This week I decided to try to look into some abstract tree photography. So, I Googled "tree photography". The first thing to pop up was a link to twistedtreephoto.com. To my surprise, the photos on twistedtreephoto.com were nothing like what I was looking for, but not in a bad way. As I looked through Michael and Tammy Rice's photography gallery, I became hooked. The husband and wife team specialize in landscape photography and promote their photos that they have taken across the U.S. and Canada. They take pride in what they do, and it shows. I really can't think of too many jobs that you can go out and enjoy the sights while still making a living at it. And their photos are beautiful in my opinion. On the twistedtreephoto.com home page, Michael and Tammy mention that they, "believe that to take photography to the next level, one must pursue both disciplines (taking pictures and enhancing images)." My favorite section of their photo gallery is the Yellowstone National Park section. Why? Well, I really like to see things that I have never seen in pictures that I am sure we have all seen just walking around. Since moving to Montana, I have been to Yellowstone National Park 5+ times. Not once have I thought about taking a picture of a marsh or a hill. The Rice photographers have taken shots like these and look just as magnificent as a picture of a mountain range. I have noticed that in most all of their landscape shots in Yellowstone contain cloud cover and/or the use of natural side-lighting. This allows the scene to show more definition and, I think, adds more emotion to the photograph. My most favorite picture of theirs is a landscape of hotpots covered by dark stratocumulus clouds. Visit their website if you get a chance!
Citation:
http://www.twistedtreephoto.com/index.html
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
A Few Tips on How to Make Money off Nature Photography
1. Good nature photography still requires the use of old-fashioned photography know how. With all the resources currently available to people that facilitate making good prints, it is important to realize that a great picture requires minimal editing.
2. Unique moments in photographs set your pictures apart from the next guy's. Keep your eye out for things you have never seen before. With the digital age upon us, it is easy for people to take good pictures, but a good eye in seeing uniqueness is key to an awesome photo.
3. If you like to photograph near home, get to know the local area. Becoming familiar with your local surroundings will be beneficial in possibly showing people a side of the area that they had never known about.
4. Be patient. If you are impatient, you might miss some extraordinary shots. If you are looking for an animal to be in a certain position in your picture, you may have to wait quite a while. When the moment comes where the animal is doing something that you are looking for, take lots of pictures as it doesn't cost anything to take multiple shots.
5. Perfect your technique. When the perfect photo opportunity arrives, you don't want to be fiddling with your camera settings while the opportunity disappears. Get to know your camera and make sure that you know its capabilities so that you don't miss that once-in-a-lifetime shot.
Citation:
http://www.cosmepic.com/nature-photography-that-sells-five-essential-tips/
2. Unique moments in photographs set your pictures apart from the next guy's. Keep your eye out for things you have never seen before. With the digital age upon us, it is easy for people to take good pictures, but a good eye in seeing uniqueness is key to an awesome photo.
3. If you like to photograph near home, get to know the local area. Becoming familiar with your local surroundings will be beneficial in possibly showing people a side of the area that they had never known about.
4. Be patient. If you are impatient, you might miss some extraordinary shots. If you are looking for an animal to be in a certain position in your picture, you may have to wait quite a while. When the moment comes where the animal is doing something that you are looking for, take lots of pictures as it doesn't cost anything to take multiple shots.
5. Perfect your technique. When the perfect photo opportunity arrives, you don't want to be fiddling with your camera settings while the opportunity disappears. Get to know your camera and make sure that you know its capabilities so that you don't miss that once-in-a-lifetime shot.
Citation:
http://www.cosmepic.com/nature-photography-that-sells-five-essential-tips/
Monday, September 20, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
7 Conclusions for Establishing Visual Priorities for Picture Elements
Red is more attractive than yellow
Citation:www.thehulltruth.com/ boating-outdoor-photos 252101-re...ning.html
Large draws more attention than small
Citation:
Difference draws more attention than conformity
Citation:http://www.andrewlmoore.com/view_image.php?photo_id=281&project_id=10
Jagged lines are more striking than curved ones
Citation:Andrew Hewins
Diagonal lines are more attractive than vertical
Citation:Andrew Hewins
Sharpness is more attractive than blur
Citation:
Light is more attractive than dark
Citation:
Andrew Hewins
About Jim Reed photography
I have always been interested in weather, especially severe weather. So, this week I decided to see who is out there in the world of weather photography. Jim Reed is the first name that popped up when I Googled "weather photographers", and I can see why. His images are really amazing. He not only takes pictures of severe weather, but also anything associated with weather. Not all of his shots are of scenes you would want blown up in a 24"x36" print, but they all show something unique. I have never seen a photo of someone cleaning a Doppler radar station, a car driving into what looks like a tornado, a car with its tail lights on floating down a building hallway, or a wheelchair sitting in a river watching the sun go down. In the biography section of Jim Reed's website, it is stated that he is one of the world's most accomplished weather photographers. He doesn't just see a a developing tornado and snap a picture of it. He is able to show multiple aspects of the current conditions all in the same picture. One of my favorite is of a large developing tornado with black in the foreground and bright sunlight and lightning in the background. According to his biography, Jim went to college at USC and earned a Bachelors of Fine Arts Degree. After graduation he wrote for T.V. commercials, music videos, and even for Warner Bros. Pictures. In the early 1990's he turned back to his passion for photography and began shooting severe weather photography. if you get a chance, check out his website and all his awesome photos!
Works Cited:
http://www.jimreedphoto.com/
Works Cited:
http://www.jimreedphoto.com/
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Exposure; Advise from my Photography Text
According to my text, "Learning how to make good exposure is the first step in becoming a good photographer"(Fitzharris, 63). Getting the correct exposure depends on aperture size and shutter speed. If one of these two are off, the picture could come out looking way too dark, way too light, or not in focus the way you want it. The first step in determining your aperture and shutter speed settings is to first measure the light of your subject. This is done with the use of a digital histogram. It measures luminance values of your frame and tells you what parts of the frame are being recorded by the light sensor. The histogram should drop to zero before reaching the frame end. If the histogram is skewed to the left (humped to right), you must decrease exposure. If the histogram is skewed to the right, you must increase exposure.
Light metering is very important for helping to determine the camera setting needed to make a good exposure. For most normal circumstances, light meters work excellent. It is only the more complicated lighting situations where the photographer has to make a judgment on whether to fully trust the light meter. Most DSLR cameras today come with four or more light metering pattern. The first of these is evaluative/matrix metering. This type measures light from multiple locations around the frame and generates a "compromise" exposure. It is the general-purpose light metering mode that should be set as a default on your camera. Second, there is averaging metering. The author notes that this type of metering is barely ever used and unfortunately doesn't tell why it would be used. Third, there is spot metering. This type of metering is based off of a single spot in the frame. It is mostly used for more making sure the head region of wildlife is in focus. Fourth, there is center-weighted metering. This metering mode gives about 75% of the priority to the center of the frame.
There are three different exposure modes according to the text including aperture priority mode, shutter priority mode, and manual mode. Aperture priority mode allows you to set the desired aperture while the camera automatically sets the shutter speed. Shutter priority mode allows you to set the desired shutter speed while the camera automatically sets the aperture. Manual mode allows the photographer to set both shutter speed and aperture based on light meter readings in the viewfinder.
It is also important to compensate for extremely bright or dark frames by utilizing exposure compensation. If you were to just strictly follow averaging metering in bright or dark frames, the picture would come out looking gray. For frames that are extremely bright, like snow, you can increase exposure by a half to full stop by turning a wheel on top of the camera without taking your eye off the viewfinder. Likewise, if the frame is dark you can decrease the exposure by the same amount.
There are times when the frame has both bright and dark areas that the previously mentioned techniques don't always work to obtain good detail across the entire picture. In these cases you have to decide which parts of the picture are most important.
Backlit subjects can often be difficult to get sharp detail due to the contrasting brightness and darkness. This is because the digital light sensors have a hard time compensating for both at once. For these pictures, you have to decide which part of the frame is most important and give its exposure more priority. You can do this by taking a spot reading on the center of interest and decrease the exposure by about a full stop. Then just double check the the histogram hump is centered and falls to zero within the bounds of the frame.
White and light scenes can be difficult to shoot due to the fact that the camera will automatically want to turn the brightness into gray. The author suggests increasing exposure by one to two stops past the meter reading. If the main subject is small and bright while the rest of the scene is dark, the author suggests decreasing exposure of the evaluative readings by a half stop in order to prevent overexposure.
Citations:
Fitzharris, Tim. National Audubon Society Guide to Nature Photography Digital Edition. Buffalo: Firefly, 2008.
Light metering is very important for helping to determine the camera setting needed to make a good exposure. For most normal circumstances, light meters work excellent. It is only the more complicated lighting situations where the photographer has to make a judgment on whether to fully trust the light meter. Most DSLR cameras today come with four or more light metering pattern. The first of these is evaluative/matrix metering. This type measures light from multiple locations around the frame and generates a "compromise" exposure. It is the general-purpose light metering mode that should be set as a default on your camera. Second, there is averaging metering. The author notes that this type of metering is barely ever used and unfortunately doesn't tell why it would be used. Third, there is spot metering. This type of metering is based off of a single spot in the frame. It is mostly used for more making sure the head region of wildlife is in focus. Fourth, there is center-weighted metering. This metering mode gives about 75% of the priority to the center of the frame.
There are three different exposure modes according to the text including aperture priority mode, shutter priority mode, and manual mode. Aperture priority mode allows you to set the desired aperture while the camera automatically sets the shutter speed. Shutter priority mode allows you to set the desired shutter speed while the camera automatically sets the aperture. Manual mode allows the photographer to set both shutter speed and aperture based on light meter readings in the viewfinder.
It is also important to compensate for extremely bright or dark frames by utilizing exposure compensation. If you were to just strictly follow averaging metering in bright or dark frames, the picture would come out looking gray. For frames that are extremely bright, like snow, you can increase exposure by a half to full stop by turning a wheel on top of the camera without taking your eye off the viewfinder. Likewise, if the frame is dark you can decrease the exposure by the same amount.
There are times when the frame has both bright and dark areas that the previously mentioned techniques don't always work to obtain good detail across the entire picture. In these cases you have to decide which parts of the picture are most important.
Backlit subjects can often be difficult to get sharp detail due to the contrasting brightness and darkness. This is because the digital light sensors have a hard time compensating for both at once. For these pictures, you have to decide which part of the frame is most important and give its exposure more priority. You can do this by taking a spot reading on the center of interest and decrease the exposure by about a full stop. Then just double check the the histogram hump is centered and falls to zero within the bounds of the frame.
White and light scenes can be difficult to shoot due to the fact that the camera will automatically want to turn the brightness into gray. The author suggests increasing exposure by one to two stops past the meter reading. If the main subject is small and bright while the rest of the scene is dark, the author suggests decreasing exposure of the evaluative readings by a half stop in order to prevent overexposure.
Citations:
Fitzharris, Tim. National Audubon Society Guide to Nature Photography Digital Edition. Buffalo: Firefly, 2008.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Beartooth Pass Chipmunks
I went on a trip out to Yellowstone National Park a couple of weekends ago and just thought I would share some pictures of the most friendly chipmunks I have ever seen!
Air Force Photographers
If you try to Google "current Air Force photographers", you probably won't find much of a biography on any of them. You can find pictures that they have taken on http://www.af.mil/photos/ , but seeing as though much of the work that the military does is classified, the picture count is not quite as much as a civilian's photography page. Nevertheless, military still photographers do exist. It is just as much of a job as maintenance is to an Air Force mechanic. These soldiers take pride in the fact that they can show the public what most people wouldn't normally see by just watching the news. Keep in mind that Air Force photographers have access to views that civilian media photographers don't. This means that their photographs are that much more special (at least in my opinion). For them, their job isn't just about getting really awesome photographs. Its mainly about the story that the picture tells. Modern Air Force photographers not only take some really cool pictures of planes, but also take pictures on the ground of the interactions between soldiers and Iraqis and Afghans. If you have a chance, check out the pictures on the Air Force website!
Citations:
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/airforce/a/photographer.htm
http://www.af.mil/photos/
Citations:
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/airforce/a/photographer.htm
http://www.af.mil/photos/
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