Monthly Archives: July 2011

Save Me!

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When an image has a small exposure or color cast problem, fixing it is a snap.  Back in the days of film, your lab would make these correction for you when they were printing the image.  Now a days most places you are getting your photos printed at just hit the print button, with no color correction or density adjustment (making the image lighter or darker).

Let’s look at some examples of easy fixes in your editing software, like Photoshop.

Next week let’s take a look at natural light vs. using a flash.

What – are you perfect?

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Okay, so for the last few weeks I have been talking about what makes a good picture.  Most of my examples of bad photographs have been from other photographers.  Many people may be asking why?  Do I never take a bad photograph -of course I do!

The difference, if I have the wrong setting on the camera when I take a picture I delete it.  Then after I have downloaded the card I immediately get rid of anything unacceptable before I back anything up.  In short – I THROW BAD PHOTOGRAPHS OUT!  A bad photograph – is not worth wasting my time on.
I have images where the flash didn’t fire, the light bounced wrong, it is over exposed or under exposed because I had the wrong setting.  All of those things happen to me, I just don’t keep them.

Also, how do you ask someone you know – can I use your photograph for an example of bad photography?  I like making people happy and this series will help people see where there images may have gone wrong without being embarrassed.

Someone else asked me why I don’t photograph bad examples for the blog series.  After all I am a photographer. :)

To really show you, I’d need to have friends and clients come in to the studio and spend hours making bad pictures.  Plus, how do I say, can you come in so I can photograph your child or family badly.  I don’t think people would be lining up outside my door to help.

Here is some examples of my bad photographs-

A good photographer know what to keep and what to throw away.  A good photographer is not going to use filters or spend time in Photoshop trying to fix an image that is badly exposed.

See I am not perfect, but as a professional I know when to keep an image and when to throw it out.

Defining Depth of Field

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In this week’s edition of Visual Literacy 101  -  DEPTH OF FIELD

Your dictionary.com defines “Depth of Field” as a zone in which objects are in sharp focus.

Your depth of field is determined not only by your f-stop in your camera, but also the lens you are using, distance from the subject, focal length and type of camera.  I could get really technical with this subject and talk about perception and circle of confusion but that would take a semester to teach and I want you to read this blog and not be bored.  So we are going to keep it simple, albeit a little long.

Let’s start with Shallow Depth of Field…

“Shallow” depth of field is when only one small point in the image is in focus, as with nature photography or macro photography, and the background and foreground is out of focus or blurry.  Shallow depth of field tends to draw your eye toward the subject (whatever is in sharp focus) and not be confused by the surroundings.  Remember from the last Visual Literacy 101 entry that the thing that is in focus is the subject.  Therefore, being sure your depth of field includes all of what you want the subject to be is CRITICAL!

An extremely shallow depth of field is very seldom acceptable with portrait photography.  One of the biggest mistakes we see a lot of when it comes to this subject is that the point of focus is placed on the wrong area causing important features in the picture to be out of focus. (Look at the twins in the last blog post about focus, the brother is in focus and the sister is not because of shallow depth of field.)

Let me show you some examples of bad depth of field choices in a portrait situation. (Remember, we throw out images that are unacceptable immediately, so finding an example of this from our studio was not possible.  However it was very simple to go on the web and find great examples of this from other people selling themselves as “professional” photographers.)

In a group or family photo where there are multiple rows of people, it is important that the person in front is just as in focus or sharp as the person in the back.

In this picture we took from last year’s Urban Meyer Scramble for Kids, you can see that the shallow depth of field works well.  The foreground is intentionally out of focus, Drew Copeland is completely in focus and then the background is out of focus again.  This clearly shows that Drew is the subject.

This example of a group photo we shot for the Junior League last year.  As you can see, the people in the front row and the people in the back row are all in focus because we used a wide depth of field to ensure focus throughout.

Using a “deep” depth of field is also a problem.  When everything is in focus, it is very difficult to find the subject.  Knowing when and how to use depth of field properly is important.

Our motto at the studio is “Get it right in the camera!” NOT “fix it in Photoshop” like many new photographers.  Many things can be fixed in Photoshop, the question is how well?

Let’s leave it at this, depth of field is an important factor in a recipe for a good photograph.   Next week, we will add exposure to our mix…

What's in a Cloud?

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I am going to add this post which is a little off track, because I have been getting a lot of questions recently about online storage.  Here is a great break down of what is out there.

In the news you are going to hear a lot about Amazon’s new online application “Amazon Cloud Drive”.  What you are not going to hear a lot of is the downside to using this FREE online storage.  Why did I capitalize “free”, remember the adage “if it seems to good to be true, it probably is”, it applies in this case.

Many people neglect to read the terms of usage, because
a) it is to long and wordie to sit there and read
b) it is in such legal terms, you are not really sure what it means
c) you are just to busy and it will be fine, why would they hurt you, won’t it make their company look bad

I admit, I do it every time I upgrade itunes, I just hit agree and go on.  But when it comes to your documents, photos and other sensitive materials do you really want anyone to have access.  If anyone having access to your photos and using them as they may is okay with you, then stop reading.  If it is not, let me give you a small lesson in online storage.

Here is the very first thing you see on the “Clouds” Terms of service:
PLEASE READ CAREFULLY — THIS IS A BINDING CONTRACT
This is a very big hint to the consumer, somewhere in this contract your rights are being abused.  Here is the section I am talking about straight from Amazon’s website

The “You give us the right to access” means exactly that.  You have given them permission to go through your files at anytime for any reason without your permission.  Many people will say “but it is password protected and I am the only one who knows the password”.  They created the software and they have the key to access whatever they want that is on “their cloud”.

Many people do not realize, in Facebook’s early stages, they had the same rights to use your photos in any way they deemed appropriate.  Remember the word “FREE”.  You are using FB for free, if they wanted to create an ad with your image, use your image in their office, change your image, you gave them permission by uploading your photos.  And they didn’t even need to ask.

A few years ago the uproar from professional photographers caused them to change that clause so that they can look, but can’t use photos with out the express permission of the creator.

Another thing about online storage – how long will it be there?  Do you remember Kodak Easy Share?  About 5 or 6 years ago, Kodak and AOL shut down the online printing and storage site. (I assume because it was not profitable)  Many people lost all of there photos and were outraged that they were not given enough notice.  It was announced for over 6 months that the online storage site was going away, but in the sea of junk mail in everyone’s in box, they ignored the messages that it was shutting down. Hence, all their images were gone.

Now that we’ve talked about the bad, lets get to some good.  Mac has had MobileMe which has been a great online storage option for us Mac users, but in June 0f 2012 they are dissolving that for their new storage system icloud (coming this fall).  It is free and supposedly encrypted so you are the only one who can access it.  Again, with free comes issues.  As much as I love Mac, this free form of storage will only work if you are using the newest operating system Lion. With 4 different Mac’s running in our office, I am looking into the next two options for my online storage and back-up.

Other good online storage, Mozy and Carbonite.  From what I know they are heavily encrypted so that no one, even themselves, can easily get access without your permission.  But again, they are not free.

Why am I telling you all this – education.  People are shocked when they find out their rights have been abused, but in most cases they have signed their rights away with a click of a mouse and didn’t even know it.  Online back-up is great because it doesn’t take up space on your Hard Drive.  Hard Drives, thumb drives and portable storage wallets are cheap!  Plus, the only one who can look through your images or documents are people you want to see them.  So protect yourself and think twice before storing important information on “FREE” sites.

IS it sharp vs. ISN'T it sharp

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The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines in focus as: having or giving the proper sharpness of outline due to good focusing.

Out-of-focus images are the bane of modern photography.  Everyone thinks cameras have advanced so much in the digital age that anyone can take a good picture – not so.

The camera is a tool.  Just as an eye surgeon uses a laser during a procedure, it is the doctor guiding that machine properly to correct your vision.  It is not the machine being put on auto-pilot, and without the expertise of the doctor the machine follows default settings which will likely be incorrect a large percentage of the time.   In the same way, a camera just sees patches of light and dark pixels on the sensor, it does not know if you are photographing a child or a flower, what you want in focus, and where you want that focus point to be.  That is where a photographer comes in.  Knowing where to focus is a critical part of photography.

When you look at an image, your eyes are naturally drawn to the sharpest object in the picture.  Therefore, you definitely want the most important part of the image to be sharp.
 Everyone loves the images where the background is “blurry” or out of focus.  As a professional photographer I know what lens combination and aperture to use to get the background out of focus and my entire subject in focus. Let’s look at an example of focus…

This photo is a great example of knowing how to use depth of field to get a great portrait.  All three boys are clearly in focus though they are not on the same focal plane (meaning there faces are at different distances and not right next to each other).  The background is clearly out of focus or blurry as my family calls it.

This is a great example of selective focus which means the photographer decides what part of the image needs to be in focus.  The subjects eye to his ear is in focus but the stuff in the foreground and background is clearly out of focus.

In a portrait the tip of the nose to the ear is what should be in focus, with critical focus (the sharpest part of the image) being the eye, in a candid picture the subject of the event or picture is what should be in focus (ie. a picture of people dancing, the couple (both people) should be in focus and the background should not – it is about the couple) and in a landscape image everything should be as sharp as possible.  All of this is accomplished by understand depth of field.

If you’d like to learn more – please feel free to contact us at the studio, we offer classes and are happy to give people advice on where to go to learn about taking better pictures.