Monthly Archives: April 2013

TTL Flash Photography in my Wife’s Garden

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Tulip 1 Blue Muscari Arbis Sempervivum Pennesetum grass - fountain grass

This is beginning to be a busy spring. I expect that isn’t news to those in my area that have spent all day doing yard work the past few days. But for many photographers thoughts kept wandering to, “That could make a good picture.”

I really wanted to do some photography in my wife’s garden. The nights are still cold, but the days have been almost hot, and with that heat the first of her flowers are beginning to bloom. My goal is always to photograph what happens in the garden with the changing seasons.

There is always something in the garden no matter the weather, be it snow, rain, or like today, high clouds. The slight overcast day was perfect for my subjects. Bright sunny days increase the contrast of scenes, making it hard to capture details in the extremes and I wanted to retain what details I could. The diffused daylight reduced the number of f/stops from black to white.

My setup is a 200mm macro lens and depending on my mood and the light, either a ring-flash, a reflector, or as I used this afternoon, a wireless, off-camera flash.  Outdoor portraits, whether of people or flowers, in my opinion, aren’t that interesting when one only relies on illumination from the sun. Flash, on or off-camera, or even a reflector, adds dimension and depth that makes for a much better image.

I mounted my flash on a small 2-foot stand and carried a tiny six-inch tripod if I needed the light to be lower to the ground, and I this time I didn’t use a tripod because the few flowers were close to the ground and I prefer shooting very low level. That means almost every shot is made while lying on the ground.

By the time I could get out to the garden the sun was low and, sometimes, a heavy overcast. Perfect light. All I had to do was put the flash to one side and adjust my shutterspeed to decrease the bright ambient light.  Today’s TTL (through the lens) flash is amazing.  Previous generations recall when the flash/camera sync speed was limiting and we could only use a flash at 1/60th of a second! How did one survive?  Today I moved my shutter between 200th of a second and 8000th of a second. That gave me lots of control over the ambient light and easily allowed me to move my aperture to increase or decrease depth of field. My advice is check your camera’s manual, read about, and set the camera to hi-speed flash sync, if available.

I’ll include a brief explanation of TTL flash. When the shutter is tripped, the light from the flash fires off and hits the subject. Then that light from the flash bounces back to the camera, and a sensor reads it as it builds up exposure. The in-camera computer determines when the light has massed enough light for the correct exposure and turns off the flash.

The photographer controls the flash rather than the flash controlling our photography. With TTL technology the camera’s computer provides the correct exposure regardless of the aperture, or flash-to-subject distance.  TTL technology puts the control of depth-of-field back into the hands of the photographer.

Most of the time I kept my flash on TTL, increasing or decreasing the power depending on how far I positioned the flash from a flower, and only selected manual flash as I began loosing the light.

Books on garden photography recommend morning when everything is fresh, but I didn’t get a chance till late in the afternoon, as I was occupied building a temporary yard for six new chicks. We had an early morning marauder a few months ago, probably a bobcat, reducing my laying hens to two. I now have reinforced the chicken yard and think everybody’s safe now. I’ll give the garden another couple week’s growth and try for that fresh morning (and hopefully some overcast) light.

I’ll repeat what I wrote about garden photography last February, “Just about anytime is good for a dedicated photographer to make photographs. My advice is to be creative, have fun, and don’t worry about failures. Open them up on the computer, learn something from them, then quickly delete.  Of course, some tweaking with PhotoShop always helps and, for those photographers that are like me trying for something different, anytime and any conditions will be just fine.”

I always appreciate your comments. Thanks, John

My website is at www.enmanscamera.com

Wandering my Neighborhood with Infrared

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Pritchard store infrared  Crossing infrared Riverside infrared Bridge infrared Wolf ranch infrared Tree & fence infrared

Spring is here with cool nights and warm days. The snow has finally disappeared in my neighborhood, except on the mountaintops that surround the river valley in which I live, and everything is starting to get green.

I had decided this should be the week to wander the roads near my home. I selected my camera that I had converted to infrared some years ago, attached a 24-120mm lens, and headed out.  Over the past 37 years I have photographed everything in my nearby landscape again and again, and I won’t try to guess at the number of different cameras, films, and film formats and, of course digital cameras, I have used.

My goal this time (I always like to have some type of goal or plan), was to wait for a cloudy day and make use of the low, dramatic, and directional light at day’s end. I wanted to use my infrared camera as I have many times in the past.

Using infrared is always fun. The resulting images are always different and interesting. Before the days when I had invested in an infrared camera conversion, I had used Kodak infrared film. There wasn’t an exact ISO rating or even very consistent settings for that film. One would make test exposures for the filter density one used and the developing times. Good results would finally be obtained, but always after exposing several rolls of that expensive infrared film.

Nowadays my camera no longer requires a specialized infrared filter, and I don’t have to spend time in a lightless room developing the film. Yes, there was a cost to having my DSLR camera modified so that the image sensor is only sensitive to infrared light, but it has since paid back generously, because it is well worth the expense to be able to create unique images.

Most experts say infrared radiation peaks around noon, however, in my experience morning or evening is better, and the accompanying long shadows makes great pictures in infrared. So I waited a bit after 5pm before stepping out.

I went along the road searching out features I knew well, and that I thought might be perfect in the late afternoon light. My main interest was the sky. I wanted the very dark, hazy skies one obtains with infrared that are so dramatic, compared to those with visible light. As I stood alongside the road I thought about how the pictures I was making would be nice as colour images, but infrared and the black and white conversion I intended to apply would create more impressive, or as one writer called them, “otherworldly” scenes.

All my images from that day received some post-production using PhotoShop and Niksoftware. I shoot RAW so the original files from my camera are red and white. I convert each photograph to black and white, increase the contrast, and sharpen and strengthen the highlights and shadows. The final vision isn’t supposed to be a pretty, scenic document as much as it is my personal artistic vision.

It is possible for photographers who want “infrared-like” pictures to manipulate their normal captures using Photoshop, or any of several other programs that emulate the effects of infrared. However, those photographers like me that are interested in something different can find an older DSLR and send it out to be modified. Since I had my camera modified, there are several companies that have appeared, like www.lifepixel.com. These folks’ webpage begins with the question, “Are you tired of shooting the same stuff everyone else is shooting?”   So I suggest, if you would like to do something completely different, try infrared like me.

I look forward to your comments, John

My website is at www.enmanscamera.com

I like Photographing Buildings

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Red wall & Stairway1 blue door1 parking1Northern Junk co.  Captain's ride  porch couch1Brick doorway 1 the yellow door1 Waiting

Strolling along sidewalks with my camera, in cities, large or small, is exhilarating. And whether the architecture is low and flat, or skyscraping, or old bricked, or shiny metal and glass, I always find something different to photograph.  Usually, I approach urban areas with a plan and I don’t just wander about hoping to find something interesting. That’s not my way.

Sometimes I am after the cityscape and watch for shadows, highlights and interesting sky. On other occasions, my plan might be to select a particular area and visually capture the story of how structures and features interact. I might be more interested in the colours, and spend my time using the colour evidence to make a story.

In October 2012, I wrote about images I made while walking along the waterfront in Victoria, and, in February 2013, I showed photographs and discussed the small South Thompson River town of Chase, in the BC interior.  In each instance I approached the municipalities with different photographic goals. Goals that were not so much defining visuals as they were photographic thoughts about the architecture in each place.

Some years ago I spend three days wandering the side streets of Anacortes, a town along the coast of Washington. Although I enjoyed both the downtown and harbor districts of the small American town, what struck me most were those places where people lived. The inhabitants appeared to go out of their way to differentiate each dwelling and my plan came about to document the entrances of the places where people lived.

In that instance and whenever I decide to work my way through, or around, some city I always take some predetermined course of action. I remember a late afternoon in Port Townsend, WA and on that trip I spent my time photographing the unique turn of the century buildings along the narrow, main street using an infrared modified camera. I wasn’t so much documenting the well-known seaport town, as was trying to create a distinct impression of the ornate Victorian architecture.

I once read a quote by an anonymous writer that said, “The difference between the recorder photographer… and the artist photographer… is that the artist will, by experience and learning… force the camera to paint the imagination…the emotion… the concept and the intent… rather than faithfully and truthfully reproduce an unattractive and unflattering record.”

I must admit that my intent isn’t usually to document the cities I visit, as much as it is to create a personal vision of the buildings I photograph. That vision, although uniquely mine, rarely strays much from reality other than when I use my infrared camera. I haven’t entered the artistic world of HDR (high dynamic range) image making yet. HDR is the process of merging multiple exposures into one image.  I expect that it is only laziness on my part, because I am intrigued by how well HDR post-processing with software like Photomatix, http://www.hdrsoft.com lends itself to the creative architectural work. I anticipate that I will tackle that process at some time in the future when I make plans to photograph my way along another city’s streets.

I will mention that I rarely use lenses that are wide enough to exaggerate the foreground or make those dramatic vistas. My camera isn’t a cropped sensor so an 18mm lens would be, effectively, only a 28mm. That allows me to include lots of visual details and limits the distortion between near and far objects.

Summertime is quickly approaching and with that my wife and I expect to do some driving around British Columbia and possibly stray into Washington State, and those trips will always include architectural photography opportunities in the towns and cities we pass through, or stop and visit.

As always, I appreciate your comments and please let me know you were here.

Thanks, John

My website is at www.enmanscamera.com

Basics of a Good Story

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Canon beach 1 Canon beach 2      Canon beach 3

A discussion with friends about doing photo-essays reminded me of an article I wrote a few years ago entitled, “Telling a Story”. My thoughts on that, and visual story telling, are worth revisiting this week.

When I was in high school I gave an oral report in class about a story I was supposed to have read called the “Sentinel”. I hadn’t actually read that story, but really, I was taking on a dare by some of my friends that I could successfully get away with making up a story in the minutes before class started, and give a report that would have our teacher thinking I actually read it.

My friends and I waited outside the classroom door till just before the room change school bell rang.  One guy suggested the title of  “The Sentinel,” and being young guys they also thought it should be about a deer.

Even at that young age I knew that the basics of a good story was to make it interesting enough to engage the audience, that it needed an original perspective, and I knew I needed to create a mood right away. The story I made up as I talked was about a big deer that lived on a mountaintop, and I also got a good grade.

That was a long time ago. a story is similar to putting together a series of photographs. Whether one is consciously building a photo essay or, as an example, photographing a wedding; the process, start to finish is the same.

Photographs of people can visually stand alone, or might need several photographs to tell a complete story. As I perused a wedding I recently photographed, I looked for those that worked the best to explain a particular moment. I like images that show people interacting and I thought how weddings are perfect venues for creating interest, capturing moods, and experimenting with visual perspective.

Creating a photograph that is strong enough to stand on it’s own goes beyond just being a good visual image because it is filled with nice colours, or pretty people. It needs to give the viewers information that they can make into a story. I think a good photograph is one that makes us have a connection with, or think about, the subject. And just as in any good story one must engage the audience, have an interesting perspective, and, of course, create a mood.

At any event the photographer’s first goal is to successfully document everything that happens. The second is to compile enough images to be a narrative of the occasion. Third, and maybe most importantly, to create photographs that by themselves tell individual stories of those that attended, or are the main focus of the function.

Telling a story with photography, then, becomes more than putting the high-tech camera on program mode and randomly aiming around. It involves light, not just metering correctly, but adding light when it is needed so the main subjects are highlighted. Then selective focus is taken into consideration to isolate the subject, or include the subject of the photograph with other features, or the background; and then, positioning oneself so as to be at the right place at the right time.

Adding light might be from a reflector, or from an on-camera flash; selective focus is about just understanding and applying depth-of-field; and being at the right place at the right time takes some forethought, and the willingness to place oneself in front of the action. Sometimes, that means asking people to move out of the way, or (I know it may seem rude) stepping in front of others.

Successful storytellers are after fleeting moments that say something to the viewer, and sometimes depend on luck for that perfect camera angle. As I wrote, the story might be a succession of photographs or it might be that one picture, it’s really not that much different than the basics of a well-written story. Make it interesting enough to engage the audience, try for an interesting perspective, and create, or photographically capture, a mood.

I always appreciate comments, John

My website is at www.enmanscamera.com