Remez Ramblings

Still life is one of those areas of photography I don’t normally try. I certainly don’t see beautiful shots when looking at things, but when I saw this bottle of Glenlivet (water) I thought I’d give it a go.

For me, what I like about it, is the small range of colours in the shot - other than the blue it’s almost monochromatic - it’s nice and simple. What I don’t like, is that I have too tight a depth of field - I should have closed down the aperture a bit more, so that all the writing was in focus.

The thing is, still life photography is free, you can shoot whatever you have to hand, and support your camera and you don’t have to worry about lighting - just make the most of whatever is there already.

This is an area I’m sure I’ll experiment with more in the future, but here’s my humble attempt at some still life photography. Why don’t you give it a shot, and post your best shots!

Unless you’re a winter sports afficionado, and live in a country which has plenty of snow, there aren’t too many benefits to the winter. It’s cold, wet, sometimes icy, and you have to spend a fortune keeping your house warm.

It does have a couple of advantages though :-

• It’s fun keeping warm with someone else
• Because the sun rises so late, and sets so early, it’s possible to make use of them.

The most beautiful light of the day can be found at sunrise and sunset. As the winter turns to spring, the days are getting longer, sure, you get to take photos outdoors of happy warm people, but the harsh sun of the summer brings with it its own challenges.

If you’re up and about early, take advantage now, whilst you can see the sunrise. Soon you’ll have to get up insanely early to get a sunrise shot.

Go on, take a sunrise shot, you know you want to!

I fairly religously crop in 2:3 or 3:2. I think it’s because my camera records images in that aspect ratio so it almost feels wrong to change it.

However, in the spirit of pushing my comfort zone, and furthering my skills (and nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that there’s a plasma screen off to one side, which spoils the symmetry of the shot), I thought I’d try a different crop.

I quite like it, though still feel slightly uncomfortable, also if I get it printed, then I’ll have an uneven border around it, which will mean trimming it to size.

Still, if you normally stick to the same aspect ratio, try a free crop - it’s really quite liberating!

I really enjoy shooting people, but more often than not, I have a hand in how they’re positioned / posed. Of course, I bought a book on posing for portrait photography, which explains a lot of the theory, but you could spend a small fortune on attending classes, or buying materials on how to pose people.What better then, than being sent a free selection of poses, which are seasonal, and adaptable? The answer?

The Land’s End catalogue. Sure, I buy clothes from them on and off, and they’re great quality clothes, but as a selection of poses, they’re fantastic.

So, here, find Catherine in a pose straight out of the catalogue (actually, we shot these in November and I think it’s the November 2006 catalogue). What I really like about this shot, is having the sun as a hairlight, and fill flash to make the most of Catherine’s bright coat.

Stuck for poses? Get a few clothing catalogues!

I’ve been reprimanded for straying from my normal domain of portraits, so I thought I’d venture back to more familiar ground. On a similar note to yesterday though, I really like the simplicity of a tight head / shoulder crop for portraits.

I also like really tight depth of fields - I typically use my 85mm lens at anywhere between f/1.8 and f/2.8 - this shot is 85mm f/1.8.

This time though, I thought I’d go for an even tighter crop. There’s always the issue of how much hair / chin do you crop off, and if you can’t see the ears, how much cheek you can see (otherwise, it can look like the subject has no ears!), but I really like the result in this shot. Both eyes are in focus (quite miraculous given the tiny depth of field!), and though they’re a bit too near the vertical middle of the frame for my liking. they really grab your attention, which is the most important part of a portrait.

In portraits like this, there’s nowhere to hide, so if in doubt, use a looser depth of field to ensure the eyes are in focus, and ensure you have catchlights (the catchlights here, are from standing in the shade - no fill flash was used). Also, people with bad skin may not be comfortable seeing shots like this, as it really does take no prisoners, though a tight depth of field, and some skin smoothing make it more flattering.

Try a really tight portrait, you may like it!

People have comfort zones. Most people prefer not to venture outside our comfort zones, but then, by not extending ourselves, our zones slowly but surely contract.The same is true for photographers. All photographers (myself included) have techniques / styles we’re most happy with. This morning I decided to try to expand my range of techniques, by doing something I’ve never tried before - panning. I’ve mimicked the effect in Photoshop, using the motion blur filter, which can be very effective, but there’s nothing like doing it in camera!

I set my aperture down to f/7.1 which gave me a shutter speed of 1/60s (and also a depth of field which was more generous with focussing errors), which I thought would be adequately slow to allow me to blur the background by panning, but not so slow as to have vertical wobble. Then, I tried on cars, buses, etc, and found I just wasn’t quick enough or practised enough, so I set my sights a little lower, and shot the cyclists.

I came up with three pretty resasonable shots, though this was my favourite. I thought that there’s enough blur to be interesting, and I especially like that the cyclist’s foot pushing the pedal is also somewhat blurred. I considered cloning out the pedestrian in the shot, but I decided that

1. I like having him in there, and
2. I’m trying to stay out of Photoshop now, both for photographic purity, and to smooth my workflow.

Go on, try something new, you never know, you might like it!

I’m not normally one for architectural shots. Sure, I take the odd shot of landmarks on holiday, but I’m never happy with them, because they’re almost always shots that have been hundreds of times before, and better executed.

This morning, as I was waiting for my new coffee place to open, I looked up, and saw this wonderful sky and building. I then completely shocked myself by checking that I was square on to try and ensure that when I straightened the shot in Lightroom, that the verticals didn’t go wonky.

All I did to the shot was rotate it a tiny bit, crop the edges, and bumped up the blue saturation as I don’t have a polarizer at the moment.

Actually, this is one of the side effects I’ve found from using Lightroom - I used to nearly always use Photoshop on every shot, but now I try and avoid using Photoshop as much as possible. This means I’m limited to using the small set of image correction tools in Lightroom, which has, in turn, meant that I’m more careful when taking shots. In addition to having a nice end to end workflow, Lightroom is also cutting down my processing time as my shots need less processing.

We have a meeting room at work that I’ve always meant to use to take a portrait. It’s quite dim, with a number of spotlights bouncing off the wall, and a huge oak desk.Both the quantity and quality of light (even though it’s artificial) is lovely, warmed by the colour of the desk.

It’s very easy to get stuck in a rut when shooting, especially when you get good at a particular type of shot, or using a particular style of lighting. Earlier in the week, I shot a random street portrait  as I saw some great light, and this was another shot dictated and inspired by the light.

It’s also enhanced with a really narrow depth of field, which means that other than the eyes, everything else just melts into a lovely buttery mix of black and blue.

Yesterday I had a jewelry shoot. I quite enjoy shooting jewlery - in the past I’ve only shot against black (velvet is a must as it sucks in all the light, and doesn’t give reflections, even under really strong direct lighting.

I shot most of the pieces in a lightbox, which was well constructed, but unfortunately, the interior wasn’t white enough. The ring in the image was shot on Tesco Value printer paper, which was whiter!

Now, it’s not a massive job to burn out the background in the other shots, but it’s a lot more manual than it should be, which means more time, which means a higher charge. The lightbox was supplied by the client, and if I do much more work like this, then it may be something I’ll invest in, but then I’ll need to pass on the cost somehow to future clients, to cover my costs.

Still, I enjoyed the shoot, there’s something quite calming about shooting jewelry - it’s not as unpredictable as shooting people, but it is nice to take one or two shots per piece, knowing I’ll get 90% or more great shots.

Edit: 5 minutes adjusting the Tone Curve in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (my new workflow tool of choice) seems to have got the lightbox shots close enough to full white, without losing detail from the jewelry itself.

In the modern day and age, people do seem to be more suspicious of photographers, but there are also some lovely people out there who are happy to be shot.

I was on my way to a meeting this morning, in Central London, and was early. I also noticed how there was a great area of shade, just out of the sun, but with some light reflecting off shop windows, giving some beautiful natural fill light. With this in mind, and not being with anyone, I was deterimined to shoot someone. I saw this young lady and asked if I could take her photo. Initially she wondered why, but when I explained that it’s just to add to my portfolio of shots, she was happy to oblige.

I know a few people who are very uncomforable at the prospect of asking strangers to take their photos - and in fact I am as well. I’ve found though, that to make you seem less like a ‘pervy voyeur’ having some cards with your contact details (website, email, and phone number) means that firstly it gives you a level of credibility, but secondly, the person can take a look at your site, and then decide if they want to pass on enough details to email and get a copy of any shots that they like.

I’m glad I had a handful of cards in my coat pocket, otherwise, I would have missed out on this lovely shot!