12/22/10

Bokeh part two.

And it's a bokeh tutorial!

As discussed earlier this year, bokeh is the out-of-focus regions of a photograph. When light is out-of-focus, it can make some pretty cool effects. But what if you don't want to wait around to stumble upon it? Here's the easy way to bokeh.

Start with a subject.

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Then, hold your hand in front of the camera and press the shutter halfway to focus. Keeping the button pressed, remove your hand and take the picture. BAM.

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This was done with my hand held pretty far away from the camera. Bringing it in about halfway achieved this size of bokeh:

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And bringing my hand as close as I could to the lens without making it impossible to focus:

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It's a simple but pretty awesome technique. I think if the lights had been on, the bokeh would have been more translucent, but that's an experiment for another day.

Have fun!

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12/15/10

Ponderances in duochrome.

(Actual ponderances after the pictures. Promise.)

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There is so, so much to be said for how the world and life are viewed through black-and-white or sepia. Sadly, this is not that kind of blog post.

I wanted to mention briefly how relatively easy it is to make a "just okay" picture more interesting by converting it to a form of black-and-white. The first photo, for example, is just okay in color. I really only took it as a reminder later of where the batch of photos was taken along the Parkway.

By de-saturing it and then upping the contrast (a lot), however, to me it now has a certain gravity, even in its bleakness.

The Brinegar cabin, the cemetery, and the tree were taken in sepia mode in the camera, so here I just upped the contrast (to a lesser extent with the tree). The pipe and butterfly pictures were originally in color.

What's neat about the butterfly picture is that he was so bright, even with the photo almost completely de-saturated, his color survives somewhat. I didn't do much with the contrast in order to maintain this effect.

Most professional photographers agree, it seems, that the best way to create black-and-white photography is to take your photos in color, and then manipulate them in post-processing. Photo editors now give you tons of options and flexibility when converting to B&W, and there are of course many different shades and tones and presets to choose from. The argument is, if you start out with a B&W picture, there's really no place left to go - you're stuck with what the camera gave you, and there isn't much on-board choice.

I only used the rinky-dink Windows photo editor, because I haven't had the time to fully devote to learning how to use the B&W options in Adobe or GIMP. I still like the results, and God-willing, there'll be plenty of time in the future to devote to learning. =)

12/8/10

Baby, it's cold outside.

So I'm thinking warm thoughts. :)

(It's supposed to snow this weekend. You know what that means...)

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12/4/10

It's the holiday season.

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It snowed just a bit on Thanksgiving day. What a nice, holiday-cheer sight to see. :)

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We congregated at my aunt's house. Remember the angel?

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We ate. A lot. And I (mostly) made the dressing. :)

Happy holidays.

11/23/10

Sorry!

Eeek! I've only blogged twice this month!

As one could assume, having a nine-to-five lessens the abundance of photographic experiences. Like, a lot. My poor camera is so forlorn.

I've got a four-day weekened coming up extremely soon, so hopefully I can share some Thanksgiving goodness with you, my friendly followers, and maybe even manage to find something new and interesting to photograph. (Fingers crossed on that last one)

Okay, I'm off to prep for the start of the Holiday Season! (Yaaaaayyyyyy!)

11/12/10

At the end of things.

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Floating on
a slow-moving river

in the spring
or fall

stretched out on a raft
eyes to the sky

watching the light
blink through the leaves

perpetual afternoon

and I'm heading for

a mountainside cottage
nestled in green and yellow grass

or a turn-of-the-century
house on the plains

or open arms

and it may take me
an eternity to decide

***

that's what

heaven

will be.

11/2/10

Where to now?

I found out this past weekend that one of my favorite places to visit, Doughton Park, will likely be closed down in a sense for two years while restoration projects are undertaken along that section of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Really not cool. It's become a perennial favorite, and I had big plans to catch the sunrise at Wildcat Rocks one morning next year and capture the awesome fog rolling over the mountainsides.

For a location as important as the Parkway, I know it's crucial for them to maintain it, to keep it safe, to keep it beautiful. So restoration was inevitable. I guess I just wish it could have been further down the road. No pun intended.

Oh well. I suppose this frees up a few days to visit a new place, and make new memories.

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10/27/10

Photographing flowers.

Flowers are another very popular subject in popular photography, and quite addicting, actually. There are just a couple of easy-to-remember tricks to get some very nice shots even if you (like me) don't have a macro lens. (To clarify: these are in no way macro pictures, but try getting even relatively close to a flower with basics settings and you'll see what I mean)

I arrived at this first picture just before sunset, although clearly you would not know that by looking at it because the flash had a mind to pop itself up at the last second.

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So, here's what you do. Select the camera mode symbolized by a flower (easy to remember, see?); depending on your camera, it will be located on the little wheel, or inside a menu, or maybe you have a ninety-thousand-dollar camera and there is no flower option because you are a genius.

So, select flower mode. It allows you to focus at a closer range than you normally could in other modes (without a macro lens). When you focus, it's possible the on-board flash will pop up automatically to aid exposure (unless you threw down money on a big-time separate flash); if it doesn't, click it up anyway. It will accomplish a couple of things:

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It will allow the flower to show up brilliantly, even though you are likely in sunlight - it doesn't hurt a thing. It will also likely render the background dark, if not almost black, creating a very nice effect that, in photo editing, requires lots of layering and masking otherwise.

The flash also allows a quick shutter speed, which freezes the flower if there's a slight breeze and allows for a nice, sharp photo. Really, you can't go wrong!

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Go practice!

10/19/10

A walk in the park.

This summer I walked the 1.4-mile lake trail at a local park taking photos, and was very excited to return in autumn. Visions of tree-lined lanes drenched in color danced in my head. Alas, as I've mentioned, this year the color just isn't what it usually is; but, I went back anyway, and made the best of it.

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Knowing what to focus on, and how to eliminate the unnecessary, is obviously the most important aspect of making a photo shoot work under less-than-desirable conditions. There were likely as many dull green or already dying trees as there were choice ones, but there's no rule saying I had to give them my attention!

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And once I got past the initial desire to find that perfect autumn vista, I saw plenty of other colors and shapes along the trail.

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There was a wisp of a wind so I didn't get all the many reflection pictures I was dreaming of, since the lake was far from placid, but there were other things to see staring back from the water.

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What's really nice is there's still enough color this year for the Photoshop-happy among you to be able to take a breather for a few weeks. Go ahead. Let a photo speak for itself. :-)

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