Tips for Adding Photos to Lightroom's Quick Collections

Photography Challenge #1: Describe Yourself as a Photographer

This is a free one year long series that will help you to make a personal photography project. I'm also offering a free Create Challenge Toolkit, which will contain all of the worksheets and resources that go along with this series.

TO SUBMIT YOUR CHALLENGE RESPONSE SIMPLY SNAP A CLEAR PICTURE OF YOUR COMPLETED WORKSHEETS AND POST THEM IN THE COMMENTS SECTION BELOW. CLICK ON THE BUTTON ABOVE TO DOWNLOAD THE WORKSHEETS.  Alternatively, you could simply type out your response.

Since this is my video, I should do the challenge too.  I have been doing photography for most of my life but I really began to study it around 2005, when digital was really coming in to its own. I am an opportunist with regard to my subjects, as I'm sure many people are. I tend to photograph subject that are easily available to me, however, I mostly shoot wildlife, portraits, and landscapes. I would say most of my quality work is of wildlife and beauty shots of models. I would say my style included images with vibrant colors and artificial light. However, these days I seem to be shooting more natural light and in Black and White so my style is ever changing. I frequently shoot with a 24-105 mm lens but my most frequent focal length is probably 600 mm since I like to shoot wildlife. I would say my photographic weakness is caring too much about technical things and not enough about creativity and capturing the decisive moment. I hope to be able to work on this throughout the year.

Vlog About some Gadgets

I went on Facebook Live last night to talk about some new gadgets I've been playing with, here is a clip.

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I photographed this heron while bass fishing last week.  Luckily this bird keeps going to the bank with great light just before sunset.

Wildlife Video

Trustom Pond Wildlife Refuge, RI  You can view this video in HD or 4k.

I've been experimenting with a new lens for my Panasonic GH4, it's the Panasonic 14-140 F/3.5-5.6, and so far I think the lens is a great all-around lens.  It's small, lightweight and sharp, perfect for traveling.  I shot these videos with autofocus which is kind of a no-no in videography but I thought the lens did pretty well with these fast moving ird.  

I've been thinking about doing more wildlife videography and this is like a test video.

Adam Savage's Tintype Portrait

Meet photographer Michael Shindler, who creates one-of-a-kind tintype photographs using a 19th century wet plate collodion process. At our recent live show, Michael transformed an entire theater into a dark room to photograph and develop a large-format portrait of Adam Savage. The process is beautiful and mesmerizing!

You Don't need Exotic Locations to Make Great Images

E-Book Review of Close to Home by Stuart Sipahigil

This was an e-book review I did back in 2013, but I think it relates to composition month very well because a big part of making a good composition starts with a great subject.  Finding subjects can be difficult at times especially when you have to stay close to home.  It's easy to get board with locations you know well.

Try to turn this problem into an advantage.  Since you know the places so well, visit them more often and shoot them at different times of the day or in a different season.  Try to find interesting ways of showing a scene that is common to you.  Essentially you will have to work harder to find your image and you'll have to be more creative.

Give it a try and post your images in the comments below.  Also, tell us if you prefer locations you know well or places you haven't visited before, and why?

The Rule of Thirds

Some people hate to follow the rules.  The good news is, in photography you don't always have to because the "rules" are meant to be broken.  Following the "rules" is a helpful way to get started and they will very often help you to create a pleasing image.  The only problem with the rules is they can limit your freedom of expression and creativity.  "They" say once you know the rules you know enough to break them and still get away with a pleasing image, so here we go let's start with the most basic rule of composition the rule of thirds.

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The tic-tac-toe type grid can help you to figure out where to place your subjects.  Image by Gary Detonnancourt

Place the main subject or subjects on one of the 4 inside cross points.  Avoid putting your subject dead center in the image because it tends to be a boring composition.  Occasionally you can get away with putting your subject right in the middle if the subject is very symmetrical like in the image below.

View image | gettyimages.com

I call the four cross points the sweet spots for placing a subject.  You can actually turn on a grid like the one above in most cameras'.  This will help you frame up your shot right in the camera.  

How to set up grid lines for a Canon camera.

Grid lines are helpful when aligning subjects vertically or horizontally. With a Canon Rebel T3i, there are three grid options: None, 3 x 3, and 5 x 5. This feature is called Grid Display in the Menu options.

Step 1: Press the Menu button.
Step 2: Navigate right, to the fourth tab.
Step 3: Select "Grid display" and then your preferred options: None, Grid 1 (3x3) or Grid2 (5x5).
Step 4: Make sure you're in Live View to be able to view the Grid overlay.

How to turn on grid lines on a Nikon, like the D300.

The question now becomes which of the four sweet spots should you use when deciding where to place your subject.  When it comes to the left or right side, you should go with the right side if you live in a country that reads from left to right.  Our eyes are used to reading an image, in the same way, we read words.  If you place the subject on the left side, our eyes come into the image on the left and then stop on the subject and we don't really look at the rest of the image.  Whereas, if you place the image on the right side our eyes come into the image from the left, go through most of the image and then run into the subject.  Don't worry if you accidently shot the subject on the right side, there is an easy was to fix it in Photoshop.  Here is an example:

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In Photoshop click on Image>Image Rotation>Flip Canvas Horizontal

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This is the image after it has been flipped, now your eyes have time to come into the image and then run into the butterfly.  Image by Gary Detonnancourt

When trying to decide between the upper third or lower third sweet spot I often go by whichever one will maximize the most interesting part of the image.  If the sky is the most interesting I will use the lower third and if the foreground is more interesting I will use the upper third as shown in the images below.

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Notice the horizon is in the lower third because the sky is more interesting than the foreground.  Image by Gary Detonnancourt

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In this image, the horizon is in the upper third to show off an interesting foreground.  Image by Gary Detonnancourt

Homework:  Go through your image collection and pick out some images to post below, in the comment section of this page, that meet the rules shown above.  Also, feel free to ask questions, make suggestions or comments about this article.

I hope you found this article helpful,

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Gary Detonnancourt

morethanasnapshot.com

Nikon's Small World Competition Winners

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1ST PLACE
2015 PHOTOMICROGRAPHY COMPETITION

Ralph Claus Grimm

Subject Matter:

Eye of a honey bee (Apis mellifera) covered in dandelion pollen

 (120x)

Technique:

Reflected Light

I think it's so cool that this year's winner is a high school biology teacher and is self-taught in this technique.  I also teach high school biology and have always wanted to try this myself.  It's also interesting that the winner was a fairly common subject and not some obscure cell type.  The photographer also used focus stacking which is becoming very common in macro photography.  Check out all the winner at Nikon's Small World website.

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Here is one of my first attempts at micro-photography using a high school microscope and photographed with my iPhone.  This is a green algae from a local pond.  I believe it's called spirogyra.

Rhode Island Air Show

I went to the air show on Saturday afternoon at 2:30 pm when the show ends at about 4 pm.  I know this sound kind of stupid and it felt really stupid when I was stuck in the long line of traffic with the other stupid people trying to get there before the show ended.  However, I did manage to get to a park that was very close and I got to see and photograph the Blue Angels, which made it all worthwhile.

I use the Canon 5D MIII and the Canon 400 mm F/5.6 for these images.  If I had to do it again I would get closer and I would choose the Canon 100-400 mm F/5.6 because when the planes got really close 400 mm was too much zoom and I ended up with a few cut off shots, which you can see below.