I finally had a chance this weekend to play with the Lensbaby that I received for my birthday this summer. As well as making interesting photographs of flowers etc, I find that it is quite good at making abstract, things that are mundane.

Here’s my first attempt at what I hope will develop into a series. Can you guess what it is?

I enjoyed a sunny weekend in Puna and Hilo this weekend with my daughter. Mum was away having fun with her girlfriends so it was just me and Mira. We went down to Puna on a beautiful Saturday to collect some water samples, for Mira’s science project, from the hot ponds at Ahalanui Park and from the tide pools at Pohoiki. These are great places and we always enjoy them when we go, but for me the highlight is always driving through the countryside and especially the tree tunneled road.

The images here have been hdr processed (4 images, each 1-stop apart). I used LR/Enfuse for the top one and Photomatix for the one below. But the soft and glowing look I gave to the images comes from filters within the Nik Software Suite (Color Efex Pro). That’s some cool software!

No, I’m not going to do all photography from around the interweb – ya think I got time for that?! Here I have just two links (both of which I stumbled upon on Rob Galbraith’s blog) which I found interesting for different reasons.

The first is from Time magazine: The top 10 doctored photos. They show the before and after. Normally this wouldn’t attract me – people do this sort of manipulation in Photoshop countless times every single day. But each of the photos shown have a historical importance which makes them worth looking at. Two things which I found fascinating. First, is how good the “art” of photo-manipulation was more than 100 years before Photoshop. The older photographs are the ones which interested me most. Secondly, I can’t believe that we have modern-day governments still doing this sort of thing (see the last image)!

The second is from the Smithsonian: The 6th Annual photo contest. There are 5 categories and you can see the finalists and category winners from each. The overall winner is from the travel section, and although I think it is a great image, I do not think that it is the best one. And therein lies something else to learn about photography, it is very subjective.

Anybody well versed in the art of photography will tell you that key to a well composed image is the presence of ‘leading lines’. These lines can take any form but their purpose is to take the viewer on a journey through the frame of the image. These lines can take you into the image, they can lead you back out again. They may be formed from straight lines or they may show subtle and gentle curvature. They may be naturally formed (rivers, shorelines, horizons) or man-made (stair wells, buildings, roads). They may even be implied lines, connecting strategically placed points of interest within the image. Their shape and nature is mostly irrelevant and will depend on the subject of your image, but if you include them in photograph then you should think about how to best utilise them as you are composing your image. That is, before you press the shutter.

I knew that, but I didn’t realise the influence of compositional lines on what ever it is in your brain that helps you decide between “like” and “dislike”. That is, not until recently when I showed the image above and the one below to a group of photographers (all more experienced and more talented than me).

The images are of a banyan tree here in Hilo and I like both images. I composed the first with the surface roots in the foreground, using them as guides to lead you into the frame of the image. But because the lines are not dead straight and possess curvature, the eye gently sweeps side-to-side as it enters the image, not going too fast. Interestingly, you can run this backward to good effect also. That is, start from the top of the image and the roots now gently lead you out of the image. I know people will argue whether leading lines should lead the viewer out of an image, but for me at least, it works here.

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For the second image I cropped in a lot tighter as I wanted a study of the interesting details of the hanging root structure of the banyan tree. When I saw this image on my computer screen back home I was actually quite excited by it, at the time probably more so that the first. I just loved the range of tones, the fact that I managed to get the exposure right and capture detail in both the highlights and the shadows, with interest in all the tones in between. I will admit that the lines are quite linear and follow the shape of the frame (up-down) and so you have to work your eye across to the different parts image.

But as I reflected on the two photographs, I wasn’t sure which one I liked more (and why should I like one more than the other? they’re different, right?). So I asked my photographer friends for their critique, and each and every one of them (I seem to recall) preferred the first. And the reason? Because of the strong leading lines. Not that the other image was poor, but the first had good leading lines.

And as I reflected on that a few days later, I think I learned more about the human brain than my photography. If your brain has to push your eyes across an image then its doing more work than it would prefer to (push “dislike”). If the composition of the image helps your eyes naturally flow across the image, then the brain does less work (cue chemical triggers for “like”). I wondered what kind of response I would have had if I had not presented them side-by-side (or one after the other) and asked for a preference.

Photographically speaking, my trip to Rio in August wasn’t much to write home about. I did have one day up at the iconic Cristo Redentor on Corcovado. But while all the other tourists were clamoring to get a view of the Christ with his outstretched embrace to the people of Rio, I preferred the view over the city and towards the distant hills. I found the blanket of fog/mist/smog which was trying to envelop the city visually appealing. The distant hills, floating above the haze gives a nice frame to the image.

Note the structure towards the bottom right of the image. The Maracana. The world famous home of Brazilian football (i.e. soccer) where the faithful go to worship and absolve themselves of their weekly sins. On a Sunday afternoon, I joined the congregation to watch the Flamengo v Corinthians game, one of the biggest games on the calendar. A fantastic experience.

I posted yesterday about how inspiring I found the landscape photos of Scottish photographer, Bruce Percy. This time, I want to sing the praises of black & white photographer Brooks Jensen (the editor of Lenswork magazine). Just over a year ago he started a project called The New 100 Prints Project, whereby he would create a new print every three days for a year. Brooks explains his motivation for this project.

It seems remarkable to me that anybody can have this level of dedication and focus to stick to a goal such as this, especially with all the other distractions that are part of the modern world we live in. It demonstrates a unique sense of commitment – a common trait that I am noticing in the work of a lot of professional photographers, both from the past and contemporary (go look at Bruce Percy again and see what he dedicates and commits himself to, just to get the perfect image that he envisions in his mind).

A good friend of mine and accomplished professional photographer recently lectured me on what it takes to succeed as a photographer. This was in the context of the difference between Fine Art Photography and photography (the capitalisation is intentional). To be a Fine Art Photographer you need to understand and demonstrate four things in your photography: Interest, Theme, Intent and Commitment.

A good Fine Art Photographer should be able to show the first two or three of these in their photography. A great one, can show you all four.

I took this picture this past weekend. It’s a close up of a leaf from a tree, and this tree had some monster leaves – huge. But I don’t know the name of the tree. I have to brush up on my botany as it’s a bit embarrassing that I should be posting a picture of something that I do not know the name of. It was close to midday and the light was quite harsh, and so I cropped in really close. I was attracted by the naturally regular patterns of the veins in the leaf, the contrast between the highlights and the shadows, and by the texture of the leaf itself. The leaf did not possess a shiny and taut surface but reminded me of old and wrinkly skin.

The post-processing was done with the black & white conversion in Nik Silver Efex Pro, followed by a bit of dodging and burning in lightroom.

I’ve been watching some of Bruce Percy podcasts recently as I find them quite inspiring and beautiful. These are video podcasts which show some of Bruce’s own images. But, he also narrates over them and provides the gentle accompanying music. The whole package goes really well together as his soft, Scottish tones meld unobtrusively with the music and, most importantly, the images. And these are truly spectacular images.

Go and have a look. You can find his podcast from his web site or from iTunes. Also. inspired by Ansel Adams’ The Making of 40 Images (a book that has been sitting on my Amazon wish list for the past 7 months now – ‘cmon people!!), Bruce is starting his own series of his own photography. At the time of writing, he is currently up to image #10.

I’m falling in love with black & white photography again… thank goodness! Not that I ever fell out of love. You see, I’ve been trying to work with different ideas and approaches or techniques with colour images and in particular with the use of HDR. And recently, I have been spending a bit of time working on an hdr image I took in Maui of a sun setting behind the island of Molokai. I tried different processing and interpretations, but I could never find a “look” for the image that I was pleased with. I knew that I had a well composed image and from a technical point of view, the hdr was ok. I was having trouble with the colours. That’s the problem with hdr, oversaturated colours are an easy trap to fall into if you’re not careful.Throw in a bit of colour blindness and that trap becomes an ever deepening well. I was becoming frustrated.

As I said above, I never really fell out of love with black and white and hopefully you will have noticed the odd smattering of b&w photographs scattered around this blog. However, I am getting a bit frustrated with my attempts at colour photography so I am going back to the medium to which I can trust my eyes (and hence instinct). As I process a colour image I’ve always got this nagging devil on my shoulder screaming in my ear “That’s too much green! Look how deep your reds are! You don’t know the difference between them do you? Ha, ha!!”  With B&W it’s (mostly) all about tonality, composition, tonality and composition. Also, and this is on a personal level, I find it much easier to have an emotional reaction with a b&w image than a colour one. Maybe ‘easy’ isn’t the right word. I’m just more predisposed to be drawn into a black and white image than a colour one.

Well, for a while at least, that little guy on my shoulder is going to have to p!$$ off while I go and get my mojo back.

I have just read an excellent article on the PixelatedImage Blog about metering with digital cameras. In the ‘good ole days’ (i.e. with film) we used to meter the scene, adjust the camera and expose the film. What this article advocates (and I agree) is that with digital we should be exposing and then metering. As the last line of the blog states from an Asian saying, “Same, same, but different!”

The point being made (very well in my opinion) is that the digital sensor in your camera can hold more information in the higher (i.e. brighter) values than it can in the lower (i.e. darker). This leads to the expression amongst digital photographers than when you take a picture you should “expose to the right”, referring to the look of the histogram you get on the back of your camera. But the advice comes with a health warning. You must shoot in RAW and not JPEG otherwise you lose all the flexibility you thought you had.

Read the article, it does a great job in explaining this.