October 20, 2009 - Operation cow drop

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The Chick-fil-A down the street had a lunchtime festival today. Games, food, and a cow drop. That's right, a cow drop. They dropped 300 mini plush cows — with parachutes — down to crowd of at least 600 people. It was crazy, as the photo shows.

This was a tricky shot. We were outside, but underneath a large, covered plaza between two tall buildings. Both ends of the plaza were very bright, which was fooling the camera a little bit. I put the flash on to make sure that whichever way I was facing the shot would be illuminated. Finally, I took a bunch of shots to try to get something good. And out of about 50 shots, I came up with this winner.

I really like it because it shows a lot of action. There are all the hands reaching for the cow, and the lady in the center isolated fantastically against the clump of people. You can clearly see her business attire — the high heels, short skirt, and white blouse — reaching for a cheap little cow like all the rest (oh, did I mention they all had food coupons attached to them?).

I wish, however, I could have been closer and had more of the faces towards the camera.

October 10, 2009 - Youth temple trip

Today I accompanied about half our church's youth group to Columbia, South Carolina, for a church activity. It was an all-day trip and I enjoyed being there very much.

When we were done, we gathered outside for a group shot. My camera bag was left home accidentally ("You asked me to pack it? Honest, Dad, I thought you said you were going to put it in the van!"), but one of the kids brought his Nikon D70. It was a little unfamiliar to me (remember, I shoot Canon), but I think I pulled off a decent photo.

I put the group in the shade of some trees to keep the sunlight off of them, but then turned on the camera's built in flash to make them brighter. Otherwise, the bright white building in the background would have over-powered the exposure, leaving them in the dark. I also dropped my shooting level down a little bit to make it easier for me to include the whole spire and statue in the shot.

I focused on the kids (which I think caused the Nikon to set the exposure mainly based on them) and then recomposed the shot to where they were in one corner and the angel atop the spire was in the other. I also helped them stand as a group, staggering each one so all of their faces were easy to see.

I definitely wish I had paid more attention to if I was keeping the camera level. It seems obvious to me that the shot is a little crooked. And there are two or three kids that are in less-than-ideal poses, which drives me crazy. I try to notice these kind of things when I shoot, but I don't always remember.

I apologize for not having any of the settings for the shot, but I was given a copy of the photo and it had lost all of its Exif data.

September 24, 2009 - Cleaning up from the flood

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I went to watch Emma at tennis practice today and heard some commotion in the woods behind the tennis courts. I found a county crew trying to clean out this massive drainage pipe, which had become clogged sometime during (or maybe even before) the flooding we had.

The pipe is what a small creek flows through as it goes under one of the roads in our neighborhood. Normally, the creek doesn't have much more than a trickle flowing through it, but was fairly raging during the flood because at least 20 yards empty into it just from our neighborhood alone.

Because of the clog, the creek backed up until it flowed over through one of the houses and over the street. Then it joined up with a larger creek and flooded out the tennis court and swimming pool area. The county crew was trying to clear out the clog so they could send an engineer into the pipe to inspect it for washout damage under the roadway.

This photo was kind of challenging because of the lighting. We were in the thick trees, but there were several open spots that was letting in quite a bit of light. This light was confusing the camera and making it underexpose the majority of the photo. I put the camera into 'P' mode (which on my Canon is one spot away from the fully automatic green mode). This allowed the camera to make all of the adjustments it thought it needed but also gave me the chance to override it.

Since the camera was underexposing the photo pretty severely, I used the exposure compensation setting to overexpose the shot by nearly one full stop. This canceled out the camera's confusion and gave me the exposure I wanted.

I wish I could have used the camera's flash, but that would have drawn a lot of attention to me and I wasn't sure I wanted it. I was worried a little that they might complain if it became obvious I was photographing their work. But if I could have used a flash it would have helped light up the shadows of the photo, especially in the pipe.

September 17, 2009 - Slight reprieve in the rain

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The rains held off for a while, and the tree guys came out to make good on their promise. While it is not perfect, my yard looks a lot better now. And since it wasn't raining, they went ahead and cut down the last tree.

Since the ground was still wet and borderline soaked, they cut the tree up into pieces and used a rope to lower each part to the ground. This technique was also used to make sure nothing fell on the power lines going to my house, which were only a few feet away. It also allowed them to haul the trunk off in pieces instead of having to use the same logger truck from the day before (the owner told me he wasn't going to use that guy again).

To help properly illuminate this photo on such an overcast day, I used my dedicated flash. The camera was being fooled by the bright white sky, so I told it to over-compensate on the flash by one full stop. I thought this did a nice job of brightening up the photo without making it look unnatural.

This is a great example of why you shouldn't be afraid to use your flash in the middle of the day. Without it, the photos turned out much darker. Why? I was aiming up into the underside of the tree, and just 25 feet away was my dark brown house (which was acting more like a light sponge — soaking up the light).

Before using the flash, the tree and the tree cutter were much darker and lacked detail. With the flash, everything looks more like you would perceive it with your natural eye.

August 31, 2009 - Self portrait

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Well, it finally happened. I finally had a day where it was getting time to go to bed and I hadn't taken a single shot yet. I was sitting at my computer, trying to update the blog when it hit me.

Oh, crap! I thought. Here it is at 10:15 p.m. and I haven't taken any pictures!

I sat there wondering what I could do for a couple of minutes when inspiration hit me — do a self portrait!

I wanted this self-portrait to be realistic, to reflect how I usually do my photo work. So it had to be fairly dark. It might not be best for my eyes, but I tend to sit with the lights off so I can see the photos easily.

I set up my camera on a tripod, took a few practice shots, and then got serious. I realized right away that letting the light spill in from the kitchen didn't work for a pleasing portrait. So I attached my dedicated flash to the camera, pointed it at the ceiling, and set it to shoot in manual mode at 1/32 power (in case you're wondering, 1/2 power was enough to brightly light up the room).

I decided on ISO 200 and a full second exposure time (obviously I put my camera into manual mode in order to do that) to get a balance between a fast enough shutter speed to prevent motion blur and a slow enough film speed to prevent heavy graininess in the dark areas.

I also set the camera at head level so the angle of view might be like you were sitting down with me to look at the photos. Finally, I tried to eliminate distractions in the photo, so I cleaned up my desk (and put all of the junk on the floor). What you see in the photo is what I wanted you to see.

From beginning to end, this shot took less than 15 minutes to create, and that included using the 10 second timer on my shutter (I would press the shutter button, and then have 10 seconds to climb into my chair and position myself).

In hindsight, I wish I would have taken the time to set the camera to a wider angle (maybe more around 18-20mm) and move it closer to me and the screen. This might have further enhanced the perspective of you sitting down with me.

Basic Photo Tip: Using light to your advantage

Now that we have a better understanding of exposure, let’s go back and visit the topic of light again. Not all types of light are the same, and certain kinds of light are better than others.

For many subjects, direct sunlight can be very flattering. This is especially true for landscapes, architectural, and sports. Take, for instance, this photo of Main Hall at Southern Virginia University. It was taken in the middle of the afternoon with the sun shining directly on the face of building. It looks great!


For other subjects, however, direct sunlight can be harsh and unflattering. Many portraits are this way.

When taking photos of people, you usually don’t want the sunlight to be shining directly in their faces. It can cause people to squint and wrinkle up their faces. In fact, the only time I like to use direct sunlight in portraits is late in the day, during the last hour before the sun sets. This light is diffused greatly through the layers of the atmosphere at this time of the day, which results in a softer, warmer light than what you have during midday.

Ambient light is much better for portraits and general people photos. There are several things that can be the source of your ambient light – the open sky above, reflecting from off a wall, or filtering through curtains.

What’s even better is when you can use ambient light that is coming primarily from one direction. If you can have the light coming slightly from the side and the front at the same time, then that is ideal. It will create slight shading across the face, which will help create a three dimensional effect.

Take a look at this photo of my daughter. It was taken at a swim meet, and she was waiting for her event. She was sitting in the shade, but the ambient light was coming from above her and to her right. The soft ambient light created faint, soft shadows on her face which allows you easily see how it is shaped.


Since it is coming straight from your camera, light from your flash can cause all of the shadows to disappear and effectively flatten the details of your subjects face. There are some tricks you can use with your flash, though, that will enhance a photo.

For instance, if you have a dedicated flash attached to your camera you can point the flash into the ceiling above or an adjacent wall. This is called bouncing your flash, and it works best when you use a white wall. In this photo, I captured my niece licking the spatula from mixing a cake. I bounced the flash off of the ceiling, creating a much better photo than if I aimed it right at her face.


Notice the light of the bounced flash is reflecting in her eyes. This kind of light reflection really helps your subject seem alive, whether you are shooting a person or an animal. Look for ways to capture that and your photos will improve dramatically.

You can also use the flash to fill in where the dominant light source is directly behind the subject, as in these two photos.


Because of the bright background, the camera was fooled into thinking it didn't need to use the flash. For the second shot, the flash was used to fill in the dark foreground.

Photo Tip: Using a fill flash

One of my friends got a thrill of a lifetime today -- he got to walk on a tower crane 54 stories up!

Next to our building in the Buckhead area of Atlanta is a 50-story skyscraper in the midst of construction. The HowStuffWorks team was invited to go to the top of the building and video tape some of the construction and views as they laid the 50th floor with cement.

On the way to the top, they stopped to get a photo with a backdrop of downtown Atlanta. The first photo didn't turn out so well because it was bright in the background, but not so bright in the foreground.


Because of the bright background, the camera was fooled into thinking it didn't need to use the flash. For the second shot, the flash was used to fill in the dark foreground.


Much better! Even though it was plenty bright to see on the open floor of the skyscraper, there was too much difference in light between the background and the foreground to get a good exposure for both.

In photography, we call the measurements of light 'stops'. If the foreground was half as dark as the background, then that is one stop. In this case, the background was more than four times brighter than the foreground.

How do I know? Because the vast majority of digital cameras can't capture more than four stops of light in the same exposure. That is why the foreground was too dark when the background was properly exposed. By using the flash, we evened out the differences between the foreground and background.

Thanks, Scott, for letting me use your photos!