September 2, 2009 – Capturing facial expressions

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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.

September 1, 2009 – Mischievous!

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Same time &mdash same place, and the result is the next black and white photo of my kids. Everything I said in the previous post applies here, too.

This is my youngest child (only 4-years-old), and she really moved around. I kept shooting through it all, hoping that I would get a good one. And get a good one I did. I just love her expression! When you look at this, don't you wonder what she is thinking?

One thing I did while shooting her photo is I kept talking with her. I asked her questions about the doll she was playing with, how pre-school went for her that day, and what she wanted to eat for dinner. It helped her to keep looking back at the camera.

The only thing I wish would have been better was the focus point. Because of her constant movement, the focus point wasn't her closest eye, but instead seemed to be somewhere closer to her leading shoulder. In a web shot like this, it is not so noticeable. But we want to make an 8x10 of this for the wall and the soft-focus might be too much for a print that size.

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.

August 30, 2009 – Window light portrait

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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.

Photography behind the scenes

I came across a couple of items today that went along perfectly with each other. First, I was at a college football site that was talking about schedule posters. BYU has this really nice one.

Linked to it is this great video that shows what happened behind the scenes. There is no explanation, but sometimes just seeing the preparation helps illuminate the techniques to our minds.

Then I found a great entry in Scott Kelby's blog that details the work that went into his fantastic photo shoot of a Army Reserve Medevac unit. I know I haven't included one of his photos in this post, but believe me — they're incredible. Just click here and see for yourself.

August 29, 2009 – Day hike at Stone Mountain

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As many of you know, I am the Scoutmaster for our church's Boy Scout troop. Next summer we are heading to Philmont Scout Ranch for a 12-day backpacking expedition, and today we officially started our preparation. It was nothing strenuous, just a 6.5 mile hike around Stone Mountain with simple day packs. Philmont allows only small groups, so our expedition will have only 12 people. Today's group was slightly smaller than that, but it did include one of the boy's mother.

Because the trail weaved mostly through the dense forest, I put my 18-55 f3.5-5.6 IS wide angle lens so I could capture more of the trail and our hikers. I didn't want to interrupt their pacing (and just capture things as they were happening, photojournalism style), so I set the camera in 'P' mode. This lets the camera make most of the decisions for camera settings, yet allows me to make modifications in case I think the shutter speed is too slow or the shots are underexposed (by the way, the camera did a great job picking).

I kept hiking ahead of the group to find places where I could get a good shot, like this one. The trail curved in front of me, and there was a log I could stand on. I had to wait a few minutes for everyone to catch up, but it was worth it.

My son is in the lead. If you will notice, his hind foot is slightly blurry, which helps convey the idea of motion in the photo. The 1/100 shutter speed was just fast enough to freeze the movement of their torsos but some extremities are blurred.

I shot about five photos at this bend in the trail, but this was the only one that was devoid of bright sunlight reflecting off of their clothing. This one also had some good spacing between the hikers, which is nice.

In hindsight, I wish I had put the people in the front a little higher up in the frame (hmmm . . . maybe I shouldn't have stood on the log). I also wish they were looking up and you could see more of their face. Sometimes it's the little details like this that can change a good photo into a great one.

August 28, 2009 – Tiny little cricket

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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 27, 2009 – Butterfly photo

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I had set out to do a different kind of photo, but you have to be alert for other opportunities — and that's exactly what I got today. This large butterfuly came fluttering past, and I instantly forgot everything else!

I was afraid the butterfly would be skittish, so I used my 70-200 f2.8 lens so I could zoom in close to the butterfly without physically getting too close. It hung around for about 10 minutes, but hopped from flower to flower, and I had to constantly change our shooting positions.

I shot this at f8 to get more depth of field, even though it was only about an inch. I didn't want to go any smaller on my aperture (which would give me more depth) because that would also reduce my shutter speed, and shooting at 200mm I needed to make sure the shutter speed stayed above 1/200 to help eliminate camera shake (the rule of thumb is you need to make sure your shutter speed is faster than the focal length of the shot).

I did bump up my film speed to ISO 400, however, which helped a lot (as explained in this post). Why didn't I go to ISO 800? Because at that film speed you start to get graininess added to the photo. As the camera increases the sensitivity of the image chip, the colors in the resulting photo becomes less smooth, which makes it appear grainy (like it was printed on sandpaper).

Out of the 40-50 shots I got of the butterfly, this wasn't my first choice. With the wings slightly closed, you can't completely see the symmetry in both wings. I did have one photo where the butterfly's wings were completely open, but there was one offshoot of the flowers below that blocked a tiny bit of the wings. I picked to post this shot was the best I had where there is nothing covering the butterfly.

August 26, 2009 – Sovereign building in Buckhead

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I know, I know . . . another building shot. But I was running out of time Wednesday for a photo and this is such an interesting building. It's called Soveriegn, and it combines commercial office space with residential and retail. There's a bank and two restaraunts on the ground floor, office space up to the 25th floor, a private club on the 26th floor (you can see the swimming pool area halfway up on the right), and condos (starting at a $1 million) up to the top.

But that's not what makes it unique. Pay attention to the outside walls of the building. They're curved, not square. They don't twist, but bend outward and then back in. At first it may seem like my shot is tilted, but if you look at the center of the building, you will see a straight line where the edge of the one of the curved corners is facing directly towards me.

I shot this at a fairly wide angle, placing the building in the top 60% of the photo. I then cropped out just the building. This really helped control the distortion that would normally happen when pointing the camera up at something tall.

I wish the clouds were a little better, however, like being smaller and more puffy. I even waited about 15 minutes for a large, darker, gray cloud to pass by, so these clouds are better than what were in the first picture.

August 25, 2009 – Candid photo

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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 23, 2009 - Suwanee Town Center at night

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My wife, Rachel, has been encouraging me recently to do black and white photography, and this is my first attempt at accepting her challenge. Please let me know what you think of the shot.

I am by no means an expert on black and white photography, so I won't be offering much along the lines of tips for this kind of photography. It's something new to me, and it's always good to step out of your comfort zone and be willing to make mistakes as you learn something new. It's a great way to become a better photographer.

There was one really challenging aspect to this photo. One-tenth of a second is really slow (even for my IS lens, which helps offset camera shake at slow shutter speeds), and I didn't have a tripod. So what did I do? I braced myself to be as still as possible and then held down the shutter button to fire off several shots in succession. Out of the five shots taken, this is the middle one and it came out crystal clear. The others were all a little blurry.

I tried to frame the shot a little bit by having the solid brick wall on the left and the tall shrubbery on the right. This allows the curvature of the store fronts go three-quarters of the way into the photo, but prevents it from reaching the edge. This helps keep the viewers eye in the photo.

This was shot after 9 p.m. on a Monday night, so most of the shops were closed and few patrons were walking around. I might go back on a Friday or Saturday night and try this again with several pedestrians walking through the photo.

August 22, 2009 – Daisies in the morning sun

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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 21, 2009 – Tennis portrait

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My two daughters have joined a tennis class, and couldn't be more excited. My wife, Rachel, has been asking for more photos of the kids, so I was happy to oblige. When I went to take the photo, however, I discovered a problem. There was a lot of stuff along the fence in the background that I didn't want in the photo, so I had to come up with a solution that would create a narrow field of vision.

I stood about 30 feet away from them and used a long telephoto lens (my 70-200mm f2.8L zoom lens) to focus on just them and leave out as much background as possible. I also put the camera in aperture mode (which should be an 'A' on your mode dial) and set it to 2.8. This wide aperture does a nice job in blurring out the background. So I had the best of both worlds — the long lens created a narrow field of vision that left out most of the clutter and the wide aperture made what was left (a bench) nice and blurry.

What also helped in the photo is most of the court was in the shade of some trees, so I had them stand in the shade in the middle of the court. There was plenty of ambient light coming down from the bright, open sky above them, which helped illuminate their faces and create a softer light that was void of harsh shadows.

Finally, a couple of more little tips. First, I knelt down to get the lens to their chest level. This subtle trick can really help make a difference in child photos. It also helped bring more of the fence into the background instead of the court surface. Second, I used the net as a sort of leading line into the photo. By placing my girls where they are, the net practically ends at them, which helps keep your attention in the center of the photo.

There's one huge thing I wish I would have done differently. It just seems awkward that my older daughter's hand is hanging limply in the middle of the photo. I should have asked her to hold the racket with both hands or drop her left arm down on the other side of the net. And while not as much of a problem, I probably should have had them swap sides and place the shorter one on this side of the net.

August 21, 2009 – High-rise condominium

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A couple of days ago I mentioned how the part of Buckhead I work in has done a good job of keeping green space amidst all of the high-rises. Here is a good photo showing that. At the base of this condominium is a little half-acre park, complete with bronze statues of kids playing (one of which you can see in the bottom left corner) and two water fountains.

I had to shoot with my lens set as wide as possible in order to get all of the building. There was quite of bit of building lean, which resulted in a tall, skinny pyramid look. Thank goodness for computers and Photoshop Elements camera distortion tool.

Another way to avoid the building lean is to get inside an adjacent building, go halfway up, and shoot your intended building through a window.