BetterPhoto Instructor Insights

Halloween Monster

by Jim Zuckerman

Many of my students in my classes at Betterphoto™ have turned in assignment photos relating to Halloween, so I thought I’d do my first Halloween picture for today’s blog. I’ve photographed outrageous faces all over the world. Some are painted wildly, some are adorned with things from the jungle, some masked, and some have had all kinds of objects stuck through their noses, lips and ears. But I’d never taken pictures of the bizarre little monsters that walk around the residential areas of America every October 31 asking for candy.

Yesterday I went to a costume contest looking for ghouls and monsters, and I found many. The one you see here was my favorite. Not content with merely a straight rendition of him (or possibly her), I used Photoshop to combine this ultra bizarre costume with an explosion I’d taken at an airshow. I adjusted the opacity of the floating layer to about 50%, and then used the Buzz Simplifier filter to make the image painterly.

I recently bought the Buzz filter and I love it. It's a quick and efficient way to apply a painterly technique on a photo. It is available from a company in England, it costs about $108. It can be purchased and downloaded on-line. I have found this filter especialy effective on autumn colors as well as classic architecture. As a startling contrast to the Halloween monster photo, I am also including two other images I just did with Buzz -- a dramatic maple tree and a classic shot of Venice, Italy.

Here is a link where I bought the filter, should you be interested: http://www.skydancers.com/_fo2pix/buzzpro2pc.html

Essence of Autumn

Autumn's Glow, Yosemite NP, CA © Brenda Tharp.

I’m teaching a field workshop in Yosemite this week, and on Saturday night, I gave the students their overall challenge for the week: to capture the essence of Autumn in Yosemite. Many of us have seen pictures of the park, or have visited the park, and the iconic images are like siren calls to our cameras. We are so drawn to the grandeur of the scene that we try to capture it all in one frame, and we often end up with postcard pictures - although they might be very pretty ones!

So the group’s challenge was to see beyond the icons, to find the unusual composition of a familiar scene, to find the intimate views that say “Autumn”, even if it’s not obvious that we’re in Yosemite.

Autumn color in Yosemite isn’t the brilliant hues of the northeast or the Smokies, but it has a magic all it’s own. The color turns a landscape of granite and dark trees into a patchwork of color, and people flock to the valley in October to hike amongst the color. The leaves of oaks, dogwood and big leaf maple drop onto the rocks in the woods, line trails with a carpet of soft color, and fill quiet pools of the Merced River, now still with the dryness of the season. And using those pools, there are magical pictures to be made.

On Sunday night, I brought the group to a location with a great view of El Capitan that was also reflected in a relative still pool of water. It was a classic scene of an icon, but one you could do different things with to make a great photo. The edges of the pool had autumn leaves piled up, and there was one small rock with some leaves that caught my eye. But with a group of sixteen people, there wasn’t really room for me to photograph, and I was too busy working with everyone anyway.

The location was inspiring, and impressive, and students did work hard to make good images from the spot. Yet hazy conditions had softened the light and it was not the typical golden glow on El Capitan that many knew was possible. I encouraged everyone to wait it out, as I guessed the smoke would turn the last rays of the sun to a reddish hue, but several still left for dinner. About 20 minutes later, the rock cliff turned a soft pink-red, and I recalled that scene of the rock with leaves, now available to me with most everyone gone. I put on my 100-400mm lens, and then added my 1.4 tele converter for more reach, to simplify the scene. I chose different apertures to render the background a wash of color but with some texture from the rock. That famous rock wall became the perfect background for the rock and leaves. In all its simplicity, this captured the essence of autumn. It was a special moment, one that celebrated the light at the end of the day, while also celebrating the beauty of a season in the park.

Amish Family Pictures ... Zeroing in on the Telling Details

Amish Shed - exhibit © Dawn Mitchell

Hi Everyone,

Close-at-hand subjects often result in larger-than-life images. Photographs of details provide the accent that can set a mood, flesh out your photography, add a personal or more intimate feel, and in general, add visual variety to your work.

The smaller view can sometimes reveal just as much about your subject than the broader perspective. Not convinced? Take the subject of Amish Family Pictures ... and then check out BetterPhoto™ member Dawn Mitchell's accompanying image, photographed at the 2004 Philadelphia Flower Show in Philadelphia. The hat alone is certainly a telling detail of the Amish dress.

Of course, it's sometimes easy to miss the smaller scene within the bigger view - especially when the grand-scale scenic is so awe-inspiring. The trick to finding good detail images is to be aware. Can't find anything to shoot? Look closer! In fact, after you get used to finding the "picture within the picture" - as it's been called - you'll soon find yourself lost in a world of fine details and intimate scenes!

Need more on this subject? Read my BetterPhoto article at:
Photographing Details: Developing Your Close-up Vision

That's it for now. Have a great week of photography!
Kerry Drager

CORRECTING CONVERGENT LINES

Jim Zuckerman

We are all familiar with the issue that wide angle lenses present when shooting subjects with vertical lines. As soon as the camera is tilted upward, these lines angle inward and make tall buildings, trees and many other subjects seem like they are leaning precariously toward the center. This is caused by the fact that the back of the camera is not parallel with the vertical plane of the subject.

Sometimes, this is a dynamic treatment of the scene. We forgive the fact that the photographer is taking literary license in exchange for a striking graphic design.

But there are times when you will want to correct this distortion and show the subject such that the vertical lines appear to be parallel with each other and with the viewfinder. There are four ways you can do this.

1. You can switch from using a 35mm format film or digital camera and shoot the subject with a 4 x 5 inch view camera. These are designed with swings and tilts, which is a way for the camera to angle the lens independent of the film plane in such a way that the vertical lines of the subject are parallel with the viewfinder and therefore appear to be correct.

2. You can shoot from a position midway up the height of the subject. For example, if you are shooting a 70-story building, take the picture from the 35th floor of another building down the street. This causes the back of your camera to be parallel with the buildings. Suddenly, all of the architecture looks correct with straight vertical lines, even if you use a wide angle lens.

3. Get a PC (perspective control) lens for your camera. This does the same thing as the view camera movements in correcting the converging vertical lines but it’s available for 35mm shooters.

4. After the photo has been taken, you can use Photoshop to correct the convergence and bring the verticals back to appearing parallel. This is what I did in the photo below. The strategy is that you use the rectangular marquee tool and select each building, one at a time. Then, using Edit > transform > scale, you can rotate the rectangular selection until the building is straight (you do this by placing the cursor outside the selection box and moving it in the direction of the rotation). When the selected area is rotated, the background color will appear in the areas adjacent to the building that is displaced. You then use the clone tool and healing brush to repair the damage. This is done for each building until all of them are parallel.

Photo Workshops: Great Working Ranches - Not Luxury Horse Ranches

Eye to Eye with Mountain Lion, Triple D Workshop © Jim Miotke

Hi Everyone,

BetterPhoto's photographic workshops offer such a unique experience. In fact, they are like a mini-course ... featuring a combination of on-location excitement and online critiques. Many involve photographing wildlife in natural settings, and also shooting settings on authentic working ranches (not luxury horse ranches).

Here's how a BetterPhoto™ workshop works: Before you meet at the location, you'll get prepared for the upcoming shoot with articles, links, a lesson, and even an assignment. During the shooting sessions, you'll put into practice those techniques that you learned. But the workshop doesn't end when you go home ... there's more: You upload your favorite trip images to be critiqued by the instructor.

And each workshop is led by one of BetterPhoto's expert instructor-photographers - such as Jim Miotke, Jim Zuckerman, Peter Burian, Vik Orenstein, Kathleen Carr, and Charlie Borland.

For more details and a schedule, be sure to check out this new page:
Workshops: Great Working Ranches - Not Luxury Horse Ranches

That's it for now. Have a great week of photography!
Kerry Drager

Hand held meters vs. Program mode

Jim Zuckerman

I was asked recently to write a book on hand held exposure meters. I used these kinds of meters for 25 years in conjunction with my Mamiya RZ 67 medium format camera, and I obviously have a lot of experience in reading light. One of my recent books is titled Perfect Exposure, and the way I determined exposure for most of the pictures in the book was with a hand held meter.

Since I went 100% digital last February (I bought the Canon 1Ds Mark II), I haven’t used a hand held meter once. I’ve carried it with me, but I just don’t see a need for it. I know there are situations where, in the future, I could use one, but so far I’ve been fine without one.

A case in point occurred two days ago when I woke up early in the morning to see my entire area engulfed in thick fog. This is one of my favorite lighting conditions, so I got dressed, grabbed my equipment, and walked around looking for nice graphic compositions in the dense fog.

In the past, I would have used a hand held incident meter. But now, I just let the camera’s meter read the light (this may surprise you, but I used Program mode) knowing that in the RAW converter I can make adjustments to perfect the exposure. That’s the secret. If you shoot in RAW, the amount of correction that’s possible after-the-fact is phenomenal.

My second ‘secret’ is that I underexpose virtually all my photos by –2/3 f/stop. I set the exposure compensation feature so this reduction in exposure is applied to each image. RAW files can be lightened by several f/stops, so the underexposure does not in any way damage the photo or cause a loss of detail in subtle areas of the composition. The reason I do this is that it provides insurance -- it protects the highlights from blowing out with a loss in texture and detail. In digital photography, retention of highlight detail is a very important issue. In the critiques I do, I see over and over again photos where this detail has been lost. The reason this occurs is either (1). the photo was taken in contrasty lighting, (2). the photo was taken in jpeg mode, and/or (3) the photo was overexposed.

By shooting in RAW mode and habitually underexposing virtually everything, you can prevent this problem and get a higher yield of good pictures from each shoot. Every picture I took in the fog was exposed perfectly once I made minor adjustments in the RAW converter.

I told the publisher who asked me to write the book that I didn't think the majority of photographers would be using hand held meters in the future. I know some will, but I didn't think the book would sell well at this juncture in the history of photography.

Celebrating Autumn with Photographs

This picture was made a few years ago, but it remains a favorite of mine. It was a glorious Autumn afternoon in Northern California, but we have no strong natural Fall color like the upper peninsula, the mountains, or the eastern U.S. But that doesn't stop us from celebrating the changing season! I was driving back from the city having been working on a photo project, and planned to stop and buy a pumpkin. When I saw all the people there, I decided to bring the camera in the field with me, as there might be stock photographs to make. There was so much potential as I began to look around me and see all the children interacting with the pumpkins! I wrote about this in my book, Creative Nature and Outdoor Photography, but not all the pictures I made were included - there were just too many to fit in the space! Josh, his name was, and he was in the tactile/tasting phase of childhood - where everything goes to the mouth to try and understand what it was. And everything was measured by whether you could eat it or not! Pretty funny. The whole time I was there, I was photographing, having a great time, and then I left, happy that I had some great images in the camera. Yet I never remembered to buy my pumpkin, though, and had to go back the next day!

There are so many ways to celebrate the autumn season. There are classic outdoor arrrangements of pumpkins, cornstalks, and apple baskets; there are piles of apples, colorful peppers at the farmers markets, and roadside stands abundant with the harvest of the fields, so even when you live in an area that doesn't have alot of Fall color, you can still capture the essence of the season in photographs.

Enjoy the season, everyone!

Panoramic Fall Foliage Pictures & Other Seasonal Shots

Hi Everyone,

What a spectacular color show that autumn provides! And, for outdoor photographers, such splendid scenery means making use of all of our creative skills.

For example, lens focal lengths from wide to telephoto to even macro should get a workout, in order to capture everything from grand landscapes to intimate close-ups. You'll want to vary your formats too - i.e., experiment with both horizontal and vertical framing. And, as the photo below proves, panoramic fall foliage pictures make special images too.

For ideas and inspiration, be sure to check out BetterPhoto's gallery:
Autumn Images, Including Panoramic Fall Foliage Pictures

That's it for now. Have fun shooting fall colors!
Kerry Drager

P.S.: Speaking of seasonal happenings, BetterPhoto's fall online school has begun, but the first assignment isn't even due until Sunday, Oct. 16th. And one of the great benefits of Internet education is the ability to play "catch-up" ... so check out the schedule at:
http://www.betterphoto.com/online-photography-courses.asp

Autumnal Maples © Claudia Kuhn

ANALYSIS OF A PORTRAIT

by Jim Zuckerman

In the classes I teach for Betterphoto™, I see many portraits of both people and animals. Often, students overlook things that detract from the artistry of the shot and sometimes they take attention away from the subject. Ideally, the focus of a portrait should be the face. If other parts of the picture get in the way, they become problematic.

I wanted to analyze a shot I took recently of my wife and a friend’s little girl to share my thoughts with you about what goes into making a good outdoor portrait. The factors that can make or break the photo are really very simple, and if you remember these few ideas your pictures of people will vastly improve.

This picture was taken in the late afternoon, and the lighting was very soft. This, more than any other issue, is critical. Soft light is complimentary to everyone. Harsh shadows from a mid-day sun are the worst way to photograph a person. If you really hate someone, take a picture of him or her at high noon and make a large print as a gift. You’ll get the revenge you’ve been hoping for in seeing their expression as they painfully come to the conclusion that ugly is forever!

When you take pictures of friends or family, shoot them in soft light. They’ll love you for it.

The background I chose is completely diffused due to shallow depth of field. I used a telephoto lens and a relatively large lens aperture (f/5.6) purposely to throw the grass and flowers so out of focus that they didn’t intrude on my subjects. One of the most common problems I see is that photographers include busy and distracting background elements that draw our attention away from the subject.

Instead of posing for the camera with stilted expressions, I wanted something more dynamic, more interesting. I wanted something that allowed people to relate to the human interaction. When the baby started crying and my wife thought it was cute (this must be a woman thing, because crying babies don’t even come close to being cute to me), I knew I had the shot.

I shot several frames in quick succession, because the nuances in the expressions of both people changed quickly. It’s obviously impossible to stop the action and critically examine how each person looks. This is another important point. Keep shooting until the peak moment is gone. Don’t hesitate, don’t get frustrated and take the camera away from your eyes, and don’t get distracted by things going on around you. Hold your concentration on the subjects so you are ready the instant something great happens.

On the negative side, there are two things that aren’t ideal in this photograph. They aren’t terrible, but they bother me. First, on the right side, the yellow band of out of focus flowers would, in my opinion, be better if they had been green foliage. I find that horizontal area of color just a little bit distracting. And second, the angle of my wife’s hand seems awkward to me. She was letting it hang naturally, but it just doesn’t seem feminine to me. It’s more like how the Hulk would hold his hand (don’t worry, she won’t be reading this).

Overall, though, I love the shot. It always puts a smile on my face.

SEEING PHOTOGRAPHS EVERYWHERE

Hello everyone,

I just spent the last several days on an annual “Sister’s Weekend”, an event that began last year when my sisters and I decided we needed to get together - sans husbands, boyfriends, etc. - and catch up on everything. Since it was an occasion of sharing, laughing, walking, and girl stuff, making ‘serious’ pictures of anything was not on the schedule! So when it came time for me to travel to Maine, to spend 5 days photographing on my own, I was excited about autumn’s splendor of fall colors. But as I drove northward, I was becoming disappointed as the colors were barely beginning to show. To make matters worse, as I drove towards the cottage I would be staying in, a thick fog descended on the area. By the time I arrived at the cottage, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do next with no fall color to photograph and the fog so thick the scenes weren’t there. But as I stood inside the living room, I suddenly saw the droplets on the screen of the porch door, and the wonderful Adirondack chairs sitting there. I grabbed my tripod and camera and set up to make the image. I used a wide aperture to keep the chairs out of focus, and have only the screen and droplets sharp; The fog caused the edges of the ocean to fade softly away into whiteness, but the screen’s texture kept the upper part from going totally white and distracting the eye.

© Brenda Tharp. All rights reserved.

To me, the chairs are a metaphor of the upcoming season of quiet light and empty cottages, as islanders pack up and go home for the year. The chairs sit empty, perhaps waiting for one last visit, one last conversation. My sister gasped when she saw the image - of her chairs, her cottage porch - it had been transformed by the atmosphere of the fog and the drops on that screen. And my mood was transformed by making that picture. It's just another great lesson in seeing what’s right in front of you!

Have a great day,

Brenda