Scott's Digital Photography Blog

Still Life Photography

2012-02-27T20:07:00.000-08:00

Still Life Photography does not come easy to me since mostof my photography is outside and already sitting and waiting for me to discover.Going from landscapes to small composed shots with intricate lighting is notexactly easy; in fact, it is quite frustrating.

First you have to find something to take a photo of whichyou would think would be quite easy but once your mind is set in motion youknow one object is not enough. What about the background and what of the baselayer? You now have multiple objects to combine and you start to think whatlooks good together. Should I go with a theme? What’s the idea you want to convey?Maybe I should have started with a minimalistic view and used just that oneobject! Too late as my mind races toward a rewarding future!

Once you get your objects together the composition does notexactly come together in one shuffle. No, you have to arrange and re-arrangeand the bloody objects roll or fall over! Even then after you get it puttogether you go back to the camera’s LCD and take a look to find it does notwork. You re-shuffle and finally you just say to yourself, “start taking somephotos and try and work it out as you go.”

Then once the first few clicks of the shutter are completeyou notice one flash unit is not firing or it is too hot on one side and notthe other. The light is not directed enough so now you have to adjust all theflash units. Of course you are working close to your table that has all yoursubjects precariously balanced and you bump it with your leg and upset theapple cart…. ARUGH!

Finally, you get everything working in sync and takenumerous shots at different settings and after two days of off and on shootingyou get one or two shots that you like. That’s like not love. You cometo the realization that you could use one of the master artist touches when itcomes to Still Life photography! However good photography is in you and must becoaxed out slowly with a little dedication and lots of determination. You findthat this time around is not going to be that time but with everything there isa learning curve and some curves are steeper than others.

It is best to take frequent breaks when working in areas ofphotography that don’t come easy. At least I find this so and it seems to work.After a while the works of Still Life photos will come together and it will be anarea that you might find rewarding. But, if it is not something you find enjoyableor challenging then you will learn a lesson or two in humility or you can rantand rave to you turn blue, purple and red in the face!

Enjoy this Still Life image. This one was one where I didn’thave too much trouble composing. It seemed to come together rather easily. Iused two off camera flash units attached to Radio Popper Jr’s. One had a Snoot attachedfor directed light. I adjusted the f/stop and shutter speed so that the imagewould not be backlit. Other details: Canon 5D2, 100mm Macro Lens, Tripod andBallhead

Scott

www.inaap.com

Drip Drip Drip II

2012-02-19T10:46:00.001-08:00

Drip Drip Drip II, a photo by www_inaap_com on Flickr.

After seeing some water drop photos I decided to give this a try. I have seen them before and though they were always interesting I never really got board enough to want try this technique. The other day was rainy and I did not want to venture out therefore I decided to stay in and setup the Drip Experiment.

I went out to YouTube to take a look at some videos of how other photographer’s set up and took the photos of water drops. After some experimentation I used a wash cloth that was red striped and put it into the water at the bottom of the bucket. I used a clear plastic bucket and set the flashes to shoot up through the bottom and from the side. I got better results this way. One thing I found was that 1/250 of a second on the flash is not really fast enough to stop all the motion. You would have to time it and get lucky to take a photo with the drop suspended in the air.

Here are the results of my crude attempts. It was a fun few hours of setup and shooting. It was not so much fun to clean up. The border(s) were supplied by Picnik from Flickr. You can see my other images at the link below.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/inaap/6898336141/in/photostream/

2012-02-11T10:13:00.000-08:00

Pixel Bender Antique Car

The Pixel Bender Plugin for Photoshop has an Oil Painting filter that is really interesting to use. I have found out one thing and that is you really have to have lots of RAM on your video card (using the GPU) to make these adjustments from a large photograph. Of course you can use your computer's CPU but I find that is slower and my Photoshop crashes when using this option. There are other interesting filters included as well.

This is a photo of an antique car that was at the Wigwam Motel on Route 66 in Holbrook, AZ. It was early in the morning and frost was on the windshield and hood. I applied lots of saturation and removed the other cars that were in the scene. The rust on the front and sides along with the Pixel Bending Oil Filter really makes it seem that the car has been painted with flames.

If you would like to try this new filter the link to download it and the instructions can be found at this link.

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/pixelbenderplugin/

To me if you adjust the images just right you can make your photo seem like it was painted by Vincent Van Gogh himself.

Scott

www.inaap.com

Daffodil

2012-01-25T14:51:00.001-08:00

DAFFODIL

The Daffodil is the first flower to bloom in my backyardhere in Alabama. It’s January the 25^th of 2012. They seem to keepblooming earlier each year. Its 74 degrees outside and even the redbud treesare starting to put on some color from their buds.

This photo was taken in the shade but there was fullsunshine outside. I used a Gary Fong SNOOT. It is one item that I purchased totake portraits. I use the SNOOT more to do macro photos or in this case aflower shot than I have used it to take portraits. It allows you to shoot inmidday sun and get a black background. Aiming from the side helps give theflower better depth. I used Radio Poppers so that I could move the flash aroundand take photos of the flower from different angles and not be tethered to thecamera.

One thing you have to do is use a fast shutter speed, 1/250s was my max, to stop the flower from blowing in the wind. I used the f/stop of f/14 to control the amount of light. These are the Jr. Radio Poppers so Icannot use the high speed sync and therefore I am limited to 1/250 second. I handheld the flash and the camera was on the tripod using a 2 second delay.

It is fun using this method and you never know what you aregoing to get. I really like experimenting with the Radio Poppers.

Scott Thompson

www.inaap.com

Tiny Worlds

2012-01-21T05:56:00.001-08:00

Tiny Worlds, a photo by www_inaap_com on Flickr.

Sometimes you come across an interesting image and you wonder how one went about its creation. I found the article that shows how to do this. This Tiny World is easy to do in Photoshop. Here are the instructions. First crop an image to be a panorama or open your own panorama type image. It is best to have one that has clear skies with no clouds but it is not imperative. You can always make adjustments later.

Once you have your image open in PS make sure you are using 8bit mode. Just go to image > mode > and select 8bit so that your distort filter will be available.

Next size the image. Click on Image > Size > Take off Constrain Proportions > and make the Height the same as the width and click OK.

Then click on Filter > Distort > Polar Coordinates.

Now you are finished. You can make adjustments to blend the sky and horizon.

If you want to see the article instructions go to: http://content.photojojo.com/tutorials/create-your-own-panorama-planets/

That’s it.
Enjoy.

PERSPECTIVE

2012-01-18T15:51:00.000-08:00

You may ask yourself whatis he pointing to. The answer is the Moon. But the Moon is between the rocks atthe bottom. As I was taking this image his friend was up the hill and to theleft of me and the Moon was at the correct perspective to show this personpointing right at the Moon.

Astronomical images arehard to get sharp. Just like I did here I failed to get the foreground sharp.Although you may think the foreground is sharp if you were to zoom in you wouldnotice the rock edges soft and out of focus. Again I was excited in the momentof attempting to get a few photos before the Moon disappeared belowthe horizon but failed to adjust the lens to take two images that I couldcombine and get the Moon and the foreground rocks sharp. Even if I hadthought to do such a thing I would have failed to take my camera off AWB (AutoWhite Balance) so that the images would merge together seamlessly as respect tocolor/temperature. I had to shoot wide open at f/2.8 and did not want to gohigher on ISO so I could not shoot at say f/8 to make all whole image sharp inone shot. It would have been nice but not practical in this case.

Of course I was"chimping" to see if I was getting the nice colors and good exposurebut not really checking sharpness or white balance. Why, because I was in ahurry as usual and excited about a great opportunity at post sunset. This"Chimping” or the habit of checking your exposure after every shot is notonly a bad habit to get into but a waste of time. Yes you should check your exposurebut once set… stop the "CHIMPING!"

I did later on rememberthat I needed to make two shots but again failed to take the camera off AWBmaking combining the images more than difficult. Hopefully writing in myblog will help me remember in the future to be prepared before theshooting begins. This is another reason not to use AWB and just set aparticular temperature for the exposure.

Getting your camera set beforethe shooting begins will put you in the right PERSPECTIVE to get the shot!

Self Portrait, Lower Antelope Canyon

2012-01-13T12:14:00.001-08:00

Antelope Canyon Lower, a photo by www_inaap_com on Flickr.

As I was making my way through Lower Antelope Canyon I turned the corner to find this awesome archway in the sandstone. This is the only arch I have seen in the slot canyons of upper and lower Antelope. I attempted to match the colors I saw that day in the sandstone for this image. Most other images I enjoy really applying saturation to the images making them vibrant but this one works to let the colors speak for themselves. I look forward to returning and hiking a different slot canyon in the area.