As you may have noticed, ~Baltech has been busy with providing the Photograpirates with valuable photography related hints and tips!
I encourage everybody to do the same so we can get the discussion board up and running, but for the moment as we have both no subscription nor legion of briggands, I've decided to post his hints and tips in this journal as the main screen is temporary.

~Baltech's gallery: [link]
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Date: Feb 20, 2006, 12:22:43 AM

When photographing people, unless you've got a very good zoom lense don't be shy. Close in on your motive.

Use the rule of 2/3rds, don't place objects in the middle of the picture unless the composition can benefit from it.

Watch out for the lightning, it can make or break your picture. Try to use as little artificial light as you can, unless you've got professional lightning gear. I'm thinking flashes with rotateable heads and studio lights. Be sure to bring a bright-white sheet as a reflector.

Get yourself a tripod. You can get them for cheap and they can help a lot in low-light situations. Also very useful when you try to do montages.

Don't be afraid to experiment. Use unusual angles! Make yourself familiar with manual focussing functionality, if your camera supports it. Don't be afraid to cut into your motive. Use Photoshop or Gimp to post-process your pictures. Often you'll see the true picture only on the second glance.

That should do it for now.
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Date: Feb 20, 2006, 12:36:25 AM

A very important step to producing a good photograph is seeing the picture in the first place. Which brings me to composition.

An important element in photography is the harmony of cloros. Ideally an image should show a main object and one predominant color. Additional colors should emphasize the most important element in the picture. Related, harmonic colors give a calm and friendly mood while pictures with harsh color contrast make the picture dynamic and unsettling.

Contrasting colors can also make for a harmonic effect, if the picture was taken with the proper light. Colors can change with exposure: Underexposed images produce a "low-key effect" while overexposed images reduce contrasts.

(Scource: John Hedgecoe, The book of photography)
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Date: Feb 21, 2006, 10:44:56 PM

Lightning part one:

Lightning is a whole chaper of its own. Photography works through the presence and absence of light. Depending on the angle and kind of your lightsource, your image can be either detailed, cold, warm, flat... You can basically take the same picture twice or trice and still have completely different results depending on the lightning.

Lightning is a very difficult beast to tame. You have two possibilities: Natural light and artificial light. Natural light is the cheapest and best looking source but you have virtually no control over it. Artificial lightning is - if you want it to look good - very expensive. There are so many different studio lights and boxes (they make for different shadows) for them, it can make your head spin.

One thing to take in consideration is the angle of the light. For example, if you aim to take a portrait of an old, very wrinkled person, you might want the source to be in a 90 degree angle (relative to your position). That way, the wrinkles stand out very strong and give the face texture. You also could use a reflector (a big white surface). If the light comes from the right, position the reflector on the left. This will smoothe the shadows on the face a little. If you want the face to appear younger on the other hand, use a soft light in a direct angle to avoid shadows.

That'll be all about lightning for now. By now you should be able to take shadows in consideration of your composition. The next time I'll tell you a little about white balance and temperature.

If you have any questions, there's a journal where you can ask away. [link]
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Date: Feb 22, 2006, 9:07:13 PM

Lightning part two: Temperature and White Balance.

What does the color white have to do with lightning? Everything! Ever seen a colored disk spinning very fast? How it changes for colored to white? That's why. White's not the absence of color, it's all colores mixed together (don't get physicist on me now, I know that that's probably not very scientific).

So, why would you have to balance it? Because light doesn't equal light. Depending on many different factors, it does have a temperature, measured in Kelvin. For example, your typical, sunny day does have a tempereature between 5500k and 7000k. Candlelight, which is much much warmer, has a temperature of approx. 1000k. An overcast, rainy day has a temperature between 8000k and 10000k. Ya see? The lower the Kelvin, the warmer the light.

And here's why that matters: If you don't match the White Balance to the temperature, the colors on your picture will go nuts. For example, if you take your picture on a rainy day and your WB is too low, your picture will seem to be be colder than a witches nipple. This works the other way round too: If you take a shot by candlelight and the WB is too high, the picture will go red. In both cases you won't be able to see all the possible colors.

Many cameras have automatic WB. I say suck it. Automatic often doesn't get you the results you want. I usually have my camera (Olympus E-500) on pre-set "Cloud" which gives approx. 6500k which is ideal for your typical sunny day. Strange, isn't it? Because the pre-set "Sunny" gives me 5000k. Although this is in the range of the typical sunny day, you'll almost never encounter this kind of sunny day in real life (light fog which you can't even see for example).

Which pre-set you'll take really depends on your camera. Check the manual for Kelvin references.

If your camera allows it, you can adjust the temperature manually. If you don't have a temp-meter, this'll take you a lot of trial and error. But sometimes it can be an advantage, if the WB is off. If you, for example, aim to capture the beauty of a sunset over a lake and match the WB, you'll loose a lot of the warm mood. Set the WB higher than dawn (3500k) and you'll have all the warmth and beauty you'd want.

That should do it for now. For more reference on Kelvin and color temp. check the manual of your camera and go to [link] and [link] for references and a Kelvin table respectively.

Next time I'll tell you about how light gets to your CCD or film in the first place and how you can use this mechanic to your advantage.
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Date: Feb 24, 2006, 3:03:24 AM

Lightning part three: Mechanix

I should have posted this one first. After all, you should understand how your camera works, before you can apply anything you know... well, you'd apply what you know without knowing what you're doing but that wouldn't help much either.

Your camera is the mechanical counterpoint of your eye. The fact that you see something (sorry, blind folks) comes from the fact that light passes your iris and hits the nerves and receptors at the back of your eyeball (simplified).

Now, the amount of light that reaches your CCD is governed by two things: aperture size and shutter speed.

Apperture is comparable with your iris: The bigger the hole the more light passes through. It's indicated by the letter f and a number. The smaller the number the bigger the apperture size (the hole). For example, an average SLR lens has an apperture of f3.5. but there are lenses with bigger sensitivity to light (f2.5 or less). With SLRs and semi-SLRs you can influence the apperture manually, therefore the number is printed on the lens. Smaller digicams do this automatically.

Now, why's this important? The better the light sensitivty of your lens (apperture size) the faster can the shutter work while taking a picture under low light circumstances. See, if it's darker, it takes longer for enough light to fall on your CCD (CMOS, whatever) or film. The wider you can open the apperture, the faster the light can fall on it. That's why you have to choose longer exposure when the light's weak and you don't want to use flashes or don't have a tripod handy for longer exposure. On the other hand, if you deliberately want to take a shot with longer exposure (for example, picturing moving water) you'll have to close the apperture as narrow as possible (f22).

There's another thing the apperture influences and that's deph perception: The bigger the apperture, the smaller the deph perception. That's why you probably want to choose a big apperture when doing makro or portrait shots so the background is blurred. On the other hand, if you take sports shots or want to photograph kids, anything that moves too quick to focus properly, you'll have to choose a smaller apperture so that the deph of field is bigger. The distance to your object also influences the deph of field.

There's another thing that governs, how fast the shutter can be to take a picture: The sensitivity of the film (ISO). With film cameras, you'll have to change the film wheras digital cameras can change the sensitivity of their sensors by the press of a button. The common ISO scale is 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600. 100s for bright daylight, 400 for evening, 1600 can take pictures when there's only a candle present. But the more sensitive the film (or CCD), the more grain you will see. Some digital cameras (cheaper models) will get grainy on ISO400 levels.

Ok, to sum it up: Apperture governs, how much light falls on the CCD (or film) in one moment and the deph of field. Shutter speed governs, how long the shutter is open, thus letting light fall on the CCD (or film). For daker enviroments, you'll need longer exposure. For longer exposure, you'll need a tripot (movement makes picture blurry). The sensitivity of film (or CCD) is measured in ISO. The bigger the ISO, the more sesitive (and grainy) the result. Look at some photos here at devArt. Most of them have exif data and tell details about the shot (lower right corner of the preview page under 'picture'). Take a looksee what you can find out.

As all my hints, this isn't, by any stretch, complete. I urge all of you who read this and want to know more to buy some photography mags or even a book (check out John Hedgecoe).

Next time I'll talk about two of the most important things in photography: Your camera and you.
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Date: Feb 24, 2006, 10:54:17 PM

Your camera and you:

Photography, as an artistic hobby, has a lot of appeal: For once, you don't have to be able to hold a tune or draw a straight line. Still, for your work to distinguish itself from a mere snapshot, it takes more than just pointing and clicking. And no, it doesn't take an expensive full frame camera (well, in the long run it might do) but lots and lots of dedication from the person behind the camera. Because, not matter how you look at it, serious photography (as hobby or profession) takes more than just point'n'click.

In photography, as in any artform, there are a lot of rules: Proper placement, composition, lightning and so on. "But wait", you might cry "many great artists don't work by the book and that's what makes their art appealing in the first way." Well yes, this might hold ture. But to bend and break rules, you'll first have to understand them. So, read up on the rules. Get some magazines and/or books about the topic. Look at pictures, loooooooots of pictures by other photographers. They might make you weep becaus they're so good and yours aren't but they'll give you a better understanding on what the rules are all about. And they're a great source of inspiration. You could just try to emulate the picture itself. You won't be able to do it on your first try, but then you'll might read what the artist did and why and try again, and again, and again. And suddenly, you'll understand what you'll have to do to get the desired effect. You still won't be the next Helmut Newton, but it's a step into the right direction. And don't forget: You might have talent, but talent is nothing without direction. Hell, I've been a photographer for three years now (journalistic mind you) and still am at the very beginning of my personal development.

Another thing you'll need to do is learn about your camera. Take the manual and read it. Then read it again. Then read it another time. Hell, record yourself reading it and listen to it in your sleep. You'll have to know every nook and cranny of your gear. Then start to read about the technical side of photography. That way, when you read about apperture, you'll know how to fix it on your camera. Go on the net and look for reviews and comments about your camera. Learn its limitations and shortcomings. Learn how to work around them. Learn to like your camera, no matter what model and how cheap it was.

Learn about film, what types there are, what they are good for and so on. Because what applies to film applies to digital cameras too (in a sense).

Watch out for your gear. Get a good, padded camera bag. If possible, get a colorless UV-filter. It's cheap and will protect your lens(es) from scratches. Clean your camera ever so often. Don't let it lie around unprotected, don't let it gather dust. In short, treat your camera like your girlfriend (or, if you're for a more hands-on approach: Don't treat your camera like your girlfriend).

Conclusion: Dedication, patience, understanding, technical knowledge, caution... these, among others, are the things that lay the groundwork for successful photography.
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The Art of Black&White photography:

Color Photography is easy on the eyes. We live in a colored world after all (sorry dogs). But BW photography (henceforth refered to as BWp) doesn't show the world as it is. As such, it has to interpret. In BWp the photographer has to watch out for texture, tone and composition more than ever. These three are essential for BWp.

Another thing is that we cannot imagine how a BW picture would look like. Green and Red are complimentary colors. But in BW they nearly look the same. That's why you have to watch out of the light and dark elements of the scene. ALWAYS shed light onto the scene from the sides, NEVER fully frontal. It kills contour and texture. If you illuminate your object from behind, it gets some sort of dreamy halo all over.

You know, you can redo most of the shots you see in magazines without expensive lightning gear. It sounds like I'm stretching it here but bear with me. Or better yet, try it out sourself. Let somebody sit close to a window (preferably on a sunny day). Watch the person closely and observe how the light falls on its face. Now take a big white sheet of paper and hold it up on the other side of the face (opposite to the window). Whatch what happens now. Try the same with a mirror and stick a sheet of paper on the window to soften the light. Every time the quality of light (and shades) changes. Learn to use the light and you can change mundane settings into (virtual) masterpieces. In other words: Learn to see.

And with that I give you..... daylight.

Daylight is cheap. It's the cheapest lightscource you can get. And you only need a few reflectors to control it.

What you need: Two big white and one black piece of cardboard. Those are the reflectors. One big white piece of cloth. That's the diffusor. One human being, color and gender don't matter. That's the model. Another human being, color and gender don't matter. That's your personal slave... I mean your assistant.

Take again, if you will, the window setting from above. If you don't use any of the reflectors or the diffusor, the model will have a brightly lit half of face while the other one is shrouded in darkness. If you use the diffsor, the light is much softer. The white reflector (no diffusor) keeps the harder light but nearly kills the shadows. The black reflector deepens the shadows while giving more contour than without. Overkill: The diffusor with two white reflectors (one beside and one below the face) gives a rich palette of tones and a well balanced composition.

That's it for today.
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