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perjantai 31. maaliskuuta 2017
PictureCorrect.com: 10 Steps to Get Started with Street Photography
Getting the best candid street shots possible requires a good creative eye, the right equipment, an understanding of how your camera works, and patience. You can walk around your city or town and get lucky sometimes, sure, but if you want to really get started as a street photographer, these tips from Josh Katz are a super helpful first step. Here, Katz tells us about his process for capturing unique and interesting street photos and what equipment he uses, and offers up some great tips for the beginners out there:
10 Steps to Capture Awesome Street Photos
1. Find the Right Area for What You Want
Look for a busy area with lots of foot traffic and think about who’s going to be in that area. If you’re out to photograph people in suits, go to the financial district of the city. If you’re going for eccentric, go to the artsy areas.
2. Find the Best Specific Location to Shoot in That Area
Look for cool characteristics in the area—graffiti or a wall mural, a cool building in the background, a weird-looking tree, patterns, anything that stands out.
3. Think about Lighting
Where do the shadows fall? Where is the sun hitting the ground? Know how you want your subject to be lit. Golden hour, for example will give you beautiful lighting and shadows.
4. Shoot in Manual Mode
This might sound intimidating at first, but manual mode gives you full control of how your photo will look and it’s easier than you think. Katz breaks down the settings in the next steps…
5. Set Shutter Speed
Shutter speed, aperture, and ISO all counter-balance each other. Set shutter speed first and then adjust the others accordingly. The shutter speed is how fast you’re taking the photo—how long the shutter stays open.
For example, if you’re shooting long exposure, you want a long shutter speed, like 10 to 30 seconds. But, for street photography, or any slow moving subject, you can get away with a shutter speed of 1/125 of a second. This setting will freeze the subject properly with the most possible lighting and eliminate any shake you might have by hand-holding your camera.
If you’re shooting a fast-moving subject, like someone on a bike or skateboard, Katz recommends a minimum shutter speed of 1/500 of a second.
6. Set Aperture
This is how much light your camera lets in. It’s a bit confusing though, because the bigger the aperture number, the smaller the hole. This means you’re letting in less light, which will give you a deeper depth of field, meaning more of the image will be in focus.
A smaller aperture number, like f/2.8, will give you more light and create a shallower depth of field. This just means your subject will be in focus but other parts of the image will be blurry.
If you’re shooting in low light conditions, you’ll need to have a lower aperture number to let in more light. For a good lens that shoots well at night, Katz recommends a 50mm f/1.8.
7. Set ISO
This is the digital sensitivity to light. The higher the ISO number, like 1600, the brighter it will be. It’s best to shoot with a low ISO (100 or 200), however, because the higher it is, the more grainy your image will be. Katz suggests setting your ISO to automatic. If you do, then take some test shots first to make sure it’s doing what you want. And, make sure it’s not set too high; again, this can cause grain.
8. Set Your Lens to Autofocus
If someone you’re photographing is walking toward you, or away from you, the focus is constantly changing. Autofocus allows you to keep shooting without having to refocus.
9. Shoot RAW and Set White Balance to Auto
RAW will give you the highest possible image quality and you can always fix white balance in post if you have the RAW file.
10. Shoot Until You Get the Perfect Shot
You’ve chosen your ideal location and background, now keep shooting every person that walks into that frame. When the right person comes by, you’ll be ready.
Other Useful Tips
- Patience is key. Instead of wandering the streets hoping to catch something amazing, pick one spot and settle in. Find a nice background that you like and wait patiently for the right people to come along. If you have a great backdrop with interesting people, you’ll have a more compelling image.
- Photograph unique-looking people. Old people with canes or interesting clothing, for example, are going to make for a better photo than an average looking middle-aged person who’s just walking down the street. So, that’s the next tip…
- Look for people doing distinguishing activities. Photograph someone biking, smoking, doing anything a bit different than anyone else on the street.
“So, if you find a biking grandma with a cane and a baby, smoking a cigarette, you are in luck.”
- One person can be more interesting than a group of people. If an image has only one person in it, all of the viewer’s attention goes to that one person. A group of people can be distracting.
- Be prepared to get caught!
Dealing with Getting Caught When Taking a Stranger’s Photo
If you’re shooting in a public space (at least in the U.S.), you have the right to photograph people.
“If you’re shooting through someone’s private window into their home, that is very illegal, don’t do that.”
Most of the time, you won’t have a problem, but if someone does approach you, here are some tips:
- Always be friendly.
- Act like you weren’t doing anything wrong.
- If they’re really annoyed, you can tell them you didn’t mean to take their photo; they just walked into your shot.
- If it’s super obvious you were photographing them, own up to it. Smile and tell them you liked something about their look and had to take their picture. A lot of the time, people will be flattered, as long as you’re nice about it!
- Offer to send them the photo. You can use this approach right off the bat if you want. Go up to someone and ask if you can take their picture and tell them you’ll send them a copy.
“Don’t be creepy; be very friendly. Approach this with the right attitude and you are totally good to go.”
For Further Training on Street Photography
This bestselling eBook contains a whole section on street photography tricks. With little time to set up for each shot, practice is important. Street photographers move quickly and quietly and rarely have time for a second shot.
Deal found here: The Street Photography Chapters
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Cape Night Photography: Travel Blog: West Virginia
Last year, I made the longest journey ever taken in my trusty FJ Cruiser to a remote town in West Virginia called Moundsville. I had never heard of it prior to an offer I received from a flickr contact who was planning a trip to shoot its famous prison. After some fairly effortless travel coordinating, I set out on a Friday night in April for the first leg of my thirteen-hour journey from Cape Cod.
I awoke in Allentown Pennsylvania having made it that far the prior evening. This is what I considered to be a three-leg journey. Leg one was complete; leg two would lead me to airport in Pittsburg where I would pick up Mike Cooper. From there, we’d make a short run of the final leg, which would put us in Moundsville. By five o’clock that evening we had arrived at the Sleep Inn conveniently located in the Moundsville Wal-Mart parking lot.
The following day we made a trip the West Virginia Penitentiary, our primary destination for this visit. This sprawling, historic facility has been long since closed as a prison. Now, it serves a few functions such as a training facility for police and guards from other correctional facilities. On some nights, folks interested in tracking down ghosts and other oddities can explore parts of the building.
We took the daytime tour which was hosted by a former employee of the facility. There were no children in our group so we likely got some of the stories reserved for adult-only groups that covered cheerful topics such as murders, assaults, riots, horrible conditions and what landed some of the more famous residents at the prison. Needless to say, most of the stories painted a picture of a horrible place to stay. It’s no wonder ghost hunters and the like enjoy frequenting this place. It just so happens that night photographers often tread where ghost hunters journey and this is what allowed us to gain access to the prison grounds for a few hours after dark. The property managers are all too happy to offer nighttime access for a fee. Taking the day tour allowed us to get a good perception of the layout and give some ideas as to where we’d spend our time.
Most of my trips to the world of abandonment involve visiting old buildings out west. Very little scouting is done beyond reviewing images that other photographers have shot there or speaking to them about their experience. There’s a “watch your back” mindset that is ever present. Are those headlights coming toward us? Was that a coyote? Is our vehicle safe? While it does add some excitement to the experience, it also requires hyper focus and vigilance in paying attention to your surroundings. I wouldn’t say it takes away from the creative process all that much but it also can keep you from really absorbing the moment like I might be able to do here on Cape Cod. This night would be different though. We’d been granted legal and unchaperoned access to several parts of the building including cellblocks, cafeterias and prison grounds within the walls. The forecast for the evening was overcast. We were going to spend most of our time inside anyway but part of me was hoping to see what this place would look like as moonlight broke through the prison glass and lit old cement walls and floors. This would also stop any attempt to shoot the outer grounds simply due to misty conditions and nearby light pollution. On the flip side, we were going to have some very dark rooms to light paint. That was an exciting prospect.
We returned later that evening at sunset following dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. The prison employee met us at the main door and went over the necessary paperwork and conditions attached to our visit. After a few minutes of chatting, we began our trek into the prison. Also happening that night was some sort of “escape room” event in another part of the building, which explained the number of cars in the lot. No matter to us as we were several walls away on a different floor.
Flashlights and camera gear in hand, our first stop was in the prison’s old post office space. There was a tiny iron window area through which mail was handed through and this was attached to a larger sorting area. As you would expect, the walls were textured with thick, peeling paint strips thanks to the high humidity levels often found throughout the facility. It had the smell of old wood and plaster, dust and paint. Most places looked like this, with the exception of the cafeteria that had held up quite well probably due to having been the newer part of the property. Across the hall was a massive iron door. All though we could see through it to the stairs beyond, it was locked as the area behind it was deemed to be unsafe. Some of the floors above had collapsed due to roof damage. We weren’t going to be able to go up there.
While shooting this area, a guard from a nearby facility who Mike had met during a previous visit arrived to check on us after learning of our arrival. This turned out to be a great opportunity because he had keys to doors we would not have otherwise had gotten passed. He led us up the stairs to what was a former medical ward. In one room was an exam table, in another a chair for a similar purpose and in another there was the remnants of the prison’s dentist office. There were also a lot of bats flying around, hanging around and just generally being everywhere we seemed to go. I watched Mike use a piece of cardboard and his Protomachine LED flashlight to light and photograph three bathroom stalls. Despite the subject matter, I think that shot ended up being the best of his for the trip. We spent a good chunk of our time shooting this floor, listening to the stories told to us by Mike’s friend about various things that had happened on that floor over the years, before heading back down stairs for a visit to the cellblock closest to the entrance. At one point, I made a slight detour to hit the cafeteria. Because of its newer construction, I didn’t find it as interesting and worked my way back to the general area where I knew Mike to be. I also took a minute to pop outside to verify the conditions were still less than ideal for exterior shooting. They were and so I continued to what would be the final location of our four-hour visit.
We took turns shooting various cells and angles in that final block. This is where I would have loved to see moonlight streaming through the massive, tall windows in this part of the prison. Regardless, the excessively dark spaces gave us a blank canvas to light and for the next hour or so, that’s exactly what we did.
Around midnight, we called it quits per our agreement with the contract we had signed. That last hour really flew by and it seemed like things were coming to a quick end when we were just hitting our stride. I think we both agreed that we could have easily banged out an eight-hour shoot here. Once we exited the main doors back to the parking lot, it was back to the truck and a short drive back to hotel.
The next night was wide open as far as plans went. We hadn’t found a lot in the immediate area after doing some scouting the previous day. After a good night’s sleep, we started looking online to see what might be available. It didn’t take long to find Cass on the map. Sure, it was over four hours away but it did have steam-powered locomotives, an old factory building, a vintage water tower and a train station. I knew that we were most certainly opting out of any useful sleep the following night by committing to an eight hour round trip drive but when would be have this opportunity again? We left Moundsville around noon and headed south to Cass across interstates, over mountains and through small towns. We arrived at about four o’clock and in time to talk to the Cass State Park employee on duty, plead our case and get permission to shoot the railroad grounds. At this point, we had nearly three hours to burn before nightfall. There was no cell phone service here, which made any sort of further research impossible. We did a quick scout and headed to the closest gas station just a few miles away from the massive Greenbank Radio Telescope. I had always wanted to see this place but never really paid attention to where it was…and suddenly, there it was! On the way back to the railroad property, I spotted an old barn that made a great foreground for shooting the telescope. I made a mental note of it so that I could take that shot on the way out.
Good thing we had time because it took almost an hour for the pizzas we ordered at a local tavern to come out. By the time we were done, night was falling and we were ready to start our shoot. Initially, we took turns photographing steam engine and the station before walking down the tracks to an old caboose, the water tower and the old factory structures. On a length of curved track, just around the bend from where we were photographing were two idling steam trains. What a great mood-maker for a night shoot these turned out to be. We could hear their boilers chugging away, occasionally letting off some of that steam while the faint smell of coal filled the night air. I have to say, it was probably one of the best experiences I’ve had on a night shoot in terms of my surroundings. Our last subject was the old factory. Unfortunately, the dew point was starting cause massive lens fogging on both of our cameras and this meant our shoot was over. We headed back to the truck and off to that little spot with the barn at Greenbank. Unfortunately, low-level fog had formed and was obscuring the telescope entirely. No chance of a shoot there.
It took nearly five hours to get back. We made a brief stop along the side of the road so Mike could hit an old church we saw on the way there and after that it was a lot of conversation and caffeine to keep us going. Eventually, we arrived back in Moundsville – in full daylight at 7:30am. I’d sleep until around 2 but that was the most rest I’d get for that day.
The prison and the railroad property were worth the thirteen-hour drive from Cape Cod. Having split most of my shooting between the Cape and the southwest, this felt like it fit somewhere in between and a welcome change. I dropped Mike back off in Pittsburgh so he could catch his flight home and made the journey to Massachusetts in one day.
As of this writing, plans are in place to return to both of these locations and two others in a few months. This time, a friend and fellow night photographer from out west will be joining us which is something I am looking forward to. Also, we’re making some tweaks to the logistics to minimize the driving between destinations. Not getting a solid night of sleep between shoots is a creative-killer for me and so I am hopeful that our travel plans will strike a balance between driving, shooting and resting.
Enjoy a selection of images from this location below. For more information on the places I mentioned here, check out these links:
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torstai 30. maaliskuuta 2017
PictureCorrect.com: Interesting Photo of the Day: Bubble Nebula Photographed via Telescope
Mike Hankey fell in love with astrophotography when he attached his camera to a telescope and peered through glass at the night sky for the first time. Six months later, a large “fireball” meteor exploded near Baltimore, Pennsylvania while Hankey was photographing the Andromeda galaxy from his backyard, and he accidentally captured a shot of the meteor fragments streaking down to Earth.
He’s been hooked on astrophotography ever since, and he spends his nights producing stunning long exposure astrophotos like this image of an emission nebula within the Cassiopeia constellation:
This is the “Bubble Nebula,” technically named NGC 7635. (Via Imgur. Click for larger size.)
An emission nebula is a cloud of gas that has been ionized by close proximity to a hot star such that it emits light of various colors. There are two types of emission nebulae—H II regions and planetary nebulae—which are ionized by huge young stars or dying stars shedding their outer layers and exposing their warmer cores, respectively.
Hankey shot the image in Auberry California using green, blue, and red narrow band filters over a span of 15 hours across four nights. He used an Apogee U16M camera attached to an RCOS 14.5 telescope to capture the image and SkyX, MaximDL, FocusMax, CCDAutoPilot, CCDStack, and Adobe Photoshop to edit and optimize the final image.
“I [love] taking pictures with my telescope and I work on it every night that is clear,” said Hankey. “The great thing about astronomy [is that] space is infinite, you can never run out of things to learn, look at or take pictures of. The study of astronomy has transforming effects on people and I encourage everyone I meet to look up at the stars.”
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PictureCorrect.com: Athletic Portrait Lighting Techniques
Two photographers brainstorming over what should be the correct exposure setting for a studio athletic portrait photography session, Joe McNally and Daniel Norton join forces. McNally attempts to recreate the same lighting he used to shoot one of his iconic Sports Illustrated for Kids covers:
When you have a subject like an athlete, the common perceptions and rules of portrait photography go straight out of the window. You don’t need soft lighting. You want to chisel out the athletic bodies using rim lighting.
So, where do you start? What’s the ball park settings for an image like that? McNally says, “Honestly, I don’t know. That’s, you know, part of the discovery process, coming into the studio or any location, figuring it out.”
McNally explains that in order to take full effect of the rim lighting setup, you need to be able to make the ambient exposure as dark as possible. You start with any reasonable exposure setting and then work your way trying to suppress the ambient exposure. For this shoot, McNally started off with ISO 100, f/5.6 and 1/200, before adjusting it to f/11 which gave him the result he was looking for.
Once the ambient exposure is dialed down and it’s no longer affecting the image, the final ingredient is to bring in the lights to shape and chisel out the athlete in the image.
Profoto B1 with a Zoom Head
The most important light is the rim light—or the backlighting in this case. Once that is correctly in position, the other lights will fall in place. It’s always a combination of what you see, your gut feeling, and properly using the resources at your disposal. McNally started off with a couple of B1s with zoom reflectors. The light was hard, but it also spilled onto the walls and ceilings of the studio and bounced back onto the model.
Even with backlighting, there was a lot of spill.
To counter this, he brought in some V Flats, as well as Profoto Beauty Dishes with grids to make the light more defined and edgy.
Speaking of edgy, a strong backlight/rim light can create blown out highlights and loss of details. Keep an eye out for this.
Rim lighting can cause blown out highlights.
From there on, it’s a series of trial and error to get the ratio of lights just right for the perfect exposure.
Building your lighting from the ground up in a studio portrait session is preferred over a fixed ratio based guideline. Use your gut feeling more than numerical formulas to get the best results.
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PictureCorrect.com: 5 Quick Photography Tricks
Looking for the next big idea to up your photography game? Try these easy to implement hacks from Photo Tom. All you need is a tripod, a neutral density filter (6 to 10 stops), a remote trigger, a filter holder:
1. Long exposures in unusual places
A neutral density (ND) filter opens up a completely new world, so far as photography is concerned. You can do a lot of things if you know how to use it.
Place the camera on a tripod, attach the filter holder to the lens, and mount the ND filter.
Make long exposures of places and things you would normally never shoot with a ND filter. Try looking for elements that stay fixed side by side with elements that move.
2. Move your camera during exposures
With the ND filter, you can experiment with moving your camera while triggering the exposure. Try moving your camera in an up and down motion, and then try a circling motion.
Use a long shutter speed to ensure that your camera shutter remains open for a long period of time to record the movement.
3. Zoom while exposing
Zooming while exposing is one of the easiest of methods to produce a unique image. At first try either zooming in or zooming out when exposing. Then try to rotate the camera while zooming in (or out) for a twisting effect.
4. Use graduated filters in an unusual way
There are more things you can do with a set of graduated filters than you think. Set up your camera on a tripod. Mount the filter holder and then mount two graduated ND filters like this:
This will create a path of light like this:
You don’t need two identical filters to do this. They can be of two different light stopping powers and still produce this sort of amazing picture.
5. Create a cinemagraph
The last hack is the simplest. Create a cinemagraph with your camera.
Let us know if you try any of these ideas out!
For further training: The Photography Tricks Chapters
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PictureCorrect.com: Selective Blending in HDR Photography
A style of photography that is growing rapidly in popularity is HDR Photography. To be defined, HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography is photography that captures a wider and more natural range of colors and intensities. This allows for photos to appear as the human eye actually sees them rather than only allowing a part of a photograph’s coloring to appear true. For example, for the photo shown below, if taken without using HDR you could either have the building be well exposed and have the sky far too bright, or the sky well exposed and building be silhouetted. With HDR you would be able to have both well exposed as you natural see it.
Completed HDR Photo After Selective Blending
A popular way of creating an HDR photo is to merge multiple photos of differing exposures together, so this tutorial will cover that method in showing how the photo above was created.
Step 1. Bracketing your shot
Bracketing is a helpful tool to use for almost any type of photography, but is essential in HDR photography. Bracketing is taking several photos of varying exposures of the same subject in order to create a proper exposure for each element in the shot. Bracketing is great to use in almost any conditions and style of photography, just so you have as many options to choose from when you’re editing. Some cameras have a built in bracketing feature, but if not, it is easy to manually bracket as well. For this image, there are really only 2 main elements, the sky and the building. First, one photo was taken to get a proper exposure of the sky:
Slight Under-Exposed Image
This was taken with a faster shutter speed in order for the skies natural colors to show. The sky looks great in this photo, but as said earlier, the building is completely silhouetted. Keeping the camera in the exact same position (tripods are highly recommended) a second photo was taken to get a proper exposure of the building:
Slightly Over-Exposed Image
This photo was taken with a slower shutter speed in order for the building to be well lit. Now the building looks much better and our sky is blown out. The next step will be merging these two photos together to get the best of both.
Step 2. Merging the Photos
The merging of your photos can be done in a program like Photoshop, which is what we will use in this tutorial. First off, both photos are brought into Photoshop.
Merging Bracketed Images in Photoshop
Then the photo with the exposure for the building is moved over on top of the photo with the exposure for the sky.
Arranging Layers in Photoshop
Here is where the merging of the photos actually takes place. In the top photo, the sky is what is blown out and over exposed, so the sky will be removed from this photo. Once the overblow sky is removed, the properly exposed sky in the layer below will be revealed. To do this, the top layer is selected, then the magnetic lasso tool is chosen and the entire sky is selected.
Selecting and Isolating the Sky
Then this selection is deleted by simply pressing the delete key.
Deleting the Sky from the Top Layer
Then with some additional editing in Lightroom, the photo was complete.
Completed HDR Photo After Selective Blending
HDR photography is a great way to achieve a natural looking photo of a setting that may not allow for it with standard methods. Some HDR photographs are created by merging a dozen differently exposed photos, although these photos tend to look a bit unreal. To achieve a natural look using HDR, use moderation in how many photos you blend together and leave room for natural shadows.
About the Author:
Nicholas Moeggenberg is a web designer and photographer from Cincinnati, OH.
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