ON-LINE PHOTO INSTRUCTION-- with detailed critiques of your work
My new 4-week courses begin again at Betterphoto.com on Wednesday, October 4, 2012.
To improve your compositional skills, for example, click HERE to check out the outline of the Developing Your Creative Artistic Vision course to see if you feel this subject matter is exactly what you need.
I have a new photoshop course called Photoshop: Thinking Outside the Box.
You can click HERE to see the outline of this unique course that will introduce some intriguing techniques that you've probably not tried before -- like 3D, making a sketch, and more. It is very different from my other Photoshop courses, and it's a lot of fun.
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.
 |
|
|
|
10 DO's AND DON'Ts of LIGHTING
Lighting is one of the most important aspects of photography. It's good to remember the points below because they have a huge impact on the success of your photography.
1. DO shoot at sunrise and sunset. This is most important when photographing landscapes, wildlife, architecture, and people doing things outdoors. The low angled sunlight creates texture, long shadows, sidelighting (like on the castle in Portugal, below), and golden colors. When shooting at sunrise and sunset, DO use daylight white balance to retain the golden color. No other white balance setting should be used.  2. DO use soft and diffused light from an overcast sky on macro photography, outdoor portraits, autumn colors, glaciers, wildlife, pets, and flowers. The contrast is low and the colors of the subjects will really pop in this kind of light. Most people think a bright sun means great color. It's usually the opposite. Soft light means that the color is particularly saturated as in the Vermont scene below.  Autumn is here, and if you find yourself shooting in bright sunlight, wait until a cloud covers the sun or until the sun goes below the horizon. Your pictures will be infinitely better.  3. DO NOT photograph in patchy lighting. This is especially important in a forest environment. Three things happen when you use dappled or patchy light: a) The pattern of highlights and shadows becomes distracting, b) contrast is extreme and the shadows go black and/or the highlights become overexposed, and c) the exposure never looks good because the digital sensor can't handle the dynamic range. The picture of the two-toed sloth in Costa Rica, below, is about as bad as it gets. 
4. DO NOT shoot outdoors in the middle of the day. People look terrible, landscapes are flat and unappealing, cities appear garish and contrasty, and flowers look horrible. Nothing is attractive in mid-day sunlight except the tropical water in the Caribbean or the South Seas. The shot below was one of those situations in Peru where a village festival was held in the middle of the day. I took pictures because I was there, but I knew the images would be terrible, and they are. This is the first time I've shown this picture to anyone, but I'm doing so only because it's an example of what to avoid if possible.  5. DO use backlighting for drama. This kind of light doesn't work for many subjects (such as architecture), but when the subject can be rim lit or when the light can be seen through translucent elements like leaves, wings, and some fabrics, it's really beautiful. I took the image below with a flash, but whether you are using natural or artificial light, the principle is the same. 
6. DO be aware of the color of light. Warm, golden lighting evokes a certain mood and so do blue tones typical of deep shade and twilight. Use the correct white balance setting on your camera to capture the best color. I recommend using daylight WB for all of your outdoor shooting.
Many photographers automatically eliminate blue tones from their pictures, but sometimes they look great as in the wintry shot of Lake Superior, below.
7. DO create silhouettes by placing the sun behind the subject. Make sure that the subject itself has a beautiful graphic form, and expose correctly for the background, allowing the subject to go dark.
8. DO NOT capture backgrounds lighter than the subject unless you are shooting silhouettes. In the portrait below -- a picture I've always liked (except for the background) -- the young girl I photographed in Burma was in shade while the background was sun lit. This is not good because the lighter background draws the eye away from the girl. This was taken many years ago (before I knew better) with film.
9. DO use mid-day sunlight for photographing tropical water. The intense turquoise water shows up best with an overhead sun. At sunrise and sunset, the beautiful colors are lost.
10. DO use long exposures in low light situations to reveal color and detail that are invisible to the eye. The picture below is a 30 second exposure of a seascape by moonlight. While the moon is blown out, look at the beautiful colors and tones in this scene. When I took the picture, it looked like a typical night shot -- very, very dark and mostly devoid of detail.
|
SELF-CRITIQUE
What is wrong with this picture?
Let's talk about what's right with this outdoor portrait first. The background is so out of focus that there is no definition at all, and that's good. It forces all of the attention on the boy. Next, the tone of the background is darker than he is, and that also helps to direct our attention to him. The lighting is attractive since this was taken near sunset (although soft and diffused light would appeal to me more), and my subject is looking toward the center of the frame. I also like how much of the frame is filled with the boy's face and shoulders. What is not good is the shadow from his nose. It's unattractive and distracting once you notice it. This could have been avoided if I had asked him to turn his head slightly toward the sun. The lighting that the Renaissance painter Rembrandt made famous -- called Rembrandt lighting -- is to have the light source at a 45 degree angle to the lens axis and about three feet above the person's head. This creates a triangle of light on the cheek opposite the light source, and the shadow of the nose crosses the corner of the mouth as you can see in the image below. This is much, much better than the nose shadow crossing the cheek.
|
|
Shooting indoor sports
Indoor sporting events present a problem for photographers. If you want to capture sharp images, the relatively dim lighting makes it difficult. Here is what I recommend in this kind of situation.
1. Shoot with your largest lens aperture. Depth of field is not a luxury in low light.
2. Increase the ISO. No one likes digital noise, and as you raise the ISO, noise is increased. Nevertheless, there is no other option (except to use flash) than raising the ISO until the shutter speed is fast enough to freeze the action. How fast the shutter needs to be depends on the sport you are shooting. I would say that 1/125th of a second is a minimum.
3. Flash will freeze the action due to the 'flash duration' -- the actual length of time the light is on during the exposure. However, the background will become dark or even black due to the light fall off from the flash, and that's usually not what you want. A flash diffuser won't help, and the ceilings are almost always too high for bounce flash to work.
If you want to use flash, there are two scenarios that will work. First, you can set the flash to ETTL and the camera to aperture priority. Your shutter will be slow, but this will enable the background to be properly exposed. The slow shutter will capture the flash plus ambient light, and the athletes will be both sharp and partially blurred. The results can look like a double exposure -- one portion sharp and one blurred.
Second, you can have a friend hold a second flash and have it aimed on the background so both the players and the background are illuminated. This will shorten the shutter speed so everything will be sharp. The second flash would work as a slave, and you can trigger it with a Canon ST-E2 unit (which works for both Canon and Nikon) or a Pocket Wizard.
|
|
A FUN EXPERIMENT
I am working on another ebook, this time on what I call 'home projects'. The book will detail many very cool techniques you can try at home to produce outstanding (and surprising) images. The photo above, for example, is simply oil and water. These liquids are immiscible, meaning they don't mix, and you can take advantage of that to create amazing abstract images.
The picture of the orange and purple spheres above is simply a few drops of vegetable oil in water. I used a shallow glass tray about two inches deep, and I suspended it between two boxes so the glass was two feet above the kitchen floor. I took some watercolor paint and smeared various colors on a piece of white computer paper, and I placed that on the floor under the glass. The lighting comes from a single portable flash unit (a Canon 580 EX in this case), and I placed the flash such that it was aimed downward at the paper. I triggered the flash with a Pocket Wizard, but I also could have used a Canon ST-E2 unit or, if you shoot Nikon, you can use the built-in commander mode to fire an off-camera flash.
I set the flash to ETTL and the camera to manual exposure mode. I chose f/22 as my aperture to insure complete depth of field. I hand held the camera above the oil and water mixture and shot straight downward, making the back of the camera parallel with the surface of the liquid for added insurance I'd have complete depth of field. My lens was a 50mm macro.
The possibilities are endless because the patterns of bubbles change constantly. Every once in a while add some more vegetable oil, stir the mixture, and vary the color palette by having on hand a collection of colorful backgrounds.
If your exposures are too light or too dark, vary the lens aperture, the ISO, or the distance of the flash to the paper. All of these things affect the exposure.
Its a lot fun. Try it and see what you come up with.
|
| eBOOKS
My new ebook on travel photography was published two months ago. It is packed full of a lot of important information you need when you travel as a photographer, and it has dozens of beautiful pictures from exotic places that support the points I make in the text.
Click HERE to review all of my ebooks and to see their table of contents and sample pages.
eBooks are great because they are much less expensive than conventional books, and you can carry them with you on an iPad, iPhone, or laptop. In addition, trees don't have to be cut down to make the paper for the books. The colors in the images are dazzling, too -- much more so than in a conventional print book because the photographs seen on a computer or an iPad are illuminated from behind. What a great time it is to be a photographer!
The ebook on composition has been quite successful because so many photographers struggle with this fundamental part of photography (and art). The toughest subject in photography to teach and to learn is composition simply because the world is what I call a compositional mess. It's hard to make artistic and visual sense out of all the elements we must deal with in taking great pictures. I think this ebook will help you sort that out. I give you concrete things you can look for to significantly improve your photographic compositions. The ebook is generously illustrated with lots of pictures that will inspire you to be a better photographer.
I'm proud of my other ebooks, too. I've had tons of wonderful compliments on them regarding the images, the clarity of the instruction, and how much people appreciate learning important creative concepts in the ebook format.
|
PHOTOSHOP WORKSHOP in my
HOME Sat. & Sun., Jan. 19 - 20, 2013).
Photoshop is a photographer's best friend, and the creative possibilities are absolutely endless. In a personal and 'homey' environment (I have a very cool classroom setup in my home), I start at the beginning -- assuming you know nothing -- but I quickly get into layers, cutting and pasting, plug-ins, using 'grunge' textures, modifying lighting, and a lot more. I promise to fill your head with so many great techniques that you won't believe what you'll be able to do.
Photoshop instructors approach teaching this program from different points of view. My approach is to be as expansive in my thinking as possible in creating unique, artistic, and compelling images. 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 in the workshop and I will tell you how to sign up (photos@jimzuckerman.com).
I will do my best to inspire you with all the great things Photoshop can do. All you need is a laptop. If you don't have one, I have two laptops (they are Macs) I can loan out.
|
|
|
