Photography podcast blog and forum
Robert Capa (1913–1954) was a world renowned photojournalist and many of his iconic images are etched in our minds. The 54th anniversary of his death just happened this week. A well known quote of his that rings true for most photographers was …œIf your pictures arenžt good enough, youžre not close enough‚
Here is a link to some work along with one of his most famous images:
Here’s a shot of a huge ship at the old port in old Montreal at night. It was of course the lights and their reflections on the water that made this shot interesting for me. I normally don’t shoot handheld at slower than 1/30th of a second and this shot was taken at 1/15.‚ Exif data F2.8, ‚1/15 at ISO 1600. You can click the image to make it tastier on the eyes.
I guess this is where you park when all the streets are so full of snow‚that there isn’t a parking spot in the city. This dude must have simply had enough and jammed his car into a snowbank. Spring will get here.…eventually.
Shooting through glass is usually not recommended when you have a choice, since the glass can reduce the sharpness of the final photograph. There is also the tendency to get unwanted reflections. That said, rules are meant to be broken especially when there is a goal in mind. For this shot the goal was to show what’s on the glass and what is beyond the glass in a vain‚effort to vent my frustration over‚our relentless punishing winter. You can click the image to make it tastier on the eyes, even though all this snow leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I took this photograph the same day I did the podcast on 1 light portraits.
Aside from photography, I am truly passionate about pets, so when I get to combine the two…well, Yahoo!
This was shot in Westmount Park on a cold overcast Montreal afternoon. Boog the dog started shivering pretty quickly so we did not stay out long. I used a faster than normal shutter speed because of the shivering.
Exif data ISO 400, F-4.5, 1/800 sec.
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It’s funny how‚various photography techniques can resurface at any moment depending on what you are looking at.…Given the infinite variety of things to see, it means that there is never a lack of subjects to photograph.
I guess this shot was inspired by the macro on the cheap podcast but it’s not a macro shot at all. It’s a simple lower angled shot of some melting ice but for some reason its shape intrigues me. When‚I first looked at it, it‚seemed like a mini model of something larger. It was photographed using the long end of my 70-200mm zoom. There was actually water moving through the ice that unfortunately‚I was unable to capture because‚I needed a slower speed and it was too bright…and oh yeah, I forgot my filters like a bonehead. Still, there’s something here that pleases me.
Exif Data — ISO 100 — F-32 1/6. You can click the image to make it tastier on the eyes.
What is going on here?‚
Where does the ladder go?
Are there treats at the end of the ladder?
This photograph is an excellent example of lens compression. For those that may not know, longer lenses tend to compress the foreground and background while wide angle lenses tend to do the reverse. I shot this scene on 1 frame from about 50 feet away. The white in the background is actually a massive container filled with oil and the ladder is part of that container. The tree is actually about 20 feet in front of the container.
I shot this scene from my car while snow was lightly falling. Exif data — Shot at ISO (The light was quickly fading)‚1000 F-16 at 1/400 at the long end of my 70–200 zoom lens. You can click the image to make it tastier on the eyes.
Much to my delight someone tossed out 2 old bananas. Then I came upon them and decided “hey bananas in the snow, cooool”
The first shot‚shows the real bananas and the second shot‚shows the bananas after having frozen to death. OR… the second shot shows stillborn oxygen deprived bananas.
Kidding aside all‚I did to get the deep blue in the second shot was push the hue/saturation slider all the way to the right in photoshop. Shot at F5.6 at 1/200 ISO 100. Click the images to make them bigger, and of course…you are invited to comment.
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There is no computer malfunction as devastating as losing the contents of your hard drive. This can happen due to a virus, or a hardware or software malfunction. Backing up your computer regularly is a must and there are several ways to do it. The most common way is to use a program that breaks up the contents of your hard drive into chunks and save it on another external hard drive. In case of hard drive failure, you can rebuild your old drive with those chunks.
Thatžs not the way I like to do it as my first line of defense. I confess, I still do backup that way as well, but itžs not my primary way. Call me neurotic or squeamish but I donžt like chunks.
If my hard drive fails and I have something important to do, I want to have an EXACT COPY of my hard drive already saved. I donžt want to have to rebuild anything or look for a disk to reboot my computer with the saved chunked data. It should still work of course (as long as the internal hard drive is not irreparably damaged) and eventually you have to deal with the computeržs problem internal drive, but who wants an ulcer? Frankly Ižll pay a wee bit for piece of mind.
The answer is to make a clone, a copy, or an exact intact image of your hard drive. That way, I can just take my external drive (which is a clone of my desktop) attach it to old 50 dollar laptop via USB and boom ‚” my whole computer shows up as a new drive on my laptop. No need to look for any disks or reassemble chunks and ZERO downtime and zero lost files.‚
Herežs how I do it. I buy an external drive that is the exact same size as my computeržs internal drive. That way when I clone the drive, I clone it exactly. You should know that that backup external drive can ONLY be used for backup in this way. You canžt save other files on that external drive, you can only save the clone of your internal hard drive. Each time you re-backup your computer onto that external, it deletes the previous backup. My 500 gig internal drive takes about 1.5 hours to clone onto the Western Digital 500 gig external drive (which costs $130.00 dollars 3 monts ago) via firewire (you can of course use USB).
There are many programs that can do this but the one I use and like best is Acronis True Image 11. It costs about 50 dollars and you can try it for free. When you load it up youžll see different choices on how to backup. To clone your hard drive DO NOT CHOOSE BACKUP AND RESTORE. That option backs up your hard drive in chunks. Instead choose DISK UTILITIES and then Clone Disk. I use manual mode after that and follow the prompts carefully and I MAKE SURE TO ‹“KEEP DATAž WHEN IT ASKS HOW I WANT TO MODIFY MY OLD DRIVE AND I CHOOSE ‹“AS ISž (because both drives are the exact same size) when it asks how I want to move data from the old to new drive.
The other program I am somewhat familiar with that does just about the same thing is Norton Ghost. Again to make an exact copy of your drive (non-chunk) donžt choose Back it up now, instead choose Copy My Hard drive (advanced) and follow the prompts very carefully.
Using either of these methods gives you the peace of mind that even if your hard drive crashes in a terrible way, you can still work from a new computer by plugging your external into it. Obviously, youžll need to copy or clone your internal drive regularly to have the freshest copy. If you have irreplaceable photos and other files on your internal hard drive, it is also safest to burn them to CD or DVD.
So I just purchased a new Wacom tablet. I heard they rock and make photo editing so much easier. So after wasting 1/2 hour installing the fUC@**&%$en!!!!!! driver which did NOT easily install onto my Vista machine…here I go. My first instinct (to be fair after 10 minutes of use) is that it is NOT as easy to use as everyone raves.
There seems to be an unnatural disconnect in my brain between the size of the fixed nib on the pen and the brush size that you choose in photoshop. I guess i will need to play and even check out the tutorial on the disk. If anyone has any tips or pointers…I’m all ears. Thanks!
Added on Feb. 18, 2007‚ — This comment and picture by David Redding was really informative so I added it to this main post. Thanks David!
Here is a side by side of one of my touch up jobs. Now all of this could
have been done with a mouse, but I find I can be quite a bit more precise
with the stylist. for example, if you take a look at the forehead in the
retouched image, even at this web size you can make out skin details (good
luck doing that with a blur mask…I could never figure out how). I am
able to do the touch up and maintain skin texture by first doing a round
of Cloning and Healing at about 100–200% magnification. Once I have
removed all the rather large blemishes and skin imperfections I use the
Brush tool in CS3 with a soft edge, the Protect Texture option in the
brush tool kit selected and an opacity of around 20%. I then sample the
skin for colour and just paint on the skin correction.
the biggest difference between the mouse and the stylist when doing
editing jobs like this is with the mouse, when using the Brush tool, if
you set the Opacity to say 30% (or what ever setting) that is what you
get. But, with the stylist that same setting of 30% is just the maximum,
you can achieve less with the pressure of the stylist.
Like I said in my response to you posting, the stylist does take some
getting use to.…How long have you been using a mouse for? But, once you
do get the settings to your liking and actually train your brain to use
the stylist instead of the mouse you will see how accurate you can be with
your editing.
Also, a graphics tablet can be a waste of money for some people. Really,
if all you really do in your editing is cropping, curves, colour balancing
(in RAW I hope) and sharpening, then a graphics tablet is really a waste
of money. But, on the other hand. If you do a fair amount of touching up
skin, dodging and burning or even custom graphics like painting on
patterns in you images, then a Tablet could be your saving grace.
Another resolution I am making this year (starting today) is not to tarry when I see great light. Great light doesn’t wait for you, great light doesn’t give a crap about your schedule — You wait for great light and when you see it you must grab it by its invisible balls.
Yesterday was an amazing example. I woke up and thick fog was everywhere — Everywhere!
I LOVE FOG.
For me, fog is great light. It evokes a rare special mood and feeling.
.…but I’m a busy dude and work beckons me constantly so I checked the window periodically while I waited until I was ready to shoot. Guess what — once I was ready the fog had almost dissipated. Boy was I upset : (
So as a last resort I got into my car and chased the fog until I found the best patch I could find. It was okay fog and I think this self-portrait is not bad.
Point is — Now I have think about what could have been instead of knowing that I was shooting at the best possible time.….
It’s so obvious. Just bring your camera everywhere and you’ll take more pictures.
By taking more pictures, you’ll learn what works well and what doesn’t.
You won’t regret missing shots.
When you SEE that great light you’ll be there to record it.
So that’s one resolution that I’ll try to stick with this year. I intend to bring my camera everywhere. (I have a lot of gear so I’m only bringing 1 DSLR body, 1 lens and 1 flash)
Another resolution will be to do more reviews. I get a fair amount of email asking me what I use in terms of equipment or what I suggest. This coming year, I intend to share more of what I think are great photo products. From photo gear to software to wires to books — reviews are coming.
Happy new year everyone! All the best for 2008 — Keep on shooting!
