It was the last farmers market of the season in Uptown Westerville and although I’d visited the market every Wednesday afternoon I wasn’t pleased with most of the portraits, or attempted portraits, I’d taken during the three hours it was open for business.

This day I tossed my Lastolite EzyBox in the trunk of the car hoping to find a worthy subject.

As is the tradition at the final market, kids in costumes were awarded Trick-or-Treat candies from vendors, some of whom decorated their booths in Halloween dressings or themselves in costumes indicative of their product.

Such was the cheese maker who dressed in a cow costume to offer candies and cookies to her younger customers.

The crowds are usually much smaller at the end of the season, attendance dropping quickly after the last of the fresh corn and then to a trickle when the final freshly picked apples are gone.

That made it a little easier to pull the bovine out of her booth for a quick photo session.

Shot with the 14-24mm lens to include the market, minus half the vendors who stop coming at the end of the season.

Lit with an Nikon SB-800 shot through the Lastolite EzyBox with camera and strobe set to Nikon Creative Lighting System settings.

Underexposed the background by 2/3rd of a stop. Strobe set to normal output.

The EzyBox is mounted on an extension handle so it is about 40 inches over my head and slightly to the left so the light comes from slightly above .

The higher angle makes the light at her feet and slightly behind her less than it would have been at a lower angle. Less light makes the shadows disappear into the background. The softbox light slightly wrapped around her so the shadows are less pronounced than a straight strobe or a what an umbrella would have provided.

Great thing about the EzyBox is how simple it is to setup and teardown. It fits into a small pouch, even with the extension handle.

I have used it at the end of the small monopod used as a strobe extension but it wasn’t in the car as I thought.

The one thing that made this shoot more enjoyable was the enthusiasm of our subject. I’d shot her a little earlier with my iPhone for a different portrait so she was eager to see what was next in my shooting portfolio.

I’ve waited for this photo for several weeks. The scene has happened a number of times but usually too cluttered in the background or lacking the touch of a hand on the shoulder. As luck would have it, this was the last father-son duo to leave the fields. They stayed for throwing practice past the end of four coach pitch games on four fields.

Although this was my original idea, father and son leaving after a game, it wasn’t what might have happened.

About half the parent-child groups were mothers and sons. From a sociological view, it appears to reflect the number of changes in the dynamics of modern families.

Next on the list is to get that photo, mother and son leaving at the end of a game.

From a technical standpoint this was a difficult photo. The EXIF data shows high ISO with a relatively slow shutter speed dictated by heavy cloud cover a few minutes before sunset.

The best angle on their path was as they just stepped out of the shadows of several small trees that lined the path near the fields. This photo is as they just stepped into the open area near the outfield where I had enough light to shoot at 1/200th. I underexposed by 1/3rd stop move the shutter speed higher. Wasn’t too worried about the shadows going too dark in this situation. They already were dark and I needed a higher shutter speed.

Preferred to have shot it with the D300 and the 70-200 2.8 instead of the D5000 and a kit lens but I was traveling on my bike with the lightweight camera kit so I could quickly and easily switch fields and locations.

Still needs a little work to make it a better photo. There are two paths leading from the fields. This path has the restrooms building in the background that is difficult to keep out of the frame. The other path is clear at the end which would clean up the background.

I’m going back for that photo, with mother and son.

Sometimes  a photo with a wide dynamic range, such as this photo of a thin layer of fog lit by  the sun rising over a treeline, requires multiple layers of Photoshop editing to create the final image.

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This photo (above) was shot with the Nikon D5000 in aperture priority following an afternoon rain storm. The same lilypad (below) was shot with my iPhone.

Read about the shoot and the comparison at Gary Gardiner’s site.

Storm front arrival shot with Nikon D3100, 1/80 sec, f/10, ISO 400. Processed as single frame HDR in Oloneo.

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Same storm front shot with iPhone 3Gs. Processed with Camera+ app Clarity setting.

A late afternoon storm front pushes clear skies away as it arrives with strong winds, rain, lighting and thunder on a late spring afternoon. I began the afternoon shooting the barn at left in cloudy skies with fluffy clouds and a scattering of streaks of warm light creating shadows and contrast both for my iPhone and Nikon digital SLRs.

It ended with police and a 150-yard sprint to my car before the rain drenched me and the gear.

Read more about these photos, especially the iPhone images, and my encounter with police at iPhoneography.us.

After several evenings of wanting to shoot this small carnival at Westerville and Morse Roads I found enough time to make the trip worthy. As luck would have it, as I arrived lightning startled the few customers as it traveled across the northern skyline. The arrival of strong wind gusts promised to carry the storm across the carnival’s location.

Within five minutes of my arrival the carnival abruptly closed, the bright lights extinguished, squeals of joy quieted and the unsold $4.00 corn dogs warming under heat lamps removed for another night’s hungry customer.

Before the evening ended so abruptly I was able to get off a few frames of these well-lit food vendors. My original composition included a third truck at the left of the frame creating a stair-step arrangement of compositional objects with the open spaces between them creating the classic S-curve composition.

However, the short focal length of the iPhone camera pushed the third truck too far away and emphasized the foreground truck whose lighting was much darker. I stepped forward enough to eliminate the foreground truck and with a tighter crop and better light. The S-curve composition remains with movement through the open spaces into the background. Shot three frames.

One of the three trucks. A second of these two trucks with just the edge of the foreground truck. Then this frame. That’s when the carnival began to shut down.

Ran it through Dramatic Light app using the normal setting slightly adjusted to the right for a greater effect.

I also added more Memorial Day Weekend flag photos at WestervilleLife, two of which are iPhone photos.

Flag motif display at Amish Original Furniture

Woman poses with her flag t-shirt

Here is the instagram version.

1/500th of a second stop action

I’m always looking for easy ways to effectively demonstrate immutable photo techniques. While on a walk earlier this week I decided to use the spray from an inadvertently activated water spigot to demonstrate shutter speed techniques for blurring and stopping action.

The first photo, shot at 1/500th of a second, has nearly stopped the droplets of water formed from the spigot spray. Each blob of liquid is relatively well-formed and defined. A shorter shutter speed would have frozen their movements even more precise.

1/15th second blurred action

The second photo, shot at 1/15th of a second, creates a curtain of water blurring the blobs into a continuous stream of liquid that better represents movement than the stopped action of a faster shutter speed.

Using a slower shutter speed to blur a moving object, such as this water from a spigot or the turbulent cascade of a waterfall or rapidly moving body of water, is more effective than stopping each droplet in its singular spot.

There is a place for stop action of water but for showing movement, a slow shutter speed is more effective.

One of the joys of shooting RAW is the Clarity slider in Camera Raw for Photoshop and Lightroom.

The typical expectation for this slider is to increase contrast in the mid-tones adding a degree of sharpness to the center of a histogram. The edges of the photo, the shadows and highlights, are untouched except in the extreme use of the slider.

I frequently use the slider just for this purpose although it can be a hazard when combined with the Vibrancy slider which adds saturation to the same set of tones by manipulating lower saturated tones and increasing their intensity.

Using the Clarity slider when shooting portraits is a simple method for softening skin tones instead of using actions or plug-ins.

Instead of increasing clarity, run it toward a negative number. Watch as minor flaws in skin tones begin to disappear. All but the most significant blotches will begin to blend into the surrounding tones almost completely vanishing into a smooth texture.

The great thing about the Clarity slider is that is always non-destructive on RAW files opened as Smart Objects. Don’t like the first attempt, reopen the layer and make a second adjustment.

By duplicating a Smart Object layer, you can create a set of Clarity adjusted layers and paint in each layer’s important parts using masks.

This photo uses layers manipulated in several different ways.

Emily’s face is a negative Clarity slider adjustment layer. It softens her face removing slight imperfections. Only the face is revealed using a masking layer on this section. This layer sits above the layer with Emily’s hair

The lower layer’s intensity, passed through an action to add contrast and color to her hair, is severe on Emily’s face highlighting any slight blemish or mark. The sotened face layer, is above this layer. It’s mask reveals the negative Clarity slider adjustments.

Sitting above all the layers is a hue-saturation adjustment layer removing a slight blue tone from the fluorescent lights used in this setup. Her eyes were brushed out of the hue-saturation mask so they looked normal.

I’ve a multitude of actions and plug-ins for Photoshop and a few for Lightroom.

Among them are numerous portrait manipulations designed to soften skin tones removing blemishes and imperfections. They all work to near perfection although I have some difficulty because their intensity is always difficult to control and , depending upon the action or add-in, non-editable.

Using Camera Raw to create the same effect in a non-destructive, editable layer, makes creating better photos simpler, faster, and more accurate for a particular subject.

When the weather is terrible it’s time to work, safely

Back in the day, when I was a working newsman, I’d begin the day by confirming the previous night’s weather report with a look out the window or listen to the gleeful screams of my kids who just learned they’d been given a day of freedom because the schools were closed.

Then, no matter the forecast or the reason for closed schools, I’d head out into the world to report on the reasons the rest of the populace was told to stay home, not to venture out on warning of death and dismemberment for those foolish enough to ignore authorities.

I’d travel by car, truck, foot, whatever it took to report the results of the failings of others to listen to the warnings. I’d stand in the middle of a closed interstate highway watching as law enforcement and wrecker crews cleared away flotsam and jetsam strewn across the asphalt. I watched as families picked their way through an overgrown field trying to retrieve keepsakes scattered by tornado winds across miles of farm land. I watched as families stood on the muddy porches of the flood damaged homes downstream from the dam that was supposed prevent flooding.

No matter the weather and its associated warnings to never venture out, a news photographer ignores all orders.

That doesn’t mean you can’t be safe. Stepping into a hazardous situation has its dangers and rewards. For a news photographer it becomes a balance just as a war photographer always wants looks for where they is active conflict. There’s always danger.

That doesn’t mean I don’t try to be safe.

The photo at top is one of my most important winter-time accessories. A set of YakTrax Pro Walkers from Dick’s Sporting Goods.

In the winter, these traction providing coils of steel laced with expanding rubber grip into everything but the thickest and coldest ice too keep my butt from slipping and sliding into the street or onto the ground.

Ikeep them in the car where they often are quickly  stretched onto my boots for a walk through the woods or across a sidewalk that has yet to be cleared by local merchants. The appear to do no harm to the soles of my boots and I’m intoth esecond year on this pair.

The only way I’ve found to damage them is walking on cleared sidewalk and road surfaces. The rough surface abrades the steel although the damage isn’t immediately severe enough to cause failure. As I noted, I’m in my second year on this set and they show very little wear.

It’s too late to get a pair for the expected heavy sleet and freezing rain. But, while you’re out covering the news, like a good news photographer, stop by dicks and pick up a pair. It’s the safe thing to do.

Note: Those are Red Wing Boots. Expensive but the best wearing and fitting boot I’ve ever worn.

and Camera Bits

Camera Bits, the programming greats behind Photo Mechanic, is celebrating its 15th anniversary by giving us a birthday gift.

The full version of Photo Mechanic is on sale for $60. That’s much less than the normal $150 price for the full version.

If you’ve heard me talk about Photo Mechanic or read last week’s postings about using PM for ingesting and managing IPTC information, this is a great deal.

The isn’t a better piece of software to use for ingesting images and embedding IPTC information. Especially at this price.

From Camera Bit’s news release:

Camera Bits Celebrates its 15^thAnniversary with a Best Bits Offer

Limited Time Promotion Offers the Speed and Agility of Camera Bits’ Legendary Photo Mechanic

at a Record Low Price

Portland, Oregon – January 31, 2011 – Camera Bits, Inc., a pioneer in the development of software for professional digital photographers, today announced a special promotion to celebrate the company’s 15^th anniversary.  Camera Bits is offering single user licenses for the latest version of their popular photo workflow software, Photo Mechanic 4.6, at its lowest price ever of only $60. Effective immediately, this incredible anniversary pricing is for a limited time only and represents a unique opportunity to use this photographer’s must-have application at a significant savings.

Since its debut in 1998, Photo Mechanic has been widely viewed as the most efficient, powerful and feature-rich editing software for professional photographers  Today, Camera Bits’ dedicated team of developers and support personnel strive to continually enhance the user experience for its thousands of satisfied customers.  Whether covering a presidential inauguration or the biggest game of the year, professionals rely on Photo Mechanic for their most important photography assignments.  The software has become a mainstay for photojournalists seeking a reliable solution to help them efficiently browse, caption and manage batches of digital images. Photo Mechanic is by far the most popular photo-editing tool used by newspapers and press photographers in the USA, and agencies such as The Associated Press have standardized their workflow around the software.

“We’re incredibly proud to celebrate Camera Bits’ 15th anniversary by reaching out to the growing market of digital photography enthusiasts and reinforcing the value that Photo Mechanic represents for all classes of photographers,” says Dennis Walker, president and founder of Camera Bits.  “This promotion levels the playing field for aspiring photojournalists and offers cost-conscious organizations, perhaps using older Photo Mechanic versions, the chance to utilize our most current and advanced photo editing software at an attractive price.”

Version 4.6 incorporates many of Photo Mechanic’s most popular features, including Live Ingest, geo-tagging and upload templates to services like SmugMug and Flickr.  The special offer does not include the standard one-year free upgrade period that is offered for new or upgrade licenses.  Only updates for Photo Mechanic versions within the 4.6.x series (including the upcoming 4.6.7 update) will be available at no cost.  Licenses for future versions of Photo Mechanic beyond the 4.6.x series will require the purchase of a standard upgrade license.  Discounts for multiple licenses and for educational licenses do not apply to this offer.  To determine which purchasing option is likely best for you, please visit the following link to review your choices: http://www.camerabits.com/site/AnniversaryDiagram.pdf

System requirements for a Mac are Mac OS X 10.6.x, 10.5.8, or 10.4.11. PowerPC G4, G5 or Intel; for a PC, Microsoft Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows XP with Service Pack 1 – 3; Intel Pentium 3 1.2GHz, AMD Athlon 1200 or higher.  For questions about using Photo Mechanic on your computer, please contact Camera Bits at support@camerabits.com.
About Camera Bits

Camera Bits is a pioneering provider of software for professional digital photographers. Technology visionary and president/CEO Dennis Walker founded the company in 1996 with a simple purpose – design powerful, intuitive software that will improve the workflow of the digital photographer. Among the first of Camera Bits’ innovative developments were the unified color artifact and noise filter Quantum Mechanic, moiré pattern reducer Moiré Eraser, and “banding” noise filter Band Aide. The success of programs led to the development of the prize member of the Camera Bits’ digital arsenal, Photo Mechanic, a photo browser and workflow accelerator that to-date is unmatched in its vast capabilities. To learn more about the history of Camera Bits, the technology behind its software, the man behind it all, on how to apply for educational discount, please visit www.camerabits.com or call (503) 547-2800.