Capture the Life Moment

[slideshow] At the risk of sounding a little too "Oprahish" when you capture photos try to capture a moment with life in it.  Studio shots have their place, but if you want to remember the fun or life enriching moment you have to catch an element of that in the photo!

In each of these photos I tried to do just that.

I tried to use a little inherent distortion of the wide angle in the big sphere rock folder to bring some focus back to the boys and girls getting wet pushing that rock around.  The shutter speed allows movement to be felt, but captures the frozen focus around the rock of the boys and girls.

You can see the squirt of the water going by Kalen's face...even though he never got wet it certainly appeared that way.  He was laughing when he tried to reach out to the water, and seeing the photo he laughed the same way because it was actually the effect he sought.

In the photo of the boys, Kevin (the little guy) would not stand still.  So Kalen froze him for the photo.  It captures the smiles of two best friends.  The post editing I did lightened up the shadows and smoothed the features a bit to enhance the nostalgia of the photo.

The last two were at today's ballgame.  The first shows Kalen intensely throwing the ball back to the picture.  He wants to own that plate the best he can.  The second shows that even though brother likes baseball, the gravel is so much more fun to play with!

I hope I am illustrating the point well enough here.  In the film based past we needed to take a lot of care with our shots.  Each one cost 25 cents to process.  So you made them count by lining up the actors.  Today take a chance, take a shot if you see elements converging.  Something will pop and you'll have a fitting memory preserved.

ehw

Getting the Point

[slideshow] One technique I have to master is making photographs direct you to a point.  I am going to use two photos to illustrate this.

In the first, the architecture and the colors of the beams all bring your eye to the top of the photo.  As your eye moves, I hope it takes in all the elements of the photo, beams, color and complimentary circular and triangular shapes.  This was nice to shoot because everything was stationary.  I could take my time to compose and shoot.

In the second photo I use three people all doing things to draw you to the "point."  The one boy needing his gear put on, and needing help with the shin guards forms the base.  Kalen and a coach rush to help him get into the field so we don't delay the game.  Both Kalen's eyes and the coaches are focused on the shin guard to bring our entire focus to the problem and its collaborative solution.  The whole photo jelled itself in a matter of seconds.  I was lucky to recognize it, frame it, reset the aperture and click in time to catch it.

Photography is fun, but it is also story telling.  Some stories stand still, and others move. The best photos will convey the story quickly and efficiently.   If a photo leaves you hanging for an answer, you will probably scratch your head an move right along.  Our objective is to not let that happen!

I hope this helps you see one way to make a story come to life!

ehw

While the Five is Away

[slideshow] While the K5 is enjoying an unscheduled Arizona vacation for maintenance, I've been shooting my lovely K200D.  She may be old, but the richness of the CCD sensor at low ISO's is displayed here.

I grabbed a shot of the pitching machine waiting for business.  I loved the play the play of greens, red and blue with a shallow depth of field.

The baseball bats lined up nicely before the game to show off their color and variety.

The boys in motion put on a face and action worthy of a millionaire...if you look through a telephoto!  The capture was my attempt at being a little Norman Rockwellish.

Speaking of Mr. Rockwell!  My lovely family gave me a fantastic 40th birthday present today.  A Boy Scout Eagle Belt and a Norman Rockwell Boy Scouting book.  His vision of what America is will forever be the one in my heart and dreams.  Pride, honor, passion, hard work and reverence for God all stream from every brush stroke.

As I begin the fourth decade of my life today I hope you can see some of that in my photos as well.

ehw

When the greys disappear

[slideshow] Recently I posted a series of black and white photographs.  I was happy with the result at first.  Something was nagging me though, and a friend showed me what is was with a simple comment.  He said "the blacks are too black."

I looked at the photos and realized that I took away the tones of grey usually vital to the success of a black and white.  I did this by adding to much contrast and micro contrast in a tool called curves.  In a color photo, the "punch" added by the curves is usually pretty pleasing.  In my case on top of the black and white, the contrast made the photos too dark to see detail.

To see what I mean I've included correct photo followed by the too dark photo.  We'll see how this website handles the texture when uploaded!

So the next time you process a  black and white, make sure the details you desired or expect are present in your final presentation!  Also remember that friends don't let friends post without making sure the greys are grey.

Please put God with Country today

[slideshow] Today is a special day in many of our lives.  Those of us of the age who can remember probably know the time and place we were when we found our country under open attack by enemies of everything our Founders created.

Today many public officials literally are pushing God out of the public ceremonies as to not inflame our sensitive cultural landscape.  This is a travesty, because no matter who you are and what faith you practiced on that day when you learned the news you probably said "Oh my God what is happening?!"  Then if you were like millions of us in the country we got on our knees, filled churches beyond capacity and prayed to God for those who suffered, those who so gallantly reacted to save lives, and now those who respond in our protection of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Today I ask that each of you fly the flag and attend church with others.  We should be asking God for mercy on us, those who perished and those who live as the one standing between the darkness and the light.

Today's heroes guard the frontier against evil,  build cities, grow crops to feed us, and raise children in light of Christ.  Without any of these heroes we are lost as both a country and civilization.

Uniformed or not, obviously each citizen has a role as "one who stands between the darkness and the light."  None of us are off the hook for ensuring the survival of our experiment of government by the people, for the people and of the people.

God Bless America!

Let us all try to earn that blessing each and everyday!

ehw

Artist and Geek

[slideshow] I am finding that playing with color in a photo is the beginning of making art, and that scares me a bit.  I never thought of myself as an artist.  Photography was one part science of capture (aka geekness) and one part composition (art).  Now as I learn a bit more about image processing, I find that it really is the artist who has to arrive to make a photo come alive.

The great photographers all do extensive work in the darkroom (or on a computer now in digital photography).  I'm told this is where they often create the image their mind saw when they pressed the shutter.  Ansel Adams dodged and burned his compositions into legends.  Artists with brushes did the same for generations before that.

For these photos I played a bit with color on purpose.  In the leaf I provide the photo in color, and the photo I imagined in B&W.  In the Rose I added just a touch of contrast to make the leaves pop out against a complimentary green background.  In the fire bush I removed the yellowish green background of grass to have the red pop from the dark grey background.

For stepping out in to artist realms I hope this is just a beginning for me, and I can continue to make my images art both in camera and in post.

Besides the geek was already having fun since these captures came from my three year old backup camera with my classic 77mm prime mounted!  I had not shot with it for two months and it was feeling lonely, so this was its morning walkabout!

ehw

Close to home

[slideshow] Many times we look at our surroundings and think we have nothing interesting at all around us.  Such a feeling only gets amplified in our digital and fast food world.  Today I took my usual photos at baseball practice, but I set a challenge for myself while cooking dinner to find something in my backyard to make a photo out of.

A log covered by my least favorite local vine created a nice frame for itself.  Then I wanted to photograph a web I found in that vine.  Suddenly a spider appeared to give me an even better subject.  The spider was pretty hard to catch in the falling light though.  Of six shots only one was any good.

The moral of today's story is that something around us will always be interesting.  You just have to get your eye to stop looking at what you always looked at before!  Look at it like a child does a new toy, and a vision will spring out at you that you never saw before.

EHW

Come and Dance!

Capturing the emotion of flowing motion is something my daughter gives me a few chances to do each year.  Here the girls are lining up for their final pose, and I saw this standard group shot forming before me.  Then I realized on the camera was a telephoto prime, and I had to quickly think beyond the snap shot and make one.

I remembered, telephoto means compression, compression of many arms makes them appear as one, and inside that mass were a dozen hopes and dreams of dancing sugar plums.

Something a little different and I hope it captured a moment to remember!

One Eye at a Time

[slideshow][gallery] One Eye at a Time

During Kalen's Birthday I just wanted a few snapshots of all the children at this milestone.  Something kept nagging me though....it was the desire to make a picture.  One of my podcasting mentors, Scott Bourne, always closes his show with the tag line, "Don't take pictures, make pictures."

He is correct.  Unless you are  a rare bird who is a natural at photography and art you need to think out a picture. It is no different than thinking out this blog post...decide the story you want to tell, then identify the elements in the scene before you, compose and shoot.

For this photo I wanted to shoot something making you want more.  So to do that I photographed a portion of their faces, the eye.  This way you look into their soul just a bit.  I also intended to turn the photo into a Black and White to take away just a portion of reality and let let you focus on their shape and image more than color.

An experiment to be sure, and one of many I hope to share here on my blog.

EHW