BetterPhoto Instructor Insights

Learn Photography Techniques for Selling on eBay

At BetterPhoto.com, we have a line of 4-Week Short Courses that are fast, fun, and to the point. For example, if you'd like to make photographs that will help you sell your product - whether for eBay or for a business - check out Introduction to Product Photography. In this class, instructor and professional photographer John Siskin draws on more than 15 years of experience in teaching professional lighting.

Intro to Product Photography consists of two tracks: 1) what a general product photographer would do; and 2) what a business might want in-house. The course will introduce the whole range of lighting tools, not just umbrellas, soft boxes and light panels, but also how to hold it all together. The class also explains how to make your own lighting tools whenever that is really practical!

For all the details, check out this exciting new course!

Continuing Education: A Rewarding Experience

Hello Everyone,

I just got back from a private tutoring session, followed by the NANPA Traveling Road Show Weekend. Kathy Adams Clark, Jim Clark (no relation), and I gave several different programs on Light, Design, Composition, Telling a Story, Capturing a Sense of Place, Surviving your First Five years in Business, and Basic Digital Photography at the NANPA program. It was a great weekend! There will be three more this year, in Houston, Monterey, and Seattle, so check the NANPA web site (www.nanpa.org) for more information.

The weekend plus the private tutoring experience got me thinking about how important it is to keep learning new things as photographers, and as individuals. I sat in on Kathy's Surviving Your First Five Years even though I'd been in business since 1985! I knew that I'd hear some things that were good reminders for me in terms of doing business - such as keeping up to date with technology, the need to be consistent with promotion, etc., but I was also there to observe her presentation style - which ultimately helps me grow as a presenter. I sat in on Jim's program "Capturing a Sense of Place" as he discussed his photo projects and how he goes about capturing a complete body of work about an area. Even though I've photographed for three books and produced one of my own, I learned a few things - or should I say was reminded of them, a reinforcement. For many people, coming to hear us talk was way of continuing their education, helping them with their vision or their business.

When I began my interest in photography as a kid, I never imagined I'd be good enough to be published some day - in fact I wasn't even sure I was looking for that in the very beginning. Photography was just pure fun and gave me the opportunity to be out there in nature and traveling around seeing new things. But I was driven to get better, skill-wise, and I began taking local workshops and Continuing Ed courses when I was 16 years old. I took at least two every year, even while going to night school for my career degree. I continued that practice and today, I still attend workshops, seminars, etc. that can help me grow my business, my technical skills (these days with computer and digital stuff) - and inspire me to follow my dreams. Classes and workshops are the most valuable things and I'll continue attending programs that can stimulate my mind and my creative eye.

For your own growth, take courses here at Betterphoto, attend field workshops, or find professionals who do the work you like to do and see if they are teaching - and attend those. In fact, do them all when you can! The growth you'll experience is really remarkable.

Have a great week and some fun photography sessions,

Brenda

Seizing the Moment

by Jim Zuckerman

Many times I will see a wonderful composition, and before I could take the picture the moment is lost. This elderly woman was sitting in the 6th century Haghia Sophia in Istanbul, and just as I was about to photograph this shot she stood up and walked away. I quickly asked my Turkish guide (I always travel with an interpreter who can help me get the photos I want) to speak to the woman and ask her to return to the place where she had been sitting. To be honest, I was a bit surprised when she agreed. I got the shot, as did the people in my photo tour, and I was very grateful for her kindness is doing what I asked.

This is a technique I’ve used in many parts of the world. Sometimes people oblige and sometimes they don’t, but it’s always worth a try. I know many photographers are shy about this, so it helps when your local guide intercedes for you.

Photoshop Layer Mask

By Jim Zuckerman

One way to battle harsh, mid-day sunlight is by combining two shots in Photoshop using a layer mask.

I visited this ancient Roman theater in Turkey during the worst part of the day. It was 11 am and the sun was very high, causing terrible contrast. Both film and digital technology can’t expose correctly for both the bright highlights and the much darker shadows, so the options have traditionally been t(1) to expose for the highlights and let the shadows go very dark or even black; (2) exposure for the shadows and lose detail in the overexposed highlights; or (3) compromise between the two and therefore both parts of the picture will look bad.

With Photoshop as my secret weapon, so to speak, I took two shots from a tripod. In one I exposed for the highlights and in the other I exposed correctly for the shadows.

I opened both pictures in Photoshop. I then chose the picture with the correct highlights (it doesn’t matter which one is chosen first) and used Select > select all and then Edit > copy. This placed the image in the temporary holding place, the clipboard. You can’t see it, but it’s there.

Next, I clicked in the other photo, activating it, and used Edit > paste. This pasted the clipboard image over the other one, creating a layer.

I then created a layer mask this way: Layer > layer mask > reveal all. I then made sure that the colors in the foreground/background boxes at the bottom of the tools palette were black and white, respectively. It’s important that the foreground box be black.

I selected the paint brush tool, and now I could ‘paint away’ the dark shadow foreground, revealing the correctly exposed shadow foreground beneath. You can see the result below and how good it looks compared to the other two versions.

Monet in Ireland

by Jim Zuckerman

The four pictures below were taken during my recent photo tour to Ireland. One evening after dinner when we were losing light, the wind become ferocious – gale force, actually – and I suggested to my tour participants that they experiment with long shutter speeds. In front of the house we were staying in, there was a tree that was blowing violently in the 60 mph gusts of wind, and we took pictures of it hand holding our cameras using one to three second exposures. The result, of course, was a serious amount of blur. We completely abstracted the motion.

But that wasn’t the end of it. I then showed them what happened when I brought the digital captures into Photoshop and applied an extreme amount of color saturation. I used Image > adjustments > hue/saturation and moved the saturation slider to the right until the colors went wild. The darker shadows in the images went blue and the other colors became extreme as well, and the results were abstractions that didn’t look anything like what we saw with our eyes. The images almost look like paintings by the impressionist painter Monet. Extreme saturation isn’t right for most photographs, but sometimes it can produce surprising and artistic renderings.

In my courses I teach at Betterphoto, I always encourage students to think 'outside the box'. I am constantly giving them ideas that will inspire new and creative ways to interpret reality. Sometimes the most simple technique can lead to astonishing works of art.

Extreme Macro Photography

Your Basic Rose Picture.

In preparing new images for a talk I’m giving for NANPA’s Road Show in Boston on June 23-25, I was looking for a subject for some extreme macro pictures - where I combine my 100 mm, two extension tubes, and a diopter to get in close - really close. This technique creates wonderful abstracts - there's such little depth of field that you have a lot of colors blending and only the edges of things or one area may be in focus. My partner and I had just bought this gorgeous rose called Heart of Gold, and about three blossoms opened over the weekend. The colors were incredible in these flowers and I decided to play around with it.

Rose Abstract #1.

The first image shows you the rose as it looks normally. But in the others, there are various combinations of macro accessories. Abstract #1 is two extension tubes, a 12 mm and 25 mm, mounted between the camera body and my 100 mm macro lens, with a Canon 500D diopter on the front. This allowed me to get in really close to capture the glow of sunlight between layers of petals. I deliberately chose a wide open (f2.8) aperture for this picture, as I wanted it to be more like a painting or chalk pastel effect. I was excited about what I was seeing in the viewfinder, a bonus of photographing wide open - what you see is what you get!

Rose Abstract #2.

Rose Abstract #3.

In Abstract #2, I used my 100 mm macro lens and the two extension tubes only, again choosing a wide aperture (f3.2), to render the droplets sharp on the petal. In Abstract #3, I chose an aperture of f8, to render the edge of the petal and the water drop sharp, using my 100 mm macro and the 25 mm extension tube. Both images work, but have a different look to them.

Rose Abstract #4.

Pulling out all the “stops,” I decided to put both extension tubes, and diopter back onto the 100 mm macro and get in very close again, this time focusing through some of the closer petals into the interior of the rose. Where you see the pale lavender/blue, was a shadow, softened by the blending of objects out of focus around it. This softness gave the whole picture a dreamlike effect, just what I was looking for in this abstract.

After about 1 1/2 hours, my back was sore, but I was totally energized by the results I obtained! Getting into extreme macro is a lot of fun, and a great creative workout. You have to move around, in and out on your subject until you see something that you really like. There’s no way to know what’s there until you get in that close - you just can’t see it with your naked eye. But once you start looking that closely, you find magic happening!

Have a great week everyone,

Brenda

No Tripods Allowed

by Jim Zuckerman

On my recent trip to Turkey, I visited an ancient cistern in Istanbul. This is a huge underground chamber that had been used as a water storage facility in the event the city (Constantinople in those days) came under siege. It was built in the 6th century A.D., and the Byzantines who designed it used Greek columns that had been part of temples hundreds of years earlier. Two of the bases that still survive have large stone heads of the goddess Medusa, but they were placed on their side and upside down by the Christians to prevent people from worshiping them.

No tripods were allowed in this very dark place, so I came up with an idea that had never occurred to me before. I left my tripod in the hotel but brought only my ball head. This way, I could use the floor or a railing along the walkway as a solid support, yet the camera could still be angled any way I wanted for a good composition. By applying constant downward pressure on the base of the ball head, I could be sure that there would be no movement and my pictures would be sharp. I used the self-timer on the camera to minimize any vibration when I took each shot. Even when I shot the rows of columns and depth of field was important, I could close down the lens because long exposures were fine provided I held the ball head down tightly.

The security personnel didn’t object to the ball head, and all of my pictures came out sharp.

Timing is Everything in Photography

Hi Everyone!

I had a wild two months of business, and missed blogging on a weekly basis. But I had a great time traveling and leading my photo tour through Tuscany and Venice. I’m just now reviewing all the images I made, and thought I’d share a few with some ideas.

In doing street photography, which I love to do, timing is everything. This is true for wildlife, too, so the skill you learn about anticipating moments and gestures can carry over into several areas of photography!

The group was photographing this ornate entrance to the Venice Shipyard, and while I liked the overall scene, I wanted something more - a human being, walking through the gate. Rather than having them coming towards me, though, I wanted them walking into the shipyard, which would then draw you, the viewer, into it with them. So I waited around for something to happen. Several people walked in, but they were not military and didn’t say much about what this gate was as a result. When finally, my luck turned, and I saw this sailor with briefcase, I figured it was my chance. But timing is everything, and I made several frames in succession. The first one was my own anticipation of the moment the gesture of walking in would be best; the second was from being on continuous frame. You can see that the first one is better - I have his whole body in the frame of the gate, and he’s stepping up and forward. I made the choice of when to press the shutter that first time. In the second image, which occurred simply because I kept my finger on the shutter release, I’ve lost his right arm and hand behind the gate and his legs are more jumbled up together. Clearly the first image is the better of the two.

In the frames of mother and grandmother walking, my first frame was not the best. I saw the moment and made the picture without really thinking - just reacting - and as soon as I pressed the shutter I knew it wasn’t THE moment. I had to wait for them to be on the stairs, for better gesture, and better lighting all around them. The second image was better - and even though I wasn’t on continuous frame setting with this one, I was “off” on my timing at first, due to being emotionally excited about seeing their connection, seeing the sweetness of caregiving as the mother helped her mother walk, and not thinking clearly. It’s easy to get lost in the emotional aspects of photography, but you always have to remember to watch for those gestures and moments that tell the stronger story, even as you’re feeling the moment yourself!

Have a great week, everyone.