Another from Dartmoor in thaw

Another fresh out of my digital darkroom

On the road out of Princetown

This was the approach road to the shot I posted the other day. I'm standing in a lay-by with the last of the snow. What remains is to be found only in the lee of the granite walls that lazily zig-zag across the moors here.

Merrivale Tor Approach, Nr Princetown, Dartmoor

I'm stood right next to a big pile of dirty snow that was probably cleared off the road, judging by the amount of gravel in it. The jumble of rocks atop the hill in the distance is Merrivale Tor and Princetown is a few miles behind me as I took the shot.

I'm an image tart...

I must admit to bringing my image-tart approach to bear on this one. Only small changes but they had a big impact. So what am I confessing to? I cloned out an aerial on the house, a signpost at the end of the road and, horror of horrors I extended the left hand wall a little at the end to close off the left hand turn there. Why?

The aerial and the signpost were signs of the outside world and I wanted to emphasise the isolation of the place—if you go there you'll know what I mean about its isolation.

As for extending the wall on the left hand edge; the road comes to a t-junction and the walls curve left and right. Unfortunately, even though it was very small, the curve of the left turn and the lighter road surface took the eye out of the shot to the left.

By extending the curve of the left hand wall, instead the eye gets pushed back in to where I want it to go. A typical journey through the shot probably follows the lead-in lines, lingers on the puddle of meltwater and sky's reflection, follows the snow/wall, hits the road, gets curved in again to the small house and then on to the tor.

Which is nice because that's just what I wanted, each major feature visited by the eye in turn :)

Contrast masking

I learned a new technique earlier today that I used for (one of the layers on) this image. Many thanks to Peter Cox for his informative tutorial on contrast masking, a technique brought over from the days of the wet darkroom. In short - take a copy of the background layer (on your out-of-the-camera shot in Photoshop), desaturate the new layer, change the blend mode to overlay, invert it, apply huge radius Gaussian Blur, done :)


comments / critique / feedback always welcome :)

Stumble It!

Photography composition tips

As promised a while ago, here are some rules on composition you need to know about. As usual, half the skill comes in knowing when to apply them and when to turn a blind eye.

The rule of thirds

..is a useful one. It says that you divide the image into a grid, jut like the one below. Then, when you're composing your shot, you place significant items along / up any of those lines. Horizons are easy, place on the lower line for an airy feel, on the upper line for a more closed-in feel.

Put your main subject somewhere where two lines cross and you'll boost its power, its dominance in the shot. Have a look at the following images.

In Firefox (others?), you can drag the grid and slide it on top of the images here (let go and it'll pop back). Look at what it tells you about where I've placed the various elements in these compositions. You'll notice things don't have to be exact—near the lines / crossing-points works too, I think you'll agree.

Lead-in lines

As it says on the tin... lines that lead the eye in and guide the viewer to your main subject. It can be a hit-you-in-the-face, straight shooting line like here (and in the piccies above) or it can be a meandering line that takes you to various points in the image, before continuing to the next.

Foreground interest

If you have a shot that takes in a lot of distance that also includes the foreground, then you need something to initially grab the viewer's interest and bring them into the rest of the shot. And that's what foreground interest is. Without that bundle of paper, or the post on the beach, those shots would lose a lot of power.

Distractions

Well, I haven't got any examples from my work for this heading! I'm always very careful with distractions (a bit of a pedant actually!). So what do I mean? Well there's a couple of things that fit here. (I'm assuming here you're past the point of shooting people with telegraph poles sticking out their heads!)

First Contrasting areas near the edge of the frame. For example, if you have mainly dark borders with a light blob next to the image edge, then the viewer's eyes will be pulled right to that blob and then likely right out the picture. Even if they're looking in the body of the image, as soon as their eyes get anywhere near that blob, bang, they'll be drawn right to it. Or maybe it's a tree branch sticking its nose in, or some other distraction intruding into the frame.

Second For example, one or two birds that are just dots in the sky (or maybe there's one or to spots of chewing gum on the pavement in a street scene). If the sky is uniform and those dots contrast against it, again the viewer's eyes will notice. But once their attention is drawn, there's nothing but dirty smudges to see. Sorry, they've got to go. A stray crisp bag, one corner poking into the scene from under a bush?—get rid of it.

Simplicity

If there's no good reason to include something in your shot, don't! Of course, when you're shooting from the hip because there's lots going on, well, the finer points go right out the window then anyway.

For other situations, those where you have more time and control, simplify, simplify and simplify again. Ok, again these are extreme examples, but they serve to illustrate.

Another example, say you're taking a macro (close-up) shot of some mushrooms under a tree. Remove any stray twigs, leaves or other detritus—it's mushrooms you're photographing after all!

Height

Don't always shoot standing up. Varying the height from which you shoot can have a huge impact on the final shot. Shooting kids / pets? Get down to their eye level, get below it if you can. Shoot a worm's eye view of a scene, getting as close to the ground as you can. Jump up on a wall to introduce foreshortening or just to get interesting lines.

In a nutshell

Place important elements along those powerful thirds' lines / intersections. Consider how to bring the viewer's eye into the picture, look for what can serve as lead in lines and / or foreground interest. Have a quick glance around for distractions and watch out for areas of high contrast along the frame edges.

Next steps

Use and abuse these rules the next time you get the chance. Try to get a feel for which compositional approach suits each scene you take a fancy to. Walk a few steps in each direction from the first viewpoint you naturally gravitate towards. See how any possible lead-in lines change their relationship with the scene as you move. Crouch down, step up high, look for foreground interest.

...and let me know how you get on, post a link in the comments. I'm looking forward to seeing how you get on.


comments / critique / feedback always welcome :)

Stumble It!

Winter Seafront Stroll

Here's another from my Felixstowe trip that I wanted to share with you.

HDR enhances the sky

Once in the digital darkroom I could see that although the composition was exactly as I wanted, the sky left a bit to be desired. It was a bit washed out and not nearly carrying the drama that I saw in person — eyes are so much better than cameras!

Anyway, I put the shot through my trusty high contrast HDR workflow and it turned out quite peachy. I had to take steps to remove the noise that got introduced (I use noise ninja) and I also had to lighten the dark outline around the light coloured jacket that appeared as a result of the HDR. But no worries, I am very pleased with the end result.

Compositionally, I used and abused the rule of thirds, used lead-in lines and hopefully wrote a story with the way the elements interact. I'll let you be the judge :)

As always, comments, critque, feedback welcomed

Stumble It!

Some photo basics

I'm sure this doesn't apply to you! But on lots of blogs I follow I see photos that could be so much better if they followed the simplest of rules when shooting them.

Squint uprights and horizons

Make sure horizons are straight -- this is really, really important with shots over water. If you forget this, you end up with what I like to call "downhill water". It doesn't occur in nature, which is what makes it jump out at you. (It's a shame 'cuz water skiing would be so much easier on downhill water!)

The same sort of thing applies to uprights. If they're not -- and they should be, then it just jumps out at you as wrong.

So remember, when you're taking a shot, just before you press the button, check the horizon and uprights. It only takes a second and your shots will start to look better right away. So you will remember, won't you! NB That's me planting an instruction in your subconscious to help you along :)

Telegraph pole hats

By this I mean anything which intrudes onto or across your subject. Sure, we've all seen shots where a pole seems to be growing out of someone's head but there's also the ones where a stray branch or boat aerial sticks up, sort of cutting the shot in two.

Easy enough to sort out with a step or two this way or that.

Shoot from eye-level

Theirs, not yours!

I mentioned this in a recent posting and it fits in nicely here, too. Whenever we're connecting with someone we don't feel natural about it unless we're at their eye-level.

Think about it... If you see someone stopping for more than lust a quick hello when they spot a friend at a table, what's the chances they'll hunker down as they speak? If someone's talking baby-talk (to a baby!), they'll get down to their eye level.

And so photos should be taken from the eye level of your subject. Kiddies playing on the floor, get down on one knee, babies crawling? Then get down on your tummy. You get the added bonus that, as you come into their field of view, they start connecting with you and you'll find your photos will take on that added atmosphere.

The same of course goes for pets, too, whether action or portrait.

Subject in the centre

Just don't! Unless it's a group photo, you know, friends, wedding....

Your subject is always doing something, within their immediate surrounds, even if it's only daydreaming and looking off into the middle distance. To convey that feeling place your subject off to one side (away from where they're looking, if that applies) or up, or down but not centre, please!

Imagine a game of oxo, or maybe a dolls house with 9 equal-sized rooms. Wherever the lines are, wherever the interior walls are, place your subject, the horizon, that nice tree, their eyes, whatever.

For even more impact in your shot place it on one of the points where two lines (walls) cross. PS This is known as the "rule of thirds".

Finally, short and sweet...

Rules are there to be broken. The only reason for having them is so that you think about it before you break them. Get used to them and then happy breaking!

As always, comments, additions, thoughts, denials -- all welcome :)

Stumble It!

Useful tip for remembering photo facts

If you're on holiday, touring or just out and about taking shots of interesting places or objects, make it easy on yourself later.

Snap the information board

If there is an information board, or even just date markings, take a quick snap of it (and check the image on your camera to make sure you can read the text). That way, it'll be there to hand in the same place on your pc as your treasured photos when you need it for your blog, flickr, deviantart or your own photo portfolio.

Go on, you know it makes sense :)

Stumble It!

Why is it important for serious photographers to master b/w?

There are certain shots in b/w that really concentrate your mind on the bare essentials. A good example is this great shot from Skyhunter.

I think that to be a great colour photographer (which I'm not - yet), you've got to master b/w first. Without colour to flood your senses, you have to concentrate on what's left - the bare essentials of light and line, texture and tone, pattern and form and, finaly, composition - they way they all interact with each other in the frame.

Look at the photo linked above (opens in a separate tab) - with no colour, what have you got?

Well, to me, there's some uniform texture (not much to concentrate on there, then) the lines of the landscape and they way they flow (lovely interacting / balancing curves); then there's the interesting way the light falls across the scene, giving contour to the land with tonal changes across the full range, from deep black to some highlights of pure white.

Not really a whole lot to concentrate on in making the shot, so with better focus of the mind, how can you not produce well-composed shots with no unintended distractions? It's so in-yer-face with b/w, you quickly learn how to crack the whip and get these elements performing as you want.

I think in mastering b/w, you can then bring all those learnings to colour. A masterful colour shot not only has to have all the colour relationships right but also all those non-colour attributes as well.

I'm in danger of rambling now, but you know what I mean :)

Stumble It!