September 15, 2009 - Up in the trees

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f4

ISO 800

150mm

RAW

We had a tree cutting service come out today to take down some dead, diseased, and damaged trees. There was a lot of activity and they were under the constant threat of rain, which made them work even faster.

The guy who climbed the trees had been doing it for years, and was very good. I got up on my roof to take this photo. By getting up on the same level as him, it allowed me to put a background of treetops behind him instead of the overcast sky. Our front yard slopes down to the street (by about 25 feet), so he was about 40 feet off the ground as he was making this cut.

I used my 70-200mm f2.8L lens so I could get a good, up close shot of him with all of the chips flying. I set the white balance mode to cloudy, and then added in more contrast in Photoshop Elements. And the shutter speed was in that magic range where most of the falling chips were frozen in air but the chips coming right off the chainsaw are slightly blurred. This really conveys the action of the photo.

I love how I caught a look of utter concentration. I also wanted to leave some negative space at the bottom (to help convey how high he was) but was careful not to include too much (which would have made him smaller in the photo).

I really like this photo, and I not sure if there is anything I would have changed. What do you think? Do you have any suggestions on what could have made this better?

September 14, 2009 - Biscuits

1/30

f8

ISO 800

50mm

RAW

Today I made one of my favorite foods — biscuits! I took photos of both the preparing process and the finished product. Since I just recently put up a photo of making cinnamon rolls, I decided to post the golden brown finished product.

I shot this at a shallow angle so I could get the full range of focus zones in the photo. There are out-of-focus biscuits in the foreground and background surrounding the in-focus biscuits in the middle. This gives more depth to the photo and adds to its visual appeal.

I used the rule of thirds by putting the area of sharpest focus in the lower right third of the photo. I also cropped it in close to give more attention to the area of sharpest focus. Finally, I corrected the white balance and pumped up the contrast and color saturation.

I only have one regret &mdash I wish I hadn't eaten so many of them!

September 13, 2009 - Twilight overcast sky

1/15

f5.6

ISO 400

18mm

JPEG

I had been inspired recently by Bill Warren's outstanding photo collection of the world's largest tourist trap (called South of the Border on I-95 in South Carolina), so when I saw a chance to get a similar photo, I jumped at it.

I took this on an overcast day right as the sun was setting. It was bright enough to see, but dark enough that many businesses had their colorful lights and signs on. There was a balance to how bright the sky was compared to the business lights.

After I loaded the photo into Photoshop Elements, I lowered the exposure, increased the contrast, and pumped up the saturation a little. Even though I accidentally shot this as a JPEG (I had left it in JPEG mode after the tennis match the day before), I still used Adobe Camera Raw to edit the photo. How did I do that? I just selected 'Open As...' from the menu in the Editor, found my JPEG image, and chose to open it as a Camera RAW image in the dropdown menu at the bottom of the 'Open File' window.

The hardest thing for me was getting the photo to appear straight. I hadn't brought a tripod along, so I had to hand-hold the camera as I was shooting. The light was fading fast, so while the pictures I had started taking a few minutes before at ISO 400, I should have adjusted to ISO 800 for this one.

To make things harder, I was standing on the tall cement base of one of the light poles around the station so my angle of view would be a little higher and I wouldn't be aiming the camera up so much. I had to hold onto the pole with one hand while shooting with the other. It's amazing that a photo came out clear at all. I guess that really speaks to the technology put into these image-stabilized lenses that Canon is producing now.

I wish I had waited around a few more minutes and gotten another set of photos when it was almost dark.

I also want to go back and see what I can do to dial down the blue in the sky. I think if it was more grey, then with a little selective burning and dodging (lightening and darkening) I could make this look like a real stormy sky.

September 11, 2009 - Studio 1A at HowStuffWorks

1/30

f3.5

ISO 800

21mm

RAW

There's a good chance some of you have heard of HowStuffWorks.com, which is where I work (especially since I know some of my co-workers are following my 365 project). We have several outstanding podcasts, including one by Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant called "Stuff You Should Know."

(If you haven't heard it, you should check them out. They are available in the podcast section of iTunes. You'll probably find them in the Top 10 list.)

Anyway, yesterday Chuck asked me to get a photo of the recording studio. It seems some of the listeners wanted to see where they recorded their show. He also had received a wooden sign from a fan that depicted the name of the studio, and he wanted a shot so he could put it on his blog post. This way he could accomplish two things at once.

Today's photo is the result. After seeing how dark the studio is, I kinda wished I had brought my tripod to work. So I pulled out my image stabilized lens (which also happens to be my widest lens), set the ISO to 800, and played around with the aperture until I got a shutter speed I knew I could shoot with while hand-holding the camera.

I noticed the lights seemed to be all florescent bulbs, so I waited a few minutes until they all got as bright as possible (sometimes the CFL bulbs take a few minutes to reach full capacity). I shot it as RAW so if there were any problems with the coloring (even after putting the white balance to florescent) that I could have maximum control in correcting it.

While the photo may make the studio look fairly nice and orderly, it is quite the opposite. To the left of the table (by about three feet) is the sound engineer's work desk, complete with all of her controls, computers, screens, and everything else she uses (Jeri, you do a great job!). To the right of the table (and behind the thick woven fabric hanging over the wall) is the green screen portion of the studio where they shoot their video podcasts. It is a mess of cords, lights, stands, and other studio gear.

Because I was selective in what I excluded from the photo, the resulting shot is much stronger. I always try to keep that in mind when I shoot. Sometimes you can't help but have distracting backgound elements, but when you can minimize or eliminate them, your photographer will be much stronger.

Finally, I regret not being able to talk Josh and Chuck into sitting at their chairs for the photo. Both of them love what they do (after all, who doesn't like to just sit down with a great friend and just shoot the breeze about current events?), but they don't always like the publicity and fame they are getting. Ever the humble journalists, they turned down my request.

September 12, 2009 - Emma's first tennis match

1/3200

f2.8

ISO 400

200mm

JPEG

Emma and Leigh Ann got to play in a practice match today. This was the first time for Emma. She is just starting to learn the game, but she does a really good job of hitting the ball. She just needs to keep working on getting into position to hit. She did that here.

I shot in JPEG mode so I could get a bunch of shots (my camera in RAW mode will shoot only six successive photos whereas JPEG mode gets somewhere around 20). I also put the camera in "sunny" white balance mode since most of the tennis court was in full sunlight. Finally, I put the camera on my monopod to help support the weight of my 70-200mm f2.8L lens.

As I followed Emma around with the lens, I kept the zoom a little wide so I wouldn't have any problem keeping her in the lens. I shot horizontally because I feel that works very well for tennis, especially when a player is swinging at the ball (like Emma is).

Because the aperture is set to a wide f2.8, the background is slightly out of focus. Emma was close to the sideline when I got the shot, so that is why the fence isn't more out of focus.

In the final print (which is what you see), I cropped the photo in quite a bit to focus the attention on just Emma and the tennis action. The inside of her forearm was overexposed, so I tried to back off the brightness there. This is one area where shooting RAW would have helped. RAW contains more image data in the bright areas, which allows you to pull back from overblown hightlights when you use something like Adobe Camera Raw (which you can find with Photoshop and Photoshop Elements).

The 1/3200 shutter speed did a great job of freezing the ball on the strings of the racket. One thing I could have done differently is slow the shutter speed down. It can be tricky to do this, but there is a balance where you have a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the player, but slow enough where the ball is still a little bit of a blur. This effect does a great job of conveying the idea of motion in the photo.

The better the skills of the players (and the harder they hit the ball), the easier it is to find a slow enough shutter speed to do this. However, since Emma and her partner are just getting started, the game was very slow and it might have been impossible to achieve this effect.

September 10, 2009 - Homemade cinnamon rolls

1/100

f2.2

ISO 800

50mm

RAW

As you might be starting to tell, my wife and I love to cook. Today, she made some simple cinnamon rolls. I got this photo as she was using dental floss to cut each one away from the big roll of dough.

I used my 50mm f1.8 lens in order to get a fast enough shutter speed in the weak light under the table's lampshades. I also knew that this lens produced an extremely sharp photo, which I wanted.

I got in pretty close to Rachel's hands to concentrate on what she was doing. I wanted to include the tray of cinnamon rolls in the background, and I also liked the splattering of flour spread around the work area.

But I didn't need to include anything else in the photo. This was definitely a case where leaving out stuff was as important as what you leave in.

Even with setting the camera to tungsten lighting (to match the bulbs over the table, I still had to adjust the lighting in Adobe Photoshop Elements so the flour would look white.

The one thing that I wish I would have done is move the little red cup that she used to mix up the cinnamon and sugar. She emptied the cup, so you can't tell what it was used for just by looking at it. Worse yet, it is really red, which makes it stand out like a sore thumb.

But I also didn't have a lot of time. Rachel usually doesn't want to wait for me to make a photo perfect, so she just keeps working when I pull out my camera (sometimes I think she works even faster). She had already gone through one roll of dough and was starting on the other one when I pulled out of my camera. I got only five or six shots before she reached the end of the roll.

Sometimes if you think too much and try to make a perfect shot, you wind up missing the shot altogether.

September 9, 2009 - Morgan in black and white

1/100

f2.2

ISO 1600

50mm

RAW

Here is my fourth child, Morgan. She was excited when I told her it was her turn for a portrait by the window. Just like the others, everything I said about the first photo applies here, too.

While I like the photo, I am not sure if does a good enough job of capturing her personality. But it was the best of the bunch. Morgan likes it, however, and so does Rachel.

I do like how the lighting turned out on this one. The light seems to wrap around her face better than the other three, and I think I did a better job on the black and white effect this time.

Having said that, you may be seeing another photo of her coming soon. And then we'll pick which one is better.

September 8, 2009 - Another self portrait

0.6 sec

f5.6

ISO 200

18mm

RAW

I almost didn't get a photo today. Back on Labor Day, I fixed a broken pipe under the sink. After dinner tonight, I checked to see if there was any water under the sink.

Sure enough, there was.

So while I was digging around under the sink trying to figure out where the water was coming from, I remembered I still hadn't gotten a photo yet. So I pulled out my tripod, set the camera on it, and adjusted it to where the camera was at head level. This way the photo would have the same perspective as if you had walked in the kitchen and found me there.

I also set the camera on f5.6 to make sure everything was in focus and put it on the widest zoom possible. I adjusted the white balance to match the light bulbs in the kitchen. Finally, I put it on the 10-second timer so I would have enough time to get under the sink before the picture was snapped.

I wish I had a wider lens for a shot like this. It would have helped. I think the perspective could have been better if it had included more of the kitchen.

What do you think? Did I do a good job?

September 7, 2009 – Aaron and Kirsten

1/25

f5.6

ISO 100

35mm

RAW

Since today was the last day for us to all be together for the family reunion, several of us went out to eat dinner at James Joyce, an irish pub in Decatur. It was a night for fun and relaxation — which means we left the kids at home!

Rachel's youngest brother, Aaron, married a couple of years ago, but it happened at a period where we could only afford to fly out Rachel for the wedding. So I hadn't met his wife, Kirsten, until this weekend.

We were sitting in the outdoor area at a large table with an even larger umbrella over it. I put the flash on my camera and set the flash compensation setting to use one full-stop less light than what the camera thought it needed (if you have a DSLR, this setting usually has a button that pairs a lightning bolt with a "+/-" sign).

I did this so I would get a little light from the flash to make sure their faces were brightly lit. I feared the large umbrella would make their faces darker while the background areas would still be pretty bright. I also knew the flash would lighten up their eyes nicely.

I should have used ISO 200 to get a faster shutter speed, but thankfully I was using my 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS lens. The IS stabilized the shot so even the slow shutter speed of 1/25 didn't create any camera shake.

The only thing I don't really like about this snapshot is the guy behind Aaron's shoulder is a little be too much in focus. I don't mind him being there, I just wish he was more blurred out like the people over Kirsten's shoulder. The people help set the situation and environment. It's just that I think the guy is a little too much of a distraction.

September 6, 2009 – 40th anniversary photo

1/100

f5.6

ISO 100

50mm

RAW

Like I said in an earlier post, we had a miniature family reunion this weekend. Everyone got together because we had two children baptized (one mine and the other my niece) and a baby blessed (another niece).

After church today, we all went over to my sister-in-law's house for a big sunday dinner. Rachel's parents, Mike and Pam, had a question for me when we got out of the car.

"Chris, Mike and I would like to get a photo done." Pam said. "Since we just had our 40th anniversary, we want a nice portrait."

"Sure!" I replied. "When do you want to do it?"

"Right now, before we change out of our church clothes," she said. "We were just thinking of something here in the front yard."

"Um . . . okay." They had caught me completely off-guard. I quickly looked around for areas around the house that would work. Luckily, the neighbors across the street had this nice white fence, and I thought this would work well.

Is this my best work? No. I found several things I didn't like when I uploaded the photo to the computer. Their faces were in too much shadow, which I tried to fix with dodging in Photoshop Elements (which lightens parts of the photo). The tree in the backgound is right behind Mike's head. Too much of the photo is in focus. Mike's jacket is hanging funny. And for some reason, even at 1/100 of a second there was still a little bit of camera shake in the photo.

The only thing I can think of is I was a little "out of it" because I had skipped breakfast and lunch that day and was super hungry. But that's an excuse — I should have done a better job.

Overall, I thought the picture was okay and I hope my in-laws like it. That's what is most important. I am sending it to them today.