Introduction to Digital Photography

“Improving in the arts, whether music, poetry, or pottery, requires passion, which fuels practice.” Chris Orwig from his book People Pictures: 30 Exercises for Creating Authentic Photographs

Week 3  is all about lighting and portraits and how to get one that tells the viewer something about your sitter.

This week we reviewed the 3 P’s, ISO, Aperture, shutter speed, DOF, the rule of thirds and composition.

We talked about how to read the flashing highlights (blinkies) and the histogram in your camera’s view screen for each photograph you take.

Learning to read the histogram for each photograph you take is essential because with digital image making you need to ‘expose for the highlights and process for the shadows’. Which means that you are exposing for the ‘texture highlights’ because the highlights are the most important tonality as they can’t be recovered in digital. Once they go white they are gone, you cannot get a texture out of them again but you can still recover the dark areas.

We also talked about Bracketing your shots.

We watched a slideshow about lighting and portraiture.

• Our main topic was the four M’s of lighting (main light, meter, mood, modify) & lighting for portraiture. For our activity we photographed each other during class outside and in the atrium. We also talked about bracketing your shots and use the technique of putting your subject just inside a doorway on a sunny day.
• Part of your assignment for this week is to shoot a portrait of a friend or family member (no pets) as well as a self-portrait. Don’t just set the camera up and take a snapshot. Use some of the lighting and composition techniques that we talked about. Create a mood and tell us something about your sitter as well as yourself with your photos. Think about using your sitters environment as part of their portrait.
• You were also asked to take a self portrait.
• The self portrait assignment requires that you learn how to use the self timer feature on your camera.
• For ease of focusing, think about putting your lens on maual focus mode
• Use your flashing highlight window to help with exposures in bright sunlight.
• Try using your zoom lens set on 50-55mm only. See if that makes a difference in how you view your subjects. The object is to get in close and interact with your subject.
• Play with your camera settings a bit and see where it takes you. Be creative.
• Shoot from slightly below your subject’s eye line – shooting from slightly below a person’s eye line is more flattering for most people.

You’ll need to pick out your favorite self portrait and portrait and have them printed so we can discuss them in class next week. Also, (day class only) pick out your favorite photo you took in class of your shooting partner and have it printed as well.

Please note: I want you to start recording the meta data (ISO, aperture and shutter speed settings) for each photo that you bring in. You can write it on the back of each print or you can put it in your notebook.

More on portraiture…

One of the best and most underused locations for portraiture is an ordinary garage or doorway. The simplicity of location makes your subject feel at ease. Open the door and position the subject in the shadow near the edge of the light. You will discover the light is like nothing else you have seen. Make sure the lights are out behind them and there is no window in the back ground, If necessary, hang a backdrop behind the subject to cover up all the clutter. The garage creates a box, which protects the subject from direct sun. The sky adds a sparkle to their eyes. In a sense a garage door opening is like a big window without glass. And if the driveway or sidewalk is a light-colored concrete, it can act as a reflector bouncing the fill light back in.
If you don’t have a garage, any overhang will do. Experiment with positioning the subject closer and farther from the shadow’s edge until you find the right combination. Try using a small stepladder or stool so that you can position the camera just above the subject’s head. This will cause him to look up so that the light from the sky will brighten his eyes. Do some pre planning to keep your portrait sessions short, from 10 to 15 minutes.

I love this expalnation by photographer Joey L about the way he shoots portraits. He describes it as “The Dignified Portrait”.

The Mentawai, Behind the Scenes Documentary from Joey L .

Try to think creatively when taking your homework portraits this week.

Take a look at the intuative portrait examples as well as the Intimate portrait examples.

Check out the portfolios of Joe McNally for some great examples of portraits.

Here’s a good explanation of environmental portraiture. These are some really interesting environmental portraits. Some more and some more.

The self portraits of Vivian Maier. She used reflections very creatively.

Also check out these self portraits on Flickr.

Miss Aniela’s self portraits on Flickr.

Here are some more self portrait examples for you to peruse.

Also, check out these portraits on Flickr by David Hobby. David runs the Strobist website.

We watched this video over on the Strobist site about street portraiture by photographer Clay Enos.
Here is the link to the site of Kevyn Major Howard. He does headshots using natural light. Here is a link to the video featuring him shooting in his garage. Pretty cool setup.

If you’re interested in photographing children, Jinky Art is a great blog to check out. This photographer does some beautiful work.

William Coupon is an amazing  portrait photographer that you should study.

Check out these portraits by local photographer Glen McClure. Currently he has some work over at the Mariners Museum in Hampton/Newport News.

In the end, though, having even the best equipment will not make you a good bird
photographer any more than having a good set of paintbrushes would make you a
good artist! Mike Atkinson

(Page number references from our textbook, Understanding Exposure, have been listed in parentheses so you can read further on each week’s subjects.)

In this week’s class we reviewed the 3 P’s. What are they? Practice, Patience and Persistance. The more photos that you take and the more you practice the concepts that you learn in class the better you will get at taking good photos. We also reviewed some of the ingredients to taking better photos. ISO, F-stop and shutter speed.

New things we talked about were:

• Lens compression (p. 53)
• Focus Modes and focus points and how single point focus is best when starting out.
• We briefly looked at the different metering modes (p. 122). The main ones are evaluative/matrix, center weighted and spot metering. You will mostly use evaluative/matrix metering. Your camera is set to it by default.

We looked at your cameras mode dial and learned what those other letters mean.

• Auto = Fully auto the camera does all the work
• P = partial auto the camera allows you to set things like the ISO but controls the shutter speed and aperture
• AV or A (depending on camera model) = Aperture priority you set the aperture and the camera sets the shutter speed
• TV or S (depending on camera model) = Shutter priority you set the shutter speed and the camera sets the aperture
• M = fully manual you make all the decisions

By setting the mode dial to A (Nikon) or AV (Canon) instead of M, you will be able to control the aperture and the camera will control the shutter speed. This is called aperture priority. It is a semi auto mode. Using this setting will be helpful in part two of this week’s assignment.

Here’s a good description of the mode dial settings as well as the scene selection settings.

For our lesson we looked at slideshow on composition, the rule of thirds and depth of field.

Composition: Things to consider…

• Horizontal or vertical
• Perspective
• Subject
• Simplify
• Negative space
• Lines
• Visual Weight
• Fill the frame
• Motion
• Depth of Field

We talked about the Rule of thirds (think of your viewfinder as a tic tac toe board) and how it affects the composition and feeling of a photograph. We also talked about shallow depth of field and how it is used to isolate a subject from it’s surroundings. Also, how there are a combination of things that are needed to achieve the correct effect.

Professional photographers use depth of field (DOF) to isolate their subjects and throw a distracting background out of focus (p. 42). To do this you’ll need to use a combination of any of the following…

• Use a long Lens (85 mm and up)
• Have a wide aperture/f-stop (1.4, 1.8, 2.0, 2.8, 3.5)
• Get close to the subject
• Keep your subject away from the background

Here’s a link to an article with some good information on achieving shallow depth of field.

A nice slideshow on composition by Marlene Hieleme of the ImageMaven blog.

Here is a link to a page with a list of articles on composition and The Rule of Thirds, also known as “The Golden Mean”.

For your homework:

Please read the chapter titled Aperture in your book. It will help with understanding how aperture works.

Assignment Part One:

Take your every day object and, using what you learned about composition and depth of field in in class reshoot it to make it look more interesting. Take a bunch of shots from different angles and different lighting. I also want you to see how you can use depth of field (DOF) to enhance your subject. Pick out your best shot and have it printed for class next week.

Part Two:

Depth of field: I want you to pick an object, a stuffed animal, potted plant, etc. It must be between 15″ and 24″ in size. No miniature objects, no people or pets, and set it up outside on a stool or table in front of something like a bush, wall or tree.

• Try not to shoot in bright midday sun. Early morning or late afternoon light is good as well as bright open shade (**see definition below).
• If you have one, use your longer zoom lens for this assignment and set it at 85mm. If not, use your 18-55 set at 35 mm and get in close.
• A tripod to set your camera on can be very useful for this assignment.
• Set your object up about 3 feet away from your background. Get close to your object making sure you can see what is in the background. Focus on the object.
• Set your ISO for the lighting conditions. 200 for a sunny day. 400 an overcast day or a shadey area.
• Set your camera’s mode dial to A or AV for aperture priority. This way you do not have to worry about the shutter speed for this assignment. The camera will take care of it.
• Set your aperture/f-stop to to your widest aperture for your zoom setting. It should be about 4 or 4.5. Take the shot.
• Without moving your camera position, set your aperture/f-stop to 8. Take another shot.
• Set your aperture/f-stop to 16 and repeat as above.
• Now move your object about 6 feet away from your background. Recompose your shot making sure you can see a little of what is in the background behind your object. Focus on the object.
• Set your aperture/f-stop to to your widest aperture for your zoom setting. It should be about 4 or 4.5. Take the shot.
• Without moving your camera position, set your aperture/f-stop to 8. Take another shot.
• Set your aperture/f-stop to 16 and take a shot.
• You should now have two sets of 3 shots. One with your object 3′ from the background and one with it 6′ from the background. Carefully look at the background of each shot. You should be able to see a difference between each. Especially the first and last of each set.
• Print the set of 3 shots where your object was 6′ from the background and bring them to class next week along with your reshot everyday item.

Here are examples of each setup. These were all shot a 35 mm on the lens. You can click on each picture and it will open up larger.

DOF Assignment 3 feet

 

DOF Assignment 6 feet

***Extra credit: Do the same thing but move your subject 9-10 feet away from the background. Bring in this set of prints instead of the 6′ foot ones.

Check out this video where Jen Leman talks and what inspires her to become a better photographer. (We watched this in class.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-B62Jo39jo

In the spirit of getting you all to look at the world through your lens from different view points…check out all these wonderful shots taken from low angles in the Flickr Low Perspective group pool.

I want you to go here and read the blog post by David DuChemin.

Got a question? Just shoot me an email and I’ll be happy to answer it for you.

**Definition for “open shade”: This term is used to refer to large shades caused by things such as large buildings, trees, hills, etc. However, these shades allow a large light source to illuminate the subject. It is good for photography because you avoid harsh highlights produced by strong sources such as the sun.