Whatever makes you free.

So in a constant pursuit of trying to make my mark in the photography world, I always check out other people's work.  I end up getting into a mind set of try to do what they do.  Well on the surface this is great because you need to see what is working on the outside world of making a career of photography.  You wouldn't show a magazine photo editor a portfolio that has a bunch of work that has a style that they wouldn't use.  So yeah, you need to be showing work that they want to see, so study up people.

However........

A New Concept: Critique Journal

So this time of year I see all the photographers around me doing photo-a-day blogs.  I tried that once, didn't work out, like most New Years resolutions.  In my mind, they dont help you become a photographer.  They pressure you into finding an interesting subject each day to photograph and eventually you just start taking pictures of whatever you see and you make it artistic.  This is what I call a productive way of bettering yourself as a photographer.

Poker Face

So, I just got my new Yongnuo speed lights in the mail and I needed to break them in.  Well, I got that chance on Sunday when I attended a weekly Redeye event.  This is the same type of even that I did the photo booth and silhouette wall.  However we wanted to do something different this time and then I saw the poker table.  Perfect, lets do it!

Martinez Engagement

I was approached by my friend Jonah Martinez about shooting his engagement pictures, he had just gotten engaged so I definitely said yes.  I haven't done engagement pictures since I left Charleston and It would be nice to go back and do some for old time's sake.

I will also be shooting their wedding in May of 2011.  I love doing engagement sessions because you get to capture something that is so important and so meaningful.  Its very fulfilling.

Movement with your pictures, and some theory

Most people like to just capture the moment sitting still.  Now, you dont always have to do that.  Usually you dont want any sort of blur in your pictures.  Its just not professional, dont do it.  However, its still a tool in your bag that you can use, if you know how to do it.

Here is how to make moving water into a gorgeous picture.

For this, you most definitely want a tripod.  Also, if you haven't figured out what that "M" is on your dial, its time to break it in.  It stands for manual, even though you can use your tV (shutter priority setting), we will be using manual.

Head out to the beach, you want to be there sometime around sunset.  15 minutes before the sun sets is a great time to get there and set all of your gear set up.

If you are lucky and live in California you will be able to easily find a beach with a lot of rocks in the water.  This makes for an even better effect.  But if not, you can find a pier or something similar.

Since we are shooting once the sun is down, we are able to have a much slower shutter speed.  We want at least 30 seconds per exposure.  If you really want your picture to come out great, you want your shutter to stay open for a couple of minutes or more.  To do this, you need to put your camera's shutter speed (In manual mode now) in the "B".  B stands for Bulb Exposure.  Why is it called bulb, I have no idea.  I just know that when you are in bulb, your shutter stays open for as long as you have the shutter button pressed. This is why you might want to splurge and buy yourself some sort of shutter release cable.  You can find them real cheap on amazon.  I spent 15 bucks on mine and it works great.  Otherwise you will have to have your finger on the shutter and that will be annoying as well as it will probably cause your camera to shake.

Most likely you wont be able to get a properly exposed picture with a wide open aperture so you will need to dial it back.  f/22 is a great place to start, it will cause your aperture to close up and will force you to have a longer shutter speed to get a proper exposure.  (also note that I took this picture off of the internet.  I would never recommend putting your ISO on Auto, thats just bad news.  I also shoot RAW, never jpeg)


Here is a little bit of lighting theory for you to know that will come in handy here.
Say you have a shutter speed of 1/500th of a second.  If you moved it to 1/250th of a second, you are letting one stop of light in.  (meaning it will be brighter by one stop)  if you move it from 1/500th of a second to 1/1000th of a second, you are going darker by one stop.  With shutter speeds, the stop changes by dividing your shutter speed in half, or doubling it.  Pretty easy to remember actually.

With your aperture, the same thing happens actually.  If you go from 5.6 to 4 you are letting in one stop more of light.  If you went from 5.6 to 8, you are stopping down one step, letting less light in by one stop.  Just remember this, its simple math.
There is a good way that I discovered to learn your f/stops.
break them down into two different rows. (most lenses these days have many more f/stops than this)

1.4 - 2.8 - 5.6 - 11 - 22  etc
2.0 - 4.0 - 8.0 - 16 - 32 etc.

put them in these two categories and each number doubles.  This makes it easier to memorize.
instead of the number doubling like the shutter speed, its just a number over.  so a one stop difference would be like going from 1.4 to 2.0.  from 2.0 to 2.8 and so on.  Easy once you practice it a little bit.
There is a chart below to help you visualize this easier.


It comes in handy here because once you are in Bulb your camera wont tell you if its metered to be over exposed or not.  So, what you do is you set your camera to give yourself a proper exposure at 30 seconds.  Since we want more time for to get more movement in the water, we can start doing some fun math :)

Going from 30 seconds to 60 seconds will give you one more stop, the same goes with going from 60 to 120 seconds.

Since we did this we need to also compensate with our aperture.  If we dont, our picture will be too bright.  If you metered out a proper exposure at 30 seconds and f/stop at 4.0 and then you changed your shutter speed to 60 seconds, your new f/stop will be 5.6.  From here if you go from 60 seconds to 120 seconds your new f/stop will be 8.  See the pattern now?

Here is a chart that shows exactly what I am talking about.  Notice that as the f/stop changes, so does the shutter speed.  Each corresponding number is what the proper exposure would be.  Here are 5 sets of exposures, so dont get confused.  A good practice to get the hang of it all is write down your exposures in a log, or check your metadata if you are using Lightroom or Aperture.  Make up a chart like this and see what your other options for shutter speed and f/stop possibilities would be.  

ok, now that we are done with the math lesson, you just keep shooting and dialing in your perfect picture.  The sun is setting rapidly at this point and so your settings are really going to change as well.  Soon you will be able to keep your shutter open for 10 minutes or more even.  Enjoy your newly learned technique.  Its harder than most to get just right, but very rewarding when its done.  The moving tide makes the water look like fog and you get a great effect.

Overdoing It

There is a certain habit that we can get caught up in as a photographer, or in any profession really.  We can learn this one technique and get great results but then over use that technique just to use it, even when its unnecessary or uncalled for.  I remember this happening to me when I learned HDR.

I started right off the bat with HDR when I started photography.  I got pretty good at it and people loved it, but then I started over using it.  I would even use it on portraiture subjects, which is something that you really ought not do.  The same thing has been happening to me with using off-camera lighting.  I find myself starting to use the lights even when its not necessary.  I remember before I got my strobist kit that I would take pictures and they would come out good without the use of spare lights.  Now it seems that I want to use it all the time.

We especially do this on photos that we think are sub-par.  We get this mentality that although this picture stinks, we can make it cooler by making it an HDR or converting it to black and white.  A girl I liked came up to me and showed me a picture and she was excited about it and wanted to know what I thought.  I told her it would look better in black and white.  Usually that means the photo isn't all that great.  Before you judge me, you cant tell me that you havent done that yourself, or something similar.  But yeah, usually we make something black and white to give it a punch because "everything looks good in black and white."

Well, I caught myself and I stopped doing this.  We can get so caught up in our equipment that we stop seeing the picture as it is.  We can go crazy buying new lenses and new this and that, but is it necessary?  Where and how do we learn that sober use of what we have?  I guess the best advice is to never lose sight of the fact that your equipment is just another set of tools to get the job done.  Dont lose the vision, thats what makes a photographer special.

Well, Im not big on New Years Resolutions, but I propose that in this day and age that we don't get lazy because we have all this technology around us.  I say we use it to our advantage and take photography to the next level.  No promises or anything like that, but I want to learn a new technique every single day this year and I will post it if I think it can help you out.  BTW, Im going based on the day that I moved out to California last year, which was January 4th.  So I will start tomorrow (from the date that this blog is posted)

So for now, I will just post some photos from my trip to Michigan, which I just got back from.