(The Occasional) Photo Tip of the Day

Ferris Wheel Fun at the Carnival

2013-05-07T12:04:00.002-07:00

If there is one thing in the world that I'm highly attracted to visually, it's the combination of color, light and motion--and nothing combines those three elements better than a Ferris wheel. I've been photographing them since I was a about 16 and stopped one night at a carnival in a nearby town to take some snapshots. While I was shooting, a cop who was patrolling the carnival stopped to chat and asked me what shutter speed I was using. At the time I was just trying to record an image of the wheel and hadn't thought much (or at all) about the motion of the wheel. I was shooting as I always did, just using a shutter speed that was slow enough to record the Ferris wheel when it was stopped--probably 1/30 second or so. This cop (who told me he did a lot of photography for his department--in Shelton, Connecticut, by the way) suggested that since I was using a tripod I should try to capture some motion shots and experiment with long exposures--a second or more. And so I did. I shot a whole roll (Ektachrome slides in those days) of photos at between one and four or five seconds.

When I got that film back from the lab, I was completely blown away. Instead of just still shots of a pretty ride, I had these intense swirls of color and light. Wow, cool! Many of the shots were grossly overexposed (what I wouldn't have given for an LCD back then!). Ever since then I've been drawn like a moth to the light at carnivals and I think of that nice cop every time I shoot ride photos. Many of these photos have been published in my books and, in fact, the cover of my book Exposure Photo Workshop (the first edition) features a motion shot of a Ferris wheel (the 2nd edition features a shot of a different carnival ride).

Getting shots like the ones here is easy--and I didn't even use a tripod for the second shot, I was just resting the camera (a Nikon D90) on the roof of my friend Pam's car. The exposure for the second shot was about 1/8 second at f/8 and for the first shot above it was a full second at f/22, on a Manfrotto tripod. I shot both nights at ISO 200 to preserve image quality (though I did bump up the ISO for a few shots as an experiment). I shot hundreds of photos over the course of the two nights, endlessly experimenting with shutter speeds. There are three things that will effect the outcome of your photos: the shutter speed that you're using, the speed of the wheel and the color patterns since the lights are almost always changing. Also, these days one wonderful change in the wheels is that most use LED lights which are vastly brighter and more colorful--a really tremendous improvement for photographers. I also did some "zooming" shots both nights, racking the zoom during the long exposures and I'll post a few of those in a few days.

Finally, one thing you should do is experiment with your white balance. I set my white balance to tungsten lighting and then used the color picker graphic (available on most dSLR cameras) to custom set the balance. I had to play with the setting many times to get it to record the colors of the wheel accurately (and you're never really sure until you see the images on a bigger screen--which is partly why I went back the second night, to work more with white balance). Of course, I always shoot in RAW (and jpeg simultaneously most of the time) so that I can play with the white balance after the fact, as well. Both of the images here are exactly as they came out of the camera--I did nothing to the color balance other than set the black point for the background using curves (and you should be sure you have a good rich Dmax to set off the colors nicely). They are not sharpened either, though you could do this to crisp up the edges if you wanted.

Fun stuff, right? Well summer is here, so get our your tripod and make sure your batteries are charged (long exposures use a lot of battery power) and go have fun at the carnival.

Happy 94th Birthday to Folk Legend Pete Seeger

2013-05-03T23:02:00.001-07:00

The wondrous singer/songwriter/activist/storyteller/ecologist Pete Seeger turned 94 on Friday May 3rd. Happy Birthday to you Pete! Thanks for all you've done for music, for art, for the Earth and for humanity.

Alaska bear photo workshop: Last-minute opening

2013-04-09T12:46:00.002-07:00

If you've ever fantasized about photographing bears in Alaska, this may be your opportunity. Due to a cancellation, Alaska photographer Ron Niebrugge has an unexpected opening for one more photographer for his August 7 - 13, 2013 (7 days/6 nights) bear photo workshop in Lake Clark National Park. Ron is an Alaskan native (and resident) and is one of the country's premiere wilderness and wildlife photographers; I profiled him for Outdoor Photographer magazine a few years back.

On his blog Ron writes: "In August the spring cubs are a little bigger and a bit more independent. The possibility of photographing fishing bears; bears chasing, catching and eating salmon is always high in August as the salmon start running. Another opportunity is perching Puffin. In August the Puffin are busy feeding chicks, and will be flying to and from their burrows with mouths full of needlefish."

Time magazine said of Ron's tour: "This tour around Lake Clark National Park promises bear sightings, and thanks to a precision-timed itinerary, they're prolific: brown bears walking, sleeping and feeding on salmon."

I can't think of a more exciting way to spend a week than photographing brown bears in Alaska with a master wildlife photographer. According to Ron airfares to Alaska area also extremely cheap right now. Life is short, have fun, go photograph bears!

(Photos courtesy of Ron Niebrugge)

Choosing a New Digital Camera--Nice Guide from Time Magazine

2013-04-01T01:17:00.001-07:00

Probably the one question that I'm asked most about digital photography (particularly from Facebook friends) is: What's the best digital camera to buy? I'm always happy to hear the question because it shows that at least some people realize that there are cameras beyond the cell-phone camera in their pocket (an important warning about those in a minute). It's often a tough question to answer because the models seem to change so quickly and also, not all of the best digital cameras are made by the traditional camera makers (Canon, Olympus, Nikon, etc.). Companies like Samsung and Sony, better known as electronics manufacturers than camera companies, make some very respectable cameras--which isn't surprising since (lens design aside) all digital cameras are, in fact, electronic gizmos.

The first thing you have to consider, of course, is price. How much are you willing to invest in your photography? You can get a great compact digital camera for well under $150 and probably even under $100 if you aren't looking for too many features. You can get a great digital advanced zoom camera (essentially an advanced compact with a larger optical zoom and more exposure features in most cases) for around $300. And if you're willing to go to the $500-1,000 range and you want the ultimate in digital-camera flexibility and sophistication, you can get a very good MILC (mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera) or a dSLR. Both of the latter allow you to change lenses.

Time magazine has published a pretty handy introduction to camera buying and it covers the rest of the basics pretty well. One thing I'll add (or at least emphasize) is not to get too caught up in the megapixel wars. There was a time when more pixels meant much better images but we've long passed that point. Now manufacturers are cramming more and more pixels (light-gathering elements) onto tiny sensors (the smaller the sensor the smaller the camera, which is what most people want) and image quality is actually beginning to degrade--and I'll write more about that in a future post. But for now, keep in mind that any camera that offers 10 or 12 megapixels will provide excellent pictures and very big enlargements. Bigger or "full frame" (the size of a frame of 35mm film) sensors have more real estate an so can offer more and bigger pixels and so they are an exception--with those sensors more pixels can vastly improve image quality.

My cell camera warning: It has happened to another friend of mine--he lost his iPhone! Painful enough to lose a $500 phone, but he also lost hundreds and hundreds of digital photos and videos that he never bothered to download. One of my primary complaints about cell phones is that people either don't know how to download their images or they don't bother. Either way, if that is your primary camera (a mistake, I think) and you lose the camera or have it stolen--there go your photos. Forever. If you are using your phone as your primary picture-taking device, learn how to download the images and do it on a weekly if not daily basis. Yes, you can upload images to Facebook or Flickr, but those images are crunched (for space reasons) and you'll never be able to get a good digital file from them for printing purposes. Download, download, download. And back up your downloads, too.

(Photos courtesy of Nikon and Olympus)

Train-Hopping Photographer Mike Brodie and His 50,000-Mile Odessey

2013-03-22T13:26:00.001-07:00

If you’ve always fantasized about chucking it all and hopping a fast freight but just didn’t have the nerve, not to worry—you can still sample this gritty lifestyle through the eyes of an incredibly gifted and brave shooter: photographer Mike Brodie. Brodie hopped his first freight train when he was just 17 and rode it from his home in Pensacola, Florida to Jacksonville and then home again. Seems innocent enough. But that trip ignited something in Brodie’s imagination and what started as a whim turned into an all-out passion. Between 2002 and 2012 he rode on more than 170 freight trains in 46 states and logged more than 50,000 miles. In 2004 he started recording his journeys, at first with an old Polaroid and then in 35mm. His pictures are an amazing record of a lifestyle most of us have only seen through Hollywood's eyes and they have now been collected and published in a hardcover book called A Period of Juvenile Prosperity published by Twin Palms Publishers. A non-signed casebound first edition is available immediately and there is a signed version on back order. The latter should be available on March 25, 2013. A fascinating book, the photos are incredible--I'm sure the first edition will sell out quickly. (Photos courtesy of Mike Brodie.)

For Spring: A Poem by Pamela Starland

2013-03-19T18:25:00.003-07:00

Winter holds on
With claws tight
Around rooted trees
Flakes fall to remind us

Spring is gaining strength
As migrations ride
The southern wind's
Warm currents

They chase the chill
Of bitter cold
Off the clouds
To fall into the ocean

Father sun and Mother Earth
Grow closer
As their union melts
The frozen terrain

Their tears of happiness
fall in the freezing breeze
Seasons transition
As crocus emerge

A bittersweet visit
Each year - winter and Spring
Competing
To win the season

--Pamela Starland

Simple Photoshop Softening Technique

2013-03-12T00:00:00.001-07:00

We had a warm day in Connecticut today, it reached the mid 50s and I'm not sure how they know how warm it is outside, but the kitties requested that I let them out to the porch first thing. Later I took a break from a retouching assignment to go and check on them and found them in this sweet pose. I had to run and grab a camera, change lenses and hope they were still cuddled up when I got back. Thankfully they were.

The porch had plenty of light, but I wanted to use flash to brighten it up a bit more. I put the flash of my D90 into the "slow sync" mode so as to catch some of the daylight around them but the flash was still a bit too harsh. Normally I might just toss a Gaussian blur on to soften the look a bit, but lately I've been experimenting with the median filter (Filters>Noise>Median) and that's what I used for this shot. Prior to playing with the median, I did my basic adjustments: crop, a curves correction and some minor color corrections (using hue/saturation mainly). Then I applied the median filter, as follows:

Duplicate the background layer (Command J on a Mac).
Apply the Median filter (again, Filters>Noise>Median) and choose an amount. In this case it was arbitrary, but I used a pretty heavy setting of around 25. At this setting the image is barely recognizable but don't worry about that. You're going to use the opacity setting to bring back detail from the original background layer.
I then adjusted the opacity of background copy to about 40%.
I made some tweaks to color balance and saturation and that's it.

I think this would be a nice technique to use for portraits, too. The effect kind of reminds me of some more complex softening methods, but this is so fast you can do it in a few seconds.

The World's Biggest Panoramic

2013-02-28T11:31:00.002-08:00

If you're a panoramic-photo lover like me, you'll find this story from American Photography's Pro Photo Daily very interesting. If printed out the pano would be 322 feet across and 79 feet high! The photo takes a few minutes to load but it's pretty cool.

World Records: 320 Gigapixel Shot Is the Biggest Panorama Ever

PetaPixel Tuesday February 26, 2013

An image of London made by stitching together 48,640 exposures taken with seven Canon EOS 7D DSLRs is the hugest panoramic photo ever, reports PetaPixel. The big picture, taken from the top of London’s BT Tower, offers a detailed, browsable 360-degree view of the city. (Go here to start your browsing.) Each of the 7Ds was equipped with an EF 400mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens and Extender EF 2x III teleconverter, and then attached to a Rodeon VR Head ST robotic panorama head. It took three weeks to stitch the images together. Read the full Story >>

American Photography's Pro Photo Daily is a free newsletter about what's happening in the photo world and you can subscribe for free by visiting their site.

The Glory of Melting Snow

2013-02-25T13:02:00.000-08:00

I shot this photo years ago with one of my first digital cameras, an Olympus C5050 (still one of my favorite cameras of all time) and it's been published in a few of my books. The flower is called Glory of the Snow and it's one of the very first flowers that blooms here in New England and often comes up when there is still snow on the ground. My garden is still buried in up to two feet of snow but this week is supposed to be very warm and I'm hoping by week's end the snow has pretty much disappeared--and that the flowers begin to make their valiant return. With the exception of one giant blizzard the winter wasn't that bad (at least in terms of snow), but I'm thrilled that spring is only 24 days away.

The time is now to begin to gather up and organize your close-up gear. My favorite tool the past few years has been a set of close-up extension tubes that I bought (Kenko) for around $200. Close up tubes have no glass elements so they don't degrade image quality at all; they simply reduce the close-focus distance of your lenses. The tubes are sold as kits of three different-sized extensions that can be used individually or together in any combination. There are cheaper versions out there on Ebay but be sure they fit your camera and lenses and that they retain all auto functions in terms of exposure and autofocus.

Some Scenes of My House in the Blizzard

2013-02-11T01:16:00.001-08:00

Well, you've no doubt heard about the Blizzard of 2013 in Connecticut--here's what it looked like in my front yard. Official totals say we got about 33" in my town, but I'd say it was closer to 40" based on looking at the level areas (which were hard to find). In the top photo you can see the view from my front door during the start of the storm (on Friday) and in the next photo, you can see the view on Saturday morning. My poor van is buried for a while--I have no intention of digging it out just yet. The bottom photo is my great neighbor Rich who, seeing that I couldn't push my door open with a five-foot drift against it, climbed over a mountain of snow to dig out my front door! Thanks Rich! The next day Rich dug out the entire sidewalk for our 85 year old neighbor who lives alone. I am guessing she'll bake Rich a cake pretty soon. It's been quite a storm so far--and as of this writing, not a single plow has come down our street--and the storm ended on Saturday, it's now Monday morning.

Thankfully we all kept electricity in the neighborhood and it's been kind of fun hanging out with neighbors in the street and shoveling and talking, meeting neighbors some of us didn't know, etc. And a lot of my neighbors, like me, are second generation (some even more) homeowners, so we have childhood tales to tell of the igloos we built in storms long ago. Everyone seemed in really nice spirits and several families were walking a mile into town to buy pizza, etc. (Thankfully, too, the great people at Paradise Pizza stayed open.) Of course, those who braved the walk (not me!) had to walk in the single traffic lane of Main Street since you can't even find the sidewalks, let alone walk on them. Drifts everywhere are up to six feet everywhere. It's pretty incredible. Normally at this time of year, though, we'd all be huddled inside hiding from nature, but this blizzard pulled everyone outside, which was nice.

I wasn't at all prepared for this storm--had no food in the house, very little heating oil, etc., but it's been just fine. And the cats have been enjoying that when I come in from shoveling, I immediately take a nap. They just love to nap on snowy days, and so do I!

And best of all, we'll all have tales to tell about the Blizzard of 2013.

Straight vs Artsy, Take Your Pick

2013-02-05T23:47:00.001-08:00

Today was a "phone day" for some reason--I had several long conversations in a row and it was a nice way to kill a Tuesday afternoon (let's hope none of my writing editors are reading this). But not being one who likes to waste time (or who can keep his paws off of Photoshop for very long) while I was talking I started doodling with a shot I took last week (of a marine repair boat on the Housatonic River near my home in Connecticut) and came up with a few variations of the original. I started both as I usually do with a quick crop and a quick curves correction (to get the tonalities close to the correct range), and then I started dipping into a few things like gradient mapping, posterization and some basic drawing filters. I really wasn't too thrilled with the original because it was a tad too warm (I shot it very late in the day) and also, parts of the boat sort of merged into a dark strip of marsh in the background.) The two variations are pretty predictable, but as I always say, the more you play in Photoshop the more avenues you explore and you can always put what you learn to work on important shots that need some creative tweaking.

Before I make any changes to a shot, I always dupe the background layer (Command J on a Mac, Control J on Windows) and then do the rest of the work on that duplicate layer. There are two reasons for this: one is so that if I don't like where I'm going with something, I can just drag the background-copy layer (and any additional layer that I don't want) to the trash but leave the original background layer alone. Then I don't have to bother re-opening the original image--it's still sitting there as the background-layer original. The other reason is that once I've got some creative work done to the dupe layer, I can experiment with layer blending modes, changing the relationship between the background layer and it's duplicate layer(s). I can also adjust the opacity between layers, further changing the relationship between the two. In fact, I often create multiple dupes of layers so that I can use blending modes and opacity adjustments between each layer.

This is all much simpler than it sounds and if you've never experimented with adjustment layers (and opacity changes), try it. Just duplicate the background layer and then, at the top of the layers palette, use the pull-down menu to try different blending modes. It's kind of hard to explain what each blend mode does, it's much simpler to just experiment and see what happens. I learned a lot about the blending modes from a workshop I took with the legendary Ben Willmore--one of my Photoshop heroes. Ben doesn't seem to write books any more, but his older books are a treasure trove of great info and advice. Ben is a really interesting guy who lives (I kid you not) in a big classic old tour bus and travels the country shooting and teaching Photoshop. Do check out his site & blog.

In the meantime, you can't hurt your computer or your software by messing around with Photoshop and while a lot of what I come up with might be kind of artsy or trite, I find that for me, playing is the absolute best way to learn.

Sunsets: Timing, Lens Choice and Horizons

2013-01-23T02:08:00.001-08:00

Believe it or not, I shot both of these sunsets on the same day standing in essential the same place (on the shore of Long Island Sound) with the same camera (an Olympus UZ-810) and they were shot only about 10 minutes apart. The photos look very different from one another and that is due largely to three choices that I made for each shot: when I took the picture, the focal length that I chose and, very importantly, where I placed the horizon for each shot.

The top shot was taken first and was made with a zoom setting (in 35mm equivalent) of 159mm. That's on the long side of the medium telephoto lens range (typically a medium-telephoto lens is in the 85 to 135mm range, so this is just outside that, but not yet in what I would call the super-telephoto range). You can see in this shot that space has been compressed and that the stone jetty (that dark finger sticking out into the water) is much closer and larger. Also, by aiming the camera down at the foreground the shot emphasizes the foreground, not the sky. And finally, the sun was still a few degrees above the horizon when I took the picture. The thing that I like about the shot is that the color of the sky is reflected nicely in the little tidal area in the foreground. What I don't like is that the sunset sky seems awkwardly cropped out of the frame. Probably a better choice would have been to widen the zoom setting a bit to take in a bit more sky while still keeping the foreground dominant.

In the second (bottom) shot, I waited until the sun was just touching the horizon--which is my favorite time to shoot sunsets. You have to shoot quickly when the sun gets this low because there is an odd little phenomenon going on: the closer the sun gets to the horizon, the faster it disappears from view. Also, I switched to the widest setting of the zoom lens (around 24mm--and that Olympus has a huge 36x optical zoom--it goes from about 24mm to nearly 900mm!). I also aimed the camera upward because I wanted to emphasize the sky and that beautiful whispy cloud pattern that was happening. The clouds look to me like an artist had put some dabs of white paint in the sky and then smeared them a bit with a wide brush or a comb--and I guess that's exactly what happened with Mother Nature being the artist. Whenever you place the horizon low in the frame you emphasize the sky.

So there you have two very different looks at one sunset based on three simple technical and creative decisions. Both of these shots were made handheld, by the way, something I almost never do. But the camera has image stabilization and I was out for a ride with a friend and just didn't want to inflict a tripod on him. Oh, by the way, you'll notice in the bottom shot that I lined up the sun right over the tip of the jetty. In art terms that's known as a "point of tension" and it's a small compositional trick that really works--your eye naturally goes to that spot because the tight spacing and close alignment create a kind of visual anticipation that something is going to happen there.

My latest book is the Digital Photography FAQs Book and you can read more about it or order it on Amazon or find it in your local shop. Or see if your local library has it and you can read it for free.

Dreams of a Young Pharaoh

2013-01-15T12:47:00.003-08:00

OK, one more Photoshop montage (for now) and I'll try to move back to photography. I have no idea where this burst of Photoshop energy came from, but I haven't been shooting much lately and so I guess the fire to create something still burns and so I turn to existing images. Combining old images in this way is actually a lot of fun (and I have no idea whatsoever what these images mean) and, as I said in a previous posting, it gives you a lot of editing practice. Creating montages is a nice way to spend a cold winter's evening, too.

One of the more interesting aspects of doing this kind of work for me is that I have no idea where I'm going when I begin. When it comes to taking straight photos, of course, I know exactly what I'm after and I know how to get there. With these montages, on the other hand, I just start with one image, then keep adding more and doing things like changing the sizes, the shapes, the colors and, most fun, the layer blending modes. Another fun thing is that these images come from all different times and places. The montage here, for example, includes the shot of the pharaoh (taken in an antiques store in Connecticut), the water lilies (shot at Longwood Gardens near Philadelphia) and the peacock tail (shot in southern Florida). How could I have any idea they would end up together in one image? Interestingly too, I have a writer friend that wrote a very pretty and insightful poem based on this montage.

So, when you start meandering down a creative path, you never know where you'll end up. Also, I've learned that I need to take some advanced classes in Photoshop. While I've been working with the program a long time (since 1993) and I'm pretty good at it, there are some things I need to learn about montage work--like creating gradients between layers/images and refining selections. But every time you work an image you learn more about Photoshop--and about your own imagination--and so while it might seem you're wasting time, you're really not. At least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Today's Creation: The Birth of a Flower

2013-01-06T15:02:00.000-08:00

Created from two scanned images: one of a chambered nautilus shell, the other of an eggplant blossom. Both elements physical elements scanned on an Epson flatbed scanner. There is only one flower image, repeated multiple times, re-sized for each layer and then each layer was blended using different layer-blending modes for each flower image.

A Little More Montage Fun

2013-01-04T11:29:00.001-08:00

These are the same two base elements of the previous posting (the silhouette of the family and the shot of the perigee moon) but without some of the additional elements. The color was manipulated using the channel mixer tool--very simple to use. These images are really just sketches for much more elaborate scenes that I want to create. It's a good idea to sketch out things with fewer elements so you can see how things work together, but it's worth keeping notes so that you don't forget how you got there. The history legend will keep track of things while you're working, but once you flatten the image, it disappears. The one thing that I particularly like about this version is that the color of the moon and the sky/water color go nicely together--something I'll keep in mind when if I go further with these shots.

A Little Late-Night Surrealism

2012-12-29T13:20:00.004-08:00

When Photoshop was first introduced (I started using it in the early 1990s, not sure exactly when it was first introduced) seemingly everyone became a surrealist. You could hardly open a photo magazine without encountering an elephant swimming in a wine glass or a flock of geese morphing into flying dogs. It was a lot of fun. I don't see as much of it as I used to see and I kind of miss it. Recently I've been doodling in Photoshop for fun and exploration as opposed to just enhancing my photos for publication--it's a blast. I created this image in the middle of the night and it has a kind of dreamlike quality to it (and it's actually called Stony Creek Insomnia #1). Puttering around creatively in PS is a great way to learn the program and to see how different tools work together and it's an excellent ways to learn to use layers and layer-blending modes.

The best way to start a surrealistic montage is to first open a blank document in PS and size it for whatever finished size you want. I typically size things 20 x 24-inches at 300 dpi--which will create enormous files by the time you're done (so you'll need a lot of RAM--I have 5.5 gigs). The reason I work so large is that if I create something I really like, I can have a lab make huge prints. Always work in high resolution, by the way (again, 300 dpi). It would be a shame to create an image you really want to print big only to find the file doesn't have enough resolution (been there, done that).

I typically add images simply by opening the images and then using the move tool (the top tool on the tool bar) to dray the images into the blank document (yes, you can just drag images in) and then I use the Edit>Transform options (scale, skew, rotate, etc.) to size and/or distort each element. Then, once again, use the move tool to position them. Each image is its own layer so I can turn them on and off at will, or rework them (or delete them) as necessary. Another source of cool image elements, if you have a flatbed scanner, is to scan household or natural objects and incorporate them in your collages.

One of the primary things that I like about creating collages is that you can combine different parts of your world and your experiences. This shot is made up from images taken in Connecticut and Florida (and the moon is the super perigee moon) shot years apart. I have absolutely no preconceptions about what I'm going to combine or why, I simply keep adding things that seem to create an interesting dream story.

As I said, I'm usually just doodling but it can become somewhat obsessive if you let it. I had no idea I was going to create this image. I was between couch and bed and sat down to read email for a minute and the next thing I know, two hours later, I'm lost in a PS dream. In my fantasies, I envision myself being able to afford to sit at a computer for days at a time creating just one image.

2012-12-24T12:43:00.003-08:00

A Foggy Day in Stratford Town

2012-12-17T20:16:00.002-08:00

I grew up in the town of Stratford, Connecticut, named after the more famous Stratford, in England. Last week, however, for about two days we had a fog that would make even Britons feel right at home. I took a quick ride to the grounds of our Shakespeare Theatre (sadly, it's been dark for decades while the town seemingly does nothing to save it) and shot some quick photos of this lovely wooded grove. I love the bolder dark shape of the large tree on the left and the figure of the statue (Shakespeare, pondering) in the center (though I also shot some frames with him off-center). I'll write more about shooting in fog (use plus exposure compensation!) some other time, but for now, just wanted to post this pretty scene. The state of Connecticut (and the country, I'm sure) has been in a sort of ponderous fog since the terrible tragedy in Newtown. This photo seems to symbolize our deep thoughts and confusion. It's such a profoundly sad event it's hard to even begin to wrap your mind around it. God bless those sweet little angels--though the words just don't seem adequate this time.

My photo books: By the way, all of my photo books are up on Amazon if you're thinking of buying someone a book during the holidays. I really meant to publish a list of good photo gift books this week but never got around to it. If I have time before the weekend I'll post a few.

A Sunset Mircle at the end of Every Day

2012-12-07T13:56:00.000-08:00

Knock on wood, we've had some really beautiful days here in Connecticut lately and this past week I've been to the beach a few times to shoot the sunset. I saw this composition the day before I actually shot it. I was having a late lunch with a friend of mine in a seaside cafe and saw this scene out the window--and there was a spectacular sunset going on. It was one of those nice slow early-December sunsets that we get over Long Island Sound with a beautifully hazy and soft sun. Unfortunately, I didn't have a camera with me (which is rare, trust me).

I was so disappointed that I was determined to return to the beach the next day, with my cameras--and I did. I went back to the exact same beach in front of the cafe (in fact, I shot this right below the window where I'd been eating the day before) with my Nikon D90 and a 70-300mm Nikkor zoom and my Manfrotto tripod and I got there just as the sun was about to set. I only had time to pop off a few frames and then the sun disappeared into the clouds. But I really like this shot a lot; I like the contrast between the dark deck (I darkened it up a bit in Photoshop) and the very pastel colors of the sunset. Simple foregrounds can do wonders to improve a sunset. And part of the reason that I was able to compose it so quickly and knew that I wanted to include that little deck as a frame, was that I had seen it the day before. I knew exactly what the composition was going to be before I even took the camera out of the case.

So if ever you are out and about and see a pretty scene at sunset but don't have your cameras, keep the composition in mind and return another day. To me sunrises and sunsets are a miracle of color and light that happen every day (weather permitting) and they're just waiting for you to go capture their beauty.

Ilford Launches Two B&W Disposables in UK

2012-12-04T20:20:00.001-08:00

In the world of strange-but-true news, Ilford has introduced a pair of black & white disposable cameras, but so far only in the UK. Here are the specs from the Ilford press release:

"The ILFORD XP2 Super Single Use Camera gives the convenience of being able to have the film processed at any High Street photo-processing centre using C41 colour negative systems, with proof prints made on colour paper. These can either be close-to-neutral black and white prints, or colour toned monochrome prints, and are ideal for deciding which negatives to print on black and white paper.

The ILFORD HP5 Plus Single Use Camera is intended for processing at locations with standard black and white film processing and printing chemistry, resulting in true, real black and white prints that have a unique look as the images are made from silver."

Both cameras are complete with built-in flash--cool! The cameras are pretty much being aimed at the wedding market (you know, leave cameras on the reception tables and guests take their own photos), but I'm guessing they are vastly underestimating the interest these cameras will generate with those of us who miss shooting black and white film. I think it would be great fun to toss a couple of these in the carry-on luggage (don't check them--the Xray machines will ruin the film) on a trip and do some b&w shooting for fun.

No word yet on when (or if) they'll be introduced to the U.S. market. I can't imagine why Ilford would skip the biggest market in the world.

My photo books: By the way, I discovered a forgotten cache of a few of my photo books in my office, including The NEW Joy of Digital Photography and also Jeff Wignall's Digital Photography Crash Course (and perhaps a few other titles) and I'm thinking of selling them directly from this blog. Oh, I think I have some copies of the Winning Digital Photo Contests Book, too. Let me know if there's any interest. I have to charge more than Amazon, but probably not full retail. Also, I took my main site down for a month or so while I create a brand new one--should be up by the first of the year if not sooner. The old site was looking a bit dusty and it's easier just to start a new one these days.

To Power Line or Not to Power Line

2012-11-24T01:34:00.003-08:00

Normally when I'm out shooting photos I go out of my way to exclude things like power lines from landscape scenes, but in a way that kind of feels like I'm creating a false reality. Lately I've been hanging out with a friend, just taking drives around town and plunking shots with my little Olympus zoom camera (an Olympus UZ 810 with a 36x optical zoom) and I've been trying not to be too critical about what goes into the frame. Really all I want is a record of what the town looks like now, today, without trying to clean up the scenes too much. I shot this frame--power lines and all--as I walked into a beach-side cafe and literally just pointed at what I saw and shot--I made no effort to get rid of the power lines.

Of course, the picky perfectionist in me did walk a few more yards and I took some more shots without the lines, just to show this pretty little beach at twilight sans power lines or cottages. The shot (below) is cropped a bit differently, but the significant difference is just the lack of anything man made (other than the stone jetty). Is one better than the other? I kind of like the shot with the cottages and the power lines--the beach seems more lonely when you know that its inhabited, I think. And those power lines leading into the shot help to exaggerate that feeling. The second shot is quite a bit more blue partly because it was 10 minutes later, but largely because I Photoshopped them differently.

Note: My main site is down temporarily. I've taken my main site down temporarily because I wasn't happy with the hosting service. I'm looking for a new host and when I find one I like I'll create a brand new site. The old one was looking kind of dusty anyway. I'll keep you posted (a blogger's joke, arr arr).

Great Hurricane Sandy Photos

2012-11-01T00:04:00.003-07:00

I live on the Connecticut shore (actually a few miles inland) and so had a front row seat to Hurricane Sandy. Fortunately I was able to keep power throughout and so felt relatively safe--even with 80-90 mph winds smashing the house for hours at a time. It was scary, but quite exciting, too. Tragically, however, the storm ruined a lot of lives and totally destroyed parts of Connecticut, New York and especially New Jersey.

Once the storm was passed I figured that going out to shoot photos would only be gawking at other peoples' misfortune, so I resisted the urge. But I did find a site with some excellent photo coverage--and I highly recommend taking at look at the great photos gathered there. I hope that the folks who were most affected can regain their normal lives as quickly as possible.
(Photo: MICHELLE MCLOUGHLIN/REUTERS)

New Autumn Foliage Tutorial on Main Site

2012-10-10T15:18:00.006-07:00

I've just written a new tutorial on photographing autumn's colors on my main site. Check it out if you have a minute! We're still waiting on the colors here on the Connecticut coast, but they should be peaking elsewhere around the northern parts of the country.

Photographing Autumn Foliage in Reflections

2012-09-29T02:02:00.002-07:00

I love cruising around on a sunny autumn day looking for pretty scenes to shoot. One of my favorite local venues is a small pond just a mile up the road from my house. For whatever reason that pond seems to be surrounded by trees of many types (oak, maple, sycamore) that produce a beautiful assortment of colored leaves in autumn. I took this shot while standing on a small dock shooting scenes of the shore at the opposite side of the pond. As I was shooting, I noticed noticed how pretty the scene was if I eliminated the shore itself and just shot the reflection of the trees, so I ended up shooting a few dozen shots of various parts of the reflection.

I was shooting toward the end of the day (my favorite time to shoot almost any landscape) and as the sun got lower the colors on the trees and in the reflection got more and more intense. In fact, I think the colors in the water were even brighter than in the trees themselves. The trees that are in the reflection face west, toward the setting sun, so that really helps bring out the colors, too. The water was very still--like a mirror--and I think that helped, but I also experimented with throwing pebbles into the pond to create ripples and I like some of those shots as well (and if they weren't buried somewhere in one of my six hard drives, I'd post one of them!). Make sure if you toss things into the water to make ripples that you use rocks so that they sink--otherwise you end up with something floating around in your shots.

If you're out shooting the autumn colors this year, see if you can't find a nice reflection in a pond or a stream. I think that one of the tricks to a good reflection shot is to completely eliminate the source of the reflection and just shoot its mirror image, though again, while working this scene I also shot a lot of photos that included the shore. Hey, digital is free, shoot lots!

My new travel blog. I've recently begun another blog, this one devoted to travel topics. The blog will be a collection of tips, news, ideas and photo tips all related to traveling. And please don't forget to check out my main site from time to time. And, as always, feel free to leave me comments!

9-11 Memorial--Jersey City, New Jersey

2012-09-11T14:05:00.001-07:00

This is a memorial to the victims of the World Trade Center attack. It is located on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River in Jersey City. The Manhattan skyline is in the background and it looks out on exactly where the WTC once stood. The memorial was created by an actual beam from the WTC and has been adorned with various mementos, angels, American flags, etc. Ironically, this memorial is just a short drive from Liberty State Park where you catch the ferry to visit the Statue of Liberty. It has always seemed stunning to me that tourists were on Liberty Island, visiting the Statue when 9-11 happened--and from that great monument to liberty, they watched America being attacked.