Portrait from the Plateau

July 26, 2008 By 3 Comments

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

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

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

Baby — newborn photography — Photography podcast #48

July 22, 2008 By 4 Comments

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.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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

Flash sync speeds — Photography podcast #47

July 11, 2008 By 7 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #47 talks about flash sync speeds. We talk about what the flash sync speed is (it’s also called x-sync) and how very impor­tant it is espe­cially when you are tak­ing day­light por­traits out­doors. We also talk about high-speed flash sync as well as answer Sergey’s ques­tion about why the high speed flash sync is not work­ing with the trans­mit­ters that he is using.

Links/topics men­tioned in this pod­cast:
My sleepy dog pho­to­graph
Sunny 16 rule
ST-E2 trans­mit­ter
Canon 580 flash series with the OC-E3 off-camera shoe cord

Thanks as always to Benny, Mer­man, Tmat, Yowzah, Tim 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.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

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

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: , , , , ,

Using backlighting outdoors — Photography Podcast #45

May 30, 2008 By 2 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #45 talks about how to use back­light­ing out­doors. We talk about tak­ing that clas­sic photo on the beach in front of a sun­set and doing it prop­erly. We also describe how to take a nice por­trait using back­light­ing and the whole pod­cast and is based some­what on an email from Cindy;

“This sum­mer my fam­ily is going to the beach. Of course, I want to take lots of pic­tures. What is the best time of day? I love sun­set pic­tures, but how do I take pic­tures of the peo­ple with their backs to the ocean (sun in back­ground etc.) and see their faces clearly? ”

The images below (done really quickly with almost no post pro­cess­ing) clearly show the dif­fer­ences you can obtain using back­light­ing and flash at dif­fer­ent set­tings. Per­son­ally I like the Minus 2 shot the best. You best see the dif­fer­ences in flash out­put by look­ing at the face.

using backlighting and flash outdoors

Pho­tog­ra­phy links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Acces­sories that you can use to hold reflec­tors etc. — pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast 35
Pho­tog­ra­phy and the law

Thanks as always to Cindy, Jason and Alex Wil­son 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 blog entries, Photography podcasts, podcasting Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Robert Capa’s legacy

May 29, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Robert Capa (1913–1954) was a world renowned pho­to­jour­nal­ist and many of his iconic images are etched in our minds. The 54th anniver­sary of his death just hap­pened this week. A well known quote of his that rings true for most pho­tog­ra­phers was “If your pic­tures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough”

Here is a link to some work along with one of his most famous images:

Filed Under: Photographs, Photography blog entries

Robert Capa’s legacy

May 29, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Robert Capa (1913–1954) was a world renowned pho­to­jour­nal­ist and many of his iconic images are etched in our minds. The 54th anniver­sary of his death just hap­pened this week. A well known quote of his that rings true for most pho­tog­ra­phers was …œIf your pic­tures arenžt good enough, youžre not close enough‚

Here is a link to some work along with one of his most famous images:

Filed Under: Photographs, Photography blog entries

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: , ,
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