Hands on the Keyboard
Tomorrow, May 15, is the day to take pictures of your daily life. Be part of an international photo day. This is kind of like the “Day in the Life” books, except anyone can participate, it is international, and it is non-commercial. All photo must be taken on May 15 between 12:01 am and 11:59 pm local time.
Double Arch, Arches National Park, Utah
Arches National Park is an iconic destination for both tourists and photographers. It is one of the more spectacular locations in North America with a wealth of photographic possibilities in Arches and other nearby parks.
All of the photos in Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies.
The digital contact sheet above has all 271 photos in Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies. Curious about the statistical breakdown of the photos, I gathered them all together and went through them one by one to make note of the location, the type of photo (portrait, landscape, etc), camera used (film or digital), and the year each photo was taken. Obviously, the photos reflect the content of the book. You would expect to see wildlife photos in a chapter on wildlife photography. But I thought the photos might say something about my general photographic preferences as well.
Wildlife Location Guides
It’s spring and photographers are thinking about places to go and subjects to photograph. If you are thinking about photographing wildlife this year, the first is finding wildlife. In the case of common wildlife, that’s easy. You can find squirrels in your own back yard and ducks at a pond in your local park. But if you want to photograph something a little more exotic, like Chachalacas or Green Jays, you need to know where to look for them (the southern tip of Texas).
Denali at Sunrise, Denali National Park, Alaska
Mastery of light is a key to great photography of any kind. Anticipating great light in order to be in the right place at the right time is one of the keys to great landscape photography. I was searching for great light on Denali (or Mt. McKinley as it is called in the lower 48).
Great Gray Owl, Whitefish Point, Michigan's U.P.
My photo of a Great Gray Owl and the story behind the photo inspired the e-mail question below. My answer follows, along with some additional information, visuals, and links.
I just found out! Digital SLR Photography, the “UK’s biggest photography magazine”, reviewed Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies and gave it a 5 out of 5, their top rating.
Window Light Portrait
Do you want to create better portraits? One of the simplest and best ways is to focus on the eyes. Countless photos lose their dramatic impact because the eyes are blurry. Of course their are times that you might be creating an artsy, unusual image where the eyes are deliberately blurred, but 99 times out of 100 the eyes should be sharp.
Last Light on El Capitan, Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park is a spectacular place to visit in any season of the year. If you are there in the winter, the ideal time to create images is right after a snowfall when snow coats the trees.
Canon Speedlite 600EX-RT
As much fun as it is to control remote flash units with an infrared transmitter, nothing beats radio control, and for the first time it is built into the flash unit. You can say goodbye to need for buying add-on radio controllers.
Canon EOS 5D Mark III
The Canon EOS 5D Mark III isn’t just an upgrade to the 5D Mark II, it’s a big jump forward in quality and technology. It combines some of the best features from the Canon 7D and the new, top of the line Canon 1D X. It’s been a long time since the 5D Mark II came out in 2008, and if you have been waiting for the upgrade, the wait has been worth it. You can pre-order the 5D Mark III using the link at the end of this article.
UPDATE: The $3.00 off coupon from Amazon is no longer available.
Amazon’s discount price on Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies is usually $9 – $10 less than the price at your local brick and mortar bookstore, but Amazon is now offering a coupon for an additional $3.00 off their usual their discount price, saving you $12 – $13. The last time Amazon did this the coupon offer didn’t last very long, so now is the time to take advantage of this special offer. When you get to Amazon . . .
Printing photos on cloth is significantly different than printing on photo paper. If you want to try this, here’s the guidance you will need.
Upper Tahquamenon Falls, Winter
Tahquamenon Falls State Park in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is a great place to visit any time of the year, including winter. This view from the lip of the Upper Falls looks down the Gorge at the snow and ice covered Tahquamenon River.
Helene Center for the Visual Arts, Graceland University.
Updated January 26.
Information for participants in the Graceland University photography class. If you aren’t in the class but have the text, feel free to follow along with the readings and do the assignments on your own.
Grain Elevators, Lamoni, IA
Any time you can mix warm and cool light (in terms of color temperature) you have the possibility of an interesting photo. I was attracted to the cool, blue sky (almost an hour after sunset) and the warm orange light on the grain elevators.
Golden Mantled Ground Squirrel, Colorado
One way to make your subject “pop” is to isolate it against a soft blurry background.
Trumpet, f/4
One of the wonders of exposure is that dozens of aperture, shutter speed, and ISO combinations can provide exactly the same exposure (the overall lightness or darkness of an image), but very different artistic “looks”. Experienced photographers know which exposure combination to choose to get the image they want. Inexperienced photographers who leave the camera on program mode are turning all of the artistic decisions over to a computer chip.
"The Strip", Las Vegas
With long shutter speeds, you can capture the passage of time in a way that your “instant snapshot eyes” can’t. Your eyes and brain are capturing a rapid series of individual images and turning them into motion, while a still camera can capture one very long image. You can create images with a camera that your unaided eyes can’t create.
When shooting portraits, turning the face upside down to change the usual perspective can give the face a dramatic new look. We are used to seeing people right side up with the eyes higher in the photo than the nose, lips and chin. Putting the eyes at the bottom of the photo changes the look of the face. Most people are surprised at the difference in how they look when photographed from this angle.
The header photo (posted Dec 27) is a Great Gray Owl photographed in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula at Whitefish Point.
UPDATE: The $3.00 off coupon from Amazon is no longer available.
Amazon has been offering a $3.00 off coupon for the last couple of days on their usual discount price for Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies. I don’t know how long this coupon offer will last. When you get to Amazon . . .
Silent Night, Moraine Park
Snow glistens in the last light of dusk.
Distant clouds glow with the fading light from the sun, long since set.
A chill fills the calm night air.
Stars twinkle in the deepening winter sky.
The crunch, crunch, crunch of footsteps on the gravel path.
Lights come on in the distance. Warm and inviting.
Home. Family. Friends. Dinner and the opening of gifts.
The voices of carolers drift across the valley:
“Silent night, holy night,
All is calm, all is bright. . . .”
Christmas!
The photo in the header of this blog (as of Dec 24) is the Spanish Peaks above the little town of LaVeta Colorado. As a small boy growing up in Colorado, a view of the Spanish Peaks greeted me every morning from our living room window.
Umbrella, flash, and flash bracket on a tripod.
Photographers are always looking for ways to soften the light when doing portraits. The light from an accessory flash can be quite harsh so there are a wide range of modifiers to soften the light for more pleasing portraits. Here are my three favorites.
Sky Dog
It’s the time of year when a jolly old elf squeezes down countless chimneys, reindeer fly, and most anything else can happen. I’m sure you believe dogs can fly!
Originally posted Nov. 14, updated Dec. 22.
Looking for the best photo gifts for a photographer? You’ve come to the right place. It is the time of year that I get asked a lot of questions from people who are buying gifts for photographers, or from photographers wanting to drop hints (“photographer” means anyone who likes to take pictures).
AlienBees Studio Lights
For the best combination of quality and price, it is hard to beat AlienBees studio lights. I’ve been using AlienBees in my studio (and on location) for 5 years, and like so many other photographers, I’ve been singing their praises. It would be hard to find the same quality for less money.
Christmas Angel
In this “found photo”, I wanted to capture the light shining on the angel, but also the light shining through the angel’s somewhat translucent right wing. The challenge was to find an exposure that wouldn’t totally burn out the left side while catching the light coming through the wing.
Golden Brook. Photo © Tony Sweet
I’ve been reading two excellent nature photography books by Tony Sweet. They are published by Stackpole Books who recruits first class photographers to write an excellent and ongoing series of photography books. I’ve been giving high praise to Stackpole’s photography books for years and I now have two more to add to the list.
