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 [...]
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 [...]
When I have the time between shoots or before heading home, I enjoy a walk in Uptown Westerville, always with a camera in hand. Sometimes the camera is an iPhone. Sometimes it’s a D300 and a full complement of lenses. The territory is familiar, usually along alleys, roadways, and sidewalks I’ve traveled before on [...]
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 [...]
My grandson Owen congratulated me last night for my photo of one of his favorite plants, the Venus Fly Trap. He also took the time to make sure I understood how the small bristles on the interior of the plant signal the intrusion of a possible meal and how the longer spikes on the edges [...]
Photo Mechanic by Camera Bits I’m guessing but willing to bet a very large sum that the most common digital asset management software on a news photographer’s computer is Photo Mechanic by Camera Bits. I’ve used this almost perfect piece of DAM software since the day it first became available in 1996. Its evolution has [...]
A Week of Workflow – Day 1 Over the next several days we’ll explore ways of making it easier for you to prepare for a shoot, handle the variety of on-site storage methods, moving photos from disk to computer and how best to store the finished images and all the rejects you want may to [...]
Several years ago I was issued a trespassing warning by Gahanna police after attempting to find a good spot to shoot a news assignment about business construction for a New York-based news agency. Several days before the assignment came I’d shot surveyors near the adjacent highway plotting lines along the edge of the property. I [...]
Digital photographers take auto-focus for granted. It’s standard equipment on all point and shoot cameras and usually not something that can be turned off or altered in any way. The exception being a few of the high-end cameras such as the Canon G-series and Nikon cameras. Auto-focus is the default setting on all digital single [...]
My original intent in shooting this quick iPhone portrait in the studio yesterday was to turn it into a black and white image contrasting this high school art student’s complexion and dark hair against the lighter wall. I did make that conversion in an iPhone app and was pleased with the result, as a black [...]
Welcome to Lessons for New Digital Photographers where seasoned professional photographers will help you become better at the craft of … [Read More...]
