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!