Nicole Young shows you how to make global adjustments to your video files in Photoshop.
(Photo is Copyright Nicole S. Young – All Rights Reserved)
Post by Nicole Young – Follow Nicole on Twitter
Every photographer takes bad photos. Even the big-time pros don’t get every shot perfectly composed, lit, and in-focus; it usually takes a few bad shots to get one good photo. The thing to understand is that part of becoming a great photographer means learning how to pick out your best images and knowing what to show and display for others to see.
When I choose which images of mine I want to share online I am very selective, and only show photos I am proud of and truly love. I want to focus my viewers’ attention on the photographs that I think are the best, and show them what I am fully capable of. It’s very possible to have several “great” images from any given shoot, but even out of 10 or twenty images there are still going be some that stand out and are favored over the others.
This doesn’t just apply to sharing your photographs online. If you are a portrait or wedding photographer and go through your images, pick only the very best images to show your client, even if it means trimming your “keepers” down to 50% (or more) of what you would like to have. Trust me – if you like them, then they will love them. If you were to show them every photo you take and their “favorite” happens to be one that you know is not great, would you want that photo out there to represent your work?
As photographers we are also artists, and being an artist means that we should know what looks good. So be selective and very picky about what you share – hand-pick your images and only show your best work.
A most basic tip for still shooters looking to work with video for the first time.
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Creativity is a big concept for a photo blog. We spend so much time fighting upgrade fatigue, learning new software, working out new techniques that we often have very little time for creativity. But just taking note that we need to think about creativity isn’t enough. How do we go about it?
Everyone goes about being creative differently. What works for me might not work for you, but I’m going to just share these thoughts on creativity with the hope they will help you concentrate on something other than the next lens you think you want to buy.
For me, creativity is about removing artificial limits. And I think most limits are self-imposed. More precisely, these limits are directly tied to low self-esteem. Now I know you might be thinking, what’s that have to do with creativity? In my experience lots.
We put boxes around ourselves and make decisions that hamper our growth because often, as artists, we don’t really believe in ourselves. How many times have you thought you were just faking it? Or have you ever just assumed that you weren’t good enough? These thoughts murder your creative spirit and you get started on a more creative path when you stop that behavior.
The creative process can start to open up once you just trust yourself. If you empower yourself to try something different and give yourself permission to fail, you become more creative. Don’t make the metrics of success or failure the guidelines by which you proceed. Instead make experimentation, expression and joy the metrics.
The second big point of contact for me is authenticity in my work. If you can start to look at authenticity, rather than originality, you will become more creative. I learned this concept best by listening to John Paul Caponigro. He was talking about other art forms and mentioned that in Asia for instance, artists don’t worry about coming up with something new, they work within an existing form and try to expand it. When I read the photographic forums, the younger photographers seem to beat their chests the loudest and proclaim their creativity simply because they did something “new.” Usually what they did wasn’t new at all, but rather new to them. But it doesn’t matter. Worrying about doing something new ends up stunting creative growth. Being creative does NOT require doing something new. It requires doing something that is authentically your real personal and true vision. If you take away anything from this blog post, I hope it’s that.
Lastly, creativity is about choices. The choices can often be based on a few dynamics like tension, juxtaposition, conflict and resolution. These are good tools in a creative environment. But sometimes, you learn most of your creative ideas from pure experimentation. Free-form music – called jamming often lets musicians come up with their best sounds. Writers use free-association and brainstorming to come up with their best words. Why shouldn’t photographers use their own brand of visual experimentation to find their own visual creativity?
To sum up – if you want to be more creative, start loving yourself enough to give yourself permission to fail. In fact, better yet, don’t even worry about winning or losing. Just DO.
Don’t focus on NEW – focus on authentic. Being original isn’t being new – it’s being you.
And riff. Go out there and jam. Try this and that and then invert it all. Go crazy. Do something you’ve never tried.
I wrote this post as much for myself as I did for you.
Copyright Scott Bourne 2009 - All Rights Reserved
Marketing guru Seth Godin wrote a blog post that really spoke to me. You can read it on Seth’s blog here. What really struck me was this quote.
“If there was ever a moment to follow your passion and do work that matters, this is it. You can’t say, “but I need to make a fortune instead,” because that’s not happening right now. So you might as well join the people who can say, “I love doing this.”
We’re coming out of a recession. And people are working harder and smarter just to stay afloat. So to those of us who have this burning desire to create, why not do the same?
We should be as focused as ever on our passion for photography. If we don’t have time now, when will we have time?
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This post sponsored by WHCC. Visit White House Custom Color to receive five free 8×10 prints.
I spent some time with my friend Dane Sanders helping him with a workshop down in Newport Beach, CA a few weeks ago. On a totally spur of the moment basis, with no planning, not much gear and no idea what I was doing, I decided to make a little video of the experience so that others might get just a taste of what it was like to hang out with Dane.
The result is this video. I shot it on a Canon EOS 7D
lens mounted on a Red Rock Micro Event. I also used a Zacuto Z-Finder and a Lightpanels MicroPro LED
I edited it all in iMovie HD – yeah I know – but hey, I can’t be expected to be good at everything :)
I suck at Final Cut so I used what I knew.
Don’t concentrate too hard on my filmmaking skills – they’re essentially non-existent. But you may enjoy evaluating the 7D which is also responsible for all the stills.
UPDATE: I forgot to mention that the folks attending this workshop were fantastic and I felt honored to get to hang out with them. They were lovely and amazing people.
If you notice the Lensbaby banner on the bottom right side of our Photofocus.com home page, you will also notice we’re running a monthly contest to giveaway one Lensbaby Composer.
The winner for October is Sandy Redding from http://gazeinwidewonder.blogspot.com/.
Congrats to Sandy.
We’ll be picking a November winner too so please be sure to enter.
Photo Book Review – Practical HDR: A complete guide to creating High Dynamic Range images with your Digital SLR
Author: David Nightingale
Publisher: Focal Press (Elsevier)
Reviewer: Conrad J. Obregon
A physicist acquaintance who specializes in digital imaging tells me that increasing resolution or reducing noise in digital sensors are much easier problems to solve then extending the range of light of sensors to equal the human eye. In the unlikely event that you are a serious photographer who has been waiting for the dynamic range of digital sensors to increase rather than deal with high dynamic range (HDR) it would be better to get over it. This book is an excellent place to start.
Nightingale’s book, Practical HDR: A complete guide to creating High Dynamic Range images with your Digital SLR
The author recognizes that there are many HDR software packages on the market and rather than try to describe them all, he only touches on three. They include Photoshop, which at least as far as the CS4 version, he dismisses as not very useful, and the quirky but occasionally useful FDRTools. The lion’s share of the instruction is devoted to Photomatix Pro, which is rapidly becoming the standard for HDR. Unlike several other texts, he explains what each of the sliders and buttons in Photomatix does and what compensating adjustments have to be made if you select one of the more specialized sliders. He also covers post-processing of HDR images in Photoshop at a level of detail sufficient for those familiar with Photoshop to clean up the HDR image, rather than just suggest the tools that might help. He also provides several examples that give detailed step-by-step explanations of how he used the options available in both HDR software and post-processing and the reasons he selected those settings. Sprinkled throughout the book are HDR examples created by several expert photographers.
Nightingale writes concisely and clearly. I particularly liked that he distinguished between images where the range of light was extended but the images remained realistic, and HDR images that seem almost surrealistic and more like illustrations than photographs. The author shows you how to create both types of image, and clarifies which controls lead to which results.
Although this is one of the best books about HDR that I’ve encountered it is not perfect. For example in capturing images, I’ve found that it pays not only to insure that the bracketing images are made by varying the shutter speed rather than aperture to keep the same depth of field, but also to turn off auto-focus and auto-white balance to prevent too much variation from image to image. Moreover, when it comes to processing, other than to refer to FDRTools’ capabilities to deal with motion between bracketed images, there is little other discussion of the motion problem. On the nice-to-have level, it could have been useful to deal with tools like Photomatix Pro’s Lightroom plug-in which extends the utility of the software. Similarly, providing images that were downloadable or on a disk might have made it even easier to follow the examples, especially with available trial versions of the HDR software.
Nevertheless, I still find this one of the best books available on the subject, and I intend to keep it in the small library of books next to my computer to which I regularly refer.
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This post sponsored by White House Custom Color – Visit WHCC to receive five free 8×10 prints.
I got an email last week from a listener to our podcast who wanted some additional photo learning resources. I’ve covered a few of these over the years but time to update.
This is NOT an exhaustive list, but includes some of my recent favorites.
This list really needs to start with Kelby Media. Anything Scott Kelby does is worth your consideration. If you want to learn Photoshop or Lightroom, join the National Association of Photoshop Professionals and/or Kelby Training. Also don’t forget Scott’s books. He’s got a special deal offering free shipping if you spend $50 right now at http://www.kelbytraining.com/books/index.html – use the code FREESHIPPING.
Another video training company is lynda.com. It’s very valuable at only $25 per month and covers some photo-related information.
Bogen Imaging has a group of free online resources – they’re very helpful and are available in several formats, even audio.
Lastolite has created a free site called the Lastolite School of Photography. Of course they are showing off their lighting accessories, but the information is good and will help newbies in particular who would like to see how light modifiers can help improve photographic situations.
Not to be outdone, Photoflex has the Photoflex Lighting School. It’s another free lighting resource.
If you want to learn Adobe products but can’t afford to join Kelby Training or lynda.com, check out free stuff directly from Adobe.
Most of the professional photo associations like PPA, NAPP and ASMP have some form of online training, but most of it cost money.
Copyright Scott Bourne 2009 - All Rights Reserved
So it’s Saturday and you might be saying to yourself, what should I photograph. How about limiting yourself to just one topic? Shooting just one thing over and over forces you to develop your creative eye. It forces you to see old things as new.
You can pick any topic, but my suggestion is fruit. It’s abundant, affordable, colorful and offers a wide variety of approaches.
You might find fruit at the grocery store, in your fridge, or at the local farm or farmer’s market. You may shoot fruit juxtaposed with something that offers tension or harmony.
Maybe you just end up shooting fruity colors?
It’s up to you. It’s an exercise. There’s no prize. It’s intended to get you away from Saturday morning cartoons and outside with your camera.
If you do want to share your efforts with the rest of our audience, feel free to join our Flickr group and post your images there – http://www.flickr.com/groups/photofocus/.
Remember, focus on one thing. To make the challenge even more rewarding, try using only one lens! Change your angle, your approach and your eye by trying different looks at the same thing.
