ON-LINE PHOTO INSTRUCTION-- with detailed critiques of your work
My new 4-week on-line photo courses begin again on Wednesday, April 7. To improve your compositional skills, for example, click here to check out the outline of this course to see if you feel this material is exactly what you need. The 8-week courses I teach are in full swing at the moment, and they will begin again on Wednesday, May 5.
I have a new photoshop course called Photoshop: Thinking Outside the
Box.
You can click here to see the outline of the course. It is very different from my other Photoshop courses in the types of techniques I demonstrate.
Do you want to make money in photography? Want to feel more confident in using natural light outdoors? Interested in learning more about Photoshop (like putting fireworks in the sky or removing lens flare). Are you insecure about your exposure skills?
The way the courses work is this. Every Wednesday, you receive a lesson that consists of text and photos, explaining various principles in photography, marketing your work, digital manipulation, or whatever subject you are studying. 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. It is a unique and wonderful learning experience.
One of the great 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 stimulating environment, and it will help you become the photographer or digital artist that you would like to be.
On the Betterphoto.com website, you can read the lesson outline of each course and see sample photos. In addition, you can also access the courses I teach directly by going to my website, jimzuckerman.com, and clicking on the link 'On-line Photo Courses'. at the top of the home page.
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GRAPHIC DESIGN:
The bottom line to great pictures
When I critique the work of my on-line students, I am constantly commenting on the graphic design of the various elements in their compositions. The reason I do that is because the graphics of an image -- i.e. the shape or form of the subjects -- is of paramount importance to the success of photographs. Lighting is extremely important, too, but if you have beautiful lighting on a subject with an uninspiring graphic shape, the picture won't be worth very much.
Let me show you what I consider to be good and bad graphic design.
 
The silhouette of the trees on the left has a beautiful sky in the background with good color saturation, and the exposure is perfect. However, the mass of branches are a compositional mess. The graphic design is horrible. It's confusing and very unappealing, and the eye moves around the image looking for something of interest to focus on -- but there's really no artistry in these messy trees to appreciate.
By contrast, the photo on the right is in a different class altogether. The sky is very pretty -- although perhaps not as striking as the photo on the left -- but it's the shape of the branch and the tree trunk that make this successful. I would call this a fine art image, while the comparison photo on the left is only good for demonstrating what not to do.
Now compare the two photos of the horses below. Both of these are digital composites, but the shape of each horse defines the success of the image. The picture on the left is OK. It's not terrible, but it's not inspiring in any way. A horse with its head in the grass is a pretty boring subject with a pretty boring shape. The picture on the right, obviously, is the superior image. Why? The answer is simple. It's the graphic design.
 
You can look at most pictures this way unless we are talking about photojournalism.
Photographers who shoot war, poverty,
natural disasters, and so on rely on the emotional impact of their images to move people regardless of the graphic design. If the graphics are dynamic, then great. That's a bonus. But if not, it's the emotion of the picture that makes it work. For fine art photography, though, the shape of your subjects are the defining aspect of what makes great images.
 Both the silhouette of the leopard and the baby elephant nursing from it's mother exhibit good graphic design. In the photo of the elephant, had the trunk not been curved like that, this wouldn't nearly be as strong an image.
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FLOWER PHOTOGRAPHY
Spring is here, finally, and it's great to see all the flowers blooming. I know that many of you will be photographing them throughout Spring and Summer, and I thought you would find it helpful if I summed up the important aspects of shooting macro and landscape photography as it relates to flowers. Many books have been written about this subject, and I have enough to say about this that I could write a book as well on nothing but shooting flowers.
However, I feel that simplicity is often the best approach to explaining something, so let me give you the fundamental points as I see them to help you take beautiful images of flowers. Everyone loves photographing flowers -- how can you not? -- so memorize these simple ideas and your images will improve significantly.
1. Shoot when the sky is overcast, shoot in the shade, or photograph when the sun is low enough in the sky that it is not a factor. This eliminates harsh contrast, patchy lighting, unwanted shadows and distracting highlights.
2. Use a tripod. This gives you the ability to use small lens apertures for depth of field without worrying about how slow the shutter will be (unless there is wind). Doing floral photography without a tripod means you are willing to accept flower pictures that will never be as good as they should be. What's the point of spending thousands of dollars on camera equipment, computer hardware, software, travel, photo instruction, etc., and not take the best pictures possible because you were too lazy to carry a tripod?
3. Avoid the wind. Wind the enemy of flower photographers, and this is especially true when you do macro work. The air is usually still before the sunrises and after it has set.
4. Avoid messy backgrounds behind the flowers. They are very distracting.
5. If the subject is in the shade, don't include a sunny background. You'll hate the results.
6. In most cases, avoid out of focus foregrounds. They are terribly distracting. If you want to make the foreground so out of focus that it becomes an undefined haze of color, that's fine. Shooting through a color mist can be beautiful. However, if the tip of a petal is soft or if a group of foreground flowers are slightly blurred, the image will look bad.
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RAIN PROTECTION FOR YOUR CAMERA AND FLASH
A wonderful new product has been introduced that is designed to protect your camera from the rain and from saltwater spray if you are shooting on or near the ocean. This can also be used to protect sensitive camera gear from blowing sand. I could have used this when I was in Antarctica because my camera was extremely vulnerable in the zodiacs to wind-driven spray and splashing. I also could have used it when I was shooting 'the wave' in southern Utah several years ago and a ferocious sand storm caused $900 in repair to my camera and wide angle lens.
It is called the Hydrophobia, and it's made by ThinkTank. You can buy different sizes to accommodate various focal length lenses, including a portable flash. The photo at right shows my 70-200mm f/2.8 lens protected along with my 580 EX flash. Its very cleverly made, allowing easy access for your hands to control the camera's functions. A tiny pouch on the top of the Hydrophobia holds a waterproof piece that covers the front of the lens in case of a torrential downpour, and there is also a strap so you can wear it around your neck. Velcro tightens around the lens hood (which needs to be used) for a snug fit when you are shooting, and there is a clear plastic window in the back that allows you to see the camera. The viewfinder is clearly visible through the eyepiece.
One of my favorite times to shoot cities is at twilight or night when there is a light rain. The pavement or cobblestone glistens, and that adds a magical quality to an urban scene as you can see in the shot of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The Hydrophia is perfect because you don't have to worry about water damaging the camera. A tripod can be used with no problem,
and you can shoot without concern that your expensive gear will get damaged.
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Self Critique
This photo of a cheetah mother and cub was taken at 11 o'clock in the morning as my tour group was heading back to the lodge for lunch in the Masai Mara National Park, Kenya. The sun was high in the sky, and this is a terrible time to photograph wildlife. The only saving grace was that the cats were in the shade, and the soft and diffused lighting on them was ideal. However, the background was not ideal at all.
Because the sun was illuminating the tall grass behind the subjects,it is distracting. It is generally best to have a background behind your subjects be the same tone or darker than the subject. Light backgrounds, or backgrounds with light areas in them, draw the eye away from the point of the picture -- in this case the cheetahs -- and that's not how a successful picture is supposed to work. There was absolutely nothing I could do about this situation, so I put a 1.4x teleconverter on my 500mm f/4 telephoto to try and frame a tight composition with as little background as possible, and this was the best I could do.
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PHOTO TOUR to IRELAND -- last call
May 21 - 31, 2010
Come join me on a wonderful photography tour to beautiful Ireland. I've created an itinerary that encompasses castles, ruins, landscapes, cathedrals, old cemeteries and more. Ireland is a joy to experience, and you will cherish your pictures from our trip.
Here is a link to the promotional page on my website where you can see photos and read the day by day itinerary in brief:
http://www.jimzuckermanworkshops.com/photo-tour-to-ireland/
If this interests you, drop me a note at (photos@jimzuckerman.com) and I'll send you the complete schedule. I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have.
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PHOTO TOUR to
EASTERN EUROPE
August 27 to Sept. 9, 2010
My Heart of Europe trip was very successful in 2008, and I spent this past summer in Europe planning a Heart of Eastern Europe trip. As usual, I find the best vantage points, the most stunning cathedral interiors, and the best locations for twilight photography, and you will return home with images you will cherish. The countries we will visit include The Czech Republic, Slovenia, Poland, Hungary, Croatia, and Austria.
On my trips, I spend a lot of time talking about exposure, composition, Photoshop, and many other aspects of photography. The experience will not only be visually and culturally exciting, but it will be a learning experience as well.
 For a full description, pricing, and
more photos, please check out this link on my website here.
The stunning window at left is one of the beautiful buildings you'll see in Ljubljana, Slovenia. You should see the entire building!
The
photo below is the stunning and very unusual dome of the parliament building. It was taken with an extreme wide angle (14mm on a full frame sensor). These are examples of the wonderful details you can find everywhere in Eastern Europe. If you have any questions about the trip, my direct email
is: photos@jimzuckerman.com.
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PHOTOSHOP WORKSHOP in my HOME -- two spaces left
Sat. & Sun., April 24, 25
Photoshop is a photographer's best friend, and the creative possibilities are absolutely endless. In this personal and 'homey' environment, I start at the beginning -- assuming you know nothing -- but I quickly get into layers, cutting and pasting, plug-ins, and a lot more. I promise to fill your head with so many cool techniques that you won't believe what you'll be able to do.
Photoshop instructors approach teaching this program from different points of view. In addition to showing you how to use the various tools, pull down menus, layers, and so on, I spend a lot of time giving you creative ideas that will inspire you to produce amazing images with the pictures you've already taken.
A lot of people, once they learn what the tools and commands do, still need help in deciding what images to work with, what composites look good, and how to be artistic within Photoshop. This is one of the main things I address in this workshop.
I live in the Nashville, Tennessee area, and if you fly into the airport (BNA) I will pick you up. If you drive, I'll give you my address and you can find it on Mapquest. For the $450 fee, I include one dinner in my home (prepared by my wife who is an amazing cook and hostess) and two lunches, plus shuttling you back and forth from my home to your nearby hotel.
Contact me if you would like to participate. All you need is a laptop. If you don't have one, I have one laptop (a Mac) I can loan out. photos@jimzuckerman.com
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