Sleepy Dog

July 5, 2008 By 6 Comments

Below is the orig­i­nal image (with dis­trac­tions) — added as a result of the com­ments :)

The top image tries to fol­low the ‘rules’ from photo pod­cast #46 where we talked about dis­tract­ing ele­ments in pho­tographs. This is a shot of a dog sleep­ing in a local con­ve­nience store. I spent about 15 min­utes ‘clean­ing up’ this photo. By clean­ing up I’m specif­i­cally talk­ing about remov­ing dis­tract­ing ele­ments. In this case the dis­tract­ing ele­ments were bright­ness prob­lems. I wanted the focus of the shot to be on the dog’s face and snout so I burned in (dark­ened) almost every­thing that was brighter than the face and snout. By doing this I’m actively guid­ing the viewer’s eye to where I want it to go.
Did I do a good job? Com­ments? Questions?

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

Brightness problems — distracting elements in photographs — Photography podcast #46

June 29, 2008 By 8 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #46 talks about being really care­ful about NOT includ­ing dis­tract­ing ele­ments in your pho­tographs. The eye nat­u­rally wan­ders toward the bright ele­ments in pho­tographs so being aware of bright­ness prob­lems, unwanted high­lights and other dis­trac­tions will improve your photography.

Links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Tran­script to pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #1 — being aware of the back­ground
His­tograms in dig­i­tal photography

The 2 images below show how bright­ness issues and dis­tract­ing ele­ments can take the viewer’s eye away from the sub­ject. Shot 1 is unma­nip­u­lated. Shot 2 has the brighter ele­ments burned in (dark­ened) very quickly just to illus­trate the point. Many thanks to mer­man from our pho­tog­ra­phy forum for allow­ing me to use his pho­to­graph as a teach­ing tool.

brightness problem in photographs

brightness problem corrected in photograph


Thanks as always to Cyba­sumo, Chris, Sergey and De3montecarlo 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.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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

Leonard Cohen Portrait

June 11, 2008 By 16 Comments

A cou­ple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to meet the Poet/Singer/Songwriter Leonard Cohen in Sague­nay Que­bec. I have always been an enor­mous fan and rarely does a week go by when I don’t lis­ten to one of his truly great songs. Although we only spent a few pre­cious min­utes with him, he was gra­cious enough to allow us to take a few shots. This shot was my favourite of the few shots we took.

It was a hot sunny cloud­less day and the sun was still fairly high which meant I had to be on the look­out for shad­ows in the face. I there­fore set my flash to minus 2 which would fill in the poten­tial shad­ows. This shot was orig­i­nally processed in colour and I really like how it turned out (maybe I’ll post the colour ver­sion some­time). How­ever there is some­thing time­less and mys­te­ri­ous about Mr. Cohen’s music and I knew when I took the image that I’d likely process it in black and white. Also, his suit and hat were just scream­ing to be pho­tographed in black and white.

I’d like to thank Leonard Cohen (and his UNBELIEVABLE ensem­ble of musi­cians) for the fan­tas­tic con­cert where he received at least 15 stand­ing ova­tions, and for allow­ing me the plea­sure to take a few shots. My only regret is that my wife (who is equally an enor­mous fan) wasn’t there to meet him with me. She was rest­ing at the hotel since she was tired from the 5 hour drive from Montreal.

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

Directing and relaxing models — Photography podcast #44

April 30, 2008 By 2 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #44 talks about how to direct mod­els in pho­tog­ra­phy photo shoots. This pod­cast is based on a sug­ges­tion (thanks for the sug­ges­tion Bill!) by fel­low pod­cast lis­tener Bill who wrote an email asking;

“I’d love to hear a pod­cast in a bit more detail about “direct­ing” ordi­nary peo­ple in a por­trait ses­sion. I tend to start out ok, but some­times sort of, choke, I guess, and then for­get every­thing I know about tak­ing pho­tos, pos­ing peo­ple, and walk­ing while chew­ing gum :) “

Pho­tog­ra­phy links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Pos­ing mod­els in pho­tog­ra­phy — pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast 28
Jeff Cur­tožs His­tory of Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast

Thanks as always to Bill, Andre_f, Michael, and Joseph 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.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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

Photographers don’t give your rights away — Photography podcast #42

March 27, 2008 By 3 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #42 is based on a post by our pho­tog­ra­phy forum mem­ber tegan, called Photo Con­tests: Pho­tog­ra­phers LOSE. This short pod­cast expands on that post and dis­cusses how pho­tog­ra­phers need to be aware of the rights that they are giv­ing away by join­ing photo con­tests, forums, social net­work­ing sites like Face­book etc.

Pho­tog­ra­phy links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Mil­lion places on Earth — terms and con­di­tions
Face­book — terms of service

Thanks as always to photodog, deb­bie T and sorena 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.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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

Photographers don’t give your rights away — Photography podcast #42

March 27, 2008 By 3 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #42 is based on a post by our‚pho­tog­ra­phy forum‚mem­ber tegan, called Photo Con­tests: Pho­tog­ra­phers LOSE. This short pod­cast expands on that post and dis­cusses how pho­tog­ra­phers need to be aware of the rights that they are giv­ing away by join­ing photo con­tests, forums, social net­work­ing sites like Face­book etc.

Pho­tog­ra­phy links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Mil­lion places on Earth — terms and con­di­tions
Face­book — terms of service

Thanks as always to photodog, deb­bie T and sorena 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.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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

Histograms in digital photography — Photography podcast #41

March 19, 2008 By 3 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #41 offers a primer on his­tograms in dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phy. A his­togram is just a graph show­ing the dis­tri­b­u­tion of tones in a pho­to­graph. We dis­cuss how to ‘read’ his­tograms and how much atten­tion we should pay to them.


Images cour­tesy of cambridgeincolour.com

The images above reveal the his­tograms asso­ci­ated with them. Notice how in the right pho­to­graph there is still tex­ture in the white in the dog’s face and in the sand. If the his­togram was closer to the right edge we’d lose detail in the dog’s face and start los­ing detail in the sand.

Pho­tog­ra­phy links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
More in depth his­togram expla­na­tions:
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/histograms1.htm
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/histograms2.htm
HDR Pho­tog­ra­phy

Thanks as always for the 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.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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

Shooting through glass is bad unless…

March 11, 2008 By 2 Comments

Shoot­ing through glass is usu­ally not rec­om­mended when you have a choice, since the glass can reduce the sharp­ness of the final pho­to­graph. There is also the ten­dency to get unwanted reflec­tions. That said, rules are meant to be bro­ken espe­cially when there is a goal in mind. For this shot the goal was to show what’s on the glass and what is beyond the glass in a vain‚effort to vent my frus­tra­tion over‚our relent­less pun­ish­ing win­ter. You can click the image to make it tastier on the eyes, even though all this snow leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

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

Low light photography — Photography podcast #40

March 10, 2008 By 5 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #40 talks about low light pho­tog­ra­phy. We‚ try hard to answer the fol­low­ing ques­tion by Andre‚ from Brazil and‚I also add‚a few other‚low light pho­tog­ra­phy tips includ­ing using fast lenses, acces­sories in low light pho­tog­ra­phy and‚the reduced tonal range in low light pho­tog­ra­phy.
Here’s Andre’s orig­i­nal ques­tion:‚ “Hello there, Marko! I just would like to sug­gest a pod­cast on the topic “low light pho­tog­ra­phy”. I’m pretty inter­ested in this topic and related sub­jects, such as tips for tak­ing pho­tographs in bad light sit­u­a­tions, how to pre­serve ambi­ent light when using flash, high ISO vs. dig­i­tal noise, meter­ing modes, tak­ing pic­tures at music con­certs, and so forth.”

You can click all the‚photographs to make them tastier on the eyes.


Roman­tic Walk by Ara­leya


The Dim light of Dusk #2 by Wen­dine

‚ ‚
Images by Marko


Photo of the week
This week, the pho­to­graph is by‚Esther Her­nan­dez AKA Maguapho­tos and I com­ment in the pod­cast on why I think this pho­to­graph is fantastic.


‚

Thanks as always for the 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.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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

Lith printing in photography — Photography podcast #39

February 29, 2008 By 1 Comment

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #39 fea­tures an inter­view with fine art pho­tog­ra­pher Vicki Reed aka hol­ga­girl on Flickr. In this inter­view we talk about lith print­ing which is an alter­na­tive print­ing tech­nique using a tra­di­tional dark­room. For those that only want to try this dig­i­tally, see the links below.


Sumac and Sun — Vicki Reed

Pho­tog­ra­phy links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
‚ Vicki’s fea­ture on Photography.ca
‚ Holga cam­eras
‚ Foto­speed lith paper Do a search for lith on this site to get more lith prod­ucts
‚ Ken­tona paper
‚ 2 Tim Rud­man videos on Lith print­ing
‚ The World of Lith Print­ing
‚ Dig­i­tal lith print­ing
‚ Dig­i­tal lith print­ing action for pho­to­shop
‚ Dig­i­tal lith print­ing by Adobe

‚Is it still art — what is art — thread on photography.ca forum

Thanks as always for the com­ments by‚Gary H,‚‚seyDoggy, Yves Janse and Mikael. 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.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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

One light portraits — Photography podcast #38

February 22, 2008 By 6 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #38 talks about cre­at­ing dra­matic por­traits using only 1 light. Using 1 light cre­ates very harsh shad­ows which is PERFECT for a dra­matic por­trait. The fol­low­ing 2 shots illus­trate this dra­matic effect. In the first shot Lorne and Boog are being lit by 1 light located 45 degrees toward the right. The sec­ond shot is side­light. Both these shots use no reflec­tor to bounce light back into the sub­jects’ faces. Note that the light in the sec­ond pho­to­graph reveals a lot of skin tex­ture, so this type of light­ing would not be good for a ‘fash­iony’ shot in most cases. Thanks to Lorne and Boog for being the mod­els. I Love how lit­tle Boog is star­ing me down in the first shot. You can click all the shots to make them tastier on the eyes.

One light portrait

1 light portrait - side lighting
‚
You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below this image.

Photo of the week
This week, the pho­to­graph is by Zseike and I com­ment in the pod­cast on why I think this pho­to­graph is fantastic.

Photo by Zseike

Thanks as always for the com­ments by‚Gary H, ‚Andre, Tom, Yves Janse, David and Mikael. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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

Stairway to Heaven .….…nope

February 15, 2008 By 3 Comments

What is going on here?‚

Where does the lad­der go?

Are there treats at the end of the ladder?

This pho­to­graph is an excel­lent exam­ple of lens com­pres­sion. For those that may not know, longer lenses tend to com­press the fore­ground and back­ground while wide angle lenses tend to do the reverse. I shot this scene on 1 frame from about 50 feet away. The white in the back­ground is actu­ally a mas­sive con­tainer filled with oil and the lad­der is part of that con­tainer. The tree is actu­ally about 20 feet in front of the container.

I shot this scene from my car while snow was lightly falling. Exif data — Shot at ISO (The light was quickly fading)‚1000 F-16 at 1/400 at the long end of my 70–200 zoom lens. You can click the image to make it tastier on the eyes.

Filed Under: Photographs, Photography blog entries, Photography tips
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