Return of the Morning Mist – Fog

As I went out for an early shoot last week I was pleased to find that the early morning mist (or fog) had returned. It is not near as frequent in the heat of summer. Foggy/misty mornings are probably my favorite shooting condition.

A couple comments on shooting fog.

  1. Generally setting your exposure compensation to +2/3 or +1 is best to keep the fog from being underexposed. Check your histogram.
  2. A little color in fog is very good thing. Sometimes it is naturally there: yellow from the sunrise or blue from twilight. A little magenta added via a filter or post-processing can be nice as well.
  3. Take advantage of the background separation that fog or mist provides. Trees that never stood out because of background clutter can suddenly be outstanding.
  4. If the subject is too far into the fog it can quickly loose its impact. Move in closer. Use a wider lens if necessary (or zoom less – often the case).
  5. We tend to see more depth and contrast then you will in the photograph. I find this even more so when shooting in fog. Closing one eye always helps.
  6. Objects staggered back into the mist create a great deal of depth.

Click on the blog image to see a gallery that illustrates many of these points. Or click here. Especially note the different color hues the fog takes on. It is often related to the surroundings.

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Dealing with rejection

One of the things an artist/photographer has to deal with is the rejection of his/her work. In fact that will be the case much more often then not when submitting work to galleries, publishers, etc. If you haven’t guessed by now, my submission to the local coop gallery was not accepted. The thing you have to remember is that the reasons for rejections can be many.
  1. Your work doesn’t match the galleries client base.
  2. Your price range doesn’t match their market.
  3. The style of your work is too different from anything else they carry.
  4. They already have too much similar work.
  5. The rejection is not a reflection on you personally, the validity of your work, the time you invested, etc.
When submitting to galleries it always pays to visit them multiple times and get a feel for their work, get to know the owner, understand their customers, check out their price range, etc. Note however that doing all of this will not guarantee success, but it will improve your chances. In my case here, I did these things and it still didn’t work out.
I am meeting with the coops jury foreman in the next few days to see it I can glean any constructive feedback from this particular submission. I may comment on that in a future blog.
If you click on the blog image you should go to a small gallery of the images I submitted. Let me know your thoughts – what do you like or dislike.
As one photographer put it, “.. the point is not the rejection, it’s how you handle it.”

But I will say, you don’t have to like it!

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This Blog

While I am finishing up my prints for submission to the Vally Arts gallery (my favorite is the blog image), I thought I would make a few comments about this blog. I began writing this blog at the beginning of the year as a way to share my experience and thoughts as a photographer. It is a good way practice writing and present some of my work to a broader audience. But it is also way to teach others what I have learned so along the way some entries will be more of a tutorial nature. If you are reading a blog entry or looking at the attached images and have questions, feel free to ask about how, where, when, etc. they were made. I will be glad to share. I know over the past few months there are been several hundred visitors so I know you are out there. Feel free to jump in, ask questions and share your own experiences.
Only five more days before I submit my prints to the gallery for a jury review. Hopefully they make it in. I did go with a set of impressionistic images as you can tell.

Side note: I am finding as William Neil points out in his latest Outdoor Photography column that impressionistic images look best as large prints.
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Photography Anywhere

If you get busy at times and don’t have a lot of time to go out and shoot pictures, remember you can shoot them anywhere. I have taken many good pictures in business parks and their surroundings. In fact I am submitting one to a gallery next week. The two images included here were shot in a field near a parking lot. The lighting was nicely diffused by some clouds passing overhead (flowers almost never photograph well in direct sunlight). The background color was wonderful and setting the f-stop at 9-10 gave just the right depth of field – flowers in focus – background soft.

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Relax

Well, I am getting a set of prints ready for a juried submission into a local coop art gallery. Choosing the set of images and even which body of work to submit can create a bit of anxiety. Having visited the gallery many times before (highly recommended), I do have a sense for the type of work that should be acceptable, but you never know. Should I press it and submit work that is a bit more on the edge (market differentiation) or stay with a more classical body of work? Then out of the hundreds of possible images, which do I want to submit? These are not easy questions.
In the meantime, my blog image (30 sec. exposure well after sunset) is what I view as a relaxing image – blue tones, simple composition, and a left to right flow . Now breathe deep and slow – just relax.
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Fun with Nik

A couple posts ago, I talked about “Knowing Your Imaging Software”. One of the plugins that I keep running across whether it be fine art nature photographers or wedding photographers is Nik Software’s Color Efx Pro filters. So the other night I downloaded the demo and took it for a spin. It was a lot of fun. After playing around with several of the filters, I tried applying them to various images. The two blog images show the before (top) and after results for one image. The original image from the Portland Rhododendron Garden was good, but after adding a touch of the fog and midnight filters I ended up with an image which better conveys the emotion I intended. I also used Nik’s Viveza plugin to brighten up the stairway just a touch. What do you think?

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Pans and Swipes

One of the image techniques I enjoy the most is moving the camera while shooting with slow shutter speeds. Typically one would use a pan when trying to track a subject moving relatively fast against a stationary background. This is often used with sports photography and blurs the background (creating a sense of speed) while keeping the subject relatively sharp.

Alternatively panned or swiped images cab be used to create an impressionistic effect. The emphasis becomes the color or basic forms in the image – there is no sharp detail. This technique is very freeing at times and allows the photographer to express their impression of a scene without getting caught up in all the detail. Not sure who the first photographer was to do this on purpose;-) but I know Freeman Patterson talked about it early on; Tony Sweet taught me the technique while William Neil has created an entire body of work based on this technique, “Impressions of Light”.

Both the term pan and swipe get used when talking about camera movement techniques. Coming up with the right shutter speed and camera movement for a particular scene can be where the fun and skill come into play. You can go with a long shutter speed (1-2sec) and just pan back in forth (or up and down) or you can go with a shorter speeds (1/2-1/4 sec) and move in a pattern (swipes): circles, arches, diagonals, waves, etc.

A couple of hints:

1) Experiment a lot. This will give you a sense of what works with what. Have fun.
2) For a simple start try a 1/2 sec shutter speed on a grove of tree and pan up and down. Try shorter and longer speeds, slower and fast camera movement, longer and shorter movements.
3) If there are strong lines in the image – work with those by moving with them (up and down for a tree).

4) As always, you still need good subjects and composition.

A few examples are shown here in the blog.
The lead image is a forest with yellow flowers that has been panned up and down for around 1 second.
The second image shows a bed of roses shot with a circular motion (1/3 second). I choose a circle in keeping with the roses. The diagonal line of the roses gives even more excitement to the image.
The third image is a flower bed swiped downward (1/3 sec). Notice the use of thirds in the composition.
The forth image is swipe of tulip beds (1/2 sec) following the diagonal line of the beds.

And the fifth images shows a cup swipe of another rose bed (1/5 sec).

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Lavender Farm

It is lavender festival time in Oregon and I have been so busy at work that I haven’t been able to get out and catch one of the farms. Yesterday on my way from work I was able to swing by one nearby. While the conditions were not optimal (sunny not cloudy), there was a large tree shading some of the lavender. I have included a couple shots from there. This first image uses an Orton filter technique and the later is a 9 image multi-exposure while panning back and forth.
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Do the Lensbaby Push

Using a Lensbaby can be a lot of fun. They are especially great when it comes to flower photography. I had been planning to add the macro kit attachments to my assortment of tools (or toys if you wish), but then I learned about the push. Normally with a lensbaby 2 or 3G you are pulling in on the edges and tilting the lens for the desired effect. But you can’t get real close to the subject. If instead you use your fingers to “push” the lens out and extend the corragated tube you can get closer and get a real shallow depth of field . With my 3G I push it to near maximum externsion and then lock it there. The images here in my blog were all shot that way.

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Know your Imaging Software

I have been off the blog for a while. My other job has been keeping me busy, but I did get to meet one of my favorite photographers this past week. It is a bit of a long story but I was able to arrange for Tony Sweet to come by and make a presentation to several of the local photography clubs here in the Portland Oregon area (in cooperation with Lensbaby). The first blog image is of Tony and I at the event. I did get to talk to him and bit and learn more about the state of the photography business – that was good.

At his presentation Tony emphasized that professional photography today is at least 50%-60% about having some understanding of the image software available to us and being able to apply it. Tony chooses to use a variety Photoshop plugins because they are powerful and often very easy to use. Ideally we experiment and play with the software tools enough that when we are in the field shooting we can previsualize the image with particular post processing applied.
In keeping with this, I have included an image I previsualized. I ran across this building in Astoria Oregon this past weekend. I knew what I wanted to do with the image when I got home. There were multiple ways to do it, but I choose to take full advantage of Lightroom’s capabilities – reduced clarity, added saturation and a vignette. I think it came out pretty “sweet”.

By the way Tony and Susan are very nice people should you get the chance to meet them or take a class through BetterPhoto.com or one of their many workshops.
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