October's Here

I have to apologize for being slow to blog.  Since I last wrote, we’ve had lots of students join us, and I’d like to welcome Ruby, Tanya, Autumn, Mildred, Marilyn, Margaret, Dominique and Keisha all to our group.

With autumn here we are enjoying some spectacular colours, and I hope you are getting opportunities to get out with your camera and capture them.

Composition and Minimalism

Les Flynn's photo of a wall

Any really good photograph makes the viewer pause.  Very often your eye will linger on an image because it tells a story.  And most often the story is told by the composition: what elements have been included in the image, and how they are arranged.

And just as sometimes the simplest stories are the most fascinating, so sometimes the simplest images are the most compelling.

Minimalism is the approach that capitalizes on the notion that “less is more.” It takes the approach of “simplification” to the limit, eliminating almost all detail, stripping the composition down to its most fundamental features.

Image by Heather Blish

These kind of images exert powerful visual appeal; they have very strong commercial value (lots of room for the publishers message), and yet despite of their apparent simplicity, they are not simple to create.

Go ahead – try to make a minimalist image.  As always, you can submit one of these in place of another assignment.  If you want a brief outline of exactly how to create a minimalist image, there is a fine tutorial here.

Heather Blish (AKA “drawerist”) is a successful graphic artist who works from her home designing websites, logos and print graphics.  Her minimalist photography is a tribute to her fine eye for design, and underlies some of her other graphic designs.

You can see her work in flickr here.

 

Welcome Back

Well, welcome back to a new school year.  And, in particular, let’s welcome some of our new students.   In the last week we’ve had Candice, Rebecca, Brenda, Cassy, Kathryn, Megan, April, and  Emily all join our community. 

I’m sure everyone looks forward to greeting them in flickr!

Matt Laur's Evening Stroll on Piazza Bra (photo.net)

 Speaking of communities, if you are interested in a fine photographic community, you will not go far wrong with photo.net.  They have a quality photo gallery, highly-informative forums, and a wealth of easy-to-read articles on various techniques.

Featured Photographer: Jerry Uelsmann  Old School Manipulation

How often have you heard the comment, “Yeah.  But it’s been photoshopped.”

As if using the digital darkroom suddenly made photographic images less valuable. 

Of course, since you did the lesson on The Digital Sensor, you can tell your friends that digital sensors respond to about 70% of incident light while film only captures about 2%, making digital photography awesomely more powerful than chemical-based film. 

Photoshopped?  Not at all.

But Jerry Uelsmann makes an even more interesting argument on that front -- that the simple combination of representational images can create haunting new images with emotional and allegorical power.

So let me introduce you to a man who made compound images long before anyone even dreamed of Photoshop.

Like you, Jerry Uelsmann became interested in photography in high school.  And over time his wonderful graphic imagination and his passion for sharing his images led him to achieve advanced university degrees and a teaching job at the University of Florida!

These images (and you can look at his other work here) were all composed of multiple negatives, stacked then manipulated in the “wet” darkroom with as many as ten enlargers at once.  There is nothing faintly digital about these images – except that they’ve been scanned to get them here.

Uelsmann’s art has been called allegorical and it has been said he turns his subjects into symbols of something else entirely.

Uelsmann made composite images before Photoshop.

The woman looking from the reflection of the mountain scene almost forces us to re-think the image and ponder it.  Such intriguing power!

Next time someone says, “Yeah, but it’s Photoshopped,” you might be able to help them look to the full meaning of the image.

Images & Art

As the school year draws to a close, you might very well be finding more time to indulge your photographic hobby.

Erik Johansson's imagination

That will be a good thing for those of you hoping to gain school credit for completing the program. I will be marking your work over the summer and submitting results to your DE school.

But I might also be taking some time off now and then to enjoy the outdoors (and my own photographic pursuits!) So please do not be dismayed if I am a little slower with feedback.

To lighten your day and give you some fascinating images to contemplate, here are a few compositions by the bright young (25-year-old) Swedish photographer (and computer engineering graduate student), Erik Johansson.

Here is a very brief interview with Erik. Though it is a small interview, it has several of his images.

Re-defining "pre-visualization"

And here is a much better interview, with fewer images.

This, of course, brings up the old grumble about post-production. At the dawn of photography, George Bernard Shaw insisted that photographs should ONLY portray “reality” in the same way your eyes captured it.

It was said of Shaw’s photography that “He is as able a photographer as he is motorcar driver. Though considerably less dangerous.”

Digital captures become raw material

Of course many photographers discuss and value the technique of "pre-visualization," whereby you create in your own mind the image you wish to create with your camera.

If you are using only the camera as a tool, triggering the shutter is the final step in a process that involves a great deal of thought as you marshal exposure, depth of field, composition and the elements of design and style to create a fresh image.

Since the digital age, however, many artists have come to think of digital images as raw material for compositions that carry a message that goes beyond ordinary perceptions.

You can make up your own mind on that issue — but please enjoy Erik's work!

Guest Blogger

Folks:

It’s been a while since I’ve made a blog entry, so I thought this had better be a good one!

First of all, though, an exhortation to all those students who are wrapping this course up for graduation credit:  work hard!  (Exhortation complete).

The reason this is going to be a better-than-usual blog entry is that I have asked nature photographer Reiny Dusdal to explain how he has used spot metering to produce images that use light so very effectively.

But two things first:  For your viewing pleasure, the website of Irina Werning, who has a wry sense of humour in her portraiture – you can steal this idea and have great fun.

And a man possessing huge technical skill with high-speed photography identifying himself only as “Frans” makes amazing images of insects in flight and water drops. 

But here is the main event: Reiny Dusdal whose images demonstrate (among many other qualities) precision in exposure and a profound love of nature, telling us how he does it.

Reiny on exposure:

Thanks, Warren, 'a love of nature' sounds a lot better than 'getting soft in your old age'!

Anyway, I use spot metering whenever I have a scene with a high degree of contrast...very dark areas and very bright areas in the same scene.

Like this hibiscus...

 The sun is shining through the flower, and the background is in the shade.  If I meter for the whole scene, my camera would try to expose the background as well as the flower and the result would, at the very least, be a very overexposed, washed out flower...leading to the dreaded post production time spent looking at a  computer screen instead of a camera viewfinder.  

And even more likely, the flower would be blown out to the extent that all you would see in your picture would be a glowing white blob in the shape of a flower. 

So I set my metering to spot meter, meter off the bright part of the flower, and my exposure will be close to what I want.  I then check my histogram and if I want to tweak the exposure, I'll use the exposure compensation dial.

This picture needed a little more effort, but not much.

I spot meter ANY white object due to the very limited dynamic range of my camera. 

Here, I would move my camera closer to the spider (or zoom in) to make sure my spot metering 'takes'. Then I'll meter on  the spider and lock in the exposure.

(Just as an aside, I have to use the centre focusing point on my camera to make the spot metering work.  

The other focusing points automatically meter for the whole frame.)

Move the camera back, (or zoom out), compose my picture, focus on the spider, and take the picture.

Check the histogram, and adjust the exposure compensation, if needed. 

That's it!

Spot metering...great for backlit flowers, sunset silhouettes, and blond grandchildren playing outside on sunny days.

(I told Warren I would keep this referring to spot metering, but another thing I found helpful is to compare my histogram to my setting. 

Because the camera would like to make everything midtone, I often compensate if I am in a darker or brighter than average setting.  

In a dark forest, I will use the exposure compensation to push the histogram to the left to give the darker feel to the photo.  

On  a bright, sunny beach, I will push the histogram to the right to give  the picture a brighter feel.  

I know you could do this at home on your computer, but for me it's easier to do it right away in camera and I get a better feel for how things really looked.)

The Hunt is On

We can call this our virtual field trip -- but I like the notion of a Distributed Scavenger Hunt:

On your marks, get set . . .  GO!

Place your five photos in YDIP 12 -- identifying which is which (i.e. Scavenger -- character) and if you wish, add a caption to enrich our viewing experience!

Since I had little feedback suggestiong chaged categories, we'll go with the following:

• a photo that says "spring" (or "mud season," depending where you live)
• a photo that takes advantage of the longer days (morning or evening)
• a creative shot of an old building
• a low-light shot of something in your area
• a portrait of a local character

And I'd suggest you upload them as you go, rather than waiting until you have a full set.  Whoever gets the first full set will earn great respect for their efficiency.  Whoever submits fun creative images -- at any time -- will have our undying admiration.

The Scavenger Hunt

Heritage Park in Terrace has old buildings!

I’m sure everyone knows Barb McCracken by now: the lady who invited all the students in Ft. St. John and area to the regular Strawberry Jam at the Lido to practice low-light performance photography.

Well, Barb has offered us another great idea: a photographic scavenger hunt. 

Here are some of the “objects” we could include:

Around here the skunk cabbage says "spring."

• a photo that says “spring”
• an evening or morning photo that uses the light of our new longer days
• a creative shot of an old building in your town/area
• a low-light shot of your town center / farm / lake (etc.)
• one portrait of a local character

Now, I don’t have any way to provide a prize, AND I am not getting sucked into comparing one creative image with another! 

BUT maybe we can agree to provide express permission from all of us in the course to all of those who complete the hunt to indulge themselves however they wish on a Friday evening!  (Ahem, within the limits of the law and relationships with significant others)

An iconic "Terrace" scene: Ferry Island

As additional benefit, and as always, this special project could be used for credit in the course.

I’ll give this message until the end of the week.

Then we will vote on the best five items and the hunt will be on!

Reply here to the blog with your fresh ideas!

He's B-a-a-ck!

Well, folks — thanks for your patience while I was gone.  It was fun keeping in touch while on the road, but it is also nice to be back home with the full suite of tools with which to work.

I’d like to say welcome to some new folks who have joined the class since I left: Susan McRae, Wyatt Riegel, Michael Blahitka, Dana Davis and Shealagh deDelley are all new to the group.  I look forward to hearing “hello” messages here in the blog from those who have not introduced themselves.

Timing counts as the deep hues last only minutes

And it seems we had a bit of a tough winter, so it must be doubly nice for those of you who are beginning to feel the warmth of spring in these longer days. 

Now that I have had a nice satisfying time taking photos of exotic locales, I am going to be back to working on technique and will share those ideas here.   If you have a technique you’d like to play with, don’t be shy to fire a message here to the blog and we can have some fun with it.

Having said that, I have been enjoying low-light photography, and will feature a few of those in this blog entry.  This is a nice area to work in, as it allows you to take control of the light — though mixing ambient and artificial light depends a great deal on timing.

Mixing artificial and ambient light is fun.

And for those of you who didn’t know — we Nikon users were experiencing some dismay to find the Nikon plant was affected by the Tsunami inJapan.  They are (as of today) back on line and producing again, subject to intermittent power supplies.  This is no cause for wild cheering among the Canon crowd, by the way!

On that topic, here is a great podcast that sometimes gets a little too “Nikon” but often deals purely in imaging and interesting techniques.  It’s called “The Image Doctors” and I listen to these podcasts on my iPod while driving back roads on weekends!   

You should too.

Notes from the Road

This is not our normal school-related post.

In the hour before dawn, light comes from within the Masjid Kaptian Keling.

But then, I am not in the normal teacherly position! 

Really I am making this entry to re-direct anyone who is interested to my travel blog.  I have been promising to keep it up for friends and family, and since I didn't want to just repeat myself, I thought it would be economical to fire this off to you.

A large part of Georgetown on the island of Penang

has been designated a UNESCO world heritage site.

And since I am being forced to do without my normal post-processing software, it is interesting to see what can be accomplished with nothing more than a camera and a web-based editing tool. 

So don't be shy.  Feel free to follow the other blog.

Selamat Tinggal *

OK.  I’m off to Malaysia.  I’ll send photos, but unfortunately, I cannot send flavors over the internet — we’ll just have to await that technological innovation!

First of all Report Cards!

I just finished writing everyone’s report card for NBCDES.  And I have to say it was a real pleasure looking back at everything folks have created and shared since the end of November. 

Things have picked up a lot due to the efforts of a core of great community members — and those of you who have not benefited yet by your membership in the group are warmly invited to join in.  Yeah.  Just hit the flickr link here and go to YDIP12!

Next:  Malaysia

From a photographic standpoint, sure I’ve formatted my memory cards, cleaned my lenses and sensor, laundered my microfibre lense cloths— but much more interesting has been assembling my themes and prescriptions.

I cannot remember where I got this habit, but it has been a nice one to form: whenever I take a significant trip with my camera — whether overseas or in the mountains — I try to determine some themes and prescriptions to pursue.  It adds an extra element of fun to the photography.

Here are some of the themes I have set for this upcoming trip:

• market oddities
• Islamic beauty: women + mosque interiors & exteriors

Two of the prescriptions I’ve set for myself include capturing

• architectural photos with HDR in mind: esp dramatic backlighting
• environmental portraits of matriarchs and patriarchs

Of course these ideas don’t mean I won’t point my camera at anything that stands still (or moves). I mention all of that in case the approach might resonate with someone else the way it did for me when I heard of it.

Last on this topic, I bought a netbook specifically to keep up with the marking for you folks in the course.  (That’s what I told my wife and I am sticking by that story).  The vagaries of the road, however, will probably mean I will not be able to check daily — I’d guess every three days or so.  But I’ll keep up the dialogue!

* selamat tinggal is the Malay farewell you use when you are leaving and the person you are speaking to is staying.

 Thanks to an idea from Lisa Babcock, I've had great 

fun using flash to capture water droplets. 

Wonderful way to pass a few hours on a dreary winter day.

Water Water Everywhere

Here's some fun.

Rachel’s mom, Wendi, sent me a wonderful link to a British Columbia photographer who has does stunning work in some of the specialty areas we’ve been investigating: macro and HRD in particular. 

Living in Victoria, Evan Leeson walked many days to work after a rain.  For years, he took macro photos of raindrops in morning sun: the results are wonderfully visually exciting and found here. 

Check out his HDR images, too — it might excite in you a real interest in architectural photography.

In case you get lost navigating, Evan Leeson’s photostream is here. 

After looking at Evan’s images this afternoon, I tried my hand at some water droplet photography (above).  This is a first-try effort, but you can just go to youtube yourself, and get some tips on the rather simple setup – the real trick is hitting the shutter release at the right moment to let a fast shutter do its magic.  I am going to keep working on this one!

And it just keeps getting better!  Barb McCracken has invited all Ft. St. John & area students to Strawberry Jam at the Lido Theatre for more opportunities to try your hand at low-light performance photography.  It’s free & it’s fun and it’s every month.  Ask Barb for details. 

SE Asia Beckons

I really really hate to seem to be rubbing this in.  But I am leaving next week for a six-week wander through Malaysia.  This might affect the course, but not too badly.

My son was good enough to send me a tiny netbook so I can keep in touch:  both by monitoring flickr, and by checking your emails.

So PLEASE:  make sure you submit your assignments by uploading them to flickr.  Don’t attach them to me in email:  I will not be able to handle the bandwidth requirements.

AND I am writing report cards this week.  Some students have already wrapped the course, others are getting close — but I would like you to know that even if you wrap the course you are welcome to hang around in flickr as much as you wish.  We can’t have too much creativity.

Here is my traveling blog in case you want to follow it.  I’ll try to post a few images from time to time, and you’ll get to see the totally untouched images out of the camera.  Darn.

Ringbolts were used to haul paddlewheelers past the canyons 

on the Skeena near Terrace.   Modern highways have replaced them.  

HDR will not loosen its grip.

Low Light Opportunity

Thanks to Barb McCracken's connections in the world of entertainment, students in the Fort St. John area have an opportunity to try some event photography in low light. 

All students are invited to the Lido Theatre on Tuesday February 1 to try their hands at this type of photography.  Doors open at 7:00 PM.  It will be a fine night of free entertainment by local talented artists — AND you can pass it off as homework!

Barb — who is a student in this course — already has some real experience in low-light event photography.  Check out some of her very cool images on her flickr photostream. 

(On a teacherly note, let me remind you that you can substitute any special project work for regular assignments).
 

An easier subject for low-light photography than

stage performers is a boat that sits still in the first 

light of dawn.  As is so often the case, the trick

seems to be balancing ambient and artificial light.

Malaysia

I just wanted to let everyone know I am going to be taking a little photo safari to Malaysia through the second half of February and back at the beginning of April.

I am looking at an iPad to enable me to continue this work while on the road: I'll take one for a test drive in a few weeks and will know better then.

In the meanwhile — I see that at least one student is taking up the challenge of low-light photography.  This is a wonderful and rewarding endeavor — all you really need is a tripod. 

We'll be discussing this in our YDIP12 area, so keep in touch at the flickr site.

I'll give you more information about the Malaysia trip soon:  preparing for the photographic end has been quite interesting, and I'll share a few things that I've found very helpful in a later post.  It'll certainly give others a change to share tips they've found helpful.

Low Light Example:

In the old French colonial streets of Luang Prabang (Laos)

the night life is mellow and friendly.  Carrying a tripod

is a must for low-light photography, but worth it for some.

Are You Satisfied?

With respect to the Rolling Stones, the Ministry of Education wants to know how satisfying an experience education is.  And, actually, so do I; but that is not quite as important to the mandarins.

So if you would be kind enough to go to the Satisfaction Survey, it should only take a few moments to fill out.  The Ministry wishes parents also to fill out a similar survey — which, for our adult students — might be a fun request to make.

Formerly, this was the same survey offered in regular school with items like "Do you feel bullied," but now it has been crafted JUST for Distribtued Learning students — so please have a look at it.  Honest.  It will only take a very few minutes.

MUCH MORE FUN: Some students have taken hold of the various alternative assignments: the HDR, macro, low light ideas. If you have not been playing with these things, jump right in:  it's easy and much more fun than learning about stop-based exposure.  And everyone should be going to flickr regularly:  it's starting to cook.

And for those of you who want to explore the undeveloped part of the course around post-processing: here is an online image processing program that looks very similar to the industry-standard Photoshop™yet is free and online and works equally well on Macs and PCs. 

HDR

Thanks for your responses to the blog last week.  A few of you expressed some interest in HDR photography.  Like Lisa and Duncan.  It caused me to get a program called Photomatix and spend long evening hours glued to the monitor. 

This is a fascinating development — the High Dynamic Range created by the software compensates for the limitations of dynamic range that has plagued cameras since the American Civil War — certainly more recently for those who used slide film. 

And right now we are watching the maturation of a technology that has already gained huge acceptance among post-processors.  It's exciting to play with this — like surfing close to the front of the wave.  There are a few good news bits on this:

• it's free (get Photomatix on line -- it watermarks your images, but who cares when you're playing)
• it stands alone from other programs.  Photomatix does it all.
• there is a built-in full tutorial in Photomatix
• Trey Ratcliff (a great HDR artist) has a set of free tutorials AND a sense of humour!
• LAST REASON:  it's fun

You should bracket your images (i.e. take a series at different EVs), but even if you don't,  you can get a degree of increased dynamic range with one image.


Check out our flickr site where I've posted a few.  They are first attempts.  Trey Ratcliff has GREAT images.

The New Year

Hi Folks:

I hope everyone had some quality personal time over the break (which, for me at least, always includes pressing the shutter release a few times).

So welcome back to the school and to the course.

I thought I might ask your opinion on a notion I had recently about the assignments for the course: some "special projects."  We can substitute these for other assignments so you have more choice.

One topic that I have enjoyed exploring is HDR photography.  Here are some HDR images, so you know what I'm talking about.  It can produce a very "painterly" look, is great fun to play with — and has the general reputation in the field for being overdone!

Another special topic you might want to pursue is macro photography.  I suspect most of you are familiar with that term — Here are some macro images for your viewing pleasure.  If you wish to work on macro as a substitute for an existing assignment, let me know.

A third idea that occurred to me was the topic of low-light photography, one of my own favorites.  The images linked are not particularly powerful, but will give you some ideas.

Finally — this might be harder to do:  I was wondering who might be interested in a virtual photographic field trip.  We would all agree to go out on one weekend and take photos to share on flickr, then comment on each others' work.

If you'd like to follow up on any of these, let me know — comments made right here in the blog would also help us to build our learning community!

Welcome back.