, patience or desire to learn how to manipulate mediums such as watercolors or oil paints. Everyone, however, can learn how to press a shutter button. The result of this ease of use is a literal deluge of photos from millions, possibly billions of people, both photographers and non-photographers alike. The overwhelming majority of these images are things that are mildly interesting at the moment, or things that are interesting only to a very small group of people such as a family or a group of friends. All of these mildly interesting images, with their limited appeal, serve to give everyone the notion that the entire art form isn’t one with lasting value. That it is, in fact, a cheap and disposable medium.
What Causes Us to Perceive Photography as Cheap?
If we are looking to point fingers, there are many directions in which we could look. However, I feel that there are two main factors that cause us to disregard photography as serious art. The first is something that you could call the “Instagram Effect.”
For many, the point of photography is not to create an enduring image — one that appeals to a wide variety of people no matter where or when that photo was taken. Instead, the goal is to take as many images as possible so you can throw them up online and share them with friends, family and acquaintances. You’ll get a few “likes,” a few comments, and then the moment is over and the photograph forgotten.
Instagram, in fact, is a prime example of the way we tend to treat photography nowadays. I’ve heard people tell new photographers to go to Instagram and look at the art you find there. But can you really consider Instagram or other online sharing websites as “looking at art?” I’m not saying you won’t find beautiful photographs there — photographs that are worthy of a museum wall, even.
What I am saying is that this kind of atmosphere poses two problems: First, you’ll need to sift through dozens, hundreds or thousands of snapshots to find exceptional images. And secondly, you don’t experience the photograph in the same way that you would at a museum. Online, you hit a “like” button and move on, whereas at a museum or gallery, you are encouraged to gaze at the photograph and take in all of the details until you are satisfied with the experience. All of this fast clicking, looking and liking only serves to deepen the impression that photography is a fast, disposable and subpar medium.
Trends, to my mind, are the second huge issue that tends to make people assume that photography is cheap. Right now, a popular trend that I’ve been seeing are photos that are made to look old-fashioned, usually with washed out pastel colors, often depicting an old sign, a rusty chair, a battered book, a country scene or something similar. Simply go to Etsy.com and search for photography — you’ll quickly see what I mean.
The problem with trends like these is just that — they are trends. If you follow trends, then you are not creating something original. You are instead taking the easy way, which is to get those quick, trendy images that people will like all up until the next trend rolls around.
Water Lilies, 1920–1926
Again, I have to look at famous paintings as an example. Look at Monet’s Water Lilies series. These paintings aren’t currently trendy. Water lilies weren’t a trend in Monet’s day, either. Neither was Impressionism, especially considering that Monet himself was one of the first to develop this style. And you know what else? When Monet’s work and the work of other Impressionists made its way to the art scene, it was widely hated. Critics cried out that the paintings looked unfinished or sketchy. But today, Monet and his contemporaries are famous — and will always be famous — because they dared to break with the trends and create something that no one else had done before.
What Are the Solutions?
I’ve established that photography is an endangered art form, that the cheapening of photography will eventually lead to it being extraordinarily difficult for any photographer to be taken seriously as an artist — unless, that is, the photographer creates an image of something or someone famous. So how do we fix this?
We must start by taking our art seriously. We need to recognize that there is, in fact, a problem and that the only way to correct that problem is for we, as photographers, to start treating our art with the dignity that it deserves.
Another thing that we can do is to collect artistic photographs from the photographers that we admire. Purchase original prints, hang them throughout your home and enjoy them, just as you would an expensive Renaissance painting. Not only does this prove that photography does have value as art, but it also sets an example to the friends and family that see you enjoying your collection of photographs. Perhaps they, too, will follow your lead and start to enjoy photography as high art also.
Finally, value your work through your actions as a photographer. Treasure your camera just like any artisan or artist treasures the tools of their trade. Don’t make decisions lightly. Weigh each choice as you compose the images, process them, have them printed, matted and framed. When you take special care to produce quality art, others will value it more, too.
Art isn’t easy or cheap. It was never meant to be. It is only through the hard work and vision of the artist that the art becomes an icon. If we, as photographers, want to ensure the longevity of our work, then we need to be the first to give photography the emphasis that it deserves.
The way we think is not just happenstance. In actuality, most of our thought patterns are deeply ingrained. I wake up every morning, knowing how to get a cup of coffee, get dressed and get ready for the day without having to really think about how or why I do these things. The same goes for a lot of the rest of your life — even if you are actively thinking about something or trying to solve a problem, chances are, you’ll use the same logical thought patterns that have worked for you in the past.
For the most part, this is a good thing because it means that you don’t have to relearn how to live each and every day. But, when it comes to creativity, like photography, these thought patterns can become a major hindrance because they don’t really allow for new ways of doing things.
To break out of these patterns, you’ll need to start approaching your art from totally different angles. One great way to do this is to make unusual combinations. You probably remember, as a child in science class, mixing baking soda and water. It’s an unusual combination — one, a liquid, an acid, the other a solid, a base. But combining these two things results in a violent chemical reaction that has fascinated people for decades.
Making unusual combinations in photography is similar to this. Eventually, you’ll land on the right formula and that is where the magic happens. Read on, and I’ll show you some exercises that will help you make discover those unusual, art-worthy combinations.
Telling Stories Through a Series of Images
Groups of images that tell a story are a popular thing to do among photographers, so this one sounds almost like a no-brainer. But, I’m not asking you to create the typical series of images. Instead, what I’m asking you to do is to create a series of wholly unrelated images that still unite to tell a story. The best way to go about this is to pull unrelated images from your archives, but if you just don’t have an image that you’d really like to add to the collection, of course, you can go out and create a new one.
As I’ve said, the point of this exercise is to make unusual combinations. So, for instance, you don’t want to make a series comprised of photos from different sports games. Instead, choose photos with unrelated subject material — a tree, a car, a person and so on. Find relationships between each different subject or each different photo, and use those relationships to tell a story of your own. As you do this, you’ll start asking yourself, “How does this tree relate to that person?” or “How does a car relate to a basketball?” In the answers, you’ll find art.
Create Conflict Between Themes
Another great way to combine the unusual is to combine unusual themes. Now, many photographers have already done similar, which is why you’ll quite often find photos illustrating such things as nature versus the industrial or young versus old. For this exercise, if you know that a pair of themes happens to be common, I’d recommend steering clear of those themes and instead focus on two unrelated themes of your own choosing. Perhaps something like nature versus sports or architecture versus food. As with the first exercise, you’ll want to search for the relationships between these uncommonly paired themes in order to find the photograph.
Choose a Word and Let It Guide You
This is one of my favorite exercises. All you need to do is choose a word — any word, your favorite word, a word that caught your eye in the dictionary, or a word chosen for you randomly. Then, write that word down on a card and put it in your camera bag so that every time you reach for your camera, you’re reminded of the word. Whenever you go out, take pictures that represent the word to you.
As an example, let’s say you chose the word “strength.” What does strength mean to you? Is it a mighty tree or a centuries-old bridge that people still use today? Maybe it is a powerful horse charging through a pasture or a chunk of iron that rusts but refuses to break. Whatever your chosen word is, you’ll certainly find a variety of things that seem unrelated, but in reality, are all united in that they represent the meaning of your chosen word. And again, as with the other exercises, this shows you how to build a connection between things that people normally wouldn’t connect.
Make a Connection Between Photography and Writing
The final way that I would suggest for you to make combinations is a bit different from the other three suggestions. If you’re up for it, combine photography and writing. You can do this in one of two ways: Either take a photo and write about it, or do some creative writing and then search for photos to match. I tend to prefer the second method simply because once the writing is done, you’ll be forced to look in unusual places for a matching image.
When it comes to the actual writing, it could be anything — there is no need to limit yourself to one genre or one type of writing. Write a poem or prose, write an essay, short or long, or make haikus. The whole point is to get you to expand your creativity in an organic way so that you can break away from any rigid thought patterns that may be holding you back.
For so many aspects of our lives, thought patterns are necessary and that is why it can be such a difficult thing to overcome when it comes to creativity. Use one or all of these exercises — and repeat them as many times as you like — and you’ll soon find yourself putting wonderful ideas together!
Over the past three posts, we’ve gone over many of the things that you need to show a child about using a camera and composing images. But, as always, there is still more to learn. This week, I’m going to show you something more abstract. In a nutshell, I’ll show you some ways to encourage the child to keep on learning, even after your lessons are done.
Learning to be Comfortable as a Photographer
The greatest challenge that any child will face is not one of photography, but the challenge of fitting in. Whether they’re at school or at play with their friends, every child wants to do what the other kids are doing so that they’re not labeled as an outcast. Carrying a camera along on field trips, to amusement parks or even on a trip to a local fair with their friends can make a kid feel like they don’t quite fit in with anyone else.
Of course, we older photographers know that this feeling fades with age and in fact, photography becomes something to be proud of — an art that we can share to brighten the lives of our friends and family. For the child that is afraid to be different, this is the challenge. To show him or her that their interest isn’t “nerdy,” but instead something that they should be proud to do. Help your child to be confident in their art, and you’ll see that photography becomes something that they’ll love to share with their friends, rather than something that sets them apart from whatever other kids might be doing. Who knows, your child’s confidence and enjoyment may even inspire some of their friends to pick up photography, too!
Always at the Ready
Chances are, when a child is comfortable taking photos around his or her friends or schoolmates, then they’ll want to have a camera around all the time so that they don’t miss out on any opportunities. This is an attitude that should definitely be encouraged because we all know that the more photos you take, the more you’ll learn and grow.
Does this mean that you should send your child on field trips or outings with a highly expensive DSLR and lens kit? That choice is up to you, or the parents of the child. If you’re like most parents, the answer is likely no because even though you may trust the child to be responsible with the equipment, there are still too many ways that it can get lost, broken or stolen. Still, you’ll want the child to keep learning and growing, so what should you do? Here are some options:
- Purchase the child a smartphone to use as a camera while they’re out with friends.
- Invest in an inexpensive point-and-shoot camera that they can use. Nowadays, brands such as Nikon and Canon make wonderful little point-and-shoot cameras that are much less expensive than the majority of DSLR kits.
- Purchase an older DSLR kit. The thing about photography is that as each new generation of equipment is released, the older generations drop in price. It is relatively easy to find outdated DSLR kits for a small fraction of the cost of a current kit. Best of all, most of these older cameras and lenses are still perfectly serviceable. They might offer more noise at high ISO settings and they may not have other details like a bulb setting, but they’ll still take beautiful pictures in most, if not quite all, situations.
It seems like the purchase of an inexpensive “beater” camera is so that you and your child don’t feel so bad if something happens to the camera, but in actuality, there is another, larger lesson to be taught here. You see, the gear doesn’t make the photographer. The gear makes the photographer’s life slightly easier, but it is the photographer’s vision and knowledge that creates beautiful photographs. An inexpensive camera that the child can use while away from your watchful eye will help you to reinforce this lesson.
Learning to be Comfortable with People
It’s one thing to be comfortable enough that you can conspicuously carry your camera everywhere you go, but it is quite another to be so comfortable that you can ask perfect strangers to take their photo. And, if your child is not taking photos of people, then they’re missing out on a large sector of photography — one that they could potentially turn into a livelihood someday.
This thought takes me back to a college photography class that I took. One assignment was to take photos of people. Not sneaky, surreptitious photos, but to actually walk up to a stranger and ask them if I could take a photograph of them. This was an invaluable lesson because not only did I learn about photographing people, but it also helped me to overcome the fear and embarrassment of asking a stranger for a photograph.
This is a great exercise that you can do with your kids to get them over any fear of taking photographs of people. Next time you’re at the park or out and about, ask your child to take someone’s photo. You can even ask the subject for an email address to send them copies of the images.
The key thing to remember here is to always be safe. Make sure your child knows that it is never safe to speak to strangers if you aren’t able to supervise them!
This is the end of the lessons that I have to give, but it is certainly not the end of the learning process. Keep encouraging your child to take more photos, read about photography and study their own work and that of photographers that they admire. You may even look for local, regional and state photo contests that they can enter. Above all else, do everything you can to make sure your child keeps learning well into adulthood and beyond!
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If you love old cars and nature, why not blend the two with a visit to Old Car City in White, Georgia. One of the most unique places you will ever visit, Old Car City has the largest known collection of classic cars in a junkyard in the world. The cars are scattered throughout the yard, and nature has been allowed to come in and do its thing amongst them. It is as if a forest has grown and sprouted old cars with it as part of the vegetation. With hundreds of cars and plenty of classic Old South greenery to explore, Old Car City is a place you won't soon forget.
Old Car City began as a car dealership in 1931. It is still owned and operated by the same family who started the original dealership. The mission and purpose of the space has just changed, even as the cars have stayed. Located an hour's drive north of Atlanta, Old Car City is 34 acres of something special.
There are over 4,200 cars at Old Car City, all scattered amongst the forest that is part of the attraction. All of the cars are 1972 models or older. Some of the cars are genuine rare antiques, going back to the earliest days of the auto industry itself. The way the cars keep their dignity while being allowed to become part of the landscape is something you won't find anywhere else. It is truly a junkyard that can honestly be described as beautiful.
Old Car City is a junkyard museum. How many other places can you think of that have the same designation? Even if you can think of other junkyard museums, do any of them specialize in old cars? Likely not. Old Car City is something unto itself entirely, and an idea that is both imaginative and inspiring.
Owner Walter Dean Lewis inherited the car dealership from his parents, and slowly began to grow his collection of classic cars on the lot in the 1970's. He has many rare models there today, from a 1941 Mack milk truck (a true automobile rarity) to several 1950's-era Cadillacs with large fins like you see in movies from the time period. Lewis says he was brought up on cars and trucks, and never knew anything else. He kept many of the cars that came to his lot, thinking that one day they would be valuable. He was right in that regard. Many of the cars on his lot are worth a fortune in today's collector's market. Some might not be available for viewing by the public anywhere else, because the other models that exist are all kept carefully hidden in the garages and other storage facilities belonging to those wealthy collectors. At Old Car City, the unique and valuable models are available for everyone to see and enjoy.
While Old Car City has been developing as a museum for some time, Lewis kept selling auto parts from the location until about six years ago. It was then he realized just how popular the museum portion of his business had become, and thought it could be self-supporting as that alone. With that in mind, he stopped selling auto parts and just operated the museum. He charges $15 a person for regular visitors, and $25 for people who want to take photographs. The place is so unique in its appearance that Lewis estimates about 95 percent of the people who come there are there to take photographs, and don't mind paying the extra money in admission fees. With six miles of trails in the woods that are filled with rare and interesting car discoveries to explore, it is worth it to anyone who wants some good photographs to use in their own personal collection. In fact, the photographs you can take here will make excellent family memories, particularly if you bring the kids and/or grandkids and photograph them exploring and enjoying the cars (and the forest).
Lewis has added a little ambience to the place to make it seem more like the museum it is. He has artwork of various kinds up on walls, as well as amusing hand-painted signs and foam cups. Once in awhile, he gets his childhood friend, Eddie McDaniel, to play blues piano music by a shotgun and bear mounted to a wall as visitors enter the property.
Some of the cars on the lot have not moved from the spots they are in during the past thirty to forty years. During that time, trees have grown around and through the cars, and have even lifted some of them off the ground. Other cars have been turned into gigantic flower pots with colorful blossoms sticking out of them. When you look at the way the trees have mingled with the cars, the whole lot truly does become one large work of art.
Lewis looks at his car collection as a slice of history. When other people were discarding these cars for scrap metal, he was saving them. And he loves what he does. Being able to look at and work with old cars every day is truly Lewis's life's calling. He says he can't imagine doing anything else.
People do love the history associated with the cars at Old Car City. One of the most popular cars on the lot among visitors is a 1946 Ford truck that actually appeared in a movie. The movie was called "Murder in Coweta County," and was a 1983 movie that starred Johnny Cash and Andy Griffith. You don't find cars like that just anywhere.
The property itself is a piece of history. Lewis's parents bought the land that would become their car lot back when there was no electricity or paved roads in the area. They initially sold gas for 19 cents a gallon, and apples for a penny each. Once they earned some money, they bought an old junk car, then a second one. Soon, they had a car lot where they fixed up and sold junk cars. It was here that Lewis was born... in a junkyard. Being around these cars is bred into him from his very beginning.
Lewis spent his childhood playing with the cars on the lot, pretending to drive them all over the planet without leaving his parents' property. When he graduated high school, he worked for a while as a truck terminal manager, but then started buying junk cars to bring home to his parents so they could fix them up and sell them, or sell the parts. Over the years, he brought more than 4,000 cars to his parent's lot. Their lot soon became famous in the area, and they had many loyal customers. Even people who had never been there had heard of the family business in the town of White.
Lewis eventually inherited the family business from his parents, and as many of the older cars that hadn't moved in decades began to rust and merge with the forest that surrounded the lot, he began to see the place as more than a car lot. He saw it as a place to preserve automobile history... a museum.
His intuition was correct. People love Old Car City, and flock to it from all over the world. He has had visitors from as far away as Thailand, and as unlikely as Sweden. Even people who live in Detroit, the home of the automobile, travel to Old Car City. They come to see antique cars that even the birthplace of cars doesn't have anymore. But, those cars have a happy home at Old Car City.
And, Lewis knows every car on the lot intimately. He should. After all, he bought most of them. He rarely trades anything in, because he knows those cars have historical value, as well as value with collectors. He even still has the car his dad bought for him and his wife right after they got married. After she was done driving it, it became part of Old Car City.
While most of the thousands of cars there are just for observation and photography as museum exhibits, there are about half a dozen that Lewis has restored, and are technically for sale. There are no price tags on them. Lewis says he would sell them for the right price, whatever that may be. But he is quite attached to his cars. He hasn't actually sold any for years, and it seems unlikely he would really let any of them leave Old Car City now, even if the price was right.
Lewis has a strong belief in the righteousness of what he's doing. When some critics claimed he was letting good historical cars rot away in the woods, he proudly exclaimed that he was giving those cars a second life, and a way to be remembered through the pictures visitors take of them. The museum is a living auto show for the generations as far as Lewis is concerned, and that is how most visitors view it, too. He is preserving cars that might otherwise be scrapped or hidden from view. He is giving his visitors a real look at the history of cars, and it is one they can get up close and personal. Touching and interacting with the cars at Old Car City is encouraged. Children love to play on and around them. Rather than look at it as a graveyard for old cars, Lewis and his visitors see it as a happy place where those cars can be enjoyed as they were meant to be.
Old Car City is a perfect place to go to see automobile history in an intimate way. It's open rain or shine. Bring your camera and get ready to enjoy the natural setting of Georgia mixed with some of the most beautiful and intriguing antique cars you'll ever see. It's a visit to a unique place you will never forget.
We took over 3,000 photos during our visit.
It will take my wife and I several months to go through them all.
Here are a few . . . Click on an image to view it in full screen.
I hope you enjoy them.
Throughout this series so far, I've touched on a lot of the more technical aspects of photography, but once children have become comfortable with the camera, its settings, and the basic principles of photography, it will be time for them to learn about various camera tricks and the compositional rules that will help them create art. Of course, there is a lot to know about composition and some of the effects that you can create with a camera, but I'll just cover the basics here. This will help you give children a solid foundation on which they can build their art.
The Rule of Thirds
This is one of the first compositional rules that young photographers will learn about. Simply put, the Rule of Thirds teaches you to divide the image’s frame into both horizontal and vertical thirds. Then, place important parts of the image, like the horizon line and a tree, on the imaginary “third” lines.
The best way to teach this to a child is to demonstrate with images. Using photo editing software or even prints that you can make marks on, mark out the horizontal and vertical thirds so that the child can see exactly what you mean. If possible, use images that have been taken according to this rule so that you can illustrate your point, which is that images following the Rule of Thirds are typically more interesting and more dynamic than images that are perfectly centered or not composed by any compositional rules.
Once the child understands this rule, have them practice by going out and taking images according to the Rule of Thirds. Remember that composition is a never-ending learning process, so from here out, the best thing that you can do is sit down with the children that you are teaching and critique their compositions. Explain what makes each image work (or not work) and explain the things that they can do to fix their images.
Teaching Children About On-Camera Effects
For this next part of the learning phase, a firm grasp on things like shutter speed and aperture are essential. Eventually, every child will ask you how to do special effects, so I'll give you an overview of some of the simpler effects that they'll want to know about — depth of field, motion blur, and manipulation of perspective.
Depth of field is one of those essential effects that every photographer, including beginners, should know. In a nutshell, the wider an aperture is, the narrower the depth of field (or the area that is in focus) becomes. Narrow depths of field can accomplish many things, such as isolating a subject or creating pretty background blurs that complement the foreground.
The easiest way to teach children how to make use of narrow depths of field is to simply try it. Make a series of images with progressively wider apertures to illustrate how the area of focus gets narrower each time. As you take the photos, make sure to reinforce the earlier lessons about balancing exposure — the child will need to increase the shutter speed as the aperture widens to make that the images aren't overexposed. Once the child knows how to make images with narrow depths of field, leave the rest up to them. With enough experimentation, they'll certainly figure out creative ways to use a narrow depth of field!
Another technique that children will be interested in is motion blur. By tracking a fast moving subject with the camera, you can blur the background, which gives the impression that the subject is, in fact, moving at high speeds. You'll need to show them how to follow their subjects with the camera, and you’ll also need to teach them how shutter speeds affect motion blur. That is, make sure they know that the faster the shutter speed is, the less blur they'll have. With a fast enough shutter speed, they'll actually be able to freeze the subject, which is another useful trick that children will want to know about.
Finally, there are perspective tricks of all kinds. If you know how to manipulate perspective, then you can make the moon seem much larger than it actually is, you can make faraway things seem nearby, or you can make any number of creative images.
One great way to illustrate perspective tricks is to create an image in which it looks like someone is standing on another person’s hand. For this illustration, you'll need two people. Have one person hold their hand out, palm facing upwards. Have the other person stand in the background, then have the child maneuver until the image appears as if the person in the background is standing on the foreground person’s hand. Then, snap the image, and make prints so that your child always has a reminder of just how powerful perspective can be.
When you have a chance, you may also want to suggest other shots that make use of unique perspectives. For instance, inside your own home, you can take pictures of individual rooms while standing in the center of the room. Then, when you review the prints, make sure to point out how much smaller the rooms feel in the images than in real life. Then, retake those photos by backing up within the room as far as you can, zooming out as much as you can, and getting closer to the ground, just to demonstrate how a change in perspective can make an image of the same subject feel entirely different.
There’s one key thing that you'll want to remember about each of the lessons that I've given today: These techniques are a constant learning process. You'll not be able to teach composition and camera tricks in one day, or even one lifetime. Regardless, make sure that you and the children keep building on your skills!
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Last week, I talked about some of the most basic things that a child will need to know as they learn how to be a photographer. This week, let’s dive a little deeper into the topic by showing you some of the more advanced things that should be taught next. Some of these advanced topics include lighting, the camera’s shutter speed, aperture and ISO controls. As you go through this lesson, remember that the things I'll be discussing here are a bit more advanced, so make sure that you and the children that you are teaching take plenty of time to learn each lesson thoroughly!
Teaching Children How to Make Use of Available Lighting
The first thing that kids will need to know when it comes to light is how to put different kinds of light to work. Whether the child is shooting outside in the sunlight or indoors near a lamp, they'll need to be aware of where the light is coming from and how that will affect their image. In general, when dealing with available lighting, there are four different types that each child will need to learn about:
- Front Lighting: This is when the light source is in front of the subject (coming from behind the photographer). Front lighting lights up a subject very well, but bright front lighting may cause long shadows behind the subject.
- Side Lighting: Side lighting is light that comes from one side of the subject. This type of lighting is often used to add a moody look to a photo because it tends to cast shadows across the front of the subject. Think of it this way: If you take a photograph of a person with the sun to that person’s right side, you'll often find that the left side of that person’s face is shadow because it isn't in direct sunlight.
- Backlighting: Backlighting can be difficult to work with, particularly for children who don't yet understand the intricacies of lighting. A backlit subject is one that is photographed with the light behind the subject. Without fill-flash, this normally results in a dark, shadowy subject or a silhouette if the backlight is bright enough.
- Diffused Lighting: For a beginner, this is the easiest type of lighting to work with. Diffused lighting occurs when the light doesn't appear to be coming from any given direction, such as the light outdoors on an overcast day. Typically, there are few, if any, shadows when you shoot with diffused lighting, but as any advanced photographer knows, you also miss out on the golden quality of sunlight when you shoot on a cloudy day.
The best way to help a child master these types of lighting is to instruct them to take photos of the same subject — a parent, for instance — in each type of light. Then, have those photos printed and lay them out so that the child can see the differences in each photo.
As you're teaching children about lighting, you may also want to show them how to use the on-camera flash, too. This is another example of front lighting, which means that it will not only give children a better idea of how lighting works, but it will also help pave the way for the next lesson, which is to learn a bit more about some of the camera’s more advanced controls.
Shutter Speed, Aperture, and ISO
These controls are some of the next most important things to learn about. If you like, you can teach about each one of these controls using the priority modes — shutter priority mode and aperture priority mode. This often simplifies the learning process so that the child learns about each different control separately, allowing them to put all of this information together later on.
I recommend shutter speed as the first control to teach because I feel that it is the easiest concept to understand. To teach shutter speed, instruct the child to take photographs at faster and slower shutter speeds to show them how the slower speeds produce brighter images while the faster speeds produce darker images. Once the child sees this, then you can explain that the shutter speed is simply a measurement of the amount of time that the camera’s shutter is open. The larger that bottom number of the fraction is, the faster the shutter will move.
When the child has a firm grasp on shutter speeds, move on to the aperture controls. This is a little bit confusing to explain: A wider aperture lets in more light, but wider apertures are notated with smaller numbers. As with the lesson on shutter speed, instruct the child to take a series of images with wide apertures and narrow ones to show them how this affects the brightness or darkness of the photo. There is no need to go into the specifics about depth of field here. Instead, just make sure that the child is comfortable with how both shutter speed and aperture affects the image’s lighting.
The final lesson to teach is about the camera’s ISO setting. Now, this can be a very complex subject, but for now, simply show the child how ISO affects lighting. You don't necessarily need to discuss the technical aspects of how ISO settings affect the camera’s sensor.
The first thing that a child needs to learn about ISO settings are that they are an adjustment that you make as a last resort. Adjust shutter speed and aperture first, leaving the ISO setting on its lowest number. Then, if the picture is still underexposed, you can raise the ISO setting — but be careful, because high ISOs can create a lot of noise. To illustrate this concept, it is a wise idea to take a picture at the camera’s lowest ISO setting and another at the camera’s highest ISO setting so that the child can look at the images and understand how high ISOs degrade picture quality.
Photography is a complex art form and there is a lot more to teach, so I will be back next week with the third installment of this series!
Photography, like so many other art forms, is a time-honored tradition that is passed down from generation to generation. Perhaps you’d like to teach photography to your own children, or maybe there is a group of children that you work with who find themselves fascinated by photography and wanting to learn more. Either way, when teaching photography to youngsters who may no experience with cameras whatsoever, you’ll need to start from the beginning, with the basics.
Throughout this series, I’ll show you what you’ll need to teach children and the order in which it needs to be taught. Read on for the first part, where I’ll show you the basics that kids will need to start with!
Showing Children the Basics of Operating a Camera
No matter what kind of camera your child will be learning with – a DSLR or a point and shoot – you’ll need to show him or her how to hold and use the camera. Here is a quick list of points to cover:
- Start by showing them how to grip the camera – the left hand firmly gripping the left side, using the camera’s contoured grip, if it has one, and the right hand positioned so that the index finger can easily reach the shutter button or adjust the lens.
- Once they are holding the camera properly, show them some of the things they’ll need to know about operating the camera (removing the lens cap, powering the camera on, and pressing the shutter button to take a photo).
- Finally, show them how to look through the camera’s viewfinder, and make sure to explain that the things they see through the viewfinder will be what the photograph will look like. If your camera has a live view feature, you can also show them how to use this, as well.
For your first foray into photography, you’ll likely want to ignore the finer points of shutter speed settings, aperture, and other details. For now, make sure that the camera is set to the automatic mode so that the child can get a feel for the basics of taking pictures.
Encourage Them to Take Lots of Photos!
Now that the child has a firm grasp on how to use the camera, it is time to let them take photos. Chances are, if you’ve been a photographer for a long time, you started with a film camera. Maybe your mentor told you to be careful about the number of images that you take so as to not waste film. Fortunately, we are now in the digital era, so rather than teaching your child to be conservative about taking photos, let them go wild and encourage them to take as many photos as they like. This will ensure that they get comfortable with the camera’s basic functions before you start teaching more complex lessons.
Teaching Children How to Make Interesting Photographs
Once the child has become comfortable with the camera (and hopefully filled up a memory card or two!), now it is time to show them what makes some photos more interesting than others.
One way to do this is to sit down with the child and go over the photographs that he or she has already taken, pointing out the particularly interesting shots as you go along. As you’re pouring over your child’s images, here are some of the things that you can explain:
- If you have a pet, show the child how much more interesting it is to take an image with the pet facing the camera rather than the pet facing away from the camera. The same goes for images of their friends and family.
- When your child is photographing an object – anything from a tree to the family’s car, to their favorite toy – make sure that they know to include the entire object in the frame rather than cutting part of it off.
- If the child hasn’t already done so, you can show them how to take basic landscape images. This shows them how to create images with an interesting foreground, middle and background, and it also shows them how to work with horizon lines.
Of course, there are hundreds of small factors that make some photos more interesting than others. As you’re teaching a child to take photos, make sure that you point out as many of these factors as you can think of so that they’ll have a good grasp of what it takes to make an image interesting.
Teaching the Basics of Composure
When it comes to composing a photo, there are a lot of things that you can teach while skirting some of the most complex topics like balancing colors and lighting. Start with things like zooming in or out. One of the first things a child should learn is that when you’re photographing a single subject, like a pet, a person, a flower or an insect, the best thing that you can do is to zoom in to capture details like the person or pet’s facial expression or the fine details on a flower or insect.
At the same time, teach children that when they want to zoom out for the bigger picture, it is totally acceptable to do so. Show them how to zoom out or back away so that they can catch a group of people doing some sort of activity, or zoom out to capture a landscape photo that tells a thorough story about the landscape.
Once your child is comfortable with this, you may also want to teach them about the Rule of Thirds and leading lines. These two concepts are simple to grasp, and once your child understands how to lead viewers deep into a frame with leading lines, or how to make an image more dynamic by off-centering subjects and horizon lines, they’ll be well on their way to becoming a more advanced photographer.
This post will get you and the children that you are teaching on your way. Next week, I’ll dive deeper into this subject and show you some of the most advanced things that will need to be taught next.
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Photography is as much a learning process as it is an art form. From beginning photographers all the way to world-renowned professionals, we all must set aside time to learn about every aspect of photography. Many go to college to major in arts, others take to the internet to learn what they can. But these aren’t the only resources at your disposal. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of books covering every aspect of photography, many of which are indispensable to photographers of all kinds. Let’s take a look at some of the great photography books that have inspired me and should be on your bookshelf as well!
"Understanding Exposure"
by Bryan Peterson
This book is an absolute must for every photographer. New photographers will find that it covers almost everything they need to get started while experienced photographers thumb the pages of this book to refresh their knowledge. Not only will this book teach you about the basics of photography – aperture, shutter speed and lighting – but it also delves into topics such as composition and special photography techniques. - Get the Book
"Chasing the Light"
by Ibarionex Perello
Chasing the Light is part instructional and part inspirational. You’ll learn not only how to put lighting of all kinds to work, but also how to “see” and compose an image thoughtfully and emotionally. After reading this book, you’ll understand that there is a lot more to photography than just the technical aspects of exposure. - Get the Book
"The Best Camera"
by Chase Jarvis
The full title of this book says it all: The Best Camera: Is the One That’s With You. Here, Chase Jarvis proves that it isn’t all about the gear. Any camera at all can be used to create art. To create this book, Jarvis exclusively used his iPhone’s camera to create profound, inspiring images. - Get the Book
"LensWork Magazine"
Owned and Edited by Brooks Jensen
This isn’t a book, but a rather a niche magazine that publishes exquisite black and white photography. Even if you don’t dabble in monochrome images, you’ll still find this publication insightful as a gallery of gorgeous photography. In addition to the magazine, you’ll also find thoughtful books and essays by Brooks Jensen as well as an informative podcast. - Get the Magazine
"The Digital Photography Book, Volumes 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5"
by Scott Kelby
If your medium is digital, then this series of books will answer every digital photography question you might have. In addition, these encyclopedic tomes will provide you with tons of great tips and tricks, and best of all, even though this is an exhaustive four-book series, you’ll find that each word is written in an entertaining, engaging way. - Get the Book
"The Photographer’s Eye"
by Michael Freeman
It will take time to understand the basics of exposure, but even so, those basics are relatively simple to learn. The hard part is understanding composition. Composition is what separates one amazing photo from another that is only slightly different but somehow manages to be lackluster. The Photographer’s Eye is one of the very few books that goes into excellent detail about what makes composition work. This book is recommended to all photographers, beginners, and experts alike. - Get the Book
"How to Photograph Absolutely Everything"
by Tom Ang
This is another great book that covers a broad variety of topics. For those of you that are new to photography, you’ll be able to learn all about exposure and the ins and outs of cameras. However, there is also a lot of value in this book for professionals, too. Are you in an uninspiring location or a situation that doesn’t quite fit with the images that you’d like to create? This book will show you how, as the title implies, to photograph anything in an interesting way. - Get the Book
"Wildlife Photography: Stories from the Field"
by George Lepp and Kathryn Vincent Lepp
All outdoor photographers should read this book at least once. Inside, the authors mix beautiful storytelling with the instructional knowledge to bring you an entertaining and informative read. George Lepp is both an award-winning photographer and an accomplished author, so even if you are not looking for books about outdoor photography, be sure to check out some of the other books that he has written, such as Beyond the Basics Volume I and II. - Get the Book
"VisionMongers: Making a Life and Living in Photography"
by David duChemin
There is a world of difference between photography as a hobby and photography as a living. This book was made to help you transition from the world of hobby photography into the world of professional photography. You’ll read the important lessons that David duChemin learned as he became a paid photographer, and you’ll also learn that each photography business is unique in its own way. Choose from among the ideas that duChemin puts forth, and you’ll find it easier to pursue your dream of photography as a career. - Get the Book
Of course, there are many more books out there on a variety of photography and business-related subjects – books on portraiture, wedding photography, street photography and much more. However, this sampling of literature will prove helpful no matter what you aspire to do.
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While Deadwood may be the most well-known of the lawless, Wild West towns of the mid to late 1800's, it has nothing on Bodie, California when it comes to anarchy and violence. Bodie may not be as well-known as Deadwood, but its story and history are just as interesting. The state of California recognizes this and preserves Bodie as an official ghost town, open for visitors to see what life was like in the Wild West. Unlike Deadwood, which is a tourist attraction today, complete with tourist shops, gambling, hotels, that obscures much of the real history of the town, Bodie is about as pristine as it gets as far as being kept in its original state. Here's what you should know about Bodie, and visit the ghost town it left behind.
In 1859, there were four gold prospectors chasing the promise of wealth in the Sierra Nevada mountains. One of these prospectors, W.S. Body, went for supplies in a nearby town and was killed by freezing in a blizzard that struck on his way back to his partners. The camp where these prospectors set up was named after Bodie. The spelling change of his last name comes from a misspelling a sign painter made on the town stables in 1862, and the town has used that spelling for its name ever since.
The original prospectors did find gold in Bodie. This brought in several companies that got land claims and set up mining there.The town flourished until 1868 when the harsh terrain of the area and small gold yields pushed most of the companies away.
A few hardy people stayed behind and made their living by digging up small amounts of gold, washing placer gravel, or driving shafts for quartz mines. In 1877, Bodie experienced the first of several resurgences. It was this year that a local mine collapsed and exposed a supply of gold ore so large that wealthy San Francisco speculators invested in the town again. Industrial mining began in the town and produced nearly $800,000 of gold and silver, which richly rewarded stockholders in the company.
The success of the gold mining industry in Bodie sent hundreds of people there hoping to make their own fortunes.
They built a town, and two more large deposits of gold ore were discovered in the area of Bodie. The store of gold was believed to be as large as the famous Comstock lode. Even though Bodie had not produced vast amounts of gold, it was enough to get investors from New York involved. The large companies and individual speculators spent huge sums of money in mining. By late 1878, there were twenty-two mines in Bodie.
With so many people coming to Bodie, the town soon became one of the wildest in the Wild West. It earned a reputation similar to the famous lawless and violent Old West towns of Deadwood, Tombstone, and Dodge City. Gambling establishments and saloons were the most common public buildings in Bodie. In 1879, there were at least sixty saloons in Bodie, and yet not one single church.
Crime was rampant in Bodie during this time. Stagecoach robberies, saloon riots, shootouts, and other incidents of violence were almost daily occurrences in Bodie and made the news more often than news of gold coming out of the mines there. Yet, people kept coming, even bringing their families. A popular story from the town's violent past involves a three-year-old girl from San Jose who, upon learning her family was moving to Bodie, prayed, "Goodbye, God. We are going to Bodie." She believed Bodie to be so dangerous even God did not go there.
By the mid-1880's, the town boasted between 7,000 and 8,000 residents, and a Main Street more than a mile long. A local brass band played there, the town had two banks, a Chinatown, and even a red-light district.
Bodie continued to operate as a town for another three decades, though with a gradually diminishing population. The estimation of the gold ore to be found there was wildly incorrect. Miners were only finding low-grade ore at the upper levels of mines, not the higher grade ore they hoped to find in the lower levels. The ore they found was not worth the cost of keeping the high technology industrial mines operating. The big companies and a lot of individual citizens left the town, but it continued to support a population of about 800 on the mining of low-grade ore for a few more decades.
Bodie had its second resurgence between 1928 and 1931. This was when a handful of high-financed mining companies came in to try new technological methods to reach what was still thought to be a large supply of gold ore below the town. Yet, once again, Bodie was not to become the grand town it imagined, for a fire destroyed most of the downtown area in 1931.
Bodie fell into years of neglect after this. It eventually finally came into the luck it had so long imagined in 1962 when California realized it was an almost perfectly preserved example of an Old West mining town. The state took over Bodie and gave it to the stewardship of the state's Department of Parks and Recreation. The remaining buildings were preserved as they were. Today, Bodie belongs to the world, and people from all over can come to it to see what the Wild West really looked like.
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Hocking Hills State Park and Forest
Ohio has a reputation of being a bland place. Why wouldn’t anyone want to go and photograph the ocean views of California, or go to the Grand Canyon, or photograph the Maine’s iconic fall leaves? Ohio has none of these things!
Now, wait just a minute. I’d like to set the record straight about Ohio. If you know where to go and what to look for, then this state is a photographer’s dream come true. We’ve got it all, from prairie to mountain foothills, scenic natural areas, active urban areas, and on top of that, there is a diverse culture that will let you photograph a variety of ways of life. Here are a few of the spots that I’d recommend that any Ohio photographer checkout!
The Great Spangled Fritillary
Places for Nature Photographers
This state is a natural goldmine, which is perfect for any landscape, nature or wildlife photographer. Make sure to check the following places out:
- The Mohican State Park: At this Central Ohio state park, you’ll find a variety of things – two waterfalls, lengthy hiking trails, a deep gorge with a scenic overlook, the crystal clear Clearfork of the Mohican River, nearby Pleasant Hill Lake with a beautiful dam and much more. The Clearfork River is especially interesting as it is shallow enough to wade in most areas, packed with fish, and lined with boulders and beautiful but rare hemlock trees.
- Hocking Hills State Park and Forest: This is actually a massive system of parks and natural areas in Southern Ohio where opportunities abound. Among the forest, you’ll find caves, rivers, lakes and plentiful wildlife. If you like to hike, make sure to check out the remote Cantwell Cliffs for amazing landscape photos and also be sure to visit the unusual Rock Bridge formation and the Rock House caves.
- Dawes Arboretum: Dawes Arboretum near Newark is an incredible venture in landscaping. Even if you prefer the untamed wilderness, this is still a great place to visit. You’ll find miles of paths that wind through enormous themed gardens, including one of Ohio’s only cypress swamps, a sight you’d normally expect to see in the Deep South. There are also architectural treats, including Asian architecture dotting the beautiful Japanese Garden.
Exploring Culture and History
Ohio is absolutely packed with little-known historical and cultural monuments, festivals and more. You’ll definitely want to research the topics that interest you before you set out. However, there are a couple of major cultural and historical attractions that draw enthusiasts from around the world.
First is Amish Country. Amish Country in Ohio is actually quite large, spanning multiple counties in central Ohio. Berlin, Ohio, in Holmes County, is the epicenter of Amish Country — and it’s a great place to use as a starting point for forays out into the gently rolling countryside.
Within Berlin, you’ll find a lot of tourist attractions, including Amish food and handmade crafts, but if you really want to explore the Amish way of life, travel the back roads surrounding this small town. Those winding dirt roads are where you’ll find the Amish, hard at work on their farms. Visit during the harvest season to capture sweeping vistas of carefully shocked hayfields or show up in the spring to watch the newborn farm animals frolic through the pastures.
Another great place is within an hour’s drive of Berlin — Roscoe Village, just outside of Ohio. This village is known for historic architecture, historical reenactments, and one of the last known canal boats, a popular mode of transportation before the advent of railroads. Check out the Roscoe Village website to learn more about the architecture or to see which events you might like to attend.
John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge in Cincinnati
Other Great Places to Visit
The list of places to visit in Ohio is simply too long for me to list in one or even 10 posts, but I’ll give you a quick list of ideas.
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Urban photographers will enjoy Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati. Cleveland gives you quick access to “oceanfront” views out over Lake Erie, while Cincinnati puts you in close proximity to the massive Ohio River.
- If you’re looking for prairie, the western half of the state is much flatter than the eastern half. Photographers interested in rough terrain will do best in the eastern half of the state, particularly South Eastern Ohio, which are the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.
- Don’t forget about festivals! Ohio has numerous county fairs and the massive Ohio State Fair in Columbus during the summer. You’ll also find various reenactments around the state, American Indian pow-wows, aviation shows and more.
Union Terminal | Cincinnati Museum Center
The bottom line is that no matter what your interests as a photographer are, you’ll find something interesting in Ohio. As an Ohioan, you’ll never run out of material for your art!
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Bodie Island Lighthouse
The weather is finally starting to warm up around here, so I think that it is the perfect time to get outside and start photographing. If you’re up for a challenge, spend an evening photographing the moon. This is a rewarding project that is certain to add some wonderful, original shots to your portfolio. If you’re wondering how it’s done, I’ll show you some of my favorite tips!
Remember the Basics of Nighttime Photography
I’ve talked about this before, but I’ll say it again: When you’re taking any long exposures, make sure to use a tripod and remote shutter release so that the camera remains stable as you’re photographing the moon. This will prevent blurriness caused by a shaky camera. If you don’t have a remote shutter release, then set your camera’s timer to five or 10 seconds, then press the shutter button. This will prevent you from jostling the camera when the shutter activates.
Charleston West Virginia State Capital
Use the Longest Lens Available
When you photograph the moon with a wide lens, you’ll end up with a small white dot rather than a large, detailed shot. If possible, start with a 200mm lens so that you can zoom in and capture details. Keep in mind that even longer lenses will provide even better magnification and thus, more detail. You may find it worth your while to rent an extraordinarily long lens to seriously capture the details of the moon’s surface.
Glacier Point, Yosemite
When Should You Photograph the Moon?
Obviously, you don’t want to photograph during the wrong phases of the moon, so make sure that you plan your project for when the moon is out — and decide whether you want to photograph the full moon or one of the crescent moon phases. When it comes to the best time of day to photograph the moon, you’ll want to head out shortly after moonrise, while the moon is still low on the horizon. This way, you can capture the moon and perhaps even a distant horizon line to make the photograph appear anchored.
Weather can be a concern, but if there are a few small clouds in the sky, that doesn’t mean you need to cancel your trip. If a small cloud should happen to cover a portion of the moon (without obscuring it entirely), then think of this as an opportunity to create an unusual image!
By the way, if you’re looking for an image that has a bit less contrast than a white moon in a black sky, don’t hesitate to go out in the hours just after dusk or right before dawn. With a tiny bit of light still in the sky, you’ll be able to photograph the moon surrounded by a beautiful deep blue sky.
Which Camera Settings Should You Start With?
Joshua Tree, Palmdale California
Here’s the part where moon photography gets a little bit confusing. Nighttime photography often calls for a slow shutter speed in order to collect enough light to create the image. The moon, however, moves across the sky, so if your shutter speed is too slow, the moon will be blurry in the final images.
Start with a shutter speed of between 1/200 and 1/100. Then, you’ll want to choose an aperture that lets plenty of light in but also keeps the image sharp — say, approximately f/10. After that, you can adjust your ISO setting until the image exposes properly. The key thing to remember is that if your ISO setting starts adding unsightly noise to the image, then you can always adjust the shutter speed and aperture to compensate, but you have to make sure that the shutter speed doesn’t fall too low and aperture doesn’t open too wide.
These tips will get you started. Once you’ve learned how to photograph the moon properly, you’ll be able to add your own unique vision to the image. Go out, enjoy the nice weather and use your creativity to photograph the moon in beautiful new ways!
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My lovely wife took me to North Carolina for our anniversary. Here's a photo that we captured at Bodie Island Historical Lighthouse.
Bodie Island Historical Lighthouse, North Carolina
Infinity focusing is a term that can be confusing even among experienced photographers and if you’re new to this, then it might be a major challenge to learn the how, why and when of this technique. The term itself is a little bit deceptive, which I’ll explain later on. After that, I’ll show you why to use infinity focus, and when to use it. Stick around, and before too long, you’ll be an expert on this topic!
What is Infinity Focus?
It helps to think of infinity focusing like this: Infinity focus is the opposite of a narrow depth of field. As you likely know, opening up your aperture creates a narrower area of focus, which helps you to isolate subjects by keeping foreground and background elements out of focus.
Infinity focus is similar to an extraordinarily wide depth of field. When your lens is focused to infinity, then everything in your frame will be in focus no matter how distant it is to your lens. There are a few caveats to this, however.
First of all, infinity focus isn’t quite infinite. Certainly, everything in the distance will be in focus, but the focal point actually starts at a distance in front of your lens. The area between your lens and the point where everything comes into focus is called the hyperfocal distance. The hyperfocal distance varies based on your aperture, the crop factor of your camera and the length of your lens, but in short, to take an effective photo at infinity focus, you’ll need to make sure that no objects falling within the hyperfocal distance make it into your image.
As an example, let’s say that you’re kneeling in tall grass to take a long-range landscape picture, but blades of grass keep finding their way in front of your lens. Blades of grass within the hyperfocal distance will always be blurry whereas everything after the focus point will come in sharp.
The other two caveats are that for one, not all lenses are capable of infinity focus, so you’ll have to make sure that you’re using a capable lens to take these kinds of images. For two, some adapters and filters — such as macro filters — will make it impossible for you to focus to infinity, even with a capable lens.
How to Focus to Infinity
The “how” of focusing to infinity really depends on the lens you are using. Like I said earlier, not all lenses can do this, but among the lenses that can, those that allow you to switch to manual focus are the best. A good manual lens will have a depth of field scale so that you can line up your focus ring with the scale to get the proper depth of field. To focus to infinity, simply line the focus ring up with the infinity symbol, which looks like this: ∞.
Infinity focus with an autofocus lens is a little bit more difficult. Since you can’t simply turn the focal ring to the infinity mark (because often there isn’t one!) you’ll need to instead focus on a distant object (something from the background of your shot). Then, once that — and everything else — come into clear focus, shut off the autofocus feature so that it doesn’t change the focus lock as you’re composing the infinity focused shot.
When Should You Use Infinity Focus?
Like any other technique, such as applying a narrow depth of field, infinity focus is something to be used at your discretion. However, there are a couple of instances where most photographers will turn to infinity focus.
First is the landscape. Part of what makes a landscape interesting is the fact that you can closely examine all of the details in the panorama that you’ve created, near or far. Wildlife photography is another good reason to use infinity focus. If you’re worried about wildlife running between the foreground and background of the image, use infinity focus to make sure the animal is in focus no matter where it is in the frame.
Finally, there is low light and nighttime photography. If you are manually focusing, setting your lens to focus at infinity is much easier than attempting to focus on objects that you can’t quite see in the darkness. To focus to infinity with an autofocus lens after dark, simply focus on the moon or another distant bright object and you’ll be able to ensure that everything in your long exposure remains sharp.
Just like narrow depth of field or creative lighting, infinity focus is one of those essential techniques that no photographer can do without. Make sure you learn this technique with your capable lenses so that you’re never stuck in the field wondering how to focus to infinity.
Last week, we talked about some of the things that you can do with telephoto lenses — and some ways to use them that will make it easier to you to get great shots consistently. However, there is a whole lot more to using telephoto lenses than the things I discussed last week. And, in fact, there are more things that can be done than I will be able to discuss today.
Nevertheless, I’d love to give you a taste of a few more interesting telephoto techniques, so when you are ready, here are some of the more advanced things that you can do with your long lenses.
Macro, or More Correctly, “Near Macro” Photography
One of the most interesting things that you can do with telephoto lenses is not taking photos from afar, but taking extreme close up shots. Many photographers refer to this as macro photography, but in truth, most dedicated macro lenses perform better at higher magnifications and are designed to focus at much shorter distances, so for our purposes, we will call macro photography with a telephoto lens “near macro” instead.
With that out of the way, let’s discuss how to produce near macro photographs. All you’ll need to do is use your telephoto lens to focus on a small subject — a flower, a bug or something else. The difficulty here is that telephoto lenses aren’t designed to be within an inch or two of the subject, so you’ll instead need to back off and zoom in until the subject fills the frame.
Another issue that we discussed before is that telephoto lenses are prone to blurriness caused by shaky hands, so make sure that you use a tripod for all of your near macro photography. The final point is that the depth of field can become extraordinarily narrow — less than a millimeter in some cases. This means that you should always work with the narrowest aperture possible to ensure that you come away with plenty of detail.
Maximizing the Narrow Depth of Field
In the section above, I mentioned that focusing on extremely close subjects with a telephoto lens can be problematic for near macro photography, especially when the image calls for rich details. However, that doesn’t mean that you should always avoid the paper-thin depth of field effect. Sometimes an extremely narrow depth of field is exactly what you need to create a striking image that brings one or two key details to the forefront. With that thought in mind, experiment with your telephoto lens, making sure to learn the depth of field that you can expect from various apertures and focal distances. Once you’ve seen the range of possibilities, you’ll soon find excellent uses for particularly narrow depth of field.
Do Portraits with Telephoto Lenses
When it comes to portraits, most people think of standard lengths around 100mm, but you can also do portraiture with telephoto lenses, too. There are several great reasons to try portraiture with long lenses.
First of all, the long focal length and distance between you and the subject allows you to get interesting perspectives. Another great reason to use telephotos for portraits is that long lenses make distant backgrounds seem closer, which means that they’ll give you a lot of control over the background. So, instead of having a busy city block in the background with a standard lens, a telephoto can isolate the background to a single brick wall from that scene.
The final reason to use a telephoto lens is that it puts a lot of distance between you and your subject. This can often make a subject feel much more at ease than when they have a lens mere feet from their faces. If you do portrait photography and have the occasional uncomfortable client, then this trick can come in handy.
Again, I will stress that there is even more that you can do with telephoto lenses than what I have listed here. Once you learn all the wonderful uses for these lenses, you’ll be hooked on putting them to a variety of unusual uses!
The first item a beginning photographer adds to their camera kit is quite often a long zoom lens. After all, one of the joys of photography is being able to zoom in on distant objects, especially things like wildlife or other subjects that you normally wouldn’t be able to approach.
Although, as much as telephoto lenses are an amazing thing to add to your kit, they do present a few difficulties as you’re learning to use them. Plus they offer you several interesting techniques to make interesting images. Here are some of my favorite tips for using long zoom lenses effectively.
Learn How to “Look and Lift”
One of the hardest parts of using long zooms is finding and tracking a small subject like a bird. The temptation is for a beginner to lift the camera to his or her face, then lift your face to look at the object that you are photographing. The problem with this is that if you don’t already have your eyes turned to the subject, then it will be difficult to find the subject once you’re looking through the relatively small window of the lens — especially if your subject is moving.
What you should instead do is practice the “look and lift” technique. That is, look at your subject and as you look at it, raise your camera to your face. Since you’re already looking in the right direction, it will be much easier to zero in the subject’s location.
Zoom Out to Track Moving Subjects
If you’ve ever pointed a zoomed in lens towards the sky to track a flying bird, an airplane, or even something on the ground like a fast moving car, then you know how difficult it is to fix on a moving subject with a zoomed lens. Chances are, you’ll only see blue sky or whatever your background is as you desperately move your camera to find the subject. As I mentioned above, a zoomed in lens gives you a much smaller area to search than a lens that is zoomed out, which lowers your chances of actually pinpointing the subject.
The solution to this is to zoom out your lens, get the moving subject in the frame, and then zoom in as you track the subject. By fixing on your subject while your lens is zoomed out, you’ll spend a lot less time “fishing” for the subject.
Use a Tripod — Even When the Lighting is Good
It’s a fact that telephoto lenses tend to amplify blur from shaky hands or camera movement far more than shorter lenses. These lenses are heavy, making it more likely for you to inadvertently shake or move them, and because you’re focusing on a smaller, more distant area, a minor tremble is enough to create an incredibly fuzzy image. A tripod gives you much more stability, increasing your chances of taking sharp images.
In fact, in order to reduce camera shake, a remote shutter release can be helpful. Simply pressing the shutter button is enough to jostle your camera slightly, so a shutter release is another great way to prevent blur.
Take Advantage of the Telephoto Effect
When we think about telephoto lenses, the first thing that comes to mind is the ability to zoom in on faraway object, but that isn’t the only thing you can do with telephoto lenses. These lenses tend to flatten out distances (an effect called the “Telephoto Effect”), which means that in an image with elements at both close and faraway distances, the distant elements will appear much closer to the nearby elements than they actually are.
This can create some interesting images where the moon looms large against a line of trees, or where a distant city skyline appears much closer to your foreground elements than it actually is.
There is a lot to know about the right ways to use telephoto lenses and the interesting things that you can do with them — I’ve only scratched the surface here. However, you can use these things to start experimenting with your telephoto lenses, and when you’re ready, you can start learning more advanced techniques!
When you think about photography workshops, it seems like a given that all serious photographers should attend them. After all, these events give you access to all kinds of things — reading materials, instruction at the workshop, the chance to meet the instructor and so forth.
These are all great benefits, but I would argue that these are they not the only benefits and perhaps they aren’t even the best benefits. There are lots of little things — intangible benefits, you could say — that add up to something incredibly valuable. Let’s take a moment to discuss some of these unexpected things. By the end of this post, I’ll bet you’ll be searching for a workshop to attend!
The People that You’ll Meet
Wherever you live, there might not be an abundance of photographers to compare notes or fraternize with. When you attend a workshop, you’ll meet photographers from many different areas — perhaps even photographers from all over the world. You’ll be able to see their portfolios and discuss both your work and theirs with them. As you probably know, the ability to both critique artwork and have your own critiqued is a rare and valuable experience.
But exchanging artwork isn’t the only beneficial experience that you’ll get from meeting your fellow photographers. You may also get a chance to make a few new friends, or at the very least, exchange emails with photographers that you admire. Lifelong friendships such as this are not only essential to the human experience, but they will also give you someone that you can always share thoughts and ideas with.
You’ll Want to Impress People
There is no shame in saying it! You’ll definitely want to bring your best work so that you can impress instructors and peers alike. The benefit lies in the things that you’ll need to do in order to bring along an impressive body of work. Something as simple as signing up to attend a workshop can inspire you to work hard at your art in the months leading to the event. As you work to create an amazing new portfolio, you’ll be learning and building on your photographic skills.
You’ll Want to Work Harder After the Workshop, Too
Maybe you saw something that really inspired you at the workshop. Perhaps you made a new friend and you want to share something new and improved with them. Or, perhaps you felt outclassed and overwhelmed by the things that you saw and now you’re determined to make up for the things you found lacking by working harder than ever. Whatever the case may be, once you return, you might find yourself working just as hard if not harder than you were in the months before the workshop.
Forced Exposure to New Things
It doesn’t matter how you look at photographs — online, at the museum or in a book. Whichever way you choose, you’re very likely to fall into the natural tendency to look at only the things that you like. In other words, you’re looking at the work of people whose style you admire. When it comes to styles and techniques that aren’t your favorite, you’re very likely to flip the page dismissively. It’s not even that you’re deliberately disdaining work that doesn’t align with your tastes — the reaction might be more subconscious, like a shrug before you move on.
Workshops don’t give you that option. As you associate with attendees, you’ll be looking at their work, whether it fits your personal preferences or not. Such exposure can make you consider new styles and techniques that you may not have been interested in otherwise.
When we go to workshops, we tend to focus on the basic things — learning everything that we can from the instructor, perfecting new techniques and methods, networking, and creating beautiful imagery. These are certainly all good things to do at a workshop, but some of the more intangible benefits that I’ve listed here can be just as important if not more so. If you choose to attend a workshop, keep all of the things I’ve mentioned in mind so that you get the most from your experience!
Will MoneymakerWill Moneymaker
Recommend Workshops That I've Attend:
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Air shows are not something that the average photographer stops to consider often, but I’ve found that they’re one of the most amazing events to attend with your camera. In fact, a distant cousin of mine was once a captain for the Blue Angels, so perhaps that is where my love of aviation comes from. I’ve attended quite a few air shows over the years, and I can tell you one thing — there is certainly no lack of artistic opportunities.
To that end, I want to show you how to approach an air show as a photographer. This includes not only the equipment you’ll need, but also some of the shots you should look for and techniques to use. Let’s start with the equipment!
Gear for Photographing Air Shows
Air shows are unlike many other activities in that you’ll need to take quite a bit of gear along, but at the same time, you’ll also need to maintain mobility. Start your air show kit with your camera and a pair of zoom lenses — you won’t want to haul around several primes, and you’ll need the ability to quickly adjust focal length on the fly. Make sure your two lenses cover a broad focal length; say an 24-70mm and a 100-400mm lens. In fact, if you have a spare camera body, you may even want to take it along and so that both lenses are mounted at all times.
Short Tucano T1The Short Tucano T1 (S.312) is a two-seat turboprop basic trainerused by the Royal Air Force. It is a licence-built version of the Brazilian Embraer EMB-312 Tucano, and is also used by the air forces of Kenya and Kuwait.
The next big requirement is this: Portable storage. You see, at many air shows around the United States, large containers like backpacks and coolers aren’t allowed. Before you attend a show, make absolutely certain that you’ve checked the rules to see what items are prohibited. If you can’t take along a backpack or large bag, then you might be able to get around this with the clever use of cargo pants or a photo vest. As long as your two largest items — the cameras and lenses — are hanging around your neck, almost everything else can be safely kept in pockets, provided you have enough of them.
Another important point is to make sure that these items are secured in plastic zipper bags. Not only will this keep you from accidentally dropping small things like memory cards, but it will keep your gear safe from perspiration or moisture.
Now, on to the gear that you’ll need to put in those pockets:
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Lots of memory cards. I can take upwards of 30,000 images at one air show. It is very easy to fill up memory cards, so make sure that you take plenty along.
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Lots of batteries. Think about your camera’s average battery life, how long you plan to be photographing, and plan accordingly. You may even throw in a few more batteries than you think you’ll need, just in case.
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Any filters that you think you may need. For the most part, it is unlikely that you’ll need filters for special effects, but a polarizer can help you cut glare on shiny chrome and paint, while UV filters can help protect your lenses from dirt, dust and scratches.
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Cleaning equipment. In the summer, air shows can by dry and dusty — or maybe rainy, depending on the weather. Make sure you’ve got soft polishing cloths and other cleaning supplies to keep your camera and lenses clean.
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Take along earplugs (planes are loud), bottled water that you can clip to your pants or vest, sunscreen, and other personal items. The intent is to make sure that you’re comfortable throughout the day so that you can spend more time photographing and less time worrying about sunburns, dehydration or sore feet.
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Bring rain gear, just in case. A light drizzle may not stop the air show, but it can stop photographers. One of those inexpensive emergency ponchos will fit nicely into your pockets, and a couple of plastic shopping bags can be fashioned into a rain hood for your camera.
The last point is whether or not you’ll want to bring a tripod or monopod. Tripods are a no-no. You’ll be moving around too much to use it and you won’t enjoy lugging it around all day. Monopods can be helpful, but they can also get in the way. If you’d like to try one, think about getting a telescoping model that you can fit in a pocket or hang from a wrist strap — or be prepared to use your monopod as a walking stick throughout the day.
Planning the Event: Which Times are Most Important?
You might be thinking that the afternoon is the most important part of the air show — and, you’d be right, because, after all, that is when the action is at its highest. However, you cannot discount other times of the day, or even other days of the show.
North American T-6 TexanThe North American Aviation T-6 Texan was a single-engine advanced trainer aircraft used to train pilots of the United States Army Air Forces, United States Navy, Royal Air Force and other air forces of the British Commonwealth during World War II and into the 1950s.
You see, if you’re planning to tell a story with your collection of images, then like any story, you need a beginning, middle and end. This means that you should show up early in the morning, or even the day before the air show, to photograph the beginnings of the show — morning sunlight, dew on fenders, crews pulling drop cloths away from planes and so forth. These sort of “pre-game” images not only give your viewers a more complete story, but as crews get ready for the air show, you’ll find many interesting, artistic ideas.
Then, of course, there is the middle of your story, which is the show itself. Be sure to capture plenty of images of planes in the air, as well as images of planes landing and taking off.
Close the event by photographing evening festivities the next day, or even visit the air show site the day after the show to document the packing and cleaning process. Here, you’ll find so many opportunities, from golden evening sun bathing planes and silhouetted planes flying into the sunset, to tired crews and satisfied air show attendees after a long day of enjoying aviation.
Of course, it isn’t 100% necessary that you be available and taking photographs throughout the entire event, including the day before and the day after. However, you’ll find that by choosing days and times wisely, you’ll be shooting in a variety of different atmospheres, from anticipation, to excitement and beyond, and you’ll have no end of uniquely interesting subjects to photograph.
Essential Tips and Techniques
Vought F4U CorsairThe Chance Vought F4U Corsair was a carrier-capable fighter aircraft that saw service primarily in World War II and the Korean War. Demand for the aircraft soon overwhelmed Vought's manufacturing capability, resulting in production by Goodyear and Brewster.
The single most important technique that you’ll need to learn well in advance of the air show is how to pan your camera. What this means is that you need to know how to move your camera to follow a moving object so that the focus stays locked on your subject. You can practice this at home any number of ways — pan to follow flying birds or cars passing in front of your home. Practice makes perfect, so keep working on your panning skills until the majority of your shots feature sharp, clear moving subjects.
Other techniques and effects, such as narrowing the depth of field or deliberately over or underexposing images are a matter of personal preference. It is unlikely that you’ll want to go too crazy with effects, but at the same time, don’t hesitate to be creative and original. Learn your primary objective (either documentary photography, creative photography or a mixture of the two) before you attend the air show so that you can stay organized and get the shots you want, be they creative abstracts or crystal clear documentary images.
The other thing you’ll need to be aware of is speed. In other words, the speed of spinning propellers or whirling rotors on helicopters, and the speed of planes flying past a static background. Experiment with different shutter speeds to attain the desired effect. I try to keep my shutter speeds between 1/25 and 1/125 to maximize the feeling of motion. When the rotors are blurred on a helicopter that is sitting on the ground, that shows it is landing or taking off. If you instead froze those rotors with a high shutter speed, viewers would assume that the helicopter was sitting still. For jet aircrafts, I set my camera to aperture priority.
The same goes for planes moving past backgrounds, especially during takeoffs and landings. Use a slightly slower shutter speed and pan with the plane to show a blurred background, otherwise it will appear as if the plane isn’t moving.
The final point is to always be aware of your location in relation to your subject and its background. More than likely, unless there are dedicated viewing platforms, you will always want to be at the forefront of the crowd so that they aren’t sneaking their way into your frame. For shots that are near to the ground, you’ll want to make sure that you’re that you’re pointed in a suitable direction so that your background isn’t comprised of air show attendees or other undesirable and distracting elements.
The Types of Photos You’ll Capture
There are a variety of different types of images to capture at an air show, and each comes with its own unique approach to composition. Here’s a breakdown of the types of images to expect, and the kinds of compositions that work best with each.
“Portraits” of airplanes come in a couple of different varieties. These could be images of grounded planes or planes that are landing and taking off. These types of images follow standard artistic rules: Keep the plane out of the center of the frame unless the composition demands it and minimize distracting elements (like the crowd in the background). Planes that are landing or taking off often benefit from being positioned to one side of the frame to show the path that they are traveling.
Ground to air photos are the type that you’re probably looking most forward to taking. This is photography of planes in flight, and there are many ways to go about this. Some planes might be leaving smoke trails, in which case, you’ll want to capture those trails. Other planes will be flying in formation or doing different kinds of tricks. In each case, attempt to tell the story with your composition. In other words, capture the entire formation in your frame, or if a plane is doing something interesting, like a barrel roll, capture the plane as it tilts to the side or when it is fully upside-down. Wherever possible, (unless you’re capturing long smoke trails) fill the frame with the plane or the formation to show as much detail as possible.
Air-to-air photography involves photographing planes while you’re flying in another plane. This isn’t something I’ve had the chance to do yet, myself, but if you ever have the wonderful opportunity, then there are a couple of things to remember. You’ll need to work hard to keep your camera stable, and you may even want to buy or rent cameras or lenses that come with motion stabilization and vibration reduction.
Pitts SpecialThe Pitts Special (company designations S1 and S2) is a series of light aerobatic biplane designed by Curtis Pitts.
Finally, there are all the miscellaneous shots that complete the story you’re telling. This includes things like pit crews working, the images that you take as planes are readied for flight or photos of the show coming to a close. Who knows, you might even want to photograph the crowd or take candid images of observers in order to tell your particular story. No matter what, these images will follow standard compositional rules that you would apply to any other type of photography. Make sure your images are compelling and that they add to the story you’re depicting.
Even if you’re not an aviation aficionado, it is definitely worth your while to photograph an air show at least once. Few other events give you so many unique opportunities to create beautiful artwork — and yes, you can definitely create art at an air show. Air shows are exciting, exhilarating events, but if you relax, enjoy the day and put some of this advice to work, you’ll come home with stunning imagery.
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When you think of creativity, it feels like it should be something random and spontaneous, something that is born out of a moment’s inspiration. And, there are times when random creativity leads to groundbreaking art. I would argue, however, that the majority of creativity comes not from spontaneity, but from structure. You see, a lack of structure leads to things like uncertainty, wasted time and other issues that are detrimental to productivity. Here’s a brief list of the problems and questions that arise when you have not structured your art:
- You don’t know how your final images will turn out, which leads to hesitation.
- You’re uncertain how much time you’ll need to complete a project, which leads to never starting the project.
- Is your subject material good material? Questioning your choices leads to inaction.
- You’re don’t have a plan for a photo shoot. Without organization and detailed planning, you may not capture the most important images of the day.
Now, perhaps, you are starting to see where a lack of structure leads to trouble. But just how much trouble? Let’s tackle a few of these issues to show you how structure leads to more creativity.
How Will My Final Images Turn Out?
This is one of those vague doubts that has haunted every photographer since the beginning of the art form. So many small things will make a difference in your final photos, from lighting to post processing tools, photo paper and more. The best thing to do is to plan each detail of your process.
For instance, if you’re planning an outdoor shoot, take along lighting equipment just in case the day turns cloudy. Structure the way that you do your post processing so that you can do it efficiently — and, of course, make sure that you have all of the post processing tools you think you might need before you take the photographs. There is nothing worse than frantically searching for Photoshop plugins at the last minute.
Even details that seem minor, like photo paper, can make a difference in your final project. If you truly want to leave nothing to chance, you’ll choose paper before you start taking photographs. After all, prints can look entirely different on different types of paper. When you know what you’ll be using, you’ll be able to take photos accordingly.
How Much Time Will This Take?
Imagine yourself on a Saturday morning. There you sit, pondering whether or not you’ll have enough time to pack the camera equipment in the car and head of on a photographic excursion. The problem is, you don’t know where you are going of what you will be doing, so you don’t know whether or not you’ll have enough time. With these doubts, you sit down on the sofa and spend the day watching TV rather than pursing your art.
This is where structure becomes vital. Sit down and plan your project, start to finish. Plot such items as learning your subject material, thinking about how long it will take you to set up your equipment or drive to a destination. Make estimates for how long photographing and post processing will take. Once you have a plan, you can break the elements of the project apart and more easily fit them within your schedule.
Is My Subject Material Any Good?
Here is one of those questions that is impossible to answer. Or, perhaps it isn’t as impossible as it sounds. After all, all subject material is valid as long as you have your own way to turn it into something original and artistic.
If, however, you still have doubts about your subject material, build time into your schedule to study it. Look at similar work by other photographers, spend time studying your subject, and maybe even schedule experimental sessions so that you can take test images of your subject. When you examine your own test images and the work of others, and when you get to know your subject, doubts in your chosen subject will start to fade away.
Another way to look at this is the old saying, “Practice makes perfect.” Schedule yourself enough time to practice with your subject before you take the final images.
Is Your Photo Shoot Structured?
The photo shoot itself is where structure and organization is most necessary. Whether you’re photographing landscapes or attending an event, you’ll need to have a plan to make sure that you’re taking the best photos that you can without missing opportunities. Here are some examples:
- Have you planned for every piece of gear that you think you may need? This includes not only your camera and lenses, but tripods, lighting equipment, filters, supplies to clean lenses, extra memory cards, weather gear and more.
- Have you been monitoring the weather? This is essential for any outdoor shoot. Don’t take any chances and plan for any possibility that the weather can throw your way.
- What about scheduling shoots within shoots? If you’re attending an event, think of it like several separate events that each need equal attention. A wedding, for instance, has several parts — the rehearsal, the pre-ceremony preparations, the ceremony, the reception and more. Each of these “sub events” should get equal attention. Photos of a show of conference won’t tell the whole story if you miss important speakers, contests or other happenings throughout the day.
These are just three instances of the things that you’ll need to organize. Through these things, you can see just how important structure truly is to photography. Without structure, you’ll find yourself underprepared for the day ahead, which means that you’ll spend more time trying to make up for your lack of preparation and less time taking photographs. And, of course, fewer photographs leads to fewer opportunities to capture something magical.
If you’re a photographer, then the wise choice is not to rely on random bursts of inspiration. Instead of waiting for creativity to happen, make it happen by structuring your art.
I was thinking the other day about the life of a photographer. At first glance, it seems like a wonderful thing. Imagine spending your time traveling the world, creating beautiful artwork that is admired by all. Unfortunately, however, this dream is often just as impossible as it sounds. This doesn’t mean that you can’t be a successful photographer — on the contrary, it means that in order to be a successful photographer, you’ll need to deal with a variety of problems. Here are some of the most ubiquitous struggles that photographers around the world face on a daily basis.
1. Rejection, Rejection, Rejection
The biggest hurdle for any photographer is the rejection that he or she will face on a daily basis. You might take a portfolio to a gallery, only to be laughed out the building. Clients will decline your services in favor of those from another photographer. Even the world’s greatest photographers face rejection. The difference between successful photographers and unsuccessful ones is that a successful photographer can shrug off those rejections and continue to soldier on.
2. Your Bank Account Will Be Empty
A camera costs — and so do all the future cameras that you’ll buy when you realize that the one you currently have isn’t quite good enough to suit your purposes. Then there are the lenses, gadgets and gear that you’ll need to fully explore your art. Once you’ve bought all the equipment, you might think that you bank account will finally have some time to grow. Nothing could be further from the truth, however, as you’ll suddenly find yourself shelling out money on books, classes, workshops and more. In other words, when you’re a photographer, the spending never stops.
3. Your Family is Too Kind
Every serious photographer craves critique because this is one of the only ways to truly learn how to create better images. The problem is, if you’re like me, your family is made up of nice people that will avoid hurting your feelings at all costs. You’ll show them your latest images, and they’ll say “That’s nice, dear!” or “What a pretty picture!” Don’t expect meaningful critique from non-artist family and friends, and most importantly, don’t let all of their kind words go to your head because no matter how pretty your mother thinks your pictures are, there is always room for improvement.
4. Photography May Turn into a Job
If you’re not currently working as a photographer, then you know how dull the daily grind becomes. You get up, get dressed, drive to your job and spend at least eight hours doing something you’d rather not do. When you’re taking photos every day, it can turn into a similar grind — merely doing a job rather than creating art.
Fortunately, there are some photographers that can happily make art all day, every day and not become bored. If you’re one of them, that’s great! But if you aren't, try to separate your “work” photography from your “fun” photography. If you do portraits all day, then save the landscapes that you’re truly passionate about for those times when you need to take a break from your job.
5. Get Ready to Face Tough Competition
These days, almost everyone is a photographer. Of course, not everyone calls themselves a photographer, but if someone has a smartphone, then they might just use it rather than come to you for professional images. And that’s not to mention all of the seasoned professionals you'll be competing against.
Think about it this way: When a bride-to-be comes to you looking for wedding photography, she has three choices. She'll either hire you, hire one of your competitors, or she'll be so appalled by the prices that you and your competitors charge that she'll find a friend with a DSLR to do it for free. The same goes with galleries — everyone and his brother has a portfolio to show gallery owners, which means it takes something really special to get yourself noticed. As a photographer, you’ll have to learn not only how to lose to the competition gracefully, but also how to make yourself stand out from everyone else.
The life of a photographer isn't an easy one. It takes determination and an incredibly thick skin to get past the myriad problems you'll face. Once you find your way past these problems, however, you’ll find that photography is a rewarding and exciting career.
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Ansel Adams said, “There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.” As photographers, this is our greatest struggle — to produce images with a meaning that is immediately evident and warrants a deeper examination of the subject material.
So how do we produce images like this? One way to create a powerful collection — a meaningful portfolio — is to seriously zero in on your concepts. Take your subject material and distill it until only the most resonating elements stand out. However, this isn't the only thing that you'll need to think about as you strive for a striking collection of images. I’ll show you a few good ways to approach this task.
Narrowing Your Theme
We all have certain genres or themes that we prefer to photograph, and sometimes, this can lead to an incredibly broad range of images. To create a powerful body of work, it’s not good enough to simply say, “I want to raise environmental awareness with images of the natural world,” or “I’d like to make a collection of portraits.” Instead, you need to drill down on those themes.
Ask yourself questions like this: What is it about natural images that makes you think about the environment. Is it trees? Rivers? Or is it something else? If you’re photographing people, what story about humanity are you trying to tell? Find the elements that best tell the story that you are trying to portray and make them a strong part of your theme.
Breaking a Scene into Its Component Pieces
Sometimes, the best way to distill your theme is to look at all the parts that make up your subject material. If you photograph buildings, for instance, you can break the building down into rooms. Rooms can be broken down into their component pieces — floors, ceilings, walls, windows and doors. You can dig even deeper yet, with things like reflections in doorknobs or the polished woodwork.
The same goes for most themes. Natural images can be broken down into leaves, stones, sticks, water and much, much more. If you photograph people, perhaps you should focus on eyes, lips, hands or another feature.
Of course, not every small element comes with the emotional pull that you need to create a meaningful photograph. However, the deeper you look, the more wonderful opportunities you are likely to find.
Devote More Time to Projects and Less Time to Flavor-of-the-Day Images
One struggle that many of us face is the temptation to photograph all the things that please us from day to day. And, in a sense, there is nothing wrong with that. However, when “random acts of art” start to interfere with your artistic focus, then it might be time to step away from photographing anything and everything.
Instead, develop an interesting photography project and devote your creativity to it. Some photographers spend months traveling around their areas and photographing doors. Others devote a weekend camping trip to getting to know their surroundings completely and photographing the things that they find.
Whatever projects you choose to embark on, you’ll find that they’ll help you to both narrow your theme and focus your attention on meaningful elements. In addition, each project has the wonderful advantage of giving you a brand new, unified collection of images that you can turn into a portfolio.
Speaking of Unity…
When it comes to developing a portfolio, it’s not only the subject material or the photographic style that needs to be unified. Whether in relationships or in art, no one likes to have his or her emotions toyed with. To that end, one of the biggest keys to creating a strong group of images is to make sure that they are united in their emotional effect.
To use the example of portraiture again, if some of the images in your portfolio show joy, then all should show joy to varying degrees. Unless, of course, you are trying to depict a progression of emotions, in which case, the progression itself is the thing that unifies your portfolio.
It isn't easy to create a powerful portfolio, but fortunately, we're not limited to just one attempt. Every new project and each new image represents a chance to create a group of photographs that makes people pause to consider your work.
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As you know by now, I love to follow Brooks Jenson’s podcasts and writings. One of my favorite pieces is an editorial he wrote entitled “Why Make Art?” In this piece, he talked about the way that art can seem like an unessential thing to do when we could all be out bettering the world in some other way. Of course, he proved that art is, in fact, essential, but I don’t want to repeat the things that he said here.
Instead, I want to build on these ideas by showing you some of the things that motivate us to make artistic photographs. I think that, within some of these motivations, we’ll find yet more answers as to why art, whether it be photography or something else, is so essential to humanity.
The Getty VillaThe Getty Villa in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA, is one of two locations of the J. Paul Getty Museum.
Art is Creation
Creation is what humans do. If you look at the sum total of everything that we have, the majority of it was created by someone, or by a group of someones. All of the practical things that you use every day, from your home to your car and even your camera are things that came from the human need to create. This drive has even pushed our species to make technological marvels like computers, rockets and space stations.
All of these creations, however, are made with a solitary purpose. Vehicles take us from place to place quickly, our homes give us shelter and comfort, and marvels like a space station let us learn more about the universe.
Why is a photograph made? When you examine the answers to that question, you quickly realize that there is no singular reason to create art. Every artist has his or her own reasons, and those reasons will be different from artist to artist. These varying reasons represent true creative freedom.
The Getty VillaThe Getty Villa in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA, is one of two locations of the J. Paul Getty Museum.
Art is a Universal Language
You might not be able to read foreign languages or understand what someone from another country is saying. Cultural differences make it difficult to understand what people think and feel around the world. In that sense, art is something of an equalizer. You can look at a photograph or a painting and understand at least something of what the artist was thinking or feeling, even if that image was created by someone from a culture utterly foreign to you.
The Getty VillaThe Getty Villa in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA, is one of two locations of the J. Paul Getty Museum.
Art Improves Our Minds
Perhaps one of the things that motivates us is the subconscious knowledge that art improves our minds. Pablo Picasso once said, “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” And indeed, numerous studies show that looking at art or creating art improves the way our brains work.
A 2009 study from Johns Hopkins University suggested that focused training in any art, be it imagery, music or dance, improves your attention. That, in turn, improves general cognition. This study, and others like it, are based around the “Mozart Effect,” which is a theory that suggests that listening to Mozart’s music boosts your ability to reason for a short while.
Another study, this one coming from Germany, showed that creating art caused significant increases in brain function. Researchers divided a group of retirees into two groups: Those tasked with creating art, and those tasked with appreciating it. The people that created the art had increased psychological resistance and better functional connectivity within the brain.
Those that appreciate art rather than create it still see some benefits, however. A new field of research, called embodied cognition, tells us that your mind is a product of your environment. If your environment happens to be filled with art, then your brain tends to work more efficiently than someone who never has a chance to appreciate art.
Art is a powerful tool that not only improves our minds but also gives us unfettered freedom to create anything we desire. The things I've listed here are by no means the only motivations we have to create art, but they are a few good reasons why we should create it.
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Real estate photography is one of those things that every photographer will do at some point. If you know of a real estate agency that needs excellent photos, then this is a great way to make some extra money and round out your portfolio. But even if you don’t plan to make a career out of real estate photography, then doubtless, you’ll run into a situation where you or someone you know is selling a house. Naturally, you’ll want to do the photos yourself because you want to make sure that your home (or your friend’s home) stands out among all the other listings.
It’s not terribly difficult to take excellent real estate images, but there are a lot of considerations. With the help of this guide, you can make a collection of images that will certainly sell a home.
Staging a Home
De-Clutter the Home
When it comes to real estate photography, a squeaky-clean home isn’t quite enough. You should also ask the homeowners to declutter as much as possible. This might seem like an odd request, but even a relatively uncluttered home can still make for messy photographs. Think about it this way: When you’re standing in the room, you have a perfect 180-degree view of that room, but a photograph is hemmed in by its borders, which can make even the most open spaces feel a bit cramped.
To that end, remove some decor items to give the photographs a more spacious feeling. In the dining room, for instance, skip the table runner, candlesticks and massive centerpiece, and instead opt for a simpler centerpiece. Small wall shelves should feature simpler ornamentation rather than rows of decorations. Simpler decorations lead to images with a cleaner, roomier feeling.
As you’re de-cluttering, don’t forget about the furniture! When you look at an image of a room, you should always be able to see some open space where people would be able to walk around. If the room feels like it would be difficult to navigate without tripping over furniture, it might be time to remove some of the furniture.
Make the Home Less About You
This is one piece of advice that you don’t hear very often, but it is very true. Home buyers don’t want to feel like they’re looking at a stranger’s home. They want to be able to imagine the home as their own. Things like family photos, awards and other personalized memorabilia can actually detract from a home because these things make it difficult for buyers to imagine themselves in that home. Ask the homeowner to remove these things as they declutter, and if they can’t or won’t, then do your best to make sure these items don’t sneak into your images.
The Finishing Touches
There are a few little things that you can do to spice up the home before you start taking photos. Outside, try wetting the driveway and maybe even the lawn. A wet driveway makes beautiful reflections, while wet grass has an irresistible sparkling, fresh quality.
Inside, a fresh coat of polish on floors and furniture can’t hurt. Aside from capturing beautiful reflections, the shine makes the room seem fresher and brighter.
Essential Equipment and Techniques
Bring the Right Lenses
Real estate photography revolves around the wide angle shot. For just about every application, a long lens simply won’t work. For the most part, the goal is to show as much of a room as you possibly can in one image so that viewers can get a sense of space as they look over the home’s gallery. Make sure to bring along a selection of short lenses — at least 24 millimeters, and shorter is even better if possible.
How to Handle Lighting
Indoor lighting is arguably one of the trickiest aspects of real estate photography. Nine chances out of 10, when you’re looking at a badly done gallery of a home (quite often taken in a rush with the realtor’s phone), lighting is the biggest problem. If you’ve already visited the home and done some scouting, then it’s likely that you already know what you need to bring along to deal with the lighting. If not, then here are some things that will help:
- Use a camera that can easily handle high ISOs without adding noise to the image. Most modern cameras are up to the job, and by shooting at a high ISO, you can save yourself a lot of lighting and post-processing hassles.
- If shadows are particularly harsh — say, in a room illuminated by one very bright window — then you may need to use off-camera lighting to highlight all of the dark areas. Be prepared with lightstands, diffusers and external flashes just in case you need some extra light.
- Bring along a pack of white fluorescent light bulbs. This helps in a couple of ways. Incandescent lighting is becoming rare, but it is the worst kind of lighting to shoot in because of the overly warm color temperature. You can replace those lights with the fluorescents you brought along. Other times, you’ll find rooms with bulbs of varying colors — white, blue, yellow and so on. If you have your own bulbs, you can make sure that rooms are illuminated with uniform color temperatures.
Taking Exterior Images
Since online real estate galleries lead with exterior images, they’ll be the first thing that buyers see. Knowing this, you should put some effort into making these images outstanding.
To start, the sky and foreground absolutely must be balanced. Blown out skies or shadowy homes aren’t attractive to buyers. Here are some ways to make sure you’ll get balanced images:
- Use a graduated neutral density filter to even the exposure.
- Use a tripod to take several exposures that you can later merge into an HDR image.
- Take the primary exterior images when the sun is to the front of the home so that the home isn’t in shadow and the sky isn’t too bright.
If you have the luxury of shooting at sunset, make sure to get an exterior image with all the lights in the house on. The warm lights sparkling through the windows out onto a slightly darkened landscape makes the home look that much more inviting.
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Compositional Tips and Tricks
Real estate photography has its own set of compositional rules. Outside, for instance, you’ll likely find yourself centering the home in the frame rather than trying to abide by the Rule of Thirds. This does several things: It allows you to zoom in on the house so that exterior details are more evident. It also helps you isolate the home from the rest of the neighborhood, which is important because if a neighbor’s home sneaks into the frame, it is not only distracting, but it also makes the neighborhood feel more crowded than it actually is.
On the inside of the home, you want to do whatever you can to make rooms seem larger. Avoid diverging lines by making sure that the camera is perfectly straight and square with the room. You might end up with angled horizontal lines along the floors and ceilings, but perfectly vertical lines in the corners and doorways are an absolute must.
You should also take care to make sure that furniture isn’t chopped off around the edges of the frame. If, for instance, you’re standing in a living room with an armchair directly in front of you, you’ll find it far better to move the armchair out of the way rather than including half of it in the frame. The reasoning behind this is subconscious — when you look at an image with cropped furniture, you unconsciously assume that the photographer didn’t have room to back away. This, in turn, leads to the assumption that the room is small and cramped.
A Note on Post Processing
Every photographer has their own post processing methods, so I won’t make recommendations here as to how you should correct colors and exposure. However, I will say that as you’re processing images, strive for complete accuracy wherever you can. As photographers, the temptation is there to fiddle with hues, make high-contrast images or do something else in order to create a piece of art that pleases us.
While you might be happy with the end results, potential buyers won’t be. Buyers will spend lots of time examining your images, trying put all of the pieces together before they get a chance to see the home in person. Many buyers will practically memorize your images in the days leading up to the showing.
Here’s where the problem lies: Maybe it’s the leafy green siding that first made them fall in love and schedule a showing with their realtor. When the day of the showing finally arrives and the buyers get to see the home in person, they’ll be disappointed to find out that the bright green house is actually a much duller shade of green, but in the images, you increased the saturation or altered the hue to make the image fit with your own tastes. That inaccuracy will color the buyers’ perceptions of the rest of the home. Instead of looking at the home’s positive aspects, they can’t help but search for further reasons to be disappointed.
Whether you’re selling your own home or fielding requests from sellers and agents, you’ll likely find yourself photographing a home at some point. Put this guide to work for you and sell that home in no time!
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A while back, we discussed how to critique your own photos in the post “Learning to Be Your Own Worst Critic.” To me, critiques are such an important skill that it’s worth it to explore this topic a little more. For some of us, it’s a little bit easier to critique our own work simply because we are so familiar with it. We’ve already spent hours laboring over each photograph, so there is a good chance that we’re already at least somewhat aware of the image’s weaknesses.
But someone else’s work? It’s much too easy to make a quick pronouncement and then scroll past.
Unfortunately, such “gut reaction” critiques help no one — not the photograph’s owner, and certainly not yourself. Even if you choose not to share your critiques with others, learning how to objectively judge photographs will help you understand the things that make or break images. Use the following tips to improve your critiquing skills.
Critiques Take Time
One of the wonderful things about photography in this day and age is that we are exposed to lots of it. From Facebook to Flickr and other websites, we could spend all of our time looking at images if we so desired. As nice as it is to be able to learn from images by photographers from around the world, this ready access to millions of images comes with a major downside.
You see, the Internet promotes brevity in all things — skim this article, skip to the good parts of that video, scroll past a dozen images in less than a minute. However, in order to properly critique an image, you need to spend time with it. Take thirty minutes, an hour or a whole day and really get to know the image that you’re critiquing before you pass judgement on the photographer’s work.
Think about it this way: You wouldn’t buy a coffee table book, flip through it as quickly as you could and then place it on the coffee table, never to be looked at again. Nor would you visit an art museum and then speed walk your way through each of the exhibits. Photography, whether in a book, a museum or online, deserves more than just a passing glance and an instant judgement.
Keep an Open Mind
Every photographer has techniques, post-processing methods and other effects that they enjoy and others that they dislike. This means that as you critique the work of others, you’re going to run into things that you don’t like. Perhaps you simply can’t stand HDR imagery, or you’re not a big fan of selective coloring. Some people really dislike things like soft focus effects, while others swear by them. Either way, your goal should be to remain objective. Judge each photo on its own strengths and weaknesses, and not on your own personal preferences.
The Photographer’s Intent
In the post I linked above, I discussed how to evaluate for technical flaws. As you critique an image, you should definitely keep an eye out for things like over or under-exposure or unnecessary blurring. However, before you pronounce judgement on any seeming flaws that you might find, you should ask yourself whether or not those flaws were intentional.
If the lighting feels wrong, could the photographer have been trying to make the image feel moody? If the subject is smack in the middle of the frame, could it be because the photographer was deliberately skirting the Rule of Thirds in order to bring even more attention to the subject? Perhaps the photographer meant to do these things or maybe he didn’t — either way, you should take this into account as you develop your critique.
If you think a particular aspect still feels wrong even after you’ve investigated the photographer’s potentential motives, then don’t hesitate to point it out. Your critique could help the photographer understand how to achieve the look and feeling he was going for with his “deliberate mistakes.”
Always Explain Why
The lighting is off. The horizon line is tilted. The sky is too bright. The shadows are too deep. These are all things that you’ll commonly hear, and perhaps they’ll be part of the critiques that you give. However, these should never be the only things that you say about an image. Always try to give an explanation as you why you feel a certain way. Rather than simply saying, “The sky is too bright,” instead justify your reasoning by saying, “With the sky as bright as it is, you’ve lost some of the interesting detail in the clouds.” Broader explanations not only point out things that need improvement, but they also help the photographer to understand how to improve them.
So why is it that critiques are so important? Because they’re yet another opportunity to hone your own skills. By examining the work of others, you’ll be able to apply their lessons to your own images.
A while ago, as part of my Photography Fundamentals series, I wrote a post entitled “Mastering Composition.” In that post, I discussed some of the basics that every photographer needs to learn in order to create beautiful compositions. We learned about the Rule of Thirds, how geometry affects the composition and how to use a wide tonal range to add richness to your images.
Those things are all great starting points, but composition goes much, much deeper than that. Edward Weston once said, “Composition is the strongest way of seeing.” If you’re like me, you see this quote and you nod your head in agreement without stopping to consider what the “strongest way of seeing” actually means. How does one see strongly, or stronger than another person viewing the same scene? Let’s look past everything you learned as a budding photographer to find out.
Learning to See Every Detail
As I’ve said, the Rule of Thirds is a great starting point for most images, but by itself, it isn’t enough to make your images stand out from thousands of other perfectly aligned photographs. The strongest images come from meticulous attention to detail. No element, not even so much as a leaf, enters the frame unless you allow it.
To see what I mean, try a little exercise with one of your images that you feel could use a little improvement. Examine it carefully, making a note of each element that you see. Ask yourself if those elements belong in the picture or if they’re just a distraction that weakens the overall effect that you’re trying to achieve. Even simple things — power lines, trees, a stray rock — can take just enough away from an image to make it weaker.
Remember that when Weston talked about the “strongest way of seeing,” this is one of the things that he meant. You need to be able to see each detail and how it will affect the final image.
Color and Contrast as Compositional Elements
We talk a lot about how physical objects within a frame can add to or take away from a composition, but the fact is that the less physical elements — things like color, lighting, and contrast — are also a part of the composition. This isn’t so much about making sure that you have a broad tonal range in your image or making sure that all of the colors fit a chosen scheme. Instead, it’s about making these things part of the subject.
Think about it this way: In an image of a leaf, what is the most important part of that picture? Surprisingly, it probably isn’t the leaf itself. Instead, perhaps it is the color green, which tells a story about the leaf — bright and fresh spring green, or deeper, darker summer hues. It could also be the lighting. Brightly lit high spots contrasting with dimmer low areas lets you get a feel for that leaf’s texture.
What this means is that in each image, you need to examine not only the physical objects but the colors and contrasts that make up the image. Pay careful attention to each of these things and how they might or might not help you tell a story.
Composing with Light
When it comes to lighting, you have a variety of different ways to use it as a compositional element. One of the first lessons that many beginning photographers are given is to photograph a subject with back lighting, front lighting, side lighting and more. It’s easy to chalk this exercise up to a lesson in how lighting works, but the other, deeper lesson is that even slight differences in lighting from one image to the next can completely change the overall effect of the subject material.
To illustrate this point, imagine a portrait of a close family member or friend. Under front lighting or diffuse lighting, the subject usually dominates the frame while background objects often go unnoticed unless they’re particularly distracting. If you were to use back lighting in the same scene, however, then the focus of the image shifts away from the subject slightly. Perhaps this new image is showing not only your subject but also how beautiful and sunny the day was when the photo was taken. Experiment with a variety of different lighting effects and you’ll soon see that a minor change in light can make a big difference.
Photography revolves around perfecting your compositions, but with all of the various elements to consider, you’ll find that the pursuit of perfection is a long, challenging process. As you work, do your best to keep every little piece of the puzzle in mind. Once you’ve mastered the “strongest way of seeing,” you’ll understand how to make images that pack an emotional punch.
It may surprise you to learn that photography has roots far older than two or three centuries of science. In fact, photography started with a simple device known today as the “camera obscura.” What is a camera obscura? In Latin, the words mean “dark room,” and that is a succinct and accurate description of this device.
A camera obscura is an empty room without light but for a small pinhole in one wall. The light that comes through that pinhole projects a scene from outside on the opposite wall. Because of the nature of optics, this scene is always upside down, but nevertheless, it provides an accurate picture of whatever the camera obscura sees. Let’s delve a little bit more deeply into the fascinating history of this device and how it led to the modern-day camera!
The First to Capture Light
The camera obscura was first imagined by a Chinese philosopher named Mozi. Over the course of his studies, he the way that light created images on the walls of a dark room when it entered the room through a pinhole. Of course, he called the camera obscura by a different name — the “locked treasure room.” This first discovery illustrates just how old the science of photography is. Mozi’s work is the first in recorded history, taking place around 400 B.C.
After Mozi’s first conception, the camera obscura underwent centuries of further development before being put to a practical use. Notable philosophers and scholars like Aristotle and Theon of Alexandria wrote about the concept, but it was Anthemius of Tralles that was one of the first in recorded history to actually use the camera obscura. Around 530 A.D., he used a primitive form of the camera obscura for architectural projects.
The First Lenses and Mirrors
Work on the camera obscura continued on among scientific communities for another thousand years. Scholars such as the Arab physicist Alhazen, Chinese scientist Shen Kuo and even Leonardo da Vinci all played rolls in the further development of this technology. However, it wasn’t until the mid-1500s that glass lenses and mirrors were introduced as a way to direct images into special viewing areas. Around this time, the camera obscura was a popular way to view solar eclipses.
Light Becomes Art
Prior to 1558, the camera obscura was purely a scientific endeavor. That all changed when an Italian scholar by the name of Giovanni Battista Della Porta advised artists to use the device to their advantage. From then through the rest of the Renaissance period, artists adopted the camera obscura as a way to perfect their sketches and paintings. Using it, it was possible to trace your subject, making artwork highly realistic.
Almost 50 years after Porta’s declaration, in 1604, the term “camera obscura” was coined by a German astronomer named Johannes Kepler. Kepler is also responsible for developing the very first portable camera obscura — a tent, with a sheet of paper inside onto which the image from the camera’s lens could be projected.
Modern Photography is Born
Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, the camera obscura continued to evolve. As the technology developed, it became a popular attraction, similar to how we enjoy going to movie theaters today. Throughout the 1700s, these devices became smaller and smaller. So small, in fact, that Sir Joshua Reynolds, an English portrait artist, used a camera obscura that was made to look like a book between 1751 and 1790.
Then, in 1816, Joseph Niepce began creating what many believe to be the world’s first photographs. He used a camera obscura to expose paper covered in silver chloride to light. The resulting images were blurry and they faded quickly, lasting only a day at the most. Nevertheless, he continued to experiment, and then in 1829, he started working with Louis Daguerre. Neipce died in 1833, but Daguerre kept working, and in 1835, he created the first daguerreotype.
From the daguerreotype, the rest is history. However, curiously enough, even though we have modern cameras in all shapes and sizes, the camera obscura isn’t simply a relic lost to history. In a select few places around the world, you can still visit a camera obscura, and educators often use them to teach students about light and optics. In fact, if you search online, you’ll find several tutorials that will show you how to create a camera obscura in your own home. Perhaps the next time you’re enjoying a lazy weekend away from the studio, you should turn one of your home’s rooms into a camera obscura so that you can experience light the same way that Mozi did.
Learn More:
- Identifying the Era of a Photo By its Type
- How Photography Changed the World, Part 1
- How Photography Changed the World, Part 2
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Photography has only been around for about 175 years. In the grand scheme of the human race, that makes it a relatively recent invention. We don’t have any photographs from before 1839, and photos remained relatively rare throughout the 1840’s. This rarity was mainly due to the expense of having a photo taken back then, and the relative scarcity of photography studios. As it was a new technology, only a small number of people knew how to do it at first, and they tended to set up their studios in large cities, where they could get the most number of customers. Early photography wasn’t really available to the poor or rural population. On the rare occasion someone from either of these demographics got their photo taken during this period, it was because they’d saved up for it for a special occasion and/or made a rare trip into the nearest big city to visit relatives or get supplies.
Still, those who had access to photography embraced it… if they were of the younger generation. It was people in their teens through 40’s who showed the most interest in photography when it was first invented, and they used it with gusto. First, it was an interesting technological novelty. Then, it became a way of preserving images of family without the expense and lesser accuracy of getting a painted portrait done. The older generation didn’t show much interest in photography at first. They grew up without it, and had no photographs of their parents, grandparents, or older ancestors, so they didn’t see the point of it. Older people rarely went to photography studios on their own in those days.
However, their younger relatives often brought them to get their photographs done, whether the older people really wanted to do it or not. This was because the younger generation realized an opportunity to get images of their older relatives while they were still alive, and preserve the real-life likenesses of a diminishing generation. This was the generation who participated in the American Revolution. Younger Americans, understandably, believed images of people who lived through the Revolution, or participated in it in some way, were worth preserving, both for their historical and familial importance. This started a trend of photographs of elderly people wearing the traditional clothes of their younger days, or even their old war uniforms, and it was their younger family members who got them into the early photography studios to get these pictures made.
If you’ve ever seen a photograph of an elderly person from the 1840’s or 1850’s, chances are they don’t look too interested in the proceedings. Photographs of younger people of this time were a bit more lively. While smiling in photographs for anyone was still a while away, due to the amount of time a person had to sit still to get a clear photographic image, there is a noticeable difference between the attitude of older people and younger people in these early photographs.
Those who could afford it and were near a photography studio recognized the importance of bringing in their elderly relatives, so an image of them could be preserved for their family’s genealogical record. It’s usually the younger generation who embraces a new technology first, and the same thing was true with later inventions like the telephone, electricity in the home, and television. With the trend of younger family members getting images of older relatives from a generation gone by preserved for posterity, it is no wonder that the modern interest in genealogy seemed to begin around that time, too. Deeply researched books on the genealogy of certain families were published during this time, county histories that allowed people to pay to preserve the story of their lives and their ancestry became popular, and lineage and genealogy societies were formed. The oldest genealogy society in the United States, the New England Historic and Genealogical Society was founded in 1845, right during the early era of photography.
It isn’t a coincidence. Photography started a new interest in genealogy that continues to this day. If it wasn’t for the magic of photographs, and the realization of the younger generation of the importance of preserving the images of their elders, the world of genealogy may look quite different today.
In the beginning, photography seems like it’s all about following the rules. The rules of composition, correct exposure, color balances, post processing — for every facet of this art form, there are sets of guidelines about the things you should and should not do.
However, there always comes a day when, in order to grow as an artist, you need to dispense with the rules. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: The rules of photography are there to teach people how to take good photos, but sometimes in order to make something with a unique twist or something that is entirely new, you need to break those rules in such a way that it makes a better-finished photograph.
This doesn’t mean that we need to throw caution to the wind and abandon everything we’ve ever learned about photography, but it does mean that you can safely flout the rules where and when you feel it’s necessary. I’ll show you some of the things that I’m talking about!
Post Processing
In some circles, things like over-processing, HDR, selective coloring and other effects are frowned upon. Some photographers even view any amount of processing as a bad thing, calling images with minor lighting or contrast corrections “digital art” rather than photographs. In some cases, I’m inclined to agree — selective coloring, for instance, has become such a cliché that even when done well, it doesn’t always make a powerful statement.
However, this doesn’t mean that you should never create an “over-processed” image or that you should never dabble in things like HDR and selective coloring. If a particular image would truly benefit from added noise, increased saturation or something else, then by all means, break the rules and do whatever it takes to produce the image you truly want.
Unbalancing Your Exposures
Early on, you learn that a balanced histogram is the right way to go — no details should be lost to shadow, and highlights shouldn’t be blown out. Again, in many cases, this is the correct thing to do. In other instances, though, you’ll find that deep blacks add mystery or even an uneasy feeling to a photograph. And, sometimes black backgrounds are the perfect way to set off your subject.
In the same way, blown-out highlights don’t add anything to most photos. They can make skies feel flat and dull and they can obscure details or make distant objects seem fuzzy. Other times, however, over exposure is exactly what you need to give an image a bright, airy, almost fantastical feeling.
Lighting, Lens and Film Flaws
Sun flares, light leaks and other issues with lighting are something that photographers will do almost anything to avoid. However, while some photographers will spend boatloads of money on quality equipment to get photos just right, others will spend that same amount of cash on leaky old cameras, old and broken lenses and expired film to do just the opposite.
When it comes to flaws, whether it’s weird colors caused by expired film or rainbow-hued lens flares, the decision shouldn’t be based on whether it is right or wrong, but on your own artistic vision. As you take photos, it’s up to you to decide whether flaws are a creative addition or a distraction.
Color Balance
Color balance is one of those rules that comes naturally. On a warm, sunny summer afternoon, you’ll tend towards images with warm tones, while frosty images of snow tend to be a blend of cool whites, blues, and grays. However, this doesn’t have to be so. If you take that same snowy image and replace the blue cast with something warmer, the feeling goes from frosty to cheerful. By cooling down warm images, you could achieve any number of things, from an old-fashioned look to something that feels distant and remote.
As you learn more and more, you’ll find that technically perfect images aren’t always the best images. Even if some would tell you that a particular technique or effect is wrong, go with your instinct and do what you feel is right.
Most photographers will eventually inherit photos. People in your family know you’re the family photographer. When the time comes to pass photos on to someone else, either due to the death of someone in the family or because an elderly relative is downsizing, you are the most likely person to get them. Some may be in albums, but quite often you will get loose photos kept in boxes and other unlikely methods of storage. Only rarely will these photos be labeled. It is up to you to label them and get them organized so future generations can enjoy them.
If you are lucky, you will recognize most of the people in the photos, so getting the names correct shouldn’t be too difficult for you. If you don’t know who someone is in a photo, wait until you’ve gone through all of the photos and set the ones aside where there are people you don’t recognize. Take these photos to an older relative who is likely to be able to identify these people. If no one can identify someone in a photo, you will have to list them as “unknown friend” or “unknown relative” on the photo.
When it comes to actually labeling the photos, including the names of everyone in each photo is the most important part. You should always write with an archival-safe pen, so as not to damage the front of the photo, and do your labeling on the backs of the photos. Write at least the first and last names of everyone. All women who are married should have their maiden names included along with their married names. If there is room on the photo, you can include middle names. For women, label the photos according to the status of the woman when the photo was taken. If she was still a child and unmarried, label her with her maiden name only. If she married more than once, label her with her maiden name and her married name at the time the photo was taken.
If you know the approximate date the photo was taken, include this under the names. Use the exact date if you know it. If you only know an approximate date, use “circa” before the date you think the photo was taken.
These are the most important things to include when labeling photos. If there is room, and it is significant to the photo, include the place the photo was taken, and the occasion on which it was taken, such as a special family or personal event for the person or people in the photo. You want to include as much information on each photo as you can for future generations. Just think how much you would have appreciated it if all those old photos you’ve collected came to you labeled this way. Give that gift to future photographers in your family. It will also be nice for reference when you look at the photos with other family members, your children, siblings, or grandchildren. A properly labeled photo is a family treasure. Make as many of them as you can, not only for yourself, but for others.
I was recently given the assignment to photograph a race with more than 16,000 runners and that led me to think about what a delightful challenge sports photography really is. Whether you’re a professional looking to hone your skills or you’d simply like a great collection of images from your children’s sporting events, here are a few of my favorite tips and tricks for sports photography. Put these tips to work for you, and you’ll certainly make the most of any sporting event!
Before You Leave
As you’re packing gear for your sporting event, there are several things to consider. First, make sure that all of your memory cards are formatted and ready to go. There is nothing worse than being 14 shots into a game or race and then realizing that you’re going to miss some of the action because your memory cards are already full. If, for whatever reason, you have any unformatted memory cards, leave them at home so you don’t inadvertently put a full card in your camera. Better yet, format all of your cards so that nothing is left to chance.
The next consideration is lenses. Some photographers prefer to take two cameras along — one with a wide lens and another with a long lens. This is because sporting events don’t leave you much, if any, time for lens changes. My thought is that if a sporting event doesn’t leave you time for lens changes, then it also doesn’t leave you time to switch back and forth between cameras. For that reason, I stick with a 70-200mm lens because it gives me all of the view angles I use most.
There are a few other pieces of gear that come in handy. Monopods can save your arms, although they make it harder for you to get shots at low angles. Weather-appropriate gear is nice to have too, no matter what the weatherman says. You could face rain or snow, so make sure you’re prepared!
The only piece of gear I don’t recommend is a flash. Not only will it cast your subjects in harsh light — and leave dark shadows — but athletes may also find it distracting, or worse, blinding if they happen to glance your way.
Sports Photography and Your Camera
There are lots of different camera settings and features that can help you out. Here are a few things to remember:
- Using long focal lengths will help you create images with more background blur, which is especially nice to show motion and to isolate your subject.
- Sports photography is one genre that calls for nicely balanced exposures. Don’t take the time to examine each image for areas of over or under exposure on your camera’s LCD display. You’ll get more accurate information faster by using the camera’s histogram, instead.
- Use an aperture of f/4 as a starting point. The depth of field is narrow enough to isolate your subjects, but not so narrow that you lose lots of shots to blur.
- Keep your ISO low, but not so low that you experience motion blur from using slow shutter speeds. A good rule of thumb is to make sure your shutter speed goes no lower than 1/640. You may even want to set your ISO to “auto” just so that you can keep the correct aperture and shutter speed. Remember that we can fix sensor noise in post processing, but we can’t remove motion blur.
- Continuous autofocus is a must so that you can keep the focus on moving subjects.
- You’ll also need to use single point focus. If you select all focus points, you may miss shots as your camera fishes for a focus lock or focuses on the wrong things. For that matter, make sure to focus on the hips of runners and athletes, not the face. The hips tend to stay relatively stationary but faces move and turn, causing you to lose focus.
- Use your camera’s high speed drive so that you’re taking photos in quick bursts of two to four. Low speed drives — or even taking photos singly — just isn’t fast enough to get images of everyone at a race or other sporting events.
- When it comes to metering, choose anything but spot metering. You need consistent exposures (no light and dark spots), so choose settings like “Scene,” “Evaluative,” or “Matrix” metering to help you achieve the right balance.
Tips and Tricks for the Big Event
At sporting events, particularly races, the participants are often packed together very closely — especially at the beginning of the event. The key to getting as many unique images of the participants as possible is to stay calm and realize that you’re likely to miss a few, despite your best efforts. Some photographers, because they’re panicking, default to wide-angle lenses so that they can zoom out and capture entire groups. However, zooming in to photograph individuals is the preferable option, even if it means you capture a third or less of the athletes. If you want, take a few zoomed out shots of groups of athletes to establish the story you’re trying to tell, then zoom back in to focus on individuals.
It’s also important to get the composition and exposure right directly out of the camera. Post processing tools can fix many flaws, but even if you batch process images, you’re looking at doing so for hundreds or thousands of images once the event is over. Getting it right the first time means less work for you later on and an overall better finished product.
Speaking of composition, there are a few rules that you should try to follow wherever possible:
- Try to photograph athletes as they’re coming towards you, not from the back or sides. This makes for a more dynamic image, and you’ll be better able to capture facial expressions, too.
- Get as low to the ground as you can by kneeling. Low view angles make the action seem more intense, thus making your images much more powerful.
- As you move around to get the best vantages, always be aware of your surroundings. Never position yourself in such a way that you impede the athletes. Doing so can not only cause injuries, but an accidental misstep on your part gives all sports photographers a bad reputation.
- When it comes to accidents and injuries, adopt a “No Chimping!” rule. Chimping is checking the LCD display after each shot. Not only does this practice make you less aware of your surroundings (and any imminent danger) but it also means you might miss something great in the time it takes you to glance down at your camera.
- Don’t forget to get a few shots of the spectators! Their reactions to the things that they’re watching are just as important to telling the story as photos of the athletes themselves.
Photo by Sam Moneymaker
Sports photography is a challenge, but as long as you stay calm and remember what’s important, you’ll do just fine. Use these tips and you’ll be prepared for whatever the day brings!
Whether you’re a painter or a photographer, the first thing that comes to mind when you think about contrast is the difference between dark and light. In black and white photography, that means the stark differences between the dark values of your scene and the lighter ones. For color imagery, contrast can mean a couple of different things: the darkness or lightness between brightly lit or dimmer areas, or the contrast between colors.
As you compose images, it’s important to think about contrast, not just in terms of dark and light, but in other ways, too. Color contrasts are one great way to add life to your images, and you don’t even need to resort to opposite ends of the color wheel (like red sandstone against green foliage) to add interest to your images. Colors that are closely related, such as green and yellow or green and blue, can make beautiful contrasts. You can also use the contrasts between varying shades of the same colors to great effect — a new, bright green leaf against older, darker leaves, for instance.
But beyond light and dark and beyond the differences between colors, there are still more types of contrasts that you can work with. To use the contrasts that I’m referring to, you’ll need to look deeper than the mechanical aspects of your art. Here are some examples of the contrasts that can make images meaningful.
Contrasts in Theme
There is something special about an image of an infant in her grandmother’s arms, even if you’ve never met the people in the image. You don’t know these people, and therefore the image doesn’t hold any particular familial sentimentality for you, so what is it about the image that evokes so much emotion? It’s the contrast between the ages — one person, who is just beginning her journey in life, and another who has years upon years of experiences to share.
Age contrasts aren’t all about people, however. Consider age differences no matter what you’re photographing. For instance, the difference between a newly built office building sitting next to a cathedral that has been exposed to sun, wind and rain for the past 200 years, or the difference between bright green leaves against last year’s old, withered foliage. In everything that you photograph, age contrasts can add something for the viewer to think about — a way for them to make comparisons between your two themes.
The contrast between young versus old isn’t the only thematic contrast you can put to work in your images. Contrasts between nature and industrialization, organic versus artificial or high-tech compared to primitive are all excellent examples of the ways you can use two themes to make a statement.
Contrasts in Action
Thematic contrasts aren’t the only way to tell a story using opposites. Consider the actions of the people or objects in your images. Contrasts between fast-moving objects and objects that are stationary or moving slowly can help you create powerful imagery. What thoughts would you have when viewing an image of a car breezing past a horse-drawn carriage?
What about contrasts in emotion? For people that are interested in portraiture or candid photography, conflicting emotions are an excellent way to make viewers stop and ponder the meaning of your photographs. If you’ve seen images in which the subjects have contrasting emotions, then you’ve no doubt wondered why one person seemed sad in a room full of happy people, or why one person in the frame seems to be calm and observant while everyone else is frenzied. When you can find a contrast like this, viewers will automatically identify with the outlier because they’ll want to learn why that person’s demeanor is so different from everyone else in the photo.
There are hundreds, if not thousands of contrasts that you can use in your own art. As you create images, look not only for the contrasts between colors or lightness and darkness, but also those contrasts that will give people a reason to consider the deeper meaning of your images.
The Holidays are right around the corner, and for photographers everywhere, that means all kinds of opportunities for candid photographs. It’s not only family gatherings, but Christmas parties and other seasonal events, too. You can even apply these tips to non-holiday events like weddings or conferences. With those thoughts in mind, here are a few of my favorite tips that are sure to help you take many meaningful candid images!
Garry Knussman's Birthday Lunch
1. Wait for a Special Moment
Candid photos are all about capturing people in the most natural way possible. Don’t simply snap photos of idle people. Wait until they’re engaged in something — opening a Christmas present or sharing a laugh over a joke someone told at the dinner table. Remember that the purpose of candid images is not to create portraits, but to create memories.
2. Strategic Positioning
Very few people are comfortable when a camera’s lens is pointed at them. In order to create natural candid images, look for ways to minimize your role as a photographer. This means that you’ll likely need to stay around the fringes of whatever is happening. However, make sure that even though you aren’t directly interfering, you’ll still have a great view of the action.
3. Don’t Hesitate to Use Burst Mode
Candid photography is similar to sports photography in that you’re trying to catch a fleeting expression or a special moment that only lasts for a split second. If you think something photo-worthy is about to happen, use burst mode to ensure that you capture it.
4. Choose the Right Lens
Candid photography doesn’t give you lots of time for lens changes. The best way to make sure you can take photos from close up or far away is to use a long zoom lens. In low light situations, you may also want a lens with a wide aperture so that you can avoid using a flash or a tripod.
2011 Grace to You Christmas Party
5. Make Sure Your Images have Context
Great expressions are only half of the image. If someone’s face lights up, show everyone why by including the object that is causing the expression — a partially unwrapped present, for instance. When someone is laughing, make sure to include some of the other people that are a part of the conversation. By giving your candid images context, you’ll tell a complete story in every photo.
6. Avoid Flash
There are many great reasons to avoid using a flash for candid photography. Few things put people on the spot like the bright bursts of light produced by a flash. If everyone is watching for the flash, then they’re not giving you many opportunities for candid images. Flashes without diffusers also provide harsh lighting, which isn’t always flattering when it comes to portraits. And, if you use diffusers or umbrellas, you’re making yourself that much more prominent as a photographer, which means that people are less likely to behave naturally around you.
Space Shuttle Endeavour Field Trip
7. Be Flexible with Perspectives
Most images are taken at eye level, which is fine, but it helps if you can mix things up at least a little bit. Whenever you see a good opportunity, try shooting from above or below your subject. You can also try capturing reflections of people — a family gathering or a photo of a child reflected in a Christmas ornament, for instance.
8. Mind the Backdrop
When you’re taking candid images, you won’t have complete control over the backdrop. Distracting objects, people and other unwanted elements will find a way to sneak into the frame. Look for ways to make these things a part of your image, or be prepared to move around until the backdrop, your subject and the timing all match up. Fortunately, the Holidays make the backdrop conundrum a little bit easier. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to take candid images against sparkling Christmas lights, snowy landscapes, greenery and more.
Candid photography is one of the most rewarding types of photography, not only because you’re creating memories, but also because it is so unpredictable. You never know what may happen at a particular event that will make for a spectacular photograph!
If you’ve never heard of ARAT photography, ARAT stands for “another rock, another tree.” The acronym refers not to rocks and trees in photography, but to clichéd subjects in general. Rocks and trees just happen to be two very common subjects. Even though many photographers (and the people who appreciate their work) love common subjects, photographers around the world disparage ARAT photography. The thinking is that we should always be in pursuit of something completely new and creative.
I, for one, don’t see a problem with ARAT photography. I liked what Brooks Jensen had to say in an episode of the Lenswork concerning ARAT photography:
Rocks and trees are not the problem, nor is landscape photography in general. The problem lies not with the subject material, but with the content. To put it bluntly, the problem lies with the photographer.
As photographers, we should shoot the things that we love, whether they’re clichéd or not. After all, why create art, if not to please ourselves? So many photographers take photos based on the things that they think others will want to see, not the things they actually want to photograph. When you take photos that deviate from the things you’d rather be shooting, you’ll find that photography becomes not a passion or an interest, but a job. Like any job, you fall into a routine and you go through the motions because you have to, not because you want to.
You can see where this ends up: The photos that you produce aren’t inspired by any personal artistry or any emotions that you have as you’re creating the images. Despite the fact that you’ve tried to avoid ARAT photography, your “original” images come off as dull and uninspired. It is the feelings you have as you create images of your favorite subjects that gives you the inspiration you need to turn those images into meaningful artwork.
Even if you do enjoy photographing the unique things that the photographic community wants to see, you should still find the time to photograph those things that you are truly passionate about. A flower, a public place, or just another rock or another tree — even if these things have been photographed a million times and even if you’re the only person that will ever see these images, the very act of creating them will keep your creativity alive and well. When you take the time to make images for yourself, you’ll find that you can more easily make the non-ARAT images that the photographic community desires.
Milk Thistle Flower
Then there are the photographers and art enthusiasts who do enjoy looking at ARAT photography. There are many of us who can spend endless hours looking at photographs of flowers, waterfalls or waves lapping at a rocky shore. For those who would eschew these common subjects, it is important to realize that different photographs appeal to different people. Just because someone else has photographed a particular subject doesn’t mean you can’t create something remarkable by photographing it with your own unique style. Even though popular opinion tells you to avoid clichés, there is definitely merit to bringing your own personal artistic vision to the things that you love, no matter how many other photographers have done the same.
People who dislike ARAT photography often say that they’re bored with subjects that have been photographed too many times. To echo Jensen’s sentiment, perhaps that simply means that the problem isn’t with the subject, but with the way you view that subject. We can’t lay blame on common subjects for being plain or boring. Instead, we need to look at ourselves and ask how we can make these common subjects into something uncommon. After all, if we stop photographing things simply because someone else already has, we’ll quickly run out of subjects entirely.
So is ARAT photography something to be avoided? I don’t think so. Photography is all about exploration. Think about it this way: If people throughout history placed limits on exploration based on popular sentiments at the time, science as we know it wouldn’t exist. We might all still believe that the Earth is flat. Limiting your photographic explorations to only those things that popular opinion deems worthy is a creative setback, not just for you, but also for the art form as a whole.
For many photographers, the idea of creating a still life image is boring. Who wants or needs yet another photo of a bowl of fruit or a vase filled with flowers? The fact is, however, that still life images don’t need to be boring — and even if you do choose to go with more traditional subjects, the creation of these images will prove to be a valuable learning experience.
In fact, painters and other artists have relied on still life imagery for centuries as a method to hone their craft. When approached properly, still life photography is an excellent way to create beautiful artwork while enhancing your skills as a photographer. I'll show you some of the things that you can learn from this misunderstood genre, and I'll give you some ideas that will help you add life to your still images.
Learning about Composition, Light and Color
Composition, light and color are the three guiding principles behind still life imagery. As you'll learn, composition is a large part of what makes still life photos meaningful. When it comes to setting up a still life image, you'll need to create a scene of sorts. A basic bowl of apples centered in the frame isn’t enough. Instead, ask yourself why the apples would be sitting there. Is someone about to use them to make pies or are they part of a decorate centerpiece? Once you’ve identified the reason for those apples to be in the frame, then you can move them around and add other items to tell a story — perhaps a rolling pin, some flour and empty pie plates, all aligned according to the Rule of Thirds so that you’re telling the story in the most visually appealing way possible.
As you create still life images, you'll also learn to study the way light affects the scene. You'll see how diffuse lighting gives the scene a muted effect, while bright lighting makes colors pop. Strong directional lighting — the sort that leaves long shadows and areas of deep black — can be used to add mystery or a more ominous feeling.
When it comes to color, experienced artists and photographers learn to create a palette for each image. That is, they know that if most of the flowers in a vase feature soft, pastel shades, then any other flowers or objects that they add to the scene should also be pastel. Of course, you're free to add in bright spots or to work in contrasting colors to make a statement, but in general, sticking to a rather strict color scheme helps you to appreciate and utilize the subtle shifts between shades.
Making Still Life Imagery Interesting
Still life imagery is much the same as product photography, but with a more artistic goal in mind. Because this genre is meant to help you explore your creative freedom with more mundane objects, you're free to use almost anything imaginable to create a scene or make the image more meaningful. Smoke, water droplets, colored lighting — these are all examples of tools that can help you turn an everyday subject into something unusual.
Create a few still life images of your own, and you'll find that you have a greater appreciation for things like color, composition and lighting. Approach each image as if you're telling a story about the objects within and your still life photos will be anything but boring!
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Hinton, WV Railroad Depot
As a photographer, there are all kinds of tools at your disposal, from lenses and filters to lighting equipment and more. The neutral density filter is one of the more under-utilized tools, but I'd argue that it is one of the most useful pieces of equipment you could have.
Why use a ND filter? The simple answer is that this filter lets you take long exposures in bright lighting. In other words, if you're standing on a sunlit beach, and you want the water to have that smooth effect that you can only get at dusk or dawn, then you'd need a 10-stop filter to help you slow down your exposure. The same goes for waterfalls, clouds, moving people, vehicles or any other brightly lit moving object.
These filters let you do some incredible things – but only if you know how to use them. Here are a few tips that will help you make the most of your ND filter.
1. Set Up the Image First
One of my favorite filters is the 10-stop ND filter. Since the it's so dark, it’s extremely difficult to see though it – unless, that is, you have a camera with a live view that does allow you to see through the filter. If your camera doesn't have this capability, the best way to get around it is to set up the image before you put the filter on your camera. Set the camera up on the tripod and frame the image the way you like it. Go ahead and set the shutter, aperture and ISO settings, keeping in mind that you may need to bracket your exposures in order to get a properly exposed image.
Lastly, make sure to lock the focus on your camera. For most cameras, you can simply bring the image into focus using the autofocus feature and then switch over to manual focus so that the camera doesn't try to readjust the focus once the filter is in place.
2. Choosing the Right Settings
I use the iPhone app PhotoPills to help me get the right exposure settings for the perfect photograph. Shots taken with 10-stop ND filters are always long exposures, which means that you'll be relying primarily on the shutter speed to get enough light to your camera’s sensor. With that thought in mind, feel free to use an ISO of 100 to eliminate noise.
By that token, you can also set the aperture to f/11. Chances are that you'll have some kind of motion blur within the image – water, people or something else. That's what you're trying to achieve. Exceedingly long time exposure will eliminate fast moving objects (as if someone walks through your frame) from the photo leaving milky objects as waterfalls and moving clouds.
Once those settings are in place, you'll only need to experiment with the shutter speed to get the exposure right. That's why I use the PhotoPills App to remove the guesswork when I'm setting my exposure. In many instances (though not all), you'll find yourself using the camera’s bulb setting.
3. Extra Equipment You'll Need
The first, most important piece of equipment that you'll need is a tripod to stabilize your camera. If you’re likely to use the bulb setting, a timer of some sort – a stopwatch or the timer on your phone – will help you keep track of exposure times. You'll also need a remote trigger to fire the camera’s shutter without jostling the camera itself.
If you're taking photos outdoors, then you'll find that a set of graduated neutral density filters is helpful. These filters are particularly effective for landscape shots because you can use them to prevent blown-out skies. If you decide to use a graduated ND filter, put it on your lens before you attach the 10-stop ND filter so that you can line the gradient up with the skyline.
It seems strange to create long exposures in broad daylight, but if you already have the equipment or you're looking for a great new technique, then this is definitely worth a shot. The vast majority of daytime exposures are short by necessity. If you can create long exposures with the sun high in the sky, you'll have the ability to create unusual, interesting images.
In the beginning, photography was very scientific in nature. Photographers and scientists came together, experimenting with light and chemistry in ways never before imagined. However, as time went on, creative thinkers adopted this new method of capturing light and turned it into one of history’s greatest artistic mediums.
There is no one photographer who is directly responsible for taking this science and turning it into an art form. There are, however, a few historical photographers whose work embodies the way photography evolved from a science to an art.
Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879)
Throughout much of the Nineteenth Century, photography was regarded as more of a tool for documenting the world than an art form. The process was expensive, time-consuming and difficult, and cameras were cumbersome machines. Photographers chose their scenes with the utmost care, and people posed for the camera with stoic expressions so as not to ruin a precious photograph with an odd expression.
Julia Margaret Cameron was among the first photographers to change all of that. She received her very first camera in 1863 at the age of 48. It was a gift from her daughter, one that Cameron put to good use. In fact, Cameron later wrote, "From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardor, and it has become to me as a living thing, with voice and memory and creative vigor."
Cameron thoroughly enjoyed creating images of her friends and family – so much so, that she never became a commercial photographer with a studio of her own. In her work, you won't find any of the stiff poses or fixed expressions that were common at the time. Instead, Cameron’s portraits resemble the classical portraits made by history’s greatest painters. They are accurate in their detail, but with an ethereal quality that makes the onlooker ponder the emotions and motivations behind the image. "The Mountain Nymph," taken in 1866, is one such example of Cameron’s work.
Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946)
Alfred Stieglitz is considered by many to be the most important American photographer in history. Throughout his career, he worked hard to prove that photography was just as important to the art world as painting, sculpting or sketching. In the early years, this caused quite a stir among established photographers – so much so that Stieglitz ended his relationship with New York’s Camera Club and started his own group, called the Photo-Secession.
Stieglitz believed that the photographer must be somehow visible in his own work. Many of the photographers that he worked with interpreted this to mean that each photographer needed to learn his or her own signature print development process. Stieglitz’s trademark, however, had less to do with making prints and everything to do with composition and a rich, broad range of tones in the completed image. This philosophy is evident in images like “The Steerage,” which he said, “I saw a picture of shapes.” Because of Alfred Stieglitz’s influence, photography went from being a vaguely artistic medium to becoming a new form of modern art in its own right.
Paul Strand (1890-1976)
Alfred Stieglitz’s work had a major impact on Paul Strand. In fact, during the early years of his career, Strand worked with and admired Stieglitz. The interesting thing about Strand is that he took everything he learned from Stieglitz and used it to bring photography as an art form into modern times.
Strand’s philosophy was that reality is unchanging. It can't be altered with a brush stroke or an eraser. Cameras record that unchanging reality, and it’s the photographer’s job to bring life and meaning to it.
You can see that philosophy in photos like "Abstraction." This image is made with simple things – a table, and shadows cast by the awning overhead. It’s one of the first abstract photographs ever created, and as such, it doesn't force you to recognize the objects within the scene for what they are. Instead, this image makes you look at everyday geometry in a new and unusual way.
By looking at the work of these three photographers, you can see how photography evolved over time. Once, photographs were viewed simply as a way to document the world as the lens saw it. But over the course of a century, it turned into one of the greatest art forms known to humankind.
Learn More:
- In Focus: Julia Margaret Cameron: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum
- The Steerage and Alfred Stieglitz (Defining Moments in American Photography)
- Paul Strand: Master of Modern Photography (Philadelphia Museum of Art)
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As the warm days slip into cool, crisp autumn ones, you will probably find a host of clients looking for fall portraits. Seniors often get their pictures taken in the fall for the upcoming school year. Families love to get fall pictures as the leaves turn bright colors. Most photographers also love that they can still use outdoor, natural backgrounds for their images instead of working with all of the lighting equipment and manufactured backdrops of the studio. Fall is certainly the most popular time of the year for outdoor pictures like these.
However, photographers like you might be a little less comfortable with the lack of control that outdoor photography presents. Here are some fall photographer tips for great outdoor portrait sessions.
Watch the Light
(Technical Tips)
As you already know, lighting is a really big deal for making great photographs. This is especially true for outdoor photography when the lighting is different throughout the day. Fall is an especially good time to shoot during golden hour, since the golden colors of the season are really brought to life during the rising or setting sun. But, that doesn’t mean you should count out the cloudy days; overcast days are a great time for getting a soft, even light that doesn’t cause harsh shadows or make your subject squint.
Use a Filter
If you are shooting with an SLR, use a polarized filter to boost contrast and colors. The fall colors will be richer and more vibrant. These filters don’t cost a lot, but if you don’t have one, underexpose your photos by a stop or two. Slightly underexposing the pictures will deepen the saturation. Then, you can use your photo editing software, like Photoshop or Lightroom, to increase the contrast and warm the saturation.
Manually Set Your Aperture
Don’t let the camera dictate your pictures, adjust your settings for your shot. Even though the lighting during the day will be bright, open up your lens to a lower f-stop for a shallow depth-of-field that will make your fall backgrounds blend into a beautiful jumble of blurry colors and shapes. In order to make up for the lens setting, you will want to have your ISO set very low and adjust your shutter speed to get an ideal exposure.
Fall Backgrounds (Location Tips)
The amazing thing about fall backgrounds is just how many things look good in the backdrop of a shot. You can find a big patch of dying weeds, and (especially during golden hour) the shot will look like a beautiful golden texture that allows your subject to pop in the foreground. Or, you can shoot with brilliantly colored trees in the background and the color and contrast will make an amazing backdrop. Don’t get caught up in the idea of shooting leaves during the fall, think more about the colors and textures in the landscape around you and try to use them to frame your shot in a beautiful way.
Using Leaves
After just stating not to focus too much on the leaves, let’s also mention some of your shots can feature them. Let your subjects jump in the leaves, throw the leaves or sit in the leaves. The fallen leaves can make a great prop that will naturally add a fun element to the pictures as your subjects loosen up to enjoy the shoot.
Request Layers (Client Tips)
Fall days, especially golden hour, can be colder than you might expect. Make sure you ask your subjects to bring plenty of layers that can be added or removed as the weather (or picture) dictates. This means, a subject should wear a shirt they like and bring a sweater or jacket to go over that. They could even bring a scarf for some shots and gloves for in-between shots. Warmer subjects are always happier subjects that take better portraits. You could even bring big blankets to wrap your subjects in to and from locations.
Find Inspiration
Make sure you ask your clients why they are requesting a session in the fall. Surprisingly, not everyone wants fall colors, and some clients might just be scheduling photos in the fall because of need or convenience. While one client might want the dying foliage and river in the background during golden hour, another client might prefer a brick wall. Talking to your clients will help you reveal potential inspirations for your photo shoot.
Vasquez Rock, CA with MattBreaking the Rules of Photography for the Sake of Art
Every photographer’s training – whether self-taught or formally educated – starts with a lengthy set of artistic rules. We all learned that our images should be perfectly exposed and that they should follow the Rule of Thirds, for instance. These rules, along with so many others, are a great way for the new photographer to learn how to create beautiful compositions. After a while, these rules become second nature.
That’s where the problem lies. At a certain point, you’ll come to realize that blind adherence to artistic rules places a limit on creativity. Sometimes, you’ll need to break some rules to make a better image. I’ll show you which rules to break and when it’s acceptable to break them for the sake of art.
Palmdale, CA
The Rule of Thirds
For a beginning photographer, the natural tendency is to place all subjects in the center of the frame. That’s why we teach the Rule of Thirds – it helps us to make our compositions more dynamic. As your skills advance, however, you'll soon see that the Rule of Thirds is more a guideline than a law. Sometimes, a subject is just so interesting that it demands a central position. Perspective shots – such as a train track or road leading into the distance – also sometimes work well when centered, as do subjects that are perfectly symmetrical in nature.
Balancing Exposure
Lightroom Histogram
New photographers are also taught to avoid inky shadows and blown highlights. According to this rule, the image’s histogram should stay relatively even rather than swinging to one side or the other. But once in a while, those dark shadows and bright highlights add emotional depth to an image. If areas of dark black or solid white benefit your image as a whole, then feel free to break the rules of exposure by over or under-exposing your image.
Avoid Film Grain and Sensor Noise
We avoid noise like the plague – so much so that many photographers are willing to spend hundreds or thousands on camera upgrades that allow them to shoot at higher ISOs with less noise. However, sometimes film grain or camera noise is attractive because it’s associated with older technology. When appropriate, use grain or noise to add a gritty, historical look to an image.
Always Shoot in Manual Mode
If photography instructors could disable things like aperture priority, shutter priority and fully automatic modes on their students’ cameras, they probably would. It’s helpful for a beginner to become adept at changing exposure on the fly because this is the only real way for budding photographers to learn the intricacies of their cameras. Once your camera’s controls become second nature, however, it’s perfectly acceptable to choose an automatic mode. Learning to shoot in manual mode forms good habits, but always shooting in manual means that you’ll miss split-second shots – a fleeting expression, a charging animal or another intense moment.
Palmdale, CA
Keep the Sun at Your Back
This rule is especially common among nature photographers, or really any photographer who specializes in outdoor imagery. The reasoning behind the rule is that the sun wreaks havoc with cameras, causing silhouettes, lens flares or other undesirable effects. When you keep the sun behind you, your scene will have bright and even lighting.
When used judiciously, however, lens flares can add a touch of artistry to an otherwise bland image. And, there are few things more striking than the stark contrast of a well-done silhouette. Furthermore, directional sunlight is some of the most beautiful lighting that a photographer can experience. Learn how to use the sun at any angle and you can break this rule whenever you want!
Art, by its very nature, is indefinable. If we can't make a distinction between what does or does not qualify as art, then why should we expect that fine art photography can be wholly defined by a set of rules? All of the rules that I have listed are a great way for new photographers to learn how to make better images, but once you’ve gained enough experience, you’ll see that sometimes these rules must be broken in order to create something remarkable.
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If you're thinking about moving away from photography as a hobby and into photography as a business, one of the first steps is to design a professional portfolio. Photographers of every variety – wedding, portrait, product, fine art and more – use portfolios as a way to showcase their work for galleries or potential clients. In fact, your portfolio will be one of your most important marketing tools, which means you need to make every effort to get it right. Here are a few tips that will help you put together an impressive collection of images.
1. It Starts with Quality over Quantity
The one mistake that I see most often is the portfolio that attempts to overwhelm the viewer with a plethora of images. That massive collection of photos isn't really necessary – a dozen of your best images will be much more impressive than a book of 50 mediocre photos. In fact, even if you do have hundreds of museum-quality images, you're still better off choosing a limited selection. The people looking at your body of work will find smaller collections easier to examine in detail.
2. Identifying Your Audience
The most important facet of portfolio design is your audience. Once you've identified your audience, then you'll be able to make larger decisions about what your portfolio should contain.
There are two key things to consider in regards to your audience. The first is your audience’s preferred genre. If you're a wedding photographer, for instance, then keep landscapes and abstracts out of your portfolio unless they relate to weddings in some way – like a landscape showing the wedding venue or an abstract of the wedding ring.
The second thing to consider is your audience’s preferred style. If you're presenting at a gallery that specializes in soothing natural scenes, not only would you want to avoid gritty urban photography, but you'd probably also want to focus on images that are stylistically similar to those that the gallery displays. If, on the other hand, you’re a portrait photographer, your clients will be shopping for a style that they like, which means you can safely showcase images in a variety of styles to show your versatility.
3. Print versus Digital Portfolios
Lots of beginners assume that high-tech portfolios are the more impressive way to go – high-resolution images on a thumb drive that you can show on a large TV or monitor, or even an iPad loaded with your best photographs. However, there is something special about a high-quality print that you'll never replicate with a digital display. In fact, the allure of a printed photograph is likely the reason that digital photo frames aren't more popular!
Prints also come with several major advantages. People can look at your photographs under various types of lighting and they can more easily flip back and forth through your collection. If you have your portfolio mounted or you use a binder with sleeves, people will also be able to lay our images out to make a comparison or to see how well each image works with all the others.
Of course, this isn't to say that you'll never make a digital portfolio – some places do request them. And, digital portfolios have a few advantages of their own. It’s much easier to share them online or mail out DVDs to faraway clients.
4. Putting Your Portfolio Together
There are hundreds of ways to go about building a portfolio, from mounting boards to binders or hardbound printed books. To choose the right method, it helps to consider what your audience might prefer. Art buyers and gallery owners may well like mounted or matted images because they can pair your photos and rearrange them. Binders or books of mounted prints don’t offer you quite as much flexibility, but they're much easier to transport and you can find them in any number of shapes sizes and colors.
Finally, there are printed books. This option is best left for wedding or event photographers. Although a printed photo book looks nice, the print quality isn't generally as high as it is with professional photo paper. However, if you offer a book as part of your package, then a printed, hardbound portfolio can double not only as a showcase of your work, but also as a sample of the type of book your clients can expect to receive.
There are many different things to consider when putting together your portfolio. Stick with these guidelines to create a professional portfolio that impresses your clients.
In this day and age, digital photography is by far more popular than film. I must admit that I prefer digital photography for most of my work, too. However, that doesn't mean that film is without its advantages. I believe that every photographer should try film at least once. Here are the reasons why!
1. Think Before You Shoot
One of the biggest reasons that I think film is important is because it really forces you to think about the composition of your image before you press the shutter button. With a digital camera, you can take hundreds of shots of the same subject and choose just one as your final image. Film limits you to a roll of 24 or 36 exposures, which means that in order to conserve your film, you’ll need to envision the perfect image before you take it. That opportunity to pause and consider each shot can teach you a lot about composition.
2. Just for Fun
Film photography is every bit as much fun as digital photography, just in different ways. Film comes in so many varieties – from Kodachrome to the high-end Fuji films – that you’ll have endless new ways to experiment. It’s not just the different film speeds, but also a variety of different grains, which can add texture to your images. In addition, you’ll soon find that even the different color casts are fun to play with. One variety of film will render a scene entirely different from the next.
3. Film is Relatively Inexpensive
Many beginning photographers start with film because film is a much less expensive way to start taking photos compared to digital. Of course, over time, you can definitely run up costs by developing hundreds of rolls of film, or by building an extremely high-end darkroom. However, a professional-grade film SLR and a few nice legacy lenses will cost far less than the equivalent digital kit.
4. Film is Beautifully Imperfect
For many film photographers, the attraction to film starts with its imperfections. Things like light leaks, expired rolls of film or accidental double exposures can make some really interesting images – and the effects are all easier to accomplish because you don’t need to use editing software to add these “flaws” after the fact. In fact, there is a whole genre of photography – called “Lomography” – that is devoted to using cameras with light leaks or film that has gone bad just to see what the results will look like.
Sunflower Valley Lombardi Ranch, CA (Lomography)
5. Film Changes Your Perspective
One of the greatest things about film is that it gives you an entirely different perspective on the art of photography. This sense of "differentness " – along with the limitations imposed by short rolls of film – is a powerful creative tool. Many digital photographers use film to give themselves a fresh burst of creativity. If you ever found yourself struggling with your art, shooting a roll of film might be the thing that helps you find your inspiration once more.
6. Learning the Basics
For beginners, film is a great way to learn the three pillars of exposure. It starts with the film speed – film’s ASA is similar to digital’s ISO, except for the fact that you can only change your ASA (film speed) by changing rolls of film. This means that rather than setting your camera on the automatic mode, you’ll need to learn how to adjust the shutter speed and aperture around the predetermined ASA rating. Beginners that learn on digital cameras often find their growth stunted because it’s too easy to let the camera do all the work. (Read More: Learning to Balance Exposure with ISO)
7. For the Experience
It’s hard to call yourself a professional – or even a skilled hobbyist – if you’ve only experimented with half of the tools available to you. A digital photographer that has never once tried to shoot a roll of film is like a painter that has only used a handful of paint brushes rather than trying brushes in all shapes and sizes. If you try film photography for no other reason, try it for the experience. Even if film isn’t your favorite way to create art, the things that you learn will be invaluable to your creative skillset.
When working with color photographs, it’s easy to simply choose a dominant color or a color cast without thinking too much about why certain colors work and how they affect our perception of an image. However, when manipulated skillfully, color has the ability to transform a dull image into something more dynamic. Color doesn’t just set the mood. It creates a visually attractive image or make certain elements within the image stand out more than others. Instead, when the right shades are chosen, a great color photograph is full of life and emotion. I'll show you three of the things that I consider as I create color images.
Color Psychology
As you're composing a photo, it’s important to understand how color psychology works. At the basic level, most colors can be categorized as warm or cool. For the most part, cool colors like blue, green or purple tend to have a relaxing effect while reds, oranges, and yellows are warm and exciting colors.
However, if you dig a little deeper into color psychology, you'll find that each color has its own set of emotions – some colors even cause physiological responses. Red, for instance, signifies danger, confrontation or passion. Viewers often experience a slight increase in heart and breathing rates when viewing the color red. Green, on the other hand, is a calming color. Researchers have noted that green doesn't strain the eyes as much as any other color and it can even help improve a viewer’s vision. In lighter shades, green is usually associated with the natural world, but darker shades of green often lend a sense of wealth to an image.
As you can see, every color – and all the shades in between – has a unique set of properties. When it comes to color photography, the most effective images are those that use color to evoke particular emotions or responses.
Color Balance
No matter how you utilize colors as you take a photograph, it is always possible to further manipulate the color balance during post processing. By adjusting the color balance, you can warm up cool photos, cool down warm ones or make warmly balanced photos even warmer. Use color balance in conjunction with color psychology to enhance or modify a photo’s mood or emotion.
For instance, an image of a cool green landscape is relaxing and refreshing. By warming the photo’s overall tone, you can make it seem more inviting. Wintertime photography – images of snow and ice – tend to look cold based on their subject material alone, but if you adjust the color balance towards the cool end of the spectrum, you can make those cold images seem downright frigid and remote.
Color Intensity
The intensity of your colors (or the saturation) also contributes to the overall effect of your image. Boost a photo’s saturation, and depending on the subject material and the colors you've chosen, your photo could be more lively, it may have a richer or bolder look, or it may look almost cartoonish. When you increase saturation, photos generally appear more cheerful, exciting or lavish.
Desaturation has the reverse effect. In many instances, photographers actually tone down the colors to give their images a moody look. Desaturation can also make a photograph seem more old-fashioned or reserved.
It is also possible to selectively saturate or desaturate particular colors or certain elements within the image. This is useful if you want to make a dominant color seem less overbearing or if you'd like to bring a particular color to the forefront of viewer’s minds. Use selective saturation and desaturation to draw attention where it’s needed, to enhance a mood or emotion, or to make an image fit into a particular theme you’ve developed.
Color manipulation is limited only to your imagination and to the thoughts and feelings that you're trying to convey. Learn everything that you can about the way colors make us think and feel, and then apply that knowledge to your art. By putting color to work in your images, you can create powerful, thought-provoking photographs.
The common advice for new and aspiring photographers is to take as many photographs as you possibly can – every day of the week if possible. For many, that means starting on a photo-a-day or 365 project. This is wonderful advice, but I don't necessarily believe that it is limited to beginners only. Even professionals can benefit from something like a photo-a-day project. Especially professionals, since I think that the tendency to become involved in the business side of photography means that we don't always make time to create images each day.
The best part about photo-a-day projects (aside from the ability to polish your skills even further) is that they don’t need to be a yearlong commitment. And, you don't need to wait until January 1 to start your project. You can get started right now! If you're having trouble settling into a daily photo project, I'll show you some of the benefits that you could be missing.
Learning to Be Creative on the Fly
When you have to take at least one photograph each day, you'll quickly realize that you don't have time to wait for the exact right moment to come along and you'll discover that bursts of inspiration are often few and far between. I realize this sounds bad; after all, who would want to create art when not inspired? Isn’t photography all about the pursuit of the perfect moment?
Those two points have their merits, but the simple truth is that as a photographer, you’re going to run into scenes or subjects that aren't exactly the way you want them to be. By tackling a photo-a-day project, you'll learn how to be more creative when things aren't perfect. You’ll then be able to apply that on-demand creativity to other stressful situations, like a photoshoot with a client in which you only have an hour to create something magical – even if the weather, your inspiration or the model isn’t cooperating!
365 Projects Increase Your Perception
We've all had days where we just can't find something interesting to photograph. For whatever reason, nothing stands out and all the little details that normally make fascinating subject material remain hidden. Daily photo projects help you get past those blockades. When you know that you’re going to take a photo every single day, you'll start to look at life a little bit differently. Rather than just glazing over your everyday surroundings, you’ll start to actively search for all the little details that make life rich.
Building Good Habits
How many times have you missed an amazing opportunity simply because you didn’t have your camera with you? Probably more times than you’d care to admit! A daily photo project helps you build good habits, not only in regards to creativity and perception, but also when it comes to always having a camera ready. For some photographers, this means carrying a small camera bag with their DSLR and a couple of choice lenses. Other photographers invest in small DSLRs, high-end smartphones or point-and-shoots. However you choose to go about it, once your project is over, you may find that you continue to take a camera everywhere you go because without it, you're missing too many golden opportunities.
Stepping Outside Your Comfort Zone
One of the greatest benefits to photo-a-day projects is that the project forces you to explore a multitude of different subjects rather than just focusing on a couple of your favorite things. Sometimes it’s hard enough to find time to visit a favorite location once a week. It’s unlikely that you'll be able to visit your favorite natural area or photograph your favorite subject day after day. As long as you place no limits on your subject material, you might find yourself doing street photography one day, macro images the next and nighttime photography the day after that.
Building a Portfolio
Most photographers do daily projects to polish their skills, but you may choose to do your project as a way to build a large and diverse body of work. There are several benefits to building a large portfolio: First, you'll have plenty of images across a variety of genres should you ever need to show them to potential clients or art buyers.
The other – and arguably larger benefit – is that you'll have a progression of your own work to study. Compare the first images in your project to your most recent images, and you'll be able to see how you've grown or how your style has changed.
Daily photo projects give you endless ways to learn and grow as a photographer. Start a project today, and whether you continue photographing daily for the next month or the next year, you'll see improvements by the end of the project.
We have hundreds of geese each year at our pond.
Autumn is almost upon us! For photographers, that means a season full of colorful foliage, harvest-themed photos and more. The problem with this season is that it’s fleeting – the wonderful sights are here one week and gone the next. I'll show you a few tips that will help you make the most of this beautiful time of the year.
1. Don't Fear the Clouds
For the photographer in search of colorful foliage photos, overcast days can be just as good – and sometimes even better – than sunny days. Since the lighting is neutral and even, it tends to make colors pop whereas on sunny days, the golds, oranges and reds tend to blend together. Just make sure that you keep large expanses of white sky out of your photos on cloudy days – focus more on the colors and other interesting sights that come with autumn.
The Duquesne Incline, Pittsburgh, PASam and I took this photo a few years ago while visiting my alma mater.
2. Fall is More than Foliage
During the fall, the foliage takes center stage, but keep in mind that there are many other opportunities for gorgeous images. You could go with a harvest theme by photographing pumpkins, gourds, cornstalks and hay. The autumn wilderness is also filled with many interesting opportunities – chipmunks, wild mushrooms, pinecones, fruits and nuts, migrating birds and much more.
Our friend Chippy
3. Look for Water
Water is a wonderful subject in any season, but during the fall, it really comes alive. A still lake makes a beautiful reflecting pool for fall foliage. In the mornings, look for mist rising from warm bodies of water. This will help you add a sense of mystery to your shots. Rivers come with even more opportunities, from leaves drifting in the lazy current to the wildlife that stops for a drink along the colorful riverbank.
4. Take Advantage of Contrasts
Landscapes that are full of yellow, orange and red are sometimes a little bland. Instead of focusing on these colors alone, look for ways to add striking contrast to your images. Focus on the one blazing red tree among a sea of yellow leaves, or photograph colorful leaves against a bright blue sky or green grass. The more you look, the more contrasts you'll find – gray rocks in a stream reflecting golden leaves, bright white mushrooms against earthen tones and more.
Here's a portrait from the heart of West Virginia with Rachel.
5. Experiment with Backlighting
If you do happen to go out on a bright, sunny day, use the sun to your advantage. Some of the most beautiful fall photos are those that show sunlight streaming through leaves or the petals of fall flowers. Seedpods and tall grasses also make excellent backlit subjects, particularly if they're covered in early morning dew or frost.
Autumn is a beautiful time of year, particularly for those of us who love to document God's creation in all it's glory. Take the time to go out and shoot at the peak of the fall color – rain or shine! – and you'll quickly develop a well-rounded portfolio of breathtaking fall-themed images.
Dendrite: Photo taken from my father's rock museum.
How does one define the abstract? That’s a question that artists have struggled with for centuries. In its purest form, an abstract photograph's subject is often unrecognizable. The beauty derives not from the subject itself, but from its shapes, textures or colors. The work of Henry Holmes Smith is a great example of this – many of his images are mysterious studies in light. Others – like this image on the right – focus purely on lines, shapes and patterns rather than portraying a subject as a whole.
Abstract photography doesn't require an unrecognizable subject, however. In fact, in many of the most beautiful abstract images, the primary subject is easily discernable, even though the photo itself forces you to look at specific aspects of the image such as the play between light and shadow or the stark contrast between colors.
Knowing this, we can safely say that abstract photography is not about obscuring your subject. Instead, it’s about creating an image that makes you look at never-before-seen aspects of that subject.
To put this in perspective, imagine that you’re taking a photo of a rock formation. A typical photo would show the formation’s most interesting parts, a bit of the sky and whatever landscape elements fit within the frame. An abstract of this same scene, however, would seek to isolate parts of that rock formation – perhaps the swirls made by different layers of rock, the contrast between smooth rocks and rough ones or the difference in color between the rusty rock and the bright blue sky.
Why You Should Experiment with the Abstract
No matter what your favorite subject or genre is, you'll find that it is well worth your time to learn a little bit more about abstract photography and how you can apply it to your work. The wonderful thing about abstract images is that they cross borders between genres. Any subject at all – the human form, landscapes, urban photography, wildlife and more – can be rendered abstract simply by focusing on a part of the whole image. This means that no matter where you are or what you are photographing, if the scene before you just isn’t coming together, you can instead look more deeply into the scene to find the unique hidden elements. I’ve found that this is often a great way to work through a creative block.
Abstract photography is also a wonderful way to train your photographic eye. Simply searching for something abstract in an otherwise mundane scene forces you to look at your subjects in new and unusual ways. If you spend enough time searching for abstraction, you'll find that you have a wealth of new insights when you go back to shooting other things.
How to Create Abstract Art
If you'd like to create abstract photographs, there are a few things to consider:
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Elements to be included
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Complexity versus simplicity
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Degrees of abstraction
Most abstract imagery focuses on just one or two things. That is, rather than photographing an entire building, you might instead create an image that shows the differences in the colors of the shingles on that building’s roof. Instead of taking a photo of a tree, try capturing the way sunlight streams through a leaf or the interesting patterns that you find in the bark. Narrow down the number of elements that you include, but as you do so, make sure that each remaining element adds something of interest.
When it comes to complexity, the sky is the limit. Some abstracts are very minimalistic. That is, they focus on shapes or on contrasts between colors. Other abstracts rely on complex patterns, a myriad of interlocking shapes or a rainbow of colors. For instance, if you take a photo of a printed circuit board such as you'd find in most modern electronics, you'll have several options. You can zoom in and focus on the way the gold circuits contrast with the green of the board or you can zoom out so that viewers can admire the intricacies of the entire board. You can also use colored lighting, a narrow depth of field or any other effect to highlight or isolate parts of the board.
The final thing to consider is the degree to which you want to take the abstraction. In some images, an easily recognizable subject takes something away from the shapes, colors or patterns you’re trying to show. In other images, viewers appreciate seeing something they know well from a completely new vantage. It’s up to you to decide which option is better based on your subject material.
Abstract photography is a form of fine art photography, but it’s also much more than that. If you teach yourself to look for abstractions, then you can use this art form as a tool to further develop your creative eye. Whether you're a portrait artist or a nature photographer, if you learn how to create abstract images, you'll see a beautiful new world of possibilities through your lens.
Helen Levitt, is one of my favorite street photographers. As a pioneer in the world of photography, she had a true propensity for capturing the essence of the subject in her work. Wonder, grace, joy, anguish, hope and love are inscribed on the faces of her subjects, as clearly as if penned on paper. This raw emotion is the inspiration that transforms a photograph from a mere snapshot to a work of art, and this is the lesson that every photographer should take from Levitt.
New York, circa 1940, © Helen Levitt. Courtesy Laurence Miller Gallery and/or powerHouse Books.
Much of Levitt's work centered on life on the streets of New York; her black and white photos from the 30's and 40's wonderfully impartial and genuine. While she did not desire to render a social statement with her photography, in hindsight she did just that. Working-class districts, children playing, people completing seemingly mundane tasks - how did photos so professedly simplistic capture the world's attention? The answer is perhaps as natural and as pure as her subjects: Levitt's work reveals what every human being sees within themselves. In her hands, a camera was an instrument used not to shape the world, but to portray it. Without special effects, fabricated poses and fictitious smiles, Levitt's work depicts the human condition in copious forms.
While Levitt's creations have stirred the imagination and inspired countless photographers, each budding artist must find their own inner virtuoso. Genuine moments simply occur, they are not staged any more than they are expected. These moments do not take on life; they are life. These are the moments that when captured, transfix and infuse the artist's audience with the very essence of the subject. This is where Levitt excelled, as the majority of her work seems to portray the mere seconds before her subjects realized they were being photographed, the juncture between poses and the details that are so often overlooked by photographers in an attempt to procure perfection. These exquisite moments occur as naturally as breathing - without direction or forethought and may be found in all places. Through her ability to manifest life through photography, Levitt gave the world not only art - but a compelling lesson in absolute and relative truth.
Perhaps the beauty of Levitt's work is that it teaches without spoken words or instruction, offering each person who is touched by her photography a challenge to seek the extraordinary in the commonplace. She famously said, "Since I'm inarticulate, I express myself with images." Each photographer does this to some degree, whether mindful or unaware as it occurs. What we are drawn to photograph, what we wish to portray in our art; it is simply an extension of ourselves and the desire to communicate just as Levitt did - by allowing our photography to speak for itself.
Learn more about Helen Levitt:
- Slide Show: The Color Photographs of Helen Levitt
- A Way of Seeing: Photographs of New York
- In the Street: Chalk Drawings and Messages, New York City, 1938–1948
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As a photographer, you’ll never stop learning. However, it is sometimes challenging to find new places or new people to learn from. That is doubly true if you're unsure where to find quality photographs. The Internet is filled with websites and galleries that are open to everyone – Flickr.com is one example. Because anyone can post images, you'll soon find that it isn't easy to sift the snapshots and amateur images from the works of art. So where do you turn to advance your knowledge of fine art photography? I'll show you a few of my favorite places!
Visit Workshops
Workshops are the best places to learn more about the art of photography. For starters, you're going to the workshop to learn more about a new trick or technique. However, workshops offer more than just an educational opportunity. Normally, the professionals that are hosting the workshop will have a collection of their own images on display, and many of the workshop’s attendees will bring along their portfolios in hopes of sharing and receiving constructive criticism.
Check Out Museums in Your Area
You don't necessarily have to visit the Museum of Modern Art or other famous museums, but you should check out whatever museums are available in your area. Larger facilities will sometimes have collections by famous photographers and they may even host exhibitions of famous work throughout the year. Smaller museums usually display nice collections by local artists.
Tour Art Galleries
Galleries are a little tricky because not all are created equally. Some “galleries” are actually consignment shops where anyone can display anything as long as they're willing to rent space from the shop’s owner. This means that, while many consignment shops have nice images for you to peruse, others may display more amateurish work. Look for galleries that exclusively represent certain artists and actively market their collection to fine art aficionados. In general, the more exclusive the gallery, the more likely it is that you will find something truly exceptional.
Develop a Long Reading List
If there aren't many galleries, museums or workshops in your area (or you'd like even more exposure to fine art photography), there is a wealth of published material awaiting you. Start with books of images by famous photographers. Check out well-known photography magazines and websites. Before too long, you'll have plenty of learning materials to browse.
Go Directly to the Source
If you've tried everything that I listed above, you'll start to build a list of photographers that you admire. You can use that information to browse your favorite artists’ websites. Follow their work, and you'll soon learn what differentiates an average photograph from a work of art.
As you spend more time browsing fine art photography, you'll develop a deeper understanding of current trends and the subtle nuances that turn average images into amazing ones. With that knowledge, you'll be able to propel your own art to greater heights.
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Reenactors are sometimes called living historians. These men and women bring some of the history’s greatest moments to life, right before our very eyes. Civil War reenactment, for instance, has a history as old as the Civil War itself. Even before the war ended, soldiers acted out past battles as a way to remember and show respect to their lost brethren.
Reenactments aren’t limited to just the Civil War, however. While the Civil War is one of the most popular forms of reenactments, many groups come together to reenact other historically significant events. In fact, I've recently had the honor of attending and capturing some awesome D-Day reenactment photos in Conneaut, Ohio.
For the photographer, historical reenactments are a wonderful way to transform history into art. If you'd like to learn some tips and tricks to help you create amazing images at a reenactment, here are a few of my favorites!
1. Mind the Crowds
One of the most challenging parts of shooting a reenactment is finding a location where you can set up, move around quickly and avoid onlookers that accidentally wander into the frame. To avoid this problem, I call the media department of the reenactment that I'll be attending. By offering them use of my photos for advertising purposes, they'll tell me where the best vantages are and give me behind-the-scenes access. And, because I’m giving the reenactors permission to use my photos, I still retain ownership and credit for taking the photos. This trick has worked at almost every reenactment I've ever attended.
2. Plan, Learn and Tell a Story
When I go to a reenactment, I always try to take a collection of images that tells a story. To do this well, you'll need to learn everything possible about the reenactment and its historical significance. Start by studying the event’s brochures, website, and other literature. It is also helpful to learn everything you can about the actual historical event and its time period. As you look through your lens, make it your goal to lead viewers through the event.
3. Choose the Right Lens
A good reenactment is action-packed. You won't have time to do lots of lens changes, and you may not want to carry a massive camera bag around all day. Plus, marching soldiers, galloping horses and gun and cannon fire, the atmosphere gets dusty and dirty quickly, which means that even if you can do a lens change, you may not want to fill the inside of your camera with dust.
Therefore, I'd recommend taking a long zoom lens – perhaps an 18-200mm lens that can capture both wide shots and those that are far away. If you don't have a long zoom lens, choose two or three lenses that let you capture a wide range of focal lengths. You may even want to carry two cameras – one with a long lens and one with a short lens – simply to avoid lens changes.
4. Raise Your ISO
To capture the bursts of flame, galloping horses and plumes of smoke, you'll need to shoot with a fast shutter speed. You could stop down the aperture, but as you do so, you'll end up with a progressively narrower depth of field. The best option is to preserve a wide depth of field and raise the ISO setting instead.
5. Your Vantage
Some photographers take the vast majority of their shots at the 5-foot 10-inch (or standing) angle. However, you can add a lot of dynamism by varying your angles. Squat or lay down on the ground to get a unique viewpoint.
You may also want to shoot from high vantage points, like from the top of bleachers or a grandstand, or from a hilltop looking down into a valley. This gives you the chance to create wonderful panoramic images of the action. However, don't trap yourself! If you choose to shoot from a high place, make sure that you can quickly access other vantage points if you need to get back on the same level as the reenactors.
6. Facial Expressions
The best reenactors aren’t simply acting. These men and women travel back in time to live the event that they're portraying. If you focus on facial expressions, you'll have many great opportunities to capture the raw emotion of the event. Think about the anger or fear that soldiers feel as battle lines meet in the field or the seriousness of officers discussing strategy. If you capture these emotions, you'll end up with a powerful collection of images.
7. The Background
We still live in the modern day world, which means that there are many ways for modern trappings to sneak into your images – a car sitting behind the battle lines or a spectator wandering through the frame in a modern outfit, looking at his smartphone. Be conscious of the background at all times and make sure to angle yourself away from parking areas, crowds of spectators and other things that can ruin the historical effect.
Historical reenactments give you the unique opportunity to capture living history with your lens. Take a step back in time and document the stories of the brave men and women that took part in history’s greatest moments.
I took over 3,000 photos that weekend. Click Here to view some of the photos from the D-Day event.
Cincinnati, OH ObservatoryThe heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. - (Psalm 19:1)
Rachel and I enjoyed watching the Perseid Meteor Shower at the Cincinnati, OH Observatory.
The night sky is full of marvels. Not just the stars, but also the moon, the constellations, the Milky Way, meteor showers and much more. Words or paintings simply can't capture the exquisite beauty of the starry sky. But a photographer can – particularly one who is armed with the right equipment and the right knowledge. If you'd like to explore the endless wonders of the nighttime sky, I'll show you everything you need to get started!
The Equipment You'll Need
To capture the stars, you'll need some basic equipment. All nighttime photography kits start with a tripod – you'll need it to stabilize your camera during long exposures. You should also invest in a remote shutter release so that you don't jostle your camera by pressing the shutter button.
After that, it’s down to lens choices. Most photographers use a wide-angle lens (24mm or wider) to take landscape shots that include wide expanses of the sky. However, if you'd like to zoom in on a particular feature – the moon, for instance – then you'll need a long lens. A 200mm lens will make the moon seem larger than normal and it may even reveal a few details on the moon’s surface. If you want an image that shows texture (craters and the like), then you'll need to use an extremely long focal length or you'll need to use several teleconverters with your 200mm lens.
Choosing a Time and Place
Morro Bay, CaliforniaThe town's most striking feature is Morro Rock, a 576 foot high volcanic plug. Morro Rock stands at the entrance to the harbor, and a causeway connects it with the shore. Previously, it was surrounded by water, but the northern channel was filled in to make the harbor. The Rock, as locals call it, was quarried from 1889 to 1969. There is no public access to the rock itself because it is a reserve for the locally endangered peregrine falcon. However, the area around the base of Morro Rock can be visited. Every few years, someone is caught trying to climb the rock. Climbers risk more than fines or jail time as the rocks that form Morro Rock are loose and fall down regularly. The base of Morro Rock is littered with fallen boulders. It is one in a series of similar plugs that stretch in a line inland called the Nine Sisters.
Choosing a location is relatively simple. Start by looking for an area that is completely devoid of light sources – house lights, streetlights and more. You should also make sure that your vantage point offers a broad view of the sky, even if you plan to include part of the landscape in your shot.
Picking the right time, however, is a little more difficult. The skies will need to be clear and you’ll need to pay attention to the moon. If you’re photographing stars, do it before the moon rises, after the moon sets or wait until the new moon. If you take photos during the full moon, the moon may be bright enough to wash out all but the brightest stars.
Which Camera Settings to Use?
If you're shooting at full dark with no nearby artificial light sources and no moonlight, then use a 30 to 60 second shutter speed as your starting point. This will give you plenty of time to fully expose the Milky Way or catch a few meteors streaking across the sky during a meteor shower.
Keep in mind that stars aren't in a fixed position throughout the night, which means that at exposures longer than 60 seconds, they'll create streaks within your images. In fact, star trails are a whole sub-genre of night sky photography. With hour-long exposures, for instance, your night sky photos will be filled with graceful arcs of light as the stars move through the sky.
Adjust your aperture based on the shutter speed, but if possible, don’t exceed f/2.8 or f/2 so that you can avoid the soft look that comes with extremely wide apertures. As to the ISO, you'll likely need to set it extremely high (around 1600) to get a good exposure. If your camera produces too much noise at this ISO, feel free to experiment with your shutter speed and aperture, or alternatively, look into noise removal software.
The night sky is full of possibilities. If you haven't yet tried to shoot the stars, now is the time to get started. Few photographic challenges are more rewarding than capturing the mystery and sparkling beauty of the night sky.
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. - Psalm 19:1
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For many photographers, the hardest part of a photographic project is settling on an idea. Fine art photography isn't so much about snapping as many photos as you can in the hope that you get the perfect shot. Instead, a good project takes lots of time, thought and research. Those three things are all part of the “creative process.” Want to learn more? I'll show you my basic creative process so that you can learn how to turn those half-formed ideas into works of art.
It Starts with Brainstorming
During the brainstorming process, put every idea on the table no matter how silly it might seem to you. Write down lists of everything that you can think to photograph. Travel around to various interesting locations and take a few test shots. Build a collection of assets that you can reference as you’re choosing a topic and refining your idea later on.
What Stands Out?
At a certain point, you'll have a long list of half-formed ideas and the test shots to prove it. Is there one idea that stands out from all the rest? If so, focus on that idea and learn everything you can about it.
For instance, if your idea is based on a historical building, then spend time – hours or days – visiting that building and learning everything you can about it. Visit the library or research online to learn about the building's history. By getting to know your subject intimately, you'll know exactly how to turn that subject into a fantastic portfolio of images.
As you're learning about your subject, also take the time to get to know it in a photographic sense. Are there certain types of lighting or different focal lengths that work best with your subject? Experiment with photographic techniques to see which best suit your subject.
Study Your Work
At this point, with all of your learning and all of your experimental shots, you may already have a wonderful set of images based on your subject. However, if you've still looking for that perfect image, then now is the time to study all the shots that you've made. You may even want to edit a few of them, just to see how post processing changes the overall look of your subject. Use this time to look for things that stand out to you. For each image, ask yourself what you like and what you don’t like.
Let It Stew
Once you've finished your self-critique, take everything – your test images, your critiques, your knowledge about the subject – and shelve it. When speaking of this process, creative people say that they're letting the idea “stew” or “simmer.” While it seems counter-intuitive, you’re actually giving your subconscious mind the chance to work on the idea as you go about day-to-day life. You'll find that by not fixating on your project, that stroke of brilliance will come when you least expect it – perhaps while you're taking a shower or while you're making dinner in the evening.
When that moment of genius hits, start photographing! With all the time, thought and effort you've put into the project – and the inspiration you gained by allowing the idea to rest – you'll be able to create an amazing and unique collection of images.
Breaking Away From the Clichés
Estimates back in 2014 revealed that up to 880 billion photos would be taken throughout the year – and with the availability of digital cameras, those numbers are expected to rise higher this year, next year and on into the future. Such a staggering volume of images means that inevitably, some subjects will become clichés.
Yet as fine art photographers, it’s our job to explore the world in new, unique ways. Some days, however, that tidal wave of images being taken around the globe makes it seem impossible to find something new. Want to break away from all the photographic clichés? Here are some things to think about.
A New Angle on an Old Subject
One way to avoid clichés is to take your old, tired subjects and find an entirely new way to photograph them. In theory, this sounds easy, but in practice, it’s one of the hardest ways to break away from clichéd subjects.
For instance, when you look at a flower, can you find an aspect of that flower that no one has ever really looked at before? Undoubtedly, hundreds of photographers before you have photographed similar flowers from every angle and at every magnification, right down to the flower’s microscopic grains of pollen. Finding a new angle is possible, but it is sometimes so extraordinarily difficult that you may be better off just finding a new subject entirely.
Remember: Photography is an Expression of Life
As an expression of life, photography is only limited by life itself. In other words, you can create images of any aspect of life that you can imagine, from the patterns you find in brick walls to the way people carry their shopping bags.
With that thought in mind, think about the facets of the world around you that haven't been well documented. Some photographers have made amazing studies of things that no one thinks about on a day-to-day basis, such as reflections in glassware or the way cars line themselves up in parking lots.
Photography Doesn't Have to Be Beautiful
The misconception that photography needs to be beautiful leads to clichéd subjects simply because everyone wants to take that perfect flower photo or make an amazing image of a sweeping landscape. And, there is nothing wrong with that! I have collections of images like this, as do most photographers. However, conventional beauty isn't the only way to add depth or meaning to your photographs. As I said before, photography is an expression of life and not all aspects of life are beautiful.
For instance, most people would agree that images of war and destruction aren't beautiful. Similarly, photos of abandoned, decaying factories aren't conventionally beautiful either. However, that lack of traditional beauty doesn’t make these kinds of images any less artistic or any less meaningful than an image of the sun setting over the ocean. Break away from the idea of traditional beauty and you may find yourself photographing something new and wonderful that no one has ever seen before.
Breaking away from clichés is the hardest thing for any photographer to do. After all, if we didn’t like looking at images of flowers, sunsets and snow-covered landscapes, we wouldn’t take these types of photos. However, to create a body of work that stands out from the billions of images taken each year, you'll need to create something different. Use your lens to explore every aspect of the world around you and eventually, you'll stumble across a new and wonderful concept.
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Bixby Creek Bridge at Big Sur, CA
You've heard it before: Whenever possible, always create RAW files rather than JPEGs. The reason given is that camera RAWs give you much more data to work with, which in turn means that you can do a lot more in the digital darkroom. The same is true if you look back at film photography. One of the reasons that JPEGs and digital images were so exciting to the first digital photographers is that you can do so much more with a JPEG than with film.
To put it all into perspective, I'll show you some of the limits that early film photographers have to work with. You'll also see how RAW files represent a leap in technology at least as great as the leap from film to digital.
The Early Days
Today, to access our “negatives,” all we need to do is plug the camera or the memory card into a computer to download the stored image files. If you carry a laptop with you or you happen to be shooting in a studio, you’re never more than a moment away from being able to edit your images.
However, in the early days, long before digital cameras were ever conceived, film development was the only way to access the images that you had created. This time-consuming endeavor required you to chemically process your film into negatives so that you could later use them to edit and print photos. It also required a darkroom full of equipment, or for the photographers on the go, such as Timothy O’Sullivan, a horse-drawn wagon that was converted into a mobile darkroom. Quite a far cry from today’s digital darkroom, which consists of a desktop or laptop with image editing software!
When it came to the actual editing process, photographers were very limited as to the things that they could do. For instance, many of the effects that we know and love today – like lens flares or black and white conversions – were either impossible to accomplish or extraordinarily difficult to reproduce after the image was taken. Black and white images required you to use black and white film, and rather than adding a lens flare during post processing, photographers had to judge their lighting carefully and hope that their judgment calls produced the desired effect on film.
Once in the darkroom, however, photographers could do simple things, like dodge and burn their images. To do this, photographers had to use their hands or cardboard cutouts to shade parts of their prints as they were being developed. This was something of a trial-and-error process. If the print didn't come out just right the first time, there was no “Undo” button. Instead, photographers had to use their negatives to expose a new print and start the dodging and burning process over.
Along Came JPEGs
The digital revolution changed more than the way we take photographs. It also revolutionized the way we process them. Dodging and burning, color corrections, brightness and contrast adjustments and more are now a matter of a few simple clicks – not hours spent in the darkroom working with expensive equipment, light sensitive papers, and chemicals.
The digital darkroom also gave us a whole host of tools that those early photographers would never have thought possible. Photographers soon found that they could endlessly tweak colors, contrast and all the rest without wasting money on a photographic print. Moreover, we suddenly had the ability to add or remove objects as we pleased without carefully cutting – and potentially ruining – the negatives. If your image of an otherwise clear sky had one stray cloud, you JPEGs and editing software let you edit that cloud out or add a few more depending on your final vision for the image.
Even more remarkably, the advent of digital photography and JPEGs also meant that photographers no longer had to worry about film speeds, black and white versus color films, and the different chemical processes required to develop the different types of film. Now, instead of changing film speeds, we simply adjust the camera’s ISO setting. There is no need to shoot in black and white because any color image can be converted to black and white in seconds. The various developing processes were replaced with editing tools like Photoshop.
Modern Camera RAWs
To many, it may not seem like the transition from RAW files to JPEGs is as large as the transition from film to JPEGs. However, I’d argue that RAW files are every bit as revolutionary as JPEG files once were. Unlike RAW files, JPEGs, because of their compression, don’t record all of the information that your camera’s sensor is able to capture. This means that:
- RAW files record between 4,096 and 16,384 levels of brightness while JPEGs only record 256 levels.
- RAWs have a greater range of colors than JPEGs.
What this means is that not only can you edit in the same way that you could with JPEGs, but you can also do it in much greater detail. Consider, for instance, an image of a lightly forested area. If you exposed for the bits of sky peeking through the trees, the shaded areas under the trees are probably hidden in murky shadows. If this image is a JPEG file, it’s unlikely that you'll have enough data to bring out more details within those shadows. But if that same image is a RAW file, you should be able to not only boost the brightness within the shadowed areas but also bring out a much wider range of colors.
From film to the first digital image files and then again to today’s RAW files, each step has given photographers a major advantage when it comes to editing their photos. Will the next step open up yet another range of editing possibilities? I’m sure it will, but only time will tell how far the next generation of imaging technology will take us.
Cincinnati’s Union Station - Black and White Photography
Few things capture the essence of a rainy day like a photo of the falling rain. I don't mean images of water droplets or small rivulets, but rather photos that capture the lines and sparkle of a true downpour. Capturing the falling rain is a relatively simple process. If you'd like to create some beautiful photographs the next time it rains, I'll show you how!
Choosing Your Gear and Location
First, you'll need rain gear for yourself and your camera – especially if you plan to shoot out in the open, but also if you're shooting from under the cover of a porch or awning. You never know when a stray breeze might blow rain in all over you and your camera. Pick up a simple rain hood for your camera or failing that, use a sturdy plastic bag tied around your camera’s lens to keep everything but the front element of the lens under cover.
To get that long, streaky look that falling raindrops make, you'll need to use long shutter speeds, which means you'll need a tripod to stabilize the camera. And, if you're taking images in the daytime, a neutral density filter will help you prevent overexposed images.
The other issue you'll need to contend with is the humidity. Your lenses will almost certainly fog up, and if you do a lens change outdoors, there’s a good chance that you'll fog your camera’s mirror or allow moisture into the camera’s body.
Keep a sealed plastic bag of soft cloths on hand to clean your lens as necessary and if possible, choose a location where you can duck into a dry, air-conditioned building or vehicle to make lens changes. When you get home, remember to set all of you camera gear out to dry so that you don't end up with a nasty case of lens fungus. If you're really worried about excess moisture, save the small packets of silica gel that you get when you buy brand new shoes or bags (or buy silica gel packets online). Toss a handful of these into your camera bag when you return from your outing to soak up any moisture.
Getting the Shot
To get a great capture, start with your camera’s ISO. The object is to avoid noise since it will detract from the look that the raindrops make as they fall. Use an ISO of around 200 and adjust based on how your particular camera handles noise. Slow down your camera’s shutter speed until you're getting nice streaks of falling rain, and stop down your aperture to compensate for overexposure. If you're shooting on a particularly bright rainy day or you'd like to keep a narrow depth of field, this is where the neutral density filters come in handy – use them to lower the exposure value without stopping your aperture down further.
The process is similar if you're taking rainy photos at night. However, various lighting effects give you several more creative opportunities. Look for spots where you can use light sources to backlight the raindrops – a passing car’s headlights, streetlights, light pouring from a window – and use that light to create images with raindrops that sparkle as they fall. If you can't find any good light sources, you can mount a remotely triggered off-camera flash to a tripod or light stand (making sure to cover it with a clear plastic bag) and make your own backlighting.
Rainy day photography is surprisingly simple and infinitely rewarding. Rather than putting the camera away for the day, get out your rain gear and capture the fresh feeling that comes with a good downpour!
Any photographer that has been around a while – whether a long-time hobbyist or a seasoned professional – knows just how essential backups are. The most essential part of a good backup system is abiding by the “Rule of Threes.” In other words, you should always have three separate backups of your image files. And, because disasters do happen – a fire in your home or studio, theft or something else – at least one of those backups should be offsite.
Whether you choose cloud storage, external hard drives or more portable media like flash drives and DVDs (or a combination of several options) is a matter of personal preference. Just keep in mind that each storage option has its own set of advantages and disadvantages.
DVDs
For many years, DVDs were a favorite among photographers. However, while they still have their uses, they're rapidly becoming an antiquated storage option. They're easy to scratch or damage and they have a limited amount of space per disc. However, some photographers still like them because it’s easy to sort through a labeled, sleeved DVD archive to find a particular set of images.
Flash Drives
Flash drives are another great backup option, but they also come with a few limitations. Many flash drives don't offer all that much storage space although there are some available with a 512 gigabyte capacity, and manufacturers are predicting the release of terabyte flash drives soon. They also tend to load faster than DVDs and because of their small physical size, they're very easy to store. The largest issue with flash drives is that they come with a limited number of times that you can write to and erase them, which makes them prone to sudden failure.
Cloud Storage
For many, cloud storage is the answer. Within the cloud, you’ll find virtually unlimited storage space that is accessible anywhere you can log onto the Internet. And, depending on the storage service you choose, you may have access to sharing tools, which makes it easier for you to showcase your images online or send digital proofs to a client.
This type of storage comes with three major disadvantages. First, many photographers are concerned about data theft which, while rare, does happen on occasion. Unlike external hard drives or flash drives, cloud storage isn't a one-time purchase – expect to pay around $120 per year per terabyte. Finally, depending on your internet connection, it may take a while to back up your images – between 10 and 15 minutes per gigabyte if you have an average internet connection.
External Hard Drives
My personal favorite backup system is the external hard drive. These days, you can purchase very large drives (I use 5 TB drives with a Drobo) relatively inexpensively. They'll give you the same easy access that a flash drive does, but with more storage space and better reliability. The main drawback that I've found with this type of storage is that external hard drives can seize up if they're left unused. To get around this, I access each archived hard drive at least once per year and I replace them every five years.
Tackling the Problem of Offsite Storage
Cloud storage is the easiest way to solve the problem of offsite storage. Because your data is on someone else’s servers, you’ll always have access to it no matter what happens to your other backups. However, for reasons previously mentioned, many photographers don't like cloud storage. And, when it comes to offsite storage, smaller media like DVDs and flash drives are too easily lost or damaged.
If you're unwilling to use cloud storage, your best bet for an offsite back up is an external hard drive – or a collection of them if you have terabytes upon terabytes of images. But, to keep them offsite, where should you store them? Here are a few ideas:
- Safe deposit boxes
- If you have a studio, store offsite backups at home
- At a trusted friend or relative’s house
Personally, to keep things as safe as possible, I keep two hard drives at home, one at my parents’ home and one at my office for each year of shooting.
There are even more ways than what I've listed to approach backups. The key is to always follow the Rule of Threes and have at least one offsite storage option to ensure that your irreplaceable image files are safeguarded no matter what happens.
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ISO 100 | 135mm | f/7.1 | Canon 5D Mark III
I spotted these two beautiful Great Spangled Fritillary butterflies (Nymphalidae family) in our backyard.
Throughout its wide range of flight, the Great Spangled Fritillary is most common in July, but can be found flying from early June into September depending on location and weather conditions.
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Rachel and Sam posing for a portrait at the park.
Digital photography as we know it has only been around for about two decades. In truth, however, its origins go much deeper than that. The 1990s saw the first commercially available digital cameras, but the technology that we so often take for granted – with its unlimited storage space, live view displays and other conveniences – actually first came into being during the 1950s.
It all started with the first video tape recorders that were developed in 1952. These were the first devices to use something other than film (a coded signal on tape) as a recording medium. With a tape player, people could convert the code into a picture.
Russell A. Kirsch
Then, in 1957, a man named Russell A. Kirsch took the idea of filmless imaging a step further. His technological breakthrough – a drum scanner that sensed the differences between light and darkness in an image – created the very first digital image. This image, a portrait of his son, Walden, was black and white and very small – only 176 pixels to a side. Even though it’s primitive by today’s standards, this single image was the defining moment for digital imaging.
For the next two decades, researchers experimented with digital technology. In fact, the development of digital photography was closely related to the Space Race. Researchers developed rudimentary digital cameras that could be launched into space via satellite. Film was impractical for space photography, so scientists developed a way for the satellites to send a digital signal back to Earth.
In 1969, digital imaging technology advanced a step further when Willard Boyle and George Smith of Bell Labs developed CCD chips (charged-coupled device) that could be used in video cameras. As the technology grew more refined, it started catching on, and by 1975, the first CCD cameras were good enough that cameramen were using them for broadcast television.
The breakthrough for photographers came in December 1975 when Steven Sasson of Eastman Kodak produced the very first true digital camera using CCD chips. This camera – much like the first film camera ever made – was massive. It weighed eight pounds, it had a resolution of 0.01 megapixels and it took 23 seconds to create a digital image, which was then recorded onto a cassette.
Still, digital imaging – at least from the photographer’s viewpoint – was impractical and incapable of producing the same quality as film. It would take many more years of breakthroughs before any digital cameras became more than a curiosity. One of those breakthroughs was the Sony Mavica, created in 1981. It used two CCD chips to record images on a floppy disk. At the time, you could only store around 25 images on a disk.
Fujifilm launched the world's first fully digital consumer camera FUJIX DS-1P in 1988.
From there digital camera technology continued to evolve throughout the 1980s and 90s. Several notable cameras were developed, including the Fuji DS-1P, which had a 16 MB internal storage card and one of the world’s first CMOS sensors.
The Logitech Fotoman was also developed during this time. This was the first commercially available digital camera. It could only produce images that measured 320x240 pixels and it had one megabyte of internal memory that was only accessible if you connected the camera to a computer. That, combined with the high price tag ($1,000), and the fact that it was still far below the quality of even the simplest film cameras, meant that the Fotoman never achieved widespread popularity.
Then, in 1991, Kodak made the very first digital SLR – the DCS100. This system used a Nikon F3 with a digital back that downloaded images to a bulky storage unit. It had a 1.3-megapixel sensor, shot in color and it was marketed towards photojournalists. The storage unit had 200 MB of space, which meant fewer film changes for on-the-fly photographers.
Today, digital cameras are everywhere – not only as DSLRs and point-and-shoots but also in our phones, computers, cars, and hundreds of other places. But the digital age actually began back in 1957, and it was cameras like the Fotoman, the Fuji DS-1P, and the Kodak DCS100 that finally put these wondrous devices in the hands of photographers around the world.
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Overlooking Los Angeles and the Griffith Observatory.
The diorama effect or “diorama illusion” is an interesting way to get a new perspective on your favorite photographic subjects. This type of photography takes real-life settings and makes them look like models through clever manipulation of the depth of field, lighting and more. If you'd like to learn more about the diorama effect – or you'd like to learn how to do it yourself – I'll show you everything you need to know about the diorama effect!
The History of Dioramas and Diorama Photography
When you look at the history of dioramas, you'll see a familiar name: Louis Daguerre, the father of the daguerreotype and modern photography. In addition to the daguerreotype, Daguerre also created the first dioramas. His dioramas, however, were quite different from modern models. His creations consisted of layered landscape paintings mounted on a turntable. People came to a specialized theater to watch as different lighting and color effects brought the moving paintings to life.
Today, dioramas are much less complex but just as beautiful. Visit a natural history museum and you'll see carefully modeled animals and scenery that is made to look like the real thing.
So how did the diorama illusion come about? It started with Hiroshi Sugimoto, a photographer famous for taking lifelike photos of museum dioramas. He realized that when you look at a diorama through the camera’s eye – and you omit anything that could anchor it to reality, like museum signs of the edges of the display case – you could make a photograph of a diorama look real.
Today’s diorama effect works on that same principle but in reverse – photographers take images of real things, but they carefully manipulate the images to make the real thing look like a miniature or a model.
Why Create the Diorama Illusion?
The diorama illusion is something that I've always enjoyed. Many people would ask, “Why would you want to take something real and make it look fake?” I’ve found many answers to that question. For one thing, it’s fun! But more seriously, I think that employing the diorama effect gives us an entirely different perspective on the subject of the image. The subject matter takes on a different meaning, and because we're looking at it in a different way, we tend to examine the “miniaturized” subject a little more closely.
Old St. Louis County CourthouseThe Old St. Louis County Courthouse was built as a combination federal and state courthouse in St. Louis, Missouri. Missouri's tallest habitable building from 1864 to 1894, it is now part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial and operated by the National Park Service for historical exhibits and events.
Such is the case with a photo that I took of the Old St. Louis County Courthouse. My family and I were on vacation, visiting the St. Louis Arch, and when I saw the courthouse, I knew that I had to use the diorama illusion to bring out this building’s old-fashioned charm.
Another time, on a school field trip, I found myself on a hillside overlooking Los Angeles and the Griffith Observatory. As I looked down at the Observatory, I knew that this was another chance to use the diorama illusion to add something new to an otherwise well-photographed scene.
How to Simulate the Miniature Look
The concept behind the diorama effect is a simple one. In essence, there are four factors that you'll use to create the miniaturized look. First, most models are viewed from above, and they're also viewed under lighting other than sunlight. Models and dioramas also tend to have brighter, less realistic colors, and because your eye is drawn to one element at a time – a building, a person or something else – your peripheral vision blurs the foreground and background. The following steps will show you how to use those four factors to create the diorama illusion with Photoshop and Topaz Lens Effects.
- Start by choosing a high vantage point in relation to the object you intent to photograph.
- Once you've taken the image, import it into your photo editing software to adjust the depth of field.
- In the Filter menu, scroll down to Blur and choose the Tilt-Shift filter.
- Use the cursor to click on the area that you'd like to keep in focus.
- Adjust the blur to your liking – normally 15 to 20 PX is sufficient.
- Click OK to apply the tilt-shift effect.
- Use either Photoshop’s lighting and saturation adjustments or the Topaz Labs Adjust plugin to adjust the image’s tone and brightness.
When finished, the original image of an everyday scene should look like a miniaturized model version of itself! And, if you don't have access to Photoshop, you can still create the diorama illusion using photoFXlab and the Lens Effects plugin from Topaz Labs!
The diorama effect is easy to apply to your images. Moreover, you'll find that the final image has a lot of character – more so than your average photo taken from a high vantage. The next time you find yourself looking down on an interesting building or cityscape, try creating the diorama illusion yourself!
There are a lot of things you can use as clues in identifying old photographs. Hairstyles, clothing styles, and the type of photograph it is are just a few of them. Knowing the photo studio that took the photo can be another big, important clue in identifying the people in a photograph. You may not think the photo studio or name of the photographer is important in photo identification, and in modern photography, it really isn’t, since most modern photos are taken by family members or friends with their own cameras. In the 19th century, however, going to a photo studio was the only way to get your photo taken, so knowing the studio that took the photo becomes an important clue in your search.
Many times, the back of an old photograph will have the name of the photographer or the name of the studio on the back of it. This was an important way of photographers advertising themselves. When people had their photographs taken in the 19th century, they would show them to their friends and family, and point out the name of the photographer on the back to recommend him. During and after the Civil War, when it became possible to make copies of photos, the distribution of photocopies to loved ones served as almost a business card for the photographer who took the photos.
Most photography studios in the 19th century operated independently, in one town, for a certain number of years. If you have an old 19th-century photograph with the name (and sometimes the address) of the photographer or photography studio on the back, you can research that photographer and/or studio. You will usually be able to find information on it online, or by calling the area’s local historical society, archives, or genealogy library.
When you get the location of the photography studio, you can do additional research to determine where the next closest studio was located. This will give you an idea of what towns likely used that particular studio. If you discover the dates the studio operated, it will tell you the time frame in which the photo had to be taken. Both of these clues will help you narrow down the possible identities of the person or people in the photo.
When you combine the information you received about the photography studio with the approximate ages, hairstyles, clothing styles, and photographic type, you will have a nice collection of clues that can allow you to identify the person or people in the photograph with a strong degree of reasonable certainty. If you know the branch of your family the photograph came from and where they lived, and discover the photograph was taken near where they lived, that is a strong clue. If it was taken far away, it could be photos of friends of your family members or distant relatives who moved away.
Knowing the photographer or photography studio is an important clue in identifying old photographs. Use it, and be amazed at what you discover in your family.
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How to Take Fireworks Photos Like a Pro, Part 2Whether you own a high-end DSLR or a smartphone camera, you can take great images at fireworks displays. These tips and tools will help you capture many bright, colorful fireworks photos!
Equipment and Other Tools for Taking Fireworks Photos with Any Camera
If you read the first part of this series, then you’re familiar with the settings, lenses and other tools you’ll need to take great shots at the next Fourth of July fireworks display. However, there are a few other things that you’ll need to think about, including your vantage point and how to stabilize your camera or smartphone. And, if you’re using a smartphone or point-and-shoot camera, there are a few tips that can make the difference between muddy images and crystal-clear bursts of light and color. Use the tips below, and you’ll capture fantastic photos no matter what camera or device you're using!
1. Picking a Vantage
If possible, head for high ground. This puts you above trees and other obstacles, and it also gives you a better angle to the fireworks, which makes for more dynamic images.
The other consideration is the smoke. Before you head out, check which way the wind will be blowing. Make sure that it’s blowing away from you; otherwise, the smoke from the explosions will cloud your images. This comes with an added bonus: The clouds of smoke, because they are reflective, often make great backdrops for the fireworks.
2. Use a Tripod
smartphone camera tripod
As with any type of long-exposure photography, a tripod is a must for fireworks shows. Even if you’re using a smartphone camera, you can still find tripods that mount directly to the phone. Use them to keep your camera motionless and your images clear.
3. Settings for Smartphones and Point-and-Shoots
If you’re using a point-and-shoot camera or a smartphone camera, you'll need access to many of the same controls that a DSLR has. For the most part, point-and-shoots have all those controls. Look for a “manual mode” that will allow you to have complete control over your camera’s settings.
For smartphones (both Android and IOS), you can download apps that give you more control over the phone’s camera. Bear in mind that while many phones have fixed apertures, you should still be able to adjust the ISO and shutter speed using either the phone’s native camera app or one that you downloaded. Camera FV-5 for Android and my favorite PureShot for ISO.
4. Using Burst Mode
Most smartphones and point-and-shoots don’t have a bulb setting or an option to use a remote shutter release. In that case, try using the burst mode instead. When activated, your phone or camera’s burst mode will take a series of images without you needing to move or handle the device. Once you have several sets of images, you can pick and choose from among the best frames.
Are you ready to go out and capture some great fireworks images of your own? It doesn’t matter what kind of camera you have – a high-end DSLR or the camera that comes with your phone. As long as you know the right settings and techniques, you’ll be creating bright, colorful fireworks photos in no time.
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Cincinnati's Innovative 19th-century Landmark PhotoMy lovely wife took me to see the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge in Cincinnati. It spans the Ohio River between Cincinnati, Ohio and Covington, Kentucky. We didn't get a chance to walk across it but the first pedestrians crossed it on December 1, 1866. At that time it was the longest suspension bridge in the world at 1,057 feet. This is an amazing place to visit. That evening we saw a steamboat carrying passengers down the river. I hope you enjoy the photo!
Camera Settings and Tools For Amazing Fireworks Photos
Fireworks are one of the most challenging subjects you'll ever put in front of your lens. Between the darkness, the motion of the fireworks and even the limitations of your equipment, it’s tough to create truly outstanding photos of these colorful midair bursts. Still, when you do get that one amazing image, the reward is more than worth it. The following tips will help you capture many outstanding images during the next Fourth of July fireworks display or any other explosive event!
1. Aperture and ISO
Above all else, you'll want images that are sharp and noise-free, which can be difficult to achieve at night. Moreover, fireworks burst and fade quickly, so the quicker you can find the right balance of settings, the more great images you'll take. Start with an ISO of 200 and an aperture of f/11. You can adjust up or down from there as needed.
2. Use the Bulb Setting
You can use fixed shutter speed settings, but what if the shutter opens too late or closes too early? Rather than timing each shot, use the bulb setting instead. Activate the shutter release when you hear the fireworks launch, and keep the shutter open for three, four or five bursts. If your exposure turns out over of underexposed, keep the shutter open for more or fewer bursts as needed.
3. Choosing the Right Lens
The lens focal length depends on two things: Your distance from the fireworks, and how spread out or confined the bursts are. Use a focal length of up to 200mm if you’re quite a distance away or use a shorter lens if you’re closer. If the fireworks are bursting all over the sky, use a wider lens to make sure you capture them. However, if the bursts are confined to one spot, you can safely zoom in to fill more of the frame.
4. Skip the Autofocus
If you use autofocus, you’re likely to miss bursts as the system fishes for a focus lock. Instead, focus your lens to infinity and make manual adjustments as needed.
5. Image Stabilization and Noise Reduction
If your camera has these features, use them to shoot the fireworks show. Nighttime photography is notorious for noise and blurred images caused by camera shake. Both noise reduction and image stabilization will go a long way towards fixing those problems. Only use the image stabilization setting when you're not using a tripod.
6. Remote Shutter Releases
Remote Shutter Release
Remote shutter releases are invaluable when it comes to long exposure photography because they ensure that you won’t accidentally jostle the camera when pressing the shutter release. Use it if you have one, but if you don’t, set your camera’s timer for two seconds so that it stops moving between the times you press the shutter release and when the shutter actually opens.
Fireworks photography is challenging, but the gorgeous photos are something that you can enjoy for a lifetime. In the next post, I’ll show you some of the accessories you’ll need, and what to do if you’re using a smartphone or point-and-shoot camera.
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The beauty of high dynamic range (HDR) imagery is that it lets you capture a much wider exposure range than a normal photograph. While the process for creating an HDR photo sounds complex, it’s actually very simple. In this quick tutorial, I'll show you not only how to create these beautiful images, but also how to avoid some of the common problems that result in an unrealistic HDR image.
Bracketing Your Photos
The first step to creating an HDR photograph is to take a series of bracketed images. If you’re capturing a sunrise, for instance, use a tripod and take photos across a range of exposure values to ensure that each element in the photo is properly exposed in at least one of the bracketed frames. This means that you may need to take two or three images for the sky and several more for your subject and the foreground so that you can ensure nothing is lost to blown out highlights or deep shadows.
Creating the HDR Image
Once you have a series of bracketed images to work with, use Photoshop or similar software to merge them. To do this in Photoshop, go to the File menu, scroll down to Automate and choose the Merge to HDR option. You'll be able to select images, and the software will import and align them.
As you’re importing the images, make sure to select the 32-bit option from the dropdown menu to the right of the preview window. This will ensure that your image has as much data as possible when you're ready to start making adjustments. Once you're satisfied with the preview, click the OK button in the lower right corner to merge your images to HDR.
Adjusting Color and Exposure
Once you’ve created the HDR image, you're free to adjust color and exposure in whatever way you like. This is where you'll start to see the advantages to this type of photography. A 32-bit file made from several bracketed exposures means that you'll have tons of room to adjust color, contrast, shadows and highlights without losing details. In a normal image, there simply isn’t enough data in blown out or shadowed areas to preserve fine details like tree branches or foliage.
Avoiding the Over Processed Look
When you're creating an HDR image, it’s very easy to push things a little too far. We've all seen HDR images that have wild colors or bright halos around buildings or landscape features. Some HDR photos look more like paintings than photographs.
To avoid this look, be careful not to push your adjustments too far. As with any other photograph, avoid oversaturating the colors and make sure that you don't overuse the contrast, brightness, shadow and highlight sliders.
Halos are another matter entirely. You'll often get them around buildings, trees or dark objects because as your software tries to choose areas with the right exposure to make the final image, it will lighten the dark objects a little too much, which results in a brighter area all around the darker subject. To correct this, be conservative with your contrast and brightness settings and as you merge the HDR image, adjust the blending options for a more natural transition between the sky and your subject.
A camera’s sensor simply can't reproduce the tonal ranges that the amazing human eye can see. HDR photography is a wonderful workaround to help you create dazzling images in otherwise difficult lighting situations.
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Clothing styles are always changing. This is as true today as it was centuries ago. Clothing styles even changed every few decades in the Middle Ages as travelers and traders brought back new clothing types from the various different places they had been. You can often identify the approximate age of a portrait painting within a decade or so simply by the style of clothing worn in it. You can do the same with 19th century photographs. You can even use different clothing styles on women to identify the approximate age of a photo. Men usually wore suits of similar appearance in photographs until the early 20th century.
When you know the approximate place in which a photo was taken, or the family from which it comes, knowing the time period in which it was taken and the approximate age of the people in it can help you identify, or at least make a good educated guess, at the identity of the people in it.
Here's how to use the clothing styles of women to aid you in identifying people in 19th century photographs.
The 1840's
Women in the 1840's wore heavy, ornate dresses with puffy sleeves, high necklines, and full bell skirts. Waistlines were hourglass shaped thanks to the popularity of whalebone corsets. Women often wore large, elaborate floppy hats, as well.
The 1850's
Wire hoop skirts started to come into fashion in this decade. They were not extremely wide in most cases, but did appear on most fashionable dresses. Decorative ribbons sewn onto sleeves and around the bottoms of the skirts were also popular. Necklines lowered somewhat, with a square neckline that was high enough to cover the bosom but low enough to reveal some skin being the most fashionable.
The 1860's
This was the era of the hoop skirt. Those wires became larger, wider, and more elaborate in this decade. Women often wore hoops so wide that two or three other women could have stood inside them. To allow the skirts to keep their shape, wooden rings or whalebone frames were often sewn into the fabric.
The 1870's
This was the decade of the bustle. Wire frames were added to the backs of dresses to make the area of the buttocks stick out considerably more than it would naturally. The fronts of the dresses were flat by comparison, but dress decorations were overall quite elaborate, with bows, ruffles, lace, ribbons, tatting, and other trimmings being added to nearly every conceivable part of the dress.
The 1880's
The skirts on dresses in the 1880's became quite narrow as practicality took precedence over appearance. More women were entering the workplace and indulging in outdoor activities in this decade, and the narrower skirts and less padding on the back of the dresses reflected this. Decorations on the dresses were still elaborate, though.
The 1890's
Plain and practical was the order of the day in fashion in this decade. Women wore either tulip skirts that were snug around the hips and thighs before blooming out into an elaborate and long, wide hem at the bottom, or blouse and skirt combinations. This is the first decade where we see blouses and skirts as separate entities instead of full, one-piece dresses on women.
It might be shocking to consider, but let’s be real for a minute: 69% of American adults are overweight.
That means weight is going to be a factor into nearly every photo shoot you do. Brides are going to worry about double chins, and in the family portraits, someone is bound to be scanning shots in search of their physical imperfections -- the ones you might not have even noticed. In a society trained on thin being the image of beauty, it might seem a bit uncomfortable to wonder about photographing obesity. You probably cringed as you typed in, “How to Shoot an Overweight Subject” or “Photographing a Large Person,” but it was with the best of intentions – you simply want your subjects to feel beautiful and happy with the resulting images.
So, let’s start here: big people know they are big. It’s always good to get a read on how the person feels about his or her weight. Are they feeling beautiful in their own skin or are they worried they are larger than they really are? If they are the ones choosing to schedule a photo session, then they are probably pretty confident with who they are.
Move Past Your Own Preferences
Perhaps you've already gotten really good at this rule every photographer must live by: you may have a photographic style, but you are shooting for the client. Get a feel for what the client wants and then keep the focus fun as you do your best to achieve it. Telling someone, “Hey, this photographic style may make you look smaller.” is just like telling a client, “Hey you might look prettier in this lighting.” Placing the focus on looks or size will make your subject uncomfortable in front of you, even if they have expressed a concern about their size in the pictures.
Focus on Comfort
A larger subject needs to feel beautiful and comfortable in front of the camera – just like anyone else you are shooting. Make sure you connect with your subjects and keep snapping away so they aren't thinking about the pictures. Pose as you go and don’t make them feel the pressure of the shot. Most of all, be careful what you are asking an overweight person to do – sitting for long periods of time, crouching and other activities might make them feel stressed or uncomfortable. Don’t test those limits because it makes self-confidence go right out the window for most people.
Consider Lighting and Angles
Lighting and angles will make or break every shot you take. Harsh lighting will amplify the prominence of dimples, wrinkles, and other small imperfections while glowing Golden Hour light smooths out the skin in a flattering way. Shooting from below a subject warps the proportions with an unflattering angle that makes the lower body and chin look larger and more prominent. You can shoot from above, where the eyes and face are the focus, but be aware that it is an overused tactic and throw in plenty of other framing options to see what looks best.
Cropping and Shielding
If you are shooting more than one subject, place the lightest and shortest subjects in the foreground to help visually balance them. If you have a subject who lacks self-confidence, use a prop or fellow subject to block part of the body in some of the shots (but, continue to focus on comfort). Try framing an image to crop out shoulders or crop to just a head shot. Make sure you provide options, though, since handing a client a bunch of headshots could be an insult if that’s not what they asked for.
Never ever ignore your client's wishes, since they will either lose faith in you as a photographer or feel even less confident in front of the camera. At the end of the day, you are photographing larger subjects just like you would anyone else, and you want them to feel stunning in front of your camera. So, get out there and make some beautiful images!
Skeleton Leaves - Click Here to learn how to make them for your next fun photography project.
Rim lighting is one of those skills that no photographer should be without. You can use this technique for any number of applications, from portraiture to product photos. No matter what subject you're photographing, there’s a great chance that a couple of rim lights can make your images more dynamic. If you'd like to learn how this lighting technique works, I'll show you the basics so you can get started!
Choosing Light Sources
A basic rim lighting setup revolves around the lights. Use one, two or three light sources to highlight your subject from the sides or from behind. You can use any available light sources. Portrait artists tend to use continuous stand lighting, while on-location photographers may use more portable flashes. You can also use light from a nearby window or any other handy light source.
Positioning Your Lights
The position of your rim lighting makes an incredible difference in the final photograph. Place two lights at sharp angles behind your subject or a single light directly behind your subject, and you’ll end up with a bright halo effect around the subject’s edges.
When you move the lights more to the sides, however, that halo effect lightens. This softer rim lighting is useful to fill in dark areas around your subject or to create mystery. Imagine a person lit from the sides, but with a face that remains shrouded in shadow.
Applying Rim Lighting Creatively
Rim lighting serves many purposes. In its most basic form, you can use this technique to separate your subject from the background. No matter what your background is – a busy fall landscape or a neutral backdrop – rim lights will brighten your subject’s edges just enough to make them stand out. Here are a few more great uses for rim lighting:
- In portraits – especially fashion photos, but also graduation and wedding photos – rim lights are often used to put highlights in your subject’s hair, on his or her clothing or on another element that needs to stand out.
- Rim lighting gives product images, still life photos and other static images more dimension. The extra lights also let you use brightly colored filters to create a unique abstract or high-tech look.
- You can use this lighting technique to create silhouettes. Place your subject against a dark background and omit any foreground lighting. Use only the rim lights to create an outline of your subject.
- Shoot through translucent objects. If you have a leaf, a slice of fruit, a delicate flower or anything else that allows a little bit of light through, you can create interesting abstracts with rim lights. A leaf, for instance, will let light through around the veins, ensuring that the veins stand in stark contrast to the rest of the leaf.
Once you’ve mastered this technique, you’ll find that there are infinite ways to use it. And, this isn’t a technique that is limited to one style or genre. Whether you like to create nature photos, portraits or abstract works of art, you’ll find many good ways to use rim lights.
Do you have old 19th century photographs that you can't identify? If these photos were handed down to you through your family, you are probably looking at your ancestors without knowing which ones they are. There are a lot of photo identification methods you can use to give you a better idea who these people are. The type of photograph, the style of clothes, and clues in the background of the photo are just some of the techniques you can use. You can also use hairstyles to help you narrow down the identities of your mysterious ancestors. Here's how to do it.
The hairstyles of the 19th century were distinctive, and can usually be identified by decade on both women and men. If you can identify the era of the hairstyles of the people in the photographs, this will give you a better idea of which ancestors they may be. Making an educated guess as to their age helps you further narrow down their potential identities. If you know where the photos were taken, that gives you another clue, and knowing what side of the family the photos came from offers further clues. It all starts with identifying the era by the hairstyles of the sitters in the photographs, though. Here are the basic 19th century hairstyles in the age of photography and when they were popular. Use this information to help you get started identifying your ancestors (remember, the age of commercial photography started in 1839).
Men's Hairstyles
1839-1865 -- From the mid-century to the end of the Civil War, men's hairstyles fell into two categories. The first category was medium-long to long hair with very long mustaches, beards, and sideburns. Facial hair could include all three types just mentioned, two of them, or just one. The main defining factor is that the facial hair was long, to match the long hair.
The other category that men's hairstyles fell into during this period was called the "a' la mode Puritan." This hairstyle was relatively short with no mustache. There were closely shaved sideburns that were grown far down on the face to attach to a short beard. The most famous example of this hairstyle can be seen on Abraham Lincoln.
1865-1880 -- The Puritan look became all the rage, but with a twist. Hair began to be slicked back with oil or grease, and parted on the side. Facial hair remained mustache-free, but with sideburns and beards like in previous decades.
1880-1890 -- The slicked back look disappeared, but hair remained parted on the side. Sideburns and beards disappeared, but the mustache came back in a short, clipped, and well-groomed version.
1890-1900 -- Very short hair became fashionable. It was shaved up the sides and cut very short in the back. The slicked back look returned, but the side part turned into a middle part. Sideburns and beards were gone, but the mustache remained as an optional hairstyle feature. If a man chose to wear a mustache, it had to be the "walrus" mustache, which was a long, bushy mustache that hung down long on the sides, almost to the chin in extreme cases of this uniquely 1890's style.
Women's Hairstyles
1839-1860 -- The chignon was the hairstyle to wear if one was a fashionable woman. Since getting a photograph taken was a big deal during this time period, it is likely that most women doing it would want to look as fashionable as possible for the occasion. There were two ways to wear the chignon. One was on top of the head, with locks of curls falling around the face and decorated with combs, feathers, flowers, and jeweled ribbons. The other way was to wear the chignon at the nape of the neck with the hair parted in the middle. This second way to wear the chignon became more popular closer to 1860.
1870-1880 -- Curls were the thing during this decade. Metal hair curlers were worn at night to keep the hair curly during the day. The curling iron was invented in 1872, which included two metal tongs that could be heated on any available heat source. This eliminated the need for nighttime hair curlers, and allowed hair to be curled in a variety of new and interesting ways. Women got very creative with the way they designed their curls during this decade.
1880-1890 -- This was the decade of bangs. Considered something only loose women would wear in the past, bangs went mainstream among progressive, modern women in the 1880's. Bangs were short and curled, with the rest of the hair being worn in the top-of-the-head chignon and parted in the middle.
1890-1900 -- This was the original decade of "big hair." The pompadour became all the rage. This was a hairstyle with the hair all piled high on top of the head, with loose curls hanging down to frame the face. The higher the hair went, the better, as far as fashion was concerned. Women purchased hair pads to wear under their hair to make it go higher, and also saved their own hair from their brushes to weave into hair pieces they could use to raise their hair even higher.
So, now you know the main hairstyles for men and women of the 19th century. Look for these hair styles in your 19th century photographs to give you an idea of the decade the photo was taken. This gives you one more important clue as to the identity of the person in the photo.
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If you ask photographers, most would say that they’d love to go on safari or take a trip to an exotic land just for the opportunity to create amazing images of fantastic animals. However, it’s not so easy to break away from daily life for a trip to the wilds. Fortunately, you can still create some amazing images while staying much closer to home. Take a trip to your local zoo and use these tips to take breathtaking wildlife photos!
1. Choose the Right Day and Time
The biggest mistake that some photographers make is going to the zoo on a weekend, during the middle of the day. If you pick the wrong time to go, you’ll spend an undue amount of time fighting crowds to take photos of animals that are sleeping in a shady spot.
Try to plan your trip for a weekday, and if possible, visit in the early morning or towards evening. You’ll experience fewer crowds, and the animals are likely to be more active, too. Morning and evening sunlight will also help you get that perfect golden lighting, and it helps make colors pop.
Don’t be disappointed if the day is rainy or overcast. These days offer some of the best opportunities as animals play in the rain. You’ll also have fewer harsh shadows, and the even lighting will help you get beautifully saturated colors.
2. Dealing with Glass
In many cases, the animals you’re photographing are behind glass, which presents a couple of challenges. For one thing, the glass may be reflective. It may also be covered in fingerprints from other zoo patrons. Take along a cloth to polish glass, and wear neutral or dark clothing since bright colors produce more reflections. You may also want to use a polarizer to cut down on glare, but keep in mind that the polarizer will darken your exposure.
Sam using a polarizer shooting through plexiglass
3. Take the Right Lenses
If you plan to spend the whole day at the zoo, you probably don’t want to lug around a large equipment bag. You’ll need two things from your lenses: A wide aperture, and the ability to zoom in on faraway animals. The wide aperture is particularly important because the narrow depth of field will let you blur fences and other distracting elements. Choose lenses that will give you both wide apertures and a range of focal points to minimize the amount of gear you need to take.
4. Bring a Monopod
The uncertain lighting within shade or inside enclosures means that you’ll probably have to deal with slow shutter speeds at times. You can bring along a tripod, but a monopod is even better. It’s easier to move as the animals move, more portable than a tripod, and when you get tired, it doubles as a walking stick!
East African Crowned CraneEast African Crowned Crane
5. Be Aware
To make images that look like they were taken while on safari, you’ll need to pay careful attention to your surroundings. Keep buildings, enclosures and obviously man-made structures out of your images, and also pay attention to details like food and water dishes. If need be, get creative with your framing to ensure that these objects don’t intrude.
You can also avoid obstacles by zooming in as close as possible. When you can capture a great expression, a close-up of an animal at the zoo has just as much power as an image that was taken in the wilderness.
6. Have Patience
It may take time, but the animals you’re watching will eventually do something interesting or amusing. Watch the animals through your viewfinder as they play, and keep your finger on the shutter release – a great moment will come and you’ll be ready!
The key to creating great images at the zoo is to look for unique moments that not everyone has the chance to capture. Anyone can take a quick snap of a napping tiger, but not everyone can catch him growling, pouncing or playing.
7. Get on Their Level
Some photographers hesitate to crouch, lay down or climb onto a nearby bench, but if you want truly excellent images, then you need to be taking them from the animal’s eye level. Images at eye level are much more dynamic than those that are taken from above or below.
8. Be Prepared for Post Processing
You’re sure to run into a situation where there is simply no way to salvage an image on-camera. Tinted glass and florescent lighting can skew your colors, while unavoidable objects will need to be cropped out or removed with a clone tool or retouching brush.
Be prepared to do color and exposure correction with Photoshop, Lightroom or similar software. If the colors are way off, try a black and white conversion instead. The same goes for lighting – if you have blown out highlights or dark shadows, you may find that you can still turn the image into a beautiful piece of abstract art.
If you have access to a nearby zoo, then give zoo photography a shot. With the right equipment and tactics, you can create images that any wildlife photographer would envy!
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Identifying your old family photographs is a lot easier if you know the era in which they were taken. Knowing the era gives you a better clue as to who the people in it might be. If you can narrow down the photo's era and the location where it was taken (even if it's just a general location), you can usually ID the people in the photos with a high degree of certainty, depending on how familiar you are with the people on your family tree.
Here is a basic tutorial of the early photograph types, when they were used, and how to identify them.
1. Daguerreotype (used from 1839-1860)
The earliest type of photography, this was first invented in Paris, and swiftly made its way to most areas of the western world. Daguerreotypes are easily recognized, thanks to some distinctive identifying features:
- A mirror-like surface
- Printed on a silver-coated copper plate
- Always in some kind of case, usually with the actual photograph protected by a mat and a sheet of glass
Clothing and hair styles of the people in daguerreotypes can be used to further narrow down the date range in which they were probably taken. Earlier daguerreotypes typically featured people in conservative, almost Puritan-like dress, while later ones often featured people in more flamboyant styles.
2. Ambrotype (used from 1854-1865)
Ambrotypes were a slight improvement on the daguerreotype, which had a tendency to tarnish, due to its silver coating and copper plating. Ambrotypes fixed this issue by printing hte photograph on a sheet of glass. Early ambrotypes have the photograph on the back of a piece of glass, with another piece of glass behind the photo. Later versions of the ambrotype had the photo printed on the front of the glass, with a black paper coating on the back to make the negative image appear positive. Ambrotypes are also always in a case of some kind, like the daguerreotype.
3. Tintype (used from 1856-1878)
The tintype is a photographic image printed on an iron plate. Early versions were packaged in glass-topped cases like daguerreotypes and ambrotypes. However, the cost of photography became much less expensive in the 1860's, and the case often cost more than the photo. So, later tintypes appear either in paper sleeves or simply as loose (though rather hard, due to the iron) photos, like you would put in an album. In fact, these were the first album-suitable types of photographs.
4. Carte de Visite (used from 1859-1889)
The carte de visite was the first type of photography to use a negative from which to make copies (in this case, a glass negative). While other, earlier photograph types were one of a kind photos, the carte de visite allowed people to buy copies of the photos to share with family and friends. Carte de visite photos are identified by being printed on thin paper that is glued to heavy card stock. The photographs themselves have the classic antique sepia tone to them.
5. Cabinet Card (used from 1866-1903)
This was an improvement on the carte de visite. It was made the same way, but was larger than the carte de visite. It also used new photographic advancements, so the image quality was clearer and the colors brighter. In addition to sepia, silver and black colors were also common in the cabinet card photos. They also often had beveled or scalloped edges.
After the era of the cabinet card, personal cameras entered the market, making expensive photography studios unnecessary except for formal family portraits. It was now possible to buy a camera inexpensively, and take one's own photos at home. Many people developed their own photos, though photo developing businesses arose to meet the demand for this service.
After 1903, you start to see more modern looking photographs, because people were taking their own photos. Identifying the era of these photos becomes a matter of identifying the era of the clothing and hairstyles of the people in them. Use these tips in identifying the era of old photographs, and you are one step closer to identifying your ancestors in them.
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When it comes to getting pictures for the important moments in your life, it is important to select a photographer who knows how to set boundaries that keep you both clear well in advance. You don’t want to find out somewhere down the line that your assumptions are only your own and the photographer is on a different page. Mismanaged expectations and unclear guidelines can leave both parties upset and put a damper on the experience.
Setting Clear Guidelines
It is easy to imagine how a photographer might expect you to only have one change of clothing or visit one location, while you might think the options are unlimited within the time constraint of the shoot. Or, you might think one week is reasonable for editing and returning pictures, when, in reality, the turnaround time for many photographers is closer to 6-8 weeks.
Your photographer should be organized enough to know upfront what will be included in your package and how the process will play out.
- How long will the shoot last?
- When and where does it start/end?
- How many locations will you visit?
- Does the photographer choose the spots?
- How many outfit changes do you get?
- How many images will be edited?
- Will you or the photographer be bringing any props?
- When can you expect finished images to be returned to you?
Asking the Right Questions
Don’t be afraid to ask your photographer any questions you have about the session or details of your shoot. Make sure you are familiar with the photographer’s work and you want something in a similar style. Asking a photographer to copy another photographer’s work or style is often offensive and obnoxious. Instead, choose a photographer who offers the type of posing, shooting and editing that you want for your own images. Then, make sure the photographer is prepared to help you understand what you will get from the entire experience.
A Note to Photographers
Too many times, a photographer fails to completely explain to the client what he or she should expect in the session and resulting images. When you are being hired to do such an important job, emotions might get in the way. Working a wedding, for example, can be one of the most exhilarating and emotionally driven jobs you will face. By clearly considering guidelines and setting realistic expectations for the client, you will avoid the panic and frustration that might arise from assumptions. Remember, when you tell a client a timeframe the images will be returned, it is important to set the latest date you will have the images back and then try to beat that as much as possible. It is always better to underpromise and over-deliver to exceed any expectations your client has.
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Naturally Lighting Your Subject With Golden HourLight often makes or breaks an image. The wrong lighting can result in harsh shadows, blown out highlights, under lit subjects and more. Soft light makes people look pretty, while harsh light usually makes people look harsh, old or flawed. Most lighting cannot be fixed later during the editing process, so starting out with good lighting is important.
“In almost all photography it’s the quality of light that makes or breaks the shot. For professional photographers, chasing the light, waiting for it, sometimes helping it, and finally capturing it is a constant preoccupation — and for some an obsession.”
- Michael Freeman, Capturing Light: The Heart of Photography
What is Golden Hour?
There is a time right before sunset and right after sunrise that has beautiful lighting. Roughly the hour after the sunrise and the hour before the sunset, the lighting is soft and majestic. The warm glow of the diffused sun creates a natural lighting effect photographers call Golden Hour. If you are shooting during Golden Hour, you nearly can’t go wrong with the lighting on your subject.
Different Conditions, Different Results
It is important to remember that not all Golden Hours are created equal. The result will depend on:
- Location (the sun might be hidden from view faster in some places than others)
- Pollution Levels and Particles
- Weather
Golden Hour in one place might be better than in another, or better on another day. If you try to shoot the hour after sunrise and it is a cloudy day, you may get a sun so diffused that you cannot get enough light. Like most outdoor photography, you can't always count on the weather to cooperate.
Ways to Use Magical Golden Hour Lighting
Here are some cool effects to watch for when you are shooting during Golden Hour:
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Backlit Rims of Light
When the sun is higher during Golden Hour (the beginning of evening Golden Hour and the end of the morning Golden Hour), you can naturally light your subject from the back and still have enough light on the face of the subject. Position the sun out of the frame and behind the subject for a glowing halo that highlights the subject's hair and shoulders, without darkening the face too much.
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Frontlit
Like other times of the day, frontlit pictures provide beautiful lighting. During Golden Hour, your subjects are less likely to squint and the shadows are softer.
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Dramatic Rays
Use the sun to create cool effects behind your subjects for amazing sunset or sunrise shots.
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Lens Flares
Natural lens flares are cool. During Golden Hour, you can move the camera around until you see flares in the frame – don’t forget to consider how they affect the image and composition.
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Silhouettes
Golden Hour is also beautiful for shooting landscapes. Focus on a backlit landscape and let your subject become a silhouette on the horizon for a unique shot.
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Indoors
Golden light can come through a window or doorway that offers plenty of light inside. This golden glow can make a barn, house or building light up in the same way as the outdoors do during the magical time.
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Long Shadows
Photography is dependant on dimension. The long shadows of Golden Hour create a depth and dimension that will make your photos more dynamic.
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Would you like a professionally produced slideshow that documents the most important people or events in your life? Let me create the personal or professional slideshows you need!
Slideshows have so many uses. Family historians love them because they're a great way to put your family's history in motion. If you have a large collection of wedding photos or you'd like to document another important event, slideshows are the perfect way to share your collection of images with your family and friends. Businessmen and women use slideshows to create professional presentations and instructional materials.
Slideshows come with many advantages over traditional photo albums or online galleries. Because you can watch them on your TV or computer, they’re both more accessible and more entertaining than photo albums or online photo galleries. The ability to add frames, music and short video clips makes slideshows that much more interesting.
The slideshows that I produce include, but are not limited to:
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Genealogy: Genealogy slideshows are a great way to preserve and share your family’s memories. Display them on your family’s website or play them at holidays and special events!
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Family: Family slideshows can take many shapes and forms. Turn your wedding photos into an interactive gallery or create slideshows that document family events, special moments with your children and more.
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Business: Slideshows are a great way to show off your products or services. You can also create other promotional materials including proposals, presentations or slideshows that document how people can put your product to work.
With each slideshow, you choose the images that you'd like to include and a style that matches your theme. I’ll put the slideshow together as an MP4 file that is viewable online.
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Choose up to 40 photos.
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You may include one 10-second video clip.
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Choose one of many slideshow styles.
Please contact me for additional details or if you need:
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More than 40 images
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More than one video clip
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An MP4 file produced at higher resolution
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Special background music for personal slideshows
Each slideshow costs $5 unless you need some of the additional services listed above. By signing up for my newsletter, you will be updated when new slideshow styles and services become available.
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Positioning and appearance is everything to product photography. Your clients are looking not only for images that flatter their wares, but also images that motivate their customers to buy. Fortunately, there are many imaginative ways to create extraordinary images. Here are a few of the tools you can use to display products to their best advantage.
Tools for Positioning
Dynamic positioning is always a challenge, particularly with smaller items like jewelry and personal electronics. Fortunately, the tools you can use to position these items is limited only to your imagination. Some of the most versatile tools include:
- A Lazy Susan: Consumers want to see every aspect of the item they’re buying, which means it’s almost always necessary to shoot a product from a variety of angles. A lazy Susan makes it easy to reposition products between shots.
- Blocks and Props: Dynamic posing is about positioning an object in an unexpected way. You can accomplish this with small styrofoam blocks and props that hold the item in place from behind. Include not only square blocks, but also triangular ones so that you can place products at a variety of angles. Paint your props to match the color of the background so that if they find their way into your images, it’ll be easier to blend them out later.
- Prop Wax: Prop wax is an invaluable tool to have on hand. Jewelry – especially rings – are often held in place with a small drop of wax. If your product keeps falling over despite your best efforts to prop it against a block, use a dollop of wax to adhere the item to the block.
- Gaffer’s Tape, String and Other Tools: Sometimes creative positioning is about doing something truly unusual, like suspending a product or positioning it at an extreme angle. Keep string on hand so that you can suspend a product from a spare light stand or a dowel placed over your light box. Gaffer’s tape gives you an easy and inexpensive way to position products in a variety of angles.
Making Products Appealing
There are numerous ways to make a product look even more attractive. Food photographers, for instance, use oil and sometimes even varnish to give food a tantalizing shine. Here are a few more helpful tools:
- Cleaning Supplies: Always keep a supply of cleaning cloths on hand to remove fingerprints. Soft paint brushes and squeeze bulbs like you’d use to clean your camera’s mirror are a great way to remove small bits of dust.
- Spray Bottles: Use spray bottles to give anything from flowers to fruit a fresh, dewy look. Make sure that your bottle’s nozzle has several spray patterns so that you can achieve both fine mists and larger water droplets. For that matter, an eyedropper is useful if you want to place only a few larger water drops on your product.
- Rain-X: If you’d like water to bead nicely on glass surfaces, a bottle of Rain-X is a handy thing to have around. Buff it onto the product, spray it with water and watch as the water forms perfect droplets. Just make sure that you have permission from the product’s owner before applying any chemicals.
This is only a small sampling of the things that you can use to position products and make them more attractive. The more product photos you take, the more ways you’ll find to make those products look amazing!
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In the last two posts, I showed you the basic equipment for product photography, as well as a few tools that will help you improve your lighting. However, those aren’t the only things that will help you create excellent product images. There are several things – both camera features and attachments – that will help you make flawless, crystal-clear photos.
Macro Lens
In many cases, the items that you’ll shoot – jewelry, small electronics and more – are quite small. Other times, you may need to take close-up images of engraving or other fine details. Without some modification, the average camera lens isn’t capable of taking those super close-up shots – and even if you do use macro filters or other tools with a normal lens, the result is usually less than ideal.
That means that you’ll need to invest in a macro lens. A high-quality 100-millimetre macro lens not only magnifies the object you’re shooting, but it also gives you a narrow depth of field so that you can isolate the most important elements of the products you’re shooting. Most importantly, it will insure that your fine details are sharp.
Remote Shutter Release
A remote shutter release is an invaluable tool. Many photographers use these devices for nighttime photography so that they can avoid disturbing the camera and causing blurry pictures. For product photography, the idea is the same. Use a remote shutter release so that you don't inadvertently move the camera by pressing the shutter release button.
Mirror Lockup
Cameras with the mirror lockup feature have a big advantage over those that don’t. Much like remote shutter releases, this is another tool that will help you take sharp images. Normally, when you press the shutter release, the camera’s mirror moves out of the way so that the sensor is exposed. This can cause a slight amount of camera shake, which leads to blurred images – especially if you're taking macro images.
The lockup feature positions the camera’s mirror in the “up” position and locks it so that it doesn't move when you take the image. The tradeoff is that while your camera is in lockup mode, you won’t be able to use the viewfinder. Instead, you'll need to rely on the camera’s live view display to frame and focus your image.
Circular Polarizer
Polarizers do a number of great things – they remove haze, cut glare on water, glass and other reflective surfaces, and they help deepen the color of your image. Circular polarizers are incredibly useful for landscape photography, and a product photographer can put them to great use as well.
For example, if you’re taking an image of a car, but the car’s reflective fenders or windshield show the reflection of you and your camera, attach a circular polarizer to your lens. Then, as you look through the viewfinder, adjust the polarizer until the reflection fades away. This is a helpful tool not just for cars, but also for jewelry, glassware and other products that are prone to glare or reflections.
If you’re serious about product photography, it's worth your while to invest in these tools and camera features. Each of these items will help you create sharp, clear product photos. In the next post, I'll wrap this series up by showing you the tools you need to display your products effectively.
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Most people have at least a few old family photos they can’t identify. It is very frustrating to know you have photos of your ancestors, but can’t place them in time or space, or even reveal their identities. You may have a photo of a direct ancestor that no one else has, and not even know it.
Fortunately, there are some sneaky photo identification techniques you can use to give you an excellent idea of where and when a photo was taken. These clues will give you a much better idea of who is in the photo, and may even give you the information you need to make a definite identification.
Here are the three photo identification techniques. Start using them today to tease the hidden information out of our photos and make them reveal their secrets.
1. Look for Things That Make the Photo Unique
It’s easy to determine where a photo was taken if it has a well-known landmark or street name in it. However, most photos won’t have these things. You will need to disregard all of the generic elements of the photo, and look for what makes it stand out from other photos. Most photos have at least one unique identifying feature.
For example, if a photo is of the outside of a house and there is an address number on it, that is a unique identifying feature. If you know the city and possible surnames for people in the photo, you can search directories for that city and see if any of your potential surnames match up with that address number on any street. Based on the approximate age of the people in the photo, you may be able to identify them if you come up with a surname match on the address number in a city directory.
Other unique identifying features can be things like business name signs, advertising signs, railroad tracks, and schools. There are plenty of other things that can be unique, so be your own detective in pinpointing them.
2. Examine the Direction of Shadows
Shadows can tell you a lot about a photo. The position of shadows can tell you which direction the sunlight was coming from and how high in the sky it was at the time of the photo. This information reveals the approximate time of day the photo was taken. If there are obvious signs of the season, like snow, falling leaves, or people wearing warm clothes, the position of the shadow can also tell you what time of year the photo was taken.
You can narrow it down even further to the the approximate month of the photo if you know the city where the photo was taken. You can use the city’s longitude and latitude to determine what time of year the sun would be in the approximate position it was in in the photo. You can compare this information with other clues in the family line you are researching to get an approximate identification of the people in the photo.
3. Check the Style of the Photograph
Even without unique identifying features or shadows, you can still get an idea of when a photo was taken and who might be in it by the style of photo. For example, if the photo was taken around the turn of the 20th century and it is of someone at home rather than in a studio, it was probably taken after 1900, and with a Kodak Brownie camera. This camera came on the market in 1900, sold for only $1, and made home photography feasible for a large portion of the population.
Compare the style of photo to the style of clothing worn in the photo, and you can come up with a very close approximation of the year of the photo. When you know the approximate date, you can narrow down the potential candidates for who is in the photo based on their apparent ages in the photo.
Old photographs are full of hidden clues that can give you a better idea of who is in them and where and when they were taken. Scrutinize your old photographs very closely and use any clues you can find. There will usually be at least one kind of clue in any given photo. Put your photography detective skills to work and find out what the photo has been eagerly waiting to tell you.
Last time, I briefly touched on the kinds of lighting and light modifiers that are an absolute necessity to product photographers. However, there are many different types of light modifiers that product photographers find useful. In this post, we’ll take a look at some of these modifiers and how they can enhance the products that you’re shooting.
Reflectors
Reflectors come in numerous shapes, sizes and colors. These devices let you take advantage of available light by bouncing it into shadowed areas. Reflectors are particularly useful when there are too many shadows in the shot, but you don’t necessarily want to add another light. For instance, if you’re taking product images outside, strategically placed reflectors will let you highlight shadowed areas using only sunlight.
Colored Gels
Colored gels or filters are colorful sheets of plastic that you mount to the front of your strobes or studio lights to alter the color of the lighting. There are many creative ways to use gels, but for product photography, the primary purpose is to alter the color temperature of your light source. If you’re shooting in your studio, but you want to mimic the look of evening sunlight, you can use gels to warm up your lighting.
Because gels come in so many colors, you can also use them to create a variety of special effects. If you’re taking photos of gadgets, for example, you can give the images a high-tech look by using gels to shine colored light along the edges of the product or on the backdrop.
Softboxes
Once you’ve familiarized yourself with diffuser umbrellas, it’s likely that you’ll want to step up to softboxes (sometimes called light banks). A softbox is a square, rectangular or hexagonal device that attaches to your light. Unlike an umbrella, softboxes have closed sides so that the light is only diffused through the front of the device.
Softboxes are useful because they give you more precise control over the direction of your light sources. Umbrellas diffuse lighting over a broad arc while softboxes let you focus the light on one area. When you use softboxes, you can deliberately arrange areas of light and shadow to create more appealing images.
Snoots
Snoots work in much the same way as softboxes, but they take the concept of narrowing your lighting a step further. A snoot is a tube that mounts on a studio light or strobe to create a spotlight effect. While they’re most popular for creating moody portraits, product photographers will snoots useful to highlight product logos or other key selling points.
The creative use of light is makes the difference between bland and bold product photos. These tools will help you master the lighting, whether you’re in your studio or outdoors. Next time, we’ll explore the types of camera gear that will help you perfect your product images!
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Product photography is a fun and rewarding way to make a living as a photographer. For the past year, I've had the privilege of taking product photos for a new survival gear website. Since this project has ended, I would like to share with you some things that I've learned. If you’re thinking about venturing into this branch of photography, there’s a lot to learn – especially when it comes to the types of equipment you’ll need. To that end, I’ve laid out the essentials that you’ll need to get started!
Studio Lighting
The right lighting is of primary importance. If you’ve studied product images extensively, you’ll have noticed that for the most part, there are very few shadows. While you can accomplish this type of lighting with strobes, it’s far easier if you have continuous lighting.
That’s where studio lighting comes in. These large continuous light sources are normally mounted on stands, and they can be powered by either wall outlets or battery packs if you require portability. Make sure that you have at least two – preferably three or four – studio lights so that you can ensure that the products you shoot are perfectly lit.
Umbrellas
No matter what light source you choose, you’ll need umbrellas. There are several types to choose from, including shoot-through umbrellas, bounce umbrellas and reflective metallic umbrellas. You can also find all-in-one umbrellas that have a removable backing so that you can use them to bounce or diffuse lighting.
Shoot-through umbrellas are most common, and some would argue that they’re the most useful. Position these umbrellas over your light source to distribute light more evenly and soften harsh shadows.
Bounce umbrellas come in two varieties: white with black backing and reflective metallic colors. These umbrellas tend to spread light over a larger area, which makes them useful when you’re shooting something large. Choose a white umbrella with black backing when you don’t want to modify the color of your studio lighting, or use metallic umbrellas to alter the lighting colors as necessary.
Backdrops
Backdrops are necessary to create a smooth, uniform background that doesn't distract from the product you're shooting. The first decision you’ll need to make is whether you want a wall-mounted backdrop or a stand-alone backdrop frame. Wall-mounted backdrops are much stronger, but they lack the portability of backdrop frames.
You’ll also need to decide whether you want to use fabric or paper backdrops. Paper isn’t reusable and if you aren’t careful, it will wrinkle or tear. However, the advantage is that you don’t need to clean paper – when it’s covered in footprints or scuff marks, simply throw it away and hang up a new sheet.
Lightboxes
Lightboxes are another essential tool. These fabric-covered boxes are useful for smaller items like jewelry, gadgets or even food, and they fill two roles. The inside of the lightbox serves as a smooth backdrop, while the fabric-lined outside softens your light sources.
These four tools will get you started, but there are many more helpful tools that help you arrange the products you’re shooting, modify the light or achieve other effects. Next time, we’ll take a look at some of these tools and how they can help you improve your product photos.
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Equipment Recommendations That I Use:
- CowboyStudio 4000 Watt Continuous Light Kit
- LimoStudio-Photography Photo Portrait Studio 600W Day Light Umbrella Continuous Lighting Kit
- CowboyStudio Photography 6 x 9ft White Muslin Backdrop with One Section Crossbar, Background Support System
- Square Perfect 3085 SP200 Professional Quality 16-Inch Studio In A Box Light Tent Cube for Quality Photography
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Harpers Ferry, West Virginia
A large portion of my time is devoted not to photography, but to scouting out great new places for photography. Over the years, I've learned a few ways to make the scouting process easier, more enjoyable and more efficient. With spring here, I thought I'd share some of these tips so that you can make the most of your scouting trips.
Stay Focused
One of the fastest ways to turn an otherwise promising trip into an unproductive one is to allow distractions. When you plan a scouting trip, plan it around a motif or a goal and stick to it. For instance, if you want to hidden waterfalls, unusual rock formations or other natural areas, don't let yourself deviate into urban or industrial areas. If you give in to too many distractions along the way, you'll end up with a short list of new leads and a memory card full of images that lack a common theme.
Be Ready for Anything
Since you don’t know exactly what you'll find on your scouting trip, there’s no real way to know what gear you will need. Choose a small selection of lenses and filters that will cover a wide range of situations, and make sure that you've packed plenty of extra batteries and memory cards.
The same goes for your non-camera gear. It’s hard to say what the day will bring, so make sure you take rain gear, sunblock, bug spray and anything else you think you might need. If you're planning to spend the day exploring the countryside, you’d be wise to bring some bottled water and a packed lunch.
Bring Maps or a GPS System
When it comes to scouting trips, mapping is crucial. It doesn’t matter how many wonderful locations you find if you can't remember how to get back to them. In this day and age, mapping apps on smartphones makes it easy to keep a log of your favorite locations. However, this method has one serious drawback – especially if you're venturing out into the wilderness. Cellular service still isn’t available everywhere, and if you’re caught in a remote area with no service, you’ll find it difficult if not impossible to mark your location.
That’s why I recommend taking along paper maps or a satellite GPS system. With either of these methods, you'll be able to mark your favorite locations while they're still fresh in your mind.
If you're planning to visit an area often, county plat map books are an excellent resource. These give you a detailed map of every township within a county, and they include not only rural roads but also listings of public and private property, waterways, railroads, wildlife areas and other points of interest. If you’re interested in a plat map book for a particular county, you can normally buy them at that county’s Cooperative Extension Office.
Few things are more enjoyable than taking a day to search for new places to create amazing images. These tips will help you ensure that your scouting trip is just as productive as it is fun.
Making the World a Smaller Place with Photography
Last week, we talked about the ways in which photography lets us examine the diversity of life. That’s not the only way in which photography has changed our world, however. In a very real sense, this art form has made the world a smaller place, and as it has done so, it has also given us something else: truth and accuracy.
The Immutable Image
Some of us simply cannot make the brush or the pencil recreate what we see in our mind’s eye. Even among artists who can paint or sketch with ease, the finished work is still an interpretation of reality.
This isn’t the case with photography. It’s true that we can manipulate images in Photoshop, apply filters or even use lenses to create certain effects. But underneath the fancy camera work and post processing, there will always be a layer of truth. After all, every photograph starts with one thing: the real, live scene that unfolds in front of the camera.
That brings me to accuracy. We’ve all seen artist representations of courtrooms or other events, and I’ve had the pleasure of looking at art created by those who specialize in photorealistic techniques. While beautiful, these works can never have the perfect accuracy of a simple, unprocessed photo. Maybe the colors aren’t in a particular painting aren’t an exact representation of the real thing, or perhaps the artist took some liberties with the scene. A photograph, on the other hand, shows you exactly what happened, down to the minute details like fleeting expressions or blades of grass bending in the breeze.
Making the World Smaller
These days, no one gives a second thought to our ability to look at things that are half a world away. But it wasn’t always that way. In the early years of photography, this was the element that captured the public’s fancy. A photographer in an exotic land could easily and inexpensively document the strange sights he saw, and send those images home to people who never dreamed they would ever be able to see such unusual things.
Even though we take it for granted, this is a facet of photography that will always amaze me. I’ve never been to an active battlefield, but thanks to brave photographers who have, I can look at the images and see the truth of war. I’ll never travel back in time to see the dawn of the twentieth century, but the wealth of historical photos from that era gives me a sense of what life was like. We can, all of us, look at famous landmarks, important events or even rare plants and animals that we may never see in person simply because there was a photographer present who took the time to document what he saw.
I can’t say what our world would be like without photography, but I am certain that it wouldn’t be the rich and colorful place that it is. If you’re ever at a loss for ideas or inspiration, remember that as a photographer, the images you create, have the potential to change the world and bring us all a little bit closer together.
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Fundamental Ways Photography Changed the World
“With the daguerreotype,” Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said, “everyone will be able to have their portrait taken – formerly it was only the prominent – and at the same time everything is being done to make us all look exactly the same, so we shall only need one portrait.” Kierkegaard said this of photography in the early 19th century, and in some respects, he was right. In other respects, he couldn’t have been more wrong.
Kierkegaard was right in that everyone can now have his or her portrait taken. However, photography has changed the world in a fundamental way. Instead of underscoring the sameness of life around the world, photography has highlighted the rich diversity
It wasn’t always a tool for exploring diversity, however. In the beginning, photography was largely a medium for portraiture, and people did all look the same. Portraits were expensive, and no one wanted to risk ruining a photo with an odd expression, clothing that was too casual or anything else that could possibly take away from the final image.
The technology itself also presented photographers and their subjects with major challenges. The cameras were huge, bulky affairs. Instead of a convenient roll of 24 exposures, or better yet, a flash card with room for hundreds of images, photographers loaded a single silver-plated sheet coated with a cocktail of chemicals into their cameras. Because the exposure times were so long – anywhere from a minute to 15 minutes – people had to sit perfectly still. In fact, many of the cleanest portraits from that era were of the dead because they were the only people capable of holding a pose long enough to create a focused image.
Today, portraits are much simpler. Photographers don’t have one shot to create the perfect portrait. In fact, with the digital era, we now have the ability to take an endless number of images. The camera has become so ubiquitous that most people, even non-photographers, have several – on their phones, their computers, point-and-shoot cameras, DSLRS and more.
But how did this change the world? When it comes to portraits, it means that we are no longer creating portraits with rigid poses and stern expressions because, to put it simply, there are no limits. Instead of striving for uniformity, the ability to take literally hundreds of images in a single afternoon lets us search for the unique and wonderful. The fast exposure times let us capture fleeting expressions, and the ability to shoot in nearly any lighting conditions lets us add joy, mystery or any other mood to our images.
So to answer Keirkegaard’s prediction: Yes, photography is not limited to only the prominent. Everyone can take as many images – portraits or otherwise – as they like. But in our portraits, we don’t all look the same, not from day to day or from moment to moment. The ability to witness the difference between each of these moments is one way in which photography has changed the world. Next time, we will explore some of the other ways this art form has affected the way we look at life.
Monument Valley, Utah
There’s something about black and white images that makes them powerful, interesting and almost more expressive than color photos. One might have assumed, back when color photos were first developed, that black and white images would slowly turn into a relic from a time when imaging technology was in its infancy. After all, color brings a whole new dimension to photography.
However, as the years went by, black and white photography didn’t disappear. Instead, these monochrome images have grown right along with color photos. Let’s take the time to explore what makes the black and white image so attractive in a world full of color.
Removing Distractions
I think that one of the biggest reasons black and white photography didn’t fade away with the advent of color is this: When you remove that layer of color, you also remove a layer of distraction. When you look at a color image, your eyes are immediately drawn to the bright hues, the contrasts between colors and the subtle flow from one shade into the next. Without these elements to examine, you are free to look deeper at other elements – the subject material, the textures and the play between light and shadow.
Blackwater Falls State Park, West Virginia
Searching for Color
Strangely enough, people tend to pay more attention to color in a black and white photo than in a color photo. For one thing, it’s up to the viewer to imagine the colors. What particular shade of green were the leaves on this tree? Was the person in the image wearing a red shirt or a purple one? Contemplating what the colors might have been adds a level of interest that simply isn’t present in a color image.
Another facet unique to monochrome images is that it’s much easier to enjoy the range of tones, from the dark blacks all the way to the bright whites. When I look at a color image, I don’t always examine the contrasts between the dark, medium and light tones. Monochrome images, however, invite you to search for the infinite shades of gray that lay between black and white.
Elakala Falls, West Virginia (A Native American Legend)
Endless Versatility
Some might look at a color photo taken in low light and call it underexposed while the same image in black and white would be considered dramatic, moody or mysterious. Black and white photography gives you more creative freedom. Take images that are almost entirely black, mostly white or something in between. Create strong contrasts between light and shadow or use contrast with subtlety. Black and white is not a style that is limited to a few certain subjects, and it lends itself well to bright lighting, low lighting and everything in between.
If I were to try to tackle the question of whether black and white photography or color was the superior format, I’d be at a loss for an answer. The choice between monochrome and color is a personal one, and in a large part, it’s about what you’re trying to accomplish with your images. My advice is to experiment with both formats and choose the one that works best with each individual image.
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What makes a famous photographer famous? It’s not the gear he uses, and it’s normally not a single image, either. Most of the greatest photographers have a certain style that makes their images immediately recognizable. Style is the reason why you can pick an Ansel Adams landscape out from a thousand others. Style makes you unique, it’s an extension of your personality and it’s what sets you apart from everyone else.
What Style is Not
There are many misconceptions about how to develop a style, so I’d like to start by addressing some of the most common assumptions. Style is not the subject you choose, nor is it the technique or type of processing you like. You can’t simply take black and white images and call that your style, and you can’t pick a genre like urban decay or portraiture as a style. Style is made up of all of these things, but is much deeper than that. When people look at your images, they should be able to see a little bit of you in them.
Developing Your Style
Instead of being defined as a specific genre or subset of images, style is a blend of choices that you make as you create an image. It starts with your perspective – your unique insight on a given subject. The exposure choices you routinely make – whether you prefer to expose for shadows or for highlights – will become part of your style. Some photographers use color as part of their style. Do you prefer deep, rich tones, or would you rather take images with a paler, more old-fashioned look? There are many more questions you can ask about your style, such as:
- Do you use available light only or are you fond of strobism?
- Is film grain or sensor noise a huge drawback or do you prefer a textured image?
- Do you get in close to your subjects or shoot from far away?
- Is there a certain element – trees, people or anything else – that are always included in your photos?
There’s much more to a personal style than this, but these examples start to reveal the bigger picture. It’s also important to realize that style is more than making a choice between the variables I’ve presented. It’s all about taking these choices and fine-tuning them into something that is entirely yours.
What Not to Do
There are a couple of common mistakes that I see photographers make concerning their style. First, don’t force your style. It’s not something that you can just sit down and decide upon. You must always remember that your style is something that will grow and evolve with time and experience. Take as many photos as you can and let your style develop naturally.
The other problem is that some photographers rely on style alone to make their images great. This is a fine thing to do if you have a well-developed style, but keep in mind that it can also be limiting. Many of the most successful photographers enjoy stepping outside their comfort zones to try new things. It is this willingness to deviate from the norm that helps them continue to grow as artists.
In short, the best way to develop your style is to not worry about it. Just take pictures – lots of them. Somewhere along the line, you’ll start to develop certain preferences, and your photographs will become recognizable as yours and yours alone.
Sometimes in photography, we find that we’ve slowed down for some reason. These slow periods can be a natural part of our creative work. Sometimes we feel inspired, energized, in love with life and photography! Other times, we feel lukewarm about it all. Exploring the deeper causes of these slowdowns can provide insight into our creative selves. For now, let’s look at how to grab the camera, give our creativity a little push, and get started again.
You might be thinking, not want to shoot photos? No way, that never happens to me! Well, what about that special project that’s been percolating at the back of your mind? Or the technique you read about and thought you’d love to try? Or even the gallery you want to contact?
Separate the Steps in the Process
One of the most common reasons for avoiding new challenges like these is that we often try to create and evaluate at the same time. Rather than separating the final critique into a later step, we try to choose, shoot, and edit—doing everything all in one step. Then we feel intimidated and not quite up to the task, so we put it off. By separating the process of making photos from the assessment at the end, you can relax enough to experiment and get creative.
How to Get Going Again
A few suggestions to help you focus on the creative phase and get you past the slow-down:
- Just start somewhere. Anywhere. There is no “right” way to begin—that’s the photo critic talking. Take pictures in your living room, if you have to! By taking one step and then another, you can create some momentum and get going again.
- Try an “assignment” where you concentrate on something totally new: a technique, perspective, subject, or even different shooting distance.
- Set aside evaluating your images until after the photo session. Don’t show anyone else, or even look at them yourself. Wait a day, a week, or more to review.
- Change how you think about mistakes. Sometimes the most amazing photos result from a “mistake” in camera angle, exposure, or other aspect of the shot. These happy accidents can free up our creativity from the unconscious limitations we’ve put on ourselves. Let them take your work in a new direction.
Part of the fun of photography is that you never know exactly what you’re going to get. Maybe you have some fabulous images, or maybe you learned about what you need to work on. Either way, by focusing on just starting, you get the creative process going again and let your inner artist work with less restriction. The show critic can take over on a different day!
Telling a Story with Diptychs, Triptychs and MoreWhen we think about art, we think about it as one piece – one painting, one sculpture or one photograph. However, sometimes it is impossible to tell an entire story in just one print. That is why I ask the question: Why leave your photos to stand on their own? The fact is that there are many ways to display photos in a series, and when done well, a series is even more interesting than a single image. Further, there are many ways to arrange groups of images – diptychs and triptychs, collages or even as a journalistic series. Each of these groupings brings something different to fine art photography.
Diptychs and Triptychs
Diptychs and triptychs have always been popular among painters, and they’re starting to catch on among photographers, too. Diptychs are comprised of two similarly sized images while triptychs are made from three images. With this type of series, the goal is to tell a story in slightly more detail. For instance, you could create a diptych using an image of a tree paired with a close-up shot of that tree’s leaves.
You can also use the separate frames of a diptych or triptych to divide a single subject into two or three panels so that the audience is tempted to study each of the panels in more detail rather than focusing on the subject as a whole. This is quite common in fashion and portrait photography – you’ll often see a photo of someone cropped so that their legs fill one fame, the torso fills another, and the head and shoulders are in the third.
Creating a Collage
You probably remember collages from your elementary school art class. Your teacher had you cut out all of your favorite images from a pile of magazines and paste them onto a poster board with little thought to organization or relationships.
Unlike those elementary school projects, photographic collages are highly organized. Instead of pulling random favorite images from your collection, you’ll want to design your collage around a theme. This theme could be anything – if you have hundreds of images of flowers, group several of your favorites together into a single print. You can even create a collage of images whose relationships aren’t immediately obvious. For instance, if you’re trying to capture the essence of autumn in a collage, you could combine images of fall leaves with ripened wheat, harvested crops and other elements that are common during the season.
The Journalistic Series
For most photographers, bigger is better – we all want to create images that can be printed on a massive scale. However, it often simply doesn’t work out that way, and for some applications, your images don’t need to be massive. Photos in a journalistic series are an excellent example of this. In fact, you’ll sometimes see these stories told entirely in Polaroids or other small prints.
Creating a journalistic series is not unlike creating a storyboard. You’ll want to choose images that tell a story, from the beginning to the end. For instance, if you were creating a series that documents the work of a sculptor, you could start with an image of the raw materials, tell the story with photos of the work in various stages of completion, and end the story with a photo of the finished sculpture.
Once you get away from the idea that individual photos need to stand on their own merits, you’ll find that you’ve opened up a whole new world of storytelling. Diptychs, triptychs, collages and the journalistic series – they’re all wonderful ways to add a new layer of depth and meaning to your art.
As the second photographer, you’re not burdened with all the details. You’ll help set up the planned shots and provide assistance wherever the primary photographer needs it, but for the most part, you have the freedom to capture all those heartfelt moments that make weddings so special.
Whether you’re the primary photographer or the second shooter, weddings come with a few unique challenges. For one thing, the lighting isn’t always optimal, and you may not be able to use flashes, which means you’ll need to think about how to deal with underexposure and sensor noise. The other big challenge is anticipating candid moments and turning them into images that the newlyweds will treasure for a lifetime.
Shooting in the Dark
Weddings are notorious for their dim lighting and the Green wedding was no exception. Depending on the venue, flash photography isn’t always permitted. Even if the venue does allow flashes, the bride and groom may not want you to run around and blind all of their guests with your flash. In these instances, the only viable solution is to raise your camera’s ISO, but that can lead to a lot of sensor noise. Still, it’s better to get a shot with some noise rather than no shot at all, so here are a few tips to help you minimize sensor noise.
First and foremost, if you plan to shoot weddings in any professional capacity – even as a second photographer – you should invest in a camera that performs well at high ISO. At the Green wedding, I was able to shoot at up to 12,000 ISO with little to no noise. However, if you can’t justify the expense of a new camera, or you find that you need to bump up your ISO further still, there are a few other ways to get the shot while minimizing noise.
One of the best ways to reduce noise after the fact is to use software like Adobe Lightroom. In the panel on the right side of the Lightroom window, look for the Detail category. You will find both color and luminance noise removal tools that will help you remove that grainy look while preserving the details in your image. If the noise in your image is particularly bad, use a dedicated noise removal program like Noise Ninja. Dedicated software is normally more powerful, and it comes with a few more options for contrast, sharpening and different types of noise removal.
The pitfall to noise removal tools is that if you push it too far, the software will start removing details, textures and anything else that could be considered noise, leaving the image with a plasticized look. Keep a close eye on the fine details as you work, and you should be able to remove most of the noise without creating an over-processed look.
When all else fails, do what photographers do best: get creative! One nice thing about weddings is that they invariably have all sorts of interesting light sources that you can use – candles on the tables at the reception, backlit stained glass windows and even car headlights and streetlights if it’s an evening wedding. At the Green wedding, the bride and groom chose to decorate with Christmas lights, which allowed me to capture some fantastic shots despite the dim light.
Wedding Photography: Photojournalism at its Finest
The other takeaway from the Green wedding – at least to me – is that wedding photography is a form of photojournalism. To document a wedding properly, like any photojournalist, you need to rely on a mix of planning and intuition.
The planning covers the essentials. When will you do the wedding party shots? Will there be time to photograph the rings, decorations and any other meaningful items before the ceremony? Are you to be capturing backup shots of important events like the bouquet toss, or would the primary photographer rather have you capturing reaction shots? Planning lets you take images like the one below.
Intuition is at least as important – and probably more important – than planning. The planned shots are nice to have, but the candid moments make a wedding truly special. Each tear, each smile and each kiss are memories waiting to be captured. You’ll need to learn to anticipate these fleeting moments before they’re gone.
Photographing a wedding, whether you’re the primary photographer or the second shooter, is a great honor. Immerse yourself in the enthusiasm of the event, have fun and help the new couple make memories that will last a lifetime.
Click Here to view more photos from the wedding.
Looking at Your Old Images with Fresh Perspective
As photographers, we are on a never-ending quest to create something new and unusual. After so many years of taking photos, you more than likely have terabytes of archived raw files or boxes upon boxes of negatives – most of which you haven’t looked at in years. Even those photos that we once chose as our favorites are sometimes buried under a wave of new, exciting images.
At some point, though, we all need to go back to our photographic roots. When you next have the chance, sit down to browse your old images. Go back and take new photos of old subjects. Simply examining the contrast between your new work and the old will prove to be a wonderful learning experience, and you may find that your archives are packed with hidden gems and surprising sources of inspiration.
Going through Your Archives
There are several good reasons to revisit your archives from time to time. For one thing, your archives serve as a record that tracks the progression of your skills. You’ll also have the opportunity to see how your style has evolved over the years. If you’ve been a photographer for many years, you’re quite likely to see some old yet interesting techniques that fell by the wayside for one reason or another. What you find might just be interesting enough for you to give those old techniques a second chance from a new perspective.
More importantly, however, is that as you look at your work with fresh eyes, you may find something special that you never noticed before. Since you’re also more experienced as an editor, you’ll be able to fine-tune some of your early work in ways that would not have been possible in your early years as a photographer.
Visiting Old Subjects
Our archives aren’t the only things we should be looking at. Consider some of the subjects you photographed in those early years. I know that the temptation is strong to move on and photograph new things, but there is nothing wrong with going back and taking new photos of old things.
Think about this: As the years passed, your skills as a photographer have grown, and your style has changed. You have far more experience with your camera and your editing software, and you probably have new equipment that lets you push boundaries a little further. Most importantly, though, is that you’ve had years of life experiences, which means that you will be looking at those old subjects from an entirely new perspective.
What this means is that when you go back to create new images of old subjects, you won’t simply be creating a slightly improved version of your previous work. Instead, you’ll have a chance to create something entirely new and unique, and something that also calls you back to the beginnings of your career as a photographer.
New knowledge, more experience, better equipment and a fresh perspective – bring all of these things to your early work, and surprising things may happen. In fact, if you find yourself stuck in something of a photographic rut, simply looking at your old work may be just what you need to give you a fresh burst of creativity. After all, sometimes moving forward means looking back on your past.
Creating Art with the Camera You Have, Not the Camera You Want
Photographers often feel as if they’re caught in something of a rat race – the race to get the best camera, the perfect optics and thousands of dollars of accessories, equipment and editing software that will help create the best possible images. However, at a certain point, we all have to stop and think: Is it the camera or the photographer that is responsible for creating works of art? Eve Arnold answered that question when she said, “It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument.” I tend to agree.
When to Stop Blaming Your Camera
Of course, we do need the right equipment to take great pictures – after all, an artist wouldn’t be able to create an oil painting with only watercolors, and a photographer can’t create sweeping landscapes or macro images with a disposable camera. It’s common for beginning photographers to say that their images seem blurry because they’re relying on less-than-perfect kit lenses, or the lighting isn’t quite right because they don’t have fill flash.
However, once you start blaming your gear for the shortcomings of your art, it’s hard to stop. Worse, it sets you up for failure in the long run. There are thousands of would-be photographers who spent their formative years blaming their equipment for each flaw in their photos. Imagine the disappointment that many of these photographers must feel when they finally purchase the best gear money can buy, only to realize that the problem was never the camera at all, but the artistic vision behind the camera.
Making it Work
It’s important to remember that for nearly two centuries, photographers have been creating images with whatever they have had on hand. The earliest famous photographers created timeless art with cameras and equipment that, were a modern manufacturer to produce them today, would be laughable by current standards. Even many modern photographers use cameras and equipment that would raise an eyebrow in some circles. Yet these photographers are proving that it is possible to create something beautiful, whether you’re using the latest DSLR, an old Polaroid or something like a Diana camera.
The point is that whatever equipment you have, you can make it work. The camera is only a tool that captures what we see in our mind’s eye, and even the best cameras have limitations. Rather than blaming your equipment for its shortcomings, find a way to work around them or better yet, find a way to work with them.
For instance, working with the flaws of a Diana camera is what makes lomography an art form. Without the odd light leaks that create interesting effects, there would be nothing unique, unusual or even particularly interesting about these kinds of images.
When we get lost in the constant cycle of upgrades, it’s easy to forget that the art isn’t made inside the camera. There is no denying that better equipment will help you achieve technical perfection, but no camera in the world can capture the soul of the photographer and his subject.
What is the difference between a bland image, a busy one and one that has just enough interest to catch and hold your attention without seeming confusing? Unfortunately, there is no clear answer to this question. If we had a cut and dried answer, fine art photography would not be a challenge at all.
In order to build more interest in your images, you’ll need to understand how each element in a photograph contributes to the finished piece. To illustrate my point, we will look at an image taken in 1935 by Berenice Abbott: Seventh Avenue, looking south from 25th Street. I will show you how the elements in this image work together to create something that causes us to stop and linger, examining all the details of the image.
Seventh Avenue looking south from 35th Street in Manhattan by Berenice Abbott in 1935
The Elements that Hook Your Audience
What makes this photo a work of art is not that Abbott followed any specific composition rules. In fact, many people would say that the image is technically incorrect because the underexposure of the buildings causes a loss of detail. However, that underexposure is actually one of the key elements that makes Abbott’s composition wonderful. Would this image have the same impact if she had not created such a startling contrast between the dark buildings and the bright street? The way Abbott composed this image leads you directly to the street rather than allowing your eyes to wander over the details of each building.
Drawing Viewers In with Detail
Then there is the street itself. Because it is so bright against the buildings, it immediately catches the eye. The slanted angle of the street makes you want to follow it into the background. However, there is enough detail in the street to make us linger. Had Abbott waited until the street was empty, there would be little temptation to spend any time examining the people and cars in the street. Instead, we would simply follow the street to its destination and the experience of looking at this image would be over.
Finishing the Experience with Your Imagination
Another interesting element is the water in the background. Had Abbott omitted the water, the image would be far less interesting because the street would lead your eye nowhere. You could say that this portion should be sharper, or should have more detail, but I think that Abbott added something to this image by only offering a vague suggestion of what lies at the end of the street. Without clarity in this portion of the image, viewers are forced to use their own imaginations to complete the story that this photo is telling. When you have to fill in some of the details yourself, it’s more likely that the image will remain in your imagination longer than a photo that tells the whole story in great detail.
As you can see, there is no real rule that stipulates how many elements need to be in a photo to make it interesting. Too few interesting elements, and there won’t be anything that ties your image into a cohesive story. Too many elements, on the other hand, become distracting as viewers look at each one to learn which are relevant to your photo. As you compose, remember that every element within a photo – not just the subjects, but the colors, textures, details, bright spots and shadows – all need to have a reason to exist.
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Finding someone to critique your work well is sometimes even harder than creating the work in the first place. If you’re like most people, you can’t rely on friends and family for unbiased critiques. They care for you, and therefore believe that everything you create is wonderful. If you have photographer friends, they may be too polite to say anything harsh or to really pick your images apart.
That means that if you want real, honest and useful feedback on your work, you need to do it yourself. Self-critique is one of the most challenging skills for any photographer to learn, but I firmly believe that it is one of the most useful skills you could possibly have.
Looking at Your Work with Fresh Eyes
To critique your own work, you first need to develop a system for looking at your work from a fresh perspective. I usually find that the best way to do this is to simply walk away from the computer. Leave your images alone for a day, a week or however long it takes for you to forget some of the finer details of the image. Once you’ve “slept on it,” so to speak, some of the luster will have worn away and you’ll be able to look at your images with a much more objective eye.
Printing your images, or having a professional print them, is another great way to look at your images from a different perspective. We are all so used to seeing our photos on a digital screen that, when presented with prints of our images, the difference is sometimes jarring. You’ll find that the printed photos often have more nuanced colors and a higher dynamic range. Sometimes even the texture of the photo paper adds its own character to your image.
Evaluating the Technical Aspects
With your fresh new perspective, the first thing to look at is the technical quality of your image. Ask yourself several questions:
- Is the focus spot-on or slightly off?
- Can you see detail in the shadows and highlights?
- Does your image have an “over-processed” look?
- Are horizon lines or upright objects straight or slanted?
There are many more questions you can ask, but these give you an idea of the technical flaws you need to look for. However, keep in mind that not all technical flaws are grounds for deleting an image! Sometimes a missed focus or stark blacks and bright whites are used to great artistic effect.
Looking at the Artistic Quality of Your Image
The next step is to look at the artistic quality of your image. Did you follow the Rule of Thirds or was there a good reason to place your subject in the exact center of your image? Check for elements that distract from the overall geometry of the image. Are there objects in the frame that you wouldn’t miss if they weren’t there? During this portion of your critique, analyze all the details in your image and decide whether they add to or take away from the finished work.
The Emotional Impact
Once you’ve judged your image for technical and artistic quality, the final step is to evaluate the photo’s emotional impact. First, ask yourself: Will other people find something of emotional value in this image? For instance, a photo of your husband or wife will always be meaningful to you. To a complete stranger, however, the image may have little or no meaning.
Another way to create emotion is to tell a story with your images. A photo of someone riding a horse will have more of an emotional impact than a horse just standing and looking at the camera. That is because the action in the first image will invite your audience to examine your image to learn more. Why is the person riding the horse? Where are they going?
There is also a third point to consider: Sometimes photos are created, not for emotional impact, but for beauty’s sake alone. If that is the case, then make a list of the elements that make your image beautiful. The longer your list is, the more likely it is that someone else will find your image beautiful, too.
If you’ve studied the works of many famous photographers, you’ve probably seen several images that you didn’t particularly like for one reason or another. That is because art is a very subjective thing, and that subjectivity is what makes self-critique such a difficult skill to learn. Check your work against every technical, artistic and emotional guideline you know, but remember that it is perfectly acceptable to break the rules when there is a good reason.
In a previous post, I talked about the development of the photographer’s eye, and how it is used to create art. Finding subtle facets of a particular subject is no small feat, but with time and experience, you’ll gain a better understanding as to where you should start looking. One interesting way to create meaningful images is to look for things that suggest something else.
What is Pareidolia?
Pareidolia is a phenomenon that allows people to look at one thing and see something else. It’s why we can look at the full moon and see a smiling face, and it’s why we often see castles in the clouds. For photographers, pareidolia is an interesting and effective way to create something that invites our audience to look at our images a little more deeply.
To see what I mean, look at the works of Alvin Langdon Coburn. Coburn was a notable British photographer at the turn of the 20th century, and many of his most famous pieces used pareidolia to great effect. One of the best examples of his work is “The Octopus.” In this image, Coburn used a subject that would normally be mundane and uninteresting – pathways leading to a central point – make a comparison between the landscape before him and an octopus.
Using the Power of Suggestion
In order to use this technique successfully, you don’t need to search for blatant examples of pareidolia in real life. In fact, subtlety is often the more thought-provoking route. That’s where the power of suggestion comes in. As you’re searching for an image, look for ways to relate your subject to something else. That something else could be something similar to your subject, or it could be a completely contrasting idea.
Photographers make comparisons when they create images of power lines that suggest spider webs, or macro photographs of the veins in a tree leaf that bear resemblance to veins within the human body. The meaning of this type of image is easy to see: Life, in all of its forms, follows similar patterns.
When you use the power of suggestion to provide contrast, you’re giving your audience conflicting ideas to consider. A black and white image of ripples in wind-blown snow looks very similar to ripples in wind-blown sand dunes. The contrast in an image like this leads people to ponder the differences between these two ideas: a hot climate versus a cold one, sand instead of snow, and dry instead of wet.
The next time you’re on a photo walk, look around for examples of pareidolia and study your environment to find interesting elements that allude to something other than the physical object you’re photographing. The art in these types of images lies not in the fact that you discovered something that looks like something else, but more in the way your audience perceives the comparison you made. Use the power of suggestion to make your audience ponder the similarities or differences in the ideas you have presented as they study your photos.
I sometimes think that the photographers who lived 200 years ago had it easy. Photography as an art form was completely uncharted territory, so every image these pioneers created was something new and wonderful. Today, nearly everyone has a camera, whether it’s a professional DSLR or a mobile phone camera.
So, with hundreds of thousands of images being created every day, how do you come up with something that hasn’t been done before? How does today’s photographer create something that can truly be considered art? Ernst Haas, one of the world’s most admired photojournalists, put it best when he said, “I am not interested in shooting new things – I am interested to see things new.”
Seeing Things New
You’ll often hear this philosophy by another name: the photographer’s eye. And, indeed, there is a book of the same name by John Szarkowski that uses examples of history’s most famous photographs to teach and inspire budding photographers.
In short, the photographer’s eye is not simply blind adherence to the Rule of Thirds or other laws of composition, and it’s definitely not about owning the best gear money can buy or learning the latest and greatest processing techniques. Instead, the photographer’s eye is a way of looking at everyday ordinary objects, finding something new and extraordinary about them and using that discovery to create something amazing.
Developing Your Eye
The first step is to look at art – lots of it. Don’t limit yourself to specific genres, subjects or time periods. Look at antique daguerreotypes and modern digital images. Follow the work of photojournalists, portrait artists, nature photographers and more. By looking at what has gone before, you’ll start to develop a sense of not only what art admirers enjoy, but also what makes an image timeless.
As you’re studying the works of others, create your own images. If there is one advantage that modern photographers have, it’s that we are only limited by the space on our memory cards. So go out and take as many photos as you can, and analyze them critically. Do your images leave you with certain feelings, or do they somehow tell a story? Is there something about the play of colors or light and shadow that fascinates you? Compare them to the work of photographers you admire to see how they stack up – not only technically, but also emotionally.
Get to Know Your Subject
Seeing something new in a subject that has been photographed thousands of times takes an incredible depth of knowledge about that subject. Let’s say that you’re in the woods, and you’ve found a rushing stream that you’d like to photograph. Before pressing the shutter, find a nice rock or log and sit down. Spend time – an hour, a day or however much time you have – just taking in your surroundings.
Listen to the sounds of the stream, the wind in the trees and the fleeting birdsong around you. Take in the fresh scents and examine how they make you feel about the scene before you. Watch the water playing over rocks or swirling around tree roots. Touch tree bark, rocks and foliage to get a feel for the myriad textures in this vista. Enjoy the colors you find and take the time to look for contrasts between light and dark. Once you’ve studied all the elements at play before you, then you can start looking for the image within them. With luck, you’ll have found something about the scene that no one else has noticed.
But what if your subject is a person? To create a portrait, you need the same intimate knowledge of your subject, but the acquisition of that knowledge comes a bit differently. You’ll want to spend time talking with your subject and getting to know them on a personal level – not only to help them feel more comfortable in front of your lens, but also to get a sense of your subject’s personality so that you can bring it out in your images.
Sometimes, though, there just isn’t time to become acquainted with your subject. Take, for example, event photography or wedding photography. It’s impossible to learn all about the entire wedding party – let alone the guests – prior to the big event. To create artistic images of those sudden special moments, you’ll need to practice on someone else. The best way to do this is to watch other people. Go to a public place like a park or mall and simply watch how people interact with each other. Before long, you’ll be able to pick out those fleeting moments and turn them into works of art.
To develop the “photographer’s eye,” there is a lot that you’ll need to learn. You’ll also need to remember that this is not a skill that you will develop overnight or in the course of a year’s work. Even the world’s greatest photographers are constantly learning and developing their skills so that they can continually create groundbreaking images.
If you think of exposure like a triangle, shutter speed and aperture are two points on that triangle. ISO is the third – and least understood – point. Throughout history, ISO has been called by many names – ASA, GE, DIN and more – but in 1974, the International Organization for Standardization consolidated the ASA and DIN scales into the ISO scale. Like ASA and other designations before that, ISO is a way to measure the sensitivity of film. With digital cameras, it’s a way to measure the sensitivity of your camera’s sensor.
What is ISO?
In the days of film, ISO measured the size of the silver halide grains in film’s emulsion. Film with higher ISO numbers had larger grains that made the films more sensitive to light. Photographers relied on high-ISO films for low-light situations and used low ISO films – or “fast” films – in bright situations.
In the digital world, ISO works much the same way. Instead of switching between more or less sensitive films, you can adjust the ISO setting to make your camera’s sensor more or less sensitive to light.
The Problem with ISO
The problem with ISO – in both film and digital photography – is that the higher you go, the more “grain” or “noise” the final image will have. In film, this is caused by larger grains of silver halide becoming more visible to the naked eye. In our digital sensors, the noise is caused by a high signal to noise ratio. That means that when you increase your ISO setting, you’re amplifying your sensor’s ability to absorb light. However, as the light sensitivity increases, so does the sensor’s margin for error. The speckles – or noise – that you’ll see in an image are tiny flaws where the sensor recorded too much or too little light.
A Balancing Act
There are many different ways to approach your ISO setting. In rare cases, some photographers will deliberately use high ISO settings to achieve an old-fashioned, grainy look. On the other end of the spectrum, you have photographers like Edward Henry Weston. He has been called one of the most influential photographers of the early 20th century, and he was famous for using revolutionary films with speeds that would have been equivalent to ISO 16 by today’s standards.
Most photographers, myself included, tend to take a middle path. If you want to open up your aperture for extreme clarity or slow down your shutter speed to create motion blur in bright light, you’ll want to drop your ISO speed to balance the exposure.
But what if you want to use a fast shutter speed or a narrow aperture at night? In that case, you’ll need to raise your ISO to get a clean shot. However, you’ll also need to think about the amount of noise you’re willing to accept in the final image. Choosing your ISO speed becomes a series of trade-offs based on the amount of noise produced by the sensor, the clarity or narrow depth of field from different aperture settings, and whether you want to use fast or slow shutter speeds to freeze or blur motion.
The key to using ISO correctly is to experiment with your camera. Not all cameras produce the same amount of noise at the same ISO speeds. Small or cheaply made sensors tend to produce a lot of noise at all but the slowest ISO settings while cutting-edge full-frame DSLRs are capable of shooting at extremely high ISOs with very little noise. Learn how your camera performs at various ISOs, and you’ll be able to minimize the amount of sensor noise while creating a balanced exposure in any light.
Edward Henry Weston: "The Photographer"
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Photographers have debated the merits of prime and zoom lenses since 1959, when Nikon released the first zoom lens for their SLRs – the Auto NIKKOR Telephoto-Zoom 8.5-25cm. In those days, most zoom lenses were truly inferior to primes because they didn’t have optics capable of delivering clear, sharp images. Over the years, the technology has improved, and the average zoom lens can now produce an image of at least acceptable quality. That makes the photographer’s decision a little tougher. Should you shoot with prime lenses, or go with zooms? I’ll lay out the facts and let you decide which lenses to put in your kit.
What is the Difference between Prime and Zoom Lenses?
Prime lenses have a fixed focal length. That is, a wide-angle prime lens may have a focal length of 14 millimeters while a telephoto prime lens might have a focal length of 100 or 200 millimeters. A zoom lens, on the other hand, has an adjustable focal length. For instance, a 28-200 millimeter lens lets you take both wide-angle shots and close-ups of distant objects.
The Advantages of Primes
If you’ve ever seen a photojournalist at work, you’ve probably noticed that they have several cameras slung around their neck. In fact, during the D-Day invasion on Omaha Beach in 1944, photojournalist Robert Capa stormed the beach with the soldiers, armed with two 50-millimeter lenses on Contax II cameras.
In Capa’s case, the extra camera gave him more shots before stopping to change rolls of film. Today, film is no longer an issue. When you see a photographer carrying several cameras, it’s because that photographer wants quick access to prime lenses of varying lengths without having to stop for a lens swap. Professionals do this because prime lenses offer a number of advantages over zooms.
- Image Quality: The average prime lens will take a much sharper photo than the equivalent zoom.
- Wide Apertures: Primes have wider apertures than zooms. A 20-100 millimeter zoom may have an aperture of f3.5 while a 20 millimeter prime normally has an aperture of f1.4 or wider.
- Weight: Primes are lighter than zooms, which makes it easier to steady your camera if you’re using slow shutter speeds.
Prime lenses are much less complex than zooms, which means they often cost less to buy. Beginners and hobbyists can gradually add a selection of excellent but inexpensive primes to their kit rather than making a large investment on a single zoom lens.
The Advantages of Zoom Lenses
If most prime lenses take better images than zoom lenses, why would any photographer use a zoom? There are several great reasons to use a zoom lens, bit it mostly boils down to convenience. For instance, if I’m going backpacking for a week, I may opt to take one or two zoom lenses that cover a broad range of focal lengths just so that I don’t have to carry a heavy camera bag with several prime lenses.
Sometimes using a zoom lens is preferable to not getting the shot at all, as is the case with wildlife photography. If you reach for a different camera with a longer or shorter prime lens, or attempt a lens swap, you’ll risk scaring away your subject. Action photographers and sports photographers may not want to run down sidelines or chase their subject while carrying two or three cameras around their necks, so they’ll use zoom lenses for the versatility and convenience.
Shutter speed controls are one of the most important tools for any photographer. With fast and slow shutter speeds, you can create amazing special effects that turn an ordinary snapshot into a work of art. Freeze a split second moment with fast speeds or slow down time to capture motion – simply learning to vary your shutter speeds will add a new layer of life and interest to your art.
Freezing Motion
One of the easiest things to do is to use extremely high shutter speeds to freeze motion entirely. Your shutter speed choice should be based on a variety of factors, including the speed at which your subject is moving and the available lighting. In most cases, you’ll need to compensate for your high shutter speed by opening up the aperture (lowering f-stops). You may even need to raise your ISO setting if you’re shooting in particularly low light or you’re freezing a subject that is moving at very high speeds.
Eadweard Muybridge is one of photography’s early pioneers, and he is notable for using shutter speed to freeze motion. During the late 1800s, photographic equipment was largely incapable of making exposures that were fast enough to freeze motion. Muybridge, in an attempt to settle a longstanding debate about the way horses gallop, used extreme measures to freeze a galloping horse in motion.
The problem was this: cameras of the era did not have large enough apertures to let in the amount of light necessary for freezing something as fast as a galloping horse. Not only that, but early film took far longer to expose than today’s digital image sensors. Muybridge used white sheets as backdrops to reflect as much light as possible. He then had a horse and rider gallop in front of a series of glass-plate cameras, each triggered by a remote mechanism set off by the horse. The result – this series of images, called Horse in Motion – sparked both a scientific and photographic revolution.
Blurring Motion
It’s nice to be able to freeze motion, but I’ve also found that motion blur is equally important to fine art photography. The artistry lies in choosing which elements to blur and which should remain crystal clear. In most instances, you’ll be able to choose between blurring the background or blurring the subject itself.
For example, one of photography’s most famous images – from The Decisive Moment by Henri Cartier-Bresson – depicts a man jumping from planks over glassy water. In Cartier-Bresson’s image, the man is blurred while the background is sharp, lending the image a transitional, almost ghostly feeling. Had Cartier-Bresson chosen to freeze the leaping man or both the man and the background, the image would likely hold little or no power over its audience.
To create images reminiscent of Cartier-Bresson’s, you’ll need a deep understanding of both shutter speed and exposure. For instance, to create motion blur in a photo of a runner, you’ll need a lower shutter speed than you would if you’re creating an image of a speeding car. Moreover, available light will play into your decision as well. In bright sunlight, you’ll need to balance your exposure by compensating with lower f-stops and higher ISO settings. In darkness, the reverse is true.
Balancing Clarity and Motion
As photographers, we often find ourselves in situations where there is more than one moving element. For instance, when I am shooting aerial photos of planes, I have a choice between blurring the background, the plane itself, the plane’s propellers or some combination of the three. Since the plane is my subject, I keep it in perfect focus by using a shutter speed that is fast enough to freeze it as it flies by. A clear background contrasts nicely against the plane, so I’ll often use a shutter speed that freezes both the plane and the background.
However, an image of an airplane with no suggestion of motion whatsoever tends to be static and boring. To create a balance between motion and clarity, I make sure that my shutter speed is not so fast that it also stops the spinning propellers. As you can see, there is no tried and true rule for blurring some elements and not others – it all comes down to a judgment call based on available light and the speeds at which objects are moving through the frame.
Long Exposures
Another important concept that relies heavily on shutter speed is long exposure photography. Long exposures encompass a variety of photographic techniques, including nighttime landscapes such as those Ansel Adams was noted for, light painting and even waterfalls. Slow shutter speeds let you capture just enough light to make gorgeous moonlit landscapes, or they let you slow down time to create silky smooth waterfalls.
If you love light paintings, use long shutter speeds to let a friend create beautiful patterns with a bright light. The shutter speed needs to be long enough to catch the moving light, but fast enough to make the person holding the light disappear.
Capturing a rare moment, suggesting motion or slowing down time are just a few of the things you’ll be able to do once you’ve learned how to use your shutter speed controls. Because there aren’t standard rules that tell you what speed to use in a given situation, it’s a difficult skill to master. Devote plenty of time to experimentation, and you’ll soon develop instinctual knowledge that lets you choose the right shutter speed to capture those fleeting moments.
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There are few things more soothing than the trickling sounds of water mixed with birdsong from a nearby forest. As a photographer, I have the unique opportunity to capture the beauty that my Lord has made, and that includes rushing waterfalls. To make an image of silky flowing water, you’ll not only need to master your camera but also come to an understanding of your surroundings.
1. Use Slow Shutter Speeds
What makes an ordinary waterfall photo extraordinary is the smooth look of flowing water. Photographers take advantage of motion blur to create this stunning effect. I normally use a shutter speed that is several seconds long to smooth water, but in very bright conditions or when photographing slow-moving water, a shutter speed as fast as 1/15 may work.
2. Choosing the Right Tripod
Slow shutter speeds make camera stabilization essential. You’ll need a sturdy tripod, and preferably one that is waterproof. The tripod should have adjustable legs to account for uneven terrain, and it should be a model that doesn’t have a center pole. Those made without the center pole let you get your camera low to the ground, which helps you create compositions that are more interesting.
3. Adjusting ISO and Aperture
Remember that with slow shutter speeds – especially during daylight hours – you’ll need to compensate by stopping down the aperture and lowering the ISO. Start with the aperture, and take it all the way down to f/22 if you must. Not only will this reduce the light hitting your sensor, but it will also help improve the overall clarity of the final image. If you find that your camera’s meter is still reading too high, lower the ISO setting until you have the correct exposure.
4. Use a Remote Trigger or Timer
Simply pressing the shutter button will cause enough camera shake to blur your otherwise perfect waterfall photos. The best option is to use a remote shutter trigger with your camera so that you don’t have to handle the camera once it’s been set up. Failing that, set your camera’s timer so that the shutter actuates a few seconds after the shutter release is pressed. This will ensure that the camera stops moving before the exposure starts.
5. Invest in Filters
At the very least, you’ll need to invest in neutral density (ND) filters. A polarizer is helpful, too. ND filters serve two purposes: they help balance your images so that bright skies aren’t blown out against dark rocks, and they lower the amount of light entering the lens. An ND 0.3 filter decreases the light by one f-stop, while an ND 1.8 filter will decrease light by six f-stops.
Polarizers also decrease the light a little bit, but more importantly, they reduce reflections. If you happen to be shooting a waterfall that is flowing into a glassy pool, use a polarizer to cut back on glare or other unwanted reflections. A polarizer will also help somewhat if you’re battling specular highlights.
6. Sun or Clouds?
Unless a bright blue sky is absolutely necessary to your image, it’s always wiser to shoot a waterfall on a cloudy day. Bright sunlight causes specular highlights – or bright points of reflected light – on the water, and depending on the position of the sun in the sky, it can cause dark directional shadows among rocks, trees and other landscape elements.
7. Dress to Get Wet
Wear boots or a good pair of water shoes, and take along a change of clothes in case you get wet. Sometimes the best composition means you’ll need to get down in the water rather than staying on the shore.
8. Take Wide and Telephoto Lenses
When I photograph a waterfall, I always take along a 17-40 Canon wide-angle lens and a 70-200 lens. The wide-angle lens is necessary to capture sweeping views, while the 70-200 lets me take tight shots or zoom in close to the water without soaking the camera.
9. Bracket Your Shots
When you’re taking shots that include leaves, plants or anything else that might waver in the breeze, make sure to take a couple of shots of the same scene at a faster shutter speed. As you’re processing the images later, you can use layer masks to fix blurred vegetation. For that matter, you can also use layer masks to fix blown out portions of the sky or areas of the image that are too dark.
10. Making Rocks Look Uniform
Another handy trick I’ve learned over the years is to take a squirt gun along. You’ll notice that rocks in the foreground are often dry. Use the squirt gun to moisten the rocks for a nice, even, shiny look.
Capturing the perfect image of rushing water is one of the most rewarding things any photographer can do. You’ll need to do a lot of practicing and experimentation, but once you’ve learned how to capture a waterfall, you’ll be able to make fine art that transports people to another time and place.
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One of the best things about traveling to different countries is experiencing the cultural changes and characteristics of a nation. Capturing people and places in landscape and portrait photography is a wonderful way of showing the country as it is but there are several cultural issues to think about when photographing people and sometimes places. Here are some tips on how to get the culture issues right.
Always Ask and Respect a No
From a souk to a local wedding the things that a photographer can snap make fantastic photos back home or even to place online. In some cultures women do not like to be photographed as they consider it bad luck. This is especially relevant with Islamic women and some tribes. Increasingly this is becoming more common in Western cultures as people do not want to be featured on the internet. It is courteous to ask permission and if someone says no, then respect their wishes. Be especially careful when taking photos of children as parents are very sensitive to issues around security and safety. There are ways of taking photos discretely and getting people to stay in the picture. An example is to shoot from a roof terrace or upper window. Getting a good vantage point like this is especially useful when dealing with crowds and at festivals. Another way is to blend into a scene by observing things for a while and then taking a photo without pointing directly at people. This way you are less likely to attract attention when photographing. Always be aware of your surroundings when shooting in this way as it just takes a moment for someone to find it unacceptable and you can face problems.
Be Aware of Sensitive Sites
In some countries there are certain places where photography is not allowed. These include border posts, military installations, and some government buildings. Even airports and railway stations can arouse suspicion when a foreigner is seen taking pictures and arrests have been known to happen. If in doubt, don’t take the shot as it can get you into more trouble than you imagine. When a religious service is taking place it is generally not acceptable to take photographs and is likely to cause offence. It is also important to be very aware of the sensitivities in photographing refugees as it can place people and their families in danger, especially if photographs are displayed online.
Positive Ways to Engage and Get the shot
Getting photographs of people can be a challenge when respecting cultures. Some of the ways of getting around this in a positive way is to buy something from a stall or shop and ask to take a photo. Another is to smile and also to spend time with the people instead of pointing a camera. This breaks down a lot of barriers and shows you are interested in what they do and not just there to take photos. After someone has performed a service for you is a great time to get them to pose for a photo such as rickshaw drivers and salesmen. Always say thank you as a basic courtesy.
Capturing the faces and images of a new culture is a wonderful way to use photography but taking time to consider the cultural issues around it is very important and can reap rewards if done in a sensitive way.
Techniques for Creating Artistic Photographs
Composition is what transforms a simple snapshot into a work of art. It’s what makes an image of an ordinary subject extraordinary. The concepts used in fine art photography are the same concepts that have been practiced by great artists for centuries. Whether your medium is paint on canvas or light on film, the following guidelines will help you create something more than a simple visual record.
The Rule of Thirds
I’ve found that one of the best guidelines for creating interesting images is something that was invented long before cameras: the Rule of Thirds. Painters first used the Rule of Thirds during the Renaissance era as a way to add interest to their work. Since the dawn of photography as an art form, photographers around the world have adopted this rule as one of their own.
It’s an easy rule to follow: Simply imagine that your viewfinder has two horizontal and two vertical lines that divide your image into equal horizontal and vertical thirds. As you’re composing the image, instead of putting your subject or other important elements in the center of the frame, line them up on one of the imaginary dividing lines.
For example, if I were to take a portrait of someone looking over their shoulder, I would place that person on one of the vertical third lines so that they are looking towards the empty side of the frame.
In a landscape photo, you can place the horizon line on the upper third line to make the earth seem expansive, or put it on the lower third line to give the impression of endless skies. Arrange elements like trees or fences so that they are also on third lines, and the resulting image will have a pleasing sense of geometrical unity.
So why does the Rule of Thirds work to create interesting images? Science says that it’s all in the way our eyes look at a photo. We don’t take the entire image in at once. Instead, we tend to look at each element of the image, starting with the subject. When you place a subject in the center, the experience is over almost before it begins – our eyes have nowhere else to look, so we stop looking. However, when you place elements on the third lines, most viewers tend to look deeper into the image. The extra time spent following the geometry gives the viewer more time to find interesting elements, which creates a deeper emotional impact.
The Power of Geometry
“You may call this a crowd of immigrants,” Alfred Stieglitz once said, “To me it is a study in mathematical lines, in balance, in a pattern of light and shade. I saw a picture of shapes.” Stieglitz was the forefather of photography as an art form, and he said this in reference to his famous photo, “The Steerage.” As you examine his images, you will start to understand the importance of geometry. “The Steerage” uses the angles of the stairwell and the gangplank lead you into the image. The line of the upper deck creates a clear dividing line between two very different groups of people. Even the geometry of the people’s clothing tells a tale: The draped shawls of the people down below in the steerage section contrast the dapper hats and tailored clothes of the more well-to-do people on the upper deck.
The geometry of your photography doesn’t need to be as complex or as subtle as the geometry that Stieglitz used, but it is an important aspect of composition nonetheless. As you’re taking photos, be aware of the shapes and patterns around you, and use them to enrich your photos. You can find geometry everywhere, from the curve of blades of grass, bending in the breeze to the similar shapes found in a shot of a crowd of people.
A Range of Colors
Tonal range is another important aspect that sets amazing images apart from bland ones. When your images have a diverse tonal range, they include colors across a wide spectrum. In black and white photography, this means that instead of creating a work in shades of medium gray, you’ll need to make sure that there are interesting points of bright white and stark black to add contrast and interest. Stieglitz’s image of artist Georgia O’Keeffe is a beautiful example of a wide tonal range. Her dark hair stands out against the bright white of her robe.
To create his photographs, Stieglitz used an Auto Graphlex camera, which was a large, boxy affair made by the Eastman Kodak Company. However, more important to his creative process – especially when it came to creating images with a wide tonal range – were the photo papers and developing processes he used. Stieglitz was famous for experimenting with the tonal range of platinum and palladium prints, and he was largely responsible for bringing color photography to the United States with the French Autochrome Lumiere process.
In color photography, tonal range means both the difference between light and shadow, and the difference between the colors in your image. You can still use blacks and whites to great effect in a color image, but you can also use contrasting colors like orange against blue to create a striking image.
What I’ve listed here is only a small selection of the guidelines that photographers use to create art. As you learn and grow, remember that these guidelines have one key purpose: to intrigue the viewer and lead them into a deep exploration of your image. You’ll discover that there are countless ways to create that level of interest, from leading lines to layering your scenery. If you’d like to learn more about how you can use your camera to create art, watch for my next photography fundamentals post, in which we will discuss various shutter speed techniques.
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Clingmans Dome - Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Are you traveling to an exciting destination and intend on taking lots of impressive photos to show the folks back home? Here are some awesome tips on what equipment to bring so that you are ready to go as soon as you arrive.
Take Additional Memory Card, Have a Backup Plan
Most memory cards provide plenty of space for casual shooting, but if you are taking lots of photos having a spare card can be useful. Back up your work by transferring photos to a portable storage device or a cloud-based facility like Dropbox. This will free up space and safeguard against lost memories in the event that a camera goes missing. This is particularly important if you are planning to use any of the photos for commercial purposes.
Consider a Tripod
Tripods are useful if you plan to take pictures of landscapes, wildlife or technical photos such as those captured early or late in the day. Some of the easiest models to carry around are Gorilla Pod frames, which are flexible and easily fit into a camera bag. Check out the full extension of a tripod before you purchase it, and certainly before you depart, to ensure it meets your requirements. Make sure the model is one you are happy to carry around. There is little point buying a tripod if it’s too cumbersome and you’re forced to leave it behind.
Batteries and Chargers are Key
Always take spare batteries. Take more than you think you need since certain types of battery are hard to come by in some countries. If you are taking many shots and photographing in more difficult conditions, such as dimmer light, you’ll use more battery and could run out more quickly than you normally do. Having a power pack charger is really helpful and provides a boost to digital cameras. With legislation on airlines requiring electrical equipment to be charged for security checks, that power pack will likely serve your needs in more ways than one.
Take a Filter or Two
Filters attach to the front of the lens. They are useful pieces of a technical kit that are best suited to landscape photography. Take a polarizer and a skylight lens, which should suit most color photography taken on vacation. Don’t forget a filter pouch too which helps keep the filters clean and dust free.
Environmental Considerations
If you plan to take underwater photographs, get some housing that is specific to your camera and made to withstand depth pressure. This will allow you to film underwater safely. If you are a beginner at diving and snorkeling it is best to leave the photography to others and concentrate on your aquatic skills.
Fill Out Your Kit
A notebook is helpful for recording what scenes are captured in each set of photos, especially if you have planned a tour of multiple sights in a short space of time. Head torches are great for those early morning filming sessions when you are forced to prepare your kit in the dark. Gaffers tape works for securing various items without sticking permanently and serves as a temporary fix for problems such as a broken tripod leg.
Above all, enjoy your vacation and take lots of photographs.
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How to Use Aperture Settings for Artistic Effects
It was W. Eugene Smith who asked, “What use is having a great depth of field if there is not an adequate depth of feeling?” In a sense, Smith was right. Without emotion, a photograph is a stale thing. However, depth of field is one of the photographer’s most important tools for creating emotion. By understanding how to adjust the aperture, I can isolate my subject or capture the entire scene with rich detail. The question becomes, “How do I use the aperture to achieve the greatest emotional effect?”
Wide Apertures and Artistic Effects
In many instances, a wide aperture is better. If you’ve ever seen Smith’s photo “Nun Waiting for Survivors,” you’ll know exactly what I mean. He elected to use a wide aperture to create a narrow depth of field, keeping only the nun herself in focus. The background – and to some extent, the foreground – is blurred just enough so that the nun takes center stage in the image. However, you can see enough of the background to understand that this image was taken in a bustling area, on perhaps a momentous occasion – feelings that are underscored by the nun’s expression and posture.
So how did Smith do it? For him, it would have been no small feat. While W. Eugene Smith sometimes used SLRs, he typically preferred rangefinder cameras. With a rangefinder, you cannot see the depth of field through the viewfinder. Most modern-day photographers can adjust the depth of field as they compose their images, but Smith relied on instinct and intimate knowledge of his equipment to create images like this.
With a modern digital SLR, you can recreate this narrow depth of field – often referred to as bokeh – quite easily by widening the aperture on your cameras lens. Smaller numbers (or f-stops) are wider aperture openings; when you turn the aperture ring to f/1.4, the aperture will be much bigger than if you set it to f/22.
As you open up the aperture, you’ll always need to be mindful of one thing: Wider apertures let in more light. That means you’ll need to compensate by adjusting either the shutter speed or the ISO setting. On a bright, sunny day, an aperture set at f/1.0 may require an ISO of 100 with a shutter speed of 1/2000 or more to prevent overexposed images.
What if I Don’t Want Bokeh?
If you’d prefer an image that is sharp from the foreground to the background, you’ll need to “stop down” or narrow your aperture. When you narrow the aperture, you’ll need to lower your shutter speed and increase the ISO setting. However, you’ll need to remember that shutter speed and ISO settings will have their own effects on your image. Slow shutter speeds can create motion blur, while high ISO settings sometimes result in “noisy” photos.
What is the Soft Focus Effect?
At wide apertures, many lenses have a tendency to “go soft.” This means that everything in the photo – even the parts that seem focused – are faintly blurred. In some applications, such as wedding portraits, this “soft focus” look can be beautiful. At other times, your images will call for as much clarity as possible. Each lens is different, so you will need to experiment to figure out the point at which your lenses start to go soft.
Using Tiny Apertures for Sharp Detail
Ansel Adams was famous for using incredibly small apertures to achieve a deep depth of field. He went so far as to found a group in 1934 called Group f/64. Adams and the rest of Group f/64 believed that photography should be less about artistic soft focus effects and more about the sharp, clear pictures that can only be produced by using tiny apertures.
Group f/64 typically used large format cameras because these were some of the only cameras available that had lenses capable of tiny apertures. Their style also meant that all photos – even those taken in broad daylight – had to be long exposures.
Fortunately for us, there is no need for the modern-day photographers to resort to such extreme measures to achieve perfect clarity. The vast majority of lenses you will find top out at f/22, and they have excellent optics capable of creating crystal clear images. For the most part, if you keep your aperture settings toward the middle or the narrow end of the range, your images will have the sharpness and detail that Adams prized.
Are wide apertures preferable to narrow ones? As Adams once said, “There are no rules for good photographs; there are only good photographs.” I’ve used apertures both large and small in my work. Your choice needs to be based on your style, your environment and, most of all, the emotion you’re trying to convey.
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I'd like to continue with this short wedding series by focusing on the importance of close-ups. While you may think taking photos at a wedding is a fairly straightforward affair, with everyone happy and glad to pose for portraits, it’s a whole lot more challenging than you may have realized. What's more, of course, you only get one chance at the best available shots throughout the day. Even for the most experienced photographer, shooting a wedding can be stressful.
Clearly, this kind of event photography is different from other forms you may have experimented with, such as landscape photography or event photography.
As the photographer, you’re there to tell the story of the happy couple’s special day. It’s important that you don’t overlook the importance of the small details that make up the occasion. They are vital elements of any wedding, and the more unusual ways you can find to tell the story, the better. Rather than only taking conventional group shots, include candid photos of momentary interactions. Rather than taking a photo of a clock to show time of day or the part of the day at hand, for example, snap shadows on the ground.
What subjects should I focus on for close-up wedding photography?
You should find no shortage of things which make good close-ups, from the wedding party to flowers, to rings, the cake, kids playing, musicians and their instruments and architectural details of the venue.
When taking guests, as well as the group pictures, get intimate individual portraits. Take these with the sun behind people’s heads to catch a rim light, and focus on the person’s eyes. Of course, you’ll want to capture the emotion of the day in facial expressions, with as much laughter and happy tears as possible.
As well as people’s faces, other things you’ll probably want to get up close and personal with include details like flowers, place settings, rings, details on the bride’s dress, bows on chairs, the marriage certificate, the cake, or pews in the church, the Order of Service and anything else that tells the story of the day. Have close-ups in mind from the outset and scout the best locations for them in advance.
Sometimes when shooting close-ups at the reception, you may find spotlights in the room cast an annoying shadow, in which case use an off-camera flash which operates via a remote trigger. This eliminates shadows, and allows you to be really creative with your lighting.
When it comes to shooting the bride and groom, you may want to zoom in for a tighter picture. Shoot the bride on her own in full and half length and get head and shoulders close-ups, each one posed slightly differently. Try standing on a ladder for a close up, and have the bride lift her chin a little for a more flattering image. Get a helper to hold a reflector, so that light is bounced back into the bride’s face.
When photographing from a ladder, ask the bride to look down at the floor, before lifting her head gradually as she opens her eyes toward the lens. You will feel when the right moment is to hit the shutter and get a powerful portrait.
To get a quality group close-up, again, use a ladder - and a wider lens. You may find you get better detailing in your image if you slightly underexposed (by maybe one stop). Using fill-flash will eliminate shadows.
When shooting close-ups of those making speeches, a slower shutter speed will make the most of natural light while bouncing the flash from the ceiling. This also gets rid of unwelcome shadows and record the room's atmosphere.
What’s the Best Equipment for Shooting Close-ups?
Equipment reviews are the best source of information. I currently use the Canon 5D Mark III camera and 100mm F2.8 IS lens and it offers exceptional image quality, while the macro lens is another must-have. Using mid-range apertures may help if the macro lens is not giving you a precise enough level of detail. The f/6/3-f/8, for example, means you can balance good shutter speeds with depth of field, and focus manually. In darker churches, a Pocket Wizard, with its remotely controlled flash gun, can be useful. Finally, use a wide variety of focal lengths for a range of images everyone will love.
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Have you ever noticed that the word “perfect” shows up a lot when people talk about weddings? They talk about the perfect venue, the perfect dress, the perfect kiss. Suffice it to say, as a wedding photographer you don’t want to be the one to deliver a less-than-perfect product. But weddings can be hard to shoot, especially when the pressure is on. Here are 5 things NOT to do as a wedding photographer:
Don’t Skimp on Prep...
Sure, it’s tempting to think that every wedding is the same and get lulled into a false sense of security. But skimping on pre-wedding prep is a bad move that borders on the insane. Think about it, you have one shot at documenting what may be your client’s defining life event. Make sure to get to know your client, the expectations surrounding the shoot, and the venue before all systems are go. It may seem like a lot of work, but it’s sure to pay off on the big day.
…But Don’t Get Married to Your Plan
As a wedding photographer, you need to learn to balance your artistic desires with the reality of a complex event. Think of a wedding as a multi-part film with competing directors. Your job is to document and go with the flow, including when things go wrong, get delayed, and get complicated. This can be especially important for formal shots, which are usually expected but can really upset the flow of a wedding and bog down the timeline. Instead of tweaking and re-tweaking until you get the perfect shot, orchestrate the formal shots to occur as quickly as possible so the guests can move on and celebrate.
Don’t Let The Bride Run The Show…
Sometimes, a bride who’s also an amateur shutterbug can be a wedding photographer’s worst nightmare. Whether out of nerves or a tendency towards controlling behavior, brides sometimes choose to micromanage the photographer’s angles, lenses, equipment, processing options, and everything else under the sun. If your bride (or another member of the wedding party) gets controlling, it’s usually best to politely listen to her concerns, refocus her attention on her big day, and reassure her that it’s your job to capture the beauty of her wedding in all its glory. Sometimes things like the formal to candid ratio can be a big sticking point for brides who worry about appearances or are concerned about cost creep. These situations are best faced head-on, then resolved when the bride is selecting prints.
…But Don’t Get Too Big For Your Britches
When you’re at a wedding, remember your role is to document the wedding. Period. Since wedding photographers and wedding parties often form deep bonds, it can feel tempting to think of yourself as a guest with a camera, but remember that expectations are high. It’s best to dress unobtrusively, blend into the crowd, and check the temptation to spend the entire wedding visiting instead of working.
Don’t Ever Forget Your Clients
It seems like there are a million pitfalls and sticking points built into the process shooting a wedding and delivering photos the bride and groom will love. But ultimately, a wedding is about love, and it’s easier to deliver great photos if you see things through your clients’ eyes. Look for genuine expressions of love during the wedding. Strive to capture the candid and unpredictable moments that inevitably accompany such a meaningful event. And in moments of conflict or stress, remind yourself that a happy client can turn into hundreds of loving referrals.
Truth be told, “the perfect day” doesn’t exist…but your eye for one of life’s great celebrations can create truly memorable photos. It can even rekindle a long-lasting romance: yours. With the right attitude, good communication, and clear expectations, let your next wedding shoot reignite your love for photography.
Capturing a perfect portrait of an individual or group can be a challenge. You want the image to be interesting, have great composition and show off the subject's personality. That's a tall order for what might seem like a very basic photo set up. But if you're venturing into the art of portrait photos, here are some tips that can help you take stunning and intriguing photos of just about any individual.
1. Lighting
When photographing for portrait sessions, lighting is critical if you want to avoid unwanted shadows or washing out your subject. If possible, shoot in natural light outdoors or via large windows. The sun is more forgiving at times like dusk and dawn when light is softer, which can provide a beautiful glow for your subject. If all else fails, just be sure to stay out of areas where harsh halogen lights are beamed directly at your subject and play with different set ups and locations until you find the perfect balance.
2. Rule of Thirds
The composition of a photo is important no matter what type of picture you're taking. For an interesting take on portraits you can use the rule of thirds, which states that you should divide a picture, both vertically and horizontally, into three equal zones. You can then place your subjects in various thirds of the photo, perhaps only on the right side while capturing a beautiful beach scene in the additional space, or in the lower third, with a brilliant sunset behind them.
3. Conversation
Comfort is key when it comes to snapping portraits. For hesitant subjects or those who aren't used to being in front of the camera, striking up a conversation or having them engage in an activity may help break the ice and produce better pictures. Keep the chatter light and fun and start snapping photos as your subject talks. Soon enough you'll be able to ask for more specific poses without them clamming up, giving you more natural and interesting photos.
4. Get Close
A portrait is of a person or group of people, so make sure to get some close up shots of your subjects. You want the composition of the photo to make it clear that the person is the the main focus, not a secondary part of the photo. Getting up close, either physically or utilizing zoom will also allow you to capture a more detailed picture of your subject.
5. Pay Attention to Eye Contact
They say eyes are the window to the soul, so it makes sense that you should be cognizant of eye contact during a portrait photo shoot. An intense stare into the camera can provide a more intriguing or intimate photo, while pictures of your subject looking off to the side or at other objects can give a pensive or nostalgic feeling to your photo. For each iteration be sure that you know where your subject's eyes are focusing and what type of mood it creates within the photo.
6. Shift the Focus
Though the people in your pictures should be the stars of the photo, that doesn't mean that they have to be perfectly in focus in order to have a beautiful portrait. Focusing your camera on a secondary object can create a photo where your main subject is slightly out-of-focus, creating a more mysterious or casual vibe. You can also utilize various shutter speeds to make the subjects of your photo ultra-clear while blurring lights or scenery behind them to create a more romantic portrait.
As you can see from the above tips, taking high-quality portraits doesn't require a ton equipment or professional experience, just an interest and willing subjects. And don't forget that practice makes perfect, so get out and start snapping shots as soon as possible. Not only will you improve your portrait skills but you'll also capture beautiful images that people will cherish for a lifetime.
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Digital photography has revolutionized the way I now capture, store and disseminate images. However, the art of high-quality photography demands more than just the use of high-end equipment. Novice photographers need to master basic principles to capture outstanding photos that bring out the best of any subject, whether moving or static. Photographers must understand how composition guidelines apply to different scenarios to improve the quality and depth of a captured scene.
1. Choose Ideal Equipment
Start with mid-range equipment capable of taking decent photos. After you learn the various photographic techniques and field requirements and understand the value of good equipment, you may want to upgrade to a better camera.
2. Prevent Camera Shake
Camera shake is a common flaw that undermines the quality of any image. Although the use of a tripod or monopod eliminates the problem, not all applications allow the use of a supporting frame. Beginners must learn how to hold a camera firmly with both hands placed close to the body. This ensures full support and much-needed balance.
3. Keep Camera Handy
Golden photographic moments often present themselves when you least expect it. As I've mentioned in previous posts, you won’t have to worry about missing a once-in-a-lifetime shot if you carry your camera with you constantly.
4. Select Ideal Shooting Mode
Digital cameras come with a wide range of shooting modes, including automatic and user-specified options. Some modes, such as shutter priority, allow users to capture fast action scenes with precision. On the other hand, the aperture priority mode is ideal for use in low light.
5. Use Photography Resources
The Internet overflows with useful photography resources that offer important tips and up-to-date information on new techniques. The majority of sites incorporate forum sections where you can share experiences with other photographers.
6. Adjust White Balance
Digital cameras normally adjust white balance in an automatic fashion based on prevailing light conditions, which makes the images look as natural as possible. The camera assigns specific colors to various light casts - yellow is linked to tungsten lighting, green to fluorescent and blue is triggered by sunlight.
7. Use Flash Appropriately
Firing the flash at the wrong time may ruin the quality of shots taken. The flash can make photos appear unnatural, particularly when fired indoors. In some instances, it’s better to apply the widest aperture or elevate the ISO to between 800 and 1600 to make the most of the available light rather than use the flash. Alternatively, you can move away from the subject and zoom in to achieve correct framing. When adjusting flash power is impractical, use the diffuser to spread the light.
8. Take Advantage of Post Processing Programs
There are many free and paid image-processing programs available online. Their basic functions include red eye removal, exposure adjustment, cropping, resizing, and color correction, among other photo editing functions.
9. Use Exposure Compensation
Cameras use an 18-percent gray card to help determine ideal exposure based on specific shooting conditions. Depending on the type of camera, you can either dial exposure compensation or select the appropriate scene mode in the event that automatic settings produce darker images.
10. Learn About Basic Composition
Composing a photo involves positioning various frame elements. The rule of thirds is particularly useful in this regard. You can easily split a single frame into nine distinct squares of equal size. Align the subject in the lines and intersections to create a dynamically improved photo. My Canon 5D Mark III comes with an integrated rule of thirds grid overlay that can be activated at the push of a button.
By following basic guidelines, newbies can produce high-quality images that rival those captured by experienced photographers. Although high-end equipment is capable of delivering vastly improved photos and offer numerous advanced features, it is possible to work successfully with entry- and mid-range devices.
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“If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn’t need to lug around a camera.” - Lewis Hines
Photography is a major part of many cultures. Whether for career or catharsis, photography is a valuable skill in today’s digital, open-source world. Here are some photography tips that can guide you in your journey.
Photo Backgrounds
When working inside, cloth backgrounds are the most popular choice. However, if you want to avoid a studio feel, be sure not to clutter your background. You can blur the background easily by having your subject placed farther from the items behind them. Plain backgrounds are most desirable for quality images.
Posing
Rules and guidelines for portrait photography are endless. Here are just a few of the basics:
- Arrange hair and accessories.
- Bring the chin forward (to avoid any bulging under the face).
- Pull the arms slightly away from the torso (again, avoiding excess bulge).
- Tilt one shoulder towards the background.
- When photographing multiple subjects, get them close together. Try to make triangles with their faces and don’t put one person’s face directly above another.
- Get up close!
Rule of Thirds
In every image there are imaginary lines that break the picture into thirds. These imaginary lines run both horizontally and vertically. In most cases, the rule of thirds applies to landscape photography. When taking an image of a landscape, ocean view or mountain range, you need to pay attention to the horizon. Have the horizon cut across the top third or the bottom third of the image. Never have it in the middle. It cuts your image in half, making your image look flat.
Composition
Photography is just like any other visual art, you have to pay attention to the whole. When taking an image, be sure to look at the background to make sure there are no strange cutoffs or someone photo-bombing what would be a great picture. Also, move your subject to the side of the frame instead of always keeping it centered. Try visiting personal photography sites to get ideas and tips, and to see what your fellow photographers are doing.
Focus
When your camera is in auto mode, it focuses on whatever lies beneath lens focus points. To focus on something else, put that object in the center and depress the shutter down halfway.
Manipulating Light
Shutter speed is just one of the methods used to manipulate light. This term refers to how long the shutter is open and letting in light. Longer shutter speeds mean letting in more light, resulting in brighter images. Shorter shutter speeds mean less light and darker images.
Using a Flash
If you are taking pictures in a darkened setting or inside, a flash is a huge help. Know how far your flash reaches so that you can ensure your light will be useful.
Finding Natural Light
To avoid highlighting features, such as wrinkles, be sure to use a soft light that shines straight onto a face. Light coming from the side can increase shadows on a face, which distorts the image.
Portrait vs. Landscape
There is often a strange urge to keep your camera strictly in the landscape position. Don’t be afraid to turn that camera sideways and use the portrait position for any subject that is taller than it is wide. Also, you can use your camera as a spaceship and get a different perspective of your subject. The effect of such a small move will be amazing.
Choosing Your Mode
Many beginners like to stick to the auto mode, which can greatly limit your photos. Don’t be afraid to switch it up. Check your camera’s guide to see what each symbol on your camera means.
It’s important to remember that photography is a skill that takes practice. Henri Cartier-Bresson said, “Your first 10,000 photos are your worst.” Just know that with time, your skills will improve. You’ll be glad you decided to pick up that camera.
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A popular craft, photography is a mainstay of American culture. We created the adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” and hone our skills to make photos as telling as possible. These 10 simple tips will help you share stories with just one click.
1. Understand the basics of composition.
You don’t have to be a master of art to be a good photographer, but you do need a sense of composition basics to put the emphasis in your photos where you need it the most.
2. Write down the people, places, and things you wish to shoot.
Make a list of pictures you would like to take to help you plan ahead, be organized, and stay motivated. Keep your list of subjects up-to-date.
3. Do online research for guides and other useful resources.
Once you have your list, go online and do some quick research. For instance, if you want to take a picture of a sunset, you can do an Internet search for “sunset photography tips.” The information you find can inspire and guide your photo shoot, whether you’re focused on landscape photography or action shots. You can also use books and magazines as references for your projects too, as well as for checking out equipment reviews.
4. Always keep your camera on hand.
Taking your camera with you is a good habit, and it helps you keep potential photo opportunities in mind. Nature photographers should bring cameras with them when they venture outdoors, while those interested in event photography need to be ready to shoot whenever they’re around groups of people.
5. Experiment with your techniques.
Experimenting with different techniques helps you learn a lot just by trial-and-error. You’ll try new things and watch as some methods succeed while others fail.
6. Take photo editing seriously.
If you happen to have a digital camera with the in camera editing feature, it’s easy and fun to work on post editing in the field. In doing so, you can control the final picture by cropping, changing the detail, exposure, and saturation. I've been using Lightroom for many years and I find it to be very reliable with the ability to organize my photos for quick editing.
7. Take satisfaction in all of your pictures.
The time you spend on this hobby is valuable because you are always learning and growing as a photographer. Be satisfied with what you accomplish, and it will show in your pictures.
8. Share pictures for constructive criticism.
Use social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, to share your pictures with your friends and family. Keep things fun by getting them involved in action or portrait photography, or ask their opinions on your latest work. As you read their responses, look for positive feedback. Like all artists, you’ll find that words of praise and encouragement are uplifting and keep you motivated.
9. Learn from your mistakes.
Make sure your hobby stays enjoyable by not overreacting to mistakes. If a shot does not turn out the way you want, try to figure out why, and take it again. You will learn to stay focused enough to create the photos you want.
10. Practice, practice, practice.
As a novice photographer, you know that as your skill level increases with practice your hobby may become more serious. Keep your favorite pictures in case you decide to make a portfolio. Zenfolio offers a beautiful home for your photos and videos.
If you follow these 10 tips, you will be sure to improve your beginner skills and take steps toward a rewarding hobby.
The ability to take sharp, beautiful photos at major life events is a useful skill for everyone, not just professional photographers. You don't need a ton of experience or a team of experts to take great pictures during a special event. Below are a few photography tips that even novices can employ to capture stunning, evocative photos.
1. Change your Angle
2. Have Patience
3. Adjust Your Shutter Speed
4. Get Creative
5. Keep Snapping
Great Cameras for Every Event
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Long exposure landscape photography is a great way for new enthusiasts to get familiar with shutter speeds, aperture settings, and equipment use. It also provides plenty of opportunities for photography veterans to experiment with creative possibilities beyond the standard point-and-click scenario. Keep these tips in mind when you start experimenting with long exposure landscape photography.
Tripods are a Necessity
Taking long exposure photographs requires stability, and stability usually means tripods. When exposure times can stretch from seconds to minutes, even the smallest motion in the camera could potentially destroy a shot. Your tripod of choice needn't be super heavy or loaded with bells and whistles; it simply needs to be sturdy. If you're new to photography and don't yet have a tripod, fear not! You can still take long exposure photographs, as long as you're able to set the camera on a solid, sturdy surface while doing so. I've tried many tripods over the past few years and I have found that the Feisol CT3442 is one of the best out there. It's a well-built tripod that gives you the ability to get down low since it doesn't have a center column. With the Really Right Stuff ballhead attached will make this system a must for any landscape photographer.
Use a Cable Release or Camera Timer
Even the slight motion caused by depressing the shutter button will show up in long exposures, so it's usually necessary to use a cable release or set the camera's self-timer to start the shot. Using a release can be tedious if it's a very long exposure that requires you to hold the release button down continuously, so consult your camera's features to see if they include a timed-shot ability that will automatically keep the shutter open for a specified period.
Get to Know ND Filters
Light levels increase with exposure times, so it's very easy for elements of the photo to start getting blown out during long exposures, even at night. To mitigate this, it's often necessary to use Neutral Density (ND) Filters, which decrease the light levels entering the lens. Getting an intuitive feel for which filter to use and when is a matter of experience and time. Here is the relationship between f-stops and ND ratings.
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1 stop = 21 = 2 = ND2
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2 stops = 22 = 2 x 2 = 4 = ND4
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3 stops = 23 = 2 x 2 x 2 = 8 = ND8
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4 stops = 24 = 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 16 = ND16
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10 stops = 210 = 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 1024 = ND1024
Experiment with Motion over Time
The ultimate goal of long exposure photography is capturing motion within the frame, but that motion can take many different forms, and will grow less distinct as exposure times increase. Shooting waterfalls, rivers, and waves is a great way to start exploring these visual relationships.
Shorter exposure times will keep the details of the motion intact, making it clear what's moving and where. Longer exposure times can blur out the individual sources of motion, and begin to yield a more ethereal effect that can add atmosphere to a landscape.
If you would like to learn more about long exposure waterfall photography please visit my page by clicking here.
Play with Light
Painting with light has become a popular form of creative expression with many photographers, and it can be a great way to put a personal stamp on a landscape shot. The key here is to move fast and keep the source of light bright while keeping yourself dark. If you're strolling through the frame wearing a bleached white t-shirt, you're more likely to appear in the final exposure than if you're moving through it briskly while wearing dark clothes. Along with drawing patterns or shapes in the air, try experimenting with ways to emphasize depth and perspective in the picture, or draw attention to objects in the frame at different distances.
Above All, Have Fun!
Long exposure photography is all about experimentation over stretches of time. Forget about the pressures inherent in fast-paced shooting, and embrace the chance to relax, play around, and try different combinations of techniques and camera settings. At the end of the day, every long exposure shot is a matter of guesswork about what the final result will be, so don't be afraid to fail while exploring the possibilities.
Equipment used:
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Freeze-dried Breakfast Burrito Photo.
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro Lens (f/7.1, 1/125s, ISO 100)
Instant Freeze-dried Long Grain White Rice Photo.
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro Lens (f/7.1, 1/125s, ISO 100)
Equipment used:
- Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro Lens
- Canon 5D Mark III
- CowboyStudio Softbox (x2)
- Feisol Tournament CT-3442 Rapid 4-Section Carbon Tripod
- Really Right Stuff Full-Sized Ballhead (BH-55)
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Canon EOS 5D Mark III, Aperture: f/2.8, ISO: 1600, Exposure: 1/50
Be sure to check out the Los Angeles County Air Show.
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Elakala Falls (A Native American Legend)
The name of the waterfalls comes from a Native American legend, although several significantly different versions exist. According to one account it involves a princess named Elakala who threw herself over the edge of the first waterfall when her lover scorned her. Another account of the legend involves a Massawomee warrior named Elakala who was girl-shy and fell to his death from the falls while being pursued by two women of his tribe. Similar legends exist for many waterfalls in the eastern United States, and there is of course no way to confirm these stories. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elakala_Falls
Printed copies of this photo is available for purchase, click here.
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Little Bluestone River
The Bluestone River is a tributary of the New River, 77 mile long, in southwestern Virginia and southern West Virginia.
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Don Green
Don GreenTruth Community Fellowship is a group of like-minded believers in Jesus Christ committed to clear Bible exposition in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area. We believe Christ builds His church when we honor His authority by teaching the Bible to His people (Matthew 28:18-20). Our simple motto reflects our purpose: “Teaching God’s People God’s Word”—and we’re excited about it!
Don GreenOur view of Scripture shapes our approach to worship.
Cody LutzOur services feature rich hymns of the faith and extended Bible teaching. We believe God strengthens His people, gives them joy, and ultimately reaches the lost with the gospel as we join together and take His Word and our eternal hope in Christ seriously.
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If you like to learn more about the B-25J Mitchell bomber, click here.
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Deborah and Lindsey
John Martin (Enfield)
I happened to walk in to the Family Center when Enfield was performing. I'm so happy I had my camera with me.
Ryan Foglesong
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I believe a little of the festival wore off on these boys.
Check out these two cool dudes.
Here's a funny cut-n-paste of Sam with Ethan.
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Last month I had the wonderful opportunity to visit one of those dear friends, Ruth McGuire.
I've always enjoyed going to her house to sample her freshly baked cookies after school. How many special memories can you recall from your youth?
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Truth Community youth choir led by Alan Sherban.
Catherine Curry
Truth Community Youth Choir
Pastor Don Green
View more photos, Click Here.
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Japanese Sea Nettles at the Aquarium are fed a daily meal of larval brine shrimp that have been enriched with fatty acids, as well as frozen copepods.
Check out this mesmerizing video from Animal Planet Live showing how graceful the Japanese Sea Nettles travel through water... Click Here.
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These creatures can grow more than 3 feet across. In the wild, the delicate tentacles can trail two more than 25 feet.
Sea Nettles (Chrysaora)These amazing creatures have no brain, no blood, and no nervous system.
These amazing creatures have no brain, no blood, and no nervous system.
God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds... - Genesis 1:21
The photos were taken with the Canon EOS 5D Mark III, 100mm f/2.8 IS Macro, and 24-70mm f/2.8 II.
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Close-up photo of the beautiful engagement ring.
This photo was taken with the help of my iPhone to give a cool surface reflection. In addition, I mixed in ambient light with an off-camera remote flash.
Macro photo of a diamond ring on a colorful rock.
Here's another close-up of the diamond ring sitting on a fossilstone I had in my office. I really love how the photo turned out with all the different colors. One of the coolest techniques a photographer can use to achieve a impressive effect in their photos is to shoot at a shallow depth of field. This technique isolates the subject from a beautiful blurry background.
Photo of a diamond ring sitting on a Bible.
For this photo I used the cover of my Bible to give an overall texture to the image.
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John MacArthur on Wretched with Todd Friel.
John MacArthur singing a duet with Joni Eareckson Tada at the Strange Fire Conference.
Steve Lawson preaching at the Strange Fire Conference
Conrad Mbewe preaching at the Strange Fire Conference.
Jubilant Sykes singing during the Strange Fire Conference at Grace Community Church, California.
If you've ever taken any event photos you know how stressful it can be. Especially when you can't be everywhere all the time. During the Strange Fire Conference we had a detail shot list to capture every moment throughout the event.
Mark Rice accompanying John Martin on the piano during the Strange Fire Conference.
John MacArthur and Steve Lawson during the Strange Fire Q&A session.
Here's an evening HDR photo taken at the Strange Fire Conference.
Click here to view more photos. Click here to listen to all the sessions from the Strange Fire Conference.
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Click image to see larger
This photo was taken during the massive 2013 Yosemite fire. It was getting late that evening and we wasn't sure if we would make it in time to see the moon illusion. You can see the smoke on the distant mountains and surrounding the moon. This photo consists of seven images that is merged together in Photoshop to create a panoramic photo.
Have you ever wondered why the moon is larger near the horizon than when it is higher in the sky? Check out this article if you want to learn more, The Moon Illusion Explained.
Astro Orbiter at Disneyland
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Rick and Cherie Draa
Phil Johnson and John MacArthur
Jay Flowers and Rick Draa
View more photos from the event, Click Here.
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Bill Fickett giving instructions for the celebration.
Phil Johnson burning the mortgage papers.
No more monthly payments!
John Daly waiting for shaved ice.
I thought this was a cool shot of me taking a photo of me with my coworkers. It's hard to believe that I've been at Grace to You for 10 years. Every day is a blessing for me.
View more photos from the event, Click Here.
From offices around the world, Grace to You extends John MacArthur's verse-by-verse Bible teaching using modern media-Radio, television, books, and the World Wide Web.
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Canon EOS 5D Mark III, f/2.8 @ 15 mm,1/40, ISO 160
Have you ever experienced motion blur in your photos when shooting fast action sporting events? Setting your shutter speed to 1/1000s will freeze the action.
Canon EOS 5D Mark III, f/2.8 @200 mm, 1/1000, ISO 3200
In this photo I wanted to show action, movement in the photo using motion blur. I lowered my shutter speed to 1/200 and kept the player's face in focus as I panned my camera with the action.
Canon EOS 5D Mark III, f/2.8 @200 mm, 1/200, ISO 500
Canon EOS 5D Mark III, f/3.2 @ 95 mm,1/1000, ISO 2000
If you're not able to use a flash during the event, you'll need to increase your ISO speed to capture enough light for the proper exposure. ISO measures the sensitivity of your cameras image sensor to light. In darker situations use higher ISO settings to get faster shutter speeds. Increasing the ISO settings will produce greater noise in your photos. Would you rather have a noisy photo or not a photo at all?
Canon EOS 5D Mark III, f/5.6 @130 mm, 1/1000, ISO 4000
Click Here to view more photos from the Valencia HMI camp.
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These shoes are warm, waterproof and confortable. I was quite pleased with the quality and comfort throughout my two weeks of chasing waterfalls in North Carolina and West Virginia. These shoes are designed to slip right over your sandals or hiking boots. After I pulled them above my calf, I then secured them with a pull of the bungee cord so they wouldn't slip down as I walked through the water. I was also surprised by how compact and lightweight they are. I would recommend these durable shoes to any outdoor enthusiast that treks through the elements.
I hope you enjoy the new waterfall photos.
5D Mark III, f/11 @ 40 mm,3.2s, ISO 100
5D Mark III, f/11 @ 17 mm,8s, ISO 100
5D Mark III, f/11 @ 40 mm,1s, ISO 100
5D Mark III, f/11 @ 70 mm,0.4s, ISO 100
For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. - Psalm 95:3-5
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5D Mark III, f/22 @15 mm, 1/40, ISO 160
5D Mark III, f/2.8 @90 mm, 1/100, ISO 6400
5D Mark III, f/2.8 @88 mm, 1/100, ISO 12800
5D Mark III, f/2.8 @70 mm, 1/60, ISO 6400
5D Mark III, f/4 @24 mm, 1/30, ISO 12800
Click Here to view more photos from the event.
Garry Knussman's Birthday Lunch
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Canon EOS 5D Mark III, f/22 @ 17 mm, 1s, ISO 100
Without a sturdy tripod your photos can be out of focus. Purchasing a good tripod will give you a life time of camera stability as you pursue your adventures in long-exposure photography.
Here's a black and white photo I took of a waterfall in West Virginia. This photo was taken with the Canon EOS 5D Mark III, f/14 @ 17 mm, 15s, ISO 100 with a variable neutral density and a polarizer filter. Using a polarizer filter is a must for taking waterfall photos. The filter will cut down the glare on the rocks and water letting you see the rocks under the moving water.
Canon EOS 5D Mark III, f/8 @ 27 mm, 1/3, ISO 100
The faster the water current, the faster the shutter speed. The ideal shutter speed is between 5 to 4 seconds. While some photographers like taking photos of water that captures every drop, others like the milky effect. I've always liked the milky effect on running water.
Canon EOS 5D Mark III, f/8 @ 17 mm, 3.2s, ISO 100
To minimize the camera shake while taking long-exposures you can use a cable release for your camera. I like to use my cameras internal timer instead of a cable release. That's one extra piece of equipment I don't have to worry about when I'm trekking through the forest.
Canon EOS 5D Mark III, f/2.8 @ 100 mm, 1/125, ISO 100
Taking a macro lens with you while you're walking through the forest can be fun... you may come across a beautiful flower on the way to that breathtaking waterfall.
In the next waterfall blog post we'll talk about the different types of clothing that can be used during your next waterfall excursion.
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The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains, the world, and those who dwell in it. For He has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. - Psalm 24:1-2
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This young lady began PSP in kindergarten. Congrats on completing high school Katie!
Tu Fidelidad es Grande - Spanish Class
Jordan plays cello with accompaniment.
Click here to view more photos from the event.
Funny Photo Booth
Crazy friends cutting loose at the end of the night!
Watch out! These two are sporting some attitude!
PSP Graduate Collages
Click here to view more photos from the event.
A few of our graduates' favorite things about being home-schooled and PSP:
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Sleeping in and getting done early
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Doing school in my PJs
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Getting to be with my mom all day long!
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Learning Christian qualities
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Being with friends
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Home School Fair
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Fun Classes (and resess!)
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Hard-working teachers who love Christ and disciple us!
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American Heritage Day and Trade Fair
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Basketball :-)
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Picture day (okay, not really!)
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Paper airplanes with Mr. Caldwell (really!)
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Click Here to view more photos from our Lower Antelope Canyon adventure.
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Click Here to view more photos from Monument Valley.
Click Here for more information on Goosenecks State Park, UT.
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The area is part of the Colorado Plateau. The elevation of the valley floor ranges from 5,000 to 6,000 feet above sea level. The floor is largely siltstone of the Cutler Group, or sand derived from it. The valley's vivid red color comes from iron oxide exposed in the weathered siltstone. The darker, blue-gray rocks in the valley get their color from manganese oxide.
Utah is a great place to visit that displays evidence of the biblical Flood. It can take days to weeks to visit all the isolated places.
Director John Ford used the location for a number of his best known films, and thus, in the words of critic Keith Phipps, "its five square miles have defined what decades of moviegoers think of when they imagine the American West."
Sam on John Ford's Point
“For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men” (2 Peter 3:5-7).
Click Here to view more photos from Monument Valley.
Plan your next visit to Monument Valley, Click Here.
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Eureka Gold & Timber Company
As for the history of Grizzly Peak Recreation Area, a Disney created backstory tells of how German emigrant Jakob Probst discovered gold at Grizzly Peak in the mid-1800s. But far from being a genius, Probst's discovery was by pure chance. Frustrated at failing to get his mule across Grizzly River, Probst threw his hat into the river and trampled it. Picking it up and putting it back on his head, he discovered a one-pound gold nugget had fallen inside. Probst immediately staked a claim he later sold for millions to the Eureka Gold & Timber Company.
Grizzly River
Muppet*Vision 3D
$10 balloons anyone?
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I hope you enjoy the new prints!
Blackwater Falls State Park
Vought F4U Corsair
Up, Up, and Away
Double-decker Bus
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Click Here to view more photos from the 2013 Shepherds' Conference.
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I hope you enjoy the prints!
Will Moneymaker
Here's Garry hard at work editing another book for John MacArthur.
For the first time Jeremiah is speechless.
Here's Garry making a wish.
Here's one of the coolest guys around and he's from New Zealand.
Click Here to view more photos from the birthday lunch.
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Like most aircraft tires, the Space Shuttle tires are filled with nitrogen because of its stability at different altitudes and temperatures. Due to the extremely heavy loads, these bias ply tires are inflated to 340 psi (main gear) and 300 psi (nose gear). The main landing gear shuttle tires are only used one time, and the nose landing gear tires are used for two landings.
Future Astronauts
Engineers at the Rocketdyne Operations Support Center (ROSC) in Canoga Park remotely monitored the SSMEs during launch and for the first eight and a half minutes of every shuttle flight, checking pressures, temperatures, and other readouts until the shuttle reached orbit. If something went wrong, Rocketdyne staff could provide recommendations to launch control in Florida or Mission Control in Houston.
The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by a Space Shuttle in 1990 and remains in operation. A 7.9 ft aperture telescope in low Earth orbit, Hubble's four main instruments observe in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared. The telescope is named after the astronomer Edwin Hubble.
Click Here to view more Space Shuttle Endeavour photos.
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Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. It is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in the northern portion of California's expansive Central Valley.
California's State Capitol Building.
The State Capitol houses the office of the Governor of California.
John Sutter's personal desk.
Click Here to view more Sacramento field trip photos.
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Here are a few photos from that day. Which one is your favorite?
If you would like to have your portrait made, send me an email.
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The Southern Appalachian spruce-fir forest is the highest and coldest forest type in the Appalachian range, thriving in elevations above 5,500 feet where the climate is too harsh to support the broad-leaved hardwood forest that dominates the region's lower elevations.
This breathtaking 25-foot high falls on the New River is located 8 miles north of the town of Hinton on State Route 26. You group can walk the ¼-mile accessible boardwalk to view the falls and a one-mile loop trail around the island.
To learn more about Sandstone Falls and the New River Gorge visit Sandstone Visitor Center. This National Park Service, green design building located at exit 139 off Interstate 64; 15 miles east of Beckley, WV. The visitor center offers a 12-minute audiovisual program, interactive exhibits, watershed floor map, bookstore, and restrooms. Students can explore the facility and learn about the New River Gorge and New River Watershed through self-guided activities or ranger-led programs.
National Park Service Ranger-led programs can be reserved by contacting 304-466-0417 or emailing [email protected].
For more information on vacationing to the area check out threeriverswv.com for more things to see and do within the three rivers region.
If you would like to learn more about West Virginia and it's beautiful waterfalls, I would suggest purchasing the book West Virginia Waterfalls: The New River Gorge by Randall Sanger. More than 100 waterfalls grace the cliffs and canyons of the New River Gorge and its tributaries. This book invites you to savor this untapped wealth of beauty in two enjoyable ways by viewing photographs of these waterfalls and by experiencing them for yourself.
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I can remember the early days when my dad would take me for a ride in his String Ray Corvette. Zero to 60 MPH in 6 seconds was a blast! The Sting Ray's interior has changed over the years but I've always liked the new interpretation of the twin-cowl Corvette dash motif that started in 1958. It was more practical, with a roomy glovebox, an improved heater, and the cowl-ventilation system. A full set of round gauges included a huge speedometer and tachometer. The control tower center console contained the clock and a vertically situated radio.
Typical magazine road tests of the day yielded sub-6 second zero to 60 miles per hour (97 km/h) times and quarter miles in the mid 13 second/106 MPH range.
A Corvette has been selected as the Indianapolis 500 pace car 11 times, most recently in 2012 with a Chevrolet Corvette C6 ZR1 pace model driven by Guy Fieri.
Learn more from The Complete Book of Corvette: Every Model Since 1953.
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The museum was opened to the public in 2000. The depot building now houses a railroad museum, an HO scale model railroad layout and a public meeting room. The museum focuses on railroad history in the region and has many artifacts and historical photos on display. Along with the railroad related features, the museum also has a collection of materials related to the near by Corriganville Movie Ranch. The railroad layout models the coast route between Los Angeles, California and Portland, Oregon with scenery that targets the early 1950s. The Santa Susana Railroad Historical Society designs, maintains and operates the layout. Both the museum and the model layout are open on Saturdays and Sundays from 1 pm to 4 pm with the exception of holidays.
> View More Santa Susana Depot and Museum Photos
> Visit The Santa Susana Depot Website
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Clayton Erb - How Great Our Joy (Traditional German Carol)
Christopher Parkening - The Christmas Shepherd (Carlo Domeniconi)
John MacArthur - The Christmas Story
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Zoot on the saxophone
Be sure to catch them next time you’re down on the sunny side of Buena Vista Street.
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24mm, F/8.0, ISO 5000
47mm, F/4.0, ISO 6400
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Emerald Village is home to 7 real mines and has been featured on The Travel Channel.
100mm f/2.8L Macro IS, F/2.8, ISO 100
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100mm f/2.8L Macro IS, F/2.8, ISO 100
100mm f/2.8L Macro IS, F/2.8, ISO 100
]]>The Green Tree Frog is larger than most Australian frogs, reaching 10 centimetres (4 inches) in length. The average lifespan of the frog in captivity, about sixteen years, is long in comparison with most frogs. Green Tree Frogs are docile and well suited to living near human dwellings. They are often found on windows or inside houses, eating insects drawn by the light. The Green Tree Frog screams when it's in danger to scare off its foe; and this particular frog squeaks when it is touched.
Here's a good little book on the subject: The Guide to Owning a White's Tree Frog
100mm f/2.8L Macro IS, F/2.8, ISO 100
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Just chillin' and enjoying our Lord's creation.
Pipestem Resort State Park is a 4,050-acre (1,640 ha) state park located in southern West Virginia, on the border between Mercer and Summers counties. The Park name derives from pipestem, or narrowleaf meadowsweet (Spiraea alba), a locally common shrub historically used for making pipe stems.
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- The Gang -
- The Secret Service -
- Mr. President -
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15mm, F/11, ISO 100
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Pismo Beach adopted the name "Clam Capital of the World" in the 1950s. The city holds the Clam Festival every October, complete with clam chowder competitions and a clam-themed parade. At the southern end of Price Street upon first entering Pismo Beach, a gigantic concrete clam statue greets visitors. Clamming once drew thousands of clammers to the beach during low tides and is still legal; however, due to over-harvesting by humans and the protected sea otter (which feasts on clams), few clams are to be found.
- Camera: Canon 5D Mark III
- Lens: Canon 70-200mm F/2.8L (my go to lens in the studio)
- Aperture: f/9
- Shutter Speed: 1/160 second
- ISO: 100
San Francisco
15mm, F/8, ISO 100
In early wine history, the amphora was the vessel of choice for the storage and transportation of wine. Due to the perishable nature of wood material it is difficult to trace the usage of barrels in history. The Greek historian Herodotus noted that ancient Mesopotamians used barrels made of palm wood to transport wine along the Euphrates. Palm is a difficult material to bend and fashion into barrels, however, and wine merchants in different regions experimented with different wood styles to find a better wood source. The use of oak has been prevalent in winemaking for at least two millennia, first coming into widespread use during the Roman empire. In time, winemakers discovered that beyond just storage convenience that wine kept in oak barrels took on properties that improved the wine by making it softer and in some cases better-tasting. Robert Mondavi is credited with expanding the knowledge of winemakers in the United States about the different types of oak and barrel styles through his experiments in the 1960s & 1970s.
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Here are a few sunset photography tips:
- Shooting in the RAW image format is very important when taking sunset photographs. Raw captures a wealth of light information. Raw image formats are intended to capture as closely as possible (at the best of your specific sensor's performance) the radiometric characteristics of the scene, that is, physical information about the light intensity and color of the scene.
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Clean your lens and sensor often. Dust spots are more pronounced in bright sky with a high aperture.
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Slightly underexpose your image to make the colors look more rich and defined.
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As they say in the military, "Shoot with both eyes open." This can help you see other items around you that may enhance or wreck your photograph.
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Experimenting with slow and fast shutter speeds to blur and freeze the action is one of the most powerful creative tools in photography.
A slower shutter speed will introduce an element of blur as seen here in this photo of Dancing Horse. When you pan the camera to follow a moving subject the background will blur while the subject remains sharp. Give it a try when you're out on your next photo walk.
1/30th second at F/22, ISO 200
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The town's most striking feature is Morro Rock, a 576 foot high volcanic plug. Morro Rock stands at the entrance to the harbor, and a causeway connects it with the shore. Previously, it was surrounded by water, but the northern channel was filled in to make the harbor. The Rock, as locals call it, was quarried from 1889 to 1969. There is no public access to the rock itself because it is a reserve for the locally endangered peregrine falcon. However, the area around the base of Morro Rock can be visited. Every few years, someone is caught trying to climb the rock. Climbers risk more than fines or jail time as the rocks that form Morro Rock are loose and fall down regularly. The base of Morro Rock is littered with fallen boulders. It is one in a series of similar plugs that stretch in a line inland called the Nine Sisters.
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During World War II the planetarium was used to train pilots in celestial navigation. The planetarium was again used for this purpose in the 1960s to train Apollo program astronauts for the first lunar missions.
There are photo opportunities and scenery at and around the Observatory, with views of the Pacific Ocean, the Hollywood Sign and Downtown Los Angeles.
Portrait photography is a popular commercial industry all over the world. Many people enjoy having professionally made family portraits to hang in their homes, or special portraits to commemorate certain events, such as graduations or weddings. Have you ever thought of going in to the portrait photography business?]]>
I enjoy taking portraits of people. The expression, personality, and mood of the person's face is the main subject in the photograph.
Copyright for this gallery photo belongs solely to Will Moneymaker. Images may not be copied, downloaded, or used in any way without the express, written permission.
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Copyright for this gallery photo belongs solely to Will Moneymaker. Images may not be copied, downloaded, or used in any way without the express, written permission of the photographer.
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The historicity of many aspects of the John Henry legend is subject to wide debate. It is commonly stated that Henry's rail work, including his race against the steam hammer, occurred while working along the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. In particular, Henry is claimed to have raced the steam hammer during the construction of Big Bend tunnel near Talcott, West Virginia between 1869 and 1871. Talcott holds a yearly festival named for Henry and a statue and memorial plaque have been placed along a highway south of Talcott as it crosses over the Big Bend tunnel.
It's kind of cool what you can do with a few pieces of candy.
Lenses used in portrait photography are classically fast, medium telephoto lenses, though any lens may be used, depending on artistic purposes. The first dedicated portrait lens was the Petzval lens developed in 1840 by Joseph Petzval. It had a relatively narrow field of view of 30 degrees, a focal length of 150mm, and a fast f-number in the f/3.3-3.7 range.
Portrait lenses are often relatively inexpensive, because they can be built simply, and are close to the normal range. The cheapest portrait lenses are normal lenses (50mm), used on a cropped sensor. For example, the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II is the least expensive Canon lens, but when used on a 1.6× cropped sensor yields an 80mm equivalent focal length, which is at the wide end of portrait lenses.
Copyright for this gallery photo belongs solely to Will Moneymaker. Images may not be copied, downloaded, or used in any way without the express, written permission of the photographer.
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Seeing the light is one of the most important aspect in concert photography. Concert photography is very challenging since we have no control in almost any parameter in the photo.]]>
I loved living in Pittsburgh during my college days. I had the opportunity to meet new friends, visit cool places, and to video document local businesses in the area. However, listening to WORD-FM during my drive to class each morning was the highlight of my day. John MacArthur was the first pastor I heard each morning. John was teaching through his series, "The Greatest of These" that focused on children, marriage, relationships, and the Bible's design for love. Those messages taught me how to deal with co-workers and how to grow spiritually with my wife.
The Duquesne Incline is a inclined plane railroad, or funicular, located near Pittsburgh's South Side neighborhood and scaling Mt. Washington. Designed by Samuel Diescher, the incline was completed in 1877 and is 800 feet long, 400 feet in height, and is inclined at a 30 degree angle. It is an unusual 5 ft gauge.
Originally steam powered, the Duquesne Incline was built to carry cargo up and down Mt. Washington in the late 19th century. It later carried passengers, particularly Mt. Washington residents who were tired of walking up footpaths to the top. Inclines were then being built all over Mt. Washington. But as more roads were built on “Coal Hill” most of the other inclines were closed. By the end of the 1960s, only the Monongahela Incline and the Duquesne Incline remained.
In 1962, the incline was closed, apparently for good. Major repairs were needed, and with so few patrons, the incline's private owners did little. But local Duquesne Heights' residents launched a fund-raiser to help the incline. It was a huge success, and on July 1, 1963, the incline reopened under the auspices of a non-profit organization dedicated to its preservation. The incline has since been totally refurbished. The cars, built by the J. G. Brill and Company of Philadelphia, have been stripped of paint to reveal the original wood. An observation deck was added at the top affording a magnificent view of Pittsburgh's "Golden Triangle", and the Duquesne Incline is now one of the city's most popular tourist attractions.
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The Lady Washington was built in Aberdeen, Washington, United States in time for the 1989 Washington State Centennial celebrations. Aberdeen is located on Grays Harbor, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean named for Robert Gray, the man who discovered the harbor as Master of the Columbia.
Named "Washington State's Tall Ship Ambassador", as well as the State Ship, the new Lady Washington has already made plenty of her own history. Operated by a professional and volunteer crew under the auspices of the Grays Harbor Historical Seaport Authority, she sails up and down the Pacific coast reaching out to sailors and lubbers of all ages through the romance of the sea in the hope that they take a little of her history back with them.Today she sails regularly in pair with the Hawaiian Chieftain, educating students in the history of merchant trading, life of common sailors, and responsibilities of the ship's officers.
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By Susie Newman-Harrison
The annual Camarillo, Calif. airshow and celebration of all things aerial was this year even more patriotic than usual.
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The Chance Vought F4U Corsair was a carrier-capable fighter aircraft that saw service primarily in World War II and the Korean War. Demand for the aircraft soon overwhelmed Vought's manufacturing capability, resulting in production by Goodyear and Brewster: Goodyear-built Corsairs were designated FG and Brewster-built aircraft F3A. From the first prototype delivery to the U.S. Navy in 1940, to final delivery in 1953 to the French, 12,571 F4U Corsairs were manufactured by Vought, in 16 separate models, in the longest production run of any piston-engined fighter in U.S. history (1942–1953). ]]>
The Pitts Special (company designations S1 and S2) is a series of light aerobatic biplane designed by Curtis Pitts. It has accumulated many competition wins since its first flight in 1944. The Pitts biplanes dominated world aerobatic competition in the 1960s and 1970s and, even today, remains a potent competition aircraft in the lower categories.
Curtis Pitts began the design of a single-seat aerobatic biplane in 1943–1944. The design has been refined continuously since the prototype's first flight in September 1944, however, the current Pitts S2 still remains quite close to the original in concept and in design.
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Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina rises 5,946 feet above sea level, and due to the considerable elevation gain the mountain boasts 16 distinct ecological communities. The mountain is famous for its rugged character, and is home to many hidden caves and significant cliffs.
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Blackwater Falls State Park is named for the falls of the Blackwater River whose amber-colored waters plunge five stories then twist and tumble through an eight-mile long gorge.The "black" water is a result of tannic acid from fallen hemlock and red spruce needles. The falls are one of the most photographed sites in West Virginia. ]]>
The Sandstone Falls is the largest waterfall on the New River, Sandstone Falls spans the river where it is 1500 feet wide. Divided by a series of islands, the river drops 10 to 25 feet. Paramount's 1994 film Lassie was shot here.]]>
A night glow is an event that is often held as a climax to a hot air balloon festival. The balloons are set up at sunset in the launch area, an open field, or a football stadium and are inflated as if they are going to take off. But instead of being allowed to ascend, they are held down by the ground crew. The propane burners are ignited periodically to keep the balloons inflated with hot air.
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Church near Lancaster, California, used as a filming location in Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill" films, Volumes 1 & 2 (2003, 2004).
Before Valley Falls became a state park, this section of the Tygart Valley River in the 1800s was a thriving railroad community and a popular recreation area. During this "boom" period, Valley Falls had a B&O Railroad Depot Station, grist mill, post office, sawmills, shops and a ferry. Between 1886 and 1888, a fire and flood swept through the community. Some repairs were made but the town never fully recovered. In 1964, the state park system acquired the falls and the surrounding land. This picturesque river gorge became Valley Falls State Park.
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It's hard to believe that flowers this bright and dramatic are perennials. Long flower stems make this an excellent cut flower. combine with Colmumbine and Delphinium for a beautiful spring display. Another common name for Painted Daisy is Pyrenthrum - it's flowers are the source of the insecticide by the same name. View More]]>
The Getty Villa is an educational center and museum dedicated to the study of the arts and cultures of ancient Greece, Rome, and Etruria.
Bodie State Historic Park is a genuine California gold-mining ghost town. Visitors can walk down the deserted streets of a town that once had a population of nearly 10,000 people. The town is named for Waterman S. Body (William Bodey), who had discovered small amounts of gold in hills north of Mono Lake. In 1875, a mine cave-in revealed pay dirt, which led to purchase of the mine by the Standard Company in 1877. People flocked to Bodie and transformed it from a town of a few dozen to a boomtown.
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It's hard to believe that this will be my 10th year volunteering at the Shepherds' Conference in the Audio Factory. During short breaks, I had the opportunity to take a few photos. Enjoy!
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I spent a few hours with the boys driving through the Angeles National Forest last week. To the millions of Los Angeles-area residents and to visitors from all over the world, the Angeles National Forest provides a thousand square miles of open space and a variety of recreation opportunities year-around... View Photos]]>
I'm looking forward to taking photos tomorrow of the wildflowers and animals at the Placerita Canyon Park and Nature Center.]]>