Looking for details ...

As a follow-on to my last post, I wanted to post a few pictures from our recent trip to the equator - again. It's a place that I've been to several times and, frankly, is not very interesting, photographically, for me. When we decided to go there, I decided that I needed to look for detail photographs, something other than the typical shots of the big tower with the globe on top. As I did this, I found I was more excited about being there and enjoyed looking for "non-typical" shots.

Below are a few from our recent excursion ...



Shutter Speed: 1/40
ISO: 100
Aperture: F6.3
Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: Tamron 17-50mm
Mode: Aperture Priority
Exposure Compensation: -2/3



Shutter Speed:5s
ISO: 100
Aperture: F6.3
Focal Length: 44mm
Lens: Tamron 17-50mm
Mode: Aperture Priority
Exposure Compensation: -1/3



Shutter Speed: 1/200s
ISO: 100
Aperture: F6.3
Focal Length: 31mm
Lens: Tamron 17-50mm
Mode: Aperture Priority
Exposure Compensation: -1/3

Photo of the Week - Week 8

As we've traveled and lived in different places, one of the challenges is to try and photograph sometime that has been photographed thousands of times, but to do it in a unique way.

Give it some thought

The scenic overlooks are there for a reason, but what can we do different with the lighting, exposure, framing and composition? What is your narrative for your image? What story are you trying to tell?

Scout your area - Pay attention

Once you are on location, take a look around. What do you see? What is the light doing? What is unique?

When I've got my kids with me, I task them to help Daddy find pictures, which serves a few different functions. First, they are occupied with a task - but make sure you do take some photos of what they point out. Pixels are free. If they feel you are paying attention to what they find, they'll continue to be enthusiastic and they will develop their own photographic eye. Second, kids tend to notice a lot of things we adults overlook or ignore. They have a different perspective on life. And they are a lot shorter, so their viewpoint is physically different.

Sometimes you have to wander off the beaten path a little. What are the tourists NOT taking pictures of? What is behind the group or off to the side?

Change your perspective

How does your three-year old see the world? Crouch down and see. What would this statue look like if you were lying on your back looking up at it?

This takes a bit of gumption - some people may inevitably look at you as the crazy foreign tourist laying on his back. Well, do you want the shot or not? I'm hoping that as my children grown up seeing me do this, it'll mitigate their embarrassment as teenagers ...

Revisit the location

One of the benefits of living somewhere, anywhere, is that you have the opportunity to see the same places under different conditions. In our case, we've been to some tourist locations around the world multiple times- each visitor that comes has got to see the Parthenon or the Equator. As I've trekked out to some places for the fifth or sixth time in the last 18 months, there is always something different.

Photo of the Week - Week 7

This week's post - cropping. The photo is from last summer, but it's one of the few instances where I have a couple of different versions of it and it makes the point well.

Here's the original photo:



Here's the cropped version:



Shutter Speed: 1/800s
Aperture: F4.0
ISO: 100
Lens: Canon EF 70-200mm F4/L
Aperture Priority Mode
Exposure Compensation: +1/3

While neither is a prize-winning photograph, I think they illustrates how cropping can be used to improve the composition and framing of an image we've made. You can't manipulate a bad image into a great one, but cropping can improve the framing and, to an extent, the composition of an image.

The original image, one of a series of rapid-fire shots (trying to shoot a bird in flight and get the wings in the right position), was not a well-thought out composition; I was just trying to get an image of the bird in flight. I knew I wanted the bird on the left side of the reflection and sun and the wings up or down, hence the rapid fire shots. As a result, the composition is kind of blase, the bird not really centered, and the whole image, really, lacking in balance.

The cropped image has symmetry and feels more balanced. In the image below I've added some lines to illustrate this:



While the sun and bird are on the right-hand side of the image (though the bird is almost centered), the bird is in flight, with implied motion into the left side of the image. He's still got someplace to go.

Again, neither is a really stunning image, but I think this example illustrates well how a bit of cropping can help improve an image.

Photo of the Week - Week 6

We were recently able to take another trip to the LDS Temple in Guayaquil. These are always beautifully constructed buildings; we would be staying at the lodging on the Temple grounds, so I was anxious to get some pictures at night.

Shutter Speed: 1s
Aperture: F11
Mode: Aperture Priority
Exposure Bias: -1
ISO: 400
Focal Length: 17mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm

Processed in Adobe Lightroom 4 beta.

This was the first time I brought real camera gear to Guayaquil, having regretted not doing so on previous trips. While staying in the lodging was a different story (sharing a room with all three girls who were excited AND hopped up on sugar), I was pleased with the images I was able to make of the Temple. Here is a slideshow of all of my Temple pictures:

Leaving the Open-source Software Bandwagon ...

I've been debating for a while about changing my software tools for photo editing and manipulation. For years now I've been a big proponent of the open-source tools available, my primary tool being GIMP, the GNU Image Manipulation Program, but also including QTPFSGUI (Luminance HDR), a HDR creation tool, and UfRAW for RAW file processing. However, the biggest reason behind my shift has been failure to deliver, bugs, and lack of features in the open-source software, the biggest being a lack or difficulty in dealing with higher bit-depths on image files.

The first big jump I made was in my HDR processing software - I ponied up the money and switched to Photomatix Pro, which is really the industry standard for HDR image processing. Why? For the longest time I had been quite happy using Luminance HDR and got comparable results when compared to Photomatix. Recent releases, however, were a bit buggy and I was not able to get the results I wanted, no matter what work-arounds I tried.

And thus the slide down the slippery slope began ...

I saw that Adobe is offering a free, fully-functional beta download of their Lightroom 4 and figured I would give it a shot. It will work until LR4 is officially released, but that gives me about two months to give it a trial run. Well, their ploy has worked, for me at least. I plan on purchasing the full copy when it is released.

Not having delved into the Photoshop/Lightroom world (scorned it, actually, for the longest time), I have to say I am very impressed with LR4, even in Beta. First, it handles the higher bit depths of RAW files. For a brief discussion on this and the importance of working at a higher bit depth, go here. GIMP works at the 8-bit level while my Canon 7D RAW images are at 14 bits. Secondly, the interface is great - the basic workflow you take an image through is essentially top to bottom in the Develop module. Third, features. This follows on a bit from the interface and workflow setup. LR4 beta has great features and they are easy to find and use. You don't have to go hunting through a series of drop-down menus or get a third-party plugin (that you hope works) to do many basic functions. Fourth, available training. Adobe has great training videos on their web site that walk you through the features of a product and how to use it. This is a company that wants you to learn and enjoy and the tools they have created - and pony up the big money for them - their existence depends on that.

The one hook is that, while LR4 can do many things, it can't do them all. One feature that is lacking in LR which I use often is layers and layer masks. Photoshop does this, plus so much more.

Photo of the Week - Week 5

This post is a bit late, so I'll have the next week right after this one...

I have been wanting to work more with the softbox, to get some practice before I do a "real" shoot with anyone. Luckily, we've had some birthdays this past month, so that gives me a great excuse.I also have downloaded the beta version of Lightroom 4 to play with - so far I'm hooked.




Shutter Speed: 1/100s
Aperture: F7.1
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm

This is a simple portrait, but just a couple of things I like about it: The background color brings out the green in her eyes and the color of the bear compliments the scene nicely. The lighting is simple - just the softbox at about 1/4 power, just enough to open the shadows up slightly.