The Window V :: Backlight with Available Light

The natural ambient light can be perfect for back lighting close up subjects. This bottle and glass where not cleaned up from a homemade pizza dinner the night before and this simple composition using the soft indirect morning light caught my attention.

Always be on the look out for good lighting opportunities now that you are staying at home.

Keeping your gear clean

When you get out to exercise, I trust you are taking your camera, or at least your smartphone, to take the opportunity to also exercise your photographic muscles. There is then the issue should you also disinfect your gear when you get home, The answer especially now is yes,  cameras and phones are something that you think nothing of bringing up to your face, for some time and there a couple of other important issues.

1. Do not share your phone or camera with anyone you meet.
2. Just putting it back in your camera bag is not enough.
3. Wash your hands (thoroughly) as soon as you get home (you are more likely to be a source of infectious than your camera).
4. Avoid using liquids to clean or disinfect any gear. (alcohol wipes may be out but probably unnecessary)

So when you get home take all you gear out of the bag and wipe it down with a microfiber cloth (the type you get from the supermarket as fine, they don't have to be black with a camera manufacturer's name on them. Take the opportunity to clean any lenses you used. It is not necessary to clean your sensor unless you change lens on a windy dusty day,, and that's not recommended anyway. You should wash the microfiber in soapy water, rinse and dry thoroughly before re-using.

Derrick Story goes into a lot more detail in his podcast "How to Disinfect Your Gear." The link goes to his show notes as well the podcast, as he has a some important sources of information there.

The Window IV :: Almost a Still Life in Available Light

 I must admit I love the dappled light coming though the window in the late afternoon

The Window III :: inside Out, Outside In

Because these are large windows they lend themselves to including much of the outside as well as aome detail of the inside.



The obvious pair to this is  looking back inside (I need to wait till the afternoon when the sun was streaming in and giving similar illumination to the light outside).

 

The Window at different times

This a great exercise to begin the Window project with. Just take much the same view of your chosen window at different times of the day. Perhaps even on different days so you see the differences between a sunny and overcast days. Don't worry that these photos just look like simple snapshots, they are not intended to be shared.

Set up the images side by side, before post processing, and evaluate the levels of natural ambient light. What is the best time of day and type of day to take photos. Of the window? Or objects in front of the window. Spend a little time doing this, because now you will be thinking of the quality of light. a great step towards becoming a better photographer.

watercolour postcards

At last..., this has taken me 4 days to figure out to make, and I know there are a lot of stumbles and some bit filmed upside down, but it is my first real attempt at an instructional style video (so feedback welcome, but expect nasty comments to be deleted)

This was primarily made for other watercolourists, but the idea probably applies beautifully to small photographs (10 by 15cm or 4" by 6") just turn them over and put a stamp on the back. Most prints have a paper base so 8 hours or overnight quarantine on a shelf at the recipient's place is all that is required. I have however come across some plasticized and synthetic papers from some commercial labs and papers for inkjet printers (so they would be less suitable eg 72 hours or over 2 days quarantine required) but still worth sending. The recipent will undoubtedly appreciate their connection with you.

COVID19, Conspiracy Theories, Rumors, Memes & Beliefs

The internet is flooding with fake news false rumors and straight out wacko conspiracy theory (the trolls, hackers and other undesirables are also locked in). The big disappointment is that so many folk seem to believe them and circulate them further, its like a really dodgy chain letter. Here is Trey Ratcliff (a photographer I do admire, believe in his honesty and upfront approach) with a his personal evaluation of the situation.


So how does this relate to the stay at home photowalker?

 Firstly you now have time to be a bit more discerning in what you believe, and you can afford to dive a little deeper to understand things before hitting that share button. Secondly a long standing peeve I have with a lot of YouTubers particularly  is they may be biased and restrictive (follow my work flow exactly, its the best, I am the greatest, buy the latest full frame camera, fastest lens, more megapixel etc) that can be ok  but the advice may not suit your way of working and too often is positively appropriate or incorrect anyway. Thirdly there are a lot of idiots and nasty people out there on the open net that are just out to offend and put you down, just ignore them and focus on those you can trust to share your work with (it might be specific groups or even just individuals)

Find your trusted news sources (and those you trust on your favourite social media), stay in contact with your family and friends and ignore the rest.

The Window II:: #photoproject

Ok this looks a lot like a snapshot but I was actually trying to follow the idea of sticking with the "rule of thirds" (I despise it, its not a rule its a myth but in some ways its close to the golden mean). So this more about trying to get a pleasant composition and the three panels do lend themself to a three-way split.

When you take a photo inside you may not be able to get far enough away from a subject and have to use a wider angle view to get everything in the frame. However, what happened is the edges of the resulting images can tend to bend and often curve in. Typically if you are photographing slightly down the verticals may bend out, if your looking up the verticals can bend in. I'm sure you have seen these effects. So you might have a couple of issues to fix. On really wide-angle lens you get what is often called barrel distortion. Things are wider in the middle and bend in at top and bottom. If you are using an exchangeable lens camera a lot of software (like lightroom, On1 & CaptureOne) will have lens correction tabs and tools which will recognize the lens type and focal length then will correct for this barrel distortion. The second item to fix is the converging or diverging verticals, and for this you should use a tool usually called Keystoning, Some cameras now have this ability built-in, the great little app Snapseed (see Tools/Perspective) can do it on your phone and many large software packages can also do it nicely (but not always called keystoning). 

The Window I :: #photoproject

This is a return to a project that I posted earlier. Infact it is exactly the same project. I just want to add a bit more detail about the aim.

I expect that the first day or so you will find a window (you might just have one if you are in imposed self-isolation so that window will be it) and photograph it at different times of the day. I also expect the photos will probably just be snapshots. You know the ones you just pick up the camera aim at the window and snap. There is nothing wrong with this, just get this approach out of your system for the time being.

The real purpose of this project is to look deeper at something familiar. Now you should spend some time looking at the window, looking at light and shadows before you pick up the camera. Think of abstract composition, perhaps just a small segment of the window. Don't just do it once make some time to return to this project several times over a few days and focus on different aspects.

Challenges of Photographing the Moon

I must initially apologize in advance I'm sure you will see this image posted a lot tonight. This was taken around 7:30pm in Melbourne, Australia. I missed the moon as it rose above the horizon (because I can't see the eastern horizon from my place). I believe it had a golden tint . That colour coming from the earth's atmosphere, that the moonlight must travel through as it rises above the horizon.

I thought I should share my experience photographing the moon with a standard camera (I've used my baby Mirco Four Thirds model the Olympus OMD 10iii, if you want to see my exif data click on the image above and it will take you back to Flickr).

The first problem is the moon is well lit compared with a dark sky and the camera's selection of the best exposure (to achieve an average grey) is heavily biased by the black sky and tends to leave a very blown out moon with no detail. If you think about it the moon is being lit by the sun and is roughly the distance away from the sun as the earth so the illumination is the same as daylight here. A good exposure to get detail on the moon is very close to what we would use on a sunny day on earth (if you want to talk in M for manual terms, start around ISO 200 f8 and 1/100 second) Start around there and experiment a bit. I actually started there but using Apeture Priority and dropped the Aperture a little because I was using my telephoto (I wanted a bit more light) and it surprisingly gave me a speed on 1/800 using a spot exposure reading but that was great because I was handholding. An advantage of my mirrorless camera is I can see what the exposure setting looks like before I take the photo and I used the EV (exposure compensation) to then darken the brightness of the moon till I got good shadow definition of the moon's mountains and craters.)

The second problem is focus and most automatic focus systems will be hopeless at night, and you will usually end up with a burnt-out blur. The only solution I know of is to use manual focus (and if you have focus peeking that will be a great asset). However focusing at night can be very hard so a good solution is to do your very best but take a few photos, either with slight tweeks to your focus ring or dropping focus and focussing back it. Statistically, you should find at least one is in nice clean focus.

A bit of trial and error and you should find this a fun project, just a little cold in southern parts of Australia. You should be able to do it from your backyard if you are in a Covid19 lockdown and you should get something you are proud off,  BUT expect there will be a lot of other amazing moon photos posted on social media.

I will check at around midnight but I'm not expecting a "pink" moon then.
  (late update no pink moon, just a very bright full moon)  

Stay At Home Photowalker

Photowalking while you are staying at home may sound a bit counter-intuitive. However, you can practice your photography around the house just as easily as you can at an exotic location. At home everything is familiar and you will need to start seeing your place in a slightly deeper way (develop the Photographer's Art 0f Seeing or an Artist's Eye)

This particular post will become a nice landing page that will send you off to other posts in here, a series of tasks or maybe other weblinks worth a visit. I will also be joining in posting about doing the projects and issues I discovered along the way. The list of links will grow over time, so this is one post worth returning to.

1. Chasing Newton's Rainbows of Colours, this is a very simple week long project.
2. The Window, an ongoing project to help start seeing familiar things differently.
3. Photo Scavenger Hunt, something for the whole family.
4. Surreal Selfie, that tells much more of your story than a standard head-shot selfie. 

As with any new training regime please pace yourself.

Pace Yourself

Don't go too soon, race around trying every single home based photo project idea. Mainly because we could be ineffective lockdown for a while, and that time frame will be determined by the virus infection rates and extent of the epidemic; not politician or self-appointed experts (please ignore the trendy but hollow projects, rumors and fake news flooding social media and the populist media, instead, find a  few reliable news sources, stay informed via them and ignore the rest. Follow your appropriate lockdown rules).

The second reason to pace yourself is that this will give you more time to experiment and practice. Just doing 1,000 hours is a bit of a myth and that practice might be counterproductive if you just repeating bad habits. However, if you use the time to gradually improve, discover new things and techniques you will emerge at the other end of this a much better photographer

Rich Sammon has great advice here as well -

"Surround yourself (you'll have to use social media oronline services to stay connected while the lockdown is in progress) with positive/fun people that can help you achieve this goal. Keep this adage in mind: Stay away from negative people."

Stay Safe & Healthy 

VIOLET Colour #photoassignment

Violet (that blue shade of purple) is not common in nature. There can be those fleeting moments at sunset, and a few flowers. However there are lots of manufactured materials that are coloured lilac to violets. The trouble is this not a fashionable colour at the moment. "Its so last year".

So capturing something violet might just be the hardest colour challenge of the week.

DEEP BLUE Colour #photoassignment

Deep Blue (Indigo in  Newton's Rainbow) happens in a magic way when you take your image after dark. Particularly if you photograph during the Blue Hour (which is the hour or so after sunset (or before sunrise). The eye might see the sky as dark but your camera can capture a rich deep blue with the right exposure.

If you haven't photographed at night, try it tonight. First, a warning, your camera's automatic exposure settings may not work. So you will probably need to experiment with a lower f-stop number, a slower speed and/or a higher ISO.  Rather than give you general numbers, I would encourage you to change that mode dial to M (manual) and start experimenting. To begin make changes that give you more light, then refine in little steps till you capture that beautiful rich blue.

BLUE Colour #photoassignment

Looking in my camera bag I can see some important stuff for keeping my Camera Healthy and Clean, which just happens to be Blue. For the lens there are the blower and lens pen and that black microfiber cloth supplied with your camera. The blue "fannel" is also microfiber and ideal to wipe down the outside of the camera (every day after use). You can wash microfiber cloths in the washing. The Blue zip wallet has a spare battery and extra SD cards.

Camera hygiene can be as important as washing your hands as well.

GREEN Colour #photoassignment

There is lots of green in the garden at the moment but I haven't photographed the staghorn fern near the front door in a while. I noticed a new frond unfurling so I got in close.

When you look around the house and look, really look in detail its amazing what you might find to photograph, especially when you look close

YELLOW colour #photoassignment

I want to photograph something strongly yellow in my home. However most of the candidates I've photographed before.  Hmm. Suddenly it was after dark and this jaunty metal cockatoo was the only yellow thing I could see.

Still he takes an ok photo.

Colour #photoassignment Finding Orange in the Sunset

This was a little easier, I was counting on a good sunset and waited for the strongest colour. Ok, I'm a little restricted in the view to the west but I much better views than a lot of folk in single room isolation or locked down. Still, there is beauty in watching the sunset.

RED Colour #photoassignment

Don't Eat Me

I took the baby tomatoes from the fridge and placed them over a green cloth (the pale green makes the red look redder) and then got two hole center stamps out from the hole punch added eyeballs with a black felt pen. The tomatoes where cold so condensation on them held the eyes in place.

The Colour #photoassignment post.

Small #photoassignment :: View from my Window

Light Through My Window

If you are in a quarantined or in total lockdown situation. The four walls can start to feel like they are moving in. BUT most rooms have windows and what's outside and the path to light coming into the room changes a lot over the day and from day to day. So photographing those changes and looking for the devices moments is a nice way to use your camera, to expand your little room. It could also be a great photo essay topic. If nothing else it could be a good challenge of your creativity and great phototherapy.