Polarizing filters reduce reflections

September 29, 2008 By 3 Comments

Most peo­ple use polar­iz­ing fil­ters to reduce the bright­ness of the sky so that it does not get blown out. How­ever another very use­ful thing that polar­iz­ing fil­ters do is that polar­iz­ers reduce unwanted reflections.

This shot below by forum mem­ber Travis is an AMAZING exam­ple of the same shot with and with­out a polar­iz­ing fil­ter. The top image is shot with­out the polar­izer and the bot­tom image uses the polar­iz­ing fil­ter and gets rid of all the reflec­tions. Thanks so much for let­ting me use these images Travis!

polarizing filters reduce reflections

polar­iz­ing fil­ters reduce reflections

3 other links on our forum that talk about how to use polar­iz­ers
– Travis’s orig­i­nal post
– Neu­tral gra­di­ent fil­ter — also talks about polar­iz­ers
– Fil­ters — also talks about polar­iz­ing fil­ters and other filters

Filed Under: Photography blog entries, Photography tips Tagged With: , , , ,

54 — Making the eyes sing — Photography podcast

September 28, 2008 By 5 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #54 talks about how to make the eyes sing in a pho­to­graph. When we take a photo of a per­son or some­thing that has eyes, we really need to pay atten­tion to what we are doing. The eyes are nor­mally the most impor­tant part of any por­trait and they need to be sharp and bright. Through a few basic tech­niques this pod­cast tells you what you need to do to get your subject’s eyes to ‘sing’.

Even in this medium range shot you can see sharp bright eyes

Even in this medium range shot you can see sharp bright eyes

The bulldogs eye sings because the iris is sharp and bright

The bulldog’s eye (stock) sings because the iris is sharp & bright

Links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
The eyes have it thread from the pho­tog­ra­phy forum
Acces­sories pod­cast (check image of the light stand hold­ing reflec­tor with magic arm)
A dodg­ing tech­nique for the eyes described in para­graph 2 of the post
Gary Fong dif­fuser at B&H
Pod­camp Mon­treal
CC Chap­man

Thanks as always to Benny and Susan who posted a blog com­ment about our last pod­cast and for her sug­ges­tion that inspired this pod­cast. Thanks also to Ram, Hallow’s maiden, Rabi­aka­ma­ran, Gatepc, BenH, MikeS, Dabow,‚ Inukamori, svant­land & PKMax who recently joined the photography.ca forum and posted a few times. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

If you are look­ing at this mate­r­ial on any other site except Photography.ca — Please hop on over to the Photography.ca blog and pod­cast and get this and other pho­tog­ra­phy info directly from the source. I Sub­scribe with iTunes I Sub­scribe via RSS feed I Sub­scribe with Google Reader I

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

Filed Under: Photographs, Photography podcasts, Photography tips, podcasting Tagged With: , , ,

Abstract images in photography

September 22, 2008 By 5 Comments

I’m quite a big fan of abstract pho­tographs. I love the way these pho­tos engage the viewer in a game of “What is this? What is going on here? I’d be curi­ous to know if any­one can fig­ure out what’s going on in this image? and…do you like it?

Can you guess what this a photograph of?

Can you guess what this a pho­to­graph of?

Filed Under: Photographs, Photography blog entries Tagged With: ,

Presenting photography to galleries — Photography podcast #53

September 19, 2008 By 4 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #53 talks about how to present your pho­tog­ra­phy port­fo­lio to pho­tog­ra­phy gal­leries. There’s a right way and a wrong way to approach gal­leries with your work and this pod­cast offers up a few tips on what the right way is. One cru­cial tip that I’ll men­tion right here is to make SURE your work fits with what the gallery is show­ing. If it doesn’t, don’t waste your time and choose another gallery.

Links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Robert Miller gallery (New York) — Thanks Karl
Stephen Bul­ger gallery (Toronto) — Thanks Jes­sica
Bul­ger gallery port­fo­lio sub­mis­sion guidelines

Thanks as always to Benny who posted a blog com­ment about our last pod­cast and to Spriter who recently joined the photography.ca forum and posted a few times. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

If you are look­ing at this mate­r­ial on any other site except Photography.ca — Please hop on over to the Photography.ca blog and pod­cast and get this and other pho­tog­ra­phy info directly from the source. I Sub­scribe with iTunes I Sub­scribe via RSS feed I Sub­scribe with Google Reader I

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

Filed Under: Photography podcasts Tagged With: , , ,

Interview with Kevin Kubota — Photography podcast #52

September 16, 2008 By 4 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #52 fea­tures an inter­view with pho­tog­ra­pher Kevin Kub­ota. Kevin is prob­a­bly most well known for his pho­to­shop actions but he is also a wed­ding as well as a fine art pho­tog­ra­pher. In this inter­view we talk about Kevin’s work, his gear, and his work­flow. We also talk a bit about Pho­to­shop actions in gen­eral and dis­cuss if using them is cheating.

Here’s a quick snap­shot of Parc-Lafontaine where a lit­tle vis­i­tor came to say hi while I was record­ing the intro and con­clu­sion to this pod­cast. That’s right, my out­door sound stu­dio includes wildlife :)

Links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Kevin Kubota’s Actions
Assign­ment forum on Photography.ca
Adobe Pho­to­shop tuto­ri­als and work­flow
– http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/tutorials
– http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/video_workshop
– http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/cs3/pdfs/CS3_Web_Workflow_Guide.pdf

Thanks as always to Susan who posted a blog com­ment about our last pod­cast and to the fol­low­ing peo­ple that recently joined the photography.ca forum and posted a few times; pslove, Joe­Mezz, natal­iey­oung, nekken, bhvi­jayku­mar, ret, swee­t­o­bliv­ion, scale­speeder, mind­forge, bear, seal­hunter, Paula­Lynn, Wayne, reijo, fire209, Dwayne Oakes, trueart­spho­tog­ra­phy, BunD, easyp­ick­ings and Dis­rupt Stu­dios. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below.

If you wanted to review the pod­cast in Itunes it would be most appre­ci­ated. You’ll need to down­load Itunes for free and you can search for the pod­cast if you don’t know where it is. You can search the itunes store for pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast — pho­tog­ra­phy blog and you’ll see my name (Marko Kulik). You’ll see the icon with the word photography.ca and under that, you’ll see cus­tomer reviews with a link to post a review. It takes a few min­utes to do this (and you’ll need reg­is­ter for an apple ID) so I thank you in advance for tak­ing the time. If you know itunes well, you can also do a power search from the quick links menu on the front page of the Itunes store and it will be faster.

If you are look­ing at this mate­r­ial on any other site except Photography.ca — Please hop on over to the Photography.ca blog and pod­cast and get this and other pho­tog­ra­phy info directly from the source. I Sub­scribe with iTunes I Sub­scribe via RSS feed I Sub­scribe with Google Reader I

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

Filed Under: Photography podcast Interviews, Photography podcasts, Photography tips, podcasting Tagged With: , , ,

Portrait from the Plateau — Julien Smith

September 15, 2008 By 5 Comments

I took this shot of my friend and fel­low podcaster/social media expert Julien Smith a few weeks ago in Parc Lafontaine in Mon­treal. Julien needed some promo shots and so we talked about what he wanted and took a vari­ety of shots in the ‘good light’. As I do with all my shoots, after giv­ing the client what they request, I always try a few shots of what I think ‘works’ for their look and per­son­al­ity even though it might not be their first instinct. Although there were many excel­lent shots from this shoot, this shot is my fave of the lot. I like this shot because Julien’s pose is very casual and the pose in the set­ting which I scouted before­hand :) has a teacher/guru like feel, which for me is in keep­ing with how I see Julien.

Portrait of Julien Smith

Por­trait of Julien Smith

On a tech­ni­cal note, Julien has wicked good eyes that reflect a lot of light so my fill flash was set to minus 3 stops lower than the ambi­ent light. The ISO was 400 shot at F2.8 at 1/250.

Filed Under: Photographs, Photography blog entries Tagged With: , ,

Cleaning camera lenses — cleaning cameras — Photography podcast #51

September 1, 2008 By 2 Comments

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #51 talks about how to clean the out­side of your cam­era, your cam­era lenses and the inside of your cam­era. I also share some tips on avoid­ing all this dirt in the first place. Spe­cial thanks to Kate from our pho­tog­ra­phy forum who sug­gested this podcast.

NOTE: When I talk about UV lenses I’m actu­ally refer­ring to a screw on UV fil­ters. My bad.

Links men­tioned in this pod­cast:
Kodak lens cleaner
Zeiss clean­ing fluid

Thanks as always to Rifter, Susan, Jon, LanceJ, and scorpio_e, Begin­ner, candyman123, trot­ters, Nata­nis and dclark‚ for recent com­ments and sug­ges­tions. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below.

If you are look­ing at this mate­r­ial on any other site except Photography.ca — Please hop on over to the Photography.ca blog and pod­cast and get this and other pho­tog­ra­phy info directly from the source. I Sub­scribe with iTunes I Sub­scribe via RSS feed I Sub­scribe with Google Reader I

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow | Down­load

Filed Under: Photography podcasts, Photography tips, podcasting Tagged With: , ,