Fine Art Photography Blog

Light is the essence of photography, as we can see from the word roots.  ( Photo = Light;  Graph = Visualization, Display )  Most landscape photographers take this to mean shooting during the Golden Hour, and for good reason.  Incident light falls on our subject from its source - often the sun - before reflecting off the subject, to the camera.

The tonal quality of the light can play more role in the final image than, perhaps, any other single factor.  We can see this in the work of Ansel Adams ( the crosses of Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico;  the clouds in Clearing Winter Storm ) or Sebastiao Salgado ( Sudanese Refugee Camp, Boys in Mexico City ).  Both men produced gorgeous zone-system exposures, but, two of these show light filtering through the atmosphere. Black and white zone system photography highlights the effect, but it can work well in color, too.

Dust particles in the air can be one of the easier ways to capture the filtering light effect.  Storms are harder.  Water droplets suspended in the air can reflect the light perfectly, as Old Ansel  showed us.  Unfortunately, low hanging fog tends to block the sunlight;  finding the right conditions can be difficult.  Edges of storms are most likely to catch the light - and let enough of it through to make a good exposure. Read the rest of this entry »

Fog hangs in pockets of the Seattle, particularly near the water, while clouds blow overhead, reflecting the colors of the city behind them. This isn’t unusual for mid January in the Rainy City … most days, the sky scrapers are hidden behind the fog.

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The time the shutter stays open really doesn’t matter indoors when using a flash. A bright pulse lights up the room for 1/10,000 to 1/100,000 of a second; the shutter curtain seems glacial by this standard. Naturally, whether the shutter ’speed’ is 1/250 sec or 1/160 sec won’t amount to a noticeable difference. The flash has already frozen the scene in this case.

Outdoors, shooting with more ambient light, or a very reflective subject will change things. Your flash has a maximum sync speed listed in its specs telling you the fastest shutter speed you can get away with. Light will continue to flood your camera’s sensor even after the flash stops firing, and can ruin an exposure. Read the rest of this entry »

Every photographer goes through a period of looking for clever ways to make use of stair cases. Mine was extremely brief, just long enough to set up the tripod for this:

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Night photography isn’t that much different from any other type; any landscape photographer will be instantly familiar with everything required here.

The first problem to overcome is darkness, and a tripod is the obvious answer … usually the only answer. Many newer lenses and even cameras include some type of optical image stabilization, which is an invaluable feature, but not suited to quality nightscapes. Night photos require a depth of focus that demands small(ish) apertures, choking off most of the light that would reach the sensor.

You’ll see star-points in outdoor photographs shot in the darkness with point-sources of light. This is a diffraction pattern that intensifies as you close the lens down, particularly visible because of the extreme contrast. As a side note, lenses whose iris contains an even number of aperture blades produce more attractive star patterns, with light rays directly opposite each other. In the sample below, you can see eight rays forming each star, indicating eight blades making up the iris. Bigger apertures ( f/2 to f/5.6 ) will barely show stars, while smaller apertures ( f/8 to f/32 ) will create a more pronounced effect; consider this as you select your exposure.

In short, digestible form, the rules for good night photography are: Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been working for Getty Images as a contractor over the last few months; all contractors are being dismissed due to budget constraints, so I’ve found a new job - still in the IT sector - and managed a few days off to explore Western Washington, my little corner of the Pacific Northwest. Unfortunately, with my new tripod broken out of the box, I came back with less photos than I’d intended.

Directions

North Cascades is a long drive from Seattle, but it doesn’t have to be an ugly one; leave I-5 for route 530 just north of Marysville, avoiding the ride and traffic all the way to Mount Vernon. You’ll pass through what feels like hundreds of miles of forests, farmland, and foothills before joining SR 20 in Rockport and starting your ascent. Unlike most national parks, North Cascades doesn’t have an entrance fee, as it straddles one of three passable routes across the mountains in Washington State.

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Digital cameras are a lot like slide film, from the 35 mm days. With negatives you would expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights; slide film had a much narrower exposure latitude that would clip the highlights easily … much like today’s CCD or CMOS chip.

So, we find ourselves exposing for the highlights, checking the histogram when time allows, and avoiding overexposure like the plague. This doesn’t mean you should under-expose by habit, but when there are important highlights in a scene, you may be forced to underexpose much of your photo to retain detail in the brights.

Over-exposure can be the kiss of death, so when you “develop” an image in Photoshop, you don’t want to create the same problem in post. There are a number of ways to approach this, all involving selective edits. The Curves and Levels tools are a good start, but you can do better. Read the rest of this entry »