Still Life
To start off, I never thought I would be excited to go and pick up herbs and tags to shoot on a table I built. NEVER. After I got everything set up, I was so stoked to start. Lately Ive been shadowing other local accomplished photographers and watching the processes they do when they setup, shoot, and edit. I can tell you its mind blowing how much it different from the way that I’ve been doing it since its started.
I even spent some time on a video production and showed my “mentor” (if you will) my old stuff, He showed me what he used to shoot and we laughed at how far we’ve come and old habits that we’ll never repeat. such as putting huge watermarks across the entire photo we publish. Even techniques that never worked, or the worst situations, and totally butchered shoots. It was a relief to know that I’m not the only one making mistakes.
Back to the shot, because thats why I’m posting this article after all. I set this up on the floor, with a reflector between the key light ( a large window) and used a 50mm to get really tight detail shots of the subjects. I used a relatively wide aperture, some where around f/4. I was hand holding the camera, so I was shooting with a shutter speed between 60 and 250. I like to change the shutter quite a bit while shooting this to get really bright, crisp photos. My main focus was to make sure the green from the plants didn’t jump out of gamma, which I’ve noticed my nikon likes to occasionally do. In Photoshop, I adjusted the saturation, made sure it was straight, and burned in the shadows a little. It is a pretty straight out of the camera shot for the most part. ( I did use a High Pass overlay to restore whatever detail I might have lost by over exposure.
I posted one on Instagram.
I’m really excited about the fact that I’ve hired someone to make me a new logo. I should have those online soon. I can’t wait to get new cards, Twitter header, and watermark for social.
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May you have a picture worthy week.
Bye, Bye Gradient Banding
How many of my digital photographer friends have really great pictures of landscapes, or night time long exposures, that are totally mutilated by banding? Whether or not its color or black and white. I found an action (took a little tweaking, but it took the banding out) www.nomorebanding.com
Everyone else that is not familiar with ‘banding’ its when you can clearly see where colors blend togethers, most times its grey’s (above, I smoothed it out) and blues. Where the colors step to fade out or get deeper. If you need an example “google color banding”
Look at the image I just posted above and you can clearly see lines where the sky gets to the darkest hue. This is more of an edit/ save thing, because I rarely see it on the back of the camera. I don’t think its a certain lens either… I just think its the difference between 16-bit and 8-bit. I know after I ran the action the file I saved was much bigger, but it also was usable. So I’d say it was a valuable trade off.
Other than that, I took this off the side of the Santa Monica, California(the image of the sea gull) like usual there were a hundred flying together looking for scraps tourist drop or just waiting for people to feed them. the haze over the hills near the coast made for excellent isolation of this subject. I have to be honest, the birds flying in and out of the path of light created some difficulty getting a correct exposure, and focus. If you’ve been to the beach, you know these things are quick. I fired off about ten different shots, and this was the one I really felt captured what I wanted to convey. First time I went to California, I enjoyed it.
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Fill Light and the importance
First and foremost, I’d like to thank everyone that I’ve had the pleasure of working with, and you (the reader/visitor) for making it possible to do what I so dearly love. I had the opportunity to photograph the wedding announcements of two close friends. They’ve been so supportive, and I’m glad they elected to have me photograph such a major step in both their lives. I think this “job” was so cool because I had the opportunity to watch them grow together since the beginning. I wasn’t in the least bit surprised when he proposed. We talked about the venue they’ll be getting married in, and what totally progressive ideas about the reception they have. Everything about them is so nostalgic and easy-going. Its easy to shoot a couple that just shines with admiration for one another. When we discussed the session it was clear they didn’t want typical ‘engagement’ photos. I agreed, they aren’t just typical people.
* The Technical Stuff*
Something important to start. I never understood the importance of fill light. Its become so crystal clear the difference it makes. I read somewhere “The difference between a snapshot and a photograph is the technical usage of lighting” clearly there will be a hundred people that would elaborate, and or disagree. Thats not really what I want to discuss though. The difference between just pointing you camera at something and composing a shot with light (flashes, reflectors, lightbox, whatever..) is night and day. The ability to reproduce the same thing over and over regardless of location, or weather, is what separates professionals, and hobbyist. Now I’m not knocking anyone here… I’m just saying that the knowledge of knowing how, when to add light, and when to take light away, makes a huge difference in the product you are delivering. I shot this inside a beach bar thats primary light source was the neon lights hanging in the window, and some fluorescent overhead lights, not ideal by any means. I had a lens with a wide aperture and I just bumped my ISO up a little. I mostly just kept the speedlight angled at the ceiling to bounce light everywhere. If you’re familiar with flash sync speeds you know that I couldn’t go beyond 1/250th. (I normally keep it at 1/200 just to be sure I don’t get any curtains in the frame) I shot pretty wide open for the most part, and just made sure I stayed at exposure. I made sure the subjects had enough light pouring onto them, but kept the feel very natural.
If you have any questions, or just want to discuss different techniques, drop me a message, and I’d love to.
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