Tag Archives: Tips

Thursday Tips: Jaded

02 Thursday May 2013

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One of the things that I’ve noticed about photographers is that many of them have a rather disturbing tendency to become bored with subject matter that they’ve seen before.  Nature photographers are probably the biggest offenders in this regard, and within this grouping the sub-category of landscape photographers are the worst.  (Full disclosure—I consider myself a landscape photographer.)  “Done to death” is the cynical—if popular—phrase.  It’s so hackneyed, it has its own acronym: DTD.

If I ever start acting this way myself—taking sublime natural scenes for granted simply because I’ve photographed them before (or, even worse, because I’ve seen a lot of others’ photographs), I hope someone will slap me silly.

During the first morning of my recent trip to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, I was up on the Foothills Parkway, just a few miles from the park’s northeast entrance in Tennessee, to photograph sunrise.  The image immediately below was shot on that morning.  There were a couple of other photographers, who were clearly shooting together, at the same overlook that morning, about 50 feet from my position.  Shortly after the sun came up, as the two of them were packing up their belongings, I heard one say to the other:  “Well, that was a shrug,” in reference to the sunrise.  My jaw just about hit the ground.  If that was a shrug of a sunrise, I’d like to spend every morning shrugging to the point that my shoulders hurt.

Later on the same trip, one morning at Cades Cove, I ran into another photographer.  We spent a few minutes talking and he told me that he’d just arrived at the park.  At that point, I’d been on location for about a week, and he asked me for some suggestions about places to shoot.  I suggested several of the many beautiful rivers and creeks and a sour look came over his face.  “I’m sick to death of streams and creeks,” he told me.  (I wasn’t sure how that was possible if he’d just arrived, but never mind that.)  “I don’t care if I ever see another creek.  This place is just lousy with them.”  In the early evening of that same day, I was in the Elkmont section of the park, shooting along the Little River Trail and obtained the shot you see below.  Just another ho hum day shooting another one of the countless, boring streams in the Smokies.

Then there was the gentleman I stumbled across on my first day in the park—apparently it was his last.  He told me that he’d been shooting wildflowers for several days and that if he “never saw another wildflower it would be too soon.”  I’m pretty sure he missed the below scene, which I photographed the next day.

I understand the tendency to become somewhat jaded with subject matter after photographing it for days on end, but there’s a stark difference between the familiar and the prosaic, something that seems lost on many photographers.

I found myself cheek to jowl—a situation I heartily dislike—with a bevy of photographers (all part of a large workshop) one evening at Clingman’s Dome as I waited for the sun to set.  While I don’t like being hemmed in, I was pleased to be in the company of a bunch of people who decidedly did not take the scene for granted.  That much was clear by the cries of delight that went up from the assembled masses as the sun slowly disappeared behind a distant ridgeline.

Perhaps there’s hope for landscape photographers after all.

Thursday Tips is written by Kerry Mark Leibowitz, a guest blogger on 1001 Scribbles, and appears every other Thursday.  To read more of his thoughts on photography, please visit his blog:  Lightscapes Nature Photography.

Thursday Tips: A Matter of Perspective

18 Thursday Apr 2013

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Every so often, a novice photographer tags along with me in the field.  At the end of the shoot, they almost invariably say the same thing to me—you move around a lot!  Yes I do.  I think the biggest shortcoming for photographic newbies is the tendency to settle for the first shot they see.  Part of that “settling” is the propensity to shoot every scene at eye level.  Much of the time, this inclination leads to ho-hum imagery, and it’s a habit I think every photographer should break, immediately.

I’ve discussed this elsewhere, but years ago I attended a John Shaw photo seminar, and one of the things that stuck with me was his description of how, as a workshop leader, he noticed that the vast majority of his participants would approach a scene and immediately set up their tripods at full height.  I made a point of keeping an informal tally of my own observations in succeeding years and determined that he was absolutely right. With relatively few exceptions, unless some impediment requires people to do otherwise, people typically set up at full height, and they stand in the first place they find.

The one positive thing I can unequivocally say about shooting at eye level is that it’s the most convenient, comfortable way to shoot.  But the most convenient spot doesn’t necessarily yield the most interesting or vital perspective.

The Method

When I arrive at a scene for the first time, I set my tripod aside.  Yes, you read that correctly; while I always have my camera mounted on a tripod when I trip the shutter, I don’t make use of it at all immediately.  With my camera in hand, I carefully examine the scene with the naked eye, attempting to take in all of the potential elements of a possible photograph.  When I spot something I like, I examine the scene through the camera’s viewfinder (unless I have the wrong lens mounted on the camera, in which case I switch lenses and then proceed).  I continue this process until I find what I feel is the best option.  That almost invariably means moving—up and back, left and right and, yes—up and down.  I’ll squat, I’ll kneel, I’ll lay down…I do what it takes to put myself in what I believe is the best position for the shot.

Only when I find that spot—after making a mental note of the approximate ideal height—do I get the tripod and set it up at the noted position.  With the camera mounted, I fine tune the composition and then go about the process of formally capturing the image.  The tripod is an impediment when trying to find the best photographic position, so I keep it at arm’s length until I need it.

Zooming:  Reality and Fallacy

Note that this isn’t merely limited to finding the best height at which to position the camera—it’s important to spend some time moving around:  up and back, left and right, as I mentioned above—as well.  The forward and back aspect is often neglected, as a function (in part) of zoom lenses.  I often see people standing in one spot, zooming endlessly in and out.  Adjusting the focal length of the lens in this way has isn’t without value at times, but many people are under the false impression that changing the focal length changes perspective.

It doesn’t.

Focal length changes have implications for depth of field, of course, but from a compositional standpoint, zooming a lens only changes the field of view of the would-be image.  If you want to change perspective, you must move; pick yourself up (bring your camera along for company) and physically change your position.  Now you’re changing perspective.

The Payoff

What’s the benefit of adjusting perspective?  In short, more dynamic imagery.  Shots hastily taken from eye-level have a tendency to appear static, flat and stale to viewers, precisely because it produces the same perspective that they’re so used to seeing themselves.  But change that significantly—for instance, try getting very close and low in relation to a prominent foreground object—and you’ll be displaying something fresh, partly because it’s out of the ordinary and partly because this kind of perspective can produce the sense of adding a third dimension to what is, after all, a two-dimensional medium.

Give it a try.  Spend a bit more time thinking about and exploring your surroundings.  Most importantly, remember to move and examine different shooting perspectives.  See if it doesn’t make a difference in your image output.

Thursday Tips is written by Kerry Mark Leibowitz, a guest blogger on 1001 Scribbles, and appears every other Thursday.  To read more of his thoughts on photography, please visit his blog:  Lightscapes Nature Photography.

Thursday Tips: The New Gear Fallacy Redux

04 Thursday Apr 2013

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Last year, in this very space, I wrote an article discussing the tendency of many novice photographers to believe that the only thing standing between them and magazine cover image success is a new piece of equipment or two:  a new camera, a new lens, a new piece of software.  Unfortunately, there are a lot of subtle—and some not-so-subtle—messages that are formulated specifically to further this belief.  After all, photographic gear manufacturers have a vested interest in selling their products.

Unfortunately it is rarely the case that the purchase of new equipment will bring image-related satisfaction.  Even though I’ve addressed this point in the past, based on the number of inquiries I’ve had relatively recently from people asking me what new camera (etc.) will solve their problems, it would appear a refresher is in order.

Exceptions to the Rule

Let me start by noting that there are some exceptions to the rule.  Sometimes a new piece of equipment will fill the bill.  For instance, someone recently told me how dissatisfied they were with the pictures of kids and pets that their low-end point and shoot was delivering.  The problem was that the camera was so slow to lock on the subject and fire a shot that the moment was gone before the shutter could be tripped.  This problem was completely addressable with a new camera—one with faster (possibly phased-based) autofocus and less shutter lag.  The only real dissatisfaction being expressed was that shots were being missed because of the limitations of the camera.  Eliminate the limitations and you eliminate the problem.

The Rule

This, however, isn’t the kind of problem that is typically being presented to me.  Ordinarily, the problems are more about how “boring” or “flat” or “poorly exposed” (etc.) one’s photos are.  Those aren’t equipment problems; those are photographer problems.  Getting a new camera or lens or software package, or any type of gear, for that matter, isn’t gong to provide a solution because the same person who was using the old equipment is going to be using the new equipment.

We live in an era when imaging companies constantly that photography is easy—especially if you use their equipment.  “Start taking great pictures.”  “Just point and click.”  It simply isn’t true.  Photography is fundamentally about seeing.  It’s about recognizing what makes a good image and figuring out how to apply the technique necessary to go about capturing it.  Your gear is of little or no help with that process.  If you find your images “boring” or “flat,” it’s not the camera or the lens that’s producing the problem.  There are ways to attempt to address the difficulty, but new gear isn’t one of them.

I recently posted an entry on my own blog discussing my experiences with the Nikon D800E, which I purchased in the middle of last year.  If you read the article, take note that I bought the camera because of what it would help me do when it came to image end use—not because I thought it would make my photography better…because it wouldn’t.

If you’re dissatisfied with your imagery, consider what you can do to improve your eye and your technique before you reach for your wallet.

Thursday Tips is written by Kerry Mark Leibowitz, a guest blogger on 1001 Scribbles, and appears every other Thursday.  To read more of his thoughts on photography, please visit his blog:  Lightscapes Nature Photography.

Thursday Tips: Printing, Part IV: Color Management and Printer Profiles

21 Thursday Mar 2013

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“Why don’t my prints look like the image on my monitor?”  That’s the question I most frequently hear from people who are new to the printing process.  One of the dirty little secrets of printing is that, even under the best of circumstances, you really can’t expect your prints to look like the image on your screen.  Monitors are light-emitting devices while paper and other printed media are light-reflecting.  As a result, prints will always be less vibrant than the screen image that serves as their source.  To anticipate anything else is to set yourself up for perpetual disappointment.

Once this point is realized and accepted, you can move on to a part of the process that you can actually control and use to your advantage:  color management.  There are other “the print doesn’t look the way it should” issues that can successfully be addressed and understanding and implementing a color management system is the key to solving them.

Color Management

People who charge into the printing process with their heads down often run into problems:  prints that are habitually much too dark (even after accounting for the light-reflective properties of the print media) and prints with unexpected color shifts are probably the most common of these.  (While, in the strictest sense, brightness issues aren’t part of color management, the problem can typically be solved via a color managed workflow.)

Color management addresses the problem that arises when various hardware and software components interpret and render colors differently.  Have you ever viewed the same image on two different monitors and seen significant diversities in appearance?  The images may appear warmer or cooler, for instance, depending on the monitor.  That’s a color management issue.  We judge an image’s appearance, naturally enough, by looking at it.  If we can’t depend on how the image is rendered, we’re flying by the seat of our pants in terms of judging and correcting it.  Having a color managed workflow addresses these kinds of issues by providing a means for all of your devices to be on the same page when it comes to rendering colors.  In a nutshell, color management produces consistency and predictability in the appearance of imagery.

The first part of a color managed workflow involves calibrating your monitor.  There are many calibration packages on the market today, as you can see at this link.  There are plenty of viable options.  A good monitor calibration system will help you adjust your monitor controls to their optimum levels and produce a color profile that will be stored on your computer’s hard drive and will load every time you boot your computer, adjusting your display accordingly.  You now have a consistent, reliable set of values upon which to depend.  You now have a predictable environment when making image adjustments using your RAW converter and image editing program of choice, and this covers brightness as well as color rendering.  Ideally, your monitor should be recalibrated monthly.

Printer Profiles

The next color management step is to acquire and implement a profile designed for the paper and printer model (if not your specific printer—more on that later) that you’re using.  The type of paper you use makes a major, major difference in terms of how color is rendered.  If you don’t believe this, try printing the same image on glossy and matte papers, without making any adjustments to the image itself and comparing the prints side-by-side.  That’ll make a believer out of you.

Much like a monitor profile, a printer profile is a small file that essentially includes color rendering instructions that are read by your printer, when specified in the program you use to produce prints.  In combination with a calibrated monitor, a good printer profile immeasurably eases the process of producing consistent printing results.

Most paper manufacturers produce what is known as stock (or canned) profiles that correspond to their papers, sometimes delineated by printer make and model.  Once upon a time, most of these canned profiles weren’t very accurate, but they’ve gotten significantly better over the years.  And they’re usually free of cost.  You may want to experiment with a canned profile to see whether that, along with a calibrated monitor, is providing you with adequate, consistent printing results.

If you find canned profiles insufficiently predictable for your use, you may want to invest in custom printer profiles.  These profiles are developed specifically based on sample results created with your printer.  There are services that will create custom profiles for you, or you can produce your own with the right equipment.  (There are some profile creation systems sold as part of monitor calibration packages; a few of them are at the above linked site.)  A custom printer profile is designed for a specific type of paper and your printer—not just your make and model, the actual unit you’re using.  Properly produced, a custom profile is peerless when it comes to providing reliable, predictable results and if you’re going to limit yourself to just a few types of paper, they’re easily (in my opinion) worth the modest expense of purchasing one.  If you use a lot of different types of paper and you want the reliability of custom profiles, you may find it to be most cost effective to invest in a system that will allow you to produce your own profiles, but be forewarned that there’s a learning curve involved with doing so.  (Also note that if your printer has a black & white printing mode, you’ll need a separate profile for each type of paper you use for both color and black & white printing.)

If you’re serious about printing and suffer the details of the process, I think you’ll find learning about and implementing color management solutions well worth your time.

Thursday Tips is written by Kerry Mark Leibowitz, a guest blogger on 1001 Scribbles, and appears every other Thursday.  To read more of his thoughts on photography, please visit his blog:  Lightscapes Nature Photography.

Thursday Tips: Printing, Part III: Papers

07 Thursday Mar 2013

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If there’s one thing everyone can agree upon when it comes to photo paper it’s that there are an almost endless number of brands and varieties available.  But don’t be intimidated.  Generally speaking—there are some exceptions, and I’ll take note of a few—the most important thing to consider is surface type of the paper and the look you’re trying to realize.  In the broadest sense, you’re looking at papers that range from glossy to matte, in the traditional parlance of photo papers, with a number of intermediate options.

Glossy Papers

Glossy papers provide a punchy, colorful (typically the highest gamut paper style available) look and, due to their ability to render high contrast images, work well for black & white printing as well.  The papers themselves tend to be quite durable, and are available in a number of comparable offshoots as well, including semi-gloss.  Almost every paper manufacturer—from name brands to knockoffs—produces glossy, semi-gloss and luster options and some produce an even larger number of incremental varieties.  The vast, vast majority of photo quality inkjet printers can handle these types of paper.

The principal downside to glossy papers is that they tend to be highly reflective, though this can be mitigated if the print is to be framed and placed under glass (i.e. by choosing a non-reflective glass).

It should be noted that one of the distinguishing aspects of this kind of paper is that the ink doesn’t penetrate the paper; it sits on top of the shiny surface.  So, while the paper itself is highly durable, the print can be susceptible to scratching from careless handling.  Also, with some inksets (Epson is a particularly good example of this), there can be what is known as “outgassing” with these papers, though this problem has been mitigated with newer inkset releases.

Some glossy-style papers have a bit of a naturally cool (i.e. bluish) appearance and this will impact the way a print is rendered, though this can be countermanded by softproofing using your image editing program of choice.

 

Matte Papers

Matte papers are more or less the counterpoint to glossy options and occupy the other end of the conventional inkjet paper spectrum.  Matte papers have more of a textured, subdued appearance; they contain a narrower color gamut than glossy paper selections and render prints with less color and contrast.  This can work very well for certain types of images, but if you’re looking for punchiness or contrast, this probably isn’t the best option.

On the other hand, matte papers have few if any problems with reflectivity of light and tend to be color neutral.  Matte papers are also typically heavier stock than glossy.

There are other options.  Watercolor paper is an interim choice, closer to the matte end of the continuum, with a fine art paper texture.  Luster paper is also an interim selection, but closer to the glossy end of the spectrum and is an excellent compromise—a shiny surface with far less of the reflective downside of glossy paper.

Many sellers offer a variety paper pack for a small sum, including five or more different types of paper which will allow you to experiment with a number of options to see which work best with different types of images.

Canvas

While not strictly speaking paper, canvas is another, very different, choice of medium.  Extremely heavy and typically used for “wrapping” around a wooden frame, canvas offers a distinct alternative to conventional papers.  Printing on canvas naturally reduces sharpness since the material itself is comparatively flexible, but this does allow for an increase in the possible reproduction size of the image.  Not all types of images work particularly well with canvas; highly detailed images, for instance, are ordinarily not a good choice.

It’s also worth remembering that canvas is an extremely thick, heavy medium and many printers can’t handle it well.  If you choose to print on canvas, be sure to check your manual to see if your printer is capable of printing on this medium.

Next:  Printer Profiles

Thursday Tips is written by Kerry Mark Leibowitz, a guest blogger on 1001 Scribbles, and appears every other Thursday.  To read more of his thoughts on photography, please visit his blog:  Lightscapes Nature Photography.

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