The Content Blender

There is a never ending quest for a ‘different’ look in the
portraits we take. One easy way to inject interest in a portrait
is to add a prop or two to the scene,. After a few years, you may have too many props adorning the walls, floor and ceiling and you may have to discard some and make new ones.

Some of my favorite props have been and 1890s tricycle, a 1910 iron and wood sleigh, a white wicker sleigh/bassinette and a couple of faux marble columns. The wicker sleigh made it easy to prop up wobbly babies and when leveled with foam and a blanket, supplied a nice base for tummy shots. Of course we couldn’t do without the ubiquitous baseball.

The marble columns came plain white plastic so I painted them to simulate real marble. First I prepared four buckets with white, light gray, darker gray and black water paint. Latex is fine. I placed the bare column on a large plastic sheet and quickly painted one side of the column with the white paint. A handy hose set at fine mist then wets down the
Wet paint. Applications of the light and dark gray latex and sprayed with water allows the colors to blend naturally. After all sides are completed, a feather dipped in black latex and drawn randomly along the surface supplies the final touch. A c oat of clear acrylic will protect the surface for many years.

For Communions, I cut a 30 inch circle out of heavy cardboard. Making an X from two rectangular pieces of cardboard, I stapled the circle on top, creating an instant round table. Cutting a piece of white Dacron for a table cloth that just reaches the ground results in beautiful natural folds. On top can be placed a bouquet of flowers, a candle, missal or white gloves and placed in the near background of the Communion picture.

One prop that has many uses is white nylon tulle. Used to cover flower arrangements, antique boxes or any accessories in the background, it imparts to these artifacts a smoky ethereal atmosphere. The lowered contrast and softening of detail allows more emphasis to be placed on the main subject while adding interest to the composition. The white tulle is especially effective on a near white background. Large amounts of tulle can represent clouds or water.

For a rustic look, several four foot weathered barn boards can make a country look background for children’s head shots. This easily made prop can be stored in a small area. A small section of white picket fence can be part of a beach scene or a Huckleberry country look. An eighteen inch long log with rough bark provides a handy place for young feet or to straddle. A taller log is handy for resting elbows and log sitting.

Try to use only one prop at a time and follow a central theme.

Retired portrait photographer. Where are your comments?

Getting the background right in the studio can be difficult. The home studio often suffers from lack of space, unsightly background clutter and poor surfaces for lighting. But you can enhance your shots by manipulating the background in the following way:

1. Place a sheet behind the subject that is the color of the background that you need. White is good as it can be lit according to your taste. But any color will do and will give a consistent appearance

2. Place the sheet on the ground and drape it over something taller than the subject

3. Get yourself plenty of duct tape, clips and pins to hold the background

4. You can make a sturdy and effective frame for the sheets by using plastic plumbing pipes which fit together easily and have connectors which can allow you to make any shapes or angles

5. Make sure the sheet lays in a smooth curve behind the object - there should be no edge. This will ensure that the background is not uneven or unsightly

6. Using 2 flashes - one each side of the subject - will ensure no ugly r distracting shadows behind it

7. Using a white sheet will enable you to put color gels over the flashes to change the color of the background according to your taste

8. You can buy ready-made colored backgrounds - these are better than the homemade sheets but considerably more expensive. You will also need more space for construction and storage

9. For smaller objects, you can try a ‘light tent’ or ‘light dome’. This is effectively a big, white, translucent dome or tent that goes over the object. The camera lens points into the dome. The lighting is outside. The tent diffuses and disperses the light from outside giving an even and softer effect.

10. You can buy a light tent or dome but they can be expensive. Make one with sheets draped over chairs.

11. At worst, you can remove backgrounds in an image editing program such as Photoshop

The great thing about studio work is that you can take your time and experiment with your set-up. Try different lighting effects and angles to get the effect that pleases you.

Eric Hartwell is an enthusiastic photographer and owner of the photography resource site The Shutter. He would pleased to hear from anyone who might wish to become involved in the site - email click here to send email

It’s always a struggle going out in bad weather. Cold days and nights, rain, fog and that welcoming warm fire at home. But, if you can overcome the temptation to stay at home then you could get some great images.

Rain is wet, but it brings forth opportunities for great photos. Reflections, highlights and the beautiful glistening of water on plants. Puddles, bloated rivers and people in raincoats and holding umbrellas. Don’t forget the chances of seeing dramatic skies and cloud formations and wait for the sun to burst through an overcast sky spreading light onto the wet world below.

There are ways to keep your equipment dry - but staying in shouldn’t be one of them! Umbrellas are effective but difficult to hold. However, if you have a rucksack then you can slide the handle in-between the rucksack and your back. You might feel silly but it will enable you to use both hands to get some great pictures. Even a plastic bag is effective and if you want to spend a fortune, you can get customised waterproof covers for your model of camera. Look, also, for shelter - shop fronts, bus shelters, buildings, trees etc. But don’t forget, it is unlikely that your equipment will suffer any lasting damage just because you have got a few drops of rain on it. One tip I picked up just recently is to always have an elastic band handy so that you can attach things to your equipment to protect it.

Have a good look around as you will see many opportunities for a good picture. Rain reflects light - look in puddles and other standing areas of water. In towns and cities you will find shops, statues and just about every other object look different in the wet and, more importantly, reflect off standing water or moist paths and roads. Carl lights can create pleasing reflections on damp or wet roads.

You will be using longer exposure times and therefore may be best taking a tripod with you. If you don’t have one then improvise - a wall, bean bag, leaning the camera against an upright or horizontal object (e.g. a bench).

Eric Hartwell runs the photography resource site http://www.theshutter.co.uk and the associated discussion forums as well as the regular weblog at http://thephotographysite.blogspot.com

Gathering dust in the closet is a shoe box of pictures. Among them are snapshots of your beloved pets. Unfortunately, the pictures of Skippy are all too far away for us to enlarge for placing on the wall, and the snapshot of our cute little kitty cat is an unrecognizable blur with eyes lit up like spotlights. Here are some tips to help you create a beautiful close up portrait of your pet.

First you need a decent backg5round. Procure a panel of thin plywood sized about three by five feet. Mix the following colors using tubes of color with flat ceiling paint: one cup of alarizon crimson, one cup of beige, one cup of gray-brown, and one cup of apple green. Paint the whole panel with the gray /brown, then blend in the other colors with a large brush, stroking in a diagonal direction. Keep the center portion light. Blend the paint while still wet, but don’t blend too much or you will hide the different colors.

Use a camera which features a telephoto lens or zoom in the 135mm range which will focus at four feet. Use a medium fast ISO setting (200). Locate a spot lit by strong window light for a source or bounce your flash off a silver 36 inch reflector. If you have to use the built in flash, use a mirror or a piece of foil to angle the light to the side or upwards. Place your pet on a box large enough for your pet to be comfortable. Cover the box with a dark, plain material like velvet, satin or damask. For large dogs, it may be better to work on the floor but be sure to lower the camera to the same height. Black dogs are difficult to capture. Try using a flash off camera with a window or other light behind your pet and to one side just out of range of the lens.

Take a few full length shots and then crop just below the neck for a good close up image. Keep your pet’s eyes slightly to the left or right and a little above the camera lens. On long nosed dogs, make sure you can see both eyes. Make a variety of little noises to keep the ears forward. It is a good idea to have ready several squeaky toys because your dog or cat will only perk up their ears once for each different noise. For small dogs or cats, have a wicker basket ready for them to peek out of. Feel free to make a dozen exposures in order to insure capturing a prize winning expression. Save your background for the next time your pet is photographed. Your final pet masterpiece will be treasured just as your pet is a treasured part of your family.

My first professional animal portrait was a horse!

I was reading a piece the other day, written by a photographer who offers both film and digital capture to his customers. I am always interested to hear other professional photographer’s opinions on the subject. I was a film devotee for over 30 years, and only made the switch to digital a little over three years ago.

In the piece I mentioned, the photographer/author sited the fact that film is more ‘forgiving’ than digital when it comes to proper exposure. This is certainly true. Especially in the highlights of the image. You can overexpose negative film by more than two stops, and still get details in the highlights.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with photo-geek speak, for any given scene framed in the viewfinder of a camera, there is a correct exposure to the light coming from the scene and onto the film, or digital sensor. Over exposure by one “stop” means twice as much light as should be getting to the film or sensor, is getting to it. Two stops over is twice that much more, or four times the amount of light as the correct exposure.

Do that to your digital capture and there’s no recovering data from the highlights. Sorry, it’s gone! Actually, positive film, or “slide” film also has a much lower tolerance to overexposure, so not all film is that much more ‘forgiving’. But the point here is… ta DA…”Forgiving”, (and may I finish the thought), of bad exposure!

The author of the piece I refer to here also is a photographer in Hawaii, as I am. He writes of how the light here changes so quickly and frequently with the trade winds blowing the clouds over the sun, then away from the sun, etc. And it is true that on many days, especially in the earlier afternoons the brightness and intensity of the sun can vary quite a bit.

Personally, my solution is, knowing that about the light and the sun, clouds and trades, 1) be aware of it, and 2) know your equipment so you can make rapid adjustments, and then, 3) make the adjustments as needed!

Then there was the assertion that, “Prints made from negatives have more ‘depth’ than prints made from digital files.”

As I mentioned, I was a film devotee for over 30 years. And I used medium format cameras using negatives over 3 times the size of 35mm negs. Print quality was one of the main factors that kept me from converting to digital earlier than I did. I insisted on seeing my own images printed digitally, that matched the quality of the prints I was used to from my film processing labs.

The simple truth is that prints are two-dimensional. Prints have no depth. What creates the illusion of depth in an image are the contrasts in the image. Shadows and highlights, perspective, and the human mind. It is up to the photographer to shape, frame and capture the elements that create the illusion of depth. That’s why professional photographers create images, while others catch snapshots.

The other evening at a meeting with some art directors, when I was asked, “How do you feel about digital? Has the quality caught up with film yet?” I unhesitatingly responded, “It has caught and surpassed film!”

Of course I was speaking from the perspective of a professional photographer. When you have a correctly exposed image, and you use state of the art printers, you simply cannot beat digital imaging. My big, medium format negative film prints would start to get grainy at 30×40, but my 6 mega pixel digital images, printed on Epson Stylus Pro printers look tack sharp at 40×55.

So, strictly on an image comparison, print to print, film and digital, I would have to say there’s virtually no difference up to about 16×20, or maybe 20×24. Larger than that, digital is superior.

All this being said, visual arts are very subjective, and this is my opinion.

About the author: Stan P. Cox II runs a Portrait and Commercial photography studio in Honolulu, Hawaii, and has been a professional Hawaii photographer for 31 years. His web address is: http://www.ParamountPhotography.com This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

Photography at night can be used to create mysterious and amazing photos. When I say photography at night I mean the hours from around sunset until when the stars are clearly visible. The long exposures associated with low light can create unique effects and unusually sharp photos. And when I say long exposures I mean exposures lasting from half a second up to even 30 seconds. An exposure that long would seem impossible to prevent shaking, so my technique that I use very often is to compose the photo like I would normally and then to set the self-timer so the camera takes the picture on its own and I don’t even have to touch it.

-Equipment Options

For low light photos, a tripod (or some kind of substitute) is very necessary. I almost always keep a tripod in the trunk of my car or carry a miniature tripod around on trips. A miniature tripod can be very handy because it is typically small enough to fit in a pants pocket so it can be taken anywhere. Some photographers carry around a bean bag or something like it so that can set their camera down and tilt it in any way they like. Some of my best pictures I have taken simply by setting my camera down on a newspaper stand and setting the self-timer.

Many photographers are convinced that they need a cable release to take long exposures but the self-timer release option on just about all cameras works just as well. All you have to do is set the camera up, configure the self-timer, press the shutter button, and wait the specified amount of time (usually 10 seconds) and the camera will take the photo automatically. And you don’t have to touch the camera so the photo won’t be blurred from hand shaking.

-Night Photo Opportunities

Landscape Photos - My favorite kind of night photo usually includes a landscape with some kind of foreground element, some sort of framing element, and lots of lights throughout the scene. Adding some kind of foreground item to the frame helps to create a greater depth of field, this technique works for any kind of photo but I have found that it makes night landscape photos much better. Another tip you should keep in mind is that the main subject of a night photo should probably be the most well lit. Lots of light is good for a night exposure but there should still be some focus applied to the major objects in a scene.

Capturing Motion - A very popular kind of night photography includes a steady camera with some sort of fast moving object streaming through the frame. When cars are photographed at night with a long shutter speed, the headlights make a bright pathway of light and in most cases the car can’t even be seen. Another option would be to set up your camera next to a lighted area with lots of people moving like a night club or an illuminated street. Just about any kind of motion captured with the camera steady produces a very interesting photo.

-Balancing Aperture and Shutter Speed

When taking photos at night you should keep aperture in mind as well as shutter speed. It is without question that you will need a long shutter speed, but the aperture that you choose will provide the depth of field. When I take night photos I usually have a very long shutter speed (5-15 seconds) and a very narrow aperture (high f-stop). This combination creates a huge depth of field and makes everything very crisp and in focus. Of course sometimes you will not desire a great depth of field and in those situations you should widen the aperture (small f-stop).

-Calculating the Exposure

Figuring out what exact shutter speed and aperture you should use can be very challenging in Manual Mode. I would recommend that you just try many different combinations for each scene and eventually you will refine the settings that you prefer. Another technique I use is Bracketing, if you bracket all your photos so the camera takes multiple exposures at different settings, you are more likely to end up with a photo that has a satisfactory brightness.

-Conclusion

There is no exact science to night photography; I hope some of these tips will guide you in the right direction. But the best night photographers are usually the people who experiment a lot when they are taking low light exposures and eventually they figure out the best scenes and best exposure settings to match. Just remember that you need a very long shutter speed setting, and that you need to keep the camera very steady.

Richard Schneider is a digital photography enthusiast and founder of http://www.picturecorrect.com/ which offers tips and news about digital photography, digital camera reviews, and photoshop tutorials. Please also visit http://www.picturecorrect.com/freewallpaper.htm where you can find many examples of the techniques described in this article to use as your desktop wallpaper.

Forget all the fuss about owning and using a top-of-the-range, expensive, all singing and all dancing SLR. You can take great images with your compact camera.

Many compacts lack some of the settings that a SLR might have. Or, if not, the settings are less easy to understand and select. In this way, you might find setting “aperture priority”, “shutter priority” or “manual” is near-on difficult.

In fact, you might not even understand what these terms mean! And, it doesn’t matter.

Because if you have your camera set on “Auto” or “Program” then you will already be in a position to take excellent pictures which show your creative side.

How?

Because, by leaving aside the worry about which settings to choose and when, you can now focus on what makes one photographer better than another - creativity. Without the worry of setting up the camera you can now concentrate on finding the image that pleases you, composing the shot on the LCD screen and selecting the right moment to take the shot.

In fact, the pressure will now be on you to get decent shots and with you mind training on “selection, composition and timing” you will be able to show the world - and yourself - that getting a great picture is not so much dependent on the type of camera you own but more on the inspirational faculties of the owner.

Eric Hartwell runs the photography resource site http://www.theshutter.co.uk and the associated discussion forums as well as the regular weblog at http://thephotographysite.blogspot.com.