Colour, Texture, Composition

You may have noticed that the companion blog to this one is titled London Daily Photo. Every day a new photo is posted to that blog. It does not have to be shot the day it is posted but it must be shot in London. There are hundreds of sites worldwide with bloggers pulling the same stunt. Some are quite remarkable. Having only a Canon SD10 Digital ELPH, I have limits but I try.

As we have discussed, colour can make a picture. Green leaves or red roses are obvious but if you keep an alert eye you will see more --- lot's more. Now add shapes to your image and strong lines. Often texture will also enter the equation as it is almost impossible to eliminate texture from an image.

These bolts of fabric are actually horizontal but holding the camera at an angle added dynamic diagonals to the picture. The highlight reflections mated with the soft shadows give the diagonal stripes volume and the loose fabric breaks the striped pattern and softens the overall effect. A small burst of fill-in flash makes the highlights pop while cleaning the colours of the fluorescent green of the store lighting. The fabrics all have a similar texture and this helps to tie the image together into one smooth presentation.

Lastly, in Photoshop the highlights and the shadows were placed at the extreme ends of the Levels histogram and the image given a small amount of saturation --- 16.

Always be aware of these ideas when you are shooting any picture. Colour, texture, composition --- compose in camera if possible. If you do, you will have winning images; Trust me.

f/2 and a digital SLR would've been better

Forgive me. I know; I know. It's another baby picture.

Yet, I love the way this little girl is so obviously interested in the puzzle on which her grandmother is working. The little girl went to the doctor for her check-up earlier in the day and the doctor said, "This kid is bright." I'd say he was a bright doctor, very observant.

Note: If you have a SLR digital camera, or any camera that allows the setting of the f/stop and has a large image sensor, use a large f/stop. Something like f/2 or f/2.8 would be good with a 28mm lens. This will help to throw the background out of focus.

I am using a simple, old point and shoot with a small, 4 MB, sensor and so do not have this control. I must take what the camera gives me and that is far too much depth of field. (Note: when I say large sensor, I am talking about its size in area. For instance, 35mm cameras have more depth of field than 120 cameras at the same f/stop.)

Before shooting this picture I turned off the incandescent ceiling light to prevent having a yellow cast staining the image and made sure that the curtains were completely open. I also wiped the little girl's mouth; She is quite into bubble blowing and it does not add to her carefully managed image.

Cheers,
Ken (Rockinon)

Moments

Sometimes moments don't look like moments; They are just too good. The pose and the lighting are just too right.

I ordered the little girl holding my granddaughter, "Don't touch your hair." She was about to brush the strand from in front of her eye. I snapped the picture.

The edges have been darkened but that is about all. Even the crop is just as it came from my little camera, an old Canon SD10 Digital Elph. Burning edges was cool in the '60s and I still live in the '60s.

If you can work with clean, soft window light - the glass cannot be tinted - go for it. Stay away from the straight-on, built-in, on-camera flash, if you can. For the most part, that in-your-face harsh light causes red eye and kills the look that attracted you in the first place.

If you must use flash, and your camera will allow this, bounce the flash off a white ceiling or other suitable white surface. Doing this prevents red eye and gives a more natural looking light.

This picture is shown almost exactly as it came from the camera, except for the burning down of the edges. This burning style was cool in the '60s. It is very dated today. I still live in the '60s and so I get away with it. I don't encourage others to live in the past.

Here's wishing you a very Happy New Year!

Patterns make pictures

Our world is often composed of patterns. Think of the honeycomb created by bees or the simple patterns made with paving stones used around our homes. I love the interplay between the repeating pattern of paving stones soften by the organic green lines of moss. The bright green moss flourishes between the hard, concrete bricks.

Getting low and using the strong light of a late afternoon sun adds detail and contrast to the image. The golden patina added by the light of the setting sun helps to pull all the elements in the picture together

Artistic Filters

I have never been big on filters that take one's photography and make a ersatz art work. But I like to play and recently I downloaded Paint.NET. It had an ink sketch artistic filter. When I played with it the result reminded me of the work of the late London artist Clark McDougall. McDougall died of a brain tumour at the age of 59 back in December of 1980.

McDougall did a number of paintings in which objects in the scene were outlined in black paint. A painting from this period hung on the wall at The London Free Press when I worked there.

The filter created an image that reminded me so much of McDougall's work that I went ahead and applied the filter. McDougall did it better.

Computer Died, Blog Stalled, Back Thursday!

I'll be back - Thursday. I have a new computer. Yeah!

When shooting food, tell an action-packed story

This may not look like a photo blog, but it is. The first picture, the biscotti being dipped in coffee, shows what we can do with biscotti. It is a tight shot, cleanly lit by soft but directional window light and tries to follow a lot of rules.

Notice that the finger nail on the thumb is clean and trimmed short. It is not only your model's hair you want neat and trimmed for a shoot. (The hand model is me. I shot this with one hand holding the biscotti and the other holding the camera.)

Note the focus. The image is very nicely focused on the biscotti. You can actually see the texture of the biscuit. Also note the background, the table cloth is from Menton, Provence, where France butts up against Italy. And the coffee cup is the kind found in bistros everywhere. When shooting food pictures, do not forget to give some thought to your props.

It is too bad a little more of the handle does not show. This is a strike against this picture. An important detail is missing. If the handle had appeared in the upper right, it would have made a great diagonal leading the eye into the picture and played nicely against the diagonal of the biscotti. This is why pros often used to shoot Polaroids before breaking down a set.

Now, give a quick check on how these biscotti images were used to illustrate a post on making biscotti. Note how, at the end of the post when I am talking about how many biscuits this recipe makes, I show you a mess of biscotti running right out of sight. Art can break up a page but it is best if it fits neatly with the words. These two, words and pictures, should be partners and not acquaintances.

Note: all images shot with an old Canon SD10 Digital ELPH and not more than a minute was spend shooting. Why waste time taking pictures when there's fresh coffee and biscotti to be enjoyed?