Abstract images in photography

September 22, 2008 By 5 Comments

I’m quite a big fan of abstract pho­tographs. I love the way these pho­tos engage the viewer in a game of “What is this? What is going on here? I’d be curi­ous to know if any­one can fig­ure out what’s going on in this image? and…do you like it?

Can you guess what this a photograph of?

Can you guess what this a pho­to­graph of?

Filed Under: Photographs, Photography blog entries Tagged With: ,

Presenting photography to galleries — Photography podcast #53

September 19, 2008 By 4 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #53 talks about how to present your pho­tog­ra­phy port­fo­lio to pho­tog­ra­phy gal­leries. There’s a right way and a wrong way to approach gal­leries with your work and this pod­cast offers up a few tips on what the right way is. One cru­cial tip that I’ll men­tion right here is to make SURE your work fits with what the gallery is show­ing. If it doesn’t, don’t waste your time and choose another gallery.

Links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Robert Miller gallery (New York) — Thanks Karl
Stephen Bul­ger gallery (Toronto) — Thanks Jes­sica
Bul­ger gallery port­fo­lio sub­mis­sion guidelines

Thanks as always to Benny who posted a blog com­ment about our last pod­cast and to Spriter who recently joined the photography.ca forum and posted a few times. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

If you are look­ing at this mate­r­ial on any other site except Photography.ca — Please hop on over to the Photography.ca blog and pod­cast and get this and other pho­tog­ra­phy info directly from the source. I Sub­scribe with iTunes I Sub­scribe via RSS feed I Sub­scribe with Google Reader I

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

Filed Under: Photography podcasts Tagged With: , , ,

Interview with Kevin Kubota — Photography podcast #52

September 16, 2008 By 4 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #52 fea­tures an inter­view with pho­tog­ra­pher Kevin Kub­ota. Kevin is prob­a­bly most well known for his pho­to­shop actions but he is also a wed­ding as well as a fine art pho­tog­ra­pher. In this inter­view we talk about Kevin’s work, his gear, and his work­flow. We also talk a bit about Pho­to­shop actions in gen­eral and dis­cuss if using them is cheating.

Here’s a quick snap­shot of Parc-Lafontaine where a lit­tle vis­i­tor came to say hi while I was record­ing the intro and con­clu­sion to this pod­cast. That’s right, my out­door sound stu­dio includes wildlife :)

Links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Kevin Kubota’s Actions
Assign­ment forum on Photography.ca
Adobe Pho­to­shop tuto­ri­als and work­flow
– http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/tutorials
– http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/video_workshop
– http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/cs3/pdfs/CS3_Web_Workflow_Guide.pdf

Thanks as always to Susan who posted a blog com­ment about our last pod­cast and to the fol­low­ing peo­ple that recently joined the photography.ca forum and posted a few times; pslove, Joe­Mezz, natal­iey­oung, nekken, bhvi­jayku­mar, ret, swee­t­o­bliv­ion, scale­speeder, mind­forge, bear, seal­hunter, Paula­Lynn, Wayne, reijo, fire209, Dwayne Oakes, trueart­spho­tog­ra­phy, BunD, easyp­ick­ings and Dis­rupt Stu­dios. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below.

If you wanted to review the pod­cast in Itunes it would be most appre­ci­ated. You’ll need to down­load Itunes for free and you can search for the pod­cast if you don’t know where it is. You can search the itunes store for pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast — pho­tog­ra­phy blog and you’ll see my name (Marko Kulik). You’ll see the icon with the word photography.ca and under that, you’ll see cus­tomer reviews with a link to post a review. It takes a few min­utes to do this (and you’ll need reg­is­ter for an apple ID) so I thank you in advance for tak­ing the time. If you know itunes well, you can also do a power search from the quick links menu on the front page of the Itunes store and it will be faster.

If you are look­ing at this mate­r­ial on any other site except Photography.ca — Please hop on over to the Photography.ca blog and pod­cast and get this and other pho­tog­ra­phy info directly from the source. I Sub­scribe with iTunes I Sub­scribe via RSS feed I Sub­scribe with Google Reader I

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

Filed Under: Photography podcast Interviews, Photography podcasts, Photography tips, podcasting Tagged With: , , ,

Portrait from the Plateau — Julien Smith

September 15, 2008 By 5 Comments

I took this shot of my friend and fel­low podcaster/social media expert Julien Smith a few weeks ago in Parc Lafontaine in Mon­treal. Julien needed some promo shots and so we talked about what he wanted and took a vari­ety of shots in the ‘good light’. As I do with all my shoots, after giv­ing the client what they request, I always try a few shots of what I think ‘works’ for their look and per­son­al­ity even though it might not be their first instinct. Although there were many excel­lent shots from this shoot, this shot is my fave of the lot. I like this shot because Julien’s pose is very casual and the pose in the set­ting which I scouted before­hand :) has a teacher/guru like feel, which for me is in keep­ing with how I see Julien.

Portrait of Julien Smith

Por­trait of Julien Smith

On a tech­ni­cal note, Julien has wicked good eyes that reflect a lot of light so my fill flash was set to minus 3 stops lower than the ambi­ent light. The ISO was 400 shot at F2.8 at 1/250.

Filed Under: Photographs, Photography blog entries Tagged With: , ,

Cleaning camera lenses — cleaning cameras — Photography podcast #51

September 1, 2008 By 2 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #51 talks about how to clean the out­side of your cam­era, your cam­era lenses and the inside of your cam­era. I also share some tips on avoid­ing all this dirt in the first place. Spe­cial thanks to Kate from our pho­tog­ra­phy forum who sug­gested this podcast.

NOTE: When I talk about UV lenses I’m actu­ally refer­ring to a screw on UV fil­ters. My bad.

Links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Kodak lens cleaner
Zeiss clean­ing fluid

Thanks as always to Rifter, Susan, Jon, LanceJ, and scorpio_e, Begin­ner, candyman123, trot­ters, Nata­nis and dclark‚ for recent com­ments and sug­ges­tions. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below.

If you are look­ing at this mate­r­ial on any other site except Photography.ca — Please hop on over to the Photography.ca blog and pod­cast and get this and other pho­tog­ra­phy info directly from the source. I Sub­scribe with iTunes I Sub­scribe via RSS feed I Sub­scribe with Google Reader I

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

Filed Under: Photography podcasts, Photography tips, podcasting Tagged With: , ,

Portrait from the Plateau — Best Friends in Lafontaine Park

August 31, 2008 By Leave a Comment

I shot this just yes­ter­day in Parc Lafontaine in Mon­treal. It was about 1 hour before sun­down and these boys were on a rock feed­ing, play­ing with the ducks and just chat­ting. I LOVE time­less feel­ing shots and I was cap­ti­vated by the scene, their pose and the fad­ing light.

Most times these types of sil­hou­ette shots are a result of error because the pho­tog­ra­pher wanted the main sub­ject to be well lit and the result is the under­ex­po­sure of the main sub­ject due to back light­ing. Not here.
For me the whole scene was the main sub­ject and so I delib­er­ately kept my flash off even though it was already mounted to my cam­era and ready to add as much light as I wanted to the boys. I did add a hint of extra light in the post-processing by dodg­ing the boys’ faces.

Exif data -‚ F4‚ — 1/500‚ — ISO 200 — 50mm focal length

Filed Under: Photographs, Photography blog entries

Photography tips (recap) — Photography podcast #50

August 18, 2008 By 5 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #50 recaps many of the pho­tog­ra­phy tips talked about in the past 49 pho­tog­ra­phy pod­casts. Here are some quick tips talked about in this pod­cast cho­sen from pre­vi­ous photo pod­casts; Watch­ing the back­ground — depth of field — fill flash — expo­sure in pho­tog­ra­phy — paint­ing with light — fram­ing your sub­ject — inten­tional blur — polar­iz­ing and neu­tral grad fil­ters — dig­i­tal in cam­era fil­ters — pat­terns — lead­ing lines — the rule of thirds in pho­tog­ra­phy — delib­er­ate under­ex­po­sure — shutter-speeds - using shad­ows cre­atively — wide angle lenses — pos­ing mod­els — using reflec­tors — stu­dio setups for begin­ners — cheap macro pho­tog­ra­phy — one light por­traits — low-light pho­tog­ra­phy — using his­tograms — your rights as a pho­tog­ra­pher — sim­ple back light­ing out­doors — bright­ness and other dis­trac­tions — pho­tograph­ing babies — dodg­ing and burn­ing in pho­tog­ra­phy.

I’d also like to thank Las­zlo, Dominic Fuiz­zotto, Dita Kubin, Ann Dahlgren, Raphael Gold­chain, Vicky Reed, Jolene Mon­heim and Andre Nan­tel for the infor­ma­tive inter­views that they let me record with them. More inter­views are already sched­uled for future podcasts.

Here’s a quick snap­shot of a small part of Parc-Lafontaine where I have been recently record­ing these podcasts.

Thanks as always to Lan­don, Benny, San­dra 543, Man­a­ma­rak, Clau­dia regina, destruc­tivemi­crowave, ratio, kath­leen, taffy, kiddo, dag, trhoads, megster85, langdon9720, Richard Annable, kate and Ash­muddy for recent com­ments and sug­ges­tions. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below.

If you wanted to review the pod­cast in Itunes it would be most appre­ci­ated. You’ll need to down­load Itunes for free and you can search for the pod­cast if you don’t know where it is. You can search the itunes store for pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast — pho­tog­ra­phy blog and you’ll see my name (Marko Kulik). You’ll see the icon with the word photography.ca and under that, you’ll see cus­tomer reviews with a link to post a review. It takes a few min­utes to do this (and you’ll need reg­is­ter for an apple ID) so I thank you in advance for tak­ing the time. If you know itunes well, you can also do a power search from the quick links menu on the front page of the Itunes store and it will be faster.

If you are look­ing at this mate­r­ial on any other site except Photography.ca — Please hop on over to the Photography.ca blog and pod­cast and get this and other pho­tog­ra­phy info directly from the source. I Sub­scribe with iTunes I Sub­scribe via RSS feed I Sub­scribe with Google Reader I

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

Filed Under: Photography podcasts, Photography tips Tagged With: , ,

Podcast # 50 to be released on Monday

August 15, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Wow — hard to believe it but we are com­ing up on episode #50!!!! This makes me so happy and we plan to release our 50th episode on Mon­day. This episode will be full of pho­tog­ra­phy tips so please stay tuned!!!

I’d like to thank all of the lis­ten­ers and con­trib­u­tors and inter­vie­wees, and the many many peo­ple that have sent in thank­ful, encour­ag­ing and con­struc­tive com­ments via the blog — forum and through email. I do this pod­cast for the love of pho­tog­ra­phy and for the of love of teach­ing but it really helps when there is a fan­tas­tic com­mu­nity behind you!
I hope to record the next 50 shows with your help­ful com­ments and suggestions.

Many thanks in advance!
Marko

Filed Under: Photography blog entries

SPCA dog-wash photo

August 8, 2008 By 4 Comments

Last Sun­day I pho­tographed many dogs at the SPCA dog-wash fund rais­ing event here in Mon­treal. It was a cloudy over­cast day and it rained for part of the event. Even so, the SPCA was able to raise $3500.00 dol­lars which is amaz­ing. Of course as pho­tog­ra­phers we know that cloudy skies make for excel­lent por­traits. Here’s 1 of my favourite shots from the day. If you’d like to see many of the other shots you can see them in a thread on the forum on Pets.ca.

Filed Under: Photographs, Photography tips Tagged With: ,

Dodging and burning in photography — Photography podcast #49

July 31, 2008 By 9 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #49 dis­cusses dodg­ing and burn­ing your pho­tographs. Dodg­ing means mak­ing parts of a photo lighter and burn­ing in makes parts of your pho­to­graph darker. Almost ALL pho­tographs require some dodg­ing and burn­ing. The images below by Yise­haq are great exam­ples. Look how much more alive image 2 looks after some dodg­ing and burning.

In terms of the actual tech­niques used to dodge and burn a photo you can try this one if you have Pho­to­shop. Cre­ate a new layer and set your blend­ing mode to soft-light or over­lay. Use an opac­ity of around 4–15%. Use a SOFT paint brush with these set­tings. To burn (darken) use black as the fore­ground colour in the palette. To dodge (lighten) use white as the fore­ground colour.

This pod­cast was inspired by Yise­haq a mem­ber of our pho­tog­ra­phy forum. Feel free to join — it’s fun and free! This pod­cast was recorded in a park. Please let me know if you found the ambi­ent noises too distracting.

Many thanks to Yise­haq for let­ting me use the above images of the Blue Nile as a teach­ing tool!

Post edited August 18 2008 — Adding 2 of my own images to fur­ther illus­trate the dif­fer­ence between the image after it comes out of the cam­era ver­sus the dodged and burned result. The result looks much live­lier and the main rea­son is the local dodg­ing and burn­ing. These are of the grand canyon and they are the same images from the pod­cast on delib­er­ately under­ex­pos­ing your images.

deliberate underexposure podcast
Image 1 of the Grand Canyon (leveling/quick colour balance)


Image 2 — after includ­ing quite a bit of dodg­ing and burn­ing and a quick sharpen.
After a while you’ll learn to see the poten­tial tones just wait­ing to come out.

Links/topics men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Orig­i­nal thread with Yisehaq’s images and com­ments
Photo assign­ment forum on Photography.ca

Thanks as always to Benoitc23, Benny and DeSte­fanoPho­tog­ra­phy for recent com­ments and sug­ges­tions. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below.

If you are look­ing at this mate­r­ial on any other site except Photography.ca — Please hop on over to the Photography.ca blog and pod­cast and get this and other pho­tog­ra­phy info directly from the source. I Sub­scribe with iTunes I Sub­scribe via RSS feed I Sub­scribe with Google Reader I

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

Filed Under: Photographs, Photography podcasts, podcasting Tagged With: , , , ,

Portrait from the Plateau — Sunday in the Park

July 28, 2008 By 2 Comments

One of the many amaz­ing aspects of Mon­treal is the reg­u­lar gath­er­ing of dif­fer­ent peo­ple to enjoy what­ever is going on. Sun­day in the Park (at Mount Royal) has been a tra­di­tion for over 10 years. Hun­dreds (some­times thou­sands) of peo­ple get together and play drums, dance, jug­gle, imbibe, play fris­bee etc. The girl in this pho­to­graph (I HAVE to start ask­ing names) looked so peace­ful prac­tic­ing her art that I HAD to take this photo — I asked first though.
Exif data — F-4.0 1/250 ISO 100

Filed Under: Photographs, Photography blog entries Tagged With: , , ,

Portrait from the Plateau

July 26, 2008 By 3 Comments

I recently moved into one of the best parts of Mon­treal called Plateau Mont –Royal AKA The Plateau or Le Plateau. There are so many inter­est­ing peo­ple in this bustling and artsy part of town that I think I may start a new series of casual ‘street’ por­traits just for fun.

Yes­ter­day as I walked through my new favourite loca­tion (Parc Lafontaine), I spot­ted 2 lovers in a ham­mock and asked if I could take their por­trait. They agreed and I think I cap­tured the feel­ings they have for one another. This was shot at about 6pm with no flash or reflec­tor, only ambi­ent light.

Filed Under: Photographs, Photography blog entries Tagged With: , , , , ,
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