This image was submitted by Jaci from USA.

It was taken with a Kodak EasyShare M753 on its black and white setting. There was no editing done to the shot although Jaci points out that she thinks she might try to lighten the area around her eyes eventually.

Original image by Jaci

When I look at this picture the first thoughts that come to my mind are thoughts of lovely warm summers and a child’s innocence and beauty.

Clearly it’s a warm summer day judging by what the girl is wearing and how comfortable she looks. She is certainly also radiating beauty and innocence in this capture by Jaci.

Now that I am father of two beautiful girls myself (which has happened after I started this blog) I also connect with this picture as a parent. I know it sounds corny, but once you have experienced the birth of your own child and it’s first few years of life, you look at other children differently as well and particularly children of similar age to your own.

In the case of Jaci’s daughter here who is 3, she is the same age as my own oldest daughter, so there is a very instant connection to the subject for me as the viewer of the image. Perhaps that makes my view of the image slightly biased.

In terms of composition the subject is placed very much in the center of the frame which breaks with the rule of thirds and it works beautifully in my opinion.

Subject is centered in the frame

There is slight diagonal line to the subject’s body which seems to balance the centered composition and gives the image the dynamic that it needs for this composition. The flow of the dress and its diagonal lines also supports this idea and brings energy to the image.

The picnic rug gives us a clue about the setting and why the girl is sitting at this spot – the result of a nice summer outing with mum and dad perhaps.

However from a compositional viewpoint I wish the picnic rug was either folded out a bit more or not there at all. As it is now it is “merging” slightly with the girls dress and it complicates the idea of nice simple lines a little bit.

It looks like there are some clipped highlights as well as shadows without details but that doesn’t bother me at all. In fact I think there’s quite a pleasing range of tones in the image, or perhaps rather quite a pleasing contrast between light and dark.

The photo looks unposed and I think Jaci has captured a beautiful candid moment here. The unposed nature of the photo also rhymes really well with the beautiful natural setting. This could very well have been a matter of pressing the shutter at just the right time. Moments a often fleeting and that’s where still photography can have its powerful impact.

Improving the Image?

Now, if I start looking at how I could improve this image there are only really a few minor details that come my mind.

I would like to see if I could separate the subject a bit more from the background tonally and then remove a few bright distractions in the grass as well as the flower bud just above her head. In addition to this I have darkened the bottom two corners a tiny bit as well.

Notes for improving the image

My main effort to separate the subject from the background comes from a few local Curves adjustments that have lightened up the subject’s face and upper body. I have also followed Jaci’s own suggestion and lightened the area just around the eyes a little bit also via a local Curves adjustment layer.

As you will see from the before and after comparison below the changes are quite quite subtle, but they all work in tandem to strengthen the overall impact of the photograph.

Before and After

There are of course other things you could consider as well such as perhaps toning the image slightly. If I went down this path I would probably choose a warm tone to enchance the idea of warm summers. You could also consider applying a soft effect for a more dreamy look.

However I like the image as a straight black and white and all in all I think Jaci has come away with a winner. She can be both proud and happy to have captured such a wonderful moment of her daughter. Well done!

Final image

Thank you to Jaci for submitting this image to the free image critique at Photography 24/7.

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• The Magic of Black and White
• August Snaps 31 August
• August Snaps 27 August

This is the fourth and final post in a four-part series on how to do advanced toning of your monochrome images. The techniques shown in this series are all done using Photoshop CS4.

In many cases you can add a touch of sophistication to your monochrome images by adding some subtle toning. Often toning your monochrome images can also help you emphasize a particular mood or feeling in your images. This four-part series on advanced toning will show you how.

Using the Duotone Presets

Start with a Grayscale image and then do Image Mode>Duotone (note that your image will need to be 8 bits/Channel for the Duotone menu to be available to select).

Photoshop comes with a set of ready-made duotone, tritone and quadtone recipe files. These can all be loaded for use on your grayscale images. To apply one of these recipes to your image, click on the Custom pop-up menu in the Duotones dialog box and select any of th pre-mixed colour recipes. There are some excellent examples that can be used to mimic warm, cold or vintage photographic papers.

The unusual curve shapes that you will see in many of the ready-made recipe files give you a very good idea of how to control the colour distribution. The heart example below was created using a vivid orange for the third colour, although you would not think so looking at the final result.

Using the Duotone Presets

Below you can see the before and after example as well as details of the ready-made recipe chosen for this example which includes the vivid orange colour as the third colour.

Click on the Custom pop-up menu to select your recipe

Fine Tuning a Preset Duotone Recipe

Most problems using the duotone method occur if you let all inks (colours) run into the shadow areas, giving heavy prints with encroaching blacks. The following tritone example was created using three ink colours: black, aqua and gold.

Tritone recipe with the ink colours black, aqua and gold

Here is the grayscale image after the above tritone recipe has been applied to it:

Image after tritone with black, aqua and gold (before curve adjustments)

Looking at this image it seems a little bit ‘heavy’ overall but with some small curve adjustments to each of the three ink colours we should be able to achieve a slightly ‘lighter’ print with better tone distribution. Here we go.

Step 1: Changing the Black Curve

To minimise the presence of black in the image, the black ink was pulled down in the darker midtones to lessen their overall effect.

The darker midtones of the black were lessened

Step 2: Changing the Aqua Curve

To continue on the path of making this print feel ‘lighter’ we took about 10% aqua ink out of the darkest tones.

Some of the aqua tone was taken out of the darkest tones

Step 3: Changing the Gold Curve

Finally the midtones in the golden ink were also pulled down to lessen the overall golden tone effect in the image.

The midtones of the gold colour were pulled back a little

Once each of the above three small curve adjustments have been applied you can now see the before and after results.

Tritone recipe before and after individual curve adjustments

Voila! The difference is quite subtle, but if you look carefully at the two versions above you should be able to notice that the ‘after’ version feels less ‘heavy’ and particularly when you look in the shadow areas.

More Resources

If you’re looking for a great resource on learning more about digital photography and Adobe Photoshop in general, then check out Vincent Bockaert’s The 123 of Digital Imaging which has impressed even Adobe Evangelist Julieanne Kost.

You can also check out the great Adobe Photoshop tutorials available at Lynda.com for more resources.

Finally I can also personally recommend many of the excellent courses at BetterPhoto.com. When I was starting out in photography I took 8 of the courses including a one with specialised training in Photoshop. Check them out.

The How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 Series:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• Before and After: Laura
• How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 – Part Three
• How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 – Part Two

I was feeling incredibly uninspired today. My mind was racing all over the place. I was unable to concentrate on one particular idea for any length of time.

In some ways it was as if my mind had just gone blank. All ideas had vanished into thin air, gone, unretrievable. I guess that just goes to show the power of always carrying a notebook with you so you can write down your ideas as they come to mind or re-visit them when you need to!

Probably the heat was getting to me. We’ve had soaring temperatures between 30-40 degree celcius all week here in Sydney.

Lunch and a cool drink to the rescue and my mind blank lead to an idea – one that had to do with the mind funny enough: what happens in your mind just before you click the shutter?

For many beginning photographers the answer to this question is often technically related. Are my settings right for a correct exposure? Is my shutter speed fast enough to shoot hand-held? What ISO should I be using?

For more experienced photographers thoughts are usually more focused on the design of the image and capturing the right moment. If he would just look directly at her that would complete the story. When the sun clears the top of those clouds the light will be perfect. What happens if I move a bit closer? The railing creates a nice lead-in to my subject.

Photo by Orin Zebest

If you’re like many photographers, though, what happens in your mind just before you click the shutter are often subconscious thoughts that gets little or no attention at all. That’s allright, but only if you’ve arrived to that stage through a conscious process. Stay with me and I’ll try to explain. 

It can often lead to improved results if you become more aware of your thoughts in those critical moments just before you click the shutter. After all what happens in your mind just before you click the shutter will directly impact on the image you capture a second or two later.

Asking yourself some simple questions before you click the shutter can help take your images to a new level.

So in this post I really want to encourage you to think about what you think about before you click the shutter. Did you catch that? It’s a bit like metadata (data about data). Think about what you think about before you click the shutter. In other words next time you’re out shooting try to pay attention to the moments just before you press the shutter and record your own thoughts.

Photo by eyesore9

Ideally you want to reach a situation where the technical stuff becomes second nature and your thoughts concentrate entirely on the design of your image and capturing the moment. That said, it’s actually good for beginning photographers to think some technical thoughts before pressing the shutter because that’s exactly what helps make the technical considerations second nature in the long run.

Some people might even have a short mental checklist that they run through just before they click the shutter.

Here’s some ideas to questions you can ask yourself in the moments before you click the shutter to help propel your photography forward. Hopefully some of these questions can inspire you to create your own mental checklist before you click the shutter. Pick and choose from the list, and feel free to add your own questions too.

• What story do I want to tell?
• Why am I taking this picture?
• What’s the visual focal point in this picture?
• Who or what is the ‘star’ in this picture?
• Where do I want my viewers eye to go to in this picture?
• Are there any distracting elements in the frame?
• Are all four edges of my viewfinder clear?
• Is my horizon line straight?
• Do I want a horizon line in this shot?
• Is my background the way I want it?
• Am I close enough?
• What is my main source of light?
• Is the light falling on my subject the way I want it?
• What other perspectives could I shoot this subject from?
• Should I shoot this horizontal or vertical?
• How can I improve this composition?
• How can I simplify this composition?

Now, you may think “how on earth am I going to ask and answer all of those questions (or even half of them) in a second or two before I press the shutter?”

Good point – but in time a lot of this goes on intuitively.

Don’t underestimate the power of your brain. Think about when your learned to ride a bike or drive a car for the first time. You had to think about each action (keeping the balance, signalling, changing gears, changing lanes etc.) but with experience it becomes intuitive and second nature. Chances are you even learned to ride your bike without keeping your hands on the handlebar! It’s much the same with a lot of the above questions.

Over time you learn to internalize many of the above questions, but to do so you need to become aware and conscious of them in the first place. Once this happens your intuition will start to take over and great photography is the product of great intuition. So make it a habit to run through some essential questions suitable to your genre of photography.

The above list is by no means exhaustive, so feel free to pick and choose and add your own questions.

Have you got a mental checklist you run through before clicking the shutter? What happens in your mind just before you click the shutter? Have you got some questions of routine checks to add to the above?

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 – Part Four
• What is Street Photography?
• Shooting Landscapes – Guest Post by Carolyn Fox

This is the third post in a four-part series on how to do advanced toning of your monochrome images. The techniques shown in this series are all done using Photoshop CS4.

In many cases you can add a touch of sophistication to your monochrome images by adding some subtle toning. Often toning your monochrome images can also help you emphasize a particular mood or feeling in your images. This four-part series on advanced toning will show you how.

One of the more sophisticated ways to tone an image digitally is to use the Duotone Image Mode option available in Photoshop. While it’s fairly sophisticated, it’s actually not very difficult to use, so stick with me through this tutorial. In fact I think this post looks a lot longer than it will actually take you to apply this technique.

Often duotones are used in the lithographic printing industry to reproduce high quality monochrome images. For example, to mimic the look of an original monochrome photographic print which might have been printed on warmtone paper or finished with chemical toners, book designers rely on special litho inks. This approach is often preferred over the traditional CMYK process when producing a coffee table quality monograph.

However, duotone mode digital images can also be printed out by most good desktop inkjet printers, so the process don’t have to be limited to litho output only. What makes toning in this way interesting is the ability to work with a personal swatch of colours, manipulating each in up to 10 different tonal sectors (see more about this at the bottom of this post).

Steel Study - Before and After

In this example we will apply a ‘steely blue’ tone using the duotone image mode in an effort to add some mood to the image.

Using the Duotone Image Mode

Start with a Grayscale image and then do Image Mode>Duotone (note that your image will need to be 8 bits/Channel for the Duotone menu to be available to select).

In the duotone dialog box black is set as the default first ink colour next to ‘Ink 1′ and there will be a blank box next to ‘Ink 2′ (or it might show the ink colour you used last time you did applied duotone).

Selecting Your Colour

Clicking in the blank box next to ‘Ink 2′ will reveal the Colour Picker where you can choose your second colour, or you can click on ‘Custom’ and select a Pantone Solid Coated colour such as the Pantone 279 C which I have chosen for this example where I’m aiming for a ‘steely blue’.

Loading the Colour

Once you have selected your second colour Photoshop immediately updates your image (behind the dialog box) showing the effect your colour choice creates and loads the colour into the dialog box.

Changing the Depth of Colour

Next you can choose to click on the small curve graph to the left of the ink colour square. Like the traditional ‘Curves’ controls, pulling or pushing the straight line will darken or lighten the second colour you have chosen (blue in this example).

In this example I have chosen to slightly lighten the darker blue tones by pulling the top part of the curve down a little bit, and I have also slightly darkened the lighter blue tones by pushing the lower part of the curve up a little bit.

Steel Study - Before toning

Steel Study - After toning

Know the Dutone Curves Dialog Box

Printing ink is expressed in percentage terms and in the ‘Duotone Curves’ dialog box, the normal grayscale range of 0-255 is converted to a 0-100% scale. The graph is divided into 10 sectors with each square represeting a 10% step in tone.

The line graph is straight by default with highlights bottom left and shadows top right. You can manipulate the colour by clicking anchor points on the curve and moving them as you would with the tradition ‘Curves’ dialog box.

By pushing the curve into the yellow zone, this will darken the colour and pulling it into the white zone will lighten it. If you want to remove an anchor point, just press the delete key.

You can also choose to leave curve as it is and simply type new values in the boxes next to each of the 10 percentage sectors and watch the curve change shape and your image changing in colour. If you think of these 0-100 percentage values representing 10 tonal zones from highlight to shadow, you can see the huge creative scope for tone manipulation.

More Resources

If you’re looking for a great resource on learning more about digital photography and Adobe Photoshop in general, then check out Vincent Bockaert’s The 123 of Digital Imaging which has impressed even Adobe Evangelist Julieanne Kost.

You can also check out the great Adobe Photoshop tutorials available at Lynda.com for more resources.

Finally I can also personally recommend many of the excellent courses at BetterPhoto.com. When I was starting out in photography I took 8 of the courses including a one with specialised training in Photoshop. Check them out.

The How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 Series:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 – Part Two
• How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 – Part One
• How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 – Part Four

This is the second post in a four-part series on how to do advanced toning of your monochrome images. The techniques shown in this series are all done using Photoshop CS4.

In many cases you can add a touch of sophistication to your monochrome images by adding some subtle toning. Often toning your monochrome images can also help you emphasize a particular mood or feeling in your images. This four-part series on advanced toning will show you how.

Starting Point

If you are starting out with a full colour image and you want to apply a digital toning effect you should make sure to convert your source image to a black and white (or desaturated) image in the RGB colour mode before you start. There are several ways you can do this but the most straight forward way is to simply drain away all colour by going through the menus Image>Adjustments>Desaturate to ensure the result stays in the RGB colour mode.

Using the Colour Balance Controls

Compared to the toning we did in Part One of this series the results you can achieve by using Photoshop CS4′s Colour Balance controls are more sophisticated. In darkroom terms, this technique somewhat replicates printing a black and white negative onto colour paper using the enlarger’s colour filters.

Toning the Midtones

There are two ways you can get to the Colour Balance controls dialog window. You can go through the menu via Image>Adjustments>Colour Balance or you can select Colour Balance in the adjustments panel by clicking the icon that looks like two scales (as shown below).

The advantage by going through the adjustments panel is that the colour balance will be applied as an adjustment layer and therefore is non-destructive to your original image.

In the Colour Balance dialog window you’ll notice the familiar Cyan to Red, Magenta to Green and Yellow to Blue opposites.

To tone the midtones simply move the sliders around until you achieve the desired tone effect in your image, but be sure to keep the Midtones and Preserve Luminosity buttons checked for best result. In my example image further below I toned my Midtones with -20 Cyan and +10 Blue.

Toning the Highlights

You can apply a different colour to the highlight and shadow areas too by checking their respective buttons and then moving the sliders accordingly. To create a colour in the highlights I used +5 Red and -20 Yellow in my example below.

As with most post-processing work it’s a matter of ‘seasoning to taste’ and in the case of toning it’s a good idea to avoid saturated colours and be careful about not making the image too ‘heavy’, as shadows can clog up relatively easy during printing.

Here is an example of an original monochrome image and the split-toned result:

As you can see from the example above I have achieved a split-toned effect by adding Cyan and Blue to the Midtones and then adding a little bit of Red as well as Yellow to the Highlights.

I hope you enjoyed this second instalment on how to do advanced toning in Photoshop CS4.

More Resources

If you’re looking for a great resource on learning more about digital photography and Adobe Photoshop in general, then check out Vincent Bockaert’s The 123 of Digital Imaging which has impressed even Adobe Evangelist Julieanne Kost.

You can also check out the great Adobe Photoshop tutorials available at Lynda.com for more resources.

Finally I can also personally recommend many of the excellent courses at BetterPhoto.com. When I was starting out in photography I took 8 of the courses including a one with specialised training in Photoshop. Check them out.

The How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 Series:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 – Part Three
• How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 – Part One
• How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 – Part Four

This post is the first in a four-part series of posts on how to do advanced toning of your monochrome images. The techniques shown in this series are all done using Photoshop CS4.

In many cases you can add a touch of sophistication to your monochrome images by adding some subtle toning. Often toning your monochrome images can also help you emphasize a particular mood or feeling in your images. This four-part series on advanced toning will show you how.

Starting Point

If you are starting out with a full colour image and you want to apply a digital toning effect you should make sure to convert your source image to a black and white (or desaturated) image in the RGB colour mode before you start. There are several ways you can do this but the most straight forward way is to simply drain away all colour by going through the menus Image>Adjustments>Desaturate to ensure the result stays in the RGB colour mode.

Using Photoshop CS4′s Variations Dialog Box

Found under Image>Adjustments>Variations (as shown below), the Variations preview window displays your image as a colour ring-around.

You’ll see your image in the centre box in its original state, surrounded by six colour variations, with a lighter and darker version on the right hand side (see the dialog box window below).

In the top right of the dialog box you’ll notice a slider for increasing or decreasing the ‘volume’ of your change. You can start out by pulling this slider all the way to the right (towards Coarse) to first get a good idea of the colours you’re working with. Then I would recommend that you pull the slider back all the way to the left (towards Fine) which is probably the best place to start in order not to over do the effect. You can always increase the ‘volume’ later if you think it’s needed.

Also notice in the top right of the dialog box how you can choose between toning the Shadows, Midtones, Highlights or Saturation of your image. The midtones are selected by default, but I suggest you experiment with what the other choices look like as well.

Click on any colour variation that looks good and watch it affect the centre image. For example if you click ‘More Cyan’ Photoshop will add the selected amount (Fine to Coarse) of cyan toning your image. If you click on ‘More Cyan’ again Photoshop will apply another increment of toning to your image.

You can apply as many adjustments as you like and if you go too far, just click on the ‘Original’ in the top left area of the dialog box to revert to your starting point.

This way of toning your images is probably one of the easiest and quickest way to achieve a nice over all toning of your images. The results you can achieve can look very nice though some people may argue the effect lacks the depth you can achieve by chemical toning in the darkroom.

Here is an example of an original monochrome image and three different toning results of the same image:

More Resources

If you’re looking for a great resource on learning more about digital photography and Adobe Photoshop in general, then check out Vincent Bockaert’s The 123 of Digital Imaging which has impressed even Adobe Evangelist Julieanne Kost.

You can also check out the great Adobe Photoshop tutorials available at Lynda.com for more resources.

Finally I can also personally recommend many of the excellent courses at BetterPhoto.com. When I was starting out in photography I took 8 of the courses including a one with specialised training in Photoshop. Check them out.

The How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 Series:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 – Part Three
• How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 – Part Two
• How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 – Part Four

It’s been a little while since we have focused on a specific technique, so today I thought I would post this beginner’s guide on how to shoot water in motion.

Water in motion is a very popular subject and one that is constantly changing which makes it fun to photograph. Some might consider soft, silky water effects a bit of a cliché, but call it a cliché or not, it’s still a beautiful visual effect that often creates a certain mood in your photographs.

That’s especially true when it comes to slowing down the shutter speed enough to capture the soft movement you see in many flowing water mages.

But how slow is slow enough? To blur flowing or falling water, it’s a good starting point to set your shutter speed around 1/8th of a second and then work your way down to around half a second, and even all the way down to one full second or two. Longer exposure times increase the slow-motion effect.

Photographing water, however, is not really an exact science so it always a good idea to experiment and see which effect you like best.

Image by Thomas Folke Andersen

So how can you slow down your shutter speed?

Use Low Light

This means shooting in overcast light, deep shade, at sunrise, sunset or twilight or perhaps even indoors creating your own flowing water.

Image by Thomas Folke Andersen

Set a Low ISO

When it comes to slow exposures the lower your ISO setting the better. Most of the time you’ll want to set your ISO to 100 or lower if your camera features lower ISO settings.

Image by Thomas Folke Andersen

Small Aperture

Your lens’ smallest opening (the highest f/stop number) will automatically result in the slowest possible shutter speed for the given ISO setting and lighting conditions. In Aperture Priority mode simply choose a high f/stop number. The camera’s auto-metering system will then compensate for the small aperture by lengthening the exposure time.

Image by Thomas Folke Andersen

Neutral Density (ND) Filters

A neutral density (ND) filter cuts down the amount of light entering your lens and therefore allowing for longer exposures. But a polarizing filter also blocks some of the light entering the lens, typically with 1-1/2 to 2 stops. Used in combination these two filters can achieve quite slow shutter speeds in low light situations.

Image by Thomas Folke Andersen

You’ll Need Your Tripod

Long exposures require a steady camera. So you’ll need to bring your tripod when you set out to photograph water in motion. It’s also a good idea to use a cable release or the self-timer function in combination with the mirror-lock mode if you have it (not all SLRs have this latter feature).

For more details refer also to How to Prevent Camera Shake When on a Tripod.

Consider the Speed of the Water

Slower-flowing water requires longer exposures to obtain the silky smooth look while fast or cascading water can be blurred with relatively ‘fast’ shutter speeds.

Image by Thomas Folke Andersen

Distance to the Water

The more you magnify your subject in motion (i.e. either by physically moving in closer or by zooming in tighter with a zoom lens) the easier it is to blur it. More distant scenes require much slower speeds to convey that soft-movement look. So if you’re photographing with a wide angle lens from a cliff top (like I was in the image below) and want to blur the ocean you’ll need some really slow shutter speeds to achieve a soft, smooth effect in the water.

Image by Thomas Folke Andersen

Play

Make sure to “play” with your camera settings since the constantly changing water makes it difficult to tell exactly what you’ll get. Experimenting is key to successful water in motion images.

In other words shoot the same scene at a few different speeds and then compare the results on your monitor when you’re back home with a cup of warm coffee behind the screen.

Have fun photographing water in motion!

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• What is Street Photography?
• Shooting Landscapes – Guest Post by Carolyn Fox
• Chasing Reflections by Eli Reinholdtsen

This image was submitted by Mike Baker from Edinburgh in Scotland.

Mike has been interested in photography since he was a kid and he has a great eye for details and a style of photography that is close to my heart.

"Girl and Sculpture"by Mike Baker - Original

Mike took this picture in Paris during a short holiday with his then girlfriend (now wife). Sounds like it was a romantic trip to Paris, doesn’t it? Good on you Mike!

Here is what Mike says about the creation of the picture:

It was an unusually warm October, and we stopped in a square near Notre Dame Cathedral to rest while we ate our ice creams. There was a huge sculpture of a head resting on a hand, and the children were playing on it. We thought it was a wonderful sight – at home, someone would have chased the children off it!

When I look at Mike’s “Girl and Sculpture” the first thing I notice is an immediate sense of scale.

Looking at the image I also feel that this is a beautiful simplied extraction of a bigger and probably much busier scene than we are lead to believe here.

Probably in the same split second that I register the concept of scale my eyes go straight to the little girl in red.

Red is a primary colour and is often perceived as having a ‘loud’ or ‘emotional’ visual effect. In this picture the red clearly stands out against the more neutral colour of the sculpture.

The red colour together with the girl’s round face as a ‘point’ on the picture surface and placed in a powerful position within the picture frame makes for a good composition that strongly supports the idea to drive the viewer’s attention to the the main subject. That said, I’d still like to talk a little bit more about the composition in a minute.

In this picture the girl is the star and the sculpture is the supporting actor.

Technically the photo is well executed in terms of exposure, colour representation and point of focus. It’s taken in what looks like beautiful soft light on an overcast Paris day. Overall a very pleasing photograph.

Composition & Crops

Let’s talk a little bit more about the composition and the crop (or the way Mike framed this).

In many ways I’m really in two minds about the picture as it is and I’m thinking about cropping it even tighter to see how it compares to the original.

The reason I’m in two minds is because on one hand I like the angles in the top left and top right corners created by the edges of the sculpture head. These angles create a nice sense of dynamism in the image and also provides the picture with depth and dimension.

However the edges of these angles are are also the highest points of contrast in the picture (specially in the top right) and as such my eyes are pulled away from the girl and they go up to these two high contrast edges, then back to the girl, back up to the edges, and my eyes tend to bounce around like this. 

The high contrast edges are vying for my attention when I feel like I should be concentrating (and my eyes should find rest) on the little girl.

Adding to this distraction is the somewhat bright spots in the greenery in the very top right corner (of course these can be cloned out relatively easy). Have a look at my comments below and then try to scroll back up to the original to see if you follow my response to the image.

"Girl and Sculpture"by Mike Baker - Notes

This make me think about trying a tighter crop.

"Girl and Sculpture" by Mike Baker - Crop

While I like the tighter crop I have to admit that it still leaves me in doubt if this is the right way to go.

There is little doubt that it helps focus more attention on the girl and it stops the eye from bouncing around as much. It also seems to bring out more texture in the sculpture – that is to say that the eyes seem to notice the texture of the sculpture more (this has a bearing on the contrast of textures – see comments in my conclusion).

However at the same time it also makes the image feel a little bit ‘flatter’ and it loses some of its depth and dimension which is a bit of a shame.

So I’m really undecided about this and I will hand it over to you as the reader/viewer to think about your own preference (you can share a comment about this below).

Expression

When I focus my attention on the girl I start thinking about her expression.

At first glance she looks like she might be in a bit of a daze, perhaps pausing for a second in her play after noticing something. It’s quite cute, but I’m not quite sure if this is really what is going on. It could also simply be where Mike happened to freeze the moment.

Generally speaking I would have liked the girl to display a stronger expression in this pictue. There is a sense of her being in a daze, perhaps, but the expression is not quite strong enough to create a sense of mystery and therefore the mood is not quite strong enough to really captivate or move me. She is a beautiful girl, no doubt about that, but I’m still left wishing for a stronger expression to really make this image stand out from the crowd.

Conclusion

While I’m undecided about the overall crop and I’m wishing for a stronger expression from the girl I still think Mike has created a really great image here.

He has used some simple and very strong compostional elements which I can really appreciate as I thoroughly enjoy images that are boiled down to the bare essentials.

I also really like the contrast of textures in the image, between the girl’s soft face and the coarse texture of the sculptural face. This is a very nice detail in this image.

Black and White as an Alternative

While the red colour of the girl’s top plays quite an important role in this picture I still think it’s worth thinking about colour.

Does this image really need to be in colour? This is a question you can ask about all your images. Does colour add an important element to your image?

In the case of Mike’s image I think his composition is still strong enough to stand on its own without colour, so I decided to see what the image would look like in black and white.

Once again I think will let you be the judge of what works best; colour or black and white? Personally, again I’m a little in doubt although I think my preference edges towards keeping the image in colour.

All in all a very interesting image to critique and I hope you have enjoyed thinking about this image as much as I did.

A big thank you to Mike for submitting this image to the Weekly Photo Critique. You can see more of Mike’s work on his website: Photography by Mike Baker. Mike also authors a great photography blog with the creative name Phowto which is well worth a visit too.

If you have an image you would like to submit to the weekly critique you can find more details on the Photo Critiques page.

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• Photo Critique No. 4 – “At Piha”
• Photo Critique No. 2 – “We Recycle!”
• Photo Critique No. 1 – “Fishing in Paradise”

This week-end I did my very first Polaroid emulsion lifts and I’m very excited about this alternative photographic technique.

Not so much because because of the technique itself, but more so because of the unpredictable and often amazing results it can lead to.

The Polaroid emulsion lift process is both simple and complicated at the same time. In essence an emulsion lift is a Polaroid 669 print that has been soaked in hot water until the top emulsion layer floats off the backing.

Once the emulsion layer is off the backing, it can be transferred and manipulated to a new surface receptor. In my example the new surface receptor was watercolour paper, but it could as well be a stone, lampshade, glass, wood or tile. The result is an exciting mix of creativity, explorations and an enormous potential for manipulating the image.

There can be different variations of this technique, but the basics are the same, and the following is a description of how I do my Polaroid emulsion lifts.

OK, let’s start at the beginning.

What Do You Need To Do Polaroid Emulsion Lifts?

Since Polaroid has stopped their production of both their instant film cameras and their instant films, you’re looking at aquiring these two essential ingredients for the process in the second-hand market.

I use the Polaroid Reporter as the capturing device for my images. This is a fantastic camera, plastic fantastic, but still really fantastic! I love it. It’s a very cool retro camera that is simple and easy to use and you can find one on Ebay at a good price.

You don’t have to worry about aperture and shutter speed, the Polaroid Reporter sorts all that out for you. There is no auto-focus either, it’s all manual and manual focus is comprised by a simple distance scale. So to focus your subject you need to estimate the distance between the camera and your subject and then set the distance scale accordingly. Don’t worry too much about accuracy here, a soft focus can lend a certain dreamy quality to your images. As you can see my images here are nowhere near sharp!

The Polaroid 669 instant film is essential to this technique and is the most common film used for the process. Unfortunately the film is quite rare these days and therefore also quite costly. However we can always hope The Impossible Project will save the Polaroid 669 film and thereby also this beautiful alternative photographic technique.

The Polaroid 669 instant film is a peel-apart-film. Once the film is pulled through the rollers in The Reporter it breaks open a pod containing a developing-agent that is spread between the exposed negative and the receiving positive sheet. You then let this film sandwich develop for a predetermined time (usually around 60 seconds) depending on the ambient temperature after which the positive sheet is peeled away from the negative to reveal the final developed photo.

I have done emulsion lifts both with and without the white photo border (which becomes semi-transparent after the lift) and prefer to cut the border away before doing the lift as I find it adds to the ‘floating’ effect of the image. Consequently a pair of scissors come in handy as well.

You will also need two water trays.

And then you will also need a kettle on which you can boil some water, and then finally a surface receptor which is watercolour paper in this example (but could also be a stone, lampshade, glass, wood or tile).

That’s all you need. Now the fun can begin.

The Process of Polaroid Emulsion Lifts

The process of Polaroid emulsion lifts is really quite simple for the most part. The complicated part is when you need to transfer the emulsion onto its new surface receptor. This can be a little bit tricky and I ruined a few images in my first attempts. This is the one part of the process that requires a bit of practice.

1. First fill a tray with tap water you have heated up on the kettle. I boil the water and then let is sit for a minute of two.

2. Fill another tray with warm tap water.

3. Immerse the dried Polaroid print face up in the hot water for about 4 minutes (or until small bubbles appear on the surface of the print which indicates it’s ready for the next step).

4. Transfer the print from the hot water bath to the warm water bath and gently push the emulsion layer from the edges of the print towards the centre using your fingers.

5. Carefully lift the emulsion and peel it away from the backing and throw away the backing.

6. Place your receptor sheet in the warm water under the thin emulsion. And now comes the tricky part. The emulsion is very fragile at this point, so be careful not to tear the image. Gently float the emulsion layer on top of your receptor. Hold the emulsion lift by the corners and lift it in and out of the warm water a couple of times to remove the wrinkles and stretch the image. Then lay the image on top of your receptor sheet and lift the entire image and receptor out of the water bath.

7. You can now begin to manipulate the image by creating wrinkles and tears adding texture and interest to the image. This is of course a creative process, so play around with the image as little or much as you like.

8. When you are satisfied with the look of your image gently roll the image with a rubber brayer to remove air bubbles.

9. Let the image dry overnight. You can press the image under a stack of heavy books overnight to remove any lumps or waves in the watercolour.

10. Remove the stack of heavy books and Voila! You can now enjoy your creative piece of art.

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• At Home: “Light Sculpture”
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I took this photo with my Canon G9 the other day. It was a very rainy day and I stepped out on our balcony and snapped a few close-up photos of a leaf on one of our plants that lives on the balcony.

It was my small dose of photographic activity for the day.

While post-processing the image I started venturing down different paths, away from the original, away from the truth. I was bored with the original image and I didn’t have a whole lot of other new material to work with, so I started pushing the boundaries a bit.

I converted from colour to black and white. I pushed the exposure. I pushed the blacks. I pushed contrast. I pushed clarity. I added local contrast by lightening the main veins in the leaf to create more of a ‘skeleton’ within the leaf.

Skeleton Leaf (before)

Skeleton Leaf (after)

I ventured a fair bit away from the so-called truth in photography.

But wait a minute, is there really such a thing as truth in photography? And if there is, is it then OK to deliberately leave the truth behind in pursuit of a more creative interpretation of a given subject?

In creative photography I think so, but not so in documentary photography.

In creative photography it’s really all about the image for me and the experience an image gives the viewer.

But how far can venture from the truth in photography? What are your thoughts?

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

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This week’s image was submitted by Karen Tate (what you see on the left is just a crop for the front page – please see Karen’s original image below). Karen Tate is an intermediate photographer based in Feasterville, PA, USA.

Karen mentions that this image resulted from an assignment she had given herself (a great way to propel your photography forward by the way) and that the image was captured at the Philadelphia Zoo.

Karen says:

“I wanted to focus on the flamingos’ “human” expressions and body language. I’m wondering if it was a mistake to crop at the knee joints, which I know is generally a no-no, but I liked the angled composition of the 2 animals together, and including the entire body of the dominant subject in my opinion negated the “humanistic” effect.”

The image was captured with a Nikon D300 and a 18-200mm stabilized lens with 1.7x teleconverter at f/4.5 at 1/3200 second, ISO 800 and using fill-flash via SB600.

When I first look at this image the first thing that comes to my mind is concerning the visual aesthetic. I see an almost painterly effect in the feathers of the bird on the left. It almost looks like there is a soft glow to this image and I’m wondering if the involvement of fill-flash has contributed to this effect. Visually it’s certainly very pleasing to my eyes. I have circled this effect in my ‘notes’ image shown further below.

Secondly the lighting and the very clean, dark background gives this image a simple and elegant appearance. Karen intentionally shot the image like this and states:

“I wanted a darkened background because this wasn’t meant to be an environmental piece.”

So in my view Karen definitely achieved the look she wanted with great success.

"Flamingos' Human Thoughts" © Karen Tate.

The dark background focuses the viewer’s attention to the graceful flamingos without any other distractions and the image becomes about the birds’ expressions just as Karen intended.

Technically and visually Karen has succeeded in her execution of this image. It is without a doubt a very well-crafted image.

The exposure is excellent. The eye of the bird on the left is in perfect sharp focus. Colour rendition of the flamingos is both rich and beautiful and contrasts beautifully with the black bacground.

To Crop or Not To Crop

Artistically Karen has cropped this image to a square format. Karen also wonders about the crop at the knee joints.

Cropping can often lead to (heated) discussions amongst photographers. My opion on severely cropping is that if this is how you saw the picture in your mind’s eye when you looked through the viewfinder, then it is fine to go ahead and crop. In this case you should definitely go with your vision and crop accordingly.

However if you come back home and look at your rectangular picture and find out ‘ahhh hang on, this looks much better in the square format’ well then I think it’s sloppy work and indicates lack of intention on the part of the photographer. In other words the image was not thought all the way through to the end at the time of capture.

I’m not saying it’s wrong, and that you shouldn’t crop after the fact even if it wasn’t your original intention or vision at the time of capture. To me, ultimately, it’s still all about the image and what works and what doesn’t work.

However I would encourage any photographer to always think about the final format for their image at the time of capture. This ensures intention and will almost always lead to a well-crafted image (and importantly also more personal satisfaction).

Look at your subject and the scene in front of you through your viewfinder and ask yourself if it works in the rectangular format. If not, think about what format works (square, panoramic, four-thirds etc.) and visualize how you would crop it and then capture the information you need to fit the format that works.

Anyway, back to Karen’s crop.

I think the square crop works here. In terms of the elements within the frame, the necks of the flamingos are basically equidisant to the edge of the frame (as indicated by my red arrows below). This works well in terms of composition.

As for the crop at the knee joints I can appreciate Karen’s concern. However I agree that this is one of those small compromises one sometimes has to make in order to achieve a certain effect. In this case the cropping at the knee joints brings us in much closer to the faces and necks of these beautiful flamingos. The result is a more intimate portrait than if Karen had included the full length of the legs. The intimacy of the shot would have been lost without the crop, or at least reduced, and the shot would not have had the same impact.

Moreover, the way the light falls (or has been worked) this image becomes about the faces, necks and feathers of these birds and the legs have been left in shadow and this helps detract attention from the somewhat severe crop.

Composition

As mentioned I like how Karen has arranged the birds within the frame and I already mentioned how the necks are placed nicely equidisant to the edge of the frame (as indicated by my red arrows below).

There is also a very nice implied diagonal dynamic to this image (as indicated by my diagonal red line below). The shape and alignment of the neck of the flamingo on the left, along with the fact that the bird on the left has its head high and the bird on the right has its head down, helps create this diagonal dynamic.

Of course the beautiful S-shape of a flamingo’s neck makes for some very nice curves which are naturally attractive as well.

Crop, texture and Composition. Image by Karen Tate.

Conclusion

I think Karen has come away with a very beautiful image and it seems to me to be an image she anticipated. An image she had seen in her minds eye before heading out to the local Zoo to create it. This is probably one of the best feelings any photographer can experience and as such this image is already succesful on a personal level for Karen in my opinion.

However the image is also visually pleasing for the viewer to look at.

Sure, some people might prefer a more natural setting and others will enjoy the clean, dark background which could easily pass for a studio portrait. This is down to personal taste.

In regards to the “human” expressions and body language I’m not entirely convinced. Perhaps this is just my inability to transcend the literal subject.

However both birds appear to be preening themselves with their bills in this shot and this is a very animalistic activity and I don’t quite connect with the “Human Thoughts” as per the title or intention of the image. However others might very well connect with the image on that level.

Nevertheless, to me, it is clearly a very beautiful and intimate portrait of flamingos in all their elegance which has been executed with great success. It would look great as a gallery canvas-wrap print (or straight print for that matter) on any wall!

I would like to thank Karen Tate very much for sharing this image with us here on Photography 24/7.

You can view more of Karen’s work on her website: www.throughkarenseyes.com.

P.S. For some tips on zoo photography take at peek at the Zoo Photography Tips article.

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• Zoo Photography Tips
• Photo Critique No. 7 – “Stop to Admire the Grass”
• Photo Critique No. 6 – “Girl and Sculpture”

The zoo is a fantastic place to spend a day with a camera and practice your wildlife photography skills.

The zoo is also a great place to practice before a photo safari if you’re not used to shooting wildlife (or haven’t done it for a long time) and you’re planning a photo safari.
This way you can get into the habit of shooting wildlife and be prepared from day one of your photo safari trip rather than wasting the first few days brushing up on your wildlife photography skills.

You may also be able to study some of the behaviourial pattrerns of the animals you’re likely to encounter on your trip which will help your prepations even more.

Zoo Photography Gear

What camera gear will you need to get good photos at a zoo?

It really depends on the type of images you are after and how much you want to carry.

My advice is to pack light, so you’re mobile and don’t tire so easily. Less gear also tends to also shift the focus more to the animals rather than having to switch lenses all the time and the inner voice asking ‘should I use this lens or that lens’ every time you stop to photograph.

How you pack your bag will also depend on whether you are going to photograph larger animals such as the chimpanzees, lions or elephants or smaller animals such as snakes, lizards or frogs. I will usually concentrate on or the other and then pack accordingly.

However if I’m going for full day’s shoot I will typically bring lenses to cover both.

Here is what I will typically bring to the zoo:

Body:

Canon EOS 5DMKII (sometimes I might bring my 20D body which gives my lenses extra reach due to the 1.6 crop factor of the smaller sensor)

Lenses:

Canon EF 100-400mm f 4.5-5.6 L USM IS, or
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L USM IS, and/or
Canon EF 100mm Macro f/2.8 USM (note Canon now also has a Canon EF 100mm Macro f/2.8 L USM IS version of this lens)

Rubber Lens Hoods:

I bring along rubber lens hoods (instead of the standard plastic lens hoods) for all of the above lenses which allows me shooting right up against glass and completely avoid any reflections and without scratching the glass.

Bean Bag:

Leave the tripod at home for zoo photography!

If you must take a ‘pod’ bring a monopod, but my suggestion is to bring a bean bag or just shoot handheld.

If you’re shooting animals consider that these are moving subjects and more often than not you will probably want to be at relatively fast shutter speeds anyway so you can shoot fast from the hip and stop motion.

Lenses with IS (image stabilization), VR (vibration reduction) or AS (anti shake) will of course also be beneficial for zoo photography and usually allows you to shoot one to two stop slower than with a lens with this feature.

The improvement of image quality in modern day DSLRs will usually also allow you to increase your ISO to 400, 640 or 800 if you need the extra speed.

Those times where I have not wanted to compromise on the ISO, or I have wanted significant depth of field or the light levels have simply been very low, I have usually always been able to use my bean bag to my advantage and get the shot.

Accessories:

Bring an extra memory card or two, so you can shoot freely and in bursts if you need to. This way you don’t have to worry about the amount of shots you take.

Bring a dust blower, some lint-free lens tissue paper and a note book if you want note down species names and other information about the animals you photograph.

Lens extenders and extention tubes may also be items you want to consider for your zoo photography arsenal.

Zoo Photography Tips

I have been photographing in zoos on and off for several years now and here are some of the tips which I have found helpful to get best results with my zoo photography.

1. Watch the background

This tip is relevant to all kinds of photography, but for zoo photography in particular.

Usually, though not necessarily always, you will want to photograph your animal against a nice, clean, soft and out-of-focus background.

If you want to show your subject in a specific setting or perhaps even emphasize on the captive environment of the the animal, you may want a more defined background.
In either case, though, you will want to watch the background carefully.

2. Get close

My goal is often to create what is essentially an animal portrait when I photograph at the zoo and to achieve this you have to get in close. This often means finding animals that are within relatively close distance to where you’re standing and/or taking advantage of your longest focal length.

Zooming in tightly on an animal’s face or body helps you to isolate it against a smaller area of background and achieve the soft background referred to in the first tip.

3. Focus on the eyes

The eyes are the ‘window to the soul’ the saying goes and this is true with wildlife photography as well. Frans Lanting’s excellent book Eye to Eye is a good example of this.

Put your focus point on the eyes of your subject, lock-in the focus and then re-compose if necessary.

4. Get down low (and dirty if you need to)

Photographing an animal at their eye level is a great way to create a sense of intimacy with your subject. This might mean you need to get down on your knees (or worse on your stomach) but it will give your shots impact.

5. Get up high

Just to contradict tip number four, you may consider shooting your subject from up high if possible. This will of course depend on your local zoo’s layout, but finding new and alternative angles can help give your zoo photography a different egde.

6. Watch out for reflections

Often you may be shooting through glass and this can sometimes be a challenge. If possible give the glass a quick wipe with a cloth (or your sleeve) to get rid of finger prints and find an areas of glass that is not too scratched

As mentioned in the Zoo Photography Gear paragraph I recommend that you invest in rubber lens hoods (instead of the standard plastic lens hoods) to fit the lenses that you plan to use for zoo photography.

Rubber lens hoods will allow you to shoot right up against glass and completely avoid reflections with the added benefit that you don’t scratch the glass either.
Contrary to tradition plastic lens hoods you can put a rubber lens hood against a glass plate and then still have the flexibility to move your lens left or right, up or down without letting any stray light in.

7. Shooting through mesh or cages

You can often make mesh or cages literally disappear by pressing your lens right up against the mesh or cage (once again rubber lens hoods come in handy although plastic lens hoods are usually fine for this too) and then mak sure your lens is positioned so the wire of the cage is not in the centre of the frame.

Set your aperture to wide open and focus on your subject – past the mesh or cage – and voila! You have eliminated the mesh or cage altogether.

8. Visit in the morning or late afternoon

Not only is the light often more flatter at these times of the day, but most animals are usually up and active in the mornings which increases your chances to get more interesting shots.

Often the animals rest in the middle part of the day i.e. around noon time and into the afternoon where they will then awake become more active again.

9. Visit on a cloudy day

Personally I prefer to visit zoos on cloudy days where the sky acts as a big, giant softbox providing a nice, soft and even light which suits the type of zoo photography I like to do which is to create what is essentially an animal portrait.

10. Be patient

Rarely will you find animals (except perhaps the Meerkats) which are lined up in the perfect pose when you happen to come by with your camera.

In most cases you’ll need to be patient and wait for something to happen, or for the animal to move into the right position for your shot.

Don’t just fire off a few shots and then move on to the next enclosure. This will rarely lead to exciting and compelling results.

Allow yourself enough time to study the animal for a little while. Spending just a couple of minutes, often you will find that an animal might be moving in a certain pattern or repeat a certain ritual and this will allow you to plan your shot and capture the image just at the right moment.

11. Consider overall context

The challenge with zoo photography is that you’re shooting animals in captivity, yet often the goal for many photographers is to show the animals as natural as possible.

So in addition to considering the background (as per the very first tip) you should also be weary of the foreground and any other unnatural and distracting elements which might creep into your frame.

Before pressing down the shutter button all the way down, quickly let your eyes scan the frame of your of viewfinder to check for distractions.

On the other hand, if your intention is to show the animals in captivity, then use subjects like mesh or cages, man-made structures witin an enclosure, props, toys or even zoo keepers to your advantage for a more environmental shot.

Likewise, if you plan to sell your zoo photography images through stock agencies then consider incorporating space for copy in your composition.
In other words think about how you want to show the animal before you press the shutter button.

Have fun with your zoo photography.

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• Photo Critique No. 5 – “Flamingos’ Human Thoughts”
• What is Street Photography?
• Shooting Landscapes – Guest Post by Carolyn Fox

Step behind the scenes with ProPhotoInsight’s unique digital photography tutorials.

Video tutorials are getting increasing popular across the internet within all sort of topics including of course photography. Simon Plant from ProPhotoInsight’s has acknowledged this increasing demand and has produced a series of photography video tutorials and Adobe Photoshop training videos.

Simon writes this about the idea behind the videos:

Our aim is to take you from start to finish of the image creation process (from behind the camera to behind the desk). Where possible we produce tutorials while on assignment for our clients or while we are traveling between commissions. So our aim is to show you everything it takes to produce professional images from capture to completion

Here is a little trailer to peak your interest:

For more details about these digital photography tutorials you can visit the ProPhotoInsights website.

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

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This week’s image was submitted by Jonathan Allcock. It’s a picture from New Zealand, but I’m not entirely sure if this is where Jonathan resides, or if the picture was taken during a visit there by Jon.

It looks like the photo was taken with a Canon PowerShot S3 set to an f/4 aperture and a shutter speed of 1/500 sec.

As always I have looked at this image on and off for a few days before getting into writing this critique. One of the main things I like about this image is the composition and then simply the beautiful location and the general sense of wide open space in this image.

I have visited New Zealand on two occassions myself and it’s an incredibly beautiful place to go for landscape photography. I’d love to go back there with at least 4-6 weeks on my hands to really explore the country in more depth. In some ways I find that the landscape in New Zealand is so beautiful that it can be almost overwhelming. Hence the need for more time, so you can slow down and get more connected to the landscape rather than just drive, shoot, drive, shoot, drive shoot…which is what I did quite a lot when I was there because there are just soooooo many opportunities.

While the sense of open space and the many grand vistas in New Zealand are immediately beautiful to the eyes, this doesn’t mean that this is easy to capture on film or sensor. Quite the contrary in my experience. It’s not just a matter of setting up your tripod and shoot and then move on. Grand vistas are a lot more difficult to photograph successfully than one might think.

Grand vistas require careful attention to foreground, middleground and background.

Compositional elements - Image by Jonathan Allcock

Composition and Visual Anchor

I think Jon has managed the concepts of foreground, middleground and background quite successfully here.

In the foreground we have interest in terms of the grass (a beautiful texture) leading down to the beach. The middleground is broken up with a layer of water, then the sandbank and then another layer of water. And in the background we have the small island to the left, the landscape on the horizon to the right and then finally the sky covered by clouds.

There are a couple of things which I think are really noteworthy with regards to Jon’s composition.

The layers of water and the sandbank in the middleground creates some really beautiful visual hooks which takes the viewer deep into to the image and right out to the horizon line while at the same time pointing over towards the small island to the left in the image.

The larger visual hooks in the middleground are repeated in the foreground by smaller and more subtle visual hooks in the way the grass is shaped by the wind on this particular day. To me, these smaller hooks gives the foreground some dynamic interest and rhyme quite well with the bigger visual hooks in the middleground.

If you look carefully you can even find some small visual hooks in the clouds as well, particularly in the right hand side of the image.

The small island in the top left of the image acts as a powerful visual anchor in the image and it is also one of the points of highest contrast in the image. Your eyes are taken out to the horizon by the visual hooks which then take a left turn at the horizon and point over towards the small island where you then end up resting your eyes for a while. After a little rest, then your eyes might come back down to the foreground area and you might make another round trip through the image. This helps keep the viewer within the frame and it retains the viewers attention for longer.

To me, this is quite a successful composition and probably, as mentioned above, what I like best about this image.

Improvements - Original image by Jonathan Allcock

Improvements

While the light in this image is kind of nice and soft, it’s also a little flat and not all that interesting. The light does not really sweep across the scene from one direction which would help accentuate the texture in the grass and perhaps reflect in water between the beach and the sandbank.

But you don’t always get the light you want when you are at a given location, so sometimes you just have to work with what you have. However if Jon had the opportunity to go back to shoot this scene in different light I’d definitely encourage that.

The horizon line does not appear to be entirely straight, but this is an easy fix in Photoshop or most photo editing software programs today. However it’s always best to get it straight in-camera as you will lose some data when you correct it after the fact. The more wonky your horizon is, the more data you will lose.

If you were open to change the content of the image I’d also suggest to do a little bit of cloning to just tidy the image up a little bit.

If the image is viewed large you can see a couple of people walking on the sandbank (one of them wearing a fluorescent yellow top) and in my re-worked version I have taken them out. I have also cloned out what looks like some sort of small structures on the top of the island and along the horizon on the right side of the image.

Personally I don’t find the bare area in the foreground very interesting. To me, it disrupts the foreground a little bit. and in my re-worked version of the image I’ve dealt with this partly through cropping and partly through cloning.

The cropping of the image also gives it a slightly more panoramic format which I think suits the content of the image better than the original format.

Apart from the changes above I have also made these changes in my re-worked version:

1. Darken sky
2. Lighten foreground grass
3. Saturate the colours of the ocean and sky a bit more

and so here are the before and after comparisons:

Before - Original image by Jonathan Allcock

After - Original image by Jonathan Allcock

Conclusion and Variations

All in all I think Jon has created a fine image, but still with some room for improvements in regards to lighting and perhaps other vantage points could also be explored at this location which appears to have great potential.

In addition to my proposed re-worked version shown above, I have also made two other variations of the image. Because there is not a lot of colour in the original image I think this image is a good candidate for a black and white conversion.

Personally I think I like the black and white version better than the colour version.

Notice how I have cloned out the crashing wave on the small island as well as the bright point in the top middle of the clouds in the black and white version. These areas became points of very high contrast in the black and white version. 

However I have also included another version where I have simply toned the colours right back which seems to make the image a little bit moodier perhaps.

See what you think:

Black and white variation - Original image by Jonathan Allcock

Toned back colours variation- Original image by Jonathan Allcock

I’d like to say a big thank you to Jonathan Allcock for submitting this image for the weekly photo critique here at Photography 24/7.

You can view Jon’s orignal image in a somewhat larger version by clicking the square thumbnail image at the very top of this article.

If you’re interested in submitting one of your images for the critique, you can find out more details on the page.

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• Photo Critique No. 1 – “Fishing in Paradise”
• Photo Critique No. 6 – “Girl and Sculpture”
• Photo Critique No. 2 – “We Recycle!”

This week’s image was submitted by Bip Mistry who is an advanced photographer from Brighton, England.

In his submission Bip mentions that the image is from a documentary project relating to his mother.

The image was shot on a Canon DSLR using a 17-40mm L lens at 29mm, ISO rating 200, f/4 at 1/125th second using available light from a window.

First off I have to say that I jumped on to Bip’s website to have a little look around after I viewed this image. Straight away I noticed Bip’s series on his mother. In his submission Bip also indicates that the image is part of a project.

In my mind I’m therefore now seeing the image as very much part of a series of images (and quite a beautiful series I might add) and once an image is recognized as part of a series, it seems a little harder to critique it on its own individual merits. Nevertheless I’ll certainly give it go.

Original image by Bip Mistry. © Bip Mistry 2009.

The light is soft and natural and falls beautifully across the scene here. It looks like a bright overcast day. The light enhances the texture of the skin on the hand to a certain extent, and there is little doubt that the hand belongs to an older person.

The hand is engaged in a food preparation activity, but we cannot be quite sure entirely what activity that is, but the image is also less about the food and more about the hand although the two are in linked together in this image.

The pot in which the bread lies has scratches and nicks alongside its edge which tells a story of frequent use. Perhaps this is a daily or weekly activity. Perhaps it has been so for many years. We don’t know, but these little signs add to the story.

We see a ring, somewhat out-of-focus, on the right ring finger which suggests a marriage. The fact that the ring is on the right ring finger can be due to many reasons. Wearing the ring on the right ring finger is tradition is some cultures, but it could also simply be that the person is left handed and therefore prefers to wear the ring on her right hand, or it could be for any other reason. In a very subtle way this creates a little bit of mystery.

Point of Focus

Technically the photo is well executed. The exposure is perfect, the contrast rich and the colour reproduction is subtle and beautiful and true to the scene. We already know the image is documentary in nature and technically this is true too. There are no forays into artistic interpretations, what you see is what you get.

I want to talk about the point of focus though.

The sharpest point of focus is on the wrist and the focus falls off pretty quickly as a result of the wide open aperture, and the image is soft leading up to the wrist as well for the same reason.

I’m wondering if having more of the hand and veins in focus would improve this image aesthetically. Alternatively, one could have focused where the veins seem to intersect on the hand. This is of course easy to sit here and say after the fact, but this is one of the issues that come to my mind as I view this image.

I find the focus of importance because the hand is very much the subject of this picture, and the veins and the beautiful texture of the skin is telling the story here.

I’m wondering about the person to whom the hand belongs. Who is it? What is this person’s story? Given the fact that this hand belongs to an older person I’m left wondering about the person’s life. What experiences through life has made the hand age so delicately and beautifully? What stories does this hand (the person) have to share? Age, to me, equals life experience and wisdom which is a very powerful topic for documentary photography like this.

Comments on image by Bip Mistry. © Bip Mistry 2009.

Image Analysis

I find that the image is put together very well. The composition is really quite strong and Bip has made excellent use of the circular shapes in the image.

I like how the top of the hand is very close to the top edge of the frame (without touching the edge though) which creates a little bit of visual tension and drama.

This visual tension and drama is repeated along the right side edge where the wooden heat plate also is very close the edge, but again without touching.

Some might argue that the handle of the pot has been cut off by the frame – and should not have been – but this is not a big deal to me and is compensated for by the visual tension and drama referred to above.

Both the top left and top right corners are relatively bright and they compete a little bit with the attention of the main subject, but again we should keep in mind that this photograph is documentary in nature which often requires swift decisons about framing, and the brightness is still not quite strong enough to pull me out of the frame, but I still think it is worth highlighting.

In any style of photography it is important to pay careful attention to all four corners and the edges of the frame to ensure the best possible impact from the composition.

Another very small detail in this image is the orange bangle which is largely obscured by the sleeve. I find it slightly distracting as it appears here, and ideally I would have liked to see more of the bangle as I think the colour contrasts nicely with the blues in the picture as well. But again I appreciate the documentary nature of this image and indeed this is a very small detail.

Conclusion

If you’ve not tried to photograph someone’s hands before, you should try it. Hands are not easy subjects to photograph at all.

I think Bip has done a great job and has created quite a strong and successful image here. The point of focus is really the only question mark for me, but I have nothing to compare it with, and as such I only raise it as a suggestion for possible improvement.

I really like Bip’s documentary series on his mother. I find it to be both very engaging and also quite personal in nature which makes it very compelling work.

You can view the series on Bip’s mother on his website along with other of his work:

www.bipmistry.com

I want to thank Bip very much for submitting this fine image to the Photo Critique here at Photography 24/7. I hope you will enjoy getting to know Bip’s work as I much as I have.

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• Photo Critique No. 7 – “Stop to Admire the Grass”
• Photo Critique No. 6 – “Girl and Sculpture”
• Photo Critique No. 5 – “Flamingos’ Human Thoughts”

This image titled “We Recycle!” was submitted by Parker Mayberry, citizen of the world.

I’m not sure if Parker is a beginning photographer, intermediate or advanced photographer. I’m not sure if this image has any particular meaning to Parker, or indeed what camera settings were used to capture this image.

Does it matter? Not really. Having the background information is often helpful, sure, but at the end of the day it is really all about the image.

So let’s jump right in.

When I look at this image it’s the message it conveys that comes to my mind before anything else. To me, this image is all about the message. The strong and literal message ‘WE RECYCLE’ which is also the title Parker has assigned to the image.

The message to recycle is more relevant than ever which makes it a very contemporary image.

However the image goes further than the literal message itself.

The recycle bin is full. In fact it’s spilling over and empty bottles are scattered all around the bin. Why is there only one bin? Perhaps two or more bins are required to keep up with the green trend of the 21st century? Or the people emptying the recycling bin need to do more frequent runs! WE RECYCLE. KEEP UP.

Composition

I have to admit that the very first time I viewed this image I took it for a casual snapshot, but at closer inspection there were several elements that elevated this image to a higher level in terms of composition.

We Recycle! Analysis

1. The ‘horizon line’ is traditionally and beautifully placed about one third up from the bottom.

2. There is a nice balance in the image terms of space around the bin. At the top of the image the empty bottles and cans are a little closer to the edge which creates a subtle visual tension.

3. The bottles on the floor act as repeating elements creating an implied pattern and fill the frame nicely, appearing to have been ‘cut off’ deliberately.

4. The bottles on the floor form an implied semi-circle around the bin.

5. The implied pattern of bottles is broken by the three standing bottles where the two standing bottles on the right stand out the most, and these two bottles contrast nicely in size (big and small).

6. This is a colourful image and to me it only works in colour (I tried playing around with several black and white conversions but it didn’t work). The complementary colours of orange and blue (balanced nicely with lots of blue and less orange) work quite nicely whether intentional or not. I’m not sure the composition – and the image in general – would have worked as well without the orange colours included in the image.

Complementary colours are colours opposite to each other on the colour wheel i.e. violet and yellow, blue and orange etc.

Being aware of complementary colours as an element of design in colour photography is a very powerful tool to have in your photography tool belt.

Big or Small?

Sometimes certain pictures look better small than big. This is one such picture for me. I find this image more pleasing to look at in a small version compared to a larger version. What do you think?

We Recycle! Small

We Recycle! Big

Technical Aspects

The photo is quite well executed technically. Matrix metering (or Evaluative or Honeycomb metering) pretty much take care of the exposure in a situation like this.

When viewing the image large there is a good amount of colour noise apparent in the image which is typically a function of shooting at a high ISO setting such as perhaps 400, 800 or 1600 depending on the camera model. Shooting at ISO 100 or 200 can prevent large amounts of colour noise from showing up in your image file, but it is likely that Parker shot this hand held and therefore used at a higher (faster) ISO setting to get a fast enough shutter speed to do so.

The lighting (colour temperature) is a little bit on the warm side for me and I think the image would benefit from setting a slightly cooler colour temperature which is easily done in post-processing if you’re a digital shooter shooting RAW files.

Some might argue to clean up the wall and clone out the scratch marks on the wall. I say leave in the scratch marks in this image. They are part of the story here and they hint at a busy location such as for example a high school or perhaps just a family household with a couple of kids.

The focus appears sharp on the green FRESCA bottle, but falls off a little bit on the Snapple bottle at the top, so I’m wondering if a very shallow depth-of-field setting (large aperture – small f-number) was used here. If shooting with a SLR camera, to me this is a classic f/8 or f/11 type image which will be fine for depth-of-field and also ensure maximum sharpness around the edges and corners of the image.

Improvements

Apart from the very minor issues discussed above I really don’t have any ground-breaking suggestions to improvements of the image.

Instead, however, I can imagine a variation.

After viewing the image a few times it struck me that this image could perhaps look good as a ‘grunge’ image. So I have processed it as a pseudo-HDR image using a combination of Photomatix Pro 3 and a ‘HDR Look’ filter in the PhotoTools plug-in from OnOne Software (don’t forget you can get a 20% discount on plug-ins from OnOne Software by using the coupon code ‘24SEVEN’ against any purchases you make on their website).

Some hate the ‘grunge’ looks, others love it. To me it’s a bit of fun and it can look quite spectacular on certain images.

Here is an ‘original’ and ‘processed’ comparison for your inspiration.

We Recycle! Original and Processed

I hope you enjoyed this week’s critique.

Thank you very much to Parker Mayberry for sharing this image through the Weekly Photo Critique here at Photography 24/7.

It’s an intriguing image. One that might be easy to dismiss (or mistake) as a snapshot at first, but look a little deeper and this image is, errrr, quite intriguing.

If you’re interested in submitting an image for the FREE critique, you can find out more details on the Photo Critiques page.

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• Photo Critique No. 6 – “Girl and Sculpture”
• Photo Critique No. 4 – “At Piha”
• Photo Critique No. 1 – “Fishing in Paradise”

This week was the premiere of the new photo critique of images submitted by readers.

If you’re interested take a look at the first photo critique of Carolyn Fletcher’s image entitled “Fishing in Paradise.

If you would like to see one of your own images critiqued here at Photography 24/7 please read the details on the Photo Critiques page about how you can submit your photo for consideration.

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

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• Before and After: Polaroid Grasses

Welcome to the premiere of the weekly photo critique at Photography 24/7.

Carolyn Fletcher from Eufaula, Oklahoma in the US was quick off the mark submitting this truly beautiful image which she has entitled “Fishing in Paradise”. Thank you very much to Carolyn for offering up her image for the weekly photo critique.

I have been looking at this image on and off for a few days now, and every time I return to it, the first thing that strikes me are the absolutely amazing colours Carolyn has captured here.

It looks like peak fall colour and the only way to get images like this is of course by being there. So good on Carolyn (as they say here in Australia) for getting out there and capturing such a beautiful picture.

Original image by Carolyn Fletcher

The colours are a definite WOW factor in this image. They are so captivating and they are a contributing factor to me wanting to spend more than just the average time looking at this image. I take pleasure in exploring all the different colours and tones in the image.

Eye Movement and Composition

It’s only after a little while (which in reality is probably less than a split second) that I discover the fisherman in his boat. My eyes first go to the beautiful burnt orange colour – and probably more so to the burnt orange colour on the right hand side of the image rather than on the left as this is one of the highest contrast areas in the picture. It’s also in this area that some of the brightest pixel values (highlights) can be found on the bright tree trunks to the right in the picture.

My eyes then continue down to the reflection of this area and then I see the boat and the fishman.

Eye movement

I have tried to illustrate the way my eyes move through image above. As you can see the path almost forms a spiral ending up at one of the main subjects in the image. 

In the illustration above part of the path is a dotted line as after viewing the image multiple times, sometimes me eyes start in the area on the left (there is a fairly high contrast area at the bottom of the bright tree trunks on the left where they meet the shoreline) and other times my eyes latch straight on the burnt orange and bright areas in the the right.

In either case Carolyn has succeeded – whether intentional or not – to guide my eyes through the image and down to one of the main subjects and to me this really makes the composition work.

In her comments accompanying the image, Carolyn wrote to me:

“I know this is against the ‘rules’ with the subject being in the center. I just couldn’t bring myself to eliminate anything.”

I say stuff the rules here, because it works!

The way I interpret this image the colour (paradise) is the main subject (which is where my eyes go first) and the other main subject (fishing) is the man in his boat (which is where my eyes go next). Success! It really doesn’t have to me more complicated than that.

I absolutely enjoy how I’m taken for a little discovery ride in this image. To me, in terms of composition, it doesn’t feel static at all which can sometimes be the case with very centered (bulls eye) subjects. 

And while we are on the topic of composition more often than not with reflection images like this, it works well to have the horizon line running through the middle of the image as it pretty much does here.

Technical Aspect

Technically this image appears to be well executed overall. However I should add that I have sized down the images shown here from the original submission and I have used Bicubic Sharper when down sizing the image in the Image Size dialogue box in Photoshop CS4.

When I view Carolyn’s original image (you can click the thumbnail at the very top to view the original in full size) it appears as if there is a slight degree of softness to the image overall.

This may very well be intentional on Carolyn’s part in an effort to create the feeling of “Fishing in Paradise”. But it could also be a result of the focus being off just a little bit or perhaps a little bit of camera shake (which can also occur on a tripod). The softness also appears in the colours of trees in the background which gives an almost dreamy look which is really quite nice.

Improvements

When I think about ways I can perhaps improve this image aesthetically, the first thing that comes to my mind is the colour of the boat.

But really I’m in two minds about the colour of the boat. Part of me feels it is too colourful and overpowering, and another part feels that the bold colour of the boat separates it from the landscape as the man-made object it is.

So if this was my image I would consider changing the colour of the boat and see what I would like the best, so this is one of the suggestions I have made in the After example below.

In other suggestions to post-processing improvements a little bit of ‘gardening’ and local contrast adjustments. Here is my short-list of post-processing suggestions which I have applied in the After example below:

1. Remove colour from boat
2. Increase local contrast of the man in the boat
3. Clone out the dark corner in the top right
4. A little bit of ‘gardening’ along the right edge, bottom right corner and left bottom part
5. Clone out high contrast area in the background and reflection
6. Tone down brighter spot in the top middle part of the image

These are all quite minor changes in effort to just ‘tidy up’ the image a little bit (note that all adjustments were made with more attention to speed than quality to illustrate the suggestions). One could probably go a little bit further with the post-processing work depending on personal taste and indeed depending on whether you’re open to changing the contents of the image. Some of the changes mentioned above could also have been accomplished through some minor cropping.

Suggestions to improvements

After post-processing

The overhanging leafless branches in the foreground might be a small distraction and in an ideal world I would probably wish they weren’t there, but on the other hand they don’t bother me too much either. They are very much part of the scene and don’t feel too intruding as they are kind of spread out across the top of the image.

Overall I think Carolyn has come away with a really beautiful image of a lovely subject. Some might argue that this type of image can be a little bit cliche, but as for me, I never tire looking at scenes like this.

Once again a big thank you to Carolyn Fletcher for submitting this image for the premiere of the weekly photo critique.

If you’re interested in submitting one of your images for the critique, you can find out more details on the Photo Critiques page. 

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• Photo Critique No. 4 – “At Piha”
• Photo Critique No. 6 – “Girl and Sculpture”
• The Top Five Best Books on Composition in Photography

Digital toning has become increasingly popular in recent years, but the tecnique is of course more than 120 years old.

Some of the classic darkroom toning techniques include processes like sepia, selenium, gold, copper and iron-blue toning and are achieved with the use of chemicals.

There is no denying that digital toning has made the process of toning your images very easy.

Original black and white image

The concept of split toning involves tinting the highlights in a black and white image with one color and the shadows with another color. Some people might argue that the best results are achieved using opposite colours such as yellow and blue. In my view you can also achieve some really interesting results using two colours that are relatively close to each other such as red and yellow (see this variation at the bottom of this post).

Split toned image (blue and yellow)

If you are using Lightroom then chances are that you’ve experimented with the very cool Split Toning Panel found in the Develop module. Personally I use Adobe Lightroom quite a lot and find that it is probably the quickest and easiest way to apply split toning.

However, you can actually apply split toning to your images (including JPEG and TIFF files) just as easily using Adobe Photoshop CS4.

Here is how to do it in three simple steps.

1. Open Your File in ACR (Adobe Camera Raw)

To process JPEG or TIFF images in Camera Raw, select your JPEG or TIFF files in Adobe Bridge, and then choose File > Open In Camera Raw or press Ctrl+R (Windows) or Command+R (Mac OS).

2. Select the Split Toning Panel

Select the Split Toning Panel which is the little icon with two rectangular bars on top of each other (the 5th icon from the left underneath the Histogram and RGB values). Make your adjustments by experimenting with moving the Hue and Saturation sliders for the Highlights and the Shadows. 

You can then use the Balance slider to fine tune your adjustment and skew it towards the Highlights or Shadows as desired.

3. Open Your Image in Photoshop

Now simply click the Open Image button and your image will open in Photoshop with the split toning effect applied. In Photoshop you can then make any further adjustments if required.

Split tone variation (red and yellow)

As you can see above the first split toned image uses opposite colours (blue and yellow) whereas the second image immediately above makes use of two colours relatively close to each other (red and yellow).

It’s only your imagination and personal aesthetics that sets the limits here. While toning of images is steeped in tradition, there really is no right or wrong answers.

If you’re looking for a great ressource on learning more about digital photography and Adobe Photoshop in general, then check out Vincent Bockaert’s The 123 of Digital Imaging which has impressed even Adobe Evangelist Julieanne Kost.

You can also check out the great Adobe Photoshop tutorials available at Lynda.com for more ressources.

I hope you enjoyed this quick little tutorial on how to split tone your images – including JPEG and TIFF files – in Photoshop CS4 in three easy steps.

Don’t forget to Live, Learn and Enjoy Photography.

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 – Part Four
• How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 – Part Three
• How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 – Part Two

As photographers we want to create images with impact and drama. Silhouettes are a great way to capture your viewer’s attention and convey mood, mystery and drama in your images.

A silhouette is a view of an object consisting of an outline and a featureless black interior. In photography the term is used to describe an image of a person, object or a scene that is backlit and appears dark against a lighter background. Partial or near-silhouettes can also be very powerful ways of conveying mood in your photographs.

The term silhouette dates back to the 18th century where portraits and other pictorial representations were cut from thin black card. The silhouette was named after the French finance minister Etienne de Silhouette (1709-1767) who was known for his severe economic demands on the French people and as it happen de Silhouette also practised this relatively cheap art form himself.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR

To create a good, strong silhouette photo look for interesting shapes with a clear and distinctive outline that is simple and uncluttered. However more intricate subjects like trees can also look stunning as silhouettes.

Pay attention that your silhouette is not merging with other subjects. For example, while a group of people might look good huddled together in a ‘normal’ photo, it will rarely work very well as a silhouette. Instead of an unrecognisable black blob of people you’ll typically want to have some separation between each person for the image to work as a silhouette.

Clearly defined outlines and graphic shapes are the key to successful silhouettes.

Silhouettes make use of backlighting and you’ll want to look for a situation where there is significantly more light falling on the background than there is falling on the front of the subject you want to photograph as a silhouette.

Perhaps the easiest way to produce silhouettes is by photographing your subject against the colour in the sky as it occurs just before sunrise or just after sunset.

To set your exposure for this situation simply set your metering mode to multi-zone metering (also known as matrix, evaluative or honeycomb metering) and fill your frame with the sky (i.e. avoid including any foreground) and your camera will then expose for the sky and record any subjects in the foreground as silhouettes.

Good ideas for subjects can be – but are certainly not limited to – animals, birds, fences, windmills, flowers, lighthouses, trees and people.

SUNNY BACKGROUND

Another way to create strong silhouettes is by shooting into the sun and placing the sun behind the subject you wish to silhouette. This is also known as contre-jour which is French for ‘against daylight’.

The added benefit of the contre-jour technique is that it often creates beautiful rim lighting around your subject which enhances the aesthetic of the image.

To set your exposure ‘correctly’ when shooting into the sun you should take your meter reading from just above or underneath, or just to the left or the right of the sun, but don’t include the sun itself in your reading as otherwise you’ll end up with significantly underexposed images.

As a result of the high contrast situation when putting a subject right in front of the sun your subject will automatically record as a silhouette if you meter as per above.

SUN-STAR EFFECT

If you want to create a sun-star effect in your silhouette image, all or at least part of the sun must be within your frame. It’s easier (and safer for your eyes) if the sun is partially obscured by an object.

Once you have your sun in the right place stop down your lens to f/16 or f/22 or smaller and you’ll end up with a nice sun-star effect.

Exposure settings for the sun-star effect can be a little tricky as it depends on how much (if not all) of the sun you include in your image. However I would suggest using the exposure reading technique described above as your starting point and then evaluate your histogram from there (assuming you’re shooting digital) and adjust if needed.

You may get some lens flare in your image but this can be hard to avoid completely when shooting into the sun. Sometimes you can even use lens flare creatively to enhance the overall mood of your image. Using a good lens hood (or even your hand, hat or a piece of cardboard) can help eliminate or reduce lens flare.

Warning: It is important to be very careful when shooting into the sun. Do not stare at the sun for too long and avoid pointing your lens directly at the sun while looking through your viewfinder as this can potentially cause damage to your eyes.

PARTIAL OR NEAR-SILHOUETTES

True silhouettes are simple, graphic, black featureless outlines and by nature this also gives these images a more two-dimensional appearance.

Images that contain a little bit of detail in the silhouetted subject can be just as striking as true silhouettes if not even more striking.

Details in the silhouette like colour or texture can give the image a more three-dimensional appearance and in my personal opinion this often adds to the overall mood and aesthetic of the image.

In order to get a little bit of detail in your silhouette you can try opening up your exposure a little bit by using a larger aperture or a slower shutter speed to the extent where parts of your silhouetted foreground start recording detail in the least dark areas.

Alternatively you could try adding a touch of fill-flash to your exposure. If you can take your flash off-camera then try that and have your fill-flash coming in at an angle in an effort to create a hint of texture across your silhouetted subject.

SUMMARY: 5 QUICK STEPS TO CREATING SILHOUETTTES

• Keep in mind that shape and form is all important when creating a strong silhouette. Use subjects which have a clear outline.
• The background needs to be brighter than the subject itself. Ideally little or no light should be falling on the silhouetted subject and the main light source (e.g. the sun) should be behind the subject. The bigger the difference between the light in the background and that (if any) falling on your subject, the better the outline will be.
• For best results keep your compositions simple and push the horizon line low in the image.
• Correct exposure is the key to a successful silhouette. Check the LCD on your digital camera if you’re in doubt about your exposure and adjust the exposure if needed.
• Keep your silhouette simple and graphic and be careful that it doesn’t merge with other unwanted objects or shapes. Separate people if you’re shooting a group of people and possibly even pose them by asking them to keep their limbs from merging with their body to have a more clear outline of their body shape.

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 – Part Four
• What Happens in Your Mind Just Before You Click the Shutter?
• What is Street Photography?
]]> http://photography24seven.com/how-to-photograph-silhouettes/feed/ 2 http://photography24seven.com/17-tips-for-photographing-in-extreme-weather-conditions/ http://photography24seven.com/17-tips-for-photographing-in-extreme-weather-conditions/#comments Thu, 08 Oct 2009 10:08:43 +0000 Thomas http://photography24seven.com/?p=2221



In recent years it’s as if Mother Nature has put the weather in charge of protesting against us humans polluting ways. Tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, typhoons, tornadoes and out-of-control raging forest fires seem to make news on a much too regular basis, and often with tragic and devastating results.

However, when I say extreme weather conditions it doesn’t have to be that extreme. And it’s not that I want to put a dark and gloomy spin on this article, but I just thought I would open up with the above observation. We can all help treating Mother Nature better. You could start by hosting your blog or website with Super Green Hosting.

Ok, ok, let’s get on with the actual article.

Shooting in extreme weather conditions can be a lot of fun and it can yield dramatic photographs, but when the weather turns ‘bad’ most of us tend to stay indoors. But, hey, there is no such thing as bad weather, is there?

“Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.”
- John Ruskin

If you’re into nature and landscape photography this is the mentality you have to adapt, because braving the elements increases your chances of capturing spectacular images that not many other people will capture.

But whatever you do, just always remember this rule of thumb:

Photographing in extreme conditions means taking extreme precautions!

Not only can you put yourself in danger (priority #01), but your expensive equipment can also be destroyed in one quick moment (priority #02), so you need to protect yourself and your camera.

Famous war photographer Robert Capa once said “if your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough.” Sure, this can often be the case, but in extreme weather please use your common sense before you get too close! 

Please be careful.

There are generally four elements that you can face when it comes to extreme weather conditions; Cold, Heat, Water and Wind.

Here are 17 tips on how to prepare and deal with each of these four weather conditions.

TIP #01: ALL CONDITIONS – Always carry a camera

It doesn’t matter if it’s a SLR, a little compact camera or even a decent mobile phone camera. What’s important is that you have a camera with you so you can capture the moment as it happens. No capture device, no images. Simple!

But also don’t forget to have your camera ready to shoot. If there is only 10% battery life left, it will run out just as the moment climaxes. Check that your memory card is in the camera, and make sure it has room for at least 30-40 images or you will run out of space just as the moment happens. As photographers we are all too familiar with Murphy’s Law, so be prepared.

Being ready to shoot also means having your ready to shoot on your most common settings as soon as you turn it on — this means turning the flash off, setting the optimum ISO and, if possible, choosing your exposure accordingly. If you change your settings for a specific image, change them back to your most used settings when you’re done.

TIP #02: ALL CONDITIONS – Research the weather

If you plan to shoot in extreme weather, you can learn a lot about different weather conditions by researching different weather phenomena on the internet.

Obviously the weather forecast is essential for you to be in the right place, at the right time. There are a lot of different services available online and you may already have your own favourite, but www.wunderground.com is one site that offers global weather forecasts in great detail.

TIP #03: ALL CONDITIONS – Shoot fast

While it might not always be the case, you’ll often have to react really fast when ti comes to photographing in extreme weather.

Additionally, you will probably not want to expose yourself and your equipment to the conditions for too long at a time.

So you often need to work fast which means you might want to set your camera to aperture priority or shutter priority and let the camera do the math. There is rarely time to mess around in manual mode in extreme weather. This is especially true if you’re likely to point your camera in different directions where the light may vary.

You will probably also want to set your camera to continuous shooting mode, allowing you to shoot a burst of several images in just one second. If you plan to do a lot of extreme weather photography, it’s worth checking out the burst rate on your camera, so you what you can get.



 TIP #04: COLD – Keep it warm

Yeah, yeah, I know, it sounds pretty obvious, but so much of the time we underestimate the temperature, so make sure first and foremost to keep yourself warm, but also your equipment. Keep an extra thermal top in your backpack and find a set of warm gloves that still lets you handle your camera controls with ease.

While most of today’s digital SLR cameras perform pretty well in the cold, you may some cameras playing up in sub-zero temperatures. Shutters can lock up and diaphragms can become inoperative. So when you’re not working with your camera, put it close to your body or wrap it up in that spare thermal top you put in your bag after reading the first paragraph!

TIP #05: COLD – Keep batteries and media cards warm

If you’re shooting with a digital camera cold conditions sap batteries of their power. Keep your spare batteries in an inside pocket of your jacket as close to your body as possible.

If you’re shooting digitally in the cold, spare batteries are not something you should think twice about, they are a necessity!

For the best care it’s also a good idea to keep your media cards close to your body in cold conditions.

TIP #06: COLD – Wrap your tripod legs

If you’re carrying a tripod for lengthy periods in the extreme cold it’s a very good idea to wrap your tripod legs with foam pipe insulation material which you can get from most good hardware stores along with some duct or gaffer’s tape.

If you’re not a DIY person you can splash out on some professional tripod leg protectors.



TIP #07: HEAT – Bring enough water

Yeah, yeah, I know, another obvious one, but I have suffered dehydration here in Australia once after being out in the midday summer sun for just a couple of hours, simply because I hadn’t had much to eat or drink before I went out. It took me several hours to recover from the headache and nausea that ensued. So don’t take this one lightly. Water is a life saver!

It is very easy to get distracted by what you are shooting and get dehydrated or even worse suffer a heat stroke, so bring enough water with you when set out to photograph in high temperatures.

TIP #08: HEAT – Wear loose fitting clothing

Wear light-coloured, loose fitting clothing. It will keep you cooler by reflecting the sunlight.

Allright folks, this is a long article, it’s time for an ad break, I’m sorry. Don’t go anywhere, we’ll be right back!

TIP #09: HEAT – Wear a hat, the right hat.

A hat will also help to keep you cool. Choose a hat with at decent sized brim – say a least a 3-inch (8cm) – all around. Baseball caps leave the ears and neck exposed to potential sunburns. Also make sure the hat is vented, so that the heat from your head can escape and your head can ‘breathe’. This will also help minimize the perspiration that runs off your face and drips off your chin onto your LCD screen!  
 

TIP #10: HEAT – Consider a small lunch cooler as your camera bag

Sometimes the heat can also lead to battery problems, although it is more likely to have an effect on film or media cards. Consider an alternative to a traditional camera bag in extreme heat considers. A small lunch cooler (or an ‘esky’ as we call them here in Australia) , lightweight and insulated could be a sensible choice. If you choose to use a cold pack, go ahead and put it in its own tightly sealed plastic bag just be extra safe that no moisture leaks out where you don’t want it.  



TIP #11: WATER – Cover up your camera

Moisture (snow as well as rain) is the biggest enemy of your equipment. If you go out to shoot in wet conditions bring a large zip lock bag with you. You can use it to place over your camera and cut a hole where the lens is, and then simply use a rubber band to secure the bag to the barrel of the lens.

If you have a separate lens hood, screw it into the front of the lens. If not, even a skylight filter will offer some protection. If you have both, use them! Personally, I keep a Hoya Ultraviolet Pro 1 Digital Multi-Coated Glass Filter on each of my lenses to protect the front of the lens. These are fairly expensive filters, but there is just no sense in spending thousands of dollars on a high quality lens only to put a cheap, poor quality filter on it. Don’t save on your filters!

TIP# 12: WATER – Wear a Shutter Hat

If you want a slightly more sophisticated version of the zip lock bag suggested in Tip #11 then the Shutter Hat is what you should be wearing, or rather what your camera should be wearing. The Shutter Hat is claimed to be the most stable, no fuss, light weight, compact camera cover on the market today. Check it out.

TIP #13: WIND – Protect your lenses with filters

Just as with water you will want to protect your lenses if you are out shooting in strong wind, although I would really recommend to protect your lenses regardless of weather conditions, but strong winds can carry all sorts of small debris which can easily cause small scratches to the front of your lens if you don’t protect it. So cover you lens with a skylight filter or the Hoya Ultraviolet Pro 1 Digital Multi-Coated Glass Filter which I use on each of my lenses to protect the front element of the lens.

TIP #14 WIND – Seal your camera

If you’re out shooting in very windy conditions on or near the beach or in any other sandy or dusty areas, you may want to consider taping up all seals on your camera to avoid sand or dust finding its way inside your camera which can spell potential disaster. However if you’re shooting with one of the high-end prosumer cameras or perhaps even one of the pro DSLR cameras, well then these models are most likely already sufficiently weather sealed by the manufacturer for you not to worry about this point.  

TIP #15 WIND – Weigh down your tripod

If you’re landscape photographer shooting in the wind, you’re highly exposed to camera shake in your exposures. If depth of field is critical and your shutter speed is too low to hand hold the camera, then weigh down your tripod with bean bags, your camera bag or – if you want to be really sophisticated – bring a piece of string with you and tie a heavy stone onto it to weigh down your tripod with it.        

TIP #16 WIND – Shoot hand held

Drop the tripod and go with the flow and simply shoot hand held when you’re out in windy conditions. Adjust your ISO setting to a higher speed and shoot hand held at a shutter speed you’re comfortable with when you don’t have your three legs with you. In my experience this will often work out a lot better than trying your luck with a tripod in extreme winds. And keep in mind that many of the recent DSLR camera models (2009 and newer) display very little noise problems even at high ISO settings like 400 or 800.

TIP #17 OTHER CONDITIONS – Lightning

Photographing lightning strikes is not without risk. In fact you’re at considerable more risk than the average person when you’re standing next to a metal tripod, cable release in hand, trying to get that magnificent lightning bolt that sets the entire sky on fire. I read somewhere that storm chaser Jim Reed is experimenting with a wooden tripod for his lightning photography! Hmm, he is also very extreme.

Anyway, the bottom line here is that you need to inform yourself about the safety precautions when photographing lightning strikes. Here are a few safety tips:

• Avoid water.
• Avoid the high ground.
• Avoid open spaces.
• Avoid all metal objects including electric wires, fences, machinery, motors, power tools, etc. (and be aware of the risk using a tripod!)
• Unsafe places include underneath canopies, small picnic or rain shelters, or near trees. If you get completely caught out and lightning is striking really nearby when you are outside, you should crouch down, put your feet together and place your hands over ears to minimize hearing damage from thunder and avoid proximity (minimum of 15 ft.) to other people.

Getting caught out in the middle of a lightning strike has happened to me once in the Blue Mountains near the Three Sisters a few years ago. A group of people further down the walking track we were on got swept right off their feet while standing on a metal viewing platform. They came walking back up in a complete daze. When you’re this close, it’s pretty scary stuff and you realize you’re in Mother Nature’s hands.

If you have your car nearby get in your car (most of these things have rubber tires) and shoot the lightning storm from inside the comfort of your vehicle while you enjoy a cuppa from the thermos.

It’s not really within the scope of this article to provide you with tips on how to shoot lightning (it’s a pretty fine art in itself and there are plenty of good articles on the subject out there), but here are a few quick tips:

• Use a long shutter speed, say 30 seconds or even the bulb (B) setting if you have a way of keeping your shutter open (most modern cable releases can do this).
• Point your camera towards the sky where the action is and include only just a sliver of ground as the ground is likely to go completely black (unless you have a nice skyline in front of you).
• While lightning strikes are, well striking (sorry, couldn’t help myself there), you will often still need some sort of foreground interest to balance your composition in order to create a good photograph. An image of lightning bolts isolated against a sky with no foreground interest rarely holds the viewers attention for long. Find one and look at it. They get boring really quickly.
• Switch to manual focus. Since you are shooting in relative darkness your camera is likely to ‘hunt’ around for something to focus on if you’re on auto focus.
• Patience is your best friend you when it comes to lightning strikes, so make (or bring) yourself a nice cup of coffee, wait, shoot and enjoy the show.

And that concludes the 17 Tips When Photographing in Extreme Weather Conditions!

If you made it this far I sincerely thank you for hanging in there with me. I hope you enjoyed the information as much as I enjoyed researching and writing it.

Now, it’s time go out there and get some shots.

P.S. I wasn’t kidding, go and check out that Shutter Hat


If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• What is Street Photography?
• Shooting Landscapes – Guest Post by Carolyn Fox
• Chasing Reflections by Eli Reinholdtsen
]]> http://photography24seven.com/17-tips-for-photographing-in-extreme-weather-conditions/feed/ 1 http://photography24seven.com/before-and-after-polaroid-grasses/ http://photography24seven.com/before-and-after-polaroid-grasses/#comments Sat, 03 Oct 2009 14:10:24 +0000 Thomas http://photography24seven.com/?p=2042



Today I set out to make some Lensbaby images as the little family headed into Manly to listen to some jazz at the Manly Jazz Festival. However it started drizzling just as we set foot outside, and later the drizzle turned into steady rain throughout the entire day. Typical.

Before we left the house I had quickly grabbed The Amazing Polaroid SX-70 just in case. Usually I like to keep it simple and not confuse myself by bringing too much gear, let alone two different cameras. But I’m still learning to see with ‘Polaroid eyes’ so I thought it would be nice to have it in the bag. And as it happened I did stumble across a subject which I found better suited to the SX-70 than the Lensbaby, and this was the one and only picture I took the entire day. Not a particularly productive day photographically.

The image from the Polaroid SX-70 came out somewhat overexposed, so contrary to my test shots here and here I chose to make some basic Photoshop adjustments to this image.

I thought, therefore, I would use the image for a quick little Before and After tutorial post, showing you the basic Photoshop adjustments I made to this image.

Let’s start with the final image above. As you can see it’s really just an image of texture and to some extent also colour, but the image also displays some subtle curves and movement.

OK, so let’s look at what the image looked like straight after it was ejected from the Polaroid SX-70 and had had a few minutes to magically develop into an image.



Hmm, the original Polaroid is too bright in the brightest areas of the grasses and – to my eyes – these areas of high brightness become a distraction. My eyes are simply not relaxed looking at the image.



The first adjustment I made was a Levels adjustment. I simply moved the black point slider on the left towards the right where the data begins in the histogram. I levelled out the image data which resulted in a slightly more even exposure and increased contrast. Effectively the darkest areas in the original image becomes darker with this adjustment.



Levels adjustment

After applying the Levels adjustment I decided that I didn’t want the adjustment to affect the entire image, so I created a Layer mask and masked off some of the adjustment in the top left and bottom right corners of the image. The darker areas below show where I have masked off the effect of the Levels adjustment.



Levels layer mask

At this stage I still felt that the grasses in the left part of the image were too bright, so I proceeded with a Curves adjustment to lower the brightness of those grasses.





Curves adjustment #01

I used the first Curves adjustment to darken the image overall. However since I only really wanted to darken the the brighter grasses I applied a Layer mask to control the adjustment so it only affected local areas of the image.

I filled the entire Layer mask with black (initially masking off the entire Curves adjustment to the image) and then painted with the Brush Tool using white paint to apply the adjustment locally.

I use a Wacom Intuos tablet to paint in local adjustments like this by hand.

The brighter areas below show where I have applied the Curves adjustment to the image.



Curves layer mask #01

The above Curves adjustment brought me pretty close to where I wanted to be in tems of exposure, brightness and contrast.

However I still felt I needed to tone back some of the brighter areas just a touch more. Instead of messing around with the first Curves adjustment I simply went ahead with a second Curves adjustment.





Curves adjustment #02

I used another Layer mask to control the adjustment locally. Again I filled the mask with black and painted in the adjustment with my Wacom Intuos tablet.



Curves layer mask #02

I’m now happy with the overall exposure, brightness and contrast in the image. This is when I will typically start looking at colour. So in this case I decided to bump up the Vibrance and Saturation of the colour in the image.





Vibrance and Saturation adjustment

While I quite like the colour in the image I can’t help but feel it’s a bit too saturated and has lost some the original appeal of the colour that the Polaroid 600 film produces. 

In some ways I go backwards the way I decide to deal with the colour in the next step. I applied a Black & White adjustment layer effectively draining the image of all colour, but then I used the Opacity slider to only partially apply the Black & White adjustment.



After playing around with the Opacity slider for a little white I settled at around 33% which resulted in the final image you see above. You could also say that I only applied the Black & White adjustment layer at 33% strength, or since I reduced the Opacity of the Black & White adjustment, you could say I injected about 67% colour back into the image. Hmm, I hope this makes sense.



Black & White adjustment

The slightly more subdued colours that resulted from this adjustment were more true to the original image and I was happy with the outcome, so I saved the layered file as a.PSD file (my master file) so that I can always come back to it if I wish to change any of the adjustments.

If you are new to Photoshop you will often find yourself going back to older images as your Photoshop skills increases.

All of the above adjustments were made to a high resolution scanned TIFF file of the original Polaroid image, and I used Adobe Photoshop CS4 to make the adjustments.

There are no doubt that there are lots of other – possibly easier – ways of arriving at a similar result, but the above describes the approach I took to this image. I hope you enjoyed this little Before and After tutorial.


If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• Unique Digital Photography Tutorials
• Before and After: Laura
• How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 – Part Four
]]> http://photography24seven.com/before-and-after-polaroid-grasses/feed/ 0 http://photography24seven.com/before-and-after-laura/ http://photography24seven.com/before-and-after-laura/#comments Sun, 13 Sep 2009 02:40:30 +0000 Thomas http://photography24seven.com/?p=1720



During my recent August Snaps project I carried my Canon G9 with me everywhere throughout the month of August in an effort to make creative photos every day. However on a couple of occassions I did indeed also make some ‘normal’ snapshots.

So today I thought I would share an image of my daughter, Laura, at one of the local playgrounds and how I transformed a very ordinary snapshot into a much more visually interesting image in just a few mouse clicks. What I’m showing you here doesn’t require any special Photoshop skills and it can be done in less than a couple of minutes.



Laura - Before (original RAW file)

As you can see this is a very ordinary snapshot which is even a bit underexposed as a result of the bright sunlit background and it’s also not quite sharp where it should be. Nevermind. I converted the image to black and white using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 and then I opened it in Adobe Photoshop CS4 for further processing using the onOne Software Plug-In Suite 4.5 for Photoshop.

Don’t forget you can get 20% off any of onOne Software’s products by using the 24SEVEN coupon code when you make a purchase at onOne Software.



Laura - a simple conversion to B&W



Lightroom Settings

As you can see on the left I have simply hit ‘Grayscale’ to convert the original image to black and white and then I increased the Exposure setting by +1.16, the Recovery setting by +61, added some Fill Light at +11 and deepened the blacks a little bit by increasing Blacks by +13.

I could have easily experimented further by visiting the Grayscale Mix panel, but I was after a quick and easy result here, so I settled for the above look as I knew I would be experimenting further in the onOne Software Plug-In Suite 4.5.

I used the FocalPoint and PhotoTools plug-ins from the Plug-In Suite 4.5 to create the effects you see in the final image image below.

The FocalPoint Plug-in helped me to create all the blur you see around Laura in the final image. It is a very user-friendly program which does all the heavy lifting for you. It gives you a focal point which can place anywhere in your image along with several handles around the focalpoint which you can manipulate to control the placement and amount of blur in your image.

I have circled my focalpoint in red in the screen shot below, indicating the approximate placement and size of my chosen focalpoint.



The FocalPoint Interface

Finally I threw the PhotoTools Pro Plug-in at the image and applied the B&W KPZ II Grainy Film A1 setting and toned it back a little to give the image a film look.



Laura - After (final image)

Oh, I almost forgot, of course the edge effect around the final image was also made using the PhotoFrame Pro Plug-in.

If all of this sounds like a lot, it really was a walk-in-the-park to achieve this effect. It has taken me ten times longer to prepare this post, than it did to create the final image.

However if you don’t want to be playing around with software plug-ins you can of course also achieve this effect in-camera by using one of the excellent Lensbaby series lenses. My preferred Lensbaby is the Composer which looks like this:



For more information and the latest price on the Lensbaby Composer series visit the Lensbaby website.

I hope you enjoyed this second Before and After tutorial which I plan as a regular feature here at Photography 24/7.

Thanks for stopping by!


If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 – Part Four
• Before and After: Polaroid Grasses
• How to do Advanced Toning in Photoshop CS4 – Part Three
]]> http://photography24seven.com/before-and-after-laura/feed/ 0 http://photography24seven.com/what-to-look-for-when-choosing-a-tripod/ http://photography24seven.com/what-to-look-for-when-choosing-a-tripod/#comments Mon, 07 Sep 2009 10:21:32 +0000 Thomas http://photography24seven.com/?p=1683



If you’re looking for a new tripod or considering upgrading your old one, then this short video is well worth a watch. Jim Zuckerman shows us what to look for when choosing a tripod and explains why, all while using the light weight Induro C214 carbon fiber tripod in action in the middle of winter at Central Park.

Jim Zuckerman is one of the best travel and nature photographers working today. His images, articles and photos have been published in scores of books and magazines, including publications like National Geographic Society, Outdoor Photographer, Outdoor and Travel Photographer and Conde Nast Traveler. He is also the author of several great photo books.

If you like the particular tripod shown in the video check out the latest price on the Induro C214 tripod model at Adorama or B&H Photo or Amazon.com.




If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• Going Back in Time in a Modern Way
• The Amazing Polaroid SX-70
• How to Prevent Camera Shake When on a Tripod
]]> http://photography24seven.com/what-to-look-for-when-choosing-a-tripod/feed/ 0 http://photography24seven.com/step-behind-the-scenes-with-a-pro-photographer/ http://photography24seven.com/step-behind-the-scenes-with-a-pro-photographer/#comments Sun, 30 Aug 2009 11:47:52 +0000 Thomas http://photography24seven.com/?p=1457



The other day I was browsing the internet for photography resources and as always you get thrown in all kinds of different directions, one page leads to the next and so on and so on. So I don’t remember quite how, but I ended up on Simon Plant’s ProPhotoInsights website which I thought was a really good resource for photographers, particularly for serious hobbyist photographers.

The website is interesting because Simon’s tutorial videos take the viewer out on location where he shares comments about the location, camera set-up, techniques etc. and then behind the scenes where Simon walks the viewer through his post-processing work step by step using screen shots from the actual image editing process.

It is free to register at ProPhotoInsights which gives you access to selected features at the site. You can purchase the download video tutorials at nominal prices around the USD 10-15 mark per download.

Here is a little sampler:

For more details visit: www.prophotoinsights.net.


If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• Unique Digital Photography Tutorials
• What is Street Photography?
• Shooting Landscapes – Guest Post by Carolyn Fox
]]> http://photography24seven.com/step-behind-the-scenes-with-a-pro-photographer/feed/ 0 http://photography24seven.com/the-raw-power-of-adobe-photoshop-lightroom-2/ http://photography24seven.com/the-raw-power-of-adobe-photoshop-lightroom-2/#comments Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:45:45 +0000 Thomas http://photography24seven.com/?p=836



If you’re shooting RAW you will already know that RAW images need some post-processing to come to life and not look like flat, lifeless pictures. If you’re new to shooting RAW please understand that it is not a sin – more like a ‘must’ – to do some post-processing work to make your images look more like the colourful JPG files that your camera will typically produce when you’re shooting JPGs.

I usually use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 to develop my RAW files but the same work can be done in the latest version of Camera Raw right inside Adobe Photoshop CS4.



The processing of this image is an example of the RAW power of Lightroom 2. All processing has been done right inside Lightroom 2 (but as mentioned these steps can also be made in Camera Raw). In fact as you will see I have only used the Basic Panel and the tools just above the Basic Panel (Spot Removal, Graduated Filter and Adjustment Brush). As you can see these simple changes make quite a difference to the image and the good news about processing RAW files is that YOU are completely in control of the changes and how far (or not so far) you want to take them.


The only changes made in the Basic Panel are minor changes to Exposure, Blacks, Clarity and Vibrance.


I used the Graduated Filter to saturate and darken down the water a bit. Notice I have also made a yellowish colour change by using the Color setting within the Graduated Filter.


This shows the changes applied in a second Graduated Filter I used to darken the sky and again I used the Colour setting to put a little bit of blue into the sky. Notice how much I have been able to crank up the Saturation without the sky looking ridiculously blue.


The Adjustment Brush is a new powerful – and memory hungry – tool in Lightroom 2 which allows the user to make local non-destructive adjustments to their image which is very cool functionality. In this example I simply used the Adjustment Brush to make a local contrast increase to the sky.

You can click on the little square thumbnail at the top of the post to view the finish image in large view. By the way the image above is from the grand basin at Castelnaudery on Canal du Midi in France from where you can go on the most beautiful river cruise you can ever imagine.

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If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• Unique Digital Photography Tutorials
• Split Toning a JPEG File in Photoshop CS4 in Three Easy Steps
• Before and After: Polaroid Grasses
]]> http://photography24seven.com/the-raw-power-of-adobe-photoshop-lightroom-2/feed/ 0 http://photography24seven.com/before-and-after-manly-dam/ http://photography24seven.com/before-and-after-manly-dam/#comments Sun, 05 Jul 2009 13:18:35 +0000 Thomas http://photography24seven.com/?p=286



‘Before and After’ will be a regular column here at Photography24seven.com and this is the first post showing an example of an image before processing and the same image after processing.



Manly Dam - Before (original RAW file)



Manly Dam - After (finished image)



The truth is that almost any image which has been shot in RAW mode (and if you want maximum flexibility when it comes to post-processing you want to shoot in RAW mode if your camera provides it) has been manipulated to some extent. The word ‘manipulation’ has a somewhat negative ring to it, but essentially that is what we do to our images when we start processing them. The point is, though, that when we manipulate our images in Lightroom, Aperture or Photoshop (or whichever software solution we use) many of the ‘tools’ we use are inherited from the traditional darkroom. Perhaps, therefore, we could as well say ‘develop’ instead of ‘manipulate’.

The image ‘Manly Dam’ shown above is an example of an image that has been ‘developed’ in terms of tones, contrast and colours as well as ‘manipulated’ in terms of removing some smaller unwanted elements in the image.

Let’s have a look at each of the adjustment layers applied in Photoshop (shown on the left):

The first layer is simply the original RAW file.

The second layer uses the Spot Healing Brush Tool to remove a little bit of sensor dust using the which was apparent in the sky and the water.

The third layer is the ‘manipulative’ layer as it alters reality. For this image I chose to clone out some signs along the shoreline i the background as well as some white buoys in the water by using the Clone Stamp Tool. Furthermore I cloned out a couple of small bright high contrast spots on the rock in the foreground.

The fourth layer is a Curves adjustment layer which adds contrast in the foreground and in the sky, but I have used a Layer Mask to withhold the adjustment from the darker land mass.

In the fifth layer I use another Curves adjustment layer with a Layer Mask. This layer tones down a brighter area in the water in the left-hand side of the image.

The sixth layer darkens the bright area in the left-hand side  a little bit more.

The seventh layer is a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer which increases the saturation of the reds (near the rock in the foreground).

The eighth  layer is a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer which increases the saturation of the blues (sky and water)

The nineth layer is a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer which increases the saturation of the greens (the bush on the landmass).

In the final tenth layer I use a Curves adjustment layer to darken down the water a little bit.

Everyone develops their images differently. One of the ways that I have found useful is to ‘listen to the image’ and correct the ‘issues’ that come to me first and then just work my way through the image until I am happy with the appearance.

Image manipulation is a highly personal and subjective process, but I think the idea of ‘listening to the image’ is a great concept to get the process started and by using adjustment layers (which are non-destructive) you can always go back and fine-tune things here and tweak things there.

I cannot lay claim to the idea of ‘listening to the image’, I just happened to come across it in a great book titled The Creative Digital Darkroom by Katrin Eisman and Sean Duggan. I was very intrigued by this idea though and I personally find this ‘organic’ approach to image processing much more appealing than the ‘cookie-cutter’ approach often promoted in the more average Photoshop books.

So next time you sit in front of an un-processed image just try to ‘listen to the image’ and see where it takes you.

Have fun!


If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• Before and After: Laura
• August Snaps 25 August
• The RAW Power of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2
]]> http://photography24seven.com/before-and-after-manly-dam/feed/ 1 http://photography24seven.com/get-sharper-pictures-in-low-light/ http://photography24seven.com/get-sharper-pictures-in-low-light/#comments Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:20:17 +0000 Thomas http://photography24seven.com/?p=228



Unless you’re going for a creative effect, you should always strive for sharpness in your pictures. If a picture is worth taking, it’s also worth ensuring sharpness, even if it means introducing a little bit of noise. Here are a few thoughts on ensuring that your photos are just as sharp as you want them to be when you are working in low light situations.

Hold Your Breath

When you are forced to shoot in a low-light situation without a tripod, hold your breath and push the shutter button down very gently. Do not get so excited that you push down the shutter button too ‘roughly’ or too ’quickly’ as you might end up with a little bit of camera shake and thus a blurred image.

Find Something To Lean Against

Lean against a wall, tree or fence or brace yourself against a rock – anything you can find for added stability. This will definitely help you get sharper images in low light.

Set Your ISO To Get a Fast Enough Shutter Speed

Avoid using an ISO settting that is too low for low light situations. It is true that ISO 100 or 200 helps to minimize digital noise but there is no point in going this low if your pictures will not be sharp. If you are not using a tripod and you are in low light, you have to adjust your ISO until your shutter speed is fast enough to hand hold the camera. The rule of thumb is that if you use a XX mm lens, then your shutter speed should be no less than 1/XX second – in other words if you are shooting at 200mm, then your shutter speed should be 1/200 second or faster if you are shooting hand held. Making noise-free pictures is irrelevant if they end up blurred anyway. Many of the new DSLR cameras on the market today produce pictures that are virtually noise-free even at high ISOs like 400 or 800.

The above image of the Kookaburra was shot at ISO 1600 with a Canon 20D and a 300mm lens at 1/80 second while leaning against a tree. The image does display a little bit of digital noise, but with newer cameras like the Canon 5D MKII your images will look even better with even less noise.

Have a look at some of the latest DSLR models from Canon or Nikon at B&H Photo if you are considering getting a new DSLR which produces virtually noise-free images at high ISO settings.


If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• How to Prevent Camera Shake When on a Tripod
• What is Street Photography?
• Shooting Landscapes – Guest Post by Carolyn Fox
]]> http://photography24seven.com/get-sharper-pictures-in-low-light/feed/ 0 http://photography24seven.com/how-to-prevent-camera-shake-when-on-a-tripod/ http://photography24seven.com/how-to-prevent-camera-shake-when-on-a-tripod/#comments Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:18:08 +0000 Thomas http://photography24seven.com/?p=206



Camera shake is the enemy of sharp pictures! Even when you are on a tripod camera shake can occur relatively easily and especially if you are using a long telephoto lens, slow shutter speeds or if you are not using a remote cable release.

So how can you prevent camera shake when on a tripod? There are a few simple precautions you can take. Here are a few ideas:

1. Don’t Use the Center Column

Do not use the center column on your tripod unless circumstances really require it. When the center column is extended it causes instability – quite the opposite from what you would expect from using a tripod.

2. Use a Remote Cable Release

Always use a remote cable release (also known as a cable release, remote trigger, remote cable shutter release). There is little point in using a tripod if you are pressing down on the camera body itself to make the picture.

3. Use Your Camera’s Self-Timer

If you do not have a remote cable release (or you forgot it at home) then use your camera’s self-timer as this is a more gentle method of triggering the shutter.

4. Mirror Lock-Up

Use your camera’s mirror lock up function if it has one, and then trigger the shutter with a remote cable release.

5. Mount Your Telephoto Lens Directly On Tripod

If you’re shooting with a telephoto lens always be sure to mount your lens directly to the tripod, not the camera. This creates a better balance of the weight across the tripod (use a remote cable release when possible).

If you own a SLR camera (film or digital) and do not already own a remote cable release I would highly recommend that you consider buying one.

Usually you can find the details of the remote cable release that fits your camera in your camera’s instruction manual. Places like Amazon.com usually provide a good selection of remote cable releases in different brands and types (wired and wireless) or you can visit your local camera store and inquire with them.


If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• What to Look For When Choosing a Tripod
• Get Sharper Pictures in Low Light
• What is Street Photography?
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