photography tips Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Infrared Conversions, IR Modifications & Photography Tutorials

How to Use the Clarity Slider in Adobe Lightroom Classic CC

If you reach way back to Adobe’s Lightroom 1.1 build you will find the clarity slider. After its introduction wayyyy back then the clarity slider has been a favorite weapon of most landscape and even portrait photographers. This slider is a personal favorite of mine just as it is the professed secret love of many Lightroom users. It adds a little “punch” to your photographs and can work wonders with portraits, landscapes, and virtually any other image that appears to be a little visually flat. And now in Lightroom Classic CC, the clarity slider is still going strong.

But what does the clarity slider do specifically? In this article we’re going to talk about how the clarity slider works and how you can use it more effectively to bring out the full potential of your images.

How Does the Clarity Slider Work?

When we adjust clarity, we are essentially adjusting the contrast of our photo.The difference is that instead of the entire tonal range being adjusted, the clarity slider targets the midtones only. This give the overall illusion of the image become more clear. Look at this histogram of the image above before the clarity was increased by+60…

Now, look at that same histogram after the boost in clarity

The blacks and highlights haven’t been affected very much but the midtones certainly have. And that’s the great thing about the clarity slider: it is far less likely to wash out detail in the areas which are already bright or already dark. This makes it a great tool when working with textures(insert link to texture article) with scenes which need a good bit more contrast without going into overkill in the shadows and highlights. Speaking of overkill…or rather over’clear’(haha)…the next section will talk about some things to watch out for when using the clarity slider.

How NOT to Apply Clarity

Granted, every photo is going to be different, so there are no real “rules” when it comes to using the clarity slider(or anything else in photography) to adjust your images. That being said, a general guideline that will help you immensely is the good ol’ fashioned “less is more” approach. While there clarity slider works great to add some extra power in your photograph it can also cause some unsightly side effects if abused.

Here’s a photo where the clarity has been cranked to +100. Notice anything?

On top of the entire scene now looking a little unnatural, when we zoom in we can see the real problem with using the clarity slider too liberally.

Zoomed to 3:1

Those dreaded halos. I hate them, and honestly, you probably should as well. They are caused by the pixels around high contrast areas becoming too separated from the pixels surrounding them which adds up to the bright banding around those areas. To remedy this, try adjusting clarity locally using the radial or graduated filter or the adjustment brush. If all else falls, simply back off the clarity a bit. In almost all cases less contrast will be more preferable than that dastardly halo effect.While Adobe has drastically refined the performance of the clarity slider in recent years the over clearing a photo can still be problematic. Also note the halo effect is worsened when coupling too much clarity along with too much sharpening as happened with the image above..

Final thoughts on Clarity

The clarity slider is a great tool. It helps us to increase contrast in the midtone luminosity range while avoiding blown out highlights and burnt out shadows. I use it to some extent in virtually every photograph I process. That being said, as awesome as the clarity slider can be, it can also work against you if you push it too far. Always remember to keep things in the scope of the reality you wish to present to the viewer and don’t over clarify your images. On the flip side of that you should also not be afraid to actually lessen the clarity in some of your images. It can actually smooth out skin tones and impart a nice soft contrast to a landscape. With a little bit of knowledge the clarity slider can open up entirely new post processing opportunities that you might not have considered!

How to Add Instant Contrast in Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is a beautiful thing. It allows an incredibly wide range of artists, designers, creatives, and especially us photographers to inject a little bit of creative juice into their work and see it come to life. And while Photoshop can be enormously complex there are so many simple, straightforward edits you can use to instantly transform your photographs.

One of these goes back to the basics of photo editing: exposure and contrast. There is a great way to quickly add contrast to your images by using PS blend modes, more specifically the “soft light” blend mode. You may be thinking “But why not just add contrast with the contrast adjustment?” Well, you can for sure…but it’s not exactly the same. And why not expand your photographic editing horizons to try something new?

Soft Light Blend Mode

The soft light blend mode is one of seven PS blends that make up the “contrast” group. These modes all use varying mathematical wizardry to accomplish a similar effect which is to make darks darker and lights lighter in relation to one another. While that is an incredible over-simplification it’s not entirely inaccurate.

The soft light blend mode bases itself on whether pixels are lighter or darker than 50% gray. If a pixel in your image is darker than 50% gray it will be darkened further. If a pixel is whiter than 50% gray it will be lightened. The result? More contrast. Not only that, but this contrast is wholly dependent on image and it’s tonal makeup.

Adding Contrast with Soft Light Blend Mode

First, duplicate your base photo layer by using the keyboard shortcut ‘Ctrl+J’(Cmd+J for Mac).

Next, select the soft light blend mode from the blend mode drop down list. Alternatively, use the keyboard shortcut ‘Ctrl+F’ to do the same thing a little faster. You will instantly notice a fairly drastic change to your photo. Namely the increased amount of contrast.

To really control the amount of contrast I highly recommend adjusting your layer opacity until you reach the overall level of contrast for your particular image. In the case of soft light the opacity and fill accomplish the same outcome so it is your choice which to use.

The real fun begins when you decide to add a layer mask. Don’t worry! Masks aren’t something to be afraid of(in most cases) and they allow you to completely take charge of how an edit is applied in PS. You’re about to see how easy it is right now.

Adding a Layer Mask

To add a layer mask to your soft light blend layer simply click on the “add a mask” icon at the bottom of the layer panel.

Guess what? You’ve just added a layer mask! It’s that simple. Now, you’re free to paint in or out the soft light contrast to virtually any degree and location you choose. Just adjust the size and opacity of your brush to achieve the desired effect.

Add in some a quick increase in exposure and we’re left with the finished product. All done within a matter of minutes.

Some Final Thoughts….

One of the fun and interesting aspects of post processing is discovering all the different methods of achieving certain editing effects. Adding contrast to a photograph is one of the most basic edits a photographer can make to instantly add power to a photo. There are many ways to do this and you’ve just learned one. Try using the soft light blend mode technique to add contrast in a smarter, more controlled way. The soft light blend mode in PS makes it easy to quickly and effectively add punch to your images and it is something I use to some extent on virtually every photograph I process.

Making Fall Colors Pop with Adobe Lightroom

Here in the Northern hemisphere Autumn is in full swing. The colors of the leaves are changing and giving their last big show as we head into winter. The frosty mornings and golden hues offer outstanding opportunities for photographers to capture these beautiful Fall colors before they’re gone until next year.

In this article we’re going to talk about how you can make those bright Fall colors really pop in Adobe Lightroom! It doesn’t take much to make your images of the season standout. Let’s get started!

Bringing Out the Color

The main focus of majority of Autumnal photos is of course color. Bright Earth-tones and muted flavors of of brown and gray intermingle together to produce an incredible palate of gold. Here’s how to make all those beautiful tones come to the forefront in your image. We’ll begin with the Vibrance and Saturation sliders in the basic Development Panel of Lightroom.

Vibrance

The vibrance slider brings out the mid tone saturation of colors. It comes in handy when you want only the less saturated colors in the photo to be amplified. Look at this image before the vibrance was adjusted.

And now after

With +50 Vibrance

The key use of increasing the vibrancy of a photo is to maintain a natural and pleasing look to the colors that need to be intensified.

Saturation

Saturation and vibrance are closely related but at the same time affect different aspects of your image. Whereas vibrance boosts the colors which are less saturated, the saturation slider increases the color saturation of all the colors. This means that if a color is already well saturated it will become even more so when this slider is used. Here we have an image with color already well saturated.

If we boost the overall saturation, it leaves the image looking overly saturated with the color appearing fake and unnatural.

With +40 Saturation

The saturation is increased to the point of looking gaudy. So, be very careful when applying the saturation slider to the entire image.

The HSL Panel

If you want to get a little more advanced when edited your Fall photos then look no further than the HSL panel in Lightroom. It’s here where you can take full control of color.

The aptly named HSL panel adjusts the hue, saturation, and luminance of color. This is the master control station for color within your photo. Use this to not only affect the brightness and saturation of specific colors but also their hue. Here’s a photo before any HSL adjustments.

And now with the orange luminance and saturation increased…

The hue adjustments make colors appear more or less true to their original tone. For example, blue can appear more green or more purple; oranges more yellow or more red. Here we’ve changed the oranges to a lighter, more yellow hue.

While here, to a darker red hue.

Some Final Thoughts on Fall Photos…

Fall is a wonderful time of year for photography. If you’re seeking to make your images of Autumn to stand out from the crowd, try these simple tips that will help all those beautiful colors of the season shine through! Don’t be afraid to adjust the hues of the colors until they reflect how you felt about the scene. Likewise, don’t hesitate to actually DECREASE the saturation and vibrance of the colors in order to reach the final look that you want.

Working with Texture in Photography

As a word, “texture” carries quite a few meanings. For photographers, texture is a concept that is often difficult to explain. It’s almost as if it has to be shown instead of merely described. Texture is simply the pronounced visualization of the surface feel of an object which is photographed. Now, you may be thinking “well, everything has texture…”. While this is true, the way in which that tactile nature of whatever you’re shooting can play a huge role in the overall mood and expressiveness your final image. Understanding texture in photography means learning how to recognize the importance(or lack of) the portrayal of the physical surface of a substance will impact the viewer.

I know I know…how boring can you get, right? Just hang in there and read on. You might be surprised just how much incorporating and focusing on textures can strike increased interest in a photo. We’ll talk about how the directional properties of light morph the textural feel of a scene and how you can put that to work for you. Let’s get started!

Communicating Texture

How do you transmit a physical sense into a two dimensional photograph? It all comes down to the type of thing you happen to be shooting and how you position your focus and your camera. Generally, there must be some degree of angle involved between the subject and the camera. This essentially places the surface of whatever your shooting into profile and thereby better displays whatever the irregularities might be into sharper relief. Here, have a look at this. It was shot with the camera directly overhead and perpendicular to the cloth.

This is a rather mundane example but it does a good job at displaying the relationship between camera angle and texture. Notice how with the straight on camera position all the texture within the cloth is muted and visually flat. This next image is made after moving the camera to approximately a 45 degree angle to the subject.

This places all the nonuniform attributes of the cloth at an angle and makes its texture more pronounced. If you want to amplify the texture of a scene, try different shooting positions and avoid photographing the subject from 90 degree angles.

The Effects of Light

Extremely closely related to camera position is the directionality of the light falling on your subject. Shadows are key when showcasing texture. The textures of an image will be enhanced by the addition of contrast which is, afterall, the differences between lights and darks in a photo. The direction of the light will determine how and by how much the contrast of the texture will be determined. The more contrast, the more obvious the texture will become. If you’re ready for another effective yet basic example, you’re in luck. These next two images are of the same floor tile. The first was shot under very diffused natural light from above.

The next photo was shot with the window blinds open which produced a much harsher directional light. And the camera angle was lowered to enhance the lighting effect even more.

All the textures within the tile are brought out due to the shadows produced by the side lighting and camera angle. These were not at all evident with the previous lighting conditions.

Using Depth of Field

Photographs that center around textural elements work well when shot in abstraction and/or with shallow depth of field. The small plane of focus adds contrast to the texture by framing it with foreground and background blur. Here’s an image shot using an aperture of F8.

The entire subject is in focus. And while the texture is evident it’s not readily defined. Next have the the same little pine cone but this time shot at a much wider aperture of F2.8.

The softening around the edges help to focus the attention on the textures of the cone and seperate it from the rest of the frame. While not a rule(what are those?) wider apertures generally work well to isolate and draw focus to the evident textures present in a subject.

Final Thoughts on Texture…

Let’s face it, talking about texture in photography isn’t the most exciting thing in the world. Still, ignoring it completely means ignoring one of the most powerful techniques for adding interest to your photographs. Texture is all around us and can be made the centerpiece of your images if you understand how to put it at the forefront. Using textures effectively will open up so many more shooting opportunities that you might not have considered before now.

Previsualziation: Knowing Before the Shot

Previsualization, or simply “visualization”, is one of the most simply yet alarmingly difficult aspect of making your own photograph become more than just the some of their parts. When we “previsualize” our images it means that the appearance of the final outcome before we ever click the shutter button. The method of previsualization was championed by the photographically indomitable Ansel Adams who believed the best way to convey wholeness within a photograph was to strive to see it in your minds eye from the get go. Everything else would then be a matter of what needs to be done in order to reach your personally desired outcome.

But how is it done? Or more importantly, how can you learn to do it yourself? Ansel gave us a lot to go on and we can learn a lot from his legacy. At the same time, we can mesh together with modern digital techniques and expound into something I like to call dynamic visualization. We’ll get more into that in just a minute. But first, let’s talk about how you can begin to visualize the finished photograph before you actually make it manifest itself from your camera.

Learning to “See”

Teaching yourself to see the finished product on the front end of the process isn’t an easy thing to accomplish, especially not right out of the gate. The ability to visualize a finished photograph is somewhat paradoxical due to the fact that a large component of the skill involves shooting a lot of photographs. This means that visualization is a product of repetition. Each time you make a photograph, you see the effect of shooting at the technical factors you have selected. Pay close attention to what settings you use!

Once you begin to mentally catalog the cause and effect relationship between your techniques and their respective outcomes you will then gradually learn to approximate the particular look of a finished image before it is actually shot.

Be Patient

The largest detriment in learning how to visualize your finished photos is that confidence-killing frustration that often sneaks in from perceived failure. Will you be able to anticipate the exact outcome of your photographs each and every time? Of course not. Failure is an incredible teacher and this is especially true when it comes to learning the skill of photographic visualization.

So, don’t allow yourself to be discouraged by the tedium. Shoot as often as you can, practice seeing the finished photo in your mind, observe the results, and then apply those outcomes to future photographs. I assure you that being able to see a finished photo(or close approximation) will slowly begin to happen on its own.

Dynamic Visualization in the Digital Age

I want to speak briefly on the progression of the visualization process as it pertains to today’s digitally integrated world of photography. The technique is one I have coined as “Dynamic Visualization” and is a direct evolution of the visualization idea of Ansel Adams. It involves the instant feedback we now are capable of achieving with our digital photographs. As we no longer have to wait for development of our film to be completed before we see the results of our efforts, the process of visualization changes. We can now allow the readily displayed outcome of our photos to directly impact the mechanism of visualization in a much quicker and more dynamic fashion.

What I mean here is that we immediately view the image we have just captured and that quick feedback can organically spur our creativity in real-time. This can lead to alternative compositions and exposure combinations that we might not have otherwise considered, thusly changing the final visualized image in our minds. This dynamic visualization could in fact be the continuation of Ansels visualization method. We first visualize the finished photo we want to make, receive real-time feedback from our digital displays, and then use that information to mold alternate(possible better) visualizations.

Final Thoughts on Visualization

The hard truth about learning visualization is that it takes time, effort, and patience. There are no real shortcuts when it comes to teaching yourself to “see” a photograph before it’s made. Shoot as much as you can and observe the results carefully. See the results of your work and study your own work. Visualization happens as much by physical labor as it does by mental flexibility. The key is to keep trying until that visualization “aha” moment makes its way to you. Just keep shooting!

Editing Secrets Revealed!: Five Lightroom Tricks

Adobe Lightroom is one of the most widely used software programs out there. When it comes to editing your digital photos it’s extremely difficult to beat Lightroom when it comes to ease of use, versatility, and powerful post processing tools. It’s safe to say that most of you reading this likely have had some experience using Lightroom but do you know about some of the hidden capabilities of the software? Well, maybe I shouldn’t say hidden. Perhaps “lesser known” is a better way for my point to be phrased.

In this article, we’re going to show you five lesser known tricks to be found in Adobe Lightroom. You might even wonder how you’ve managed without them for so long!

#1: Direct Histogram Adjustments

You know how to adjust exposure using the adjustment sliders in Lightroom but did you know that you can make exposure adjustments directly to the histogram?

Yeah, really! Not only that, but you can work with the blacks, shadows, and highlights independently. To do it, simply hover over different areas of the histogram and pay attention to the bottom left corner of the histogram. This tells you which area of the histogram you will be adjustment. At the far left is the blacks region…

And to the far right will be the whites region.

To adjust an area, click on it and hold as you drag left or right on the histogram.

In the middle areas you will have shadows highlights and overall exposure. All independently adjustable in the exact same way.

#2 Visualizing Spots in Clone/Heal Mode

The clone and healing tools are a great way to remove unsightly dust and dirt specks that show up on your finished digital photo. It’s easy to just make some of those things go away with a click or two.

Did you know that there’s a super easy way to make removing those spots a lot more precise? It’s aptly called the “visualize spots” mode and to access it click…you guessed it, the visualize spots box at the bottom of the view window when in clone/heal mode. You can also use keyboard shortcut (A).

Your image is instantly converted to a black and white relief. Spots show up in white.

You can control the sensitivity of the spot revelation by using the slider.

#3 Sharpening Mask

Don’t introduce unwanted noise by sharpening your entire photo! There’s a smarter way and it’s by using the masking slider when sharpening your images in Lightroom.

Holding down the ‘Alt’ key(Option key on Mac) while adjusting the masking slider sensitivity will convert the image to a black and white relief similar to the visualize spots mode from earlier.

Now it’s just a matter of healing or cloning out the spots!

#4 Developing Video

For some, the downside of Lightroom is that it doesn’t work well with video editing. Video isn’t supported in the Develop Module so you have to rely on quick develop settings and presets to process any of your video files. Or do you? There is in fact a work around to help you edit your videos more precisely in Lightroom. First, make an image capture from your video.

Then make any adjustments to that image capture just as you would a normal photo. When finished, go back to the Library module. Then hold down the ‘Ctrl’ key(Command on Mac) and be sure both your edited image capture AND the video thumbnail are selected.

Now, click on ‘Sync Settings’

A dialog box will appear showing the available settings which can be synced. Make your selections and click ‘OK’. And boom! You’ve just developed your video.

#5 Custom Name Plate

This last trick is possibly the easiest…and the most arbitrary. You can customize the “name plate” in Lightroom along with a couple other things. The name plate is that little bit of text in the upper left hand corner of the view window.

Here’s how to change it. Simply right click on the name plate and choose ‘Edit identity plate’ from the drop down.

This will open the identity plate edit dialog box.

Select ‘Personalize’ from the dropdown at the top left.

Now change the font color, style, and size to whatever you want! You can even upload a custom logo image form here as well!

Final Thoughts…

Lightroom, as powerful as it is, offers some hidden gems if you just know where and how to find them. The secrets of Lightroom aren’t limited to just the ones we’ve shown here! Have your own tricks that you’d like to share with the class? Post them in the comments below!

Four Ways to Rekindle Your Photographic Spark

As you progress more and more on your photographic journey you will encounter problems and challenges. Some of those challenge you expect while some can take you fairly by surprise. You will go through ups and downs, strikes and gutters. This cycle of peaks and valleys can affect you creatively, financially, even physically. Most common of these is the fact that sometimes we lose a little bit of our enthusiasm for the craft. This is normal and most definitely a problem you can overcome through all kinds of ways. In this article, we’re going to talk about a few ways that can help you rekindle your photographic spark.

Understand that it Happens to Us All

The first step to overcoming any problem is to understand that you have one and that it’s a natural part of growing as a photographer. Simply realizing that your loss of photo making zeal isn’t the end of the world can actually snap you out of your slump.

An important thing to remember is that whatever the reason you’ve lost your spark, you can get it back. The opposite is also true. If you continually find yourself dreading a shoot or not getting excited to get home to edit an awesome sunset image, ignoring the problem will only make it worse. Take a breath and work to identify what’s happening.

Learn about Great Photographers

We all have reasons why we got into photography. And the majority of us have certain “icons” whose work speaks to us especially loudly. The giants of the photography not only produced legendary photos but they also left behind lessons that we can learn from in order to strengthen our own craft. Take the time to learn the methods of the established masters.

Find books they’ve written and invest as much in your learning as you do in your gear…well, maybe not that much. When I get a little less that spritely to get out and make images, I open up a book of Ansel Adams photos. After seeing a few images of Half Dome and Taos Pueblo and I’m ready for action!

Shoot Something Different

If you find that you’ve grown tired of shooting, maybe you’re just tired of shooting the same things over and and over again. Sometimes it helps enormously to take a refreshing dip into another end of the creative pool.

Break the monotony and give yourself a fresh pair of eyes. If you shoot a lot of landscapes, then try some portraits. Shoot a lot of portraits? Try some landscapes. Changing things up a bit can open up entirely new creative outlets for your work.

Leave the Camera

Completely ceasing your shooting might sound counter intuitive but at times we can can photographic burnout. If this is happening to you try leaving your camera at home. Just focus yourself on the events, people, and environment around you without viewing everything through a viewfinder.

Live and breathe without making photos for a few days or even a few weeks. Much like switching up your shooting material, walking away from the camera for a while can hit your reset button and jump start your enthusiasm for making photographic once more.

Final Thoughts….

Whether most of us will admit it or not, we aren’t always super excited about making photographs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We have highs and lows of creativity and artistic energy levels. At some point you will experience this reduction in your photographic spark to some extent. Just remember that when it happens, and it will, that there are ways to combat the lack of motivation. While it all depends on your situation, some type of healthy change is usually the best remedy. This change can be taking a break from shooting or reading an autobiography about your favorite photographer’s life. Recognize that things just don’t feel right and take steps to bring yourself back into the photographic fold.

I love helping people overcome their hurdles so check out a couple more of my articles here at LifePixel, How To Be Successful in Photography and Real Talk: Reasons Your Photography Isn’t Improving. They deal with similar situations and can give you that lift that you need to get back into the game.

Effective Black and White Conversion in Lightroom

In a way, black and white photographs were part of the reason I became interested in photography. I was no more than twelve or thirteen when my parents bought me a black and white Kodak disposable film camera. Remember those? It contained one roll of black and white 35mm film. Everything was set for you…just wind, click, and repeat. The thirty six exposures from that roll of film displayed an alien world. No colors, just shades of grey and contrasts of light. I was dumbfounded at the power that even these simple images could convey.

A picture from that magic roll of film….

Fast forward over twenty years and we find ourselves in the middle of the roaring age of digital photography. Now, we can see the world with two different sets of eyes: one in color, one in black and white. In our digital darkrooms it’s easier than ever to make professional quality black and white conversions from your RAW image files. In this tutorial we’re going to show you how to take your images beyond black and white using Adobe Lightroom.

More than Desaturation

There is more than one way to convert your images to black and white in Lightroom. We start with this image….

Sure you can grab hold of that saturation slider and simply set it to zero. This works. But you lose so much due to the nature of the desaturation.

The photo is somewhat flat after setting the saturation to “0”.

While the color has been removed, so too have the luminance values of those colors. Luminance values are the brightness values of the specific colors within the photo. It’s these differences in lights and darks that make a strong black and white image. Without being able to control each colors luminance we are left with a flat and often uninteresting image. The most effective method for converting your photo to black and white is to convert it to grayscale and then adjust the image with the black and white portion of the HSL Panel. It’s incredibly easy and powerful tool for working with black and white photos. You’re about to learn how to do it right now!

The Grayscale Conversion

Changing our images to “black and white” actually means we are converting them to “Grayscale”. No, grayscale isn’t some kind of mythological skin condition…. Grayscale is simply the term used to describe black and white photos which are in reality shades of gray and not only black and white. To convert your image to grayscale, click the black and white treatment option at the top of the Basic Adjustment panel.

Which gives us this grayscale image of our original photo.

You can also achieve the same result by jumping directly to the HSL panel and clicking the black and white tab.

Basic adjustments can be made for things like exposure, contrast, clarity, ect., but remember that we’re about to do more work on the photo using the color luminance adjustment in the HSL Panel. These adjustments can affect the overall contrast of the image so its a good idea to keep your initial edits at a minimum.

Adjusting with the B&W Section of the HSL Panel

Now that we have a black and white image to work with it’s time to adjust them color luminance and really make our image stand out. You can adjust the sliders for each color to either darken or brighten them within the image but an easier way is to use the target adjustment option. It’s the little dot at the top left of the B&W section.

Using the target adjustment tool is useful since we can select the area of color we want lighten or darkened without actually having to remember the original colors. Simply click the target adjustment tool and then click the area of color in the photo. Just drag up or down to adjust.

In this photo, the sky is made up mostly of blue, reducing the blue luminance values can add some great dramatic effects to the sky.

The same is true for the other colors. Greens and yellows in the bushes can be brightened. The orange color of the ponies hair can be darkened. After some final tweaking in the basic panel we have this final black and white photograph.

Final Thoughts

Converting and processing your black and white images in Lightroom is an incredibly easy and fast process. It also will open up a whole new world of creativity for you and your photography. Think your photos aren’t black and white material? Try the techniques in this article and I can virtually guarantee you might begin seeing your images in a completely different light.

Real talk: Reasons Your Photography Isn’t Improving

There comes a time when we feel as if our photography has hit somewhat of a creative wall. Our photos seem to have become stagnant. This kind of leveling off of our photo work is frustrating and can lead to self doubt about the quality of our work. In some cases, this self doubt can spiral out of control and leave us questioning our purpose as photographers. But there’s no need to despair! There are so many reasons why our photographs seem to be lacking that same fire they once had or why from a technical standpoint they have become lackluster.

Sometimes the problem with our work is only noticeable to ourselves. After all, each one of is our own worst critic. Whatever the personal reason for the dissatisfaction with our current progress as photo makers I can guarantee you are not the first one to share in the frustration. That being said, finding the cause of the problem requires being honest with yourself and the understanding that you are the only one who can pull yourself out of the rut.

Here a few common causes for why your photographs aren’t of the quality you feel they should be.

You’re not shooting enough

Practice makes perfect. Or if we’re being honest, practice makes “better”. If you find a way to shoot a “perfect” photograph please let me know! But the truth is, the more photographs you make the better your photographs will inevitably become.

Shooting more frequently will refine your craft not only from a technical and compositional standpoint but also in proficiency with our camera gear. Set a goal for yourself to shoot four or five “keepers” every week to keep your mind fresh and your creativity from growing stale.

You’ve become complacent

We all strive for success through our photography. Even though “success” is defined in many different ways all of us seek for a measure of accomplishment with our work; either personally, creatively, or financially. Oddly enough, the problem arises after we have began to achieve our goals and find success due to the fact we can become lazy.

In our minds, reaching a goal can be a culmination and if we don’t set higher and higher goals complacency can weasel it’s way into our work. Always be humble when you receive accolades for your photography and keep pushing yourself to go farther. Don’t ever feel like you have nothing else to learn, nothing else to do, or nothing new to shoot. There’s always a next level.

Not recognizing there’s a problem

It might seem paradoxical, but never coming to the realization that your work isn’t what it could be is one of the most dangerous pitfalls of all. There’s no shame in understanding that your have more to learn. We all do. We should never blindly believe that we know all there is to know.

Just as with becoming complacent there is no way to move forward with our skill if we feel as if we’ve already reached the highest point we can achieve. Always strive to constantly triage your skills, your gear, and your mindset towards your own work. Again, be honest with yourself and if you see room for improvement actively seek ways to make a change for the better.

In closing….

Pinpointing the reasons why your photography isn’t improving the way you feel it should be begins with being real with yourself. Why do you feel your photos could be better? Are their technical hurdles you need to learn more about? Are you actively applying yourself to your work?

If you do feel like your photos could be more impactful or of better quality don’t be ashamed to admit it to yourself! It’s the only way you can improve. And believe me, every photographer, no matter what their perceived level of skill or experience, always has room to improve some area of their shooting. You are most definitely not alone.

Simple Ways to Improve Your Astrophotography

For eons, mankind has looked up into the night sky in wonderment. All the stars and celestial bodies which hover over our heads have always held a nearly indescribable allure. Since the advent of photography we have looked for ways to photograph all the beautiful happenings of our galactic home.

You might think that making photographs of stars or even our own galaxy requires special equipment or extensive knowledge of mind numbing photography concepts. Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, it all comes down to a few simple techniques and basic camera gear. In this article we are going to look at a few key points that can help you start making great photographs of the night sky right now!

Use a Tripod

Having a stable shooting platform is always a good idea for any type of photograph. The introduction of sharpness-robbing camera shake is one of the largest hurdles to overcome for any photo maker and it is especially true in astrophotography.

Always use a tripod(like the one from this LifePixel article) so that you can eliminate as much motion as possible in your images of the night sky. Speaking of motion….

Make Use of the 600 Rule

We often forget that even though our cameras seem to be perfectly still they, and ourselves, are moving along through space at around 67,000 miles per hour(30 km per second!). That’s not exactly slow. What this means for our astrophotography is that we are constantly working in a moving environment. Depending on the type of night photograph we want to end up with there is a very simple way to make sure all those stars stay in place. It’s called the “600 Rule”.

This was shot at a 7 min 30 second exposure using a 14mm lens. Note the the visible star trails….

Well, it’s more of a guideline for exposure rather than a rule. Since, the earth is moving so fast, longer exposure times results in “star trails” which is the streaking of starlight due to motion. This can be a good or a bad thing. Luckily, we can estimate the longest shutter time we can use based on our lens so that we don’t see star trails. Conversely, we then know what the approximate minimum exposure time needed so that we do see them. And it really is a easy…I promise. The 600 Rule states that the focal length of your lens, be it 14mm, 50mm, 85mm, ect., should be divided into 600. Here’s the equation:

600/focal length of lens = Maximum Shutter Time in Seconds

See! That wasn’t so bad. There are a few versions of this rule which use different numbers such as 400 or 500. They all yield similar results so use whichever one works best for you. I use 600 but this is simply a preference.

Include Interesting Elements

Make your astrophotography more than just pictures of stars by including elements into your foregrounds. People, buildings, trees, even light pollution(unwanted artificial light) can add wonderfully interesting elements to your astro photos.

The fence and building light in the background works to lead the viewer up towards the beautiful Milky Way.

Make use of your entire environment to bring a unique perspective. Sometimes it helps to see just how small we really are in a wide universe.

Use a Remote Shutter Release or Timer

We’ve already learned that camera motion is our enemy when shooting long exposures. Even a small amount of camera shake can ruin a perfectly composed nightscape. You might not realize it, but the impact vibration of pressing the shutter button can cause enough motion to appear in your photo. To combat this, consider using a remote shutter release. Most cameras today have wireless remote capabilities(even budget cameras) and the remotes like these are cheap.

This wireless remote cost me about $11

No remote? Try putting setting your camera to a 2 second or even 10 second timer. This will make sure your camera is as still as possible.

Closing thoughts….

Astrophotography is an almost magical goal for some photographers. When I first began making photographs one of my personal goals was to make a photo of the full moon. It doesn’t take much to be able to make wonderful images of the night sky. Follow the simple tips in this article and you will see…dare I say…ASTROnomical improvement in your photographs! Photography jokes are fun….

Understanding Basic Lens Anatomy and Terminology

The lens is the eye through which a camera sees. No matter what kind of camera you use, the lens is one of the single most important investments you will make. So in the spirit making wise decisions and minimizing buyer’s remorse the gear-savvy photographer will make it a point to understand the basics of lens anatomy. Not only with understanding the basic ins and outs of your lens make you a better technical shooter, but it will also enable you to squeeze every last drop of performance from whatever glass you happen to be using.

Without a doubt the numbers, markings, and terms often associated with camera lenses can be confusing. The good news is that they don’t have to be! Generally speaking, all those numbers and symbols are actually quite simple to understand. Let’s begin with some terms and names of common lens components you will likely encounter with most camera lenses.

Basic Lens Anatomy

Barrel-The physical outer body of the lens which houses the internal components.

Elements-A term used for the individual internal pieces of glass which make up the optics of a lens.

Bayonet-The end of the lens that attaches to the camera body. Bayonets are designed in different “mounts” based on the camera they are intended to fit.

The bayonet of a Canon EF Mount lens

Zoom Ring-A circular ring which allows the photographer to control the zoom of zoom lenses.

Focus Ring-A ring present on virtually all lenses which allows the shooter to manually adjust focus.

Focus and zoom rings on a modern lens

Aperture Ring(manual lenses)-On fully manual lenses, the aperture ring controls the physical size of the aperture with no selection being made by the camera.

Fully manual lenses often sport an aperture adjustment ring

Basic Lens Terminology

Some of the most confusing aspects about lenses isn’t their physical operation but the terminology used to describe their characteristics. Here is a breakdown of some common terms and phrases you will encounter when talking about camera lenses.

Focal Length-At the risk of oversimplifying the concept, think of this is simply the magnification strength of the lens measured in millimeters. Shorter focal length lenses are deemed “wide-angle” while long focal length lenses are considered “telephoto”.

Prime-When we say that a lens is “prime” it means that the lens is a fixed focal length. Basically speaking, the lens doesn’t “zoom”.

Lens Speed-The speed of a lens is directly connected to aperture. The wider the maximum possible aperture a lens is capable of the “faster” the lens is considered to be. This means that the lens is capable of shooting in lower light situations at faster shutter speeds. Remember, the smaller the F/number of the wider the aperture. Check out “Aperture Simplified” ,another one my articles here at LifePixel, for a nice and simple breakdown of aperture that will help make since of F/numbers….

What the heck is this symbol ⌀ anyway???-You will likely find this symbol located around the outside front of your lens along with lens speed and focal length information. Fear not, that little guy is just the indication of what circular filter(polarizer, neutral density, etc.) size your lens accepts. It will be accompanied by a measurement in millimeters. If you see a “⌀77” then you will need a 77mm filter. What’s more, if you lose a lens cap, that is also the size for the replacement.

The face of a modern lens showing aperture, focal length, and filter size information

And always remember….

Your lens and camera work as one piece of gear along with you and your creative spark.

Understanding how your lens functions and the basics of lens anatomy will not only make you a better photographer but also a more competent when it comes to acquiring the gear you need. Arm yourself with all the information you can and build on the basics. Knowledge is power when it comes to lenses.

Going Vintage with Adobe Lightroom

Retro Made Easy

When we think of “vintage style” photographs what we may be actually envisioning is a photo that bears many of the characteristics of analog film photography. These characteristics include subtle nuances in film grain and development, toning, and contrasts. The variations and combinations of these traits are quite literally too many to count but generally most vintage style photo-looks can be accomplished with just a few ridiculously simply edits in Adobe Lightroom. Generally speaking, vintage looking photographs are slightly faded with significant contrast. There are also some very slight color tones that are thrown into the mix in order to give a finished photo that has that great earthy feel of a analog photograph.

We’ll show you how to go from a RAW image file to a fully processed final image that has a nice vintage vibe. Here’s the before and after to give you an idea of just how impressive the results can be using just a few quick edits.

For this particular tutorial, we will look at a basic editing workflow for producing images with a vintage feel. But remember, this is just one look you can achieve. Don’t be afraid to experiment with color tones and contrast or even adding grain to your photo. The results can be fantastic!

Basic Edits First

We begin with a simple, and let’s face it, quite lackluster RAW file. Before we start with the vintage processing let’s do some basic edits to bring the image up to par for further processing. It’s always a good idea to do this before any other changes are made.

The edits applied here included some adjustments to color temperature and highlights as well as some adjustments to contrast and clarity. A couple of graduated filters were also used to even out the exposures of the sky and foreground. Here’s our processed RAW file that is now ready to go vintage.

Tone Curve

The tone curve has an undeserved bad reputation for being complicated to use. Nothing could be further from the truth once you have a basic understanding of how it affects your photo. For our vintage photo, most of the effects will be made using the tone curve adjustment. In most cases, begin with the tone curve set in “RGB” mode and the click the points to roughly an “S” shape with the curve. To add more fading, slightly drag the left most control point straight up the graph. In the case of this edit, I also moved the control point a small amount to the right to achieve the look I wanted.

I want to add a little bit of blue tone to the entire image. While still in the tone curve panel switch to the blue channel by selecting the dropdown menu below the graph. Keep in mind that you certainly don’t have to tone YOUR image with blue. The blue hue simply adds another element to the photo especially in the shadows which gives it a more vintage style. You could even use red or green if you like!

Final Tweaking in the Basic Panel

Now that we’ve reached a happy place with our tone curve it’s time to switch back to the Basic panel for a few final adjustments. In this case I increase the contrast while also reducing the highlights. After that I bring up the shadows. The colors in the photo are still a little too bright for me taste so I reduce the vibrance slightly. The color temp is just a slightly on the cool side so I also increase the temperature to warm the entire image a bit.

Vignette or Nah?

Our final step in the vintage conversion is to apply a slight vignette to help draw the viewers eye into the image. In come cases the vignette might not be desirable as in others. With this photo the darkening of the corners adds more appeal to the moody nature of the frame.

Careful not to go overboard here. Be sure to experiment with the feathering and shape of the vignette as well in order to get just the right look.

And here is the final vintage-styled photo. A considerable change from the dull and flat RAW file we started off with at the beginning of the article.

The fun thing about manufacturing vintage style photos in Lightroom is the shear enormity of the editing possibilities at your fingertips. Try out different combinations of color and toning to give different washes to your photographs. It’s definitely an easy way to add a little unique charm to your images without spending hours at the computer.

8 Tips to Improve Interior Photography

Whether you’re aiming to produce pro interior photography or just shoot show off cool spaces on Instagram, having basic interior photography skills is essential. So what can you do to improve your shots and make them stand out? Here are 8 tips to help you take pretty basic camera equipment and use them to take better interior photos.

1. Use a wide-angle lens.

Choosing the best photography gear is the first thing that can make or break your interior photos. While your exact choice of camera brand or body doesn’t usually matter, you should definitely have a full-frame camera (as opposed to a crop sensor camera), and the right lens to pair with it. Since interiors are often quite tight, this means a wide-angle lens. Typically, a lens within the 16-24mm range is just right. Anything wider than 16mm risks appearing too distorted, although this can often be fixed in post production if you have the prior know-how.

2. Check your aperture.

For interior photography, you definitely need to choose the best f-stop depending on the exact details you want to capture. If you’re shooting a large space and want most of the scene in sharp focus, choose a small aperture (bigger f-stop, such as f/9 or f/11). On the flip side, choose a larger aperture (smaller f-stop, such as f/4) to blur out unwanted background details.

3. Use a tripod.

To avoid camera shake and too much noise due to high ISO, it’s often best to shoot interiors using a tripod. This is especially true if you use HDR or bracketing (discussed below) to capture your images. A tripod might slow you down, but going at a slower pace can be helpful since it will force you to concentrate on framing and capturing the perfect shot. Tripods can also save your arms and back by taking on the weight of your camera and lens.

4. Natural lighting is best.

Interior spaces can be notoriously difficult to light with flash or artificial lighting due to the high amount of reflective surfaces. The last thing you want to do is make your photo look too washed out or add harsh shadows that don’t need to be there. As a result, it’s often best to utilize natural lighting when shooting interior photos, especially when working in tight spaces where it’s difficult to bring in a strobe or artificial light. With that in mind, consider how natural lighting will fill the space and schedule a photo shoot earlier or later in the day to avoid harsh daytime sunlight.

5. Consider using HDR or bracketing.

Since natural lighting is typically the best way to shoot interiors, HDR is sometimes the best choice to make sure your image has balanced shadows and highlights. Short for High Dynamic Range, HDR photography is sometimes frowned upon by photographers for producing highly exaggerated or unnatural looks. However, HDR can be very beneficial for photographing rooms with a huge range of light. Some cameras have built-in HDR shooting modes, whereas others will require you to take three photos (one normal, one underexposed, and one overexposed) and merge them in post production. Explore different ways to shooting HDR or bracketing and be sure to have them in your arsenal just in case.

6. Step in and make adjustments.

Take a careful look at every single detail in your shot. See something out of place, like a wrinkled blanket or trash can poking out from under a table? Step in and fix it. Interior photography is all about capturing beauty shots, so carefully compose every detail in the scene before pressing the shutter button. Also, consider doing a thorough walk-around of the entire space and viewing it from every angle. This will help you fix small details in person so you don’t have to spend extra time fussing with the blemish or clone tools in post-production afterward.

7. Shoot from multiple perspectives.

Interior photography can be tricky in that it can be tough to choose the best angle or perspective to choose from. As a result, aim to capture photos from at least two different perspectives. This will give you and your client if you’re working for one, options to choose from. You might even surprise yourself by composing a better image from an angle that you weren’t previously considering. Along the lines of adding variety, also try shooting both horizontal and vertical images. Typically, horizontal images are best for interiors, but in some cases, vertical shots can also work.

8. Make sure your shots are leveled.

The last tip for photographing interiors is also among the most important. As you’re setting up your shot, make sure it’s level. This means having clear-cut vertical lines and horizontal lines to make your walls appear straight. You can do a degree of distortion correction in post-production, but it’s always better to shoot your image correctly than fix it later on. Many cameras have built-in electronic levels, or tripods sometimes include bubble levels to help you straighten out.

Conclusion

Hopefully, these tips will get your started taking better interior photos. Have any questions? Comment below!

Discovering Your Own Photographic Style

The internet seems to be bursting at its virtual seams with creative ideas and tips on photographic methodology. In my opinion there’s no such thing as knowing too much about making photos and I urge you to learn all you can from as many places as you can about the technical side of photography. Still, there are a few points about the craft of photo making which tend to be less discussed than others and when they are talked about often they are not evenly keeled conversations.

Perhaps nothing is as elusive nor enigmatic that the topic of style in photography. More specifically, how to find your own unique style of shooting. The idea of style is somewhat of a paradox due to the very definition of the word itself which literally means that you model something based on the characteristics of something else. How can you carve our something unique to you if it’s very core is fashioned on the work of someone else? How do you develop your own style of shooting? The short answer: stop thinking so much.

The Misconception About Style

You will not wake up one day and say “Oh, that’s my style.” The fault lies not in the pursuit of a particular style but rather in our own misunderstanding. Our own personal way of photographing comes about organically, gradually, and with great fluidity. Style is not something that we work to achieve, but rather it is something that festers from our creative subconscious as a direct result of practice and patience.

It is not a destination to be reached but rather a journey of creative expression. Don’t obsess over being different at the beginning. That comes later.

The Three Stages of Style Development

I’ve philosophized(at times too much) on the processes behind the development of personal photographic style and have come to the conclusion that three stages are involved as we progress to our own uniqueness as photographers. These stages are hazy and unfixed, but seem to be commonly shared by the majority of us camera jockeys.

Stage 1: Emulation

This is where most of us start. We find the work of other photographers and discover in their photographs characteristics that we connect with on some level. This connection leads to a desire to replicate those characteristics with our own work. We essentially attempt to “figure out” how their photographs were made or why they have a certain appeal to us.

The more we expose ourselves to the work of others the more we come to understand what type of photos we do and do not like. Photographic emulation is the influential cornerstone that helps us understand ourselves and what we enjoy shooting. This leads us to….

Stage 2: Self-Realization

Once we have spent time discovering what type of photography appeals to us an extraordinary thing begins to happen; self-realization. Self-realization begins to manifest itself after the photographer has seen the type of work he or she enjoys and wants to pursue. This is a very important step on the path of developing your own identity in the world of photography.

You realize that your own photographs can be something completely un-ordinary even though they were initially nurtured beneath the shade of influence from other photographers.

Stage 3: Self-Projection

This is the last but most actionable stage in the development of your own style of shooting. Self-projection happens only after you have learned and experienced the craft of photography to the point where you begin producing work than can truly be considered your own creation.

Sure, it may have impressions of all the stepping stones of influence you’ve absorbed along the way but the end result is something exclusive to your own creative vision. You will have produced something that carries with it a part of yourself, in your own distinct way.

Final Thoughts on Style

As we’ve said, your personal style of shooting will find you if you have the patience and persistence to simply allow it to occur naturally. You will constantly evolve as a photographer and perhaps go through the three steps of style development multiple times over your lifetime. Keep in mind also that style is not finite. It’s not a destination to be reached. It’s a journey.

The important thing to remember is that each of us, at one time or another, were all beginners. We all searched for the same fire.

Confront Your Photographic Challenges

Are there times when you feel challenged to complete an assignment, or even to just go out and take some photographs? Tangential activities take on an unanticipated urgency. I have never really understood what drives this onset of dispassion for the task, but I know I have experienced it many times, and I find it helps to set myself a few challenges and hold myself accountable until each of my personal challenges are completed.

Nature photographer Jim Brandenburg is known for challenging himself. Jim decided to limit his images to only one photograph a day for a 90-day period between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice. His project was deeply personal, and the amazing work that developed over the months most certainly speaks for itself.

Here are a couple of ways you can provoke your challenges, and learn a few new techniques in the process:

Join a Photo challenge site – One great site, Photochallenge.org encourages you to increase your photographic skills by committing to a photo challenge. No tutorials, just photographers interacting with each other. The team sets out common guidelines, which are easy to understand and simple to follow. The challenges are specific, such as; capture black and white shots of the human body, or take portraits of people or animals, and then share with others also participating in the challenge. If you are not quite up to engaging at that level, it is still worth visiting the site to view images and to ultimately gain the courage to start interacting online with other photographers.

Commit to taking a tutorial a week – There are many sites that provide free tutorials, such as Iheartfaces as well as subscription based sites like CreativeLive, KelbyOne, and Lynda.com that offer the opportunity to learn a little more about your camera, as well as how to use software applications to successfully edit your images. If you find it easier to learn in a classroom, give yourself the gift of a workshop a year. The secret is to follow through on what you have learned.

Set specific parameters – Make some definitive decisions each time you go out to take images. Consider some of these ideas:

1 – Take only one lens with you. If you do not have fixed lenses, choose a zoom lens focal length and don’t be tempted to change it. This will encourage you to position yourself correctly for each shot. It will also help you to really understand the capabilities of each lens.

2 – Utilize the full frame. Fill your frame with the shot and don’t plan on cropping in post. This will encourage correct orientation, and enable you to make every pixel count.

3 – Decide upon a color or texture and concentrate on images of that color or texture. This makes you evaluate your surroundings and notice many things you may not normally have seen.

4 – While teaching at a photographic conference in Las Vegas, I played around with the color/full frame challenge and spent a couple of hours in the beautiful botanical gardens located in the Bellagio hotel. I started with some fairly simple images and then dug down into the fragility of petals. I found myself down a whole new path involving the combination of shadow and color.

5 – Dedicate a photographic day to simply using your mobile phone, and get creative. There are many apps for editing camera phone images and some of the results are pretty impressive. While boating in Maine, I was able to capture the old Maine Windjammer, the Isaac H. Evans. I challenged myself to use only my mobile phone all day so that I would concentrate on light and composition. It was quite refreshing to have my head up and looking at my subject, rather than staring down the camera viewfinder!

6 – Limit the number of images you take. Imagine you do not have the capability of taking many photographs. Make every image count, and don’t cheat by erasing images!

Sometimes it is important to try to recognize the route of the challenged feeling! Each time I head up to Rockport, Maine to teach drone flight and aerial photography, I find myself having to overcome the inherent fears surrounding the nature of the class. I am not immune to the constant commentary surrounding the use of drones and their various applications. In order to overcome those mental challenges, I remind myself that I teach because I enjoy teaching, and the pleasure I receive from watching students initially grapple with the technology, and then start creating beautiful images is most certainly more contagious than the niggling doubts in my head. I also take time out to go and fly with my teaching partner and hone my skills a little more.

Flying over water takes a little more concentration and awareness of the wind conditions. but the results can be incredibly rewarding. The image above is a single capture, and below, a 5 image panorama created in Lightroom. These were taken using a DJI Phantom 4.

Finally, I have also noticed that as infrared photography becomes more popular, there are many discussion groups debating about what constitutes a good IR image. No matter what my assignment, I carry my converted Canon 1DS with me and find an opportunity to experiment.

It is interesting to compare my results with images taken from the Phantom 4. In the image below, I am actually much closer to the boats in the harbor, but hovering over the water.

I challenge you all to experiment with IR. If you are not yet ready to convert one of your cameras, consider purchasing a filter that somewhat replicates the look and feel, and this will give you a great introduction. I am pretty sure you will soon be hooked. Whatever your end goal, don’t let those perceived or real challenges get in the way and don’t let the negativity of others (or your own doubts) prohibit your creativity.

6 Reasons Why Having People In Your Photos Is A Good Thing

Having people walk into your perfectly composed scene can often be enough to send most photographers into rage. After all, you have spent time getting to this place, waiting for the perfect light only for a unknowing tourist to stand in your way. But having people in your photos can actually be a good thing and some picture editors are now actively looking for images which showcase an experience rather than just a tourist shot.

Here are 6 reasons why including people in your shots can actually improve the composition.

1. To give a sense of scale

One of the hardest things to portray in photographs is the sheer scale of an epic scene in front of you. The best way to do this is to incorporate something that we are familiar with into the composition so that the viewer can process the difference in scale. For example, if you are photographing a big tree, putting a person near the tree can help the viewer notice the difference in size. Similarly in landscape photography, if you are high up, putting a person in the foreground can help distinguish how high you are.

2. To add a point of interest

Very rarely does any image work without a point of interest. Often these can be natural details such as rocks or trees. Sometimes the point of interest is the main purpose of the photo (i.e. a boat on a lake). But sometimes the point of interest needs to be added to the composition by the photographer, and one of the best subjects for this are people. Adding a person into the photograph can be especially pleasing to the composition when you have a scene where the colors and patterns are very similar (for example the desert or water). By putting a person in the frame it helps break that repetition and makes for a pleasing end result.

3. To give the photo context

One of the great benefits of adding people into your photos is that it can make them easier to sell as the people in the photo can help give it context. For example, a photo of people walking in a landscape scene can portray walking or hiking trips rather than just a generic landscape photo. These images can be easier for picture editors to use as they can accompany articles related to that topic. For example, the photograph of someone cycling could be used to promote adventure holidays, or an article around mountain bikes.

4. To tell a story

It’s no coincident that that the majority of the most famous photographs ever taken usually include people in them. People in photos can help tell an incredibly powerful story rather than showing a scene. The key is to think about the story that you are trying to portray and then set your composition to highlight it. Sometimes the elements are all there waiting for you to photograph, but often you have to be willing to come back to the scene or wait until the story presents itself.

5. To show movement

Creating motion blur of people using a slow shutter speed is a great way to add creativity and dynamism to your images. Motion blur or movement, can be a powerful way to really emphasize a story as well. For example a person running can give a sense of speed or lots of movement from a crowd can highlight the hustle and bustle of a place. But as always, when using a slow shutter speed you need to ensure that you use a tripod to avoid camera shake as you ideally want the static parts of the image to be sharp so that it contrasts against the soft motion blur otherwise blur will look like camera shake rather than intentional motion blur.

6. To make your image unique

In this day and age pretty much everything has been photographed millions of times. So capturing images that are unique can be even more difficult. One of the best ways to do this is to incorporate people into your photos as these are often fleeting moments which can’t be recreated. Not only will they make your images unique but if you are able to get model release they will make your images much easier to sell and more valuable.

So, next time someone accidentally walks into your scene, instead of despairing, think about how you could incorporate them into the photo and if that will improve the composition. You might be surprised at the number of times that it does.

Recognizing your Talents

I have written about cultivating the creative and overcoming the fear factor. Let’s consider ideas to help you recognize your talents!

Many photographers find that there are periods when they are unsure of their abilities. Discovering that you have a photographic ‘eye’ is an exciting moment. Then the frustration of learning the mechanics comes in to play. Those images that looked so good on an automatic camera setting are much harder to recreate once you start exploring the camera. Further discouragement can come from a critical photographer who starts to tear apart your technique. The secret is not to let those moments of frustration inhibit your learning curve. Open the floodgates and keep experimenting! The good news is that I believe the teaching community is more responsive to positive feedback, and there is a culture of acceptance and encouragement when it comes to helping photographers develop their craft. This is further supported by the plethora of online learning possibilities such as Lynda.com and KelbyOne.

Once you have started to develop your technical skills, find out where the camera leads you. After many years as a photographer, it is only recently that I have started loving my work because I am finally focused on creating images for my clients and making pictures that please me! Many of the points I have already written about in previous blogs would apply to this blog also, overcoming fear and encouraging your creative side both help you to recognize your talents. What do you really enjoy about photography? And what inhibits you from growth? I have mentioned the importance of exploration; encouraging yourself to capture images that don’t necessarily come easily to you. The mistakes you make will also bring new insight to your photographic body of work, or simply help you to understand the mechanics of your camera better.

I recently watched a fascinating documentary about Vivian Maier. Vivian became famous posthumously when John Maloof discovered her work in a thrift auction house in Chicago. She worked as a nanny, but constantly experimented with her camera. Her passion led her to create a vast collection of candid street photographs. She most certainly discovered her talent, but one wonders if she actually recognized it. Her touring exhibitions can be seen around the world, and attract huge crowds. What we do not know is why she did not share her work. If you take a moment to peruse her online galleries you will marvel at her extraordinary photographic skill.

Unlike Ms. Maier and those wonderful street photographers of her ilk, I have never been adept at catching people as they go about their lives. I find myself concerned about invading privacy and once I become self conscious my work falters. I learned early on that street photography was not one of my innate talents! On my recent search for new photographic pastures, I find that I very much enjoy seeking out resilience and vulnerability. This can be found repeatedly in nature, and I am drawn to exploring something beyond the obvious. I enjoy playing with available light to expose, scrutinize and find the beauty from a unique perspective. This is a simple technique which involves considering more than just the angle that comes immediately to mind.

The translucent, delicate nature of flowers can really be examined when using available light to emphasize the shadows and accentuate their fleeting beauty.

It is always fun to explore all sorts of available light. Try taking your camera and a willing subject out a dusk when the street lights are turned on. If your long suffering accomplice is happy to work with you to find the best angle, the effects can be quite dramatic!

For extremely personal reasons, I am drawn to the Golden Gate bridge. My latest infrared images using a converted Canon 1D, captured the late afternoon mist, and I was able to reflect just the right mood for the particular project I had in mind.

I am also enjoying creating a body of work from a different perspective. Looking down on the world from above, using a small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), involves a distinct skill set which is constantly evolving as the tools become more advanced with each new iteration. Shooting with the camera pointed directly downward, and a bit of advanced planning, can make for some fun and different shots.

It is amazing how our work grows as we recognize our talents, and find we no longer need to emulate the talents of others. Our work may end up looking like another photographer’s work, but this should not be because we are forcing a style, more because that is how the process evolved naturally. Whether professional or amateur, make sure and take time to evolve, and to enjoy your moments behind the camera.

The Dynamic Range In Landscape Photography

Since the camera has been invented, the man has always tried to copy one of the greatest wonder that our body possesses: the eye. Unfortunately, despite it has passed far beyond a hundred years from the first time that the man “captured the light”, we are still far from overcome Mother Nature.

Try to think about the last beautiful sunset that you have witnessed by the sea: you will certainly remember the light and the warm tones, the marvelous colored reflexes of the clouds on the sea and the golden sand. But I am also certain of your disappointment when you tried to take a picture of that moment. The fact that you have taken a picture with your cell or with your beloved reflex, it does not matter: if you have exposed on the sky, the beach has become a silhouette, vice versa exposing on the beach the sky will have become completely white. Why? Indeed simple: in the visible spectrum, your eye sees a lot better than your camera.

With the sun in front of you, for your camera is not easy to manage details

The parameter that describes this behavior is called Dynamic Range, which defines the difference between the minimum and maximum value of brightness that a support succeeds in recording.
Basically therefore the Dynamic Range points out the ability of your photographic camera to contemporarily see details in very clear areas and very dark areas of the scene.
Our eye therefore it has a superior dynamic range to the sensor of our photographic camera.
By how much? About twice.

Comparison between human eye and DSLR Dynamic Range

This explains why in front of a beautiful sunset, we succeed in seeing details in the whole scene, both in the sky strongly illuminated, and on the beach or on the ground in front of us.
The unity of measurement of the Dynamic Range is the Exposure Value (EV) and at the moment in which this article is written, a good DSLR has a superior Dynamic Range to 13.
We could enter into technical detail of how the photon interacts on our sensor, but I believe that further to annoy you to death I would not be of any help in your next outdoors trip in field.

Evolution of Dynamic Range in Nikon cameras – DxOMark

But if even the best of cameras has a Dynamic Range which is half of the human eye, how can we hope to be able to shoot a beautiful sunset or a wonderful sunrise?
There are different methods to overcome the problem, but in the end we can gather them into two macros families:

Techniques of more or less advanced post production (HDR, Digital Blending, Luminosity Mask,.. ),
Use of photographic filters

Which of the two is it better? I think it’s a bit ‘like asking whether it is better Nikon or Canon.. Personally I prefer to apply the second solution, the photographic filters, for several reasons:

I prefer to spend my time in field and not on Photoshop
Having a “clean” shot in camera ensures best quality
There are filters that can not be reproduced in post production

In the series of articles that I will propose you in the next appointments, we will explore together the world of filters, not only to know how to choose what is good to have with you in your backpack depending on your photographic style, but also how to use them well on the field.

Stay tuned!

Using the “3 Picture Story” Technique to Improve Your Story Telling Images

A picture is worth a thousand words. So does that mean 3 pictures are worth 3000 words? If the photos tell a story, than arguably, the answer is yes. One of the great things about photography is that it can really allow the photographer to tell a story in a series of images that might need hundreds of words to describe. That is why magazines spend time choosing the perfect photos for front covers or to illustrate features, but capturing a series of images to tell a story isn’t easy. You need to avoid repetition whilst ensuring the story or theme is followed through in every photo. One of the best ways to practice and train to do this is using a technique called a 3 picture story where you tell a story in a set of just 3 photographs.

Here’s how it works:

The Big Picture

Your first image will usually be the wide angle photo that captures the general scene. For example, if you are photographing in a market, this might be a photo of the market showing the different stalls. Remember, this needs to work as set of 3 images so it should still convey the story you are telling. Even though you are capturing a wide scene, still keep it relevant to the story. This should be your ‘wow’ photo and often the one that a feature would start with as the opening spread.

Main Focus

Once you’ve captured the wider picture it’s time to start getting more focused on the main subject of the story. This photo should begin to tell the viewer what the main story is focused on. Using the market as an example, if the first photo captures the whole of the market, this photo focuses on one of the market sellers. You need to ensure that it isn’t repetition of the wider photo by just zooming in; think about how you can make the two completely different but part of the same story.

The Close-up photograph

The final photo needs to be a close-up of what is going on and this highlights the key detail of the story. This means you need to get up close to your subject which in turn means having to interact if it is a person (great practice for anyone who is shy). Try to think about what the single focal point of the story is and then think about how best to show it. For example, it could be the person’s hands if they are making something, or it could be the final plate of food that has been made.

The great thing about this technique is that it requires you to use a wide range of photographic technical elements and usually will push people beyond their comfort zone on one of the photos. For example, if you struggle in close-ups, this is a great way to practice to improve. Once you have mastered the 3 photos, you can look to add a fourth or fifth photo if the story requires it, but be aware of repetition. The key is to make sure every photo different and to stand on its own merits whilst also feeling part of the same theme.

Telling a story in a set of photos isn’t easy but can be one of the most effective ways of showing a story. Think about all the times you have looked and newspapers and magazines and got a sense of the story without even reading the words. Like any type of photography, with practice, over time you will get better at creating stories using this technique.

Now it’s your turn. Show us your photo stories below?