Seascapes and Black and White

As you know, I'm always examining my work and trying to see if I can make it better or more appealing. I'd come across an article in Popular Photography about shooting in black and white, and it made me wonder - would any of my California shots look better in black and white? And how do I know?

Well, let's take a look. Here are some shots that I converted last week. Compare them with their color originals:





I converted these in Aperture. It's a very simple process. Almost any photo editing tool will work for that purpose.

Here are others that I grabbed from Aperture that I did not feel looked good enough in color to post, but looked fairly interesting in black and white:





So, that said, when does black and white work for me?

1) When color is actually distracting to me - as much as I love color, it doesn't always work for me. The pool shot is an example. The colors don't add anything to the shot for me. The black and white example is much cleaner and simpler.

2) When I want to portray another era - I hope this is self-explanatory. To me, in this case, these types of pictures make me feel nostalgic for another time.

3) When I don't want to highlight one element over another - As an example, look at the shot with the trees, the sky, and the grass. It's well balanced, but my eyes tend to jump to the green grass. Yours may focus on the sky. Because I feel the picture is "one picture", and not greens and blues, I prefer black and white. This way forces me to view the subject of the picture as the entire picture.

4) Shots with good contrast or with lights - I like how my lights "pop", but not to the point that they distract from the pictures. Shots with contrast ensure that they do not look "dull" or "boring" (highly subjective terms) once converted.

What should you do? Until you know what works for you, I'd suggest trial and error. Take a cross-sample of your pictures, convert them (make sure you back up the originals, of course), and see what looks good to you. Eventually, you'll detect a pattern and therefore understand what your eye likes. Because this is subjective, it's best to go by your own instincts - not mine, and not those of a magazine.

Next time - my monastery adventure.

California Wrapup - Dress Rehearsal versus Reality

I can't believe it's been a month since I left for California! This tells me two things:

1) Time flies

2) I need to get back in touch with my creative self

How did I do on this trip? My goals that I'd set were:

1) Avoid the literal shots

2) Look for the details

3) Understand my themes

4) Incorporate my sister

5) Property shots

I didn't do too badly, really. Here are some examples of pictures that met my goals:







The only goal I didn't meet was incorporate my sister, now that I think about it. There really wasn't an opportunity that made sense. And I'm okay with that. I feel my greatest area of improvement was in avoiding the literal shots, understanding themes, and bringing out the details. These were definitely nicer than beach pictures I'd taken in the past. I'm therefore happy with how I did.

I'd also thought about stock photography options. I need to think about that, too - and make the time - but I need to get out and shoot more, too, and bring more ideas and work to this blog.

I need to start focusing on my creative self again. It has been difficult, given work and my social responsibilities. With fall around the corner, though, I am hoping to be inspired. And that's what I'll cover next time - fall and some of my plans.

California Trip - Macro Work

On a day like today where the weather is terrible, it's nice to think about color again, even if for only a bit. The last topic I covered while in California was macro work. Admittedly, this is my favorite subject, but I really felt it had been overplayed in the DC area. I felt as though I were shooting the same things all the time. California was a great breath of fresh air - not an orchid in sight. Here are some of my favorite shots:





A few notes:

I went earlier in the day to take advantage of the misty weather. Harsh sun plus macro shots = not so terrific results (to me, anyway). The mist plays out best in the second and fifth pictures.

You'll see there's a lot of purple. I took these shots for my younger sister's benefit - she loved the blue and purple flowers.

Another advantage of shooting early is the possibility of playing with raindrops on flowers - like the first picture.

Other flowers can be just as pretty as orchids. Maybe they aren't as delicate and unique, but there are colors, shapes, etc to play with, too.

I had to get down fairly low and close to shoot most of these. Of course, I tried many different angles.

Settings:

ISO 400, f-stop of 5.6 (in general), white balance "cloudy", post-processing tweaks - minimal. Of course, I used my macro lens.

Next time: How I did compared to my goals that were set during my dress rehearsal in July.

California Trip - Clouds in Dana Point

As I mentioned last week, California (at least the Southern part, from what I could tell) has a climate of extremes. This poses quite a few challenges when shooting.

Consider clouds. On the one hand, you'll never have to worry about harsh shadows or contrast. On the other, you end up with pictures like these:







As someone who loves bright colors, it's hard to get too excited about these. However, I did what I could. Here was what I was thinking when I took these:

The first two were framed by the red flowers. That added a pop of color. To achieve this look, find some flowers and get low. Try multiple angles - not everything works.

The third was a conscious choice to simply emphasize angles and lines. I was able to focus more on them than I would have had it been a sunny day. They "pop" here.

The last two involved focusing on "themes" - the first one was relaxation (the couches and casual feel), the second one was exercise (that hill was steep).

Overall, I preferred my pictures in the bright sun, but the lesson here is that you can't always choose your environment. Make the best of it!

Settings: Higher ISO than average (you'll need to experiment, but 400 worked well), middling f-stops (around 5.6), cloudy white balance, some tweaking in Aperture - mainly saturation settings.

Next time - some gratuitous macro work in Coronado. I couldn't resist!

California Trip - Daytime Shots - Dana Point and Coronado

California weather is definitely interesting. One minute, you have clouds and fog. The next minute, you have sun. I opted to shoot in both sets of conditions. Today, I'll cover my adventures with the sun and with harsh shadows.

Let's face it, I've never been great at handling the light. However, I think I'm improving. Here are what I consider my top shots during this trip:







The first two have several common elements: I set the ISO as low as I could, I used my wide angle lens, I used my polarizing filter, and I strived to make the water shots more interesting by including other elements of interest - in this case, the plants and colors. To shoot these, I "squatted" and stayed low.

The third picture's settings were the same, but I used the angles and curves as my areas of interest. I stayed on a gorgeous property and wanted to highlight the building in some manner.

For all of these three, I debated making them lighter (because I know they don't show too well on PCs), but I really liked the richness of the colors, so I left the pictures as is. The full-sized versions are the best way to view these, as a result.

The second three were situations where the sun was at its harshest. My polarizing lens really didn't save me for the first and third pictures, but it did for the second. My approach was to make the most of it, and to highlight the contrast as best as possible, without creating too many distractions. Hopefully, I achieved that goal.

Settings: White Balance - Sunny, Aperture Priority (f-stop of 6.3), wide angle lens.

Tweaks: Minor ones, mainly involving brightening some of the shadows, or increasing the exposure overall.

Next time - cloudy day shots (which pose a different set of challenges).

Dana Point, Day 1 - Day and Night

I couldn't wait to get off the plane and to the resort and the beach yesterday. I had packed every last piece of equipment I owned in my carry-on luggage, and was hoping it would be worth the effort. I knew that getting back into taking pictures after a fairly long hiatus would be an adventure.

It started out bumpy, admittedly. While I picked a great property with terrific views and nature, my pictures fell a bit flat. They felt cliche. I pushed through, though, because I wanted to see if anything would inspire me. Here's my best shot of the day:



I went back and forth on the treetops here - they're a bit cut off. I like them as is (it's a little off kilter and quirky), but I may want to reshoot and see if I change my mind. I love the simple lines, the dark sky, and the fact that I broke about 10 different photography rules.

It took a long time to get here! Here's where I started:





I'm drawn to the second one - it's simple, and it has some color. It makes a nice background somewhere. :)

The two darker ones were taken much later in the day than the two lighter ones. I like the shapes and curves of the first two. The third one was taken with a longer exposure, and that's what got me inspired to take my favorite one. My poor sister watched me as I took one 30 second shot after another.

I then went to the property, excited to take more long exposures. The results? Iffy. Take a look:





I loved the idea of taking long exposures of the pool, but yikes, was it tough in practice. There's an awful lot of noise in the last two - but I'll buy a noise correcting package and see if that will do the trick (look for that in a future post). These 30 second exposures were done without a tripod - I set down the camera in different areas of the pool and went for it. I'm sure everyone was wondering what I was doing. What was cool was that there was someone swimming while I was taking the third shot, but because of the long exposure, you don't see it.

I've packed my tripod, so I'm going to try different shots with it. My lesson is, though, that crisp and clean seem to do the trick for me. Either that, or quirky and crazy. Middle ground is not very "me".

Anyway, equipment used:

My standard DSLR, kit lens, and wide angle lens

ISO - 200 to 800 (if you click on the shots, Flickr will tell you)

White balance - mainly Tungsten for the night ones

Shutter speed - 25 to 30 second for the night ones, Aperture priority (so much faster speeds) for the daytime ones

Today, I'll attempt some tripod shots in the evening (I should have plenty of time), as opposed to just setting down the camera. I'm sure I'll see different results. If I can get one "shot of the day" every day, that will be fine with me. I'll also have my camera with me during the day, and will see if anything else inspires me. :)

Part 2 - My Stock Photography Options

I kicked off this series earlier in the week to help me understand the potential market for my work. Today, I'll focus on Dreamstime and my stock photography options there.

I found the look and feel of the website to be a little strange (to me), honestly. It's not as user-friendly as the others. This is important because if it's difficult to navigate your way around, then it's probably not easy to buy the images you like, either.

However, my work might be a better fit here. While I would need to go out and shoot more content for submission to Bigstock, some of my existing work has a place here.

Examples:

Keyword "orchids" - while there were quite a few examples with pure black or pure white backgrounds (something I have explored in the past), there were some that did not. Some of my pictures are not crisp enough here, but overall, these pictures are more in line with what I do today.

Keyword "butterfly" - my best butterfly pictures are a good fit here, as well as some of my tier 2 - I think. The common element here is that the pictures are nice and crisp. There's a lot of leeway regarding the backgrounds.

The "abstract" category - there's potential in the "textures" category - I could submit my minerals and NYC building shots, as well as "colors" (since all of my work is quite colorful). Blur is an interesting one, but not a fit for me.

The "nature" category - also lots of options. Oceans, sunrises, sunsets, all a fit.

Finally, the "travel" category - my Syria pictures would look good here.

Naturally, seeing so much of my work as a fit here made me very suspicious. Did they pay any less than the other sites? There seems to be a wider range of earning options with Dreamstime. There's definitely more upside. Bigstock seems to have a model that is less complicated.

Anyway, some examples of pictures I would send here, in addition to yesterday's ideas:

... and others.

Tomorrow - iStockphoto.com and my thoughts.

Ugly/Pretty

Okay, I admit - I'm a huge fan of America's Next Top Model. Without going into too much detail about my obsession, I'll say that there is one theme that resonates really well with me. It's about “ugly/pretty”. What does that mean? Well, essentially, it means that even things with a less than a sunny/shiny/pretty context can still be pretty.

Confusing, huh? Well, I'll illustrate. Here is “pretty/pretty”:



Or this:



In both pictures the weather is great, the sun is shining, and life is good. The colors are nice, and they're just happy pictures.

Now, here is a classic example of “ugly/pretty”:



This was the night before one of DC's infamous snowstorms last year. I was in a terrible mood. I stood on my balcony and took dozens of pictures. I was surprised to see how well received this picture was, though. And, now that I think about it, I still focused on composition and telling a story - but it isn't the same happy story I like to tell. And that's a REALLY important message.

Compare it with this picture, which was also of the snow:



I think it's obvious (to me, anyway) from this picture that I don't like the snow. If I did, I think it would have come through, so to speak. Instead, this is just a generic picture of the snow with two people and a dog. Not bad, but others (as in people) have done much better.

I have to keep all of this in mind, as we head towards winter. I hate this weather. So, I normally don't take many pictures. However, I can't go six months (or however long it will be before the weather is actually civilized again) without taking pictures, so I have to balance between my emotions and reality.

In other words, if you don't think you like a subject, take a picture anyway. You may surprise yourself! Just stay true to your emotions, be realistic, don't forget your composition, and tell a good story.

Till tomorrow!

Macro Lite

Most of you know that I love macro photography. Here are some of my classic shots that I've always loved:



And my favorite of all time (at least for this week):



But what if you don't have a macro lens, or even an SLR? After all, this equipment is really expensive. Can you take nice pictures with just a point-and-shoot?

The answer is yes. I started taking pictures of flowers and plants back in 2004. All I had was a 3 MP Canon camera. Here are some examples:





These aren't as nice as my more recent examples, but that's not because of the camera - it's because of the relative lack of experience. What do I mean? Well ...

Picture 1 has too many reflections. I could have taken this picture from a different angle.

Picture 2 is cute, but the subject of the picture isn't clear. Is it the leaves or the buds? Had I zeroed in on one or the other, this picture would have had more meaning.

Picture 3 has WAY too much going on. It's interesting and pretty, but not much more than that.

All three of these could have improved upon with the same simple camera, had I thought about it at the time. Also, there is one clear benefit of using a camera like this - the chance of blurry pictures is almost zero. When you focus (tightly) on a subject, the camera becomes very sensitive to camera movements, which produces fuzzy/blurry pictures. Here, it's not as common.

Some other tips for you:

1) As always, take multiple pictures from different angles

2) Make sure to know what you are shooting before you shoot it. Do you want to focus on colors? Texture? Patterns? Angles? Curves? Knowing this in advance helps you set up a good shot.

3) You won't be able to post-process much since you aren't shooting in RAW, so avoid harsh sunlight and other environmental factors that you won't be able to fix.

4) Most newer point-and-shoots are 7 MP and higher. You'll be able to crop liberally, if needed. Cropping can help you change the focus of your picture.

Till tomorrow!