edorayPhotography

As my friend Wazari (whose photographs are in the slideshow to the right), the bokeh, or the area that is out of focus in a photography taken at a wide open aperture, is a very important part of a photo. It sets off the subject.

What can I say. I was completely surprised, when I showed up thinking I was attending the wedding anniversary of two of my best friends, only to find out it was a birthday party for me, with 28 of my good friends showing up on a Sunday evening. It was a very special night that I'll never forget. Thank you all for making it so special.

Here's to the hosts, Ernst & Magaly Schmid. I love you guys.

A very special night with my friends. Thank you all so much for a great evening together. This video was made by Farshad, using some of the things we discussed in our class on Creating Video. He used Microsoft MovieMaker, and finished it and uploaded it within hours of our evening together. Thanks Farshad.

Sometimes it's fun just to take a photo and play with it in Photoshop. Here I just copied the original layer, then added a filter layer for B&W and masked back in the cap. Simple to do, but it's value as a photo remain to be seen. Fun though.

The importance of borders. I really like a border around my photos. Afterall, we usually hang our paintings with a frame, and very few works of art are on the walls of our museums without a frame. So then, why do most people post there photos without a border (or frame). Maybe a bit too much work. Well, macros and actions to the rescue. I frame all my photos, and I post a lot of photos, but all of them with frames. I just create actions to do it. But I leave the color of the frame for me to set, which I do by noticing what colors in the photo would best draw a viewer in. Sometimes it's a small splotch of color somewhere in the photo, while others it's the main color theme of the photo itself. So as a last step in my photoshop action, I'll select a color from the photo and apply it as the color for the frame.
This photo is an example of an otherwise ordinary photo, that was enhanced by the frame. Give it a try in whatever post production photo program you use and see if it doesn't set your photos off a little better (especially against Flickr's white background).

Take care and enjoy your shooting.

One more railing shot in Balboa Park. I took 5 photos for this one, all stabilized on a tripod, ranging from 4 stops under to 4 stops over. Brings out the rich color contrasts in the cement and the tonal changes in the bars.

I always try to use either the first 3 hours of morning sun or the corresponding evening sun, to take advantage of the shadows and the rich color of light. I see so many people snapping photos at noon. Especially in the case of portraits. That high sun will usually cause unwanted effects. At noon I use a flash, which might seem counterintuitive, but it'll wash out the harsh shadows that exaggerate wrinkles. At the least, try to find a shady spot to photograph your friends. They'll be glad you did.

Decided to try some of the railings in HDR. Every new type of photo add a new challenge with HDR. Here the tone mapping was especially tricky. Easy to over saturate.

A shot from the same area as the one below, but I left it in color.

Still exploring HDR, but now with a B&W image. There's great tonal range in a B&W image to work with, so once again take at least 3 images of any great image you see and give it a try. Photoshop has some very nice HDR capabilities or you can use Photomatrix. Most people like Photomatrix better, but there are some really nice features buried deep within Photoshop.

I love these special finds, when the light is just right. Amazing how many people walked by, seemingly unaware of this light gem. Oh well, their loss, my gain. Stay aware of everything around you. There's beauty everywhere, if you bother to notice.

I'll get it eventually ;) For those that don't understand HDR; it's basically a layering of 2 or more photos (usually an odd number), and then tonemapped to bring out the lightest and darkest components of the image. So, you start with a well exposed image, then take another a couple of stops under-exposed and one a couple of stops over-exposed. When they're merged together, you can map the tones to bring out the rich darks of the under-exposed image, and the high lites from the over-exposed image. Good results are hard to achieve, but like everything in photography, a lot of practice pays off eventually.

This is the pot that I discovered nearly a year ago, neglected and unnoticed out behind a museum in Balboa Park. I took 5 images of this scene, all with a 2 f-stop difference, using a tripod to stead the images, and then tone-mapped them in Photomatrix Pro.

This is the first photo I took of it, taken during the middle of winter, with the sun very low in the south (helping to create the background).

Took 3 images, one with the correct exposure, one 2 f-stops over and one 2 f-stops under, then tone-mapped them in Photomatrix Pro, bringing out the rich dark tones of the under-exposed image, and the highlights of the over-exposed one.

This is the daughter of one of the students in my photography class, demonstrating off camera flash. One is situated just behind her for the backglow to her hair, while another is just off camera to the left. The photo was actually taken by the mother, not me. I was busy setting up the flash effects.

Mixing natural lighting with strobes, to fill in the shadows while preserving the skin tones. Had one strobe bounced off the wall behind the model, with another filling in the shadows from the natural ambient light from the indirect sun.










For this one, I cranked up both the off-camera flash left and the flash behind the model, washing out the background a bit too much, so I had to do some work in Photoshop it get the skin tones back to normal.











Backed off the flash units a bit, creating a fairly well balanced background.

Me studying the flower (as usual) and Ernst looking at the camera (also as usual ;) Thought it was a nice pic.

We had a photo workshop the other day and spent a little time learning the ins and outs of lighting. Basically a simple setup of one softbox just off to the right of the subjects, and flash just behind the subjects to whiten the background. An on board flash triggered both and these are the results.