61 — What makes a Photo Great

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #61 talks about what makes a photo great. Given that most of us try hard to pro­duce the best pho­tographs we can, in this pod­cast we are try­ing to come up with the cri­te­ria needed to cre­ate great pho­tographs. I offer my per­sonal opin­ion on the mat­ter and I’d love to get com­ments telling me that I’m on to some­thing, or com­ments telling me that I’m full of it. These two pho­tographs below fit the bill for what I call great pho­tog­ra­phy. I dare you to chal­lenge me on these pho­tos, I dare you. This pod­cast is based on a sug­ges­tion from Mad Aussie in our forum. Many thanks Mad Aussie!

Afghan Girl — Steve McCurry

Melancholic Tulip - 1939 - Andre Kertesz

Melan­cholic Tulip — 1939 — Andre Kertesz

Links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
What makes a photo great? (Orig­i­nal thread that inspired this pod­cast)
Guess what it is thread
The image game
Marko’s Jan­u­ary 2009 pick for best mem­ber image
Nom­i­nate other member’s pho­tographs
Zen And The Art Of Motor­cy­cle Maintenance:an Inquiry Into Values

Assign­ments on our pho­tog­ra­phy bul­letin board:
Feb­ru­ary 2009 Photo Assign­ment — Love/Passion/Romance and Red should be a fea­ture
Febru­rary 2009 — Assign­ment — pho­tograph­ing words — Shadow
Febru­rary 2009 — Post pro­cess­ing assignment

Thanks as always to‚Susan and Benny who posted a blog com­ment about our last pod­cast and 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. I Sub­scribe with iTunes I Sub­scribe via RSS feed I Sub­scribe with Google Reader I 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 below.

60 — Panning and the Weston Portrait — Interview with Laszlo of Montreal

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #60 fea­tures an inter­view with pho­tog­ra­pher Las­zlo of Mon­treal. In this inter­view, Las­zlo decon­structs a por­trait of Loblaws owner Galen Weston so that we may learn from it. In the inter­view he describes the var­i­ous tech­niques used to cre­ate this image includ­ing pan­ning, bal­anc­ing the flash and the ambi­ent light as well as his choice of shut­ter speed and envi­ron­ment for this image.

Galen Weston by Laszlo

Galen Weston by Las­zlo — Click to enlarge

Links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Laszlo’s web­site
Laszlo’s Paul Anka por­trait
HDR Pod­cast #59

Assign­ments on the bul­letin board:
Jan­u­ary 2009 photo assign­ment — Warm and Cozy

Thanks as always to‚ Steven K,‚ Susan, Michael Van der Tol, landon9720, Yise­haq, Frank and Gary H who posted a blog com­ment about our last pod­cast and 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. I Sub­scribe with iTunes I Sub­scribe via RSS feed I Sub­scribe with Google Reader I 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 below.

59 — HDR — High dynamic range photography — Interview with Joseph Cartright

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #59 talks about HDR (High dynamic range) pho­tog­ra­phy in an inter­view with fash­ion pho­tog­ra­pher and HDR instruc­tor Joseph Car­tright. In this pod­cast we dis­cuss how to cre­ate an HDR pho­to­graph and be warned, this is an inter­me­di­ate level pod­cast. That said, Joseph reviews many of the terms that con­fuse dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phers these days, so part of the pod­cast (espe­cially the begin­ning) reviews con­cepts rel­e­vant to all dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phy. In a nut­shell an HDR image is made of 2 or more shots where the same scene is pho­tographed with brack­eted expo­sures and then put together with soft­ware in order to extend the dynamic range (get addi­tional infor­ma­tion in the high­lights, mid­tones and shad­ows) of the scene.

Here’s a few terms as explained by Joseph that are good to absorb right away;
– Lat­i­tude — Refers to how much you can be ‘off’ of the cor­rect expo­sure and still have a usable image.
– Dynamic range — Refers to the usable range of data you can cap­ture between the high­lights and the shad­ows before you lose data. (If you over­ex­pose too much there is no data in the whites or high­lights and if you under­ex­pose too much there is no data in the blacks or shadows).

HDR photograph

HDR Image by Joseph Car­tright — Click to enlarge

HDR photograph

HDR Image by Trey Rat­cliff — Click to enlarge — Orig­i­nal image http://stuckincustoms.com/2008/12/14/my-five-favorites-from-vancouver/

Links men­tioned in this pod­cast and HDR ref­er­ences — Joseph Car­tright Pho­tog­ra­phy

Soft­ware:

Pho­tomatix — http://www.hdrsoft.com/
FDR tools — http://fdrtools.com/front_e.php
Soft­ware overview — http://wiki.panotools.org/HDR_Software_overview

Ref­er­ence Sites:
http://www.hdrlabs.com/siggraph/
http://www.hdrlabs.com/siggraph/index_files/Witte_HDRI_Tips_Tricks.pdf
http://www.creativepro.com/article/photo-murals-make-you-think-big-really-big
HDR tuto­r­ial by Trey Ratcliff

Assign­ments on the bul­letin board:
Decem­ber photo assign­ment — The Hol­i­days
Decem­ber assign­ment — Pho­tograph­ing words — Winter

Thanks as always to‚ Steven K,‚ Susan, EJC, Dan, JK and aophoto who posted a blog com­ment about our last pod­cast. Thanks also to Mark3351, Alex Ross rana, djKianoosh, Rikki, eroder, The_Camera_Poser and ben­ja­mind­i­caprio for join­ing our bul­letin board and post­ing 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 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 below.

58 — Lenses — the basics — Photography podcast

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #58 talks about lenses and what lenses new pho­tog­ra­phers should be look­ing to get. We talk about nor­mal lenses, wide angle lenses, tele­photo lenses, and we even touch on ded­i­cated macro lenses. A good lens is MUCH more impor­tant than a good cam­era because it is the lens that focuses the image. Put a cheap lens on a $1000–2000.00 cam­era and you’ve made a BAD over­all invest­ment and your images will suf­fer. Put a good $500‑1500.00 lens on a good cheap cam­era and you have made GOOD invest­ment. Thanks to danalive for sug­gest­ing this podcast.

Assorted lenses for photography

Assorted lenses for photography

Links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
dpreview.com
Macro on the cheap podcast

Thanks as always to‚ Steven K,‚ Susan, Michael Van der Tol and aophoto who posted a blog com­ment about our last pod­cast. Thanks also to Jes­llo, Gem, fallinto­col­ors, Ryan Mor­gan, spleisher, Marta, johnc24, bleaches,‚ mcnay55,‚ Matt2682, fan­gelico, Moghe­dian, danalive, kear­n­ey­ca­tion, mno­ble, ludovic slight­ly­im­per­fect, len, V-Town, outty, walasy, Ban­dit, and herr_andersson. 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 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 below.

57 — Interview with photographer Phil Borges — Photography podcast

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #57 fea­tures an Inter­view with pho­tog­ra­pher Phil Borges at the 2008 Pho­to­plus con­fer­ence and expo in New York. (That conference/expo was excel­lent and packed full of cool new prod­ucts and world renowned photographers/instructors includ­ing Phil Borges as guest speakers/lecturers — Very much rec­om­mended and I’m going back in 2009).
In the inter­view Phil very briefly dis­cusses his career and some of his bod­ies of work in pho­tog­ra­phy, talks about his artis­tic style and tech­nique, and shares the way he cur­rently prints his work.

Chema, 77 of Bulava, Siberia from the series Spirit of Place - Siberia

Pho­to­graph by Phil Borges — Chema, 77 of Bulava, Siberia. From the series: Spirit of Place — Siberia

Links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Cur­rent exhibits by Phil Borges
Phil Borges’s fea­ture on photography.ca
HP Z3100 printer
Hah­ne­muhle papers

Thanks as always to Jen, Steven K, Clusty, JD and‚ Susan who posted a blog com­ment about our last pod­cast. Thanks also to dmag­ick, wdaw­son, Lisa Scott, blove­less, dudley206098, Soft­ServeCo., Duane, Saarto1221, Elle, jmay­off, krpho­togs, jason­high­tower,‚ omhub­bard, aophoto, Ama­ranth, bar­bi­epurl, jill­ca­t­rina, johnyy­mathew, jayps, fsendel, Mike Guil­bault, jecky55, and DAVIS125 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 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 below.

56 — How to photograph smoke — Photography podcast

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #56 talks about how to pho­to­graph smoke. We dis­cuss pho­tograph­ing dif­fer­ent types of smoke includ­ing incense, out­door smoke and liq­uid nitro­gen. One note right away is that if you want to try this, it’s fun, but have patience. The incense image below took about 90 min­utes from setup to fin­ish­ing shoot­ing. If you want to try this your­self, here’s what I used for the shoot; Incense sticks, black back­ground, 1 portable off cam­era flash (with sync cord to fire it) a CUSTOM (smirk) home­made snoot made on the spot, from con­struc­tion paper that went on the portable flash to keep light off the back­ground and a reflec­tor (not essen­tial, but help­ful and you can use any­thing white). Thanks so much to Clusty for this awe­some suggestion!

Incense smoke by Marko Kulik

Monk in outdoor smoke - Image by Marko

Monk in out­door smoke — Image by Marko Kulik

Scary theme using Liquid Nitrogen - Image by Marko

Scary theme using Liq­uid Nitro­gen — Image by Marko Kulik

Links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Post pro­cess­ing assign­ment forum
Octo­ber Assign­ment #2 — Halloween/Horror

Thanks as always to‚ Susan who posted a blog com­ment about our last pod­cast. Thanks also to Jlindy, Cap­tureev­er­more, mpykalo, lamar328, pho­to­cell, EJC, CB Photo and jcrys­tall 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.

55 — Using Photoshop Actions — Photography podcast

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #55 talks about using actions to stream­line your work­flow. Actions are a set of steps that you record to trans­form an image in some way. Once you have recorded the action once you can apply it to any other image file. We also talk about com­mer­cial actions that you can buy that will totally trans­form your images. The 2 that we talk about are Kevin Kubota’s actions and Craig’s actions. I’d like to thank Kevin Kub­ota once again for giv­ing me some actions to play with. The images below were all done with Kevin’s actions.

Top shot - straight; Middle shot uses vibrant glow action; Botton shot uses BW GM Warm2 +snappy action

Top shot — straight; Mid­dle shot — vibrant glow action; Bot­tom shot BW GM Warm2 +snappy action

Left shot straight; Right shot uses Anime soft action

Left shot straight; Right shot uses Anime soft action

Links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Kevin Kubota’s actions
Pod­cast #52 Kevin Kub­ota inter­view
Craig’s actions
Free pho­to­shop actions search result
Pho­tograph­ing words assign­ment forum

Thanks as always to‚ Susan who posted a blog com­ment about our last pod­cast. Thanks also to gbh59, Michael van der Tol, justin­m­cguigan, pogueca, Fredric, DeepR, mor­gan, JoMama, fante, lily13, SMG, Wymasa, liamm­clen­nan, J & R Par­ent, and malechi 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.

54 — Making the eyes sing — Photography podcast

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #54 talks about how to make the eyes sing in a pho­to­graph. When we take a photo of a per­son or some­thing that has eyes, we really need to pay atten­tion to what we are doing. The eyes are nor­mally the most impor­tant part of any por­trait and they need to be sharp and bright. Through a few basic tech­niques this pod­cast tells you what you need to do to get your subject’s eyes to ‘sing’.

Even in this medium range shot you can see sharp bright eyes

Even in this medium range shot you can see sharp bright eyes

The bulldogs eye sings because the iris is sharp and bright

The bulldog’s eye (stock) sings because the iris is sharp & bright

Links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
The eyes have it thread from the pho­tog­ra­phy forum
Acces­sories pod­cast (check image of the light stand hold­ing reflec­tor with magic arm)
A dodg­ing tech­nique for the eyes described in para­graph 2 of the post
Gary Fong dif­fuser at B&H
Pod­camp Mon­treal
CC Chap­man

Thanks as always to Benny and Susan who posted a blog com­ment about our last pod­cast and for her sug­ges­tion that inspired this pod­cast. Thanks also to Ram, Hallow’s maiden, Rabi­aka­ma­ran, Gatepc, BenH, MikeS, Dabow,‚ Inukamori, svant­land & PKMax 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.

Interview with Kevin Kubota — Photography podcast #52

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

Cleaning camera lenses — cleaning cameras — Photography podcast #51

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

Dodging and burning in photography — Photography podcast #49

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

Baby — newborn photography — Photography podcast #48

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #48 dis­cusses baby and new­born pho­tog­ra­phy. We talk about what light­ing to use. We also talk about good posi­tions for babies as well as give tips on ideas on how to make your baby pho­tog­ra­phy more inter­est­ing. This pod­cast was inspired by demontecarlo3 a mem­ber of our pho­tog­ra­phy forum. Feel free to join — it’s fun and free! Final note — this pod­cast was recorded on a rainy day in the park. Please let me know if you found the ambi­ent noises too distracting.

Many thanks to Dominic Fuiz­zotto for let­ting me use these images.

Links/topics men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Dis­trac­tions in photographs

Thanks as always to Benny, Ed and Sergey 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.