This photograph is of my family on Mother’s Day.

This is a photograph of a flower through a shoebox

These images have dramatically different subjects, and dramatically different shooting styles. The first one is a family portrait, and the second is a landscape, shot through a shoebox. However, while the styles are different, you must consider the same things when shooting them.

Lighting

Lighting usually is just thought about as the artificial light in the room or the natural light outside. However, in every situation one must think about all different kinds of light, and what one wants the final product to look like. For example, the color of light, while usually unnoticeable to the human eye unless you look for it, is important. Fluorescent bulbs burn at a different color than incandescent, and that’s different from natural sunlight, which is different from those ‘cool white’ bulbs, which is different from colored bulbs, which are different from halogen bulbs, which are different from… well, you get the idea. Basically, everything is slightly different. You can notice this if you take a piece of white paper, or a bowl of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese from a incandescent light to a fluorescent and then outside. The color of the white paper or the yellow mac & cheese will be slightly different. (Oh, and you don’t even want to know how difficult it is to get color right when you’re shooting in a room with a bunch of different types of bulbs and natural light.)… But I’m getting slightly off topic here…

Beyond the different types of light, you need to think about how you can use light (or lack of light) to your advantage. Some of my favorite photos aren’t very bright- it’s the darkness of them that gives an intimate feel. Sometimes it’s the lack of light that makes something better. It’s the wondering about what is just to the left or right, what is that that is just slightly too dark to make out, that makes people come back for more of your photographs.

#1) This has a lot of things going on. It has a vignette, the blacks were boosted, it was converted from color to black and white, exposure has been changed, brightness and contrast have been changed, and the color temperature has been adjusted. Some of this we’ll discuss in Color (or lack thereof) later on, namely color temperature and the black and white conversion.

So, this was shot under incandescent bulbs. But really, for this, that doesn’t particularly matter. We’re converting it to black and white, and so what we really want to do is to just get it to look right. The vignette and increasing the blacks in the image (such as, making the blacks blacker, thus some greys went to black) helps to bring focus to the center of the image, and since the blacks were increased, helps to bring focus to the brighter areas of the image. Adjusting the exposure, brightness and contrast helped to do even more of this, making the whole image brighter (exposure & brightness), increased the definition of the whites and the blacks, and reduced the amount of dull greys (contrast).

#2) In this image, the exposure, blacks and tone curve were adjusted.

What is the tone curve?
Well, check out the screenshot to the right–>. Basically, it allows you to change the brightness of the different tones (Highlights, Lights, Darks, and Shadows). By increasing the brightness of the highlights, you automatically change the brightness of everything else (hence the curve aspect). You can think of it as a rubber band stretched between two fingers.. If you push out on the rubber band with another finger, the whole thing changes, not just the spot you’ve pushed out on. Another thing to notice in this screenshot is the light mountain behind the curve: that’s what tones are most predominate in the image. So, in this image, I don’t have very many highlights, which is why I increased them to bring them out as much as possible, and I have a lot of shadows and darks, which is why I slightly decreased them to give more oomph to the lights and highlights. The tone curve allows you to fine tune the brightness of the image. Usually it’s said that you’re looking for a nice S shape in the tone curve.

Here’s the steps to the process.. This goes left to right, top to bottom. Click the images for larger versions.

• The first one is straight out of camera. Notice how the magnifying glass puts the image onto the tracing paper- looks really cool just like this I think…
• The second one, I’ve cropped the top and bottom of the box out, applied a Lightroom preset that I have.
• The third, I’ve cropped it a bit tighter and adjusted the exposure up a bit.
• The fourth, the black level has been bumped up  to 5.
• The fifth, I start playing with tones. First, shadow tones get a boost.
• The sixth, Highlight tones get a boost…
• Finally, Light tones. And it’s the final image.

I hope the preceeding images have given you a sense of the power of a good photo editing program. The changes–when looked at step by step– are subtle.. But comparing the first image with the final one, it’s a huge difference.

Next time, Background.

This photograph is of my family on Mother’s Day.

This is a photograph of a flower through a shoebox

These images have dramatically different subjects, and dramatically different shooting styles. The first one is a family portrait, and the second is a landscape, shot through a shoebox. However, while the styles are different, you must consider the same things when shooting them.

Subject

#1) Obviously this is of people. However, who exactly is the subject? While, yes, you can have multiple people be the subject of a photograph, in this case there is only one real subject, and the others are less important. In this case, the true subject is my Grandmother. Everyone else is looking away from the camera, doing their own thing– in motion, you might say (and I do). Everyone else is simply providing lines in the image. You’ll notice pretty much everyone is looking at grandma, or in her general vicinity. Keeping your photographs interesting is very important: and this one most definitely does that. You’re probably wondering, as I am now (since this photo is a few years old and I don’t remember the context) what everyone is doing, and what they’re thinking about. If you look closely you’ll see what seems to be a cup in front on grandma, and so you’ll guess that maybe they’ve just finished a meal. Or maybe they’re looking at each other and are mad because no one will cop to eating the last piece of pie. Or dropping the mashed potatoes all over the floor. Whatever you’re thinking, that’s the magic of photography. Photography was created for this kind of a shot: movement. Never before could you accurately capture people in action, everything was from memory or completely staged to look like it was action. While some painters got really good at it, it was photography that did it perfectly.

#2) This one is, clearly, of a flower. While this isn’t the best thing I’ve ever done, I still like it. I recommend clicking on it to see a larger version. This was shot using a shoebox.

I’m not sure, but I think the amazingly talented (and French) Remi invented this. See some of his brilliant videos on vimeo here… Sadly, it looks like he hasn’t been posting for awhile. Basically, you take a magnifying glass, some tracing paper, and a shoebox and put them together. Result: Really cool pictures and videos with a small area for your subject. Using one of these basically automatically gives you a vignette (dark fading border around the edges), which pulls the viewer’s eye toward the center.

Check out the next post for Lighting (and more talk of vignettes).