The Photocrati Blog

The Tuesday Composition: The S-curve

If you like this article, you can now get the book! Joe has expanded the “Tuesday Composition” series into an inspiring new ebook on composition, especially for nature photography. Check it out: The Tuesday Composition.

We’ve talked about how the eye tends to follow along edges–and we’ve also talked a fair bit about the different ways that direction affects how that plays into composition. Today, I’m going to put those two concepts together, and more, as I talk about the venerable S-curve.

An S-curve is simply a curve of some object, line or path in the image that curves back and forth horizontally as you proceed vertically, much like the letter S–in fact, usually exactly like the letter S. (more…)

A simple cheat to direct a viewer’s eye

We can’t always control the shoot as much as we’d like. One of my regular gigs is shooting real food prepared by real kitchen staff at real restaurants. The shots are more about the cooks and the restaurants than about my photographic prowess. Many times food comes out of the kitchen looking perfect, other times … not so much. On these assignments I’m also usually restricted to available light, or minimal supplemental lighting. Immediately I’ve lost control over two key aspects of the shot. It’s on assignments like these that I’ll often employ a trick that’s so simple I’m almost embarrassed–vignetting.

By artificially darkening the corners and edges of images we can direct the viewer’s eye toward the center. The trick is to not overdo it, but to have it be subtle. If you look at an image and think, ‘Oh, darkened corners,’ you’ve most likely gone too far. There are several points along the way where you can employ this trick, but my preference is in Photoshop, after the image has been cropped and the contrast adjusted.

My personal method involved the Quickmask tool and an Adjustment layer. On you image, enter Quickmask mode (Q key command) and select a round paint brush of appropriate size. Then simply mask the majority of the image. Remember this is a mask, not a selection, so the areas you paint will not be affected by the next step.

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Why a Tilt-Shift Lens may be in Your Future.

decker-joe-tse-1 — Canon TS-E 24/3.5L (1st generation)

For many years, 35mm camera users have often been able to safely ignore the subject of camera movements. Not so for the large format folks, the relatively large film plane of a 4×5 view camera requires photographers to go to lengths even in the simplest images to get a deep depth-of-field, lengths that often include both camera movements and enormously tiny apertures (e.g., f/64). Our smaller film (or digital sensor) areas come along with a comparatively deeper depth of field. For better or worse, we may not wish to maintain our ignorance much longer.

If, like many photographers, you keep a close eye on gear announcements, you’ll have noticed the trend. While Canon had been selling three tilt-shift lenses for years, more recently they updated the 24mm tilt-shift with the ::amazon(“B001TDL2O0”,”Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II “):: (greatly improving it’s optical quality) and added a ::amazon(“Canon TS-E 17mm f/4L”,”17mm”):: to the lineup. In the same time frame, Nikon announced and began to ship ::amazon(“B0013BEEUW”,”24mm”)::, ::amazon(“B001BTG3NW”,”45mm”):: and ::amazon(“B001BTAZHM”,”85mm”)::. What’s behind this new excitement? (more…)

The Purple Cow

I’ve decided that it’s time to start putting my foot down and really begin promoting my freelance business. As I wrote previously about life as a corporate photographer and being at the mercy of the bean counters I think it’s time to get this party started before the next round of layoffs appear over the horizon. I’ve been “freelancing” part time for almost thirty years, I’ve also been very fortunate in that I’ve always had a full-time job as a photographer in that time. Well as I get older I realize that the corporate gravy train could dry up at anytime and it would be nearly impossible for me to get another full time corporate gig, especially at my ripe old age of 47. That realization is why I made the decision to build up my freelance business now, while I can. (more…)

The Curious Case of Lens Compression

I remember when I started on my journey to become a photographer, I came across the phrase “lens compression” – but it wasn’t explained.

With an engineer’s background, I readily grasped such concepts as the field of view is wider for lenses that are shorter– because if you take a paper tube, and look through it, the longer the tube, the less field of view you can see at the end. Gotcha.

But I still couldn’t find a good example of this strange phenomenon that people kept talking about – lens compression.

Lens compression is what happens when you take a picture with a longer lens – it apparently compresses the foreground and the background, and makes stuff appear closer together than in real life. With wide-angle lenses, the opposite effect occurs.

For example, let’s take a look at two pictures: (more…)

Pro Bono Work – continued

Recently, Steve Buchanan wrote an article on the value of pro bono work, or working for free.

This has also been a big discussion over at David Hobby’s blog (www.strobist.com), as well as Chase Jarvis’ blog (www.chasejarvis.com), which led to a scathing rebuttal by John Harrington.

The Strobist flickr forum also had a great discussion.

Personally, I’d like to share what “working for free” has done for me.

First, I think the phrase “working for free” is a misnomer. Nobody works for free. The second you pull the shutter release button, there’s wear and tear on your gear, which costs you money. Processing the photo requires a computer–which you had to buy. At the very least, doing all this costs you time, which is opportunity cost.

Personally, I prefer to call it “working for me”, rather than working for free. If someone else benefits, then that’s gravy–that’s all good–but just because I do something for free doesn’t mean I’m interested in doing YOUR thing for free.

Here’s a few things I’ve had the opportunity to do: (more…)

Book Review: Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite

One of the larger segments of the photographic book market is the “Photographer’s Guide” segment, numerous authors and publishers have, over the years, covered any number of photographic destinations. Michael Frye’s little ::amazon(“1930238002″,”Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite”):: is my favorite of the genre. It’s small, well-produced, and reflects the author’s deep knowledge of Yosemite National Park and surrounding areas. (more…)

Lumiquest Softbox III: Review

You know how this story goes: I’m working alone on an engagement shoot with a second speedlight on a tripod when suddenly a gust of wind catches the umbrella and everything comes crashing to the ground. This is how I found myself in need of a new umbrella.

One of the hardest things about working without an assistant is managing your off-camera lighting (plus, you have to get your own coffee, massage your own feet, change your own flat-tire, etc.). I go back-and-forth on it whenever I am about to do a shoot where I think I will be moving around a lot. Do I carry more equipment and sacrifice portability?

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Product Review: Eye-Fi Pro

When you shoot in the studio as much as I do you learn to hate cords. Power cords, sync cords, extension cords, data cables, all get in the way regularly. It’s not unusual for me to have a sync cord, AC adapter, cable release, USB cable and camera strap all attached to my camera at the same time. I use radio triggers for my strobes regularly, but sometimes a wired sync is necessary. If I’m tethered to the computer, I really need to use an AC adapter to power the camera as it doesn’t shut off automatically. If I use the tethering software I can remotely trigger the camera from the computer but sometimes the cable release is just more efficient. So anytime I’ve got the ability to cut a cord I’m willing to give it a try. (more…)

Q and A: What do you think about Infrared conversion for DSLRs?

Question

Can you comment on Infrared conversion for a DSLR camera? I am now using the Nikon D700 but I have an old Nikon D70 and I’m thinking of having it converted. I love to shoot nature and I am looking for something new in the look of my images. Do you have an opinion about converting cameras for this purpose? P. Babcock

Answer

I do know a couple of photo enthusiasts who had their old EOS Digital Rebels converted for Infrared photography but have not done so myself. Do note that the warranty of any DSLR-of any brand-will be void if it is modified. And once a camera has been converted to “IR Only”, it cannot be used for conventional photography unless you’re willing pay for a re-conversion.

Aside from those caveats, it’s a great idea if you really want to shoot Infrared photos for creative or scientific purposes with a rarely-used camera. (more…)