Motherly Love

My youngest was feeling under the weather Friday...doing better now but not getting far from a parent's arms (writting one handed now as I make this Saturday AM).

I love capturing these emotional scenes. They really speak to the moment, and tender love my wife gives the children.  It speaks volumes to the peace I feel when I come home at night. (Yes even with four kids you can have peace in your home).

On an editorial note...I edited this RAW photo with a few curves, and a brush to handle shadows on my daughter's face.  Overall I wanted a more analog quality to the photograph.  I personally like contrasty photos with natural skin tones.  In this photo the light in the room reflecting off those purple/pink sheets gave everything this glow I wanted to keep.  It was that color mood I wanted to freeze.

Is that perfectly, and technically correct?  Nope.  Is it what every camera maker and software converter does when they process your photos into JPEGs though!

So just be aware that you are always being influenced by different parts of the photographic process.  Everything from 77-automatic exposure zones, to JPEG processing, to the color calibration of your screen, and a hundred other sub-routines we cannot even begin to fathom.  If you want to be in charge of the memories you make, be aware of this and take charge of the photo wherever possible in this process so it looks the way you want.

...and that will take me to tomorrow's piece...

-ehw

Bright Light in the house!

For this little challenge I wanted to do two things: Study a high contrast light environment in post and see what type of results my little Fujifilm X10 can make in this harsh environment.

I took several pictures, but this one looking up and into light gave me the photo with the highest contrast between highlights and complete darkness.

I like the color range and detail rendered despite the bright light attempting to overpower both.  To prevent radical blowout of highlights, and the edge areas between them, I used the camera's EXR mode with a -1.33 exposure.  I ran it through Perfect Effects to help bring out some details, and extend the dynamic range with some HDR effects.

This little camera had a ton of data for the Perfect Effects to work with (much more than I anticipated).  Remember, the best software in the world can do nothing if you and the camera give it bad data to work with.  What you see is the result of my two minute and done rule in post.

So the moral of this story is to push the limits of a scene by taking enough shots to find one which will get the effect you want, and remember to use post processing to pull all the data out of the photo possible to give you the best image possible.  A corollary to running through many perspectives is to work with other settings such as exposure compensation in each camera position to observe its effects on dynamic range and composition.

-ehw

Edge to your photos

I just had to try this...

My lovely daughter was enjoying her book in the warm afternoon sun, and I wanted to see what effect camera tilt would have on the scene.

When you are taking a photograph most of the time you want the horizon to be perfectly straight.  That way the viewers mind does not have distractions.  The scene looks like it "should."

If you tilt your camera just a little, you make the viewer have to search and make sense of the photo.  Sometimes being off horizontal can also give the photographer a "this is real life in motion" feeling.

If you do this every once in a while ok...but do it for an entire photo album?  Sorry not for me.  I'd bee sea sick and ready to head for steady shores.

-ehw

Color me Purple

I was out front a little while ago on a glorious Sunday and was playing a bit with backlight and fill flash...

While developing the "roll"I thought it would be fun to make the purple really stand out and make a statement.  What better way to make a photographic color statement than to make it the centerpiece of the photo?

Since one of my co-workers today said they liked photos with one color left outstanding, I thought I'd make this post for him!

-ehw

Friendly Surprise

When you lay on your back to photograph a flower always remember to keep an eye on your surroundings.

I turned and looked up to find this guy about to breathe on my face...luckily with a snap shot I caught him looking pretty cool inches from my nose.

This was a surprise...why?

I don't own a cat.

I was in my own yard.

I'm allergic to cats.

My favorite cats are the neighborhood mouser and snake eaters...all others need to keep a respectful distance.

My five year old (child 3 of 4) and wife...well they love cats.  They'd have one if I was eaten by this one.

Well luckily this guy did not lick my face.  He works very well as a good mouser and snake eater.  He belongs to a neighbor who rescues cats.  She has four or five that roam the neighborhood.

Two of them work shifts in my yard.  Every once in a while they pose for me after they get happy petting visit from my cat loving son.

Ok so the moral of the story is?  Just keep your eyes on more than the pretty picture.  Especially if you want to visit Africa, Brazil, Los Angeles, Chicago, downtown Atlanta...there are dangerous cats that might visit you not so nicely if you forget to monitor your surroundings.

-ehw

UP! UP! And Wonderful!

I was enjoying a birthday party with my family at the Georgia Aquarium and as we walked a ray of light ran over my head...so I looked up to behold...this wonderful sight!

I loved the confluence of the circles, rectangles, reflections extending the scene into the glass and the beyond.

So the moral of the story is an old one.  When you are roaming looking for photos remember the world goes left, right, up and down!

-ehw

REACH!

Visiting the park is a joy...you see the fearless try to fly and the nervous take small steps...but the kids just know to keep moving.  If you stop moving of course parents may just find you and take you home!

For this one I framed and shot the photo a little larger and cropped when I got home.  I do that a lot when photographing action.  You just have to know where you put your focus point, and make sure that was actually the part of the photo you wanted attention drawn to.

Some people do focus, recompose and then shoot.  This is ok if you are using a really large depth of field, but will not work on shallow depths.  The focal plane will just be too small, and your properly composed shot will be out of focus on the heart of your photo.

So the moral of the story is...frame enough to catch the action and then use your little select autofocus point option to get the part of the photo you want sharp.

-ehw

Why I shoot to capture the joys of life.

This is why I capture photos...to celebrate the joys and trials of life.  They remind me why we as a family have to fight through the troughs to ride the crest into the shore.

What you see here are two of highs of the last twelve months.

Kellie Marie is our fourth child.  We prayed long and hard for her to come join us...the adventure of pregnancy was a tough one.  The reward however is beyond anything a word or photo could do justice to.

To get that child and her three siblings to a happy birthday we had a job transfer, new city, new church, started to make new friends...and left our old secure network of friends and family....and new bonds formed between the children, parents and family in our new home.

Many troughs to navigate, but on the crest of the last weekend where we saw happy family and friends celebrate here first year.  It was a glorious day to celebrate the lives God gave us all.

-ehw

Scouting Growth

I often don't get to travel and grab majestic photos of the grad highlights of the world outside of work travel.  Usually the reason is that I am helping nurture the greatest treasures we all have...our children.  Whether it is my family, or my extended scout family, it is the focus of what we do all the time.

This photo shows three of my cub scouts doing one of our projects.  They are completing a diorama.  I showed them how to mark off an area where they would put the "fort" and now they had to place the catapult, trees, soldiers, earthworks and catapult projectiles.  We'd then glue everything down and be ready to show it off at the pack meeting.

This is all part of an 18 month project to get them ready for Boy Scouts where they will set the agenda and execute it.  In little steps they are learning to draw out plans on a board, identify materials required to make the project, identify who has the skill to do the job, and then think through spacial relationships to make it all come together.

It is an awesome adventure for both them and us parents.  Thankfully I have good parents who are fully involved the program, and we've resolved we are not going to make this play time....we're making it focused character growth time.  Things like launching playdoh bombs from a working model catapult..well that is just tactile reinforcement of a job well done!

-ehw

Study in Light

I was testing out a new camera and I observed these lights in the dining room.  I wanted to see how the sensor would handle the bright filament.  Would it totally destroy the photo?

Well...it did not.  Instead I got a very nice study in light my naked eye could not see!  The study I enjoyed the most was the "bent" light coming from the glass around the filament.  I enjoyed the curves above and below the lights, and the built in vignette coming from my focus on the bight light at the heart of the photo.

So the moral of the story here is to remember that glass is a very helpful element in a photo, but sometimes you just have to take the shot and adjust based on the elements composing your photo.

-ehw

Angel Flight

As the new year dawns I hope some light can break through the storms and make your days a little happier!  It was just what my wife's guardian angel would order up to make her smile after such a run of doldrums.

We were joking at work that with the storms it seemed like the Mayan calendar was a few days off...Thankfully we had a break in the weather today and the sun buoyed up our spirits on an almost warm winter day.

-ehw

Brotherly Love

Just a quick picture to illustrate something the great Tony Corbell said at Skips Summer School.  5.6, Auto Flash and be there.

I know i-TTL or e-TTL for those of you shooting the big brands..or me with P-TTL on the Pentax...is supposed to be "the solution."  Well I think it often is, but sometimes a little "old fashion" goes a long way as well.

In this case I ran the whole day with the camera on Aperture Priority, ISO 100, center weighted metering and flash on Auto.  This is a sample of what I got right out of the camera.  I only cropped the photo a bit for the web.  I think exposure was pretty good, the reaction time of the camera acceptable and I could understand why it happened.  The last part is most important to me since if I understand what happened, I can either modify my work to change the results or repeat it if it works correctly.

Either way I got a photo that really summed up Christmas Day with my four kiddos and loving wife.  It was fun, relaxed, family and God centered.

-ehw

PS Go visit Tony Corbell at http://www.corbellproductions.com/

Five Year Old Saves Christmas

My five year old saved Christmas!

The last few weeks pressed me from every angle. Work, not being able to get my dream moving, the evil at Newtown and in my own town..All felt like a bone crushing weight on me. Even my picture taking, my refuge for sanity, was falling flat. The spirit of Christmas felt as far away as the moon. I could recognize the evil was in a person's choices, not the wonder of creation.  I was just overwhelmed by the amount of darts thrown at good people of late.  I had closed myself off to the spirit of Christ's power because I was letting things other than keeping God foremost in my thoughts and family's development matter.

All this started to change when as I put my head down, my lovely wife said...make small changes and the change will come. I slept on it, and through the night the weight of everything started to feel workable. I got up and walked into the living room to watch the sun rise on the Christmas tree. It was then that my five year old came down the stairs and plopped himself right on top of me.

His first words were, "Dad we have a wonderful tree. It is magic." God was speaking through the mouth of a babe. For ten minutes we sat still, and quietly talking about favorite ornaments lest we wake up the other four souls in the house to early. Then he said, "Dad we need to take some pictures of our tree." That was all I needed. Out came the tripod, the light for my first light painting attempts, and photographic direction from my five year old. My soul was alive, and responding to the cuing from God to live and enjoy Christmas in the present.

Every year I look at the Christmas tree form a new perspective. This year I took it from my five year old. Christ does bring grace if we let him. I pray that you and yours can do the same.

-ehw

PS These photos are from perspective of my five year old...his height I hope conveying some of the awe we felt as kids before the Christmas tree.

Palm Tree Christmas

Being born in Hawaii...I should be use to this site...but I was three when I left so I'm not!

Palm trees are fun to look at.  To my mind it is like peeling back an onion that is 60 feet tall!

The moral of the story is that anything can help bring out the Christmas spirit!

-ehw

Christmas Ball

We enjoyed another evening at church with my service and fraternal organization, The Knights of Columbus, at the annual Christmas Dinner.  We enjoyed being with other families, good food, and a festive atmosphere.  During the day my family went to church to help decorate for the holy day coming up, and my wife and four kids decorated two trees in the church.  I was pretty impressed when I heard my wife had the 11 month old on here back while stringing lights!

Well they inspired me to take a look at the trees for something fun to snap!  The hardest part of this was getting me out of the reflective surface of the ornaments.  So this took a  few minutes....and caused my wife to come rescue me from my photographic obsession!

This is yet another photo with my hip bound Oly XZ-1.  Processed in Perfect Photo Suite 7.  Just a note for you tech junkies... I am shooting RAW with my Point and Shoot.  So my files are typically the RAW flat, so I need to post process them.  This is just my normal preference and gives me more control over the product.  If I had no time to process them, I'd really have no problem with the on board jpeg engine or effects filters.  Olympus colors are just great.  I often use filters when I am on the road to get an effect without the post shoot work of RAW.

I am leaning to picking up a M4/3 camera as a slightly bigger "hip" camera.  That way I'll have a few accessories that can be used on either camera.  We'll see what the future will bring.  For now this is a good tool for my mission.

-ehw

Christmas Bird

At the same concert I saw the string of lights...I saw a set of trees made from bird feathers!  The lights backlit the feathers and it really was cool.

I wish I could borrow one for a full day to experiment with. It would be a really good project to play with this type of soft, glowing light!

For this photo all I did was do a simple import preset in aperture, and custom built an S-Curve for some pop.  I wanted to give the photo depth, but still convey the fragile nature of the soft diffused light.

-ehw

Sting of Stars

These lights were part of the decorations at a small dance company's holiday show.  They mesmerized me, so I tried to get at least one good shot of them before intermission ended.

For the techies...shot in RAW on the Olympus XZ-1, edited in One Perfect Effects 7 using a Surreal HDR effect.  I used some blurring effects in Aperture to make the bokeh a little more attractive after the HDR provided a lot of detail in the small lights I did not want.

-ehw

Bird Bath

This was a fun shoot out with the children back with my then new Pentax K200D in 2009.  Ducks were just happy as a lark while we sat there sweating away in the August heat of Northern Virginia.

I wanted to include this photo for two reasons.  The first was something said by Brooks Jensen of www.Lenswork.com a little while ago in a podcast.  He said a photo is an evolving piece of art.  Our technique and personalities change over time, our knowledge increases and tools change.  Since we have these incredible "negatives" to work with we have the opportunity to remake works into something more contemporary or "better" using those tools and knowledge over time.  That is exactly what I did here.  I took an image and updated with the knowledge I have now, to hopefully make it "better" than it was before.

Mr. Jensen's discussion of reflective visits to past work made me think about was how we as a society often get wrapped around the next new thing.  I'm feeling that right now...The D600 is on a wicked good sale for about 24 hours and its 24MP of full frame goodness and increased dynamic range are beckoning me like the Christmas star!  But do I need it?  Is it going to make me better...or do I still have lots to learn here with my Pentax K5.  I'd venture to say no it will not make me a better photographer...and the only thing it would do is give me more to learn!  Does my current gear limit me?  Well yes...and no.   I'd venture to say the biggest thing holding me back is the lack of attention I'm placing on learning from each frame and edit I make.  I should be applying those lessons to maximizing the potential of future shoots.  The limits of my camera are not the factor holding me back from making great images.  I am am the largest limiting factor.

So is the image above perfect?  Nope.  It is better than it was in 2009 though.  And I have a photo shoot coming up in a few hours that I need to apply a lesson in highlight control to...that is the lesson I need to apply today to a 10-12AM outdoor photo shoot!

-ehw

PS  Lenswork is both a very nice website, and a highly reflective podcast available on iTunes.  Mr. Jensen is extremely good at making these podcasts meaningful to the development of the artist in you.  I also hear some very good life lessons coming from them on a regular basis.  I highly suggest you take the time to listen in.  You might become as hooked as I am!

Definition of long shadows

I've been reading about what long shadows are, and I've watched for them...but this one morning was a really cool example of what they can look like.

You can see the early morning sunrise here has a really short angle of incidence with the earth, and for just a few minutes those posts look like something from the Giant's house Jack visited.  Each of those cross beams are maybe 9-12 inches apart, yet on the ground the shadow is about four to six feet apart.

The moral of the story is that as a photographer we have a narrow window to play with light like this each day if the sun comes out to play.  If you stay alert we may be able to capitalize on treats like this to make some interesting compositions.

-ehw

Southern Christmas Glory!

The lights were on in St. Mary's as they prepare for Christmas last week.  It was a combination of lights, pine wreaths, and palm trees!  After so many Christmas pasts up north, this was a new perspective on the season for me.

Thankfully the symbols of Christmas are all there, and it was those symbols that tied me in with every other season I've enjoyed.  The round Christmas wreath of pine symbolizing the eternal God, the celebratory red has many other joyful meanings, and the lights fighting back the darkness as we near the winter solstice all made me feel like I could be anywhere preparing for the Lord's arrival.  Those common symbols are so important since they convey a message from one generation to the next.  They made me feel right at home in their midst.

It was a lovely night for a walk amidst such splendid sings of the season.

-ehw