Pursuit of the Better SP ~ Part II

"Finally Smiling!"

So here we are with Part II of my quest for a better self portrait. With the inclusion of some very important tips, I was able to get a few images I felt good about. This is STILL not my favorite activity of all time but it was good for me to get a better handle on this particular subject. I'm including two of my favorites today.

Here's what went down....

Last week I said my basic approach was just playing with my settings and trying to get some over all good light. But let's face it, it was boring light. In order to get some interesting light with nice coverage, I took a moment to get an exposure that wasn't being affected by the ambient light in the room at all, so basically, my test shot result was a black screen. This is the only time that this is a good thing. But it was all about to change! Enter my speedlight and reflector/light panel. The flash was about to override any available light in the room and help me get better portraits. I placed my flash fairly close to my location, at half power and aimed/bounced it behind and up into my reflector. This disperses your flash light evenly and with better quality than just the flash aimed at the subject. (Do a little experiment next time with just flash and then flash diffused or bounced out towards the subject and see the difference in editing.) 

With my flash being controlled totally by the camera, it made it easy to change settings too instead of running over to the one and then the other. I had my reflector on a stand, clipped at an angle and positioned just in front and to the right of me. I positioned the camera at eye level, and quite close to create a more intimate portrait. Still using my 50mm prime lens at a softer aperture of about 2.8 - 4.5 meant getting a depth of field with some drama. And the smaller the aperture, the more powerful the flash setting needed to be. Why? Because the light I ultimately wanted for the shot needed to break through the available light currently in the room. When I first learned this concept, flash photography really began to make sense to me as another type of artist's tool, and not something scary to overcome.

I did start out with the flash at it's maximum sync speed, but decided artistically that dialing it down to half created a light I liked.

At half power, I started to get very subtle soft shadows. This adds volume to the image and avoids looking harsh and flat. Later in processing, I used curves to ensure that there were also nice highlights to balance out the shadow areas without having too much contrast. Skin tones in portraits need to seem soft and clean. Save your edgy, clarified, high pass sharpening skills for more editorial or street photo type portraits. There's nothing worse than razor sharp wrinkles and features with deep contrasting lines within a classic portrait. What I did pay attention to in processing was the odd blemish, and the detail around the eyes. And I'm deathly opposed to making people look like wax figures with that often overused skin-softening tool. So just the make-over brush was used to even skin tones in the odd spot.

I've done one in B&W and one in color today... I may yet attempt to get a better B&W done. Am not sure if I like so many dark areas in the final one above. But it's much improved from last week's portrait and that was the point of this exercise. The moral of this pursuit? Everything takes practice, your flash is a wicked tool the minute you remove it from on top of your camera, and that if you truly want to know how many wrinkles you have, just smirk into a 50mm portrait lens.... you can count each and every one. Sigh.

"Yours Truly"

Thanks for following along on this journey not yet over, and have a

super Monday gang!

Full Sun & DOF ~ Telephoto Tuesday!

"Beauty and the Beast"

(1/100sec.@ F/8, ISO 200, 160mm fl, Exp.Comp+0.3, Center Weighted Metering)

Wouldn't you know it? I go out for a simple walk with my camera through Dundurn Castle's gardens and suddenly all cloud cover disappears. When I started out there was this wonderful gauzy cloud cover in the sky, perfect for shooting. Then the minute I stepped out of the car poof! All clouds ceased to exist and I'm left with direct hard light in full sun.

SIGH.

We all know there's a few things we can do to work with light like that. Let shadow and contrast become your subject matter instead, or bring along a ton of reflectors, flash, scrims, anything to battle the light. But this was supposed to be a simple walk for a few garden shots in a historical location. My first inclination? Find the shade!

Around the very edges of the property was a little shade. So I had resigned myself to slim pickings in the way of evenly lit subjects. Till I looked through my view finder.... and saw the sun light in the background! Rich, bright light, that if metered correctly would be a magical foil for anything in the shade. I wouldn't have to resort to full shade after all! But here was the key. I had to use a lens that would allow me to shoot the scene with a softer Depth of Field. I needed a sharp foreground, to isolate my subject (which at this point were these lovely whimsical tiny lilies being buzzed about by busy insects almost as big as they were) but enough compression that a sharp aperture like F/8 would still blur out the sunny distant garden behind. "Hello my sweet little telephoto zoom."

Yes, I could have done some picky post editing and blurred my own background later... but when you can get it done in the camera first, why would you even consider it? I got down close to the ground, kept my subject only in the shade, and moved till the distant row of plants was illuminated behind my target. The farther away the rest of the scene, the better your soft DOF results. But you guys know that. I metered for the subject only and let the scene fill with light. Yellow and gold foliage in the distance kept it from looking blown out, unlike if I had included sky. I got a few snaps off of just the flower, but this was my favorite. The hornet landed just as I pressed the shutter, and his wing position makes him look like he's mimicking the petal shapes... and the one leg dangling off the edge? Priceless.

I couldn't wait to share this image today! And the reminder that full sun and a shallow DOF using a pretty backdrop makes for a magical image without stressing over hard light. So let the clouds come or go! Who needs 'em? Just find a teeny bit of shade and the rest is good to go!

Thanks for the ramble gang! Have a super day!

Creativity ~ Telephoto Tuesday!

"Brilliant Gerbera"

Freedom to be creative. That's what getting my first DSLR a few years back meant to me. My original camera, a point n' shoot, would be considered a dinosaur now. And it was restricting. I would get all these photography books out of the library that would talk about bokeh, aperture, depth of field. And quickly figured out that my tiny little digital couldn't offer me any of that. Point n' shoots have come a long way since then, but I knew when I held my first DSLR that I now had the power to be creative.

To this day I love the deliberate use of a wide open F-stop. Soft shapes with very selective detail, a single subject with a twinkling bokeh as the backdrop. A large aperture on my telephoto as close to a subject as it will let me get (in the case of the posted photographs today an F/4.5) means I can use almost anything as a background. In the image above it was my dining room wall, in the following photo it was a rather abstract oil painting I produced a few years ago. Anything that would contrast nicely with the reds.

"Come Away With Me"

I guess what I needed to remember this week, is how easy it is to play with settings in your camera and create some dramatic photos out of simple ideas. Some great light and a shallow aperture are sometimes all you need. Watch your meter carefully, and away you go. I'm amazed at the amount of people who never leave the comforts of automatic. But a few simple basics and you'll be on your way to learning what your camera really can do for you. And then how to creatively express yourself. I myself have gotten away from doing some close-up work... so I think I'll take the next couple of weeks to find some inspirational subjects to zero in on.

Personal projects! Let's get creative! Thanks for the ramble folks! Have a super day, and get out there with your cameras... in manual for a change!

Star Burst ~ Exploration Thursday!

"Afternoon Entrance"

(1/100 sec.@ F/10, 20mm fl, ISO 160, 18-55mm kit zoom, handheld, shade)

Thought I'd post an image from one of my most favorite locations, Dundurn Castle. But because it's Thursday, I knew it had to be something with a unique element. So I chose a new one I had yet to edit till now. However, I wanted to post this because this past year I realized I hadn't experimented much with star bursts.

The norm for clear blue skies and easier exposure for a landscape is to pop a nice filter on your lens (or later in PS) and shoot away with the sun behind or beside you... except when you want a star burst effect. Then you must shoot into the sun. Then the trick becomes 'what can I use to naturally filter the sun light'. And not too much, but something to block just enough of the actual sun so that it spills out from behind the obstacle. I've discovered it takes some practice, and usually a smaller aperture than normal. I start at an F/10 and go from there... sometimes stopped down to an F/16. The smaller the aperture, the more prominent the beams of light are as they're forced to reach through the narrow aperture to get to the sensor.

Obviously the weather conditions and time of day will effect what you get. This was late morning in early November. No haze in the sky, very bright out, and low enough for it to sit tucked behind most foliage if I got down low to the ground. The other trick is to avoid compromising your composition as you attempt to get the sun to peak through at just the right spot. I liked the POV I had approaching the arch that leads to the front of the historical property, and was determined not to sacrifice the large tree in the foreground if I could help it. It took some time and some angling and hoping the trees would stop swaying in the slight breeze. But I got it.

For more tips on star bursts check out this article.

Thanks for the ramble folks, have a good one eh!

Still Learning!

"DeGroote School of Medicine"

At the start of January I made a conscious decision to take myself back to school as it were, to read, dig through various learning sites, and tweak all the areas of my photography AND small business skills that are in desperate need of tweaking if I'm ever going to expand my horizons as a serious photographer. I am even now on the lookout for a couple of specific night classes or workshops to hone two areas that have always intimidated me. I knew I had two choices. I could waffle around and learn what works and what doesn't by accident, or I could take the bull by the horns and make a serious effort to be the photographer I know I can be. Anyone out there know anything about bulls before I step into the proverbial ring?

Part of this learning process has brought me back to older, earlier photo files. Specifically images that on the whole would be considered very successful if only I hadn't ______ (pick any flaw here). Now, this isn't dwelling on the negative just for the heck of it. This is being realistic about whether I have been growing, learning, and improving since then. This is about taking stock and figuring out where I'm still struggling. I must admit, doing this very simple step has been enlightening. And it's not as awful as I thought, since being real about my weaknesses has strengthened my resolve to start getting it right. And not by fluke. Although I too love a good "happy accident" where everything comes together in the lens despite my disjointed efforts.

The image above is a reworked version of one I took two years ago, on a photo walk with the Hamilton Flickr Group on the McMaster University campus. This may have been one of my first attempts at night photography from back then. I was able today to correct the distorted perspective gotten from my wide angle, decrease the noise overall in editing, and sharpen it much better than in the original. (And even now it's not that sharp, lol) With this first attempt reworked I can still see where I went wrong. I had paid no attention to my aperture (sitting at F/5 if you can believe it) which meant  lost clarity as the building faded into the background, and since I had a tripod with me, should not have needed my ISO to be at 400 either, and wouldn't have needed to excessively reduce the grainy effect like I did to get it looking cleaner. I know now, to enable my remote shutter release so as to avoid touching the camera and avoid any camera movement whatsoever when using a slower exposure on tripod. And my speed would have been set to an ISO 100 to allow for more light, and less noise. I also have learned since that night, that you never walk away with one shot or composition, you keep shooting, you keep changing your angles, your point of view. Then I would have had more than one image to show from that part of the walk. (In fact, it's almost second nature to me today.) And all this is just grazing the surface. Man I was so green... and still am in so many areas.

We artistic types often times will move on to some new inspirational lesson, something that excites us, leaving the flops and failures in the foggy past where they can't squelch our enthusiasm. But after working on this image from the past, and isolating what went wrong AND what went right, I find myself deeply motivated and inspired. In fact, if I can convince my poor hubby to brave the -18 degree temps with me in Hamilton, Ontario tonight, I may go practice a bit, just because I can.

Thanks for letting me ramble on! And have a good one folks!