Framing in photography – photography podcast #10

January 29, 2007 on 4:39 pm | In Photography podcasts, podcasting | 3 Comments

By using objects like windows, branches, and archways we can frame our subjects in interesting ways that add uniqueness to our photographs. In this photography podcast we talk about this technique called framing.

framing in photography
Using Purse handles as a frame

framing in photography
Using a bag as a frame

Photography Podcast transcript 10

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Photography transcript 10 – Framing in Photography – Photography.ca

January 29, 2007 on 1:37 pm | In Photography podcast transcripts | 1 Comment

Framing in photography – Photography Podcast #10

Photography podcast hosted by Marko Kulik
[Camera clicks]  

This is an audio transcription – Spelling, punctuation and grammer may not be perfect 

Hi there everyone and welcome to the Photography Podcast on Photography.ca.  My name is Marko.  We are coming to you from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and today is January 26, 2007.  For today’s show, we are going to talk a little bit about composition and we are going to talk a little bit about framing in particular.
Now, what framing is, it is a classic technique whereby you would use a frame to frame a photo.  You have often seen this.  You will see like a child looking through a window and you will see the whole exterior of the window with the child looking out of it.  The window itself makes for a very interesting compositional element and a lot of these shots work and add interest to your photography.   Frames can be very powerful and you can use different objects that will act as frames during the shoot.  You can use branches, you can use an archway, you can use a doorway.  You could sneak behind some bushes and from the left and from the right just kind of make the branches act as a frame then look at something different like a flower or a mountain or a dog or a person from beyond.  That will add quite a lot of interest to your shot.  The branches will act as a frame and make the subject pop.
A technique that has been tried time and time again is just actually using an old frame.  You take one of these old wooden frames, you pop the picture out, you have someone smile behind the frame, and you take the shot getting the frame in the shot and the person in the frame, the actual picture frame, and that makes for an interesting shot as well.  You can do it with babies, women, old people, young people, anyone, and it always adds interest to the shot.
Now, something else that you could try is selective focus when you are using framing as well, especially if what you are shooting is far from the frame itself, you can have some interesting effects with selective focus.  Let us say, you are actually shooting through a window.  I do not know, you are in someone else’s basement, you open up the window, and you see something interesting in the distance.  You back away just a little bit, you take a picture of the outside of the window for the framing effect, and then you also have what you are looking at in the distance.  If you are focusing on the window itself, what is going to be in the distance is probably going to be less sharp depending on what aperture you use.  If you are looking for a selective focus effect, I recommend obviously a larger aperture, which will make what is in the distance somewhat blurry or less sharp.  You can have a really interesting effect.  Let us say it is a flower, or a boy, or a dog, or anything actually, you will get the subtle form of what is in the distance while having the actual window itself acting as a frame in sharp focus.
On the opposite end of it, you can, of course, focus on what is in the distance and keep the frame blurry or less sharp.  Again, it would depend on what aperture you would use, but use a larger aperture and you can play with the distances.  If you use too small an aperture, f/16, f/22, f/32, then more of the foreground and the background will appear to be sharp and you will have less of a selective focus effect.
For one of my shots that I put up on the blog, you should have probably seen it by now; if not, just go to Photography.ca/blog.  For one of the shots I did for this experimental podcast, I basically took a purse and used the handles of the purse acting as a frame.  I set the purse up on a table and put a couple of books underneath the purse.  I backed up and then I had a model hang out maybe about three or four or five feet from behind that purse.  I focused both on the handle of the purse and got some interesting effects there and kept the model blurry in the background.  Of course, I did the opposite as well.  I would have shot in sharp focus the model through the handles of the purse and the effects are pretty interesting actually.  I hope you liked them.
You can really get some good effects by doing similar things.  You can use whatever you want to act as a frame.  You could take the doorknob off an old door and shoot through the doorknob.  You could open up the door just a crack and shoot through the crack.  Focus on the crack or focus on what is in the distance and you are going to have some very interesting compositional shots.  These are more artsy.  They are more artsy-fartsy.  They are more fun.  They are more interesting.  They add experience.  They have another dimension to the shot.  Of course, I highly recommend, as always, just trying out different things.  If it does not work, it does not work.  You could take a chair, shoot through the back of a chair, shoot through the back of a model.  The frame does not even have to be a full frame.  The frame can be like the letter “L.”  Take a model or any person and just have them look out toward the sunset, out by yonder, and then use the side of their head and shoulders to act as a frame and have something in the distance.  Try making what is in the distance sharp and then try making their head and shoulder sharp.  It is all about an interesting shot and the more you play, the more likely you are to get that interesting shot.
The theme for this learning show as well as the other ones where we give some instruction is to experiment.  Do not be afraid, just try it, especially if you got a digital camera.  Try it.  If it does not work, erase the shot.
I very much do hope you will provide some feedback for the shots we have up and as well on the content of the podcast.  You can do so through the blog directly, Photography.ca/blog, or you can do it through the bulletin board as well, Photography.ca, just make your way to the bulletin board and provide some comments.  This was our 10th podcast and we are please to have made it to 10 and we hope to get to a hundred in a couple of years.  Hopefully, we will keep on this schedule, one a week and we will get there sooner rather than later.  I guess it still makes it about two years, but it is a good start.  Ten is solid and I am happy about 10.  This podcast will end up being our shortest podcast since we started at about seven minutes or so, but we hope you are okay with that, feeling that good things came in the small package.  Our next podcast will be an interview podcast, so of course it will be a bit longer.  We hope you enjoy the mix that we are providing you.
Thanks very much for listening, everyone.  Keep on shooting, keep on taking those creative shots and we will see you all again in about one week.  Bye for now.
[Camera clicks]

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Interview with Ann Dahlgren – A Fairy’s Child – photography podcast # 9

January 22, 2007 on 3:35 pm | In Photographs, Photography podcasts, podcasting | 4 Comments


Photograph by Ann Dahlgren and Douglas Foulke

This show features an interview with fine art photographer Ann Dahlgren. Together with her husband Douglas Foulke, they created an amazing book of fine art photography called  A Fairy’s Child which is the focus of this interview.

Photography podcast transcript #9

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Photography transcript 9 – Interview with Ann Dahlgren – A Fairy’s Child

January 22, 2007 on 1:24 pm | In Photography podcast transcripts | 2 Comments

[Camera clicks]

This is an audio transcription – Spelling, punctuation and grammer may not be perfect
Marko Kulik:                         Hi there everyone and welcome to the Photography Podcast on Photography.ca.  My name is Marko.  We are coming to you from Montreal, Quebec, Canada.  Today is January 18, 2007.  For today’s show, we are lucky enough to be doing an interview with Ann Dahlgren.  Ann Dahlgren along with her husband, Douglas Foulke, put together this fantastic book called A Fairy’s Child.  I was lucky enough to come across this book a few years back in New York.  I love theatrical photography and I love mythological portraits and photographs, so this is going to be a really, really fun interview especially for me and I hope for you, too.  Rather than just talk about it, let us get into it now.
So, I would very much like to welcome, Ann Dahlgren today.  Ann Dahlgren is a fine art photographer and author of the book A Fairy’s Child that she did with her husband, Douglas Foulke, who is also a fine art photographer.  He is hanging around closely and maybe will be able to hear from him during this interview, but we definitely love to get a feel for this book called A Fairy’s Child, which is just a wonderful, wonderful piece of what I might call theatrical photography.  Hi there, Ann.  Can you tell us a little bit about your book?
Ann Dahlgren:                      Hi, Marko.  Well, as you said, the book is called A Fairy’s Child.  It is an exploration of fairies and some pretty fantastic environment.  Basically, the book started as just an idea for Doug and I to do a fun photograph of a fairy.
Marko Kulik:                         Then how did it evolve into a full-on book?
Ann Dahlgren:                      The idea actually started on a commercial shoot that we were on in Florida and this art director we were working with started telling us about this island off the coast of Maine where people build little fairy houses.  We thought, “Well, that’s pretty cool.”  We have never heard of anything like that before and so, we just started brainstorming about the possibility of actually making a photograph of a fairy that looked real, but yet was mysterious and ethereal and all the things that we love about photograph.  Basically, it started out with us producing one photograph and from there it just kind of led to another, which led to another, which led to another. At some point I guess after we had maybe 20 or 30 finished prints, we thought, “Well, maybe we can make this into a book.”  So, that is how it started.
Marko Kulik:                         How long did it take to photograph all the photographs?
Ann Dahlgren:                      We basically did it on our free time, in between what we do commercially.  So, we worked on it I think over a period of four to maybe five years.
Marko Kulik:                         Four to five years.  Okay.  Where did you find the children?  Were they local children, were they relatives, were they actors?
Ann Dahlgren:                      They were everything.  Basically, 90% of our commercial work is on location, so every time that we were some place and we came across some really interesting location, we would then plan to either go back or else stay after our commercial shoot to actually do the photograph for the book.  So, sometimes we would do a casting locally to find some models, other times they were friends of friends or family members.  It kind of was whatever, wherever we could find somebody that fit our idea of our little fairy.
Marko Kulik:                         For those listeners that have not found this book yet, I am going to be putting some links to Ann and Doug’s site, so hopefully you might be able to find it through there and see extra pictures, but I just wanted to tell people that I was actually blown away when I found this book, wandering through SoHo about two years ago.  I personally love theatrical photography.  I love mythological images.  I love fairies and it was just an absolute treat to find this book in a little bookstore.  So, if there are still books available, I highly recommend searching for them and getting your hands on them.  I will put one or two on our site just so you could see what we are talking about and then you can check out Ann and Doug’s site after that.  I would like to ask you, Ann.  What is your personal connection to fairies?  Is it a subject matter that has interested you all along?  Is it a relatively new thing?
Ann Dahlgren:                      No.  I am not the type of person who has professed to have seen fairies in real life or anything like that although we have found that there are people like that out there.  We have gotten quite interesting e-mails from people that have discovered our book and we have found that there is a whole world out there, fairy lovers.  No.  It just sounded like a challenging and fun subject matter to try to create these photographs.  So, I would not say that I have any particular connection with fairies.
Marko Kulik:                         Okay.  Okay.  Well, it is too bad.  I am sure a few people would have loved to hear the opposite, but…
Ann Dahlgren:                      I know.  I know.
Marko Kulik:                         It is all good.  I have no personal connection to them myself.  I just love the way they look from my childhood.  So, I am just curious, do you both photograph at the same time?
Ann Dahlgren:                      Well, sometimes.  Usually what we will do is when we are producing a shoot, I would work a lot on the costume, the make-up, getting the kids outfitted, then their ears and their wings and all that entailed.  We would talk about different cameras and films that we are going to be using and usually Doug would start shooting and then I would shoot some.  A lot of times, we would have several different cameras with different films loaded, so he could pick up one and I could pick up another and we could direct the child in whatever way we felt was the right way to go.
Marko Kulik:                         So, it is totally a collaborative effort then.  You guys just work on all these projects absolutely together.
Ann Dahlgren:                      Yes.
Marko Kulik:                         Excellent.  Excellent.  So, I would like to always ask, what was your first camera?  How did you get into photography?
Ann Dahlgren:                      Well, for myself, it started back in camp.  So, I was probably 10 and we had a little darkroom at the camp that I went to and that was where I took my first photograph and processed and printed my first print.  I know for Doug, it started with him at prep school.  His story is, he was told that he should take photography because he could smoke in the darkroom.  That is where it started with him.
Marko Kulik:                         Is he still smoking in the dark room?
Ann Dahlgren:                      I do not think so.
Marko Kulik:                         Well, good, good, good.  Very nice.  Very nice.  For the tech kids out there, they are going to wonder how these photographs were created.  The first thing that will probably come to mind for a lot of people is going to be Photoshop, but I am not convinced that is the case.  Can you give us a little insight into how these photographs were created?
Ann Dahlgren:                      Sure.  All of them were created using traditional black and white film.  Most of the times, we would shoot with T-Max 100 or 400 and Kodak infrared film.  We were lucky enough to have put a darkroom into our house, so we would come home after the shoot and process and make prints of what we had just shot and then work from there.  So, pretty much 98% of what you will see in the photograph was actually there.  We had a special effects make-up artist make some prosthetic ears for us.  We had a costume designer who make us a set of wings and then from there, we basically started making our own costumes, our own wings and things like that, but over time of traveling with these things and taking the ears on and off, all these kids, they started to disintegrate and we eventually had to have more ears made.  Towards the very end of the book, when we were kind of on a deadline with our publisher to bring in, I do not know, a certain amount of images, the wings really were trashed at that point.  So, we started experimenting with photographing insect wings primarily cicada and butterfly wings and then putting those on to the last images that we had shot in postproduction.  So, really, that is the only Photoshop that we really used.  It really was not until the end of the book process that we started utilizing Photoshop.
Marko Kulik:                         Very, very interesting.  So, really these kids are against real backgrounds.  The backgrounds that you are going to see in all the photographs, those were the backgrounds on location?
Ann Dahlgren:                      Yes, definitely.  Like I said before, when we would go on location and we would find these interesting spots, that is when we decide, “Okay.  This is our next location” and we would go back and produce the shoot.  We shot a lot in Western Florida where the Banyan trees are.  Actually, our very first shoot was in the Sarasota, Florida region and just the way that the Banyan trees grow, it is pretty fantastic.  So, we started with that.  We have shot in locations in California, Colorado, New York, kind of wherever we found a spot that spoke to us.
Marko Kulik:                         For certain of the images, it looks as though the children are flying almost or one in particular that I have the luxury of looking at right now, one of the children looked almost suspended or flying.  How would that have been accomplished?
Ann Dahlgren:                      Well, she went flying.  We did a few shoots in the studio and one particular shoot that we knew we wanted to do was to actually have a fairy flying.  So, we hired a rigger or a grip person from the movie industry to come into the studio and set up this whole harness system where we could actually fly her.  I think the shot that you are probably looking at has two fairies in it.
Marko Kulik:                         Yes, it is.
Ann Dahlgren:                      Basically, we designed the set in the studio and then we had the two girls take turns in the harness, flying.
Marko Kulik:                         Fantastic.  If you are going to attempt this today, would you go more Photoshop or would you still try and do it the traditional way?
Ann Dahlgren:                      I think now since we do use Photoshop everyday in what we do, we probably would utilize Photoshop a lot more.  It just was not something that we were using on a daily basis at all back when we started this project.  I think we started it in 1997.  So, everything we did was on film in there.
Marko Kulik:                         Okay.  Again, we keep hearing this all the time, Photoshop has become a pretty important tool for photographers these days and we are using more tools.  It is just a tool that we can use instead of hiring a rigger, let us say, to have someone fly.
Ann Dahlgren:                      Right.  It definitely cost us a lot more money to actually produce the photographs the way that we did, but that was the way that we went about it.  We did not really think about doing it any other way at that time.
Marko Kulik:                         As an artist, for you, is it more satisfying to have done it the old fashion way?
Ann Dahlgren:                      Sure.  It was just so exciting to be able to have a vision and put it all together, go to a location, make it happen, bring the fog machine and the whole deal and come back and have on film what we really imagined was there versus sitting in front of a computer and making it happen.
Marko Kulik:                         Right.  Right.
Ann Dahlgren:                      Yeah.  I think there was a sense of accomplishment definitely after all the work that we went through.
Marko Kulik:                         A well-deserved feeling of accomplishment.  On another technical level, I am curious actually.  I noticed some of the pictures are quite soft, which really adds to the mood effect.  Were you using soft focus filters as well or was that done in the printing?  How was some of the softness achieved on the photographs?
Ann Dahlgren:                      Well, it was done both with filters, with particular lenses and also diffusing again in the darkroom.  I know in some of the photographs, we used an old lens that Doug had which is an old Imagon portrait lens.  It just had this wonderful quality of having a very minimal amount of focus to it.  So, that was over different lens put on the camera, but yeah, we would shoot with softer filters and diffuse again in the darkroom.
Marko Kulik:                         For good effect, for absolutely good effect.  Are you going to be doing any other theatrical style themes or concepts in the next little while or do you have projects similar in nature for the near future?
Ann Dahlgren:                      We do not have anything in the works at the moment.  We have thought about it.  We have a lot of images that we played with in the process of this book that were edited out in the process of our publisher wanting a certain look to the book.  For instance, we photograph a lot of old people to make it a little bit more of a scary, edgy field to it and we did a whole section of underwater photographs where we actually have the fairies in the pool and we were down there with them, with scuba tanks and photographing them under the water.  So, there is potential for another aspect to this whole fairy project that we would love to continue with, we just have not had the time recently.
Marko Kulik:                         Well, when you do have it done, please think of me.  I definitely want a copy.
Ann Dahlgren:                      Okay.
Marko Kulik:                         For those people who are going to be intrigued by this book, is it still available?  How can they get their hands on it?  Can they get their hands on it?
Ann Dahlgren:                      Well, at this point, we just were informed that the first printing, which was 10,000 copies, is sold out.  In fact, we only actually have two copies I think as our own.  So, we are waiting to hear back if Abrams is going to do another printing.  If they do not, then we will have the option to try to take that some place else to have another printing done.  So, hopefully, we will keep it out there.  At this point, your guess is as good as mine of where to find them.
Marko Kulik:                         Okay.  At least for now though I guess thank goodness for websites, people who want to see some of these images, I know there is a lot of them available at anndahlgren.com.  I am going to put that in the show notes.  Ann Dahlgren is spelled A-n-n D-a-h-l-g-r-e-n, anndahlgren.com if people want to go directly, but I will put the link in the show notes as well and I believe Ann has allowed me to put a couple of the images on my blog to intrigue you to go to her site because it is also a fantastic site with a lot of images left from the book.
Ann Dahlgren:                      Right.  The direct link to the fairy website is afairyschild.com or you can go directly to the book website also, which has a short little flash movie with some images from the book.
Marko Kulik:                         I am going to put that link in the show notes as well.
Ann Dahlgren:                      Okay.  Great.
Marko Kulik:                         So, I would like very much to thank Ann Dahlgren and Douglas Foulke.  Unfortunately, Douglas was not able to be on the line now for technical reasons, but we were lucky enough to speak with Ann today and I absolutely thank her.  So, thanks so much for agreeing to do this, Ann.  I know it was a pretty spontaneous request, but I have been in love with your book for a long, long, long time and your style.  It has really been my pleasure to speak to you today.
Ann Dahlgren:                      Great.  Thank you, Marko.  It has been a pleasure.
Marko Kulik:                         So, thanks so much.
Ann Dahlgren:                      Okay.  Bye-bye.
Marko Kulik:                         Bye now.  So, that was our interview with Ann Dahlgren.  We really hope you like that interview.  I know I learned a lot and I appreciated it.  We are going to have more interviews for you in the next few weeks as well.  If you would like to comment, please do so either through the blog, photography.ca/blog or through the bulletin board.  You can just click on the link and find your way there and you can leave comments and suggestions and anything else you like in either of those two places.  So, thanks very much for listening everyone and we will be back probably next week.  We will bring you either another interview or some knowledge, either way you will get knowledge on both.  So, take care everyone and happy shooting.  Bye for now.
[Camera clicks]

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Photography transcript 8 – Painting with light – Photography.ca

January 12, 2007 on 1:03 pm | In Photography podcast transcripts | 1 Comment

[Camera clicks]

 This is an audio transcription – Spelling, punctuation and grammer may not be perfect

Hi there everyone and welcome to the 8th Photography Podcast on Photography.ca.  My name is Marko.  We are coming to you from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and today is January 10, 2007.  Well, first off, I would like to wish everyone a very happy new year.  We were slightly delayed in getting this out because it was the holiday season, but we are back on top of our game and I expect, I intend, my goal is one podcast a week for 2007.  So, if I fail, if I miss a week, please feel free to send me your comments, photography.ca@gmail.com.  You can leave any comments there.  In fact, you can also comment on our bulletin board about anything you like, this podcast, photography in general, at Photography.ca and you will find the link to the blog there as well and to the forum as well.
For today’s show, it is pretty much an experiment, an experiment that I did actually.  For the longest time, I have been wanting to experiment with painting with light.  For those people that do not know what it is, painting with light is illuminating a person or an object with light.  In order to expose a photograph, in case we do not know or we need a reminder, we need light.  We could leave a shutter open for two days straight in a dark room and there will be no exposure at all on that film, which means you can leave it open for two days, close the film, put it back to frame 1, for example, and then just shoot again normally and there will be no difference at all because no light hit that film.  We need light to expose a photograph.  Usually, that light will come from the sun, it will come from a flash, it will come from ambient room light, and that is how we light our subjects.  With painting with light, we photograph in a dark or very dark environment and then we manipulate the light to light the subject or model or whatever we are photographing.
The typical way to do this is with a flashlight or some type of light source where you will leave the camera on a tripod because you do not want it to move at all and you will just outline the object or paint in the object or illuminate the object in some way.  I should tell you that this is not the easiest thing to do.  I should also tell you that if you are lucky enough to have a digital camera, it is way easier with digital camera because you could just do your experiment and if it works, yahoo, keep it; if it does not, just dump it and start again.  Without a doubt, one of the hardest parts of this experiment would be the exposure.  How do you determine the exposure?  Well, if you are using a digital camera, it is just so easy.  You do not even really need a light meter or expose.  You just outline the object with a flashlight or a penlight or something and if it is well exposed, you see it; if it needs more exposure you give it more and if it needs less you give it less.  If you are using a traditional  camera, it is pretty hard or it is much harder actually, but how I suggest doing it is using an ambient light meter, handheld.  What you would do is you would probably use a second person, that would be easiest.  You get that person to shine the light source.  In my case, I used flashlights, we will talk about that shortly, but anyhow you would get that person to shine the light source and then you meter the light source and you have to go through the entire exposure with that reading.  If, for example, it said f/5.6 at 1 second, that would be f/5.6 at 1 second for that single spot of light.  If you were outlining an object, you would have to go around the perimeter of that object, if that is what you wanted to do let us say, for 1 second at a time holding the flashlight pretty steady and moving it at a 1-second increment.  Pretty difficult to do, again, that is why digital makes it so much easier.  The effects are amazing and one of my favorite words in the English language is serendipity, which means the thrill of finding something unsought.  This often happens with painting with light.  We will try to get one effect and after it is over and we see the results, something really weird and wacky and wonderful happens.  It is part of the art and you improve on it.  If you get a result that is pretty good, you try and do it again and get it better and better and better and hone your result until the picture is fantastic.
Here is how I did my experiment.  I bought a bunch of smallish flashlights and I just wanted to illuminate different objects during the exposure while my camera was on a tripod.  Okay, I bet some people are wondering, “All right, all right, get to it.  How did you do it, Marko?  How did you do it?”  Well, I do not know if I did it the right way or the wrong way, but I sure as heck had a lot of fun doing it and here is what I did.  I purchased a lot of small flashlights.  My goal was really to outline the perimeter of the object and to just get it to glow.  This was pretty darn difficult actually because it was hard to control the spray or the fineness of the light, let us say, so I bought a Maglite and other different types of flashlights, all small, and I tried to control, let us say, the nozzle by making it really, really thin.  I tried using a funnel.  I tried using a cap.  Everything I used, the light still was not fine enough for me, so I really was not 100% satisfied with the result.  I still had a good time.  I still had time.  I think a couple of the results are cool, but I did not have the ultimate precision tool.  I have heard that there is something out there called a Hosemaster, which also happens to be my pornonym, a hosemaster, but it like costs several thousand dollars for this machine and apparently using fiber optics, it really gives this very controlled, fine stream of light in which you can outline objects.  I did not have it so I went to the department store, spent 20 or 25 bucks on some flashlights and had a blast, actually.  I used these flashlights to outline certain objects.  At first, I started with something that was alive.  I actually started with my cat and I tried to make the spray of light as fine as possible outline the cat and the result was actually pretty cool.  It was cool because you need a long exposure.  When you close all the lights or get it really dark and you place your camera on a tripod, you really need a long exposure.  A cat is a living thing and a cat, unless it is sleeping, it is going to move.  What happened was, I tried to outline my cat and my cat would move throughout many of the exposures.  Although that was not what I wanted, serendipity, word of the day, I really had a cool effect with one shot in particular whereby the cat was still for, let us say, 4 seconds of an 8-second exposure and then moved his head to another direction and was pretty still then too.  You actually have a ghosting effect with two heads, which is really, really interesting.  So, that was my first test.  I used — I think it was the Maglite actually.  I bought two size Maglites, the mini Maglite and the medium-sized Maglite and I outlined them both.  I did about five shots with the cat.  I will probably put one up, so you can give me your comments.  Let me know if you like it.
My next test was with a model, actually.  I used a live model and, again, I tried to outline.  My outlining attempts again, it was difficult to control the spray of light because I really wanted to get fine detail and it was difficult.  If you are not interested in the fine detail, you could just go over various aspects of the body, legs, face, hands, breasts, whatever, and you can get good effects.  For me, my best effect happened when I actually used a laser light.  I bought one of these $3 lasers.  I have cats, too.  My cats love to chase the thing.  During the exposure, I outlined the model with a laser light and that effect was really cool in my opinion.  Again, it was not perfect.  The control of the light was not perfect, so hard to do perfectly, but the result is quite good and I am actually pleased with the result.  Again, serendipity being what it is, we also tried using a crystal.  We had the model hold the crystal and then we shone the light using the laser light through the crystal and then that diffracted light hit the model in all kinds of weird and cool ways.  I did a few exposures with that as well, which you will also see on the blog.  Really, it was a combination of both outlining the model, trying to get the best result I could with the light, holding it steady as I could, moving my hand as steady as I could, and then shining the light through the crystal, which also illuminated the model and gave a really very interesting result.  If anyone wants to try to do exactly what I did, please, enjoy, experiment.  Take my idea.  Go with it.  Run with it.  Make it better.  Do something fun.  Do something artful.  Do something different.  Do something interesting.  That is what this podcast is all about, fine art photography, making art from photography, and really having a lot of fun with it.
Next, I wanted to try to outline different objects outside.  This was just the wrong time of year for it, I must say.  I mean it is freezing in Montreal.  My camera died.  I was using a digital camera.  It died in mid-shoot.  My hands were freezing.  I highly suggest doing this in the summertime.  If any of you are lucky enough to be in California or the Middle East or somewhere warm, enjoy yourself.  Go outside and do it.  I have seen painting with light photographs where you could paint a whole tree or a mountain.  The results are really, really interesting as well.  You can use even a flash.  You can use a portable flash and just really pop that flash at different levels of intensity, again, for great effect.  Take a light meter.  Do an exposure, let us say, of the tree and then just try popping it.  Try getting as close to the original exposure as possible and then playing with it and modifying it from there.  One thing that is very cool, which we mentioned at the beginning of the podcast is that you need light to expose the photograph.  So, while I was lighting certain objects outside, I wore completely black.  I got in my burglar uniform, put on some black jeans, black sweater, black hat, black gloves, and that way I was actually able to manipulate the light during the exposure and walk through the shutter without my body affecting the exposure.  Because my body was so black, it was so dark, not enough to register on the camera sensor.  I was able to walk like in front of the lens with no problems whatsoever.  For one of my tests outside, I tried to light a birdcage and I used the flashlight, one of the smaller ones.  I tried my best to only light the birdcage and the result is pretty interesting.  It is okay.  Like I said, my hands were freezing.  I moved quickly, but I did spend like over an hour outside, maybe even an hour and a half just trying different experiments, trying and looking, trying and looking, and it was quite interesting.
Like I said, I would have loved to have had more control over the light, over the fineness of the point of light only because that is what I was after.  If you have an image in your head, you always try and achieve that image, but it is not really necessary.  If you want to just light something thicker and not get the fine detail, you could also do some really interesting results.  I know that some people have also put like filters, soft focus filters on front of their camera during the exposure and that softens the whole thing up as well.  I did not do it this time, but it is something that I would definitely consider doing in the future because I do intend to try this again, probably in the summertime when it is warmer.  For another object that I tried to light, I tried to light a boot.  I took a boot and I put in the window, in a window rather, and again I tried to outline the boot and the result is pretty interesting.  I think it is interesting.  You can leave a comment and tell me what you thought as well.  Again, I took a light meter, shone it, took a base exposure, and just try to go over the entire boot at a regular rate whatever the exposure told me.  I tried to deal with about a half a second or a second and then go around the entire object for that half a second, leaving it half a second at every point while tracing the object in effect.
If you are going to light an inanimate object, in a way, that is kind of easy because there is one less variable of movement that you have to contend with.  When I lit the cat and the model, the exposures were like from 8 seconds to 30 seconds.  Those models — your cat cannot be perfectly still for 30 seconds, a human cannot either, usually a 60th of a second is the max you can normally shoot someone without like a ghosting effect or a movement effect.  They were pretty still, but there is still movement involved, so that is a variable that may add or detract in the photo, but it is a variable you need to be aware of.  When you are dealing with an inanimate object like a boot, a birdcage, a tree, a small hill or mountain, there is no ghosting effect, so you could really take your time.  You could put your camera on bulb with a shutter.  You could leave it open for minutes at a time.  The maximum I did was 30 seconds, but you could leave it open for minutes for sure, minutes.
That pretty much sums up my experience with this test with painting with light.  I would absolutely love to hear some posts or comments or send me some pictures, post it on the blog or post it in the bulletin board or send it to me by email, photography.ca@gmail.com.  I would love to get some feedback on your own experiments or maybe if you took something away from this podcast or you have something to add or you think, “You know what?  Marko, you could’ve done something differently or better,” I would love to hear it.  So, please shoot me a comment and it will be my pleasure as always to comment back.
That about wraps it up for our first podcast of the year and our 8th podcast in total.  Again, please communicate via the blog, via the bulletin board.  We intend to do this once a week.  Next week, I am not sure what the topic is going to be yet, but I have an idea that it might have to do with framing, ooohhh framing, and the possibilities and the different types of composition and/or artfulness that you could create with various framing techniques.
That about does it for me.  Thanks so much for listening.  Keep on shooting everyone and we will be back next week.  Bye for now.
[Camera clicks]

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Painting with light – photography podcast #8

January 12, 2007 on 9:47 am | In Photographs, Photography podcasts, podcasting | 10 Comments

This photography podcast focuses on painting with light, a technique where you actually illuminate or ‘paint’ a person or object with a light source like a flashlight. The results are fun and interesting and we hope you’ll comment. Below are some of the images talked about in the show. Click the photographs to enlarge them.

painting with light photo painting with light photograph

painting with light photograph

painting with light

Photography podcast transcript #8

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Painting with light – blog post teaser

January 3, 2007 on 10:31 am | In Photography blog entries | 1 Comment

Painting with light is a really cool technique for producing fine art photographs. I am working on a few right now and will post my results as a blog post or a podcast and posts sometime this week. For those that don’t know  – In order to expose a photograph you need light. Usually that light comes from the sun, flash etc. When you paint with light you photograph in TOTAL or almost total darkness, then with a flashlight (torch) flash, or other light source you light the object while your camera sits on a tripod and the shutter stays open (on bulb) for the whole exposure.

This was just the teaser. So far the results are super cool – and I will post them with a fuller explanation this week (hopefully). Hang tight. 2007 will be a year of experimentation.

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