Importance of Color Combinations

 

This is a photo I took right after I received my Nikon D800.  I wanted to see how much detail that I could get from my new camera.  And, as I found out, more than enough!

The details in the flower are great, but to me, what makes this shot is the color combination of deep green background (which fades nicely into the background) versus the strong, vibrant purple and magenta of the flower (which brings the flower to the front of the image).

Color combinations are very important and I think that many of us photographers do not pay enough attention to it; and then, we are surprised when we see how well good color combination work.  So, what’s the moral to this story:  pay attention to different colors you have within your frame and try to work with color combinations that go together—usually, colors on opposite sides of the color wheel help bring-out each other.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D800, 85mm f/1.4, ISO 100, f/11 at 1/20^th of a second on a tripod with Elinchrom Quadra flash with large softbox to left of camera.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—applied Landscape preset during import, set white and black points, added vibrance, adjusted hue of greens and increased the saturation of purple and magenta and added clarity and vibrance to flower with adjustment brush.

Photos that All Photographers Must Take—But Why?

I was looking through photographs taken by serious photographers on a website a couple weeks ago and all of sudden, it struck me that there are photographs that are “standards” that all photographers seemed compelled to take.  Today’s photo is one of them—a male peacock with its tail spread.

When I see a photo like this one, I usually think:  “same ole, same ole.”  Yet, when I was presented with the opportunity to photograph this peacock I took over 70 frames of this peacock.

Why?  I have no idea.  Is my photo any better than the thousands that I have seen before.  Not really.  So why did I spend so much time taking and retaking photos of the subject?

I have no idea!

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D4, 24-70mm f/2.8, ISO 200, f/8 at 1/500^th of a seconds.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—applied Landscape preset during import, set white and black points and added clarity and vibrance.

Trying Different Things

 

Last week I was at my Cole’s baseball game and I saw a mother photographing one of the players (I assume it was her son that she was photographing) through the fence.  You can see the fence in the background; it is your normal chain-link fence.  I immediately thought:  “Doesn’t she know that the fence grades will show-up in her frame?”  Then, I thought:  “That might make for a most interesting special effect.”

So, I then proceeded to copy her.  I probably shot 100 or so images through the fence.  I was using my trusty Nikon 28-300mm and I was racked out to 300mm for most of the shots.  Additionally, I really wanted to isolate on the batter so I usually shot at or near a wide-open aperture, f/5.6 to f/6.3.

Image my surprise when I opened the images in Lightroom and I saw none of the fence in the image.  Rather, I had a good isolated image of the batter.  The first photo is a full frame of the shot and the second image is a 100% crop of that image.

The point of today’s post is not to shoot through fences at sporting events, rather, it is to try different things—you never really know what you are going to get

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D4, 28-300mm f/3.5~3\5.6, ISO 1000, f/6.3 at 1/750^th of a seconds.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—applied Portrait preset during import, set white and black points and increased contrast, clarity and vibrance.

Nicole—Part 4

 

Hopefully, today’s photo will help restore part of my damaged reputation due to my last posting.

In today’s photo, there are two big changes from last weeks post:  (1) I reoriented Nicole’s position so that I shot down the surf line thus picking up the little color that was in the sky (note that most of the color is to Nicole's left yet I did not want to move more to her right because that would have made more of the beach area show with its many distracting elements); and, (2) Nicole’s pose had more attitude and more connection with the camera.  To me, the second change is the really big one because I do not think you can have a successful portrait of anyone without them engaging your camera.  Compare the two photos.  To me, last weeks was just a snapshot of what Nicole looks like; today's photo makes you think about who she is and what she is thinking when she stares down the camera.

I wanted to balance the flash with the ambient light, so I increased the ISO to 800 and reduced the shutter speed to 1/20 of a second.  Because of the slow shutter speed, I had to sit in the water and brace my camera on my knees.   I had Doug position the flash above and to Nicole’s left.  In addition, we aimed the flash above Nicole’s head so that the light would be very soft on Nicole and not be on the water.

This is more what I wanted but still not up to Joe’s photo.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D4, 24-70mm f/2.8, ISO 800, f/9.5 at 1/20^th of a seconds with an Elinchrom Quadra flash with a large octa softbox above and to the left of camera.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—applied Portrait preset during import, set white and black points and adjusted the luminance and saturation of the colors in the sky.

Photoshop CS5—applied nik Color Efex Pro glamour glow filter to Nicole and dodged and burned various parts of the photo.

Nicole—Part 3

As I said in Nicole—Part 1, our original purpose of this shoot was to rip-off Joe McNally’s photograph of a woman playing a saxophone on a beach at sunset.  I forgot to say that I think this is a great photo, especially when in comes to mixing ambient and flash exposures.

We started our shoot just as Joe did—having Nicole in the water with the ocean and sky in the background.  Unfortunately, I did not recognize that our backdrop was not the same.  We did not have the sun setting behind Nicole and we did not have the rich colors in the sky behind.  Yet, we still set-up the shot as it was.

Overall, the light on Nicole is nice, but the photo as a whole does not work. Nicole is properly exposed but the background is under-exposed by about an f-stop.   There is no pop to the photo.  There is no compelling composition to make you study the photo.  And, finally, it lacks gesture.

I show today’s photo to show where we started so that you can better see how the session evolved.   

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D4, 85mm f/1.4, ISO 200, f/6.7 at 1/60^th of a seconds with an Elincrhom Quadra flash on a pole above and to the camera’s left.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—applied Portrait preset during import, set white and black points and then applied various Lightroom presets to the original picture.

Nicole—Part 2

Last week I met with some of my professional photographer friends over dinner to discuss and review each other’s work.  We meet five or six times a year.  Usually the discussions revolve around each other’s work, but last week, it was more about an article that Dale had read about how technology is taking the art out of photography.  The article was published in a French magazine (and in French), so there was no way that yours truly would have known about it or been able to read it.

The group was all over the map regarding whether they agreed or disagreed with the premise of the article.  Sometimes they even disagreed with themselves—which I always find amusing because I do that with myself, quite often!

The whole discussion got me thinking about how I view images.  To me, images that come from a camera fall into three main camps:  snapshot, pictures and photographs.  To me, a snapshot is the result of raising the camera and pushing the shutter without any conscious thought or intent for the image; a picture results when the photographer looks at the subject and tries to capture it in a way that helps the viewer see what the photographer is seeing by using composition and focus to help direct the viewer; and finally, a photograph, to me, results when the photographer instills the image either an emotional or an intellectual aspects into the image—it moves the viewer beyond the idea that the image is a “nice photo.”  A photograph makes the viewer do something other than just “look at the image.”

Now, what does all of this have to do with Nicole?  Well, last week’s photo of Nicole is a picture.  I think it is sharp, its composition directs the attention to her, but it does not ask anything of the viewer.  It is a good historical representation of what I was seeing—provided I tilted my head!

In today’s images, I simply applied various Lightroom presets to virtual copies of last week’s picture.  By simply pushing a button, I think the picture was transformed into something that takes the viewer out of his/her comfort zone and asked them to think about what they are seeing.  Is enough to make the picture into a photograph?  And, by merely, pressing a single button have I validated the author’s premise?

You decide.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D4, 85mm f/1.4, ISO 200, f/2.8 at 1/2000^th of a seconds.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—applied Portrait preset during import, set white and black points and then applied various Lightroom presets to the original picture.

Nicole—Part 1

 

In August, the Three Amigos (Steve, Doug and I) ventured to beaches on Galveston Island to photograph Nicole who is a real trooper.  The idea that Steve and I originally had for the shoot was to rip-off a photograph that Joe McNally did of a female saxophone player in the surf at sunset.  You can see the video here.

Today’s photo was taken before the sun began to set.  Here, I wanted Nicole to look like she was walking along the beach.  I purposely angled my camera to make Nicole look more dynamic and to add tension to the photograph (I believe that when the viewer sees something that does not compute—the horizon-line at angle—the viewer has a little tension).  My instructions to Nicole was to look directly at me with attitude.  She pulled it off—in spades!

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D4, 85mm f/1.4, ISO 200, f/2.8 at 1/2000^th of a seconds.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—applied Portrait preset during import, set white and black points.

My Vacation—Part 11

 

My final photo of my Maine vacation and also lighthouses of Maine is the Nubble Lighthouse in York.  This is one of the most photographed lighthouses in the world.  So, naturally, I had to try my hand at it.

The lighthouse is no an island about 200 yards from the mainland.  The photograph was taken at sunset (which was behind and to my left as you can see from the light hitting the island).  I waited until the light turned golden and then I played around with my white balance until I got the color that I wanted.  I tried various f-stops until I got everything in focus that I wanted in focus.
Although the light on the island was stunning, the sky behind the lighthouse had very little color in it.  I purposely underexposed the shot by about ½ of an f-stop to help saturate the colors.

Overall, I was happy with the results, but I wished that the clouds would have had more color.  Maybe next time!

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D4, 28-300mm f/3.5~5.6 with at 28mm, ISO 800, f/16 at 1/45^th of a seconds on a tripod and used my self-timer to trigger the camera (did not have my cable release with me—it was back in my hotel room).

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—applied Landscape preset during import and adjusted various colors luminance and saturation.

My Vacation—Part 10

This is the lighthouse at Bass Harbor that is just outside Acadia National Park.  The photo was taken about 45 minutes before sunset.  I had some nice golden light on the lighthouse but the sky had little color from the sunset.

Again, I took three photos to combine into an HDR image.

I liked the golden light on the lighthouse versus the cool blue colors in the sky.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D4, 28-300mm f/3.5~5.6 with at 28mm, ISO 100, f/16 at 1/90^th, 45^th and 20^th of a seconds on a tripod.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—applied Landscape preset during import and exported three exposures to nik HDR2 where I combined the photos into an HDR exposure.

My Vacation—Part 9

I thought I would finish-off my vacation photos with three lighthouses.  The first photo is of the lighthouse at Cape Elizabeth which is just outside of Portland.  I walked around the lighthouse for several minutes before I selected this location to take the photo.

There was a lot of contrast in the scene so I decided that an HDR image would be needed.  Playing around with my cameras spot metering, I decided that I would be able to shoot three shots and get the dynamic range of the image.  I wanted the photo to look very realistic so I was very light on the HDR controls.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D4, 28-300mm f/3.5~5.6 with at 28mm, ISO 200, f/16 at 1/350^th,180^th and 90^th of a seconds on a tripod.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 4—applied Landscape preset during import and exported three exposures to nik HDR2 where I combined the photos into an HDR exposure.