Stained Glass
As I was wandering around Notre Dame I became captivated by the beautiful stained glass windows. Here are a few that I took. don’t look at the photography, look at the stained glass! Look at the intricacy and the colorfulness and think of the time it took to create these master pieces. It would be fun to photograph these windows more seriously and then create a composite stained glass poster of the stained glass windows, perhaps in the form of a stained glass window! [nggallery id=27]
Notre Dame Cathedral
Went to see Notre Dame this morning and spent a hour wandering around inside awe struck by its immensity and beauty as well as the hard work over many generations it took to build it. My pictures aren’t ground breaking but they are new for me so that is good enough. All hand held, high ISO, wide open f-stop, aperture priority, -.3 auto compensation, matrix (evaluative) metering, auto focus.
Live From Paris!
The Withering Look Chronicles (or how my days are going in Paris) Instance 1. On the predawn trip in from De Gaulle airport amid a lovesick chorus of “Look France!” and “Ah, Paris” of francophillia I ask the driver “Where’s this tower thing I’ve heard so much about?” Instance 2. In a cheese shop picking up a bottle of wine I ask “Is this good wine?” and get the response “But of course, it is French!” to which I respond “Yes, but so is your army.” Instance 3. I make the insightful comment “If they don’t want me to pronounce the last letter why do they stick it on the end of the word?” Instance 4. I ask for French toast for breakfast. I get a piece of bread toasted. To be Continued
Two Pictures
Two handheld pictures from Acadia National Park last week. Snap shots really, taken to help my workshop participants with a few compositions, but nice. Here is how I did it. Bass Harbor in the fog ISO 2000 (on my Nikon D4 I can shoot publishable shots up to ISO 6400 ) to get a high enough shutter speed. F8 because I didn’t need a lot of depth of field with the fog in the background (can’t focus fog). About 100mm on my Nikon 24-12omm lens. Shot a burst of 6 shots and picked the best one. Used aperture priority and matrix (evaluative) metering.Automatic white balance. No auto compensation. Focused on the dory in front to make sure it was in focus. Zoomed in to cut out the blank white sky above and the dull gray water in front. Top of Cadillac Mountain, Acadia National Park ISO 2500 because it was very windy and I needed a shutter speed of at least 250th of a second. F11 for depth of field. I didn’t need f16 or f22 because the closest part of my composition was 20 feet away (the closer the foreground in your composition the smaller the f-stop you need for adequate depth of field). About 35mm to capture the big scene from foreground out to the Cranberry Isles. shot a burst of 10 shots (because of the buffeting wind). Used aperture priority and matrix (evaluative) metering.Automatic white balance. Auto compensation at -.7 to control the bright sky (at 0 auto compensation the sky blew out). Focused in the middle of the red plant in front to make sure I got the most in focus (From you point of focus there is always a little depth of field coming toward you and a lot of depth of field extending away from you- so focus close). Tilted the camera down to cut out most of the blank white sky above and zoomed in a bit to cut out the dull gray rock in front.
Things Learned
Three consecutive workshops forces lots of insight into my small but perfectly formed brain. Lots. Let me share… Histograms are not inconvenient, they are necessary. A histogram will tell you exactly what your exposure is going to be, exactly what it is. No interpretation, no guessing, just the facts. Take your picture, check the histogram, see if there are any blown out highlights (the data bumps up against the right part of the histogram), adjust as necessary, take your next shot. If you don’t check your histogram you might as well be shooting film. It is not HDR (high dynamic range) if you are just bracketing your shot and then merging them together in your computer no matter the light. If it is very contrasty light (re: ugly light) and you just have to have the shot then mindfully blending multiple images to capture a better rendition of the ugly light than a single image could do- that is HDR. Taking three or five lighter and darker shots in low contrasty light (light rain or mist) is ZDR (zero dynamic range) and will render the pretty light ugly. HDR is not a cure-all. It is a tool to be used selectively. Most people’s tripods are inadequate in one way or another- too short, too unstable, to inflexible, too clever, too complicated. Don’t compromise- get a good tripod and use it faithfully. Your photography will improve dramatically. Flash is never a good idea when natural light will do. Nothing is prettier than natural light. Period. Processing is like talking- yes, you can shout and you will be heard but if you whisper you will be remembered. So don’t over saturate, in fact, don’t even touch the saturation slider. Tweak locally, don’t glop things up globally. Tweaking is a little lick of improvement, global adjustments are a slobbering mess. How do you tell if you are a licker or a slobberer? If the first thing someone notices about your image is the processing you are a digital slobberer. Back off and try a touch of subtlety. There is never just one shot. There are always many shots. Don’t leave until you find them. The dials, wheels, buttons and toggles on your camera are there for a reason and you paid for each and every one of them. Learn what they do, they are there to help you. And finally, put Photoshop aside for awhile and learn Lightroom. You’ll be very happy that you did.
I’m Back!!!
Yes it has been a long time since my last post but I haven’t been idle. I just completed three workshops with 40 total participants over the last 3 weeks- two in Vermont and one in Acadia National Park on the coast of Maine. Now I’m back and ready to deluge you continued sense and nonsense. Stayed tuned and I will begin posting again. Here is a picture taken on my one afternoon off between my two Vermont workshops. More soon!
On the Light Table
