It’s not your camera. It’s not your lens. It’s not the paper, or the printer, or the print lab.
It’s your post processing. Click to continue »
January, 2010
...now browsing by month
The One Thing that sets your photos apart, technically
Sunday, January 31st, 2010
A cool photo from way-back-when
Friday, January 29th, 2010OK, try to follow this: I was reading A Photo Editor’s recent “I.D.’s Executioners” post, which linked to a post by Julie Lasky on The Design Observatory’s site, which linked to a photo by David Wojnarowicz of buffalo being driven over a cliff.
OK, got all that? Take a look at that pic again (and soon, it may go away!).
I’m not sure why, but this picture really speaks to me. What does it say to you?
Almost Missed: Uzbeki Oppression
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010I normally don’t like making inflammatory comments, but I think that this story may just be worth it.
Summarizing from that link:
Uzbek photographer Umida Akhmedova is awaiting trial and is facing a potential sentence of six months in prison or three years forced labor. At issue is a 2007 work called Men and Women from Dawn to Dusk that contains approximately 100 of her photographs of life and customs in Uzbekistan.
I missed this when it was initially important, but fortunately Mike Johnston at The Online Photographer won’t let me forget. He posted a further link today, which has entertaining comments and a link to another 50 pictures from this lady.
Personally, I don’t see anything degrading. I suppose if I were raised in Uzbek society, I might have a different perception. But I wasn’t, and now I don’t think I’ll be going there any time soon.
I suppose they don’t want me there, either.
The making of “Moon over the Treeline”
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010When I originally created this composition, I made it pretty clear that it’s a composite. Two images, completely unrelated – but from the same general time and location. This took only a few minutes to make, and that had a few people asking how.
So, for starters: the two images.
 Original Treeline |
 Moon, correctly exposed |
On Cats and Dogs
Sunday, January 24th, 2010Completely unrelated to anything photography, other than the source. A commenter on a lovely young lady’s photostream pointed out the difference between cats and dogs (in response to the idea of cats having delusions of grandeur):
if dogs were 5 times their size, they’d still lick us.
if cats were 5 times their size, they’d eat us.
it’s not so much delusion as a problem of proportion (but then that’s exactly a delusion of granduer)
I found the observation both witty and likely accurate.
Check out her pics – she’s doing some interesting things with self portraits!
Getting the feel for Bokeh, ctd.
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010The last post in this series gave you visual examples of making bokeh. What was the key concept?
The more out-of-focus the target, the larger and dimmer the bokeh.
Bokeh behind bread
Now here’s the thing: focus on the background is relative. Let’s say you’re photographing something that’s in front of a Christmas tree. By focusing on the object, the tree becomes a background of bokeh. A perfect example: the monkey bread to the right.
So here’s the thing: if the bread is closer to the tree than it is to the camera, the smaller and brighter the bokeh. Closer to the camera and it’s larger and dimmer.
This is also effected by the overall distances: for this shot, I was maybe two feet from the bread and three feet from the tree. Larger bokeh. Step back two feet, and the bokeh grows smaller. Increase the distances with the same ratio (say, 4 feet from the bread, six feet from the tree): bokeh grows larger still (it’s further out of focus). Tighten your f-stop from f/1.4 to f/2 and the bokeh shrinks again.
Getting the feel? It’s kinda like a dance. Mentally, I tend to associate it with hyperfocal distance, but instead of maximizing sharpness, it’s maximizing the bokeh.
Getting the feel for Bokeh
Thursday, January 21st, 2010Ok, so last time I wrote about getting traffic for images with the word “bokeh” in them, and I promised a how-to.
After thinking about it, I realized that I don’t really have a strong enough grasp of either optics or physics to pull off an in-depth, highly knowledgeable article on this. For me, doing anything with bokeh is a bit of a crap shoot. Intellectually, I get it – but I can only visualize it by feel, and I only know what works for me.
So, that being said, I’m slightly changing the subject: this is still a how-to, but it’s a “how to get a general feel” for bokeh. Think of this as a training exercise, not a definitive lecture.
So, let’s start. Click to continue »
Constant bokeh hits
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010When I take the time to review hits for this site, I find it interesting to me that I get so many visitors who are searching for bokeh. I mean, there’s really only a couple of pics, and they’re fairly poor at best. Yet over the last three months it has been my main reason for getting traffic from image searches. Click to continue »
Lighting Vegemite
Sunday, January 17th, 2010Photographically speaking, different people know me for different reasons. Some see me as primarily an outdoors photographer (landscapes, wildlife), others as a portraitist (which is actually rare), yet others as a small studio-style (still life) photographer. In reality, of course, there is no delineation – it’s just one person doing whatever he feels like.
Due to my strobist-style activities, however, people do have an expectation that use a fairly professional setup for most shots. So the question came up: what flashes & pattern did you use to create such soft, low-contrast light in the How to Eat Vegemite shots?
The answer: Click to continue »
Slowing down on posts
Saturday, January 16th, 2010I suppose it’s normal to start out a blog with a flurry of posts, then slow down over time. While reviewing posts over the last year, I noticed a definate pattern: the more frequently I posted, the lower the quality of the topics and writing. This was not 100%, and is of course a highly biased self-assessment.
Just an interesting note. I believe I’ll be putting less pressure on myself to do frequent posts, and more effort into doing quality posts. Which is highly subjective.
Maybe I’ll just put more effort into amusing myself. That sounds like fun.