Bragging Rights!

Every photographer likes to show off their work and sometimes like to brag a bit about it, I think I take this post to do a bit of bragging myself. One weekend me and three friends were in a photography competition called "Shoot the Hills" which takes place in south eastern Ohio I took the above image. I titled it Mary's Hands and used it as one of my entry's and it won first place in it's division.

This next image is one that I took at a Raven Rock State Nature Preserve in Southern Ohio just outside of Portsmouth Ohio. This image was used for the cover of a book called Rainbows of Rock, Tables of Stone: The Natural Arches and Pillars of Ohio.

And this final image I have titled Grandpa's Hand, is an image of my youngest holding my father's hand while taking a walk. This one was entered into a contest that the Southern Baptist Convention was holding. I entered it as one of my entries and was awarded third prize.

I could tell you more about many other images but I guess I should stop bragging and come up with another blog post for next week.

Keep shooting and always take a little time to brag about some of your images.

Be aware of your surroundings!

Safety is always important when you are shooting, you always need to be aware of your surroundings. If not you may make the mistake I made and find yourself surrounded by herd of bucks during mating season. 

If you look at these images you would think that I was in the middle of nowhere but I was actually in Richmond Park of London, England. Richmond Park is one of the old royal hunting grounds that has been converted into a public park. The large herds of deer are so used to people that you can walk within a few feet of them. This is discouraged as the animals are still wild animals but if you are too busy photographing them animals to pay attention to where you or they are going, you can suddenly find yourself surrounded by them with no easy way out. Which is exactly what happened to me.

I was so busy taking pictures of these deer who were not running away from me that I just kept moving toward the herd to see ho close they would allow me to get. It was amazing the deer were fighting all around me. When my memory card was full I took the camera from my eye and I realized I had gone to far. I had lost track of the edge of the herd and I walked right into the middle of the deer and they were all around me some watching me and others trying to prove they were the strongest. I didn't know what to do so started moving slowly toward a tree and eventually made my way out of the herd without incident.

When it comes to photography all of my photog friends know that I am not afraid to do something really dangerous if I think I can get an amazing shot. As a result I have lost a couple of very expensive cameras and lenses by dropping them in water. One time while I was in Togo Africa on a hike I climbed to the top of a waterfall to get a better shot. Once at the top I realized if I was on the other side I could get a better shot from the other side. While I was attempting to cross the mouth of the falls I slipped and fell. Thankfully I was able to grab hold of some nearby rocks and hold on until a couple of guys could climb up and help me up. I survived but my camera and lens were ruined.

For your safety and the safety of your equipment is best to always be aware of where you are going even if the best shot is just a few more steps away. You can't get the best shot if you or your equipment don't make it there.

Be safe shooting.

How to get the soft look of white water.

So this is not so difficult to do but there are a couple of things you will need to get this type of look.

First you will need a camera that has a manual mode, a fully automatic camera will most likely not allow you to achieve this effect.

Second you will need a tripod or a way to mount your camera so that it will not move while the image is being created.

Another helpful item is a shutter release cable of a remote control for your camera. Some cameras have a timer release for the trigger which may also work in a pinch.

Something else that may be needed is a neutral density filter if it is a super bright day. They come in different densities so if you have them bring them all you never know which one you will need.

And lastly you need a have an image with moving water in it. Water falls and fountains work nicely but rocky stream are also great options.

Once you have these items you are ready to go, so first mount the camera securely by what ever means you have. Then while looking through your camera or at the monitor on your camera frame the image the way you want it to look.

To achieve this effect you will need a long exposure. The longer the better so start with the longest shutter setting you can and see what you get. I would recommend putting you camera in Shutter Priority mode for this shot. This will allow you to set the shutter where you want it and the camera will choose the proper aperture setting for the exposure. Keep in mind you need a balanced exposure and your camera should warn you if there isn't enough light or if there is too much light. This will be different depending on your camera, on my camera if the exposure isn't correct the shutter and aperture numbers flash to warn me if something is wrong.

Once you have a good exposure use whatever type of trigger release you have and take the photo. Remember this is a long exposure so you want to keep the camera still, any movement could blur the image. Hopefully you are using a digital camera and once you camera is done recording you can look at the image to see if you have the effect you want.

If the water doesn't' look soft and velvety and you were using the slowest shutter speed you can, then there is too much light and this is where the neutral density filters will be necessary. If you have filter holder that mounts on your lens use it, if you don't then you can still use the filter but will have to hold it in from of the lens without touching the camera while the image is being recorded. You will have to play with the filters to see which one or which ones combined give you the desired effect. Each time you put a filter in front of the camera you cut down the light going into the lens so you will need to change your shutter speed to get a good exposure.

Once you have found the proper combination if filters and settings you should be able to achieve the desired effect of soft water.

Good luck shooting.

Perspective

Lets talk about perspective! One of the biggest mistakes budding photogs make is perspective. Okay, lets say you are on a photo competition with a few friends who are into photography. You come upon a scene or something that is photo worthy. All of you have similar cameras and are equally novice photogs. So naturally all of your images are going to be equally good. Whats the point in having an equally good image. You want to stand out above the others right, you do want to win the competition don't you? If not you can stop reading now and go on producing average images. Okay you do want to win, well this isn't a guarantee that you will win but it is a guarantee that your images will be different or above average. Take the above image for instance. I could have just walked up and took a photo of the flowers standing and looking down at them. It would have been a pretty image. I actually did take an image looking down at the flowers but I knew it could be better if I had a different perspective to shoot from. So I did what most novice photogs don't do, I laid on my stomach and took the photo from under the flowers. This gives the image a much more dramatic feel. So remember when you are shooting that the most common perspective or angle that you are viewing your image from isn't always the best. Try and find several different perspectives or angles to shoot your subject from. Then pick the one that is most dramatic or unique to use in the competition.

Panoramic Images

I have always liked Panoramic images, especially the really wide ones. While I was a student at Ohio Institute of Photography and Technology we had a guest speaker who specializes in panoramic photography. He didn't use a digital camera like I do. He had an antique camera that has a special film roll attached to it that holds long rolls of black and white film. The film is 10 inches tall and can be as long as he wants it. His camera mounts on a special tripod and has a mechanism on it that allowes it to rotate 360 degrees while it is taking a photograph. It would somehow take a series of images that would be continuous on the roll of film and when your printed it you couldn't see any seems. It was really cool and very expensive to own and operate.

I have several examples of images that I have made, the first image was taken at Cumberland Gap National Park. This image measures 11 inches by 85 inches. I would love to print it but I don't know where I would display it. You are supposedly able to see Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee in this image but it all looks the same to me. I was in a hurry and didn't have my tripod when I took this series of photos and I ended up making a mistake while creating this image. That is the reason it is so wide, I'll explain why as you read the post. The image below with the barn is a better example of a Panoramic Image. When creating the image you don't just take one shot and your are done. For this reason, you really should have a tripod but if you don't have one try to find a solid surface to sit the camera on. If you have to you can hand hold the camera but this brings in more work later. As I mentioned above I made a mistake at the Gap and held my camera Horizontal. Turning the camera vertical while shooting allows for a taller and less wide panoramic image. 

Now that you camera is mounted firmly you are ready to create the images that will become your panoramic image. I always start from left to right but I guess you could start from right to left. You will take a series of images that overlap each other by 50%. So in everyday language you take your first image then the next image you line up the left side of the frame with the center of the image you just created. You do this until you have taken all the images necessary to create your panoramic image.



You Have to be careful that your plain of focus stays the same in each image. This means that you need to put the focus of each image at the same distance from the camera. So look for something in each image that is relatively close to the same distance from the camera and use that point as your point of focus for each image you shoot. Other wise parts of your image may not be in focus.

Another thing you need to be sure to do for each image is to keep the exposure relatively the same for each shot you take. This may be difficult if it is a bright sunny day but it is a necessary part if you want your image to be evenly lit from side to side. 

Once you have done the work of taking the images the next step is taking them into a software program that will allow you to stitch them together to create your panoramic image. I like to use Photoshop, but not everyone has access to this program as it is expensive. I hope I have explained this to you in a way that you can understand and can begin to experiment for yourself.

Blur as Art!

One of my favorite things to do with photography is to make pieces of art. You know, images that I wouldn't mind looking at on a regular basis and hopefully images that others would want to look at on a regular basis who would be willing to but them from me. That hasn't happened yet, lol.

One technique that I like to use is blur or blurring the image. Basically, it's intentionally moving the camera to blur your image. Now it sounds really simple but it is quite a bit harder to do than one would realize. One of the things that you have to be sure to do is to pick the proper subject matter. Bright scenes with a lot of color tend to work well. Once you have found the scene you want to use, the next step is to photograph the scene normal, so you can have a reference point later.

Once you have your scene picked set your camera to a normal setting then begin shooting the scene while moving your camera in small circles or up and down, left or right or whatever way you feel gives you the best result. Since you are using a digital camera it doesn't matter how many attempts you make. If you aren't getting the result you want try setting your camera to Shutter Priority and using different shutter speeds until you find the setting that gives you the result you are trying to achieve. 

As I said earlier, this sounds very simple but it can be very challenging, so don't give up if you don't get a good result quickly. It may take you a few attempts and some patience to get a good image. 

Below is a sample of one of my favorite "Blur as Art" images that I have created.

Depth Of Field Part 2

So last week I gave you a quick tutorial on what Depth of Field is. This week I want to go into more detail as to how the different settings you choose will affect the depth of field you see in your images.

Things that affect your depth of field are:

Aperture, focal distance (how close you are to your subject) and the focal length of your lens.

Lets imagine you are shooting a landscape photo of the mountain lake. You are trying to get the entire scene you see before you in a photo. The idea is to have the entire image in focus from the closest piece of grass to the trees in the distance across the lake. You want the entire scene in focus from side to side and top to bottom. So how do you do it?

Well lets start with a wide angle lens 18mm to 20mm would be good or a zoom lens that starts small around 18mm. If you don't have a wide angle lens just use the smallest lens you have. Just remember the smaller the lens (i.e. 10mm to 18mm) the more of the scene you can capture in a photo. There are ways to use a larger lens and then stitch the photos together in photoshop and create the scene from multiple images, but that is perhaps another post.

Now that we have a lens lets think about the settings you are going to use on your camera. I like to shoot in one of the manual modes for landscapes I almost always use Aperture priority but straight up manual mode will work just as good. For todays post lets say we are using Manual mode. In manual mode we will have to know how to read the meter in the camera to determine if we are getting a good exposure or not. It's no use to take the shot if you are over or under exposing the image. The goal is to get an image that you can actually see the lake scene. Too much light and the image will be washed out (overexposed) not enough and it will be dark (underexposed).

Lets start with our Aperture setting, some of the aperture settings you will see when you look through your camera could be 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22, 32 you could see different numbers depending on your lens and your camera body. For a landscape image where you want a large depth of field you want to be around 16 at least if not more. Always remember the bigger the number the more depth of field. The problem is the bigger the number also means the iris in the camera is getting smaller. This in turn means you will need more light to get a good exposure. I recommend that you pick the aperture you want, lets say 22 is our target aperture. Depending on the light we are working with we may or may not need a tripod to get the desired image.

Set your aperture setting to 22 then looking through the camera while facing the scene you are trying to capture, adjust the shutter speed until your meter is telling you that you have a good exposure. If you are at 1/60 or higher then you should be able to hand hold the camera and get the image you want. If it goes to 1/30 or lower you should use a tripod or set the camera on something stable and use your timer trigger to get your image. Other wise things may be slightly out of sharpness due to camera movement.

If you have done everything correctly your image should look something like this one.

Keep in mind that this post is for the novice who doesn't own a light meter and maybe doesn't own a tripod, so I am keeping the jargon to a minimum. However, if you are reading this and you don't have a camera that can be set to manual mode this was a huge waste of your time. You can try setting your camera to the setting that looks like a mountain scene on the dial and see if that works for you but I can't promise you'll get the same results. 

Photography tips for the beginner!

Lets talk a bit about a term that photographers use that you may not have heard or may not understand, "Depth of Field."

First lets talk about what depth of field is.  Depth of field is referring to how much of your photo is going to be in focus or out of focus depending on your use of depth of field. Lets look at it in a layman's way of thinking about it. Lets say our image is taken from a window looking outside, if everything in the photo is clear and in focus you have a DEEP depth of field. If the flower just outside the window is in focus and the tree 25' away in the image is also in focus that is a deep depth of field. If you were to shoot the same image with a shallow depth of field then maybe just the flower or just the tree is in focus and everything else is out of focus then you have a SHALLOW depth of field.

There are three major things that you affect or change your depth of field, Aperture, focal distance (how close you are to your subject) and the focal length of your lens. All 3 of these affect the depth of field in an image in similar but slightly different ways. I will explain these three in another post starting with Aperture.

Below is an example of how Aperture affects depth of field. Notice the rocks in the foreground, in the top photo the rocks are not in focus but in the bottom photo the rocks are in focus. Each of these images were taken with a different Aperture setting but I will explain this in a future post.

Cody Smith

The Kids are Growing Up!