Getting to the fundamentals of digital photography

The clouds, the clouds!!!! or how we can assume too much in our photography

2011-08-06T20:55:00.001+01:00

It's amazing how you take things for granted. I live on a little island surrounded by the sea. This means we suffer from "inclement" weather on a regular basis. For "inclement" read "cloudy"! This, of course, makes it hard for outdoor photography that relies on the perfect light for any scene. You either have to be very lucky or very persistent. When you have a life i.e. kids, career, perhaps a significant other that doesn't really care about photography then persistent usually isn't an option.

I began to come to terms with "the clouds" a couple of years ago but I really started to build a relationship with them when I started delving deep into HDR. As my journey in this new way of working with photographs progressed I noticed cloudy overcast days produced great results, the cloudier the better!

So my photographs of abandoned Irish buildings are coming along nicely. I can usually expect interesting clouds here in Ireland and I'm rarely disappointed. This makes for very efficient use of limited time. It means I shoot more, process more, learn more, all in a shorter space of time.

So what's the problem I hear you say? The problem is that when you go to a country that doesn't suffer from the same weather, or maybe even a US State that's not surrounded by water you have to change your perceptions of the weather! On a trip to Kansas last April to continue with my "Ghost Houses of the Prairies" project I suffered from great weather for 6 of the 7 days I was there. I had been shooting under the clear blue skies and bright yellow sun but wasn't getting good results. The shot at the top above shows an abandoned farmhouse under these bright conditions. Luckily the weather turned for a day and I got to re-shoot the house under cloudy skies, as the shot at the bottom shows.

This last trip to Kansas at the start of October was 11 days long of which 9.5 were clear blues skies and bright yellow sun (of which, more next newsletter). Next time I'll be checking the long range weather forecast before I make any more assumptions about the weather!

Open your Reticular Activating System!

2011-05-20T15:53:00.014+01:00

What has the Reticular Activating System got to do with photography? What in god's name is it? Why should I care?

The Reticular Activating System is actually a filter at the base of our brain that prevents information, deemed irrelevant to us, from sending us into sensory overload. It essentially checks all our senses all the time and makes us aware of what it thinks we should know about and hides from us information it thinks we don't need to know about.

It was explained to me in a way which I think is very interesting. Think of a young mother who lives in a house under the flight path of an airport. At night there are planes regularly flying overhead making a level of noise that, in theory, should wake her up. But they don't. The Reticular Activating System says to her unconscious mind "you don't need to worry about this, stay asleep". But if her newborn baby makes a sound much lower than that of the planes the Reticular Activating Section says "you need to be aware of this, wake up".

This is one of the reasons why, when we're looking to buy a new car, we suddenly see that make of car all over the place. It's also why we see lots of pregnant women immediately after someone we know gets pregnant. In both cases it's like they've suddenly appeared out of nowhere. They haven't. The filter stopped us from seeing them in the first place and has been forced open in the second.

So what does this have to do with photography? For me it has more to do with photography projects. Let me explain.

One of my long-term projects is called "Ghost Houses of the Prairies". This is a collection of abandoned farmhouses from Kansas in the USA. Many of the houses I come up against are 'nearly' abandoned, they still have people living in them. I'm not interested in these kinds of houses. So how do I know? Well there are clues such as broken windows, screens hanging at an angle, doors half open, a tile or 2 missing from the roof, a hole in one of the walls. Any one of these is not a guarantee of an abandoned house, but a combination of them usually is. You'd expect, though, that I could only spot these up close and not from a distance. But I can spot these houses now from a mile or more away. My Reticular Activating System is open to all of these clues and tells me when I "need to be aware of this".

One amazing way it came together for me lately was on a fruitless trip 360 miles out (1 way!!) from base along Interstate 70 in northern Kansas. I was on my way back from a disappointing find in Hays (that's another story altogether!) and was heading on the long journey back. About 60 miles in I spotted a collapsed barn to the right of the highway. Now I'm not interested in barns and would normally ignore them, but my Reticular Activating System said ""be aware of this, abandoned barns may have abandoned houses near them". Almost without realising it I went into auto-mode. The next off-ramp was fast approaching (probably the last one for 10 miles or more) but I was ready to come off immediately and by the time I hit it I was already thinking of how to get there "go right, go right, go right" was on my mind. Kansas is pretty much laid out on a grid system so this would probably work. Well it did! I found a fantastic specimen... and then another and then another and then another! 4 in total less that a mile from each other.

But my Reticular Activating System wasn't prepared to let go. It said later, after I came back to Ireland "4 so close together is unusual". So I went back the next month and found 3 more, and a couple of months later 5 more!

I now call this my "Elephants Graveyard". All because I forced my Reticular Activating System to open up.

OH YE OF LITTLE FAITH!

2010-06-14T00:16:00.002+01:00

On a trip to Berlin recently I had great plans to shoot the Brandenburg Gate at dusk. As luck would have it the weather was miserable all day, with a thunderstorm around teatime promising to bring a halt to all outdoor activity. And I was only there for one night!

The clouds were still thick and miserable as I set out on foot from the restaurant were we had dinner and the weather stayed like that all the way there. As I set up the tripod in front of the gate about 10 minutes before sunset a German photographer came up to me and told me I was wasting my time as there would be no 'blue moment' that night due to the heavy clouds. I told him to have faith, I only needed a little break in the clouds. He said it was hopeless because he knew what clouds were coming our way. Well it stayed that way until 40 minutes after sunset when the clouds started clearing! (It got much clearer about 20 minutes after this shot was taken but by that time the light from the sky was too low and the light inside the gate was blowing out).

Even though the sky was clearing I was very worried about the dark foreground. The street lights simply weren't coming up to strength the way that I had hoped. But as luck would have it a police car drove by in a slow arc in front of me just after I fired the shutter leaving it's headlights trails behind, pure chance! This simple accident added significant foreground interest and really helped show up the detail of the cobbled street.

Oh ye of little faith!

10,000 HOURS

2009-11-19T15:41:00.002Z

One of my students recently brought my attention to some interesting research lately into the area of achieving exellence has come up with some interesting findings (thanks Tanyia!). We all know about the child prodigy's, the ones who can play the violin or piano from a very early age. We assume that they're born with this talent. The fact is that without regular practice a prodigy will never achieve excellence, day in, day out practice. So if you're born to greatness then a lack of investment in time and effort means you're unlikely to achieve the greatness you were born to.

But what about the rest of us? Those who weren't born to greatness? The same research is actually saying that it's the practice that counts. In fact it's 10,000 hours, or 10 years, of practice that's needed to achieve mastery in any field.

I've been shooting creative photography since 1984 and it wasn't until I was in Asissi in the summer of 2007 that I got what I considered a shot I was really happy with (see right). Is this my 10,000 hours? Maybe, but I had been tricking around my new Nikon D200 at the time and I thought it was the camera that made the difference, who knows!

Unfortunately mastery does not come about by staring at your camera while it sits on a shelf. You have to go out and take mundane shots, screw up the camera's settings and generally mess up before you start achieving a higher skill level. So get out and shoot.. now!

Digital Photography has the power to bring out the creative streak in us all

2009-04-04T12:35:00.003+01:00

In psychological circles it’s long been recognised that there is a strong creative streak in us all. Society, and the often limiting demands on those around us, quite regularly quash these urges by failing to understand this simple truth. But the expression of this inherent creativity can create an outlet which has the power to make people feel more positive about their lives and can help us all relight an indvidualism that the western world quite often tries to extinguish.

Unfortunately many people grow into adulthood thinking that “creative” is something that only those with education, money or an “arty” background can afford to get into. Even worse, they often think that all creative expression require a natural talent along with great skills learned over many years.

Certainly, a sculptor needs to be taught about all types of stone and other hard materials and the effect that different tools have; a painter needs to know the qualities of various painting methods and how they apply to various surfaces; even a seamstress needs to have an intimate knowledge of threads, needles and materials before a quality piece of clothing can be produced.

There is one area of creative expresession where a wide skill base is not required however and that area is Digital Photography. Anyone can be creative with a digital camera and get good results, immediately. To get great results may take a little more time and training.

Whatever way you take your shots, using the automatic settings, or through the more complicated manual ones, the power of digital means that you have to spend less time worrying about how the shot is going to turn out and more time concentrating on the composition of the final shot.

I truly believe that Digital Photography has democratised creativity. The fact that the sales of digital cameras has exceeded the sales of film cameras for many years simply underlines this view.

You don't have to be a great photographer to get great shots!

2009-02-27T12:28:00.012Z

I've been casting my mind around the topic of getting great shots lately. What makes a great shot? How do you know you're going to get one?

Great shots are obviously hard to get. I'm sure your back catalogue is very much like mine, thousands of average and below average shots. Of course the law of luck will eventually apply and once in a blue moon a gem will come along. But this is hit and miss and there can be an awful long time between shots that have any artistic or creative merit at all.

I've been mixing with some of the greats in landscape photography lately, both in person and through their published work (mostly the latter!!) and I think I've discovered a couple of the basic ingredients in many great landscape shots. These are:

Shooting in a great place nearly always gets great shots
Shooting in a great place when the conditions are exceptional is almost a guarantee of a great shot
Shooting in an ordinary place when the conditions are exceptional has a high possibility of success

I know all this sounds simplistic and doesn't take account of the variables of composition and camera technique, but these can be learned. It also doesn't take account of situations that are ordinary but are made extraordinary by the skill and insight of the photographer, again this skill can be built over time.

But if you're new to photography, or your photography skills are a little rusty, then simply get up earlier, stay up later, hike or drive further. Get to great locations and you'll massively increase your chances of getting great shots.

2008-10-22T13:26:00.000+01:00

To shoot RAW or not to shoot RAW

2007-07-24T11:58:00.001+01:00

One of the aspects of Digital Photography that seems to frighten people most is the whole area of shooting RAW files instead of the normal Jpegs that all digital cameras can take. In fact it can be another one of those "one upmanship" areas that humans seem to get caught up in on a regular basis [you know the type of people I'm talking about :-) ]

RAW files are simply a way of capturing more detail in a picture while leaving all the processing that a camera normally does (such as sharpening, making the colour more vivid, compressing the final result into a jpeg file etc). As the end user you are left to make these choices. And there lies the problem. If the camera seems to be doing such a good job, why should you intervene? In fact how do you know that your interventions (or lack of them) would not end up in a worse photograph?

These are valid fears. But you learn, you eventually figure out, through a combination of trial and error and lots of reading, how to get a better result.

But what happens until that day arrives? Do you simply wait until your skills catch up with your desire to get a better picture? No, not necessarily. A neat little feature of many cameras is the ability to shoot RAW and Jpeg files at the same time! Problem sorted. The Jpegs can continue to be used as you normally do and the RAW files can be kept for some future date when your knowledge reaches the necessary level.

I wish I had done this in the past. There are so many of my shots, particularly night shots from abroad, that I could work so much better if I had shot RAW. But such is life. Now I've learned my lesson. RAW and Jpeg is the most used setting on my camera now.

THE ISSUES WITH RAW
Nothing good is ever easy, of course, and there is a price to pay in number of areas, particularly in the size of the files produced. These are some of the issues as I see them:

- Your camera may not shoot RAW and Jpeg at the same time: Most Digital SLR's do and most Digital Compact Cameras don't. The search results for over 250 cameras that shoot RAW (including discontinued Cameras) is available on DCResource.com at this link.

- You will need LARGER MEMORY CARDS: On a 10 Megapixel camera the Jpeg files will come out at around 4 megabytes and the RAW files are about 15 megabytes. You will need a memory card of at least 4 Gigabytes, though 8 is preferable.

- You will need a LARGER HARD DISK: In fact, as you should be backing up on a regular basis, you will need 2. A minimum of 500 Gigabytes should be considered standard.

- You don't have to shoot RAW and Jpeg all the time. Obviously the choice is down to you, but generally you wouldn't shoot RAW and Jpeg for most of your snapshots and you would when you're shooting creatively.

- You might not have the latest version of Photoshop to convert your RAW files: Photoshop is not an absolute requirement to work with RAW files. If your camera can shoot RAW then it should have come with its own RAW Converter Software. Practical Photography have an excellent downloadable PDF on RAW converters here. It's free, but you will have to register with them first.

A FINAL 'RAW NOTE' FOR ALL YOU BLACK AND WHITE DEVOTEES
I love black and white, I always have. One of the joys of Digital for me is the ability to see the black and white shot as I take it. Wonderful! The problem is that this is not the best way to get high quality black and white shots. So what to do? Well, if your camera allows you to shoot in black and white mode as well as RAW and Jpeg then you're on the pigs back, as they say. When you shoot Black and White Jpeg and RAW, the RAW file stays in full colour. Magic! You can see the black and white as you shot it and you get a high quality colour RAW file for later processing. There is a God!

Setting yourself a Photo Project can enhance your photo skills

2007-04-17T11:06:00.000+01:00

Getting a great photograph is a very satisfying feeling. Sometimes skill is what gets the shot, sometimes luck. It usually takes a combination of the two. We all have a few shots from the past that would fit the bill. But is there a link between your photographs? Could someone connect your shots as being from the same photographer?

A more demanding way to test your skills as a photographer, and possibly the most rewarding, is to take a number of shots on a single theme. This technique is sometimes called a “Photo Essay”, where you try to tell a story through a series of images. Your story doesn't have to be very involved, it doesn't have to be earth shattering and it most certainly doesn't have to be on an obvious theme, it just needs a common link between them.

Your project could be of shop fronts or children riding bicycles, it could be sailing boats or flowers, it could even be ruined buildings or cloud formations. Whatever takes your fancy. You could easily have a number of projects on the go at the one time. Take as long as you like to complete it, days, weeks, months or years. There are no rules that say you ever have to finish!

Over on my Flickr site I've outlined some of my own projects. I have also shown my reasoning behind them so as to help whet your creative appetite and set you on the road... Flickr Photo Project Colletion

Some suggestions for photo projects:

PEOPLE
• Old • Young • Families • Teenagers • Shopping • Sunglasses

BUILDINGS
• Georgian • Modern • Doors • Roofs • Windows • Streetscapes

NATURE
• Flowers • Trees • Farms • Sunsets • Insects • Clouds

INDUSTRIAL
• Trains • Trucks • Buses • Factories • Equipment • Trams

HOLIDAY
• Beach Items • Shopping • Restaurants • Hotel Pools • Apartments • Bars

Photo projects obviously have a common theme but they can also benefit from a treatment that is consistent throughout the shots. Decide whether you would like these to be colour or black and white, landscape or portrait, close in or wide angle, shot from above or below.

Of course this list is not comprehensive, it is just meant to get you thinking. If you are finding it hard to decide what you might like to photograph simply take one of the topics above, put your own slant on it and take six shots on that theme over the next few weeks.

The decisions are yours, go enjoy your photography!

Should the photography fit the camera or the camera fit the photography?

2007-03-28T22:18:00.001+01:00

I've finally given up on trying to fit my Nikon D70s/18-200 VR combo in my shirt pocket. I like taking pictures, but because of this behemoth I don't always have a camera to hand. I've been keeping an eye out for a decent Point and Shoot Compact Camera with manual controls, RAW and a zoom with 28mm on one end, and that can slip in my shirt pocket. So far I've not found such a beast that has quality in all its areas..

So I recently went shopping to pick up a Fuji F30 (no RAW, no 28mm), which was highly rated, but ended up getting a Samsung NV10 (10mp) instead. It doesn't have RAW or 28mm either but it does have manual controls and a truly amazing interface that allows you to get to everything in the menu within a second! Apart from the main difficulty all Point & Shoot's have with ISO (ie anything much over 100 is dreadful) it has already let me get shots that would have passed my cameraless pocket by previously. It obviously doesn't compare to the better lenses/bigger sensors on dSLR's but a shot from this type of camera is better than none.

I suppose I should go a little under the 'hood' and give a bit of background as to where I'm coming from. After college in the mid 80's, and a not insignificant investment in SLR gear, I was convinced that the only good picture could be taken with a camera that had the glass, the controls and the quality necessary to take a great shot. In the late 80's I read a article about Irish Times Photographer, Peter Thursfield. He admitted to the heinous crime of always carrying a Nikon 35mm Compact in his pocket for 'grab' shots, he even admitted that some of these shots were published in the Irish Times!

This attitude blew me away and forced me to re-assess what photography was about. Up to that I had thought it was about the equipment but here was this esteemed, and successful, photographer saying it was about the picture, the moment! Miss the moment and you miss the picture.

So now, at the end of over 2 years research into the perfect P&S, I finally said "f**t it" it's time to get off the fence. I now have a tiny camera, made by a fridge manufacturer, whose menu system is the most amazing I have ever seen but which already has let me take shots I would have missed and my creative street photography is the better for it.

You can read a review of the Samsung NV10 on DP Review here: Samsung NV10 Review" and I've put some shots from the Samsung up on my Flickr site". These are ones that I could not have taken with the D70s, simply because I wouldn't have had it with me. And I have to say I'm enjoying it

My inspiration for a small, unobtrusive cameras came from the work of Henri Cartier Bresson.

FROM WIKIPEDIA - Cartier-Bresson exclusively used Leica 35 mm rangefinder cameras equipped with normal 50mm lenses or occasionally a wide-angle for landscapes.He often wrapped black tape around the camera's chrome body to make it less conspicuous. With fast black and white films and sharp lenses, he was able to photograph almost by stealth to capture the events. No longer bound by a huge 4×5 press camera or an awkward two and a quarter inch twin-lens reflex camera, miniature-format cameras gave Cartier-Bresson what he called "the velvet hand [and] the hawk's eye." He never photographed with flash, a practice he saw as "[i]mpolite...like coming to a concert with a pistol in your hand." He believed in composing his photographs in his camera and not in the darkroom, showcasing this belief by having nearly all his photographs printed only at full-frame and completely free of any cropping or other darkroom manipulation -- indeed, he emphasized that the entire negative had been used by extending the area reproduced on the print to include a thick black border around the frame.

Cartier-Bresson worked exclusively in black and white, other than a few unsuccessful attempts in color. He never developed or made his own prints. He said: "I've never been interested in the process of photography, never, never. Right from the beginning. For me, photography with a small camera like the Leica is an instant drawing."

"In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little human detail can become a leitmotif." — Henri Cartier-Bresson

I once read that he was able to focus his Leica and choose the correct aperture/shutter while the camera was still in his pocket! I'm afraid I have to rely on auto focus/auto exposure.

You can see some of Cartier-Bressons images here. and a 1 hour programme on him can be see here. or by clicking on the play button below:

All Point and Shoot Compact Cameras are a compromise, but the Samsung gives me a level of immediate control that was I feel is more important for the type of shots I want to take with it. I'm searching for the 'Decisive Moment' ala Cartier-Bresson, so a camera that's easy to keep with me is important and one that allows me change the settings quickly is important and one that is quick is important, otherwise no shot is taken.

For me I suppose the question is 'if you can't have the quality AND the good shot, which one would you go for'; I've gone for the one that allows me to take the shot. Remember this is my second string camera, the SLR is my first so when I need quality I use it. The problem with SLR's though is that it's hard to keep them with you all the time, hence the P&S.

So far I've been using the Samsung in 'touristy' places and I find that I'm being completely ignored. This is exactly what I want, the D70s garnered too much respect. It changed peoples attitude, drawing attention to me and making them think that they were 'ruining' my shots. Clearly tourists shots aren't as important to the masses!

I suppose the thing on my mind is, do you make your photography fit the camera you have, or do you make the camera fit the photography you want to take. There's no good answer to this because, as I said, all P&S's are a compromise.

I'm trying to leave behind my focus on pursuing 'absolute quality' in terms of equipment and am trying to concentrate on the 'decisive moment'. The Samsung has helped bring fun (with a little touch of danger) back into my photography. Will I capture it? Once in a blue moon maybe, if I'm lucky.

You don't need a degree to become a professional digital photographer

2007-03-05T17:53:00.000Z

We think that people with the right qualifications are the best for the job, always. Is this true? I have no doubt that a Brain Surgeon needs qualifications before he or she can open up my head and do what needs to be done. I have no doubt that an Airline Pilot needs qualifications before they can sit in the cockpit and lift a hundred people into the air. But digital photography?

What are qualifications anyway? The dictionary states that:
QUALIFICATION is an 'Act of qualifying; state of being qualified; suitable quality or characteristic; legal power; ability; modification; restriction.'
QUALIFIED is 'Having qualification; competent; limited; modified.' (the words in bold are my emphasis)

What underpins our belief that qualifications are essential before a good job can be done is our belief that schools and colleges are competent in 'qualifying' their students. This was true to a great degree when film was king. Knowledge about film photography had been been built up over the course of 150 years. The tutors had been taught how to teach film but they haven't been taught how to teach digital. Digital photography is less than 10 years old essentially and they haven't had the time or the inclination to build up the new knowledge required.

Most college tutors rubbished digital photography in its early days and continue to rubbish it to this day. They have ignored the elephant in the room for so long that they are not in a position to prepare students for a digital photography world. They would rather talk about film photography.

So does that mean that the only good photographer is a film photographer? Well if the colleges are turning out confused and ill-prepared digital photographers it would seem so. But the truth is that digital photographers are teaching themselves. They are becoming competent through their own ability and drive, through books and discussion boards (such as www.photographyireland.net), through magazines and specialised courses (such as Digital Beginners Digital Photo and Photoshop Courses) but they need to leave the guilt behind, the guilt that tells them they are not properly 'qualified'.

The plain fact is that they are much more qualified than the 'Qualifers', the college tutors. The digital photographer of today knows and understands much, much more about digital photography. They have ability and are competent in their chosen discipline.

Maybe they should ask the colleges for a job?

You don't need to know about film to be a good digital photographer!

2007-03-02T11:06:00.000Z

There is an opinion out there, usually very strongly expressed!!, that you have to know all about shooting and developing film before you can become a good digital photographer.

This is nonsense! Understanding film will teach you nothing about digital photography, other than understanding exposure (which is no bad thing).

Let's face it, many people are snobs and the more scared people are the more snobbish they become. Those who would have you believe that "Film is King" are those who usually know very little about digital and are afraid that all their knowledge will come to nothing, that category is usually occupied by older people. The other category who believe "Film is King" are young people who have been taught by older people who believe "Film is King". This second category come under the influence of teachers and tutors born in a different age. The problem is that schools and colleges can only put on courses that their teachers can teach, and teachers can only teach what they know. So if you only know film and are afraid of losing your job/status to a younger, more 'digital friendly' teacher then you will use all your powers of persuasion to do down digital photography at every opportunity.

Collectively I call these people "The Photography Taleban", in other words any belief outside the strict interpretation of "Film is King" is heresy. Of course the only way to deal with heretics is not to understand them or to change your point of view, just kill them. Problem sorted.

Well the problem is not really sorted, because film is not king anymore. Film is dying on its feet and will not be available for much longer. It is already very hard to get certain types of film and developing chemicals that were widespread a few short years ago. Film will be long gone before this current crop retire and they will have to learn the new way because they will have to. What will happen then? Simple, the new mantra then will be "Digital is King", even when the rest of us have moved on to the replacement for digital a few years down the line.