Photo of the Week - Using what you have

While I love to use my regular camera, a Canon 7D, I am not always able or willing to take it everywhere. However, my iPod Touch usually travels with me wherever I go. The iPod has a camera and, while not great, may be the only thing I have to take photos.

Better to make the image with what you've got instead of missing it altogether. 

My eldest daughter made the above flower design one day while waiting for my wife and I to finish something up at church. My large camera isn't something I usually have with me at church, but my iPod, yes, since it has my schedule, notes, and scriptures. And a camera!

Another example, a relaxing afternoon riding bikes. My plan was to read a book and enjoy doing as little as possible. Fashion diva Natalie, however, needed to be remembered!


Coming in for a sunset landing in Mexico City, it was an incredibly clear evening - something rare for Mexico City. Even better, our flight path took us right by the two volcanoes of Popcatepetl (right) and Itzaccihuatl (left). There is a legend about the two volcanoes, which you can read here.

I came upon these remnants of construction while in Managua, Nicaragua. While they look like abandoned grave markers, they are not, but the thought they could have been was certainly intriguing.

Another series of photos from Managua. I took a series of pictures and then stitched them together in Photoshop for a panoramic image. As you can tell, not perfect quality, but it captures a memory!

Photo of the Week

Another photo from the area where our friends live ...

While we were there it rained pretty good and I wanted to get out and get some photos of the flowers and plants while they still had rain on them.

Here's one of my favorites from that time:

EXIF Info

Shutter Speed: 1/50s

ISO: 200

Aperture: F/5.6

Focal Length: 200mm

Lens: Canon EF70-200mm f/4L USM

I particularly liked the colors - the pink flower stands out nicely on the grey background of the rock, which is blurred.

Photo of the Week

I've decided to change the title and remove the week counter - another goal for next year, to actually post a photo a week!

Some friends of ours live in a small valley outside of Quito and part of the property is a small farm. I enjoy going there and taking photographs since it's such a picturesque area.

On our last visit there I noticed this bucket sitting abandoned at the base of a small tree and it caught my attention:

EXIF Info

Shutter Speed: 1/80s

ISO:800

Aperture: F/7.1

Focal Length: 200mm

Lens: Canon EF70-200mm f/4L USM

Photo of the Week - Week 37

Yet another couple of weeks have gone by without a post ... I'll have to work on making it actually a photo of the week, but maybe that's a good goal for the new year - next year.

I finally was able to make it back to the Interactive Science Museum and get some pictures of the mill machines there. This time, however, I had my tripod with me, so I didn't have to crank up the ISO and then de-noise the images.

EXIF Info

Shutter Speed:15s

ISO: 100

Aperture: F/13.0

Focal Length: 25mm

Lens: Tamron 17-50mm

I particularly like the above image because of the composition - I did crop it slightly in LR4. The frame of the machine works well to frame the image, the green of the machine, the blue lights underneath, and the wood in the background.

I also did some toned images there - selenium, a kind of black and white. Take a look at my Flickr page for those.

Photo of the Week - Week 36

It's time of year again - Grandma makes beautiful costumes for the girls for Halloween! My challenge is to try and photograph them well enough to do the incredible work justice. While a took several photos, I'm just going to discuss one this time around.

I had a few goals in mind and some things that I wanted to try, both in-camera and in post-processing.

EXIF Info

Shutter Speed: 1/125s

ISO:200

Aperture: F/8.0

Focal Length: 50mm

Lens: EF50mm f/1.8 II

First was the lens choice. I really like my 'nifty-fifty' - 50mm prime lens - and have been trying to take more portraiture with that lens. I find that when I use my zoom lens, I usually end up at 50mm, or very close to that, particularly when I take singleton portraits.

I also wanted to try a few post-processing things, most of all a reflection.

The first step in doing this was to create a layer mask that had just the subject. Using this, I placed her on a solid white background, using the Refine Edge function to make sure everything looked good. Her hair in the back looks a little odd because she has a ponytail, which you can't see here.

Next, I made a copy of her on the white background and then flipped it upside down - this will become her reflection. I moved things around until it was positioned how I wanted it.

I then made a new layer, a graduated filter, between Natalie and her reflection. I adjusted the opacity of this layer until we got a bit of the shadow underneath and a dark 'floor.'

Photo of the Week - Week 35

This week's photos focus primarily on one of the new features in Photoshop CS6 - the blur tool.

Here is the final photo:

And here is the image I began with:

EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/80s
ISO:100
Aperture: F/8.0
Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: EF50mm f/1.8 II

The blur effect is most noticeable if you look at her hair and also at the collar of her shirt.

In this case, I used the iris blur, modified the shape and turned it a little bit. I liked it for this image because it helps bring more attention to the eyes and face.

I also used the content-aware tool to touch up a few other minor things in the image.

Photo of the Week - Week 34

This image is from a recent trip to Mindo, Ecuador.

As I took the girls for a hike, I noticed these blossoms on a tree - the very fine blossoms and the colors really caught my eye:

EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/125s
ISO:100
Aperture: F/8.0
Focal Length: 163mm
Lens: EF70-200mm f/4L USM

I cropped this down to a square because I felt that aspect ratio worked well for this particular image. This is also one of those instances where bright direct light happened to work well.

Photo of the Week - Week 33

I recently took the girls back to Cotopaxi National Park and got a chance to take a few pictures.

We got to hike around a bit and try to find some birds, which is a bit difficult for three small children who have been cooped up in a van for the past hour and a half ... a lot of contained energy there.

We finally did see a bird:

EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/50s
ISO:100
Aperture: F/9.0
Focal Length: 200mm
Lens: EF70-200mm f/4L USM

I kind of like the composition of this image, with the green sage in the bottom right kind of providing some balance to the bird and the other plants on the left of the image.

It's not a colorful image - nothing in your face, just mellow earth tones, kind of like the whole National Park there. I also like the level of detail with the depth of field - the brush in the background provide some texture, but it's not distracting.

The only thing I go back and forth on is if I should have cropped it a bit tighter, putting the bird closer to the top left corner. I left it like this because I wasn't too keen on having that much weight so high in the corner. The sage is in the corner, but at the bottom - I guess I feel that if something is in the corner at the top of the image, the image feels like it's going to tip over!

Photo of the Week - Week 32

This week's post highlights one of the fun tools in Photoshop - Puppet Warp. Just the name sounds cool, doesn't it? It's one of those amazing tools that lets you manipulate the image and do some pretty incredible things. My example from today is a subtle one that I used in a recent portrait, well, portrait by accident.

I had been asked to take some portraits of the Young Women's group at Church and while I was setting up for that, another family asked me to shoot a couple of photos for them.

Anyway, here's one of the pictures; since I was firing off quickly (and wasn't thinking about doing portraits for them) I got one image of this brother and sister, but her expression is less than ideal. In fact, she looks like she's about ready to say something really nasty to me. Not really the case - a super nice family, but just bad timing on my part:

Of course, I only had one image of these two together. In the other images, she is facing the wrong way, so I couldn't just swap faces. Enter Puppet Warp!

Puppet Warp analyzes the image and sets a mesh grid over the whole thing. You set pins to "hold in place" portions of the image and then essentially click and drag it around to move parts of the image selectively. In this case, I just wanted a subtle smile as opposed to the grimace above. Here's what I ended up with:

The final image also has a few other things done to it - cropping, removed some blemishes, etc. This is the first time I've used Puppet Warp, other than goofing around and making some wacky pictures. Again, not a perfect expression above - best would have been to notice the grimace and retake the photos - but in this case that wasn't possible and this helped salvage a photo.

Photo of the Week - Week 31

I'm still working my way through the photos I took on our recent trip to Mindo. I took some photos of orchids and, after working on a few of them, I particularly like the symmetry of the below flower.

EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/40s
ISO: 200
Aperture: F/9.0
Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm

The above image began with a larger one (take a look on my Flickr site to see it) but I rotated it and cropped it to get the above composition.

Photo of the Week - Week 30

I'm continuing to play catch-up so I can get 52 posts in the year ... But here is another photo from Mindo. We really enjoy hiking around the trails that surround the place that we stay at in Mindo. I took an original image, but did so with some specific post-processing in mind to tweak it a bit.

Here is the final image:

EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 3.2s
ISO: 200
Aperture: F/22.0
Focal Length: 17mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm

One of the things I wanted to do for this image is to create something of a starburst effect coming from the light area near the center. Just something subtle, not too much. After some hunting around YouTube, I found a video that did a quick walk-through of how to do that. I came up with the following:

I added this as a layer above the original area, moving it around until is was centered, then I played with the opacity and the layer effect until I had what I wanted.

I put the flattened image back into Lightroom where I added a brush effect in a few places to lighten and darken to try and match the starburst a bit.

Photo of the Week - Week 29

We recently had the opportunity to return to Mindo, one of our favorite places to visit here in Ecuador. That said, there is still a lot to see! We stayed at our usual spot - Casa Divina Lodge, a great, family-run lodge that is well-removed from everything.

On the road into Casa Divina there is a pasture area and there was a beautiful horse there. Clara, being enamored with horses, just had to go and see her. As we were taking a daddy-daughters hike around, we went to where the horse is. She was very social and trotted right over to us and loved all of the attention Clara was lavishing on her. She did see a bit camera shy, but I was able to get the below shot:

EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/30s
ISO: 100
Aperture: F/8,0
Focal Length: 104mm
Lens: Canon/L 70-200mm

Just a little post-processing - the cream-tone conversion, added an iris blur to blur the scene surrounding the horse's head, and a vignette to finish things off.

Photo of the Week - Week 28

I had the opportunity to do another set of family portraits recently and have been learning some things in Photoshop and Lightroom.

Here's on of the photos, which I will use to walk through my process:

EXIF Data
Shutter speed: 1/100s
Aperture: F9.0
Focal length:  19mm
ISO:200
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm

This is lit with three lights - one in a 24x24 softbox, just over the camera, and two shoot-through umbrellas on either side. Lights are at 1/4 power, if I remember correctly.

The first problem I ran into was the size of my backdrop - just not big enough - so I knew that I would have to do some post-processing to fix that. A formal family portrait just doesn't work with kids toys (mine, not theirs) strewn around in the background.

I tweaked a couple of things in Lightroom (exposure) and then sent it over to Photoshop. In there I duplicated the layer so it was two duplicates on top of one another. In the lower layer I used a large paintbrush to paint a white background, overlapping the subjects in the image. Back in the top layer, I used the quick select to outline the subjects, zooming in to refine it, and set that as the layer mask.

One of the great things about Photoshop is the "refine edge" mask - you can "paint" certain areas (like hair) and it will refine the mask in those areas to pick up stray hairs and make the mask look very nice; you end up with very natural-looking edges.

With that done, I finally had a white backdrop for my subjects. While I had a fair-looking edge around my subjects, there were some parts that were not that great. I decided to use a very fuzzy brush to paint around some of those areas; since I had overlapped my big white brush to make the backdrop, I would be partially revealing a white background - essentially making that edge look somewhat blow out. As I did this, it found that it looked like I had lit my subjects with harsh, bright light. When I sent the image back to Lightroom, I bumped the clarity up quite a bit to really bring out the details. The end product is almost like I ran it through a high-pass filter.

Photo of the Week - Week 27

One of the additional features of living overseas - that is often either in the very fine print or not there at all - is occasionally having uninvited guests show up in the house. In some places these can be monkeys or large rodents, but here we get large spiders and the occasional scorpion. With the cats we now just find pieces of large spiders, but they tend to be a bit wary of the scorpions.

I was on the phone with someone when the girls came upstairs to inform me of our latest visitor. Christy put a plastic container over it while the girls came to get me - and to tell me to bring my camera.

EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/100s
Aperture: F9.0
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm

I lit our friend here with an off-camera flash, 1/4 power with diffuser, from camera left. The flash is down on the ground about a foot or so away from the scorpion. It's triggered by my on-camera flash, which is powered way down, just enough to trigger the off-camera.

I cropped this in Lightroom and bumped the mid-tones contrast up (clarity).

Photo of the Week - Week 26

This entry - the iconic photo.

We recently had the opportunity to visit Disneyland California and I had to take a couple of iconic photos - something that looks like it came from a brochure or the like; all in addition to the requisite princess photos ...

EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/320s
ISO:100
Aperture: F7.1
Focal Length: 33mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm

This particular image has a few key elements in it - Mickey, of course; the Toontown writing on the "hillside" behind; the fountain; and the house behind. My goal was to try and capture all of these elements without making it too distracting while telling the story of where the image was taken. The trickiest part was the Toontown in the background - a bit more to the left or right and it gets cut off, either by the tree or by Mickey.

The other tricky part was not getting any people in the image - I had to set up my composition and then wait until the scene was clear. Luckily it was right after this part of the park opened, so it wasn't thronged with thousands of people.

The cloud is a nice element that breaks up the sky and interacts well with Mickey's director's baton.

Photo of the Week - Week 25

This image is one that I recently made of the LDS Temple in Redlands, California.

EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/20s
ISO: 100
Aperture: F22.0
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm
Focal Length: 50mm

This image has some post-processing that I did in Lightroom 4.1. First, I made straightened the image and (tried to) center everything. I was using my tripod, so I didn't have to lose too much as I did this.

Next, I added a graduated filter to darken the sky a bit. The lighting was mid-day, but overcast, which gave me a good, flat light over the building - no odd shadows or anything.

I then painted a mask over the sky - the flat grey sky was not very interesting. I then shifted the color of the sky to a nice evening blue.

Finally, I added a vignette to highlight the Temple and focus attention more into the center of the image.

Photo of the Week - Week 24

This entry - patriotic pictures! We recently had the opportunity to be in a small-town Fourth of July parade. My goal with these photos was to make some images that captured the feeling of the day - small-town patriotism.

The American flag is an obvious necessary accessory. Since this parade was in a small town in the West, the cowboy hats and red bandana also helped to set the scene. 

EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/50s
ISO: 100
Aperture: F8.0
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm
Focal Length: 50mm

EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/320s
ISO: 100
Aperture: F8.0
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm
Focal Length: 24mm

In this second image, I like the symmetry with the two flag portions - the upper left corner and lower right corner.

Photo of the Week - Week 23

We had a unique opportunity this week - we go to ride in a parade for the 4th of July! It was fun to take pictures of the parade watchers watching us ... Nothing technical or fancy, just something fun. Maybe I've been living outside of the States for too long, but just couldn't pass this up:



Was there a car on blocks in the front lawn behind this couch? You'd better believe it. I had to get a shot when the occupants weren't looking for fear of having a beer can or something thrown at us because we were laughing so hard. Howdy, howdy, howdy!

Photo of the Week - Week 22

Now for something a little more abstract ...

My daughters love to dance and I try to get images of them dancing when I can. This time, however, I went with a slower shutter speed to try and slow things down a bit for a more abstract image. Here are a few examples:






EXIF Data
Shutter Speed: 1/30s
Aperture: F2.8
ISO: 1000
Focal Length: 17mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm




EXIF Data
Shutter Speed: 0.8s
Aperture: F7.1
ISO: 1000

Focal Length: 24mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm



EXIF Data
Shutter Speed: 1/15s
Aperture: F2.8
ISO: 1000

Focal Length: 40mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm

Photo of the Week - Week 21

My last post was about event shooting; this time around I wanted to highlight a few shots I took at that particular event and share a few of my thoughts.

Details

I like to look for a few details that tell something of the event. Just a couple of things, though, because the event is about the people.

EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 8s
Aperture: F4.0
ISO: 100
Lens: Canon 70-200mm L
Focal Length: 200mm


The Purpose - People

As with all photography, for me the question is always, "What is the story I am trying to tell here?"

EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/20s
Aperture: F4.0
ISO: 1000
Lens: Canon 70-200mm L
Focal Length: 200mm

My favorite part of this image is the granddaughter below him trying to help with the candles.

EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/50s
Aperture:F8.0
ISO: 5000
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm
Focal Length: 50mm

The brother playing the role of MC had this great smile - his whole face would smile every time he smiled!

EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/50s
Aperture: F4.0
ISO: 1000
Lens: Canon 70-200mm L
Focal Length: 200mm

Event Shooting

Last night I had the opportunity to shoot an event - a first for me - and I learned a few things. As I'm still recovering from staying up way past my normal bedtime, hopefully this is coherent. I'll probably think of  few things later, once the cobwebs clear.

The Lighting Stinks

One of the first things I discovered is that the lighting really stinks inside, at least in the location I shot at. It was a mix of different temperature fluorescent bulbs, which you don't really notice until you try adjusting the lighting temperature. I quickly gave up and just shot auto, knowing that I would have to adjust each shot (that I wanted to keep) afterwards because it would be different in different parts of the room.

Photoshop is Probably Inevitable

It's Murphy's law of photography - if you're shooting a group large enough (a few of my shots were well over 20 people) someone in every shot is going to be blinking, looking away, or doing something goofy. Rather than try to get a big group of people to hold still and hang around for five photos, particularly when they'd rather be visiting, eating, or drinking with family and friends they haven't seen in 10 years or more, my goal is to get consistent lighting knowing that I'm going to be pasting a new set of eyes or a new face one someone ...

Related to this is the uninvited photo hog - someone who wants to be in as many pictures as possible. Luckily things can be easier than Photoshop. As I was setting up one shot, a relative whispered in my ear, "Can you not include her in the picture? She's not part of the family." Luckily it was just a matter of tightening the shot a bit and voila! She's gone. She'll never even know, but she had a smile on her face and there was no shouting match.

People with a Full Stomach Make Better Subjects

My goal was to wander around the room, get some candid shots of people and to try and be as unobtrusive as possible. There were also the obligatory pictures of everyone at each table - the group shot with some uncle who's managed to dribble dinner all over his tie. I noticed that before dinner not many people were very relaxed and I began to worry if I'd have to edit out shots of a family brawl. Turns out, people were probably just hungry. Once dinner had been served everyone seemed to relax and the photos got a lot better. It probably helped that a significant amount of wine had also been consumed ...


When it Rains, it Pours

I had set up an area to do some more formal sitting portraits and I had the impression that people would show up, get their pictures taken, and then be seated. Nope. Not many people were too interested in getting pictures done until after dinner and then everyone wanted pictures done with everyone else! Several times when I was assured that everyone and every group had already had their portrait done, two more groups of people would show up. The good thing was that I had eaten, too, so was not hungry and grumpy.

All in all, it was a fun experience. A lot of work, but fun. Having done this once in a lower-stress environment (it was a favor for  some good friends) gave me a chance to learn and experiment in a way that I would have been hesitant to do had it been a more formal business arrangement.

Photo of the Week - Week 20

This entry is actually a few photos ... The girls have been participating in a soccer clinic the past several weeks and it's given me the opportunity to try some sports and action photography. It's been fun watching them and I've learned some new things about taking photos of this type.

However, as always, for me the question is the same, regardless of what kind of photography I am doing: What is the story I am trying to tell?



The Typical Action Shots

Of course, one of the primary goals is to capture the action. As I went through my photos, I learned a couple of obvious things. First, having the ball in the shot (if applicable) gives context to the shot. You can have photos of people running and jumping, but without a ball that puts things on context, you don't have much of a story. Second, interactions. This is part of the story you are trying to tell. Is it a competition between teams, individuals, or is it an individual sport?

EXIF Data
Shutter Speed: 1/500s
Aperture: F5.6
ISO: 500
Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
Exposure Compensation: 0
Lens: Canon 70-200mm L
Focal Length: 200mm

EXIF Data
Shutter Speed: 1/200s
Aperture: F7.1
ISO: 100
Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
Exposure Compensation: +2/3
Lens: Canon 70-200mm L
Focal Length: 91mm

The Emotion

Sports are, by their nature, emotional. People are exerting themselves, pushing themselves, trying their best. Hopefully they are also having fun!

EXIF Data
Shutter Speed: 1/500s
Aperture: F7.1
ISO: 100
Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
Exposure Compensation: +2/3
Lens: Canon 70-200mm L
Focal Length: 113mm

The nature of competition is that there will be winners and there will be losers - the climax of the action and the emotion. What are those emotions and how are they displayed? I recently read the following quote (I'm paraphrasing): Sports don't build character, they reveal it.

EXIF Data
Shutter Speed: 1/200s
Aperture: F7.1
ISO: 100
Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
Exposure Compensation: +2/3
Lens: Canon 70-200mm L
Focal Length: 200mm

While it was fun to watch the girls learn and grow in a short time, I also had a great time using it as a learning opportunity for me. I learned a few things about taking actions shots (moving with the action, dodging the ball) and photography in general.

Photo of the Week - Week 19

As I've dove into the world of Photoshop and other Adobe products, I've been having a great time!

About a year ago I took a series of photos to put together into a panorama ... working with this group of shots was the beginning of my turn away from open-source photo editing software. I recently used Photoshop CS6 to stitch the photos together and do some editing in there. Here is the final image (you can click through to Flickr to see the full size image):

This group of images had a few issues, however. First was the dynamic range of the images - I wanted to keep the blue of the sky, we had some bright clouds, and then some darker portions of the image. The goal was to retain as much data as possible to increase the dynamic range of the final image - something that would not have been as good with the open-source software I was using at the time. I would have had to convert the pieces to 8-bit JPEG images, thus losing some data and flexibility in tweaking the dynamic range of the final image. Second, there was a power line going right through the middle of the image - not a very attractive feature. I could have used the image editing software I was using at the time, though the process would have been painfully slow.

Enter Photoshop CS6. I was able to import all of the RAW data, put the pieces together, and work to tweak the dynamic range using all of the data I had captured. Problem 1 solved. The content-aware tools in PS CS6 are amazing. I painted over the power lines and power poles and they are gone!

Photo of the Week - Week 18

When I compose my photos, particularly with landscapes, the goal is to draw the viewer in. I want the viewer to feel like they are in the scene, that they are there or have been there. At the bazaar I sold at earlier this month, that was one of the comments I heard about some of my photos - that people felt like they were there or could step into the image to be there. Hearing that was very gratifying - it meant that I had achieved my goal; with some of my photos, at least.

How to accomplish this? I'm no expert, but I have a few ideas of how I at least try to draw a viewer into an image.

Let's walk through the below image, which I took in Papallacta, Ecuador not too long ago.

Camera Info
Shutter Speed: 0.4s
Aperture: F22
ISO: 100
Lens: Tamron 17-50mm
Focal Length: 34mm

First, have a goal that you are leading the viewer towards. In this case, it's a chair near the rear of the image.

Second, leading lines. Lines in an image direct our gaze and tell us where to look. We have a pathway that winds us towards the goal - the chair - in the back.

Third, lighting. In the above example, the lighting is a combination of natural and post-processing. The area of vegetation and trees was naturally dark while the area by the chair naturally light. I heightened this just a bit by selectively under-exposing the periphery of the image and leaving the pathway up to the chair not as dark. In retrospect, I should have lightened more of the area around the chair to heighten this effect a bit more - the area above the chair remained a little too dark.

Fourth, composition. The above image places the focal goal - the goal - roughly on intersecting lines, one-third of the way down from the top and one-third of the way from the left of the image.

So, those are a few of my thoughts on composition and leading the viewer into an image. Again, just a few ideas I keep in mind when composing and creating an image!

Photo of the Week - Week 17

I've slowly been working through a couple batches of photos I was able to take in the past couple of weeks.

One of the things I enjoy doing is focusing on details of a particular site; so often the things that stick in my mind are the small details of a particular place. As I make a concerted effort to find details, it seems that I am able to see so much more and to see it from a different perspective. A recent visit to Hacienda San Augustine in Cotopaxi, Ecuador, yielded lots of great shots, but here is one in particular that I liked:

Camera Info
Shutter Speed: 1/40s
Aperture: F8.0
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 100
Lens: Tamron 17-50mm

The image is cropped just slightly and I then desaturated most of the colors, all using Adobe Lightroom 4. I also selectively darkened the upper portion of the image to help focus the eye on the lower portion of the image where the flowers are.

As I was walking around the hacienda (an incredible location, by the way), I noticed this fountain and took a closer look, which is when I noticed the flowers in there. I tried a few different angles and lenses, but this particular image got it, for me.

I like the position of the flowers, for one, as well as the framing along the bottom and the left edge of the image. There is also a bit of balance between the flowers and the brighter portion of the image diagonal to them in the top left. The other detail I like is the splash to the left of one of the flowers; while this is largely a static scene, this motion captured (by luck, not skill, by any stretch of the imagination) adds some dynamism to the image.

Growing the Business

Back at the beginning of the year, one of the many goals I set was to grow my photography business. While I still have a few specific sub-goals left (more on that a bit later), I have been able to fulfill a few mileposts.

Years ago I remember being taught that a goal left unwritten remains a dream. As I pondered how to grow my photography business, I decided that I needed to set some specific goals and then write out a plan to achieve them.

I knew that a bazaar was organized twice a year at work, once before Mother's Day and once again before Christmas, so I decided to set the goal to sell at the pre-Mother's Day bazaar, which would probably be in late April or early May.

With that in mind, I set the following goals: March - put together a portfolio of photos I wanted to sell in large framed prints and also as cards, then have them printed. April, have the photos framed and then make the cards. I would also need to design and print my business cards, fliers for portrait photography, and put together a small portrait portfolio to demonstrate.

I was able to get my portfolio together with plenty of time and have the prints made. Then things got a bit hectic.

I found out the exact date for the bazaar with about 10 days of notice. As a result, I ended up going to a frame shop that was close by and could get the work done quickly, probably paying significantly more than I would had I taken the time to shop around a bit more.

At the end of it all, I feel the bazaar was a success for me - it was a great publicity opportunity and at least one neat thing came of it. Someone asked me if I would be interested in putting together an exposition of my work! While the details remain to be worked out, it is an exciting opportunity and one that will serve well to continue to grow and expand my business. During the bazaar I also got a lot of wonderful feedback from people who were there, some of whom have professional training in the arts, graphic design, and photography.

When I returned home that evening, I found that Getty Images had contacted me to license some of my images! It was a great couple of days!

As for my other photographic goals (working more with adults to take portraits), I have a couple of other projects that are in the nascent stages ... hopefully more on those in the near future!

Photo of the Week - Week 16

This week's photo is a recent set of photos, actually, that I took of the Cotopaxi volcano.

I took approximately 12 individual images and merged them together into one larger image, for the below result:

(click through to see a larger version - on Flickr you can see the full-size version.)



I went down to the area of Cotopaxi to check out a camping site for an upcoming youth trip. As we were driving down there, I could see that Cotopaxi was totally clear; I couldn't wait to get closer and make some great images. After a long rainy season, I was thrilled to finally have a clear view of Cotopaxi - and several other volcanoes, for that matter.

As we got down to the location where we were going to scout out for the camping trip, I noticed that Cotopaxi was beginning to cloud up (we left at 7am and it was about 8:30). I got a few pictures, but none that really got my attention. We continued on checking out the location and I noticed that the peak of Cotopaxi was beginning to clear. I got my camera ready and waited; as soon as it cleared, I began shooting a series of shots, with the goal of stitching them together for one image.

I took the shots with my Canon 70-200mm L lens, zoomed in to 200mm and used Photoshop CS6 beta to stitch the images. I then added a slight vignette with Adobe Lightroom 4.

Photo of the Week - Week 15

The LDS Church has a (somewhat) new initiative to plug into its members across the globe and crowd source several things like document translation and photos - the Vineyard. I decided to submit my recent photos of the LDS Temple in Guayaquil and it was accepted! So, if at some point you see this photo show up, you know where you saw it first!

The other photo I had planned to highlight for a photo of the week was accidentally deleted ... that's what happens when I get overzealous in cleaning out my photos!

Photo of the Week - Week 14

Time keeps on slipping by and I realize I'm yet one more week behind in my photo goal ...

This week's photo comes from our recent visit to the Museo Interactive de Ciencias (Interactive Science Museum) - one of the best kid-oriented museums we've ever been to. The site used to be a textile factory and part of it is a museum to that industry; they still have a lot of the machines in there and displays to explain everything.

We were recently there to celebrate Natalie's birthday and I took the opportunity to take a few pictures - a kind of exploratory visit for me, photographically speaking, and I really want to get back there sometime to take some more photos. Here is one of my favorites:

Camera Info
Shutter Speed: 1/50s
ISO: 12,800
Aperture: F2.8
Lens: Tamron 17-50mm
Focal Length: 45mm
Aperture Priority Mode


The mix of light in there - tungsten, sunlight, and other lights - makes for some interesting color combinations. In the picture above the machine closest to me is illuminated by a warm tungsten light, but the background is a totally different light, so you have this warm orange cast light contrasting with the cold blue light in the background.

I had to shoot at a really high ISO and then used Lightroom 4 to clean up the noise. While Lightroom does a great job cleaning up the noise, I would like to shoot a higher aperture and low ISO next time, which means I'll need to bring my tripod along.

Take a look at my Flickr page to see more photos from this excursion.

Photo of the Week - Week 13

I finally got the chance to go to the botanical gardens here in Quito. I've barely started going through my photos, but came up with a couple for this post.

So how do you spice up a kind of blase nature scene? Set up for a longer exposure and then zoom while it exposes.

So here is the scene:

Here's the same scene, but zooming while the shutter is open (explosion of life!):

Camera Info:
Shutter speed: .8s
Aperture: F8.0
Lens: Canon 70-200mm

Here's another example with some flowers:

Photo of the Week - Week 12

This week's topic - refining my workflow between Lightroom and Photoshop.

Since I've started using Lightroom and the new beta version of Photoshop CS6, I've been working on how to integrate them, which I've found to be quite easy.

Here's the final image:

Camera Info
Shutter Speed: 1/15s
Aperture: F6.3
ISO: 100
Lens: Canon EF 50mm II
Focal Length: 50mm
Flash: Single flash, 1/4 power, through softbox

I begin by downloading my images from the memory card and onto my computer using Lightroom.

Once they are in Lightroom, I use that to do most of my polishing and edits - color balance, contrast, sharpening, add a slight vignette. A lot of the time I can get the image where I want it using just Lightroom.

The above image, however, had a hair going right down the middle of her face, which was rather distracting. With my image pretty much the way I wanted it, I simply right-clicked on it and opened it in Photoshop.

One of the tools I really like in Photoshop is content-aware healing. This is great because all I did was use a brush tool to highlight the hair and then, voila! It was gone.

With that done, I saved the image and the newly-edit version appeared in Lightroom. From there I exported it as a JPEG, with the above results.

Photo of the Week - Week 11

One of the hardest things in portrait photography (for me) is to get natural expressions. As I've mentioned before, portrait photography, particularly in the studio, is one of the most UNnatural things people can do. This means that it's hard to get people to relax and be natural; one of the reasons I like environmental portraits better - easier to get people to relax and be natural.

Perhaps one of the easiest ways to get people to relax is to get them to laugh. This helps lighten the atmosphere and people will naturally relax. Easier with kids than adults and much easier said than done ...

Clara is just a natural - she's grown up with me chasing her with a camera stuck to my face and she does great in front of the camera.

I've shot a few engagement sessions, but this is one of my favorites. Engaged couples are great to shoot because after a bit they just forget you're there and are oblivious to anyone but each other. Makes life easy for a photographer!

Even adults will relax and you can get some good natural portraits. When I do my portrait sessions I block aside at least an hour. The first bit is mainly for us to get used to me having a camera stuck to my face, we'll shoot some test shots, we do a lot of interactive, I'll show them the pictures after each shot, let the kids take a picture of mom and dad, etc. This helps build rapport between me and the people I'm photographing and everyone relaxes, enjoys the photo shoot more, and we get better images.