November 16, 2009 - A beautiful Fall yard

1/320

f5.6

ISO 200

18mm

RAW

I have always admired how beautiful this yard is in the Fall and now I have a great photo to prove it.

I shot this late in the afternoon, about an hour and a half before the sun sets. The angle of the sun gives a great blue sky without a polarizer. The sunlight coming from the right does a great job of striking the brilliant leaves, but it doesn't over-expose the rest of the yard. This allows the house in the shadows of the great pines to still be visible.

I think without the house the photo wouldn't be nearly as good. It clearly shows that this is someone's home, their yard that they have spent countless hours sweating over. And their toils are well worth it.

I shot this RAW, but the sunlight white balance setting in the camera did a great job of getting the colors right and I didn't need to correct them much. I did some selective saturation in Photoshop Elements, but otherwise left the photo alone.

I wasn't sure how the homeowners would react to me taking the photo (even though I was standing on a public sidewalk while shooting), so I preset the camera to what I thought would be a good starting point before walking over. I snapped two photos, checking each on the camera's display, figured I had a good shot, and got the heck out of dodge.

September 30, 2009 - Peanut butter chocolate kiss cookies

1/13

f5.6

ISO 400

55mm

RAW

Welcome to one of my all-time favorite cookies. These peanut butter chocolate kiss cookies are so easy to make but so hard to stop eating, especially when you have a cold glass of milk with them!

I took this photo as the cookies were cooling. We had just pulled them out of the oven and placed the chocolate kisses on each one. The heat from the cookies was melting the kisses in place. That's why there is a sheen on the kisses — they're liquifying.

I shot this in RAW and without a flash, using the light from the stovetop. I used my image-stabilized 18-55mm lens, which allowed me to take the handheld shot at an incredibly slow 1/13 of a second (it probably helped that I braced my elbows on the countertop as I held the camera).

The reason why the shutter speed is so slow is because I was pushing the aperture to as small as possible to get a deeper depth of field. When focusing this close to your subject (the cookies were only about 12 inches away), your depth of field is really shallow and you need a smaller aperture to get more in focus. In particular, I wanted this shot to have a whole cookie in focus, and f5.6 allowed me to do this.

Thanks to the RAW format, I had good control of converting the color to true white using Photoshop Elements and Adobe Camera Raw (it comes bundled with PSE). I have tried setting my camera's white balance to incandescent so it will match the light bulb under the stove's hood. But for some reason this light gets all wacky anyway, so I have to correct it using PSE.

Even though I shot this in landscape format, I liked the resulting crop better as a vertical. I think it brings more attention to the in-focus cookies in the lower third of the shot (rule of thirds!). I also add more feeling of depth to the shot by having one row out of focus in front and three rows behind.

I really like this shot a lot. If I had to nitpick anything, there would only be a couple. First, I think the kiss in the very front has an odd, slightly distracting shape. And second, I wish the two kisses in focus had more of a reflective shine like the ones in the back.

I am not sure why, but I really like taking food shots. I often find myself studying the food shots in elaborate restaurant menus, trying to figure out what makes each photo so nice, so effective. Then I try to keep those things I notice in mind for the next time I shoot.

I think I am getting better. What do you think?

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 2, 2009 – Capturing facial expressions

1/250

f2.2

ISO 1600

50mm

RAW

I had so much success with yesterday's post that I went back and did the same thing with another daughter (in case you don't know, I have five kids &mdash one boy and four girls). And just like the previous post, everything I said about the first photo applies here, too.

Emma remings me so much about myself when I was her age &mdash reserved and quiet at times. But she had seen the photos I had gotten of her sisters and wanted a good one of herself, too. So she really worked with me and made it easier.

While I don't think her expression is quite as precocious as Tannah's, I love it anyway. I feel like she is exchanging a knowing smile with me, like she knows what I am thinking and she agrees.

If you can capture expressions in your subjects that convey a feeling to the viewer, then you are doing a great job with your photography. It's something hard to do, and there will be times that you start to feel like you're doing it, and then you go for a long time without any luck (it's what makes quality photography such a joy to acheive).

If this happens to you, don't despair. Just keep clicking away.

As for what I wish I could change, I shot this too loose and had to crop this in quite a bit to get the composition you see. As you know, my wife wants an 8x10 of each child, and I worry that I had to crop in too much to get a good 8x10 out of this.

August 30, 2009 – Window light portrait

1/100

f2.2

ISO 1600

50mm

RAW

I felt like I was getting into a little bit of a rut (especially since it seems that many of my photos were of buildings, flowers, or bugs), so with today's submission I am going back to two things that will make my wife happy — one of my kids and black and white photography.

My kids were sitting at a little white table by our front window, doing a little bit of crafting. I was helping them out, and it suddenly struck me this would be a great location to get some good black and white portraiture. The window faces north, so it never gets any sunlight shining directly through it. Therefore, all of the light is this beautiful, soft, ambient light.

Notice the pleasing effect this indirect light has — it softly wraps around her face. And while part of her face is in shadow, it isn't a harsh shadow. This lighting also does wonders to make the photo look more three dimensional. The soft shadows do a great job of showing the contours of her face without creating something harsh and unflattering.

Because I already had black and white in my mind, I did three things. First, I set my ISO to 1600, which will produce a grainier photo than normal. Second, I wanted to create a narrow depth of field, so I pulled out my 50mm f1.8 prime lens and set it to f2.2. This gave enough focus to grab my daughter's face, but it still threw everything in the background out of focus. And third, by turning all of the lights off in the room I created a dark background that will not only help focus attention on my subject but also give me a chance for a deep, rich black.

In this photo, the eyes are the most important, so I focused on them to make sure they looked the best. Everything else blends nicely into an out-of-focus backgroud (this blurry effect is called bokeh). Finally, I cropped the photo to put her eyes in the upper-right third of the photo to follow the rule of thirds. I also cropped out the large rainbow hanging from her necklace. It was distracting, and took away from the photo.

The one thing that I wish I had done for this is remove the darned ironing board from behind her, which created the fuzzy bar that you see in the background.

Brian, I thought about burning out the board, but honestly didn't want to make the effort getting rid of the board but not getting rid of the strands of her hair. So instead, I removed the string that was hanging conspicuously from the end. Thanks for giving me the challenge to do so in my previous black and white photo.

August 28, 2009 – Tiny little cricket

1/320

f8

ISO 400

46mm

RAW

It had been raining today but had stopped by lunch time, so I set out to capture some closeups of water droplets on some flowers. As I was trying to do so, I luckily found this tiny cricket. Just how tiny is he? There are two good indicators -- look at the water droplet on the leaf above him and the tiny hairs on the left to the left. This little guy was less than a half-an-inch long.

Because of its close-focusing capabilities, I used my 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS lens to capture this photo. The sky was still overcast, so it provided nice, even lighting for the photo. If you read my post from yesterday, all of the settings are almost identical and it was for all the same reasons — except for the shutter speed. I could have dropped the film speed down to get a cleaner, smoother image and still have enough shutter speed for a sharp photo.

One thing I did specifically do for this photo is change my angle of view to isolate the cricket more against the darker patch in the background. My first shot had him against some of the green leaves, and he just didn't pop out much in the photo. I also cropped this shot so the cricket was placed in one of the corners of the photo, using the rule of thirds.

What do I wish I could have done differently? I could have done a better job putting him directly in front of the dark background, but I didn't have my tripod with me. I was holding the camera while leaning over some flowers, and it was hard to keep still. I am also starting to wish I had a legitimate macro lens, which would allow me for more zooming and closer photos.

August 25, 2009 – Candid photo

1/640

f2.8

ISO 200

90mm

RAW

One of my good friends, Ramon, was inspired by the August 19 photo of the flowers and the bee, so he asked me to help him do the same thing during lunch yesterday. I tried to get some photos myself, but ultimately decided to snap a truly candid photo of Ramon as he was shooting.

By placing on the side of the photo, it lets you see what he is trying to photograph. The wide aperture (f2.8) blurs out the background, so the construction site in the upper left corner isn't distracting. Finally, the sunlight is striking the side of his body that is facing the camera, which really helps avoid his shirt and face being too dark.

Ramon is also showing good form in how he is holding his camera. He is down on one knee, supporting his upper body and camera by resting his right elbow on his knee.

By the way, I am not sure how my dates were off, but they were. Even though it may look like I have skipped a day, I haven't.

August 22, 2009 – Daisies in the morning sun

1/30

f11

ISO 100

55mm

RAW

I got out early Sunday to get some flower photos in the morning sun. I set my camera on a tripod and used my Canon EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS lens, which is also a decent macro lens.

Don't know what macro photography is? Don't worry — a lot of people don't. Simply put, macro photography is the art of taking closeup photos of small things, which allows you to see details not easily seen with the naked eye.

Using a tripod is vital for this kind of shot. As my friend Brian pointed out in one of his comments, the closer something is when you focus on it, the narrower the depth of field is. So in the instance of these daisies, they were about 10 inches from the lens. To get a deep enough depth of field, I needed to close the aperture down to f11.

I could have bumped up the ISO from 100 to 200 (which would have doubled the shutter speed from 1/30 to 1/60), but I wanted to have the cleaner image that ISO 100 would produce. Also, when you are hand-holding the camera at these short focus distances, a slight sway of a half-inch forwards or backwards can totally ruin the focus. Even at f11, you are dealing with such a narrow depth of field that a tripod is vital to hold the camera steady — not only because of the slow shutter speed, but also because you want an exact spot for the focus.

I shot this a little wide to give myself optimum flexibility when cropping the photo in Photoshop. This particular crop shows about half of the photo. I chose to crop it this way to implement the rule of thirds by putting the center of the flower a third of the way into the photo.

If you would like to try this with your camera, there are two options: most point-and-shoot cameras have a macro mode (which is usually represented by a flower icon) or, if you have a DSLR, you can buy a macro lens, which is specially designed to focus on items only a few inches away.

Point-and-shoot cameras can be great for macros since many of them will let you focus as close as two or three inches from the lens. As for DSLRs, some of the newest kit lenses (the one that might have come with your camera) will do for macros in a pinch because they also have a very short minimum focal range. For instance, the lens I used can focus to within five inches.

A couple of notes of warning, however. First, dedicated macro lenses (and point-and-shoot cameras set to macro mode) will have a focus range of only a few inches to a few feet. If you try to focus on something more than three feet away, your lens probably won't be able to. Second, this kind of work is best done under controlled circumstances. The more things that are out of your control (like wind and inconsistent sunlight), the more you will have to work. These flowers were actually in a vase, so as the sunlight moved through the trees I had to move the vase several times to keep it in the light

As for what I don't really like in the photo, there is a hot-spot nearly dead center where the detail in the yellow is lost in one petal. Also, I wish I had gotten the tips of the petals at the bottom of the photo in more focus.

August 17, 2009 – Suwanee City Hall

1/250

f8.0

ISO 200

35mm

RAW

I was driving home from a canceled Boy Scout training session and I noticed the beautiful bank of clouds being lit up by the early evening sun. It's the kind of setting where you want to find something nice to put in front of it, so I thought of the recently finished Suwanee City Hall.

As I was parking, I looked for where I thought would be the best perspective. I also noticed that the sun was dangerously close to going behind some clouds, so I knew I didn't have much time. I literally ran to a spot that, while not my choice for the best location, would let me get a good shot as soon as possible. I then went to the spot I had picked out initially and got some more photos.

When I got back home and looked at all of the shots, the first one turned out to have the best combination of clouds, color, and composition. It reminded me of something I read about how Ansel Adams got his Moonrise photo.

He was traveling down the highway when he noticed the moon rising over the mountain and the village in the evening light. He slammed on the brakes, pulled over, and hopped out with his gear. He feared there wasn't enough time to measure the light and determine the proper exposure, so he made his best guess and took the photo. Then he went through his normal process to take a photo, but before he was done the light was gone.

Adams probably drove away thinking he had missed a perfect opportunity for a wonderful photo, but we all know now that he didn't. One of his most famous photographs was a guess – a well-educated guess, mind you – but a guess all the same.

The main lesson to learn here is to pay attention to your surroundings and don't be afraid to snap off a quick shot at something that looks great. You never know when that moment may be the only chance you've got. Then take the time to make sure you have everything set for a great photo.

I shot this at f8 to get a really sharp photo, and then focused about two-thirds into the scene (around the water fountain in the front) to make sure everything was in focus, from front to back. I also shot it a little loose so I could crop it in the way I wanted once I got it loaded on the computer. Finally, I followed the rule of thirds by putting the building down in the lower third of the photo, which helps place more emphasis on the cloud formation above it.

In order to avoid a slanted effect (where the sides of the building seem to slant towards each other), I purposefully went up the slope in front of the building in order to be standing more on an equal elevation. You can see the camera level is just above the awning over the front doors. This way I was aiming the camera straight ahead instead of aiming it slightly upwards, which would have created the slanting sides of the building.

I really like this photo. Some of the impact is lost here in the small version, but the full-blown shot is fantastic. The only regret I have is something out of my control. I wish the clouds were more puffy and separated, instead of one massive cloudbank.

Basic Photo Tip: Rule of thirds

One great way to improve your photography is to always remember the rule of thirds. Simply split your frame into thirds, both horizontally and vertically. This will crate something like a tic-tac-toe diagram, with four intersecting points in the middle. You now have several places to position the focal point of your photo – at any of the four points and along one of the four vertical or horizontal lines.

Confused? Don’t worry about it. Let me show you some examples.


Instead of putting the skyline in the horizontal center of the photo, I put it two-thirds of the way down. I felt the clouds were the focal point, so I wanted to feature them more than the reflection.


Landscapes and water reflection shots should be put one-third up from the bottom or one-third down from the top, but hardly ever dead center. The exception to that rule usually happens when you are trying to have total symmetry between the top and bottom of a reflective photo.




For this portrait of my wife, I wanted to do something different than a typical photo. So I turned the photo horizontally, and put her one-third of the way into the photo from the left, leaving plenty of empty space in the direction she is looking.


If you take a typical vertical portrait, be sure to put the face or the eyes along the line one-third down from the top, as in the revised photo of my wife.




In this photo, both my daughter and the house were important. But the focal point was still my daughter. By putting her on one side, I could still include the house and have a good balance between the two.