Shades of Winter

Looks as if we managed to survive winters latest blizzard-y blast, just as we survived the snowfall of a couple weeks ago, the one predicated to be "the blizzard of a lifetime" by an overwrought newscaster. Guess my lifetime has been longer because I can remember several snowstorms in the Seventies and Eighties that were much heavier than anything we have seen recently. In fact, the storm of December 1974 dropped more snow in one evening (over 18 inches) than our two most recent snowfalls combined.
As sometimes happens in the days immediately following a snowfall, we enjoy clear, sunny skies and more moderate temperatures - ideal for a morning photo expedition. The early morning sun, casting long, dark shadows on a pristine white snow cover offers an ideal setting for black and white photography.

Outta My Way

Just posted a new piece titled "Outta My Way" to my Zazzle store site. The base photo was shot while visiting a car show last summer. I really liked the image and had been kicking around ideas for awhile on how to best treat it. My thought was to create the feel of early evening, looking in your rear view mirror and seeing this hot, street rod bearing down on you. After manipulating the image to where I wanted it, the type was added. My original intent was for the words to appear as if they were spray painted across the front of the image, but that method made them difficult to read. The best solution was to darken the lettering which resulted in better separation from the background but the sprayed/mottled look was largely diminished. The finished image doesn't match exactly to what I had in my head but it comes close.

A Butterfly Valentine

A few years ago my wife and I spent a couple of delightful days on Mackinac Island. While trekking around the island, we made a stop at the butterfly house just outside the downtown area. The various colors, shapes and sizes of those beautiful insects is truly amazing. And of course they make for eye catching photo subjects. With so many of the them flitting around, I was able to take a number of shots as we strolled through.

Returning home I began reviewing our vacation shots, deleting the bad and saving the good. I'm not sure how long I stared at the photo above before realizing there was a heart hidden within the image. A bit of cropping, as well as burning in at the bottom of the photo to emphasize the heart shape and voila - I had a one of a kind Valentine to print on a card for my sweetheart. That has to better than another box of chocolates, right? Uh, right?? Well, at the very least it was a more personalized way of saying "I Love You".

Changing Light

The three key elements in a photograph are subject, background and light. With a good working knowledge of your camera and a sense of composition, you are able to exert some control over all three. If you're like me, lighting often presents the greatest challenge, the look of the subject and background can dramatically change depending on the lighting conditions. A camera being much more objective than our eyes will capture even the most subtle light changes in our photos. I came across a good example of this on the following two images. Even though they were taken just seconds apart they each have a very different feel. The shot taken when the sun was behind the clouds has a cool feel, while the one taken in direct sun has a much warmer aspect. One reason many photographers prefer to shoot when the sun is low in the sky, either in the morning or evening, is because of the warmer hues that their images take on at those times.

Flash Light

The convenient on-camera flash unit can be a real life saver at times, giving you the opportunity to capture shots in low light situations that may not be otherwise possible, but because it is positioned so close to the lens there are problems as well. The on-camera flash tends to produce relatively flat lighting with harsh highlights and, if your subject is positioned too near a wall, hard shadows. By comparison, when I was shooting weddings and portraits I often used two off camera flash units, one positioned above the camera, the second angled off to the side. This set up helped to minimize shadows and to provide a more even tonal range on my subjects. The Petersen Photographic website offers a nice article on ways in which to make the most of an on-camera flash, including a couple of low cost home made accessories.

Photographic: Pop-Up Flash

If you have ever struggled with producing good results using a flash, the article is worth a look.

Cold, cold, cold!

Back at the beginning of December, when we had our first real snowstorm of the winter, I blogged on the joys of wintertime photography. But here we are well into January, experiencing one of the coldest winters in recent memory and my enthusiasm for outdoor photography has waned considerably. With highs in the teens, single digit lows and below zero wind chills, the idea of venturing out in search of photogenic winter scenes chills me to the bone (pun intended). So until it warms up just a bit, to somewhere just below freezing, I will spend my time indoors paging through shots taken in the past year in search of good candidates for a bit of Photoshop work in preparation for printing - there is plenty of wall space yet to cover around the house.

THE Color Photographer

At one time when people discussed color photography, Pete Turner was the name that was often the first mentioned. Turner has been a successful commercial photographer for decades, hitting a peak in the Seventies and Eighties. I remember ogling Turner's work in the photo magazines, wishing I could duplicate his ability to capture rich color and bold graphic imagery. Besides the deeply saturated color of his images, Turner was also known for his special effects photography. Special effects created in-camera by Turner and his assistants in the halcyon days before Photoshop. In addition to his commercial advertising work, Pete has published a coffee table sized tome covering his time traveling in Africa along with a book collecting covers he shot for a variety of jazz albums. Take a few minutes to visit Turner's website http://peteturner.com/ and enjoy a trip through his virtual gallery for a taste of color photo work at its best.