Weekly Assignment We finished up our Still Life: Food assignment. Still life assignments are a great photographic challenge when the weather is less than cooperative, or when you’re looking for something to challenge your creativity. Our winners this week really exemplified what we were looking for in a still life. Our winner this week really exemplified a classic and simple photograph. Ender_1982 ’s Pears had gorgeous lighting and excellent composition. It really showed how a simple subject can be very eye catching. Our first runner up was a more modern taken on a food still life. mshockley ’s Oreos was nice and clean and modern. The lighting really made the detail in the cookies stand out, while the milk was nicely balanced. The reflection really added to the shot as well. And last, but not least was Shutterbugdeb ’s fruit arrangement. This was a very nice example of a very traditional fruit still life. The glass bowl added another element to the shot, but because it was clear, it didn’t take away from the natural beauty of it. Well done everyone! Still Life: Flowers is our newest assignment. Flowers can seem overdone when it comes to photography, but yet their beauty draws us to photograph them, and it’s a challenge to do it well. This week, your challenge is to photograph a flower still life. Remember, as a still life, this is not a shot of a blooming garden. You need to consider the design and placement of your subject, your lighting, and your composition. Check the first post in the thread for some helpful information about what a still life is. As always, a quick reminder of the rules. First, your photo must have been taken between 26 January – 9 February 2011. Second, your post must include the words “Still Life: Flowers” to show your permission for it to count in the contest, and the date the photo was taken in order to show that it is a valid entry. Finally, your EXIF should be intact, and it’s useful if you can include some of the main points, such as camera, ISO, aperture, lens, shutter speed, etc. See the thread for the full rules. Next week’s assignment will be The Weather Outside . Show us what the Mother Nature is doing in your neck of the woods. Good luck everyone! Hot Threads Who Inspires You? : Having photographic inspiration can be a real help when you’re struggling to move forward or when you’re just starting. But that doesn’t mean that we lose that inspiration as we move forward ourselves. Who are the people that influence you when it comes to your photography? Come share your favourite blogs and books over in the forum. Poses: Ever Get Stuck? : Do you ever run out of ideas for posing your clients? Have you checked every site that you can think of and you’re still feeling lost? What do you do? Come share your ideas for when you’re feeling photo-blocked and need new poses for your subjects. What Would You Do : If the weather outside is frightful, you might be interested in practicing your post-processing skills in our What Would You Do threads. These threads are a chance for you to practice your post-processing skills on someone else’s photograph. Not only do you get a chance to practice, but they might also get a chance to learn something from your edit. Post from: Digital Photography School – Photography Tips . Check out our resources on Portrait Photography Tips , Travel Photography Tips and Understanding Digital Cameras . This Week in the Digital Photography School Forums (30 Jan-5 Feb ‘11) . . . → Read More: This Week in the Digital Photography School Forums (30 Jan-5 Feb ‘11)
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This week your photography challenge is to take and share an image that shows us something about where you live. This theme came out of a number of people suggesting on our facebook page that we do something about our country of origin. I thought we could broaden it slightly to give people scope to do something about anything to do with where they live. You might choose to do something to show us something about your country – but you might also choose to show us something about your house or something else that symbolises where you call home/live. There’s lots of scope here for different types of photography – so be creative and get to work! Once you’ve taken your ‘Where I Live’ photos – choose your best 1-2, upload them to your favourite photo sharing site either share a link to them even better – embed them in the comments using the our new tool to do so . If you tag your photos on Flickr, Twitter or other sites with Tagging tag them as #DPSWHEREILIVE to help others find them. Linking back to this page might also help others know what you’re doing so that they can share in the fun. Also – don’t forget to check out some of the great shots posted in last weeks Beauty challenge – there were some great shots submitted. Post from: Digital Photography School – Photography Tips . Check out our resources on Portrait Photography Tips , Travel Photography Tips and Understanding Digital Cameras . Where I Live: Weekly Photography Challenge . . . → Read More: Where I Live: Weekly Photography Challenge Photography is a part of the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the globe. The widespread availability and ease of owning a camera is a product of the digital age – and aren’t we all so fortunate for it. Whether you have a simple point and shoot to capture family moments and day to day ramblings or a multi-thousand dollar medium format with a digital back for large production advertising, photography touches all of us. It begs the question, why do we photograph? For some it’s as necessary as breathing. It’s as much a part of who we are as the clothes we wear, the music we listen to, the friends we associate with and the values we hold dear. It’s who we are. To others it’s an enjoyable hobby or past-time – a great way to spend some free time or a way to capture little family moments. Whatever your personal level of involvement in photography is, taking photos is something we all love to do. Perhaps there is a deeper psychological explanation. Our time on this earth only lasts for so long, and a camera allows us to preserve memories far past when they might have slipped our mind. It helps us pass those memories into the hands of future generations. Our photos are little legacies of the life we have led – our travels, experiences, food, family, friends, work relationships and more. Each photo is a window into a moment, and the collections of images we take over the years are a window into who we were and what we valued. Ultimately it comes down to a simple truth – seeing that moment captured makes us genuinely happy. Photography should make you happy. Never let someone impede on your personal happiness. You love HDRs and someone else doesn’t – who cares? You are enamored with landscapes but your friends think they’re droll – don’t let it bother you. You’re a fashion nut but no one gets your style – just keep being you. Enjoy your photography for what it is – your own. Know that not everyone will appreciate it, but if it personally fulfills you, that’s all that truly matters. Be true to yourself and you’ll never regret a day of your life. Share with us, why it is you photograph. Post from: Digital Photography School – Photography Tips . Check out our resources on Portrait Photography Tips , Travel Photography Tips and Understanding Digital Cameras . Why We Photograph . . . → Read More: Why We Photograph  A Guest post by by Annie Tao Whether you’re a newbie or you’ve been a pro for years, there may be a point when you need a little help tapping into your creative mojo ! Hey, even us right-brainers need to refresh our creativity from time to time! Here are a few ideas to help boost your creativity: Your camera is your friend So take him (or her) everywhere with you!I know you’ve heard this before, but here’s the thing:it is easy to remember to bring your camera to scenic places or special events.Try taking it to places that aren’t obviously photogenic.This will train your eye to look out for beautiful things – light, patterns, mood, expressions, compositions – no matter where you are. Finding the best way to photograph different kinds of scenes, light and people is a great experience. A 365 Project (one photo a day) or weekly photo project may be a great way to do this. Here are some tips , if you want to get started. There are also many dedicated websites, such as . . . → Read More: How To Tap Into Your Creative Mojo This book won’t help you set the right exposure for a shot, nor will it help you compose, add filtration or do a later digital clean up when all has gone wrong. Authors Greenberg and Reznicki deal with the legal side of picture-making in its 126 pages: copyright, model releases, asserting your rights, pricing your work, chasing defaulting clients etc. The manual is published in the USA, so the info within its pages applies to the situation in that country; many of the topics may have different legal shades and interpretations in your own country, however the over-riding message within its pages are the same the world over: be careful, know your rights, know the boundaries, know the ropes. If they were not of such importance, the examples given in the book carry much caution. Like this one: A bank asks its employees to stay back after closing so that some shots can be taken for promotional purposes; there is no obligation to stay back and no releases are signed. Some workers remain and end up in the shots made by a photographer, assistant, makeup etc. The staff members pose and the shoot takes several hours. Ads and promos come out. Some employees, having never signed releases, claim violations of NY law. They win! And on copyright in times past. Well before copyright law came into being some ‘artists’ used drastic methods to state their rights: Shah Jihan who commissioned the Taj Mahal used one extreme method to deter anyone from making a reproduction of his amazing creation: as the workmen finished their tasks, the Shah ordered one of their hands to be cut off. Have you seen a second Taj Mahal? Drastic but it worked. Author : E Greenberg & J Reznicki. Publisher : Lark Books. Distributor : Capricorn Link. Length : 126 pages. ISBN : 978 1 906672 420 5. Price : Get a price on the Photographer’s Survival Manual on Amazon (currently 28% off). Post from: Digital Photography School – Photography Tips . Check out our resources on Portrait Photography Tips , Travel Photography Tips and Understanding Digital Cameras . Photographer’s Survival Manual . . . → Read More: Photographer’s Survival Manual The Sony World Photography Awards have just announced the shortlist of potential winners for this year’s awards. Finalists for each category have been selected from over 105,000 entries from across 162 countries. “This has been an extraordinary year for the competition. With the highest number of entries since the awards were founded,” says the World Photography Organization’s creative director Astrid Merget. “We are clearly reaching a vast international community of photographers.” The awards themselves will be announced in March, and the ceremony will be held on April 27 in London. You can check out the full list and get details on attending the event at the World Photography Organization site . . . → Read More: Sony World Photography Awards Shortlist Announced We’ve all been guilty of taking pictures with our eyes closed. Just go crazy, go on a shooting spree and see what happens. See what happy mistakes you can pawn off as well-thought out, purposefully captured portraits. Here are 6 ways you can identify yourself as a luck photographer: You take way too many pictures. A one hour session results in 500 shots to sort in your computer Your sessions take hours longer than they need to You feel panicky, nervous and out of control while you’re shooting You can’t explain to someone later on how you made a portrait or the settings you chose You either shy away from manual all together or you ‘wing it’ and take the same shot over and over with different settings ‘just in case’ Your clients are confused as to why they spent hours with you, witnessed you taking a bajillion photos but they only ended up seeing 20 of them (note: clients will ask this anyway, but the less you rely on luck, the less they will ask) I have been guilty of all of the above, and not even that long ago. Believe it or not, I’ve been a very good fake at times. In the beginning, I posted images that had rave reviews from readers inspite of the fact that they were just lucky shots that I couldn’t recreate if I wanted to. There are a few reasons why this can be dangerous to a photographer who is charging for their sessions: Your clients have gone to your website for a product but when they come to you for their session, you won’t be able to produce the same product for them. Following on from the above, some of you might know of the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree. He was enticed by the leaves of the tree, but when he approached it, there was no fruit. He cursed it and it died. Being a haphazard photographer is like a tree of leaves enticing clients who later find that there isn’t actually any fruit. A business built on these principles can’t last. You will smash your own confidence if you rely on luck. You will feel out of control and deep down inside, you’ll know that it wasn’t really YOU creating the images. When I look back, I can see that I have learned many things from my lucky shooting days. I learned about composition. I learned about self restraint and, most importantly, I learned how to stop shooting for luck and how to start taking pictures on purpose. Here are the things I wish I knew back then to get started sooner: Learn Light – I can’t just call myself an ‘available light photographer’ and claim to only shoot in natural light to get around learning about lighting. When I wanted to stop being at the mercy of the sun, the location, the time of day, I buckled down and learned the (surprisingly basic) things you need to know to take control of the light. Someone once said, “I’m an available light photographer. My Speedlite is available.” Learn Your Camera – This is an obvious one, but needs to be said: learn how your camera sets exposure and why. Aperture, ISO, shutter speed and white balance. Force yourself to shoot in manual (or one of the in-between modes like aperture or shutter priority modes .) and see what the different dials actually do. Learn Posing – I had to stop taking pride in being the anti-posed photographer and start actually learning about the art of posing subjects (particularly children) so that I could stop shooting like a maniac, chasing them for a square mile and just waiting for them to stop and look at me, all the while filling up a 16gb memory card and giving myself a helluva lot of sorting to do later on. I bought and utilized posing guides from Skye Hardwick to take control and make portraits rather than just take pictures . Try Bracketing – When you’re just starting out and you want to make sure to nail your exposure, bracketing can be a super useful tool. Before discovering it, I would take three different photos all while quickly moving the dials with my thumb to alter the shutter speed or aperture to get three exposures for one image. With bracketing, you can take three photos at once, all of different exposures and then choose later on which one is right for your image. Have Restraint – When I shoot now, I probably trash only 10-15% of my images (in contrast to 80% in the beginning) and only for reasons like blinking or a cat running in the way. I don’t click click click the shutter. I set up the shot, take control of the light, capture the image and when I’ve got it, I move on to another. I think there must be such a thing as shutter addiction. It’s so satisfying to hear the shutter clamp down and know that you have actually captured something: that you have harnessed the light and made it yours. No photographer just woke up great. It’s been a long haul to get where I am and I recognize that I’ve got a long way to go. You never get to a point where you know 100% of everything there is to know about photography and that’s what makes it such an exciting hobby or career. Post from: Digital Photography School . . . → Read More: 5 ways to stop being a luck photographer {and start taking pictures on purpose}  The winners of the January 2011 Photography Blog Competition have been announced. Read more and comment . . . → Read More: January 2011 Competition Winners  Digital Photography School and Think Tank Photo are holding a joint photowalk in London City on the 19th of February, 2011. It will start at Liverpool Street Station, walking out at 3pm (on the dot) following a route down and across the city for some large steel structures and glass, then taking in Brick Lane for some grit and interest, circling around and about and ending back at Liverpool Street tube station (or close to it) at a public house for a drink and to crown the competition winners. Think Tank Photo have kindly provided us with three camera bags from their belt pack range, the SpeedDemon , SpeedFreak and SpeedRacer These will be given to the winners on the day! (details to follow!) The Map isn’t totally 100% finalised, but I wanted to get a notification up to let people know this was happening and to clear their calendar! The plan will be to meet from 14:30 on Saturday Feb 19th at Liverpool Street Station with a view to leaving at 15:00hrs on our walk, we’ll be walking, chatting and taking photos for about two and a half hours, so not tooo long! Then we’ll all head back to a venue (I’ve yet to 100% confirm this, but working on it) to have a refreshing beverage and a yarn about all things photo. There is a thread in the dPS Flickr Group where you can also post your images and we would love for you to post one in the photowalk thread that will be in the forums after the walk! The walk is open to all levels, from people with point and shoots to dSLR cameras to iPhones or a dusty polaroid that your grandpa gave you (I’ll be bringing my iNstax!) there’s only one requirement, and that’s that you come along and have fun! A few simple house keeping rules for you. Please, no unattended children as I can’t watch them all 100% of the time. Please ask me any questions you have now, via email below. Please do note that dPS nor Think Tank Photo can be held responsible for you or your gear whilst on this walk, so whilst we take every precaution not to lose anyone or their camera (I’ve not lost one yet!) that if this does happen, we’re *very* sorry. If you have any questions, please comment below or contact me directly via this email address —> simon@digital-photography-school.com Who is your walk leader? Me! –Simon Pollock . I’m the dPS community manager, a music photographer based in London. I’ve led photowalks previous to this one (Scott Kelby’s World Wide Photo Walk) and will be on hand the whole time to answer any questions you have. Please fill in the form below to confirm your attendance! This is going to be fun! –Sime Confirm your attendance! * indicates required Email Address * First Name Last Name Powered by MailChimp Close Some photos from other photo walks! Post from: Digital Photography School . . . → Read More: London PhotoWalk Feb 19th, 2011  I typically don’t edit my shots heavily, yet one that I brought back from Nepal demanded some help and was eye catching enough by itself to warrant an attempt. My hope is in walking through these steps, you might glean a an idea or two on a similar shot if you really like night photography. Click on any images in this post to see a 3000px wide rendition for higher detail not possible in the 600px representation. Starting with the original: This shot was taken at the basecamp for a climb of a remote peak in Nepal known as Kyajo Ri. Basecamp is situated in a gorgeous 1.5 mile long hanging valley, a valley that has a steep drop off at its terminus. This photo is looking down valley and is shot at an altitude of aproximately 14,800′ (4,500m). It is shot with a Canon 7D and a Canon EF 28-300mm L lens at 28mm, ISO 1600, 30 seconds and f/3.5. I set the camera on a rock as I was without a tripod at this point. To start with, this isn’t that bad of a photo. The clouds are fairly well exposed and you can see the tents, lit up by my two partners. An electrical storm was brewing and I have many, many shots that did not come out while I waited for lightning strikes in the clouds. 30 seconds was about as long as I wanted to go so as to not streak the stars too much. I also wanted to give some sense of place and that is lost in the fact that the valley wall on the right is missing. All the edits were made in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, my preferred photo editor. The first steps where to remove some of the noise I know exists at ISO 1600 and brighten things up a bit. While this image was shot at +0 for Exposure Compensation, it is dark around the edges because of the brightness of the lightning and tents. I moved the Noise Reduction Luminance slider to +38 and Exposure to +1.35. Now the valley wall is more apparent and the huge boulder next to our tents as well. I then moved Clarity to +30 and Vibrance to +70. These had little affect but did add a small bit of definition around the tent and the clouds. Zooming in, I still found more noise than I wanted and raised the Luminance to a total of +76. Used the Highlight Recovery to help bring back some of the overblown clouds, but not much, bumping it up to +75. Saturation was given a slight increase to +18 and Contrast was moved to +45 which helped define the clouds more as well as the tents. I still didn’t like that the tents weren’t grounded. There was no real perspective to them. What were they standing on? We’re they just floating in space? To fix this I used the Adjustment Brush with at setting of Exposure +2.40. I then painted in the foreground as seen in the image below. That rendered just a bit of the spilled light from the tent cast out on the ground in front of them. In doing this, I also moved the Noise Reduction Color slider to +97 to remove just a small bit of red fringe on the tents. This is the final image as I enjoy it. It can use some final small tweaks here and there, but I don’t like spending a lot of time in front of the computer with those minor edits. This, to me, gives a feeling of place for the tents but also shows the majesty of the clouds coupled with the limitlessness of Space. Post from: Digital Photography School . . . → Read More: How I Shot And Edited It – Stars, Storm and Basecamp, Nepal  When you assemble a book template, diptych, triptych or collage in Photoshop (or other editing software), do you arrange them so they work together or do you just pop them in? In this post, I want to talk about the things to consider when assembling an attractive collection of images that can work together nicely. {Colours} You can compile images into a collage that aren’t necessarily from the same session or of the same topic. They can complement one another through the use of color schemes or even be edited to look similar even if they’re strikingly different for a quirky feel. The image below is taken from a vol25 album template with photography by Jen Johner . The images are so different yet work beautifully together in this collage: {Looking inward} I always make sure that my album pages and collages are compiled with the images looking inward. For the viewer, it can be very uncomfortable to see an album page where the subject is looking in a direction that falls off the edge of the page. For example, see the triptych below and you may agree that the boy’s gaze which goes outside of the collage (the right image) doesn’t feel right. He’s not engaged with the other images. At times, I will mirror images in Photoshop by selecting “edit > transform > flip horizontal” to keep all the images engaged with the center of the collage. {Leaning} Much like the example above, I love to use images that lean into one another. This gives the sense that they are engaging with one another and just small parts of the ‘big picture’ as it were. I love the example below where every image seems to be (ever so slightly) engaging with the other through body language: {Progress} I particularly love using Diptychs to communicate progression or movement. Especially when they are created using images that wouldn’t make much sense if viewed alone (as in the first example below). In the second, combining the two images gives the viewer the sense that the subject is walking towards them. As you can tell, I love combining images. But I also know when to display my strongest work alone as as not to crowd the image. Experiment with different methods for displaying images together to tell a story or convey an idea. You might just get hooked too! Post from: Digital Photography School . . . → Read More: 4 Concepts for Collages, Diptychs, Album Pages, etc. Weekly Assignment We finished up our Spot of Colour assignment this week. Using a spot of colour can have a big impact on where your eye travels in a photograph, especially though the use of bright or light colours. Our winners this week all successfully, and creatively, used a spot of colour in their photographs. Our winner this week was phillj blue bucket on the beach. This shot had a clear spot of colour, the composition was good with the way that the line of the water almost leads your eye right to the bucket, and overall it seemed to tell a story. Nicely done! Our first runner up was ttyler ’s “Don’t Push It”, the shot of the typewriter keys. That red really stands out nicely, and it creates a nice, simple, almost graphical shot. And last but not least was Shutterbugdeb ’s bright red lipstick. This shot was very nicely done, and very vivid. The red really stands out, and it’s clear that it’s not selectively coloured from the small amounts of colour elsewhere. It makes it very clear what colour is meant to stand out here. Well done everyone! Our newest assignment is Still Life: Food . For some of us, it’s a very dreary part of the year. It’s cold, the weather is less than ideal, and that can make it much more difficult to want to pick up the camera. But food still life shots are a great way to be creative without having to deal with the less than ideal weather. Food shots are a staple of still life photography. They can resemble the paintings of years past, or they might be the kind you would see in a cookbook, but either way, we want you to set up a food photo for this week’s assignment. As always, a quick reminder of the rules. First, your photo must have been taken between 19 January – 2 February 2011. Second, your post must include the words: “Still Life: Food” in order to show that that you have given your permission to be included in the contest, and the date that the photo was taken in order to show that it is eligible. Finally, your EXIF should be intact, and it’s useful if you can include some of the main points, such as camera, lens, aperture, ISO, shutter speed, etc. in the text of your post. Please limit yourself to one entry per person during the first week of the contest. Next week we will be looking at still life photos once again. But this time, our subject will be Still Life: Flowers . Flowers might seem like an overdone topic in photography, but we still photograph them. And as much as we love to photograph them, sometimes it is hard to get a good shot. Remember, this isn’t about taking a shot of your garden, this is a still life. So consider the design and placement of your subject, composition, and lighting. Good luck everyone! Post from: Digital Photography School . . . → Read More: This Week in the Digital Photography School Forums (23-29 Jan ‘11) I was shooting a wedding once and the father-of-the-bride ‘knew a lot about photography’. I was literally laughing out loud (trying so terribly hard to hold it in) when I would adjust the dials and hear him say over my shoulder “mmmm oh yes you’re probably changing the white balance hmmm?” And best of all, “if you’re really professional you shoot in raw.” Raw. It’s the ultimate test of someone’s acceptance of your status as a professional because it’s one of the first things that a mildly keen just-starting-out-er will pick up on in their search for photography knowledge. But even though it’s one of the first things you’ll likely learn, it’s also one of the most confusing elements for a beginner. I’m a control freak. I don’t want to work my butt off to pull every element of an image together and then lose control of my colour temp in post processing. I want to control everything about the final product. If it were possible, I would even come to every single one of your houses and calibrate the world’s computer screens to see things exactly the same. Before you can love raw, you have to understand it. {Basically…} If you’re shooting in jpeg and you hit the shutter to let all the beautiful light flood your sensor and record the image onto your memory card, the camera collects the information and quickly compresses it down into a reasonably sized file. It judges things like the colour of the sky and the temperature of the light. Even when you’ve taken the image in manual mode and set everything yourself, the jpeg still needs to make some decisions as it smooshes all that information into one little file. But if you shoot in raw, the sensor stays hands-off and says “ok, hot shot. YOU deal with it!” …this means that you have total, blissful control of your entire image. …but not without some work of your own. RAW files need to be imported into a computer program like Adobe Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw and then either instantly exported as jpegs (yikes!) …or perfected according to your vision for the image with editing and then exported as a jpg or other printer-friendly format. So just to make sure you get it I’ll say it this way: a raw file isn’t an image. It’s information gathered by the sensor and delivered to you on a memory card. It’s totally your job to then do what you want with that information before compressing it into an ‘image’. Also, a raw file won’t usually have included the in-camera sharpening that jpeg compression provides. So don’t fret when you think your image isn’t as sharp as it should be – this also needs to be done by you in the post production editing process. Here are some links to set you on your path to opening and utilizing your raw files: You can process your raws with Google’s free program called Picasa . This is an article about how to process raw files in Picasa and this is a list of supported file types. This article from Apple is FAQs about processing your raws in iPhoto Bridge is another option and also useful if you’re likely to be utilising many different Adobe programs from your computer. Exe: Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. It’s a base from which you can spring to any of these programs. If you’re only using PS, it’s not really necessary, although Helen Bradley has a great post on about the ways she thinks Bridge is useful . This is a tutorial written by me , before I learned how to make videos. Full of screen shots to show you how I import my files into Lightroom and export them out when I’m finished editing. This is the Wikipedia entry for ‘raw image format’ . Scroll down to ’software support’ and you’ll find a pretty huge list of software at your disposal for processing your raw files. Post from: Digital Photography School . . . → Read More: The Basics of RAW files {and what to do with the darn things} Image by FleeCircus This week your challenge is to take and share a photograph with that fits into the theme of ‘Beauty’ (inspired by Monica Marinez on our Facebook page). It’s a very broad theme and is one that is open to a lot of interpretation and creativity. Show us something that is beautiful to you, critique a ‘beautiful’ social norm, capture a beautiful landscape – the possibilities are endless – after all…. beauty is in the eye of the beholder (or beerholder as we used to say). Once you’ve taken your ‘Beauty’ photos – choose your best 1-2, upload them to your favourite photo sharing site either share a link to them even better – embed them in the comments using the our new tool to do so . If you tag your photos on Flickr, Twitter or other sites with Tagging tag them as #DPSBEAUTY to help others find them. Linking back to this page might also help others know what you’re doing so that they can share in the fun. Also – don’t forget to check out some of the great shots posted in last weeks Windows challenge – there were some great shots submitted. Post from: Digital Photography School . . . → Read More: Beauty: Weekly Photography Challenge  I think my heart must’ve skipped a little beat when I happened to catch that ‘edit in > photoshop’ option when I was first getting to know and love Lightroom. This was also the same time at which I was falling in love with layer editing, applying textures and other ways to fab up your photos in Photoshop. And even though LR doesn’t have all the capabilities of PS, you can have the best of both worlds with this feature. There’s a video below to actually show you how to use ‘edit in photoshop’ in LR3, but if you’re already pretty sure about what you’re doing in LR, here are the steps: Right click on your image and select ‘edit in > photoshop’. It will allow you to select from whatever PS version(s) you have installed, for example mine lets me choose PS4 or PSE. Your image will open in Photoshop. Now, these are very speed/space hogging programs. Your computer might not be configured to run both programs side-by-side but give it a go and see what happens! Edit away. When you’re done, just click ’save’ and then when you toggle back to LR, it’ll be there! Note: I’ve experimented a bit to see if there’s a way to do this and save on space by closing down LR as soon as the image opens in PS. It seems that you have to actually have both programs running side-by-side for the image to pop up when you toggle back into LR after the edit. Post from: Digital Photography School . . . → Read More: Using Lightroom’s ‘edit in photoshop’ feature  One thing that makes a great photo is its ability to convey emotion. Emotion in a photograph, or any work of art, is what helps a viewer connect with a piece if that emotion is prevalent in the viewer. Happiness and joy, sorrow and despair, these are some of the easier emotions as they are universally felt, at one time or another, by all on this planet. Emotion, or a feeling, is what can bring a snapshot out of obscurity and make it shine. Think of a normal sunset picture from the shores of Hawaii with just the horizon and a bright orange sun dipping low. It’s beautiful for sure and even better when viewed in person. Now pull the zoom back to a wider angle and show a couple in silhouette, sitting on lounge chairs facing the waves and reaching to each other to hold hands. Different people will connect with each photo in different ways, or maybe not at all. Those in a romanic mood will enjoy the photo of the couple and those looking for calm without distraction may enjoy the singular sunset. My point here is you can’t guess which mood people will be in when they view your work. Which is actually a good thing, because the photo should be your expression of what you see and feel through the viewfinder (unless you are attempting a neutrally biased photojournalistic stance). Here then are some tips to help convey emotion and feeling in photographs to help make a stronger connection with viewers. Realize What Type Of Mood You’re In While Shooting Your emotional state has the largest impact on the emotional quality of your photos. When I look back through travel photos I will often noticed a dip here and there in the number of photos taken on a particular day. The quality is also off and I can remember just what I was feeling that day. In most cases, I had that, “Just not feeling it today” blah that comes and goes for us all. And it shows in my work. Ok snapshots of mountains, but nothing to write home about. Other days I feel like the world is my oyster and I’m uncovering hidden gems left and right. It’s important to understand where you are and realize that will likely come through in your photography (while realizing just like anything in life, some people are really good at faking it). Give yourself a break on the down days and be sure to pick up your camera on the upswings. Just remember that neither lasts forever. Tighten The Shot Often a singular emotion gets lost in a busy scene. This goes for photos as well. Simplify the main subject of the image before hitting the shutter release. A wide angle view of a festival in the streets might show the size, which can be impressive in its own right, but the feel of that party is best conveyed on the faces of those dancing or performing in the crowd. Zero in on the action. It may tell the difference between a large crowd who is standing around, bored or a large crowd having the time of their lives. Focus On Faces This is a fairly straight forward bit of advice that may seem obvious, but many of us avoid people photographs when in a new situations with strangers. When possible, always ask permission before taking a picture of stranger, especially head on. Again, remember your mood will possibly influence theirs and if you are trying to capture them as naturally as can be (without being a sniper hiding in the shadows), keep your demeanor as neutral as can be. Simple raised eyebrows while pointing to your camera does work and it doesn’t require a huge smile on your part, as if you are asking your subject to smile back. Chances are they will convey what they wish. If life is hard, they likely won’t smile and their face will often tell the tale of their hardships. If they are joyous, or just young, you may get a beaming smile. And with any good portrait, remember to get sharp focus on the eyes. And share the results with your subject if you can. Set Your Camera Down And Observe I tend to get lambasted when I tell people to stop shooting and set the camera away, so this time I’ll simply tell you to put the camera down for a minute. Forget about shooting and just sit and observe. Your mood has a big part in what and how you shoot, but also realize that being a shooter in a situation often means you travel in a bubble. To break out of that bubble and absorb more from the world in which you are immersed, sit. And observe for 15 minutes. The mood of those around you will often become more apparent with this relaxed stance. Return If You Can If you are shooting a subject which you can return to, do it. The same street or beach or room will have a different feel on different days, especially if the weather changes often. And your mood can shift as well from day to day. Return to a location with an open mind for a second look and you may be surprised to find not only are the characters involved different, the feel of the place is different too. Conveying emotion in photography is a surefire way to help your work connect with those viewing it. It will help lift the quality of your work and give it more punch. Before you hit the shutter release next time, think to yourself, “What emotion am I trying to convey?” Post from: Digital Photography School . . . → Read More: Adding Emotion and Feeling To Photographs  If you’re getting a few of your photography friends together for a party, consider getting creative with the desserts with Pantone chip cookies. That’s what Kim Neill did and they turned out wonderfully. “The idea hit me when I came across these fab Pantone Chip Tins at Blick’s Art Supply,” writes Kim. “The cookies were a HUGE hit with all my clients and I’ve already received requests for refills.” She says that PMS 485, PMS 183 and Silver 877 went first. On her website, Kim Creative Star , Kim shows not only the results of her experiment in creating the themed cookies, but the process behind them and the recipe she used. . . . → Read More: Hosting a Party? Make Your Own Pantone Chip Cookies!  The advent of digital cameras initially caused, and is still responsible for, a tsunami of excitement. The excitement is enjoyed not so much for experienced photographers but for the vast numbers of people out there who just like photographs, not for their intrinsic value, but for what you can do with photos: embellish a coffee mug with shots of the family; dress up a calendar; personalize a mouse mat … the list goes on. Snapshot by LateNiteSoft is a fascinating piece of Mac software that addresses this need and gives the photo lover a tool to take personal images to a new level. It’s easy to use, relatively cheap — and a heap of fun to use. So, instead of sitting in front of a supermarket photo machine, you can now do many of the tricky tasks at your place with the home printer. It presents you with a work screen, onto which you can import your favourite photo. Once in view you can then embellish it with speech bubbles, insert text captions, then add borders to frame your image. The app gives you control over final print size, anywhere from 3 . . . → Read More: Snapshot Software Review [Mac] Promotions company Shoot Experience has announced the International Street Photography Awards. Launched in connection with the London Street Photography festival to be held for the first time between 7-17th July 2011, the competition is now open for entries. To participate, photographers need to submit 5-8 of their best street photography photos from past five years along with a . . . → Read More: International Street Photography Awards opens for entries  > Evidence No. 12. > View all Post updated at 6:00pm PST The view is often unremarkable: A gray, cinder-block apartment building with a bright red awning, perhaps, or a single-level suburban home in yellow brick with a double garage. Photographer Angela Strassheim has visited dozens of such addresses, knocking at the door and talking her way inside. The people she encounters often have no idea what’s gone on there before she comes around. Fascinated by crime scenes since childhood, and a former forensic crime lab technician, Strassheim uses techniques usually reserved for police forensics to unveil the hidden residues of violent murder. “As a child, when I would pass by a house where a violent and newsworthy death had recently occurred, I would stand there, close my eyes and try to imagine what took place,” writes Strassheim in her artist statement. Evidence is the latest of her many well-received portfolios dealing with family, mortality and latent menace. Strassheim was recently awarded the Women in Photography Lightside Individual Project Grant for her work. To make her images, Strassheim closes doors and curtains to reduce light in the rooms and then shoots long exposures of between 10 minutes and an hour. Using color film is a necessity, because the short-lived illumination of blood residues can only be captured on ISO 800 film. The images are then converted to black-and-white in digital post-production. “All around me I observe a glowing trail of bloodshed as swaths and constellations of light, helping me put together the pieces of a violent puzzle,” writes Strassheim. The bright spots in Strassheim’s images are temporary chemiluminescence reactions between the chemical reagent BlueStar and the heme molecule of blood still present on the walls. Applied as a fine mist, BlueStar reveals blood patterns on surfaces even after blood has been wiped away. Under ordinary lighting conditions, BlueStar reactions are invisible to the naked eye. Throughout the project, Calvin Jackson, CEO and owner of BlueStar, along with other CSI specialists offered guidance and advice. Feedback has been positive. “I have had a lot of support on this project,” said Strassheim by email. At more than 140 crimes scenes, Strassheim has negotiated access with new inhabitants of homes, motels and apartments — many of them unaware of the violent histories. Some crimes were as little as two months prior to her visit, and in other cases the crime occurred as far back as 18 years ago. Strassheim’s color exterior shots mimic “boring real-estate photography” and carry deadpan titles informing us of the weapons used in each crime. “Costco kitchen knives,” “Pitchfork” and “12-gauge shotgun” spur the imagination. Is the glowing splatter really all blood? Graham Jackson, visiting professor of forensic science at the University of Abertay in Dundee, Scotland, isn’t so sure. “One problem,” he says, “may be the time delay between the crime and Angela taking the photographs. What we are seeing in the photographs may not be patterns that were left at the time of the crime. I’m not convinced that all the apparent fluorescence is due to blood-staining. In fact, some of the fluorescence looks like extraneous light, and some of the fluorescent patterns are particularly weird if they are indeed blood.” It turns out that BlueStar reacts with peroxidase activity, which is not exclusive to blood. It’s exhibited by other materials, such as bleach and, according to Jackson, horseradish sauce. On the chemistry of Blue Star, Strassheim clarifies that the glow from these other materials fades more quickly than that from DNA, so she waits for their interfering luminance to die out before she starts her exposure. “Other substrates that react with Blue Star are metals such as light switches, vents, radiators,” says Strassheim by email, “however, when there is blood DNA left on a radiator – as seen in Evidence #1 for example – you can differentiate between the radiator and the DNA that glows brighter.” Due to the passage of time and the photographer’s unrepeated inspection, Evidence knowingly combines fact with interpretation. They are not presented as official images. “These photographs are about seeking out the truth,” says Strassheim. “However, I am not giving the stories to complete the process of fully imagining the event, so this body of work does play on the imagination.” All photos: Angela Strassheim . . . → Read More: Photographer Exposes Crime Scenes, With a Dash of Chemistry |
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