Jay Maisel Workshop #16—Lessons Learned

 A lot of people have asked me what lessons I learned in Jay’s workshop.   I learned many, but to me, the most important ones were:

1.  Ultimately photographs are about:  light, color and gesture.  As the artist, I must decide which one is the most important and then work the scene to produce a photo that extracts the element(s) that are important.

2.  Gesture is not limited to just people.  Everything has gesture.  Gesture, in essence, is what makes something unique.  Something worth photographing—texture, smoothness, position within its surroundings, etc.  And gesture always trumps light and color.  If I get the gesture right, light and color will just be supporting actors within the photo.

3.   I am responsible for every pixel within my frame.  It is up to me to select what will be within the photo and what will be outside the photo.  I must take care to make sure that the photo is framed as I want it.

4.  You must work the scene.  I was standing in front of one of Jay’s photos that I really like when Jay walked up. 
Jay: “I remember that one.  I took three shots and this one is my final shot.”
Me:  In three shots, you got that.
Jay:  Yes.  I went there and fired off three shots and that is what I got.  Of course I had been to that location fifty different times, tried for what you see here and I got NOTHING!

5.  You must be your own severest critic.  If you are your own severest critic you will always be looking for that next “portfolio shot”, that next “totally different look”, etc.

Today’s shot is about two things:  the gesture of the beams under the FDR Expressway and working the situation.  The photo was taken early one morning while I was out walking.  I loved the way that the early morning light showed-off the texture, the rhythm and the complexity of the beams.  Because of the dynamic range of the scene I knew that I would have to resort to HDR, so I shot three shots (-2, 0 and +2 EV).  I took four different sets of shots and then moved on.  In hindsight, I realize that there was much more to this scene than I appreciated at the time.  I should have worked the scene much longer and harder.  The photograph is nice but it is not a game changer.  I should have not settled for anything less than a game changer.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Not important

Post Processing:  Not important

Words of Light

Last Tuesday the assignment for Bay Area Photography Club was a photo taken at night.  I have not done much night photography so I was very interested in seeing what I could do.  I had tons of ideas of what would be neat, but because of laziness and lack of skill, I did none of my great ideas.  Take me at my word, all fifty of my great ideas were definitely world class photos.

Today’s photo is of the “a, a” sculpture at the University of Houston.  I had seen the sculpture while taking some portraits of outstanding students for the university.  I wanted to capture all the details so I took nine shots at one-stop increments.  I custom set the white balance in my camera so that the lights would take on a warmer glow.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3x, Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8 at 20mm, ISO 200, f/8 and with shutter speeds (nine exposures in one-stop increments) from 1/4^th of a second to 30 seconds on a tripod.

Post Processing:  

Nik HDR Pro—combined and tone mapped six images.

Photoshop CS5—removed a crane and a couple red flowers that were distracting, used lens correction filter to straighten building’s distortion and sharpened image using the high pass filter method.

Using HDR to Show Texture

I was visiting a friend’s range over the Fourth of July.  The range is between Luling and Lockhart—two places that have great barbeque.  Before I left, I wanted to try some night photography.  I did, but have little to show for my efforts.  I need a lot more practice before I can take a photograph that does justice to what I imagine in my mind.

I went over to Gonzales one day and shot this photo through an open window of the old jail.  I wanted to show texture, so I used three shots and combined the various exposures in nik HDR Pro.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 at 30mm, ISO 200, f/4.8 and 1/10^th, 1/6^th, and 1/3^rd of a second.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 3—Set black and white points, adjusted exposure, added clarity and removed slight red cast.

Nik HDR Pro—combined and tone mapped three images using one of the presets in the plug-in.

Walking around Downtown Houston #2

This is the old Texaco Building.  I always liked the architecture of this building.  It has very classical lines.  It is now abandoned.  Not sure what will happen to it but I am hoping that someone will see what a great old building it is and saves it.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 70-300mm f/3.5-5.6 shot at 80mm, ISO 1,400, f/8, 1/180^th of a second.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 3—Set white and black point and adjusted mid tone contrast.

Nik Silver Efex Pro 2—Converted image to black and white.

Walking around Downtown Houston #1

I had a job in downtown Houston last week.  After the job was over, I decided to wait and let the rush hour traffic subside (as if you can in any big city in America).  I put my lights, etc in the car, armed my camera with my Nikon 70-300 lens (one of my favorites for street photography) and started walking around downtown Houston.

For 40 years, my old firm had offices in downtown Houston and I spent a lot of hours, days, weeks, months and years in downtown Houston.  But, I must admit, I had NEVER just walked around looking at buildings, streets and the “going-on” until the other day.

The shapes and distorted reflections of these two buildings caught my eye.  I converted the image to black and white in Lightroom 3.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 70-300mm f/3.5-5.6 shot at 80mm, ISO 360, f/11, 1/180^th of a second.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 3—Set white and black point and adjusted luminosity of orange, yellow, blue and cyan to effect contrast of black and white image, and added a strong curves adjustment.

A Hurricane Ike Reminder

As you walk around Galveston, you do not see too many reminders of Hurricane Ike.  I did, however, notice this one the other day.  Although very simple, this little sign seemed to be very powerful.  

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 shot at 50mm, ISO 200, f/11 and 1/60^th of a second.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom—Set black and white points, increased mid-tone contrast and changed saturation of various colors.

Everyday HDR

Not too much to say about today’s posting—I liked the colors and the way the lighting was falling on the sidewalk.  I wanted to make sure that I captured all the details so I decided that I would use HDR to present the photo.  I took five shots but only used three of them in Photomatix to create the HDR photo.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 at shot at 35mm ISO 200, f/13 and various shutter speeds..

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 3—Set black and white points, added clarity and mid-tone contrast.

Photomatix—Combined three photos to create and tone map the HDR photo.

Oregon Trip #7—Art on a Bridge

The bridge at Cascade Locks is a classical old bridge.  The bridge was about 50 yards from our hotel on the Columbia River.  So naturally, I wondered over early one morning to take some photos of the bridge and the fog over the river.  After trying various angles, I finally decided to take one of the bridge pilings with its Lewis and Clark mural on it.

While I was taking the photo, I kept thinking about a comment that many of our judges at Bay Area Photo Club make:  “It’s not your art if you are merely taking a photo of someone else’s art.”   So based upon that theory, only the far right side of my photo is my art.  But then again, the design of the bridge someone else’s art.  So, I guess that portion of my photo cannot be considered my art.  Then, again, the sky and the trees—they are God’s art so I guess that portion of the photo cannot be mine.

Well, it may not be much of the photo, but you must admit, the sidewalk represents truly fine art that is all mine. 

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 28-70mm f/2.8 at shot at 28mm, ISO 200, f/11 and 1/60^th of a second.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 3—Set black and white points, added clarity, vibrance and mid-tone contrast.

Photoshop CS5—removed a few distracting elements within the photo and use nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast to bring out details.

An Ice Cream Parlor from the Past

Ste. Genevieve has many neat old building.  My favorite was probably the ice cream parlor because it reminded me of one in Alma, a small town near Fort Smith.  Every time my grandfather and I went to Alma, Mr. Harris, one of my grandfather’s closest friends, would take all of us over to the ice cream parlor for some home made ice cream.  Great ice and great memories.

I wanted the photo to have a slightly aged look, but I did not want to use a boarder or any textures.  I tried making the photo into a black and white, but it didn’t have the aged look that I wanted.  I then toned the black and white to sepia and reduced the opacity of the layer so that the layer muted the colors of the parlor.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 28-70mm f/2.8 shot at 28mm,  ISO 560, f/5.6 and 1/60^th of a second.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom—Set black and white points, added clarity and increased contrast.

Photoshop—Used Topaz Adjust to bring out the details and then added a black and white layer with a sepia toning at 40% to mute the colors and to give the photo a more aged look.

Unusual Reflections

I was walking around this old building looking at all the texture that the weathered paint had produced when I noticed this window with a reflection of an old railroad car and station. I tried several different angles to get the reflection of the railcar and station just the way I wanted.

I think this one is all about the angles of the reflections and the saturated colors.

Enjoy.

Camera settings: Nikon D3, Nikon 28-70mm f/2.8 shot at 28mm, ISO 200, f/11 and 1/125^th with a polarizing filter attached.

Post Processing:

Lightroom—Set white and black points increased clarity and vibrance.

Photoshop—used Topaz adjust to add greater detail and saturation of color.

An In-Your-Face HDR Photo

Earlier in the week, I presented what I consider a subtle HDR image—it captured the full dynamic range of the scene but did not have that surreal look to it. Well, today, we are going a full 180. I wanted this photo to look almost like a cartoon. I selected a subject with a lot of details and then processed the image to bring out all those details.

I wanted the buildings to completely cover the entire image so I was very careful to frame the photo from the left so that none of the sky behind the building was visible. I also tried to keep the two buildings to appear somewhat uniform. I purposely did not correct for the lens distortion. I felt that the distortion added to the surreal feel of the photo.

I shot five frames in the aperture priority mode at -2, -1, 0, +1 and +2 EVs. I used Photomatix to merge and tone-map the five frames into the final image.

Enjoy.

Camera settings: Nikon D3, Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8 at 17mm shot at ISO 200, f/13 and 1/8^th of a second and on a tripod for the 0EV exposure.

Post Processing:

Lightroom—Set white and black points.

Photoshop—used Noise Ninja to reduce noise in the photograph and used Topaz adjust to enhance the overall photo.

Early Morning HDR

A couple years ago, I played around with HDR a lot, but for some reason, HDR lost its charm with me. Lately, I have been looking at various photographers’ (including Barry Armer’s) HDR work. As a result, I got the bug to give HDR another try.

I was downtown Houston trying to find a site for an upcoming shoot when I saw this early morning scene of Cabo. I used HDR to capture the full range of the scene. I shot five frames in the aperture priority mode at -2, -1, 0, +1 and +2 EVs. I used Photomatix to merge the five frames and tone map the final image.

I wanted the final image to show all the details that my eyes were seeing.

Enjoy.

Camera settings: Nikon D3, Nikon 28-70mm f/2.8 at 62mm shot at ISO 200, f/4 and 1/15^th of a second and on a tripod for the 0 EV exposure.

Post Processing:

Lightroom—Set white and black points.

Photoshop—used Noise Ninja to reduce noise in the photograph.

Old Door of an Adobe Building

Adobe is not used much in Houston. Yet, a few months ago, I ran across a series of building in northeast Houston that looked like they belonged in New Mexico rather than Houston, Texas.

This building is a very simple building with a single door and window in the front. But, for some reason, I thought it was interesting. I tried photographing it with various crops and finally settled on this one. I know that many people will not like the way I cropped most of the window out of the frame, but, this cropped seemed the most natural crop for the building.

Enjoy.

Camera settings: Nikon D3, Nikon 28-70mm f/2.8 at 56mm, shot at ISO 200, f/5.6 and 1/90^th of a second.

Post Processing:

Lightroom—Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast, clarity.

Old Stairs

No theme this week. Just thought that I would show a few photos that have been hanging around my “Possible Blog Photos” collection in Lightroom.

I had seen these stairs on an old building in the Heights many times, but never really taken the time to photograph them. I was very early to a photo shoot one day and decided to really see if I could get a good photo out of them. I tried various angles and framing and finally settled on this one. I wanted this photo to be as much about the textures and colors as the architecture of the stairs and the buildings.

Enjoy.

Camera settings: Nikon D3, Nikon 28-70mm f/2.8 at 32mm, shot at ISO 200, f/9.5 and 1/60^th of a second.

Post Processing:

Lightroom—Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast, clarity and increased saturation of red, blue and cyan.

Photoshop—used nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast to add contrast to highlights, mid-tones and shadows and added a slight vignette using a multiple layer.

Another Around Houston Photo

Today’s image is one that I took while doing my around Houston series. I really liked the image both when I took it and then when I processed it in Lightroom. Why didn’t I use? I decided that I wanted all the photos to be “outdoor” photos rather than indoor ones.

The photo is from St. Basil Chapel on the University of St. Thomas campus. As I was about to leave the chapel, I noticed the reflection of the Madonna and Child above the holly water dispenser. The photo was relatively straight-forward exposure, however, the composition was the problem. Because of the distance between the reflection and the holly water dispenser, the composition either had to include a lot of dark negative space to the right of the holly water dispenser or be a long, but thin image. I decided on the latter.

Any suggestions to my composition dilemma?

Enjoy.

Camera settings: Nikon D3, Nikon 28-70mm f/2.8 at 42mm, shot at ISO 200, f/9.5 and 3 seconds on a tripod.

Post Processing:

Lightroom—Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast, clarity.

Photoshop—Cloned a few highlights in the granite wall and used nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast on the holly water dispenser to add contrast to the shadows, mid-tones and highlights.

Three Crosses

On my trip to Santa Fe, I went through Tecolotito, New Mexico a very small town that really was little more than a wide spot in the road.  Despite its size, however, I did find several interesting things to photograph.  The most interesting was this small church.  The church was very like the town—it had seen better days.  The structure was simple, but yet, appealing.  The three crosses seemed very unusual to me and added a real focus and a rhythm to the overall composition. 

I wanted my final image to have a very rustic look, so I finished it in Sepia tone and with a slight worn texture.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, 28-70mm f/2.8 at 65mm, shot at ISO 200, f/22 and 1/90^th of a second.

Post Processing:

Lightroom—Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast, clarity and vibrance.

Photoshop—used nik Silver Efex Pro to convert image to a sepia toned photo and then added a worn texture using onOne Photoframe.

Cool Lighting on a Weathered Building

The old and weathered aspects of the windows, shutters and siding was neat, but what really drew me to this scene was the really cool lighting—and when I say “cool” I mean both how it was falling on the building and its color.  I have no idea why the lighting had a bluish tent, but it was really cool.

I wanted the photo to match the overall lighting so I set my exposure compensation to -1.5 EV and dialed my white balance to 3,400K to make the light a little bluer.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, 28-70mm f/2.8 at 70mm, shot at ISO 200, f/11 and 1/60^th of a second with a exposure combination of -1.5 EV.

Post Processing:

Lightroom—Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast, clarity and vibrance.

Photoshop—used nik Color Efex Pro Tonal Contrast filter to add contrast to highlights, mid-tones and shadows.

McDonald Observatory

We spent the night at Indian Lodge in the Davis Mountains State Park.  The lodge is very nice.  But, the real reason we wanted to stay the night was so that we could attend the “Night Party” at the McDonald Observatory. 

The “Night Party” is generally held twice a week and includes various lectures, demonstrations and observing the stars and planet through various telescopes at the observatory.   The storm in the photo that I presented on Friday had settled over all of Texas, so we did not get to look through the telescopes.  Still, the “Night Party” was well worth the admission fee.  JD and I both really enjoyed all the demonstrations.

If you happen to be in the neighborhood, we strongly recommend that you visit the Davis Mountains, Fort Hood and, of course, the McDonald Observatory.

Even though this shot looks like it, the photo is not a HDR.  I used nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast filters to add contrast both to the buildings and the sky.  I used a heavy hand with the filter because I wanted the photo to have a surreal look to it.

Because of the storm, I did not take any photos from Fort Davis to Houston.  I think this is a record for me!

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, 17-35mm f/2.8 at 17mm, shot at ISO 200, f/16 and 1/20^th of a second.

Post Processing:

Lightroom:  Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast, clarity and vibrance, de-saturated most of the colors.

Photoshop:  Used nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast filter twice—once on the sky and then on the buildings to give different levels of local contrast within the highlights, mid-tones and shadows. 

Drink Coca-Cola

Not far from Carlsbad Caverns, I stopped at this old country store.  The owner had all sorts of antiques here and there.  I wondered around looking at the various items.  Without a doubt, the porch of one of the buildings with its old signs, coca-cola ice chest and funny little tin was the most interesting place to me.   I tried several shots of the ice box, but really was not happy with what I was getting.  I then decided to deploy my special VAL (Voice Activated Light, which in this case was JD and a Nikon SB800—sorry Steve, but you were not there).  I zoomed the flash head to 105mm and then put a snoot on it.  I wanted the light to hit the ice box.  I underexposed the scene by about 1½ f-stops and set the flash to overexpose by about 1 EV.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, 28-70mm f/2.8 at 35mm, shot at ISO 200, f/6.7 and 1/60^th of a second.

Post Processing:

Lightroom:  Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast, clarity and vibrance.

Photoshop:  Added texture using onOne Photoframe.