137 — 5 Photography Resolutions For the New year

December 31, 2016 By 3 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #137 finally returns to offer up 5 real­is­tic pho­tog­ra­phy res­o­lu­tions that we can make for the upcom­ing year. Happy New year Everyone!!!

Click the player at the end of this post to lis­ten to or down­load this (almost)10 minute podcast.

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If you are still lurk­ing on our forum,
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Thanks for all the sup­port emails and wel­come to all the new mem­bers of the photography.ca forum!

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. |Sub­scribe with iTunes|Sub­scribe via RSS feed |Sub­scribe for free to the Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast — Photography.ca and get all the posts/podcasts by Email

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

Thanks for lis­ten­ing and keep on shooting!!

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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

136 — Lube up your Old Filters

July 31, 2015 By Leave a Comment

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #136 talks about cre­at­ing dreamy images by plac­ing Vase­line or petro­leum jelly on an old UV fil­ter attached to your lens. By doing this you are often able to cre­ate dreamy, impres­sion­is­tic images. The pro­ce­dure is sim­ple; take an OLD UV fil­ter (because remov­ing the vase­line from the fil­ter after use might dam­age its coat­ing) and screw it onto a lens. Then place a wee bit of petro­leum jelly (just a bit goes a long way) on your fin­ger and apply it to the front of the UV fil­ter. Take a few images and see what you get. Play with the level and posi­tion of the blur by remov­ing some Vase­line or mov­ing it around with your finger.

It goes with­out say­ing that you need to do this care­fully so as not to allow the Vase­line to touch your cam­era or lens. The Vase­line should only be on the front of the fil­ter. When you’re done shoot­ing, remove the fil­ter imme­di­ately and place it in a plas­tic bag. Then clean it (I just used reg­u­lar dish soap) when you get home. If you have a few wet wipes along with a dry cloth (to thor­oughly wipe your fin­ger between mov­ing the vase­line around and touch­ing the shut­ter release but­ton) and an extra plas­tic bag or two, you should have no prob­lem doing this.

Feel free to add to the con­ver­sa­tion by leav­ing a com­ment or sharing/liking this post in some way.

Click the player at the end of this post to lis­ten to (or down­load) this 9.5 minute podcast.

Here are some of the pho­tographs I was able to make with this technique;

 

Crossing Ducks - Lafontaine Park Montreal

Cross­ing Ducks — Lafontaine Park Mon­treal — Image shot with a 50mm lens using a UV fil­ter coated with petro­leum jelly

 

 

 

Dreamy Carmy - Laurier Park Montreal

Dreamy Carmy — Lau­rier Park Mon­treal — Vase­line in front of an old polar­iz­ing filter

 

 

 

Lily pads - Centre de la Nature - Laval, QC.

Lily pads — In this series of images I took a straight shot and then 2 vase­line shots over the UV fil­ter. You can see how com­pletely dif­fer­ent the 2 vase­line images look from one another. This dif­fer­ence is sim­ply due to the quan­tity and position/pattern of the Vase­line on the filter

 

Links /resources men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Exhi­bi­tion and Film on Impres­sion­ism and Pho­tog­ra­phy (Lorin’s com­ment from pod­cast 135)
Pic­to­r­ial Com­po­si­tion and the Crit­i­cal Judge­ment of Pic­tures by Henry Rankin Poore

If you liked this pod­cast and want to review it on Itunes, this link gets you to the main page

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If you are still lurk­ing on our forum,
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Although ALL com­ments are appre­ci­ated, com­ment­ing directly in this blog is pre­ferred — Thanks Lorin Duck­man, Dave John­son and Jane Chese­brough! Thanks for all the sup­port emails and wel­come to all the new mem­bers of the photography.ca forum!

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. |Sub­scribe with iTunes|Sub­scribe via RSS feed |Sub­scribe for free to the Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast — Photography.ca and get all the posts/podcasts by Email

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

Thanks for lis­ten­ing and keep on shooting!

 

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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

135 — Photographers — Get Thee To a Museum

June 25, 2015 By 6 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #135 dis­cusses how going to muse­ums to study painters and paint­ings can improve your pho­tog­ra­phy. After all, both paint­ing and pho­tog­ra­phy are 2D media try­ing to rep­re­sent a 3D world. When pho­tog­ra­phers study the com­po­si­tional and light­ing tech­niques used by paint­ing mas­ters, their own pho­tographs often improve.

Feel free to add to the con­ver­sa­tion by leav­ing a com­ment or sharing/liking this post in some way.

Click the player at the end of this post to lis­ten to (or down­load) this 15 minute podcast.

Caravaggio - The Conversion on the way to Damascus - 1601

Car­avag­gio — The Con­ver­sion on the way to Dam­as­cus — 1601
Look how the scene and the sub­jects’ faces are lit, look at the ges­tures of the sub­jects and the over­all com­po­si­tion. Pho­tog­ra­phers can learn a lot from the mas­ter painters that lived long ago.

 

When it comes to light­ing por­traits in pho­tog­ra­phy, painters have been think­ing about the light­ing for their own sub­jects many hun­dreds of years before pho­tog­ra­phy was invented. Pho­tog­ra­phers can learn so much about light­ing by study­ing the great por­trait painters.

 

Rembrandt - Self-Portrait - 1630

Rem­brandt — Self-Portrait — 1630 — Rem­brandt is well known for his por­trait light­ing style. The tri­an­gle of light on the darker side of the face is one of Rembrandt’s sig­na­tures. Pho­tog­ra­phers love this light­ing tech­nique and it has become a basic por­trait light­ing style in photography.

 

 

Rembrandt - Jacob Blessing the Children of Joseph 1656

Rem­brandt — Jacob Bless­ing the Chil­dren of Joseph 1656 — Lovely light­ing, great ges­tures and inter­est­ing com­po­si­tions work well in pho­tog­ra­phy as well as in painting.

 

When it comes to pho­tograph­ing moun­tains and other land­scapes, pho­tog­ra­phers often zoom right into them as their first instinct and of course that’s a good thing to do for a shot or two, but then what? By study­ing the com­po­si­tional tech­niques of land­scape painters, we see that they often include lots of ele­ments that com­pli­ment the main focal point in their images.

 

A.Y. Jackson - Winter Charlevoix County - 1932-33

A.Y. Jack­son — Win­ter Charlevoix County — 1932–33  - We can see that this paint­ing has a moun­tain in the back­ground. But it’s the way that Jack­son ties in the fore­ground and midground with their visu­ally inter­est­ing ele­ments that help make this land­scape paint­ing interesting.

 

Links /resources men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Out­line of paint­ing his­tory
Car­avag­gio
Rem­brandt
A. Y. Jack­son
Group of Seven (artists)

If you liked this pod­cast and want to review it on Itunes, this link gets you to the main page

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If you are still lurk­ing on our forum,
feel free to join our friendly :)  Pho­tog­ra­phy forum

Although ALL com­ments are appre­ci­ated, com­ment­ing directly in this blog is pre­ferred. Thanks for all the sup­port emails and wel­come to all the new mem­bers of the photography.ca forum!

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. |Sub­scribe with iTunes|Sub­scribe via RSS feed |Sub­scribe for free to the Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast — Photography.ca and get all the posts/podcasts by Email

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

Thanks for lis­ten­ing and keep on shooting!

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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

Photo Backup Strategy While Travelling

May 22, 2015 By 2 Comments

Hi there pho­tog­ra­phy lovers!

It’s been a while since my last post and pod­cast and  I hope to make up for it– shortly.
I’m lucky enough to be trav­el­ling on a pho­tog­ra­phy hol­i­day right now (I’m in Prague, CZ) and because this is a photo hol­i­day, the pho­tographs I am tak­ing are pre­cious and irre­place­able. I’d like to think that most seri­ous pho­tog­ra­phers feel the same way and so I thought I’d share my photo backup strat­egy while trav­el­ling. 

Bubbles, Kids and the Tyn Church - Prague CZ

Bub­bles, Kids and the Tyn Church — Prague CZ

Let me say up front that I am not upload­ing my RAW files to ‘the cloud’ — because upload­ing huge files (30 megs per file in my case) only works well when you have a super fast con­nec­tion and a fast com­puter. Even then, it can take a looooong time to upload 50–100 files. So far I have been to Lon­don, Paris, Ams­ter­dam and Prague. The wifi con­nec­tions, on aver­age, have been spotty every­where I have been. (I’ve been using qual­ity airbnb’s but so far my wifi has never ever been flaw­less). There­fore, upload­ing is out of the ques­tion and I’m basi­cally going old school.

Here’s my sim­ple method; The mem­ory cards that hold the files (I brought 4 cards of 32 GB each) NEVER leave my sight. They are with me 100% of the time and eas­ily fit into my pocket at all times when not inside my cam­era at my side. When my cam­era is not by my side, the cards are removed and go in my pocket.

In addi­tion, I backup those files to a small portable West­ern Dig­i­tal 2GB drive that I pur­chased for 79 dol­lars before I left. It’s around the size of a pack of 25 cig­a­rettes. Then I usu­ally hide that drive some­where in the room I’m stay­ing. This method is quite fast and effi­cient and it makes me feel safe. There would have to be 2 cat­a­stro­phes for me to lose my data.

One last thing to note — You need a decent lap­top com­puter to do this kind of thing. Tablets and Ipads are pure JUNK for photo editing.

If any­one has addi­tional sug­ges­tions to share — I’d love to hear them. Thanks and many more pics to fol­low when I return.
Filed Under: Photographs, Photography blog entries, Photography tips Tagged With:

134 — Finding Your Unique Photography style — Interview with Bret Culp

January 8, 2015 By 5 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #134 fea­tures an inter­view with Toronto, Ontario fine art pho­tog­ra­pher Bret Culp. Dur­ing the inter­view we talk about find­ing and devel­op­ing your own pho­tog­ra­phy or shoot­ing style. Bret offers up some prac­ti­cal tips on how to make this process easier.

Feel free to add to the con­ver­sa­tion by leav­ing a com­ment or sharing/liking this post in some way.

Thanks to The Cam­era Store (The largest cam­era store in Cal­gary, Alberta, Canada)  for spon­sor­ing the Photography.ca podcast.

Click the player at the end of this post to lis­ten to (or down­load) the 30ish minute podcast.

Monolith, The face of Half Dome by Ansel Adams

Mono­lith, The face of Half Dome (1927) by Ansel Adams

 

Clearing Winter Storm (1938) by Ansel Adams

Clear­ing Win­ter Storm (1938) by Ansel Adams

 

The Dark Hedges, Antrim, Northern Ireland, 2011 by Bret Culp

The Dark Hedges, Antrim, North­ern Ire­land, 2011 by Bret Culp

 

Dunluce Castle, Antrim, Northern Ireland, 2012 by Bret Culp

Dun­luce Cas­tle, Antrim, North­ern Ire­land, 2012 by Bret Culp

 

Bret shares his own Artist State­ment on his Irish port­fo­lio just to give listeners/readers an exam­ple on how devel­op­ing an Artist State­ment can focus :) you.

Irish Port­fo­lio Artist Statement

“The mythic Irish land­scape and its peo­ple have had a pro­found impact on one another. The Celts saw the land as a liv­ing source of wis­dom, beauty and trans­for­ma­tive spir­i­tual power. Among the first to believe in the eter­nal nature of the human spirit they con­structed mon­u­ments to death, rebirth and the cycles of the sea­sons and stars. Cas­tles, fortresses and ruins are evi­dence of untold inva­sions and con­flicts through­out a tumul­tuous his­tory. These ves­tiges of the past con­tinue to res­onate through the coun­try­side today. Beau­ti­fully poignant in the process of decay they tell their own story and pos­sess their own mor­tal­ity. Noth­ing that belongs to the earth is ever free from it. The sacred con­nec­tion between the land­scape of Ire­land and its peo­ple has not dis­ap­peared over the cen­turies.” —Bret Culp

Over­all Body Of Work State­ment

“The tran­si­tory nature of exis­tence binds every­thing in the mate­r­ial world. Care­ful obser­va­tion reveals the beauty within each fleet­ing moment.” —Bret Culp

Links /resources men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Bret Culp’s Irish Port­fo­lio
Ignore Every­body: and 39 Other Keys to Cre­ativ­ity by Hugh MacLeod

If you liked this pod­cast and want to review it on Itunes, this link gets you to the main page

Please join the Photography.ca fan page on Facebook

My Face­book pro­file — Feel free to “friend” me — please just men­tion Photography.ca
My Twit­ter page — I will fol­low you if you fol­low me — Let’s con­nect — PLEASE email me and tell me who you are in case I don’t rec­i­p­ro­cate because I think you are a spammer.

If you are still lurk­ing on our forum,
feel free to join our friendly :)  Pho­tog­ra­phy forum

Although ALL com­ments are appre­ci­ated, com­ment­ing directly in this blog is pre­ferred. Many thanks to Tim Mackle and Ruth M for their com­ments from the last pod­cast. Thanks as well for the emails and wel­come to all the new mem­bers of the photography.ca forum!

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. |Sub­scribe with iTunes|Sub­scribe via RSS feed |Sub­scribe for free to the Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast — Photography.ca and get all the posts/podcasts by Email

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

Thanks for lis­ten­ing and keep on shooting!

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

Filed Under: Photographs, Photography podcast Interviews, Photography podcasts, Photography tips

133 — Essential Camera Features — Interview with Royce Howland

December 22, 2014 By 2 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #133 fea­tures an inter­view with Cana­dian fine art pho­tog­ra­pher Royce How­land. Dur­ing the inter­view we dis­cuss what cam­era fea­tures we think are essen­tial. There are loads of extra bells and whis­tles on cam­eras these days and even though both Royce and I have kick-butt cam­era gear, we ignore the major­ity of the new fea­tures and focus on the essen­tials. We also dis­cuss essen­tial cam­era modes and touch on essen­tial lenses.

Of course feel free to let us know if you feel we missed some­thing essential.

Thanks to The Cam­era Store (The largest cam­era store in Cal­gary, Alberta, Canada)  for spon­sor­ing the Photography.ca podcast.

Click the player at the end of this post to lis­ten to (or down­load) the 44ish minute podcast.

I Should Be So Industrious by Royce Howland

I Should Be So Indus­tri­ous by Royce Howland

 

Royce wanted to men­tion some­thing about this image because it relates to a cool fea­ture of some new screens on cameras.

“Some­thing we’re see­ing more com­monly, and the Pen­tax 645Z also has it, is a cam­era LCD that pops out with tilt or tilt-swivel move­ments so you can see it from dif­fer­ent angles. I think this idea is great.….

…This sea holly bloom and bees were about 18 inches off the ground. I wanted a shoot­ing angle of more or less straight across, rather than steeply down­wards or what­ever. That would have been very awk­ward (or even painful!) to shoot through the cam­era viewfinder, hav­ing to con­tort my neck, back, knees, etc. to work through the viewfinder for any length of time. Even using a nor­mal, non-moving LCD would have been a bit of a chal­lenge to see from above. Instead, I was able to put the cam­era on a sta­ble tri­pod, sit on a short 3-legged stool, and pop out the LCD to a com­fort­able angle that I could see just by look­ing down. No neck or back strain even though I pho­tographed from the low shoot­ing angle for about an hour.”

 

Nick Cave Osheaga 2014 by Marko Kulik - This high ISO image was made using aperture priority and I moved the focus points over the hand invading Nick's shirt. Moving those focus points is my favourite essential camera feature.

Nick Cave Osheaga 2014 by Marko Kulik — This high ISO image was made using aper­ture pri­or­ity and I moved the focus points over the hand invad­ing Nick’s shirt. Mov­ing those focus points is my favourite essen­tial cam­era feature.

 

Links /resources men­tioned in this podcast:

Royce Howland’s Pho­tog­ra­phy / work­shops
Tours-courses by Marko Kulik

If you liked this pod­cast and want to review it on Itunes, this link gets you to the main page

If you are inter­ested in writ­ing for our blog please con­tact me photography.ca ( A T ) G m ail Dot co m (using stan­dard email formatting)

Please join the Photography.ca fan page on Facebook

My Face­book pro­file — Feel free to “friend” me — please just men­tion Photography.ca
My Twit­ter page — I will fol­low you if you fol­low me — Let’s con­nect — PLEASE email me and tell me who you are in case I don’t rec­i­p­ro­cate because I think you are a spammer.

If you are still lurk­ing on our forum,
feel free to join our friendly :)  Pho­tog­ra­phy forum

Although ALL com­ments are appre­ci­ated, com­ment­ing directly in this blog is pre­ferred. Many thanks to San­dra Fos­ter for her com­ment from the last pod­cast. Thanks as well for the emails and wel­come to all the new mem­bers of the bul­letin board.

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. |Sub­scribe with iTunes|Sub­scribe via RSS feed |Sub­scribe for free to the Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast — Photography.ca and get all the posts/podcasts by Email

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

Thanks for lis­ten­ing and keep on shooting!

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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

131– The Lensbaby Composer Review

October 23, 2014 By 1 Comment

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #131 reviews a Lens­baby lens. Lens­baby lenses are spe­cial in that they have a sweet spot of sharp focus in the cen­ter of the lens and blur out toward the edges. In addi­tion to this (and where the magic truly lives), you can actu­ally bend the lens to move that sweet spot of focus around the frame. The par­tic­u­lar lens I tested was a 50mm Lens­baby Com­poser with dou­ble glass optic. It’s great fun and fairly easy to use though you need to know in advance that it’s a man­ual lens. It will still help you fig­ure out expo­sure based on your ISO and aper­ture ring you select, but you’ll be going old school and man­u­ally focus­ing this bad-boy. It’s worth it though as you can make some really cre­ative in-camera images with this lens. It’s a fab­u­lous lens to juice up your creativity.

Thanks to The Cam­era Store (The largest cam­era store in Cal­gary, Alberta, Canada)  for spon­sor­ing the Photography.ca pod­cast and for allow­ing me to test this lens.

Click the player at the end of this post to lis­ten to (or down­load) the 11ish minute podcast.

My hairless cat Baci with the Lensbaby Composer. Note his sharp central eye while everything else fades to blur

My hair­less cat Baci with the Lens­baby Com­poser. Note his sharp cen­tral eye while every­thing else fades to blur

 

Lensbaby Composer

 

This is an image of the Jacques-Cartier Bridge in Montreal, Quebec. It was very easy to see and capture this effect in camera.

This is an image of the Jacques-Cartier Bridge in Mon­treal, Que­bec. It was very easy to see and cap­ture this effect in camera.

 

This is an image of the Jacques-Cartier Bridge in Montreal, Quebec. Because the bridge was not centered in the lens, I had to physically move the sharp sweet spot of focus by actually bending the lens. This image took a little longer to compose.

An image of the Jacques-Cartier Bridge in Mon­treal, Que­bec. Because the bridge was not cen­tered in the lens, I had to phys­i­cally move the sharp sweet spot of focus by actu­ally bend­ing the lens and thus the image took longer to compose.

 

Norco Bicycle shot with the Lensbaby Composer

Norco Bicy­cle shot with the Lens­baby Composer

 

Links /resources men­tioned in this podcast:

Lens­baby Com­poser user guide
The Lens­baby Com­poser  and other Lens­ba­bies at The Cam­era Store
Tilt shift lenses for land­scape pho­tog­ra­phy
Lens­baby 3G review

If you liked this pod­cast and want to review it on Itunes, this link gets you to the main page

If you are inter­ested in writ­ing for our blog please con­tact me photography.ca ( A T ) G m ail Dot co m (using stan­dard email formatting)

Please join the Photography.ca fan page on Facebook

My Face­book pro­file — Feel free to “friend” me — please just men­tion Photography.ca
My Twit­ter page — I will fol­low you if you fol­low me — Let’s con­nect — PLEASE email me and tell me who you are in case I don’t rec­i­p­ro­cate because I think you are a spammer.

If you are still lurk­ing on our forum,
feel free to join our friendly :)  Pho­tog­ra­phy forum

Although ALL com­ments are appre­ci­ated, com­ment­ing directly in this blog is pre­ferred. Many thanks to Bare­foot, Troy Borque and Terry Babij for their com­ments from the last pod­cast. Thanks as well for the emails and wel­come to all the new mem­bers of the bul­letin board.

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. |Sub­scribe with iTunes|Sub­scribe via RSS feed |Sub­scribe for free to the Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast — Photography.ca and get all the posts/podcasts by Email

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

Thanks for lis­ten­ing and keep on shooting!

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

Filed Under: Photographs, Photography podcasts, Photography product reviews, Photography tips, podcasting Tagged With:

130 — The Big Stopper Filter Review

August 11, 2014 By 3 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #130 reviews the Big Stop­per by Lee fil­ters. The big stop­per is a 10 stop glass fil­ter that slows down shut­ter speeds in order to accen­tu­ate move­ment. Both clouds and water are clas­sic sub­jects for use with this fil­ter and the result­ing pho­tographs tend to be ethe­real and dreamy. Aside from review­ing the fil­ter, I offer up 6 tips on how to use it effectively.

Thanks to The Cam­era Store (The largest cam­era store in Cal­gary, Alberta, Canada)  for spon­sor­ing the Photography.ca podcast.

Click the player at the end of this post to lis­ten to (or down­load) the 18ish minute podcast.

This evening image of Rue Laurier in Montreal is a long exposure image using the big stopper. You can see movement in the clouds, and in the cars. The people look 'ghostlike' because they moved (somewhat) in place while waiting for the traffic light. Notice the traffic light has all 3 colours lit because the traffic light cycled during this 30 second exposure. Exif data - ISO 100 f/11 30 second shutter speed.

This evening image of Rue Lau­rier in Mon­treal is a long expo­sure image using the big stop­per. You can see move­ment in the clouds, and in the cars. The peo­ple look ‘ghost­like’ because they moved (some­what) in place while wait­ing for the traf­fic light. Notice the traf­fic light has all 3 colours lit because the traf­fic light cycled dur­ing this 30 sec­ond expo­sure. Exif data — ISO 100, f/11, 30 sec­ond shut­ter speed.

 

Fast moving water at Chutes Dorwin in Rawdon, QC. Canada. In the top image I used my lowest ISO (50) with my smallest aperture (f/32) and this yielded a shutter speed of .4 seconds. The water does look dreamy. But when I used the big stopper, I was able to get much slower shutter speeds and the lower image was exposed for 15 seconds. It's much dreamier and more ethereal looking. If you look at the top of the bottom image you can see where flare entered my camera. This is easily solved with a hat (or postprocessing).

Fast mov­ing water at Chutes Dor­win in Raw­don, QC. Canada. In the top image I used my low­est ISO (50) with my small­est aper­ture (f/32) and this yielded a shut­ter speed of .4 sec­onds. The water does look dreamy. But when I used the big stop­per, I was able to get much slower shut­ter speeds and the lower image was exposed for 15 sec­onds. It’s much dreamier and more ethe­real look­ing but the fil­ter must be used with care. If you look at the top of the bot­tom image you can see a rain­bow­ish arc and this where flare entered my cam­era. As dis­cussed in the pod­cast, this is eas­ily solved with a hat (or postprocessing).

 

Fountain at Parc Lafontaine in Montreal, QC., Canada - The slowest shutter speed I could get without a filter was 1/60 in this light. When I put the big stopper on, It extends the available shutter speeds big time. The image on the right was a 15 second exposure using the big stopper and look how dreamy the water looks.

Foun­tain at Parc Lafontaine in Mon­treal, QC., Canada — The slow­est shut­ter speed I could get with­out a fil­ter was 1/60 in this light. When I put the big stop­per on, It extends the avail­able shut­ter speeds big time. The image on the right was a 15 sec­ond expo­sure using the big stop­per and look how dreamy the water looks.

 

How the lee filter system works

How the Lee fil­ter sys­tem works

 

Links /resources men­tioned in this podcast:

Pod­cast 77 - On Neu­tral den­sity fil­ters and grad­u­ated neu­tral den­sity fil­ters
Pod­cast 84 - Back But­ton aut­o­fo­cus
The big stop­per at The Cam­era Store
Reg­u­lar forum assign­ment — Rep­e­ti­tion
Level 2 pho­tog­ra­phy assign­ment — Forced perspective

If you liked this pod­cast and want to review it on Itunes, this link gets you to the main page

If you are inter­ested in writ­ing for our blog please con­tact me photography.ca ( A T ) G m ail Dot co m (using stan­dard email formatting)

Please join the Photography.ca fan page on Facebook

My Face­book pro­file — Feel free to “friend” me — please just men­tion Photography.ca
My Twit­ter page — I will fol­low you if you fol­low me — Let’s con­nect — PLEASE email me and tell me who you are in case I don’t rec­i­p­ro­cate because I think you are a spammer.

If you are still lurk­ing on our forum,
feel free to join our friendly :)  Pho­tog­ra­phy forum

Although ALL com­ments are appre­ci­ated, com­ment­ing directly in this blog is preferred.

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. |Sub­scribe with iTunes|Sub­scribe via RSS feed |Sub­scribe for free to the Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast — Photography.ca and get all the posts/podcasts by Email

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

Thanks for lis­ten­ing and keep on shooting!

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

Filed Under: Photographs, Photography podcasts, Photography product reviews, Photography tips, podcasting Tagged With: , ,

129 — How to Photograph Strangers

July 7, 2014 By 1 Comment

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #129 talks about how to pho­to­graph strangers in pub­lic so that your images are stronger and more inter­est­ing. I offer up 4 easy tips on how to make this process eas­ier so that your shots have more punch at the end. These pho­tographs were mostly taken over a period of 1 week. In the pod­cast I dis­cuss the dif­fer­ences between when the sub­ject is aware and unaware of the photographer’s presence.

Thanks to The Cam­era Store (The largest cam­era store in Cal­gary, Alberta, Canada)  for spon­sor­ing the Photography.ca podcast.

Click the player at the end of this post to lis­ten to (or down­load) the 11ish minute podcast.

Tens of thousands of cyclists lining up to start the Tour de L'isle. All it took was me waving my hand, and cyclists did the same. There is much more engagement than if I had not waved my hand and all the cyclists were looking in random directions.

Tens of thou­sands of cyclists lin­ing up to start the Tour de L’isle. All it took was me wav­ing my hand, and cyclists did the same. There is much more engage­ment than if I had not waved my hand and all the cyclists were look­ing in ran­dom direc­tions. I was not an offi­cial pho­tog­ra­pher for the event. I had the same access as every­one else.

 

I shot Raphael Aubry from the band Waiting Game at the Montreal Jazzfest. I had the same access as everyone else. I just waited patiently for this moment of eye contact while I was framing the scene.

I shot Raphael Aubry from the band Wait­ing Game at the Mon­treal Jaz­zfest. I had the same access as every­one else. I just waited patiently for this moment of eye con­tact while I was fram­ing the scene.

 

Every Sunday in Montreal, thousands of people gather at Mont-Royale for drumming, dancing etc. This image has no eye contact, but a strong gesture which for me, carries the image.

Every Sun­day in Mon­treal, thou­sands of peo­ple gather at Mont-Royale for drum­ming, danc­ing etc. This image has no eye con­tact, but a strong ges­ture which for me, car­ries the image.

 

I asked 5-6 people walking down the street if I could take their portrait. 100% of them said yes.Take a deep breath if you feel shy about this, people are flattered and tend to agree.

Just as a test for a group of adults i was giv­ing a course to, I asked 5–6 peo­ple walk­ing down the street if I could take their por­trait. 100% of them said yes. Take a deep breath if you feel shy about this, peo­ple are flat­tered and tend to agree over 90% of the time when I sim­ply ask them for permission.

 

The boy in this image never knew he was being photographed. The second I saw him engage in this behaviour I saw a story.

The boy in this image never knew he was being pho­tographed. The sec­ond I saw him engage in this behav­iour I saw a story. (click to enlarge this image)

 

Links /resources men­tioned in this podcast:

Pho­tog­ra­phy forum assignments

If you liked this pod­cast and want to review it on Itunes, this link gets you to the main page

If you are inter­ested in writ­ing for our blog please con­tact me photography.ca ( A T ) G m ail Dot co m (using stan­dard email formatting)

Please join the Photography.ca fan page on Facebook

My Face­book pro­file — Feel free to “friend” me — please just men­tion Photography.ca
My Twit­ter page — I will fol­low you if you fol­low me — Let’s con­nect — PLEASE email me and tell me who you are in case I don’t rec­i­p­ro­cate because I think you are a spammer.

If you are still lurk­ing on our forum,
feel free to join our friendly :)  Pho­tog­ra­phy forum

Although ALL com­ments are appre­ci­ated, com­ment­ing directly in this blog is pre­ferred. Many thanks to Nuno C., Bare­foot and Christo­pher Steven B. for their com­ments from the last pod­cast. Thanks as well for the emails and wel­come to all the new mem­bers of the bul­letin board.

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. |Sub­scribe with iTunes|Sub­scribe via RSS feed |Sub­scribe for free to the Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast — Photography.ca and get all the posts/podcasts by Email

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

Thanks for lis­ten­ing and keep on shooting!

 

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

Filed Under: Montreal art, photography and culture, Photographs, Photography podcasts, Photography tips, podcasting Tagged With: ,

128 — Your First Lens Should be a Nifty 50mm

May 27, 2014 By 5 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #128 talks about five rea­sons why I think the 50mm lens is the first lens you should get for your SLR or DSLR. Two of these rea­sons are all the aper­ture advan­tages this lens has to offer has and the fact that it’s one of the most afford­able brand new lenses you are likely to find (that aren’t garbage).

If you have a full frame cam­era the 50mm will act as the con­ven­tional 50mm lens from the film cam­era days. On a crop sen­sor cam­era the lens will act more like a 75mm or 80mm lens and many peo­ple are using this lens to make won­der­ful portraits.

Thanks to The Cam­era Store (The largest cam­era store in Cal­gary, Alberta, Canada)  for spon­sor­ing the Photography.ca podcast.

Click the player at the end of this post to lis­ten to (or down­load) the 8ish minute podcast.

This is a 50mm lens and it's the first lens you should buy.

This is a 50mm lens — It’s the first lens you should buy for your DSLR or SLR.

 

This image was shot on a full frame DSLR using a 50mm lens at Palais Des Congres in Montreal, QC, Canada. The exposure was ISO 400 f/1.8 at 1/2500

This image was shot on a full frame DSLR using a 50mm lens at Palais Des Con­gres in Mon­treal, QC, Canada. The expo­sure was ISO 400 f/1.8 at 1/2500

 

Links /resources men­tioned in this podcast:

Good com­ments from our last pod­cast - Point and Shoot Cam­eras Suck for Learn­ing Photography

The Canon 50mm at The Cam­era Store
The Nikon 50mm at The Cam­era Store
Revers­ing rings at The Cam­era Store

The Canon 50mm at B&H
The Nikon 50mm at B&H
Revers­ing rings at B&H

If you liked this pod­cast and want to review it on Itunes, this link gets you to the main page

If you are inter­ested in writ­ing for our blog please con­tact me photography.ca ( A T ) G m ail Dot co m (using stan­dard email formatting)

Please join the Photography.ca fan page on Facebook

My Face­book pro­file — Feel free to “friend” me — please just men­tion Photography.ca
My Twit­ter page — I will fol­low you if you fol­low me — Let’s con­nect — PLEASE email me and tell me who you are in case I don’t rec­i­p­ro­cate because I think you are a spammer.

If you are still lurk­ing on our forum,
feel free to join our friendly :)  Pho­tog­ra­phy forum

Although ALL com­ments are appre­ci­ated, com­ment­ing directly in this blog is pre­ferred. Many thanks to Alain Casault, Lisa Osta, and Tom Trot­tier for their com­ments from the last pod­cast. Thanks as well for the emails and wel­come to all the new mem­bers of the bul­letin board.

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. |Sub­scribe with iTunes|Sub­scribe via RSS feed |Sub­scribe for free to the Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast — Photography.ca and get all the posts/podcasts by Email

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

Thanks for lis­ten­ing and keep on shooting!

 

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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

127 — Point and Shoot Cameras Suck for Learning Photography

April 17, 2014 By 3 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #127 goes into why point and shoot cam­eras suck for learn­ing pho­tog­ra­phy. I actu­ally rag on point and shoot cam­eras quite a bit in this pod­cast but it’s because pho­tog­ra­phy should be fun and learn­ing pho­tog­ra­phy on a point and shoot cam­era is rarely fun and almost never user-friendly. At the begin­ning stages of learn­ing pho­tog­ra­phy you need your cam­era to be user-friendly and it’s nice when your cam­era can han­dle any shoot­ing sit­u­a­tion. Point and shoots are infe­rior to any new DSLRs when it comes to pho­tograph­ing things that move. Given that pre­cious mem­o­ries (that involve move­ment) like your child walking/running are missed with a point and shoot, it’s an infe­rior tool.

That lovely intro aside, I do rec­om­mend a few user friendly Point and shoots for pho­tog­ra­phers that are com­fort­able with a Point and shoot’s lim­i­ta­tions. They def­i­nitely are portable and can be handy in capa­ble hands.

Click the player at the end of this post to lis­ten to (or down­load) the 13ish minute podcast.

Thanks to The Cam­era Store (The largest cam­era store in Cal­gary, Alberta, Canada)  for spon­sor­ing the Photography.ca podcast.

This point and shoot camera is not a good camera for learning photography

This point and shoot cam­era is not a good cam­era for learn­ing photography

 

Links /resources men­tioned in this podcast:

Pod­cast # 76 - Point and shoot cam­eras — Review of Canon G11
Expo­sure exposed — Eas­ily mas­ter cam­era expo­sure and make stun­ning pho­tos by Marko Kulik
Photo tours — pri­vate photo instruc­tion in Mon­treal
Canon G16 at The Cam­era Store
Nikon P7800 at The Cam­era Store
The Eos Rebel T5 at The Cam­era Store
The Nikon D3200 at The Cam­era Store

If you liked this pod­cast and want to review it on Itunes, this link gets you to the main page

If you are inter­ested in writ­ing for our blog please con­tact me photography.ca ( A T ) G m ail Dot co m (using stan­dard email formatting)

Please join the Photography.ca fan page on Facebook

My Face­book pro­file — Feel free to “friend” me — please just men­tion Photography.ca
My Twit­ter page — I will fol­low you if you fol­low me — Let’s con­nect — PLEASE email me and tell me who you are in case I don’t rec­i­p­ro­cate because I think you are a spammer.

If you are still lurk­ing on our forum,
feel free to join our friendly :)  Pho­tog­ra­phy forum

Although ALL com­ments are appre­ci­ated, com­ment­ing directly in this blog is pre­ferred. Thanks as well to all the new mem­bers of the bul­letin board.

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. |Sub­scribe with iTunes|Sub­scribe via RSS feed |Sub­scribe for free to the Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast — Photography.ca and get all the posts/podcasts by Email

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

Thanks for lis­ten­ing and keep on shooting!

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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

126 — 6 Tips to Improve the Edges of Your Photos

February 20, 2014 By Leave a Comment

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #126 dis­cusses the impor­tance of the four edges of your pho­tographs. They are seri­ously impor­tant and pay­ing atten­tion to them will improve your pho­tog­ra­phy. The pod­cast offers up 6 (actu­ally a few more than 6) prac­ti­cal tips on how to improve the edges of your photographs.

Thanks to The Cam­era Store (The largest cam­era store in Cal­gary, Alberta, Canada)  for spon­sor­ing the Photography.ca podcast.

A sneak peek to one of the 6 tips which is use­ful to pho­tog­ra­phers of all lev­els is to check out the work of mas­ter painters. They knew about the edges, about the over­all com­po­si­tion, and the rules of com­po­si­tion. Those rules directly apply to pho­tog­ra­phy. This famous paint­ing below done by Rem­brandt shows dark edges all around which is of course no acci­dent. He did it all the time. Notice where your eye ends up in the paint­ing; on the wave at left and this too is no acci­dent. When we can apply some of these prin­ci­ples to pho­tog­ra­phy, our images almost always improve.

 

1633 - Rembrandt (1606-1669) Christ in the Storm on the Lake of Galilee.

1633 — Rem­brandt (1606–1669) Christ in the Storm on the Lake of Galilee.

 

Talk about how edges can add inter­est! This image by Selena Rhodes Scofield from our forum is framed in an extremely cre­ative way and the unusual per­spec­tive just adds to the visual inter­est. In addi­tion, both the seagull’s neck and its wing are cre­at­ing inter­est­ing pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive shapes as they inter­sect with the edges and the rest of the image. Being on the look­out for these shapes is another way to spi­cify your photography.

 

seagull 3 by Selena Rhodes Scofield

seag­ull 3 by Selena Rhodes Scofield

 

Of course when you want to break guide­lines, you break them when­ever you want to. Just be aware that you are doing so. In this image below, Cana­dian Mas­ter pho­tog­ra­pher and teacher Free­man Pat­ter­son does just that.

From his book Pho­tog­ra­phy and the Art of See­ing he wrote: “I saw this elderly lady as pass­ing away from me and my world, so I pho­tographed her through a win­dow clouded by reflec­tions and cur­tains. The shal­low depth of field, which throws the reflec­tions and cur­tains out of focus, cre­ates a sense of the sur­real and the unknown. The hand of the woman’s friend appears in the lower right cor­ner. By all tra­di­tional stan­dards of com­po­si­tion, the hand should not be there because it looks ampu­tated. Yet it seems strangely appro­pri­ate, rep­re­sent­ing sup­port that may be needed in the present, while at the same time adding to the impres­sion of the world dissolving”

 

Photograph by Freeman Patterson from The Art of Seeing.

Pho­to­graph by Free­man Pat­ter­son from The Art of Seeing.

 

Links /resources men­tioned in this podcast:

Pho­tog­ra­phy and the Art of See­ing by Free­man Pat­ter­son. If you can only afford one pho­tog­ra­phy book this year, buy this one.
Com­po­si­tion Basics by oopoomoo

If you liked this pod­cast and want to review it on Itunes, this link gets you to the main page

If you are inter­ested in writ­ing for our blog please con­tact me photography.ca ( A T ) G m ail Dot co m (using stan­dard email formatting)

Please join the Photography.ca fan page on Facebook

My Face­book pro­file — Feel free to “friend” me — please just men­tion Photography.ca
My Twit­ter page — I will fol­low you if you fol­low me — Let’s con­nect — PLEASE email me and tell me who you are in case I don’t rec­i­p­ro­cate because I think you are a spammer.

If you are still lurk­ing on our forum,
feel free to join our friendly :)  Pho­tog­ra­phy forum

Thanks as well to Don Crasco and Daniel Cybul­skie who posted com­ments directly on the blog.  Although ALL com­ments are appre­ci­ated, com­ment­ing directly in this blog is pre­ferred. Thanks as well to all the new mem­bers of the bul­letin board.

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. |Sub­scribe with iTunes|Sub­scribe via RSS feed |Sub­scribe for free to the Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast — Photography.ca and get all the posts/podcasts by Email

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

Thanks for lis­ten­ing and keep on shooting!

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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