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!