Portraits from the Plateau — Sylvain Grand’Maison

January 26, 2009 By 5 Comments

I took this shot for fel­low friend, art direc­tor and pod­caster Syl­vain Grand’Maison about a month ago. Syl­vain pro­duces an extremely suc­cess­ful French pod­cast here in Que­bec that fea­tures great pod­safe music,‚ great artists and does it all while drink­ing great beer and talk­ing about social media and podcasting.

Syl­vain needed some pho­tog­ra­phy done so we got together for a few hours and clicked the shut­ter. He specif­i­cally had a con­cept in mind and we focused mainly on his con­cept (can’t talk about it yet). After the shoot though, we also took some casual shots and many of them came out quite nice includ­ing this one.

Sylvain GrandMaison

Syl­vain Grand’Maison

Sylvain’s blond hair and eyes came out really well against this black back­ground and both he and I really dig this shot. In terms of light­ing, I used a Quan­tum flash in an umbrella at 45 degrees and a reflec­tor on the oppo­site site. I did a bit of soft­en­ing on his body and added some glow to his hair in post so that his face is the most strik­ing ele­ment in the shot. Exif data is 1/80 at F-7.0 ISO 400 at 75mm.

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

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

January 20, 2009 By 4 Comments

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.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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

Where the Ocean Meets the Sky

January 9, 2009 By 3 Comments
Calm image from a moving bus :)

Calm image from a mov­ing bus

Oh how this calm pho­to­graph is decep­tive! You’d think it was taken care­fully and leisurely and this is not at all the case. The truth is, is that it was taken through the win­dow of a bus mov­ing quickly down a rocky road. The only impor­tant thing done to this pho­to­graph in post was straight­en­ing as it was a good 25 degrees away from being ‘straight’. Exif data — F10 1/1250 ISO 640

Filed Under: Photographs, Photography blog entries

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

December 23, 2008 By 8 Comments

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.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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

Winter patterns

December 14, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Even though win­ter is uncom­fort­able in many ways for tak­ing pic­tures, win­ter offers lots of pho­to­graphic pos­si­bil­i­ties. Pat­terns of frost, ice and snow make inter­est­ing sub­jects and some­times give off an abstract feel. The tip of the day there­fore, is search for win­ter pat­terns! The shot below was taken dur­ing one of the first snow­storms in Mon­treal this year. I call this one Win­ter Zen.

Winter Zen

Win­ter Zen — by Marko Kulik

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

58 — Lenses — the basics — Photography podcast

December 10, 2008 By 8 Comments

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.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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

More photography podcasts are coming!

December 3, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Just an FYI — More pho­tog­ra­phy pod­casts are com­ing, I promise.

In fact I’m in the mid­dle of edit­ing one right now and have 2 sched­uled.
Per­sonal cir­cum­stances had halted pub­lish­ing pod­casts, but I’m now back on track.

Thanks for your patience every­one and for the many sup­port­ive emails that con­tinue to come in. — Marko

Filed Under: Photography blog entries

LIFE photo archive hosted by Google

November 19, 2008 By 1 Comment

Time and Google have teamed up to make a huge archive of his­tor­i­cal pho­tos avail­able online. Great body of work, worth perus­ing when you need inspi­ra­tion of just want to look at great and time­less pho­tos.
http://images.google.com/hosted/life

Hat tip to Acadieli­bre from our forum for bring­ing this to my attention.

Migrant mother Flo­rence Thomp­son & chil­dren pho­tographed by Dorothea Lange — 1936

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

Picpockets by Jerry Ghionis

November 13, 2008 By 2 Comments

I met Jerry Ghio­nis at the 2008 Pho­to­Plus Expo/conference‚ in New york and he has what I think is a great teach­ing tool. They are sets of cards called Picpock­ets and they are the same size as play­ing cards but they con­tain pho­tos or pho­tos with notes writ­ten on them. They come in a sturdy pack and can be taken on loca­tion and used for inspi­ra­tion. The ‘Ordi­nary to Extra­or­di­nary’ series is nice because it shows you the sim­ple back­grounds plus the fairly sim­ple light­ing and Exif data that were used to cre­ate the many strik­ing pho­tographs that make up the set. Each set of cards cur­rently sells for about 80 dol­lars and con­tains about 50 cards. In the inter­est of full dis­clo­sure, Jerry was kind enough to give me sam­ples of his prod­ucts for review.

Ordinary-Extraordinary Vol 2

Ordinary-Extraordinary Vol 2

Ordinary-Extraordinary Vol 2

Ordinary-Extraordinary Vol 2

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

57 — Interview with photographer Phil Borges — Photography podcast

November 9, 2008 By 5 Comments

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.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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