ON-LINE PHOTO INSTRUCTION-- with critiques of your work
My 4- week on-line courses begin again on Wednesday, December 3. I have a new 4 week course in Stock Photography that might interest you. As a professional photographer, the best thing I ever did was join a stock photo agency.
Betterphoto.com, the company for whom I teach these on-line courses, is going back to a quarterly schedule. Starting in January, their 8-week courses will repeat every quarter, not every month. Therefore, none of my 8-week courses will be offered in December. They will begin next on January 7th of the New Year.
Do you want to make money in photography? Want to feel more confident in exposure? Learn how to expose correctly when you shoot into the sun like the photo below. Interested in learning more about Photoshop (like putting fireworks in the sky or removing lens flare). Are you insecure about your compositional skills?
I teach several 8-week and 4-week courses on-line for Betterphoto.com
The way the courses work is this. Every Wednesday, you receive a lesson that consists of text and photos, explaining various principles in either photography or digitral manipulation. At the end of each lesson there is an assignment, and you have plenty of time to take pictures and upload them for my critique. You can use photos you did specifically for the assignment or images that you have taken previously.
On-line photo courses are like virtual classrooms but not in real time. Other students can see your pictures, read my critiques, and comment on your work. Similarly, you can comment on the pictures of other students.
One of the wonderful things about these on-line courses is that students participate from all over the world. In a single lesson's uploads, you may see pictures from Bryce Canyon or Brazil, or from Singapore or South Carolina. It's a very simulating environment as well as a learning experience, and it will help you become the photographer or digital artist that you want to be.
On the Betterphoto.com website, you can read the lesson outline of each course and see sample photos. In addition to going to Betterphoto.com, you can also access the courses I teach drectly by going to my website, jimzuckerman.com, and clicking on the link 'Courses'. at the top of the home page.
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SHOOTING IN THE SNOW
There are two major concerns when you shoot in the snow. First, you must keep the batteries in your camera warm enough to function. Second, you have to approach exposure with the knowledge of how meters really work. If you aren't careful, two things will happen that you won't like. The images will be too dark, and you will lose detail in the snow.
 With respect to the batteries, I use two techniques when I'm shooting in extreme cold. I try to keep the camera inside my down jacket against my chest as much as possible. When the camera is idyll, there is no sense in exposing it to the cold. This really helps. If you have a quick-change plate on the bottom of your camera, you can take the camera off the tripod very easily and slip it inside your jacket and keep it there until you want to shoot again. This will keep the camera and flash card functioning properly.
The other thing I do is buy chemical heat packets and affix one of them to the bottom of the camera, right against the battery. I use a strip of Velcro to do this. Rubber bands aren't good because in very cold weather they will break. The heat packets provide warmth for several hours, so you only need two or three of them during the day.
Exposure
Many photo instructors tell their students that the way you expose for snow conditions is to overexpose your shots by 1 1/3 or 1 2/3 f/stops. Their rationale is that meters are programmed to interpret middle toned subjects and scenes correctly. When the meter 'sees' all the white snow, it wants to make it middle toned, and therefore it dictates a reading that will underexpose the shot. Snow underexposed is gray. Therefore, when you overexpose the shot using the exposure compensation feature on the camera, this compensates for the problem. While this works in some conditions, it doesn't work in all types of winter photography because there are so many different snow and lighting scenarios.
For example, look at the photo below of the Western-style fence. Only about 30% of the image has snow in it while the rest of the image is middle toned. Now study the image above of the snowy tree in a snowstorm. It is 100% white. How can the same overexposure rule apply to both? The answer is -- it can't.
There are three approaches to exposing correctly on snow:
1. Use a hand held incident meter. This reads the light falling on the scene, not the light reflecting from it. This is a crucial difference. A hand held meter has a white hemispherical dome, and you point this at the camera (not the subject) when the meter is held in the same light as the scene. This will always give you a correct exposure.
2. Read a middle toned subject like tree bark, a gray card, blue jeans, the deep blue sky, or a neutral toned rock. Then, lock that reading in place with the AE lock button and take the shot. So that you can always have something middle gray with you, buy a gray card for a few dollars and then go to a fabric store to purchase a small piece of fabric that matches the card. When this is sewn onto your camera backpack, you will always be able to use this to take a light reading -- as long as the fabric (or the card) is in the same light as the subject. The fabric saves you from carrying one more thing among your equipment.
3. Take the photo with no exposure compensation, and if it is too dark you can alter the exposure after-the-fact in your RAW converter. This is assuming you are shooting in RAW, which you should be doing. Don't shoot snowy scenes in JPEG mode. You will lose detail in the snow for sure.
White Balance
I shoot my camera on daylight white balance for all my outdoor shooting. In deep shade or in snowy conditions, the color bias is often shifted toward blue. This can be desirable or undesirable, depending on what you want. If you like the blue, you can emphasize it by lowering the Kelvin temperature setting on your camera if you have that function (such as 4500 degrees Kelvin). Or, set the WB to 'indoors'. Your photos will be very, very blue. If you don't want the blue cast, set the WB to 'cloudy'.
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DIGITALLY CREATING SILLY PET PICTURES
It is impossible sometimes to dress up and adorn some kinds of pets. For example, I wanted to add some holiday cheer to the red eye tree frog I photographed at my frog and reptile workshop, but I had two problems. No one makes Santa hats for frogs (maybe someone is missing an entrepreneurial opportunity), and no frog would stand for such nonsense (well, maybe not). They'd jump away immediately. Therefore, the only way to do this is with Photoshop.
A friend of mine had a Santa hat, so I photographed it against a black background and then, in CS4, I used Edit > transform > scale to reduce the size of it to fit the frog. By holding down the shift key, you can maintain proportions of the hat.
I then made a rough selection around the hat, including some of the black, with the lasso tool. This was then cut and pasted into the frog picture. Using the move tool, I moved the hat into place. Finally, to eliminate the black area around the hat (seen on the top of the frog's head) I used the blend mode 'lighten'. The blend modes are found in a submenu in the layers palette. You'll see the word 'normal' there, and that's where you can pull the menu down and choose 'lighten'.
This worked out really well because the background behind the frog was black. The hard part was making the fur look good against the green skin. You can't use Photoshop to cut around hair or fur (unless you get the plug-in Fluid Mask), but the blend mode made it possible to separate the white fur from the black background I used when I shot the hat.
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January FROG AND REPTILE WORKSHOP
There is still space available in the workshop I give twice a year in St. Louis to photograph rare poison dart frogs and exotic reptiles. The people that participated in this workshop last August got incredible pictures. Because we set up several stations with various backgrounds, each person has the opportunity to shoot for two days and get the best macro images imaginable. Before the shooting begins, I discuss principles involved in macro photography and lighting strategies so you know exactly how to get the best shots.
The workshop is held in a hotel near the airport (there is a free shuttle to the hotel), and then in the evening we go downtown to photograph the remarkable St. Louis Arch at twilight.
The cost of the workshop is $890. To read more about this event, and to see more photos that were taken during the workshop, here is a link on my website: http://www.jimzuckermanworkshops.com/-frogs-and-reptile-photo-works/
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PHOTOSHOP WORKSHOP IN MY HOME
The February 7, 8, 2009 Photoshop workshop in my home has been sold out, so I am offering it again on Saturday and Sunday, March 28 and 29. At this time, there are only four more slots open. Photographers have never had such a remarkably creative tool to manipulate imagery, and knowing how to use Photoshop is one of the most exciting things you could ever learn in photography. I love working in Photoshop, and it's exciting for me to teach it. I know that learning this program can be intimidating, but it's not hard. Really. There is a lot to remember, but going over each action two or three times is what you need to imprint the information in your brain. I will walk you through many of the most important parts of Photoshop, and you won't believe what you'll be able to do with your pictures.
The fee of $450 will include instruction from 9 to 5 on both days, two lunches and one wonderful dinner provided by my wife (who is an amazing cook). I will provide a list of nearby hotels where you can stay. I will shuttle you back and forth to my home as well as pick you up from the airport if you fly in.
This workshop is for beginners who know nothing (or very little) about Photoshop, but it very quickly gets into intermediate and even advanced techniques. Photoshop can't be taught in a linear fashion, like math. It doesn't work like that. For example, you don't have to know how to use the clone tool -- a basic function of Photoshop -- to do layer masks. Similarly, you can learn how to add what looks like a studio background light using the gradient tool, but not understand how to set up short cuts in the Actions palette.
In the workshop, I will begin with the tools palette and explain how the most important tools can be used to make incredibly creative images. Even if you know what these tools do, you will learn ways of applying them to various photographic situations that will amaze you. I will then go into layers and layer masks, selections, replacing the sky, adding lighting effects, adding reflections, making silhouettes, an impressive list of awesome plug-ins, the relationship between the cloning tool and the healing brush, cloning from one photo to another, and much more. By doing each of the techniques I discuss as I explain them, you will be able to remember the steps and then this wonderful knowledge will be incorporated into your work flow.
 You will need to bring your own laptop computer, and this will make it easier for you to concentrate on the techniques rather than fiddling with someone else's computer. I will demonstrate more creative ideas in these two days than you can imagine.
If you are interested, contact me at photos@jimzuckerman.com. The airport that you will fly into is Nashville, Tennessee (BNA).
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2009 PHOTO TOURS
Carnival in Venice -- Sold out
Poland in July -- spaces available
Namibia in Sept. -- one space available
Turkey in Oct. -- spaces available
Blue mosque, Istanbul, Turkey
For other photo tours, speaking engagements, and seminars that I will be giving, please visit my website: jimzuckerman.com and click on the Blue Mosque photo you see on the home page of the website.
Ruins of Ephesus, Turkey
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Missed a newsletter? You can see all of my past newsletters (starting February, 2008) if you paste this link into your browser:
http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs031/1101654139463/archive/1102299763866.html
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I hope you have a wonderful Christmas or Chanukah, and a great New Year.
Jim Zuckerman
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