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Showing posts from 2011

My lifelong photography journey

I received my first camera for Christmas when I was in the fourth grade. It was a 620 size Sawyer Nomad. I bought a 35mm Kodak Pony when I was in high school. When I got to college I became more interested in photography. I was able to buy a 35mm Petri SLR and soon graduated to a Nikkormat. It was there that I set up a darkroom and became proficient with the mechanics of photography. I got very familiar with f-stops, shutter speeds, and film speeds. I bought more cameras and lenses and learned how they worked. When I left college in 1971, I got a job at a camera store and was soon the store manager. I was able to go to trade shows and keep up on all the latest equipment and materials. When I was 25 years old I opened a custom photo lab catering to professional photographers. I considered myself an expert on the technical issues surrounding photography. My pictures however, though technically good, were never what I hoped for in terms of artistic merit. It was not until 1991 o

Blacks is black and white is white

A photo or video image is made up of all shades of gray from black to white and all the colors that go along with them. The goal is for the whites to be white and the blacks to be black with everything in the middle to be in the right place along the scale. There are two general ways to do this. One is to start with a white surface such as white paper or canvas and build up pigment or ink to get to black. With good paper and high quality printers or paint, this works great. The opposite approach is to start with a black surface such as a TV or computer monitor and light it up to produce white. This also works very well. In each case how black the screen or how white the paper are big factors in the quality of the image. A nearly impossible task is start with a white surface and try to light it to produce a whole range of tones from black to white. This is theoretically impossible and practically very difficult. Movie theaters are able to do this for all practical purposes by dark

The pixel race is over

When digital photography first came on the scene, there was a big debate about how many pixels, or picture elements, it would take to make digital photography as good as film. When the first one million pixel cameras (one-meg) came out it is was very encouraging because we could see that it was going to happen, digital was going to work. Before long two-meg cameras were here producing very good results. Five-meg cameras had the ability to surpass 35mm and were taking aim at medium format. My first digital camera was a five-meg Olympus which I have used to make beautify 16x20 and larger prints. I like to think of the number of mega-pixels a camera has as being comparable to the horsepower of a car. A minimum amount is needed for sure, but horsepower does not determine the quality of the car or even how fast it will go. There are many other factors that are more important. It is the same with cameras. It turns out that after a minimum of about 3 or 4 meg, the number of

Hold it Steady

If your pictures are blurry or not as sharp as you would like, the most likely thing is camera movement. If you are firing a rifle at a target and you miss, the only thing that could have happened is you moved the gun. Photography is the same, if you pictures are not sharp, there is a good chance that the camera moved. When I was in the photo-finishing business, the vast majority of the millions of photos I saw were degraded to some degree by camera movement. When I show my large photographs at art shows or people come to my home or studio, they often ask how I get the pictures so sharp. Some people even ask what kind of special equipment I use to make 36 inch wide photos. When I tell them I just hold the camera steady, they think I am joking. When I have one-on-one students, I often teach them how to hold the camera and to practice holding it steady to get better pictures. Part of the problem is the design of the cameras. High performance cameras are designed to make them easier to ho

Rule of Thirds

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This is a series of free tips to help you become a better photographer.This week we will talk about the "Rule of Thirds." Imagine the frame divided into vertical and horizontal thirds like a tic-tac-toe game. The sweet spots are along the lines and where the lines cross.When in doubt, try to put the most important part of the scene in these areas because that is the place our eyes naturallyfall first. If you are making a portrait, it is a good idea to put the subjects eyes fall near the upper third line. See the cover of my book at the right.See the example below of our worship leader, Daniel Brymer. This is not a hard and fast rule, but it is certainly a good place to start for an interesting composition.

Avoiding the "Bullseye"

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I am starting a series of free tips to help you become a better photographer. The first one concerns composition. Composition is nothing more than where you put the important parts of the picture in the frame. This implies that you know what is important and what isn't important to the picture, and place the subject accordingly. It also means that you are looking at the whole scene when you line up the shot.Putting the subject in the exact middle of the picture is what we call the "Bullseye syndrome." Ninety-five percent of the time this is exactly the wrong place for the main subject. The main subject should be placed to one side a little or closer to the top or bottom, except in unusual situations.In the two photos below, the one on the right is more interesting because the person's head is off center and leaning toward the edge of the picture.The one on the left is static by comparison because the person's head and eyes are centered like a bullseye. I intend to