PROFILE LIGHTING IN THE STUDIO

Because we have total control of lighting in the studio it is the best environment to create dramatic lighting. It’s all about direction of light and creating shadows. The fastest way to kill dramatic lighting is the use of a fill light.   That’s why I quit using any fill light in my studio over ten years ago. The most I use to soften shadows is a reflector—and even then I usually use a soft white; rarely do I use silver. 

One of the most dramatic lighting pattens used in the studio is Profile Lighting. In Profile Lighting even the reflector is not needed…

f13.0 @ 1/200 sec., ISO 200; Lens @ 105mm

Profile Lighting is a simple 3-Light setup:

• The Main Light is at 90° relative to camera with the subject looking towards the light.
• One grided background light (set @ f8.0)
• One Hair light (set @ f11.0)

It’s simple in the number of lights used, but as usual, the placement and intensity of each light is critical in a successful outcome.

Here’s the original color studio image…

Original Color Image

Nowhere near as dramatic as my final Black and White image this was just my raw material to start with. In our film days this would have been our stopping point!

Processing the file:

• I first opened it in NIK’s Silver Efex Pro 2, single image, Tone Mapping; Used Deep 2.
• B&W conversion in NIK’s Silver Efex Pro 2 using their Fine Art preset-modified to my taste.
• Noise reduction in NIK’s Define 2.

It’s remarkable how far we can take a digital file today to create our vision of a final image. However, it’s still important that we start with a good basic image; with highlights controlled and Light and Shadows where we want them.

As always, don’t hesitate to ask questions…’Til next week…

Author: Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

EDITING AN EQUINE-OWNER PORTRAIT FOR DRAMA

We knew that photographing this young lady for her high school senior photos with her old horse was very important to her because her mother had told us in advance the horse was not doing well and that this was likely a farewell photo session.  So, my goal was to capture as much interaction between her and her horse as I could—but as most professional photographers working with animals know it’s  often difficult and rarely turns out as planned. I was resigned to probably just getting a basic posed portrait—the usual two-up head shot of them looking at the camera.  When she was bringing her horse out of the corral so we could do portraits in the barn I started the session with some candids and not 20 images in I was amazed to get the image that I desperately wanted showing that connection between human and animal that had always eluded me!

This is the original image right out of the camera….

f5.6 @ 1/1250 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 180mm

Not expecting this moment as she paused in our walk to the barn, I was too far away, so I zoomed fast and got off one image before the moment was gone.  There is way too much information in the original image, especially for a PPA competition style image. The background is very busy and marred by the corral.  In addition all the legs being shown take us away from what really matters here.

A major crop was the answer….

Cropped in

I cropped-in using a horizontal format and placed her head in a dramatic “crash point”. I really like her hair framing the right-hand side of the image. But, I did not like the extremely bright color contrast between her and her horse. Aaah ha…Black and White conversion might do the trick!

NIK, Silver Efex, Conversion

The color problem was not just her bright shirt. Her hair and skin color separated them as well. The black and white version made their hair similar and united the two of them in tonal harmony. And very important in a competition image, as it is in art, simplifying a composition will often make it more powerful. 

We went on to get a lot of nice images of this young lady with and without her horse and even a nice solo portrait of the horse.  Sadly, shortly after we created these portraits they had to put her horse down. Rest in peace sweet one….

As always questions are welcome…

Author: Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

STORYTELLING CHILDREN’S PORTRAITS IN THE STUDIO

Here at TheStorytellers in Meridian, Idaho, we try to do more than just a smile at the camera portrait that so many parents are trained to want.  Often a person’s personality is more apparent in their eyes than in their mouth. In addition, when many people smile broadly their eyes close-up and we lose that all important glimpse into what has been called “the window to the soul”…the eyes.

The hard part in our profession is getting our subjects to relax enough in front of our camera to really show us who they are. This is always more difficult in the studio and especially so with children!  I think this session went so well because these are returning happy clients. We have been doing their portraits since their daughter was an infant.  If the parents are nervous or anxious their children will pick-up on that energy. These parents trust us and are very comfortable bringing their children to us.

After we do some smiles the storytelling begins…

f11.0 @ 1/160 sec., ISO 200; Lens @ 140mm

I call this one the Future Executive Portrait!  Not many photographers would put a child into what we call a “power pose”, but this little guy fell into it like a pro. I like his intensity! That’s why I converted this to black and white.

Moving on to some literal storytelling…

 f11.0 @ 1/160 sec., ISO 200; Lens @ 102mm

We started doing family reading time when the daughter was a toddler, so it was a natural to do reading time showing their children enjoying this family tradition. You can tell they really enjoy doing this together. Some of the best storytelling is when NOBODY is looking at the camera!  

Moving on to the daughter….

f11.0 @ 1/160 sec., ISO 200; Lens @ 100mm

Their daughter is now a little more reserved in front of us, so we didn’t push her too much—and she did have a nice easy smile.  I converted this to black and white to show how it simplifies the image when you eliminate the bright colors.

And back to little brother…

f11.0 @ 1/160 sec., ISO 200; Lens @ 200mm

That impish smile tells it all! We took our time, didn’t rush anyone, and everybody had fun. We let our dog, Gadget, run around—she’s our studio mascot—and everybody loves our super friendly little dog!  

Have questions?  Don’t hesitate to ask…’Til next week…

Author: Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

BLACK AND WHITE CONVERSIONS FROM OLD AND NEW COLOR ORIGINALS

I’ve been creating black and white images for over 40 years, and like photographers of my age, I started with processing my own film and hand printing B&W on a variety of the classic papers by Kodak, Ilford, and my favorite Agfa—like Portriga Rapid.

This blog is about “converting” to B&W so, of course I’m talking about the digital process since back in my film days there was NO converting. We decided in advance, based on our subject, wether we were going to use color or B&W film and then printed them on their like media. I had criteria for the use of B&W and color films. And today I have exactly the same criteria for when to use B&W in digital as I did for film.

The Best B&W images have:

1. Directional light (that means shadows)
2. Good Blacks and Whites
3. Texture and/or detail
4. A strong center of interest

So, let’s start with something old…

Monument Valley Cloud Burst

It’s a nice scene, but it was clearly beyond the dynamic range, as you can see in the color image below, of what Kodachrome 64 could record. I don’t have dramatic shadows here and some of the clouds are already overexposed. Since I don’t have a high-end film scanner I used, at the time, my best DSLR—my canon 5D Mk II with a canon 100mm, f2.8, Macro lens and photographed a bunch of my favorite slides, from 40 years ago, on a light table.  (If your interested in just how I did this I will put a link at the end of this blog to my YouTube channel with a how to video.) They turned out nice and I produced RAW files of on average 22MB and Jpgs with on average 12MB to work with in post. 

Here’s the original color image….

Kodachrome 64 Original

Post processing to a B&W conversion…

• Used NIK’s HDR Efex single image tone mapping (deep 1) to pull out the sun rays and the cloud burst on the right hand side of the image; this also helped cloud detail.
• Used NIK’s Silver Efex Pro-2 for B&W; used the Full dynamic harsh preset modified to my taste.
• Used NIK’s Define 2 for noise reduction.
• Cropped off some of the bottom and burned that in as well.

It turned out pretty well. I got the drama I wanted by pulling out the details that were barely visible in the color slide and by deepening the darks in the image it brought a three dimensional quality to the scene that did not show in the color version.

Moving on to a digital color image I think the following image illustrates how color, as eye candy, has impact, but does not always hold your interest for long….

 f11.0 @ 1/350 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 26mm

This image, after the initial impact, has little to offer; it’s really, quite literally, flat! Not only is the subject flat, but so its the lighting.. So, looking at the vertical stains on the locomotive’s sides I knew that was something I could enhance with tone mapping….

B&W with HDR Efex

Now we have texture and Lots of Detail all over the image creating the Illusion of depth where the color version had none. 

Post Processing the Image…

NIK’s HDR Efex, single image Tone Mapping, using the Deep 1 preset with tweaks, to bring out the blacks.

B&W conversion using ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) grayscale. Tweaked the yellow, orange, and red sliders to further enhance details.

These are just two of the many ways to create B&W images from your color originals. If you want more complicated methods they’re easy to find, with a search, but you won’t necessarily get better results. It depends on a lot on the quality of the color image you start with.

As promised, here is the link to my YouTube video on slide duplication with a DSLR:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3CyAq84vzw

’Til next week…

Author: Jerry W Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training Site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client Site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

THE ART OF B&W CONVERSION

Decades ago, in my film days, B&W as an art form was not something you converted to. It was a planned decision you made based on the subject. And if you wanted quality B&W you started with the proper B&W film for the job. As Ansel Adams taught it was all about pre-visualization; how did you want your vision or interpretation of a given subject to look?  Every step of the way we had many excellent choices in films and B&W papers to create that B&W vision.

It was a big deal when I set-up my darkroom to print the B&W negatives I deemed worthy of printing. Then I’d spend an entire weekend printing, souping, washing and drying prints until the wee hours of the morning.

Our only choice for converting color images to B&W back then was using Kodak Panalure paper on color negatives, but the results were not very impressive. In addition, because the Panalure was a resin coat product it was far from archival due to color shifting (bronzing) and orange spotting in reaction to light. It was thus not a paper of choice for fine art printing.

Today in our digital realm it is amazing what we can create with color RAW files as our source images. I can now pre-edit (Adobe Camera RAW) make a JPEG convert to B&W (NIK Silver Efex Pro) and if needed do retouching cropping and noise reduction (Photoshop) creating a spectacular new rendition of my color file in 30 minutes! 

It’s important to note that you’re not going to create a spectacular image out of nothing. As has always been the case you must start with a good image; the old adage comes to mind—You can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear!

A B&W result using my favorite software….

NIK’s Silver Efex Pro-2

This is the finished image with NIK’s Silver Efex Pro-2 using the B&W Push preset with some of my own tweaking. Then I used NIK’s DeFine2 noise reduction.

Here’s the original image after prepping….

f11.0 @ 1/400 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 100mm

I always prep my RAW files in Adobe Camera RAW before I drop the resulting JPEG into NIK. 

In this image I made these adjustments:

• Exposure…..- .20
• Contrast….. + 5
• Highlights…..- 88
• Shadows….. + 53
• Blacks….. - 72
• Clarity….. + 11
• Vibrance….. + 18
• Saturation….. 0

Note: I’ve learned over the years to take it easy when using Clarity and Saturation; two fo the most over used sliders in the digital world.

That’s it for this week…Have questions don’t hesitate to ask…’Til next week…

Author: Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

GHOST TOWN FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY - SILVER CITY, IDAHO; Part 2

Like many fine art photographers I like old things—(that’s why I photograph ghost towns!) and old things left outside, in a four season climate, to degrade and rust are the Best! So, when I first visited Silver City after checking out the historic buildings I ventured up into the hills on the town’s edges looking for those old things left outside. I soon found several old car chassis, hunkered down in the weeds, rusting way, paint peeling…

f9.0 @ 1/200 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 73mm

The peeling layers of paint on this old car’s “suicide doors” is art in itself! That’s why I did so little in post processing on this image besides cropping in camera to off-set the doors’ seam pushing the door handles to the right (“rule of thirds” composition). I suppose I should title this one, “Bloody Suicide Doors”.

Next I found this old car being consumed by weeds…

f9.0 @ 1/320 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 32mm

Or, maybe, as edited into B&W, my vision of this as a metallic skull, with the trunk lid gone, creating a huge maw, it looks like this beast is doing the consuming of the weeds!

TECH NOTE:  I converted this RAW file into B&W with NIK’s HDR Efex Pro using the B&W Art Preset modified to my taste.  Here is the original file….

Original Unmodified File

This original file just did not have the sinister punch I wanted for my vision; it had to be monochrome. I also picked-up a lot of texture in the rusted steel with the HDR conversion.

Here’s my favorite view of Silver City….

f8.0 @ 1/640 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 32mm

Whenever I photograph any well known site I always try to create something that other photographers have not done. I do not copy other photographer’s work. So, looking for a different composition is important, and one of the compositional elements many photographers neglect is the tried and true: Foreground, Middle-ground, Background concept. To create this concept I find a subject—in this case the old school house—and then I back-off and look for an alignment of some foreground element. Well, I had to back WAY-OFF, but I found this really nice archway created by some old vine covered trees that gave me the perfect foreground to frame my schoolhouse scene.

Not content with that look I pushed it to the surreal….

Solarization

 One of the benefits of our digital photography age is that we can create surreal images so easily. One of my favorite printing techniques from our film days was Solarization and it happens that included in the NIK bundle of effects is both color and B&W Solarization.

TECH NOTE: This was done with NIK’s Color Efex Pro using the Color Solarization #3. However, when using the Elapsed Time Slider for the look I wanted it created some unwanted colors in the clouds over the school house. So, then I dropped the image into Photoshop and used the Spot Healing Brush Tool to clean up the sky.

Hope you enjoyed my one day adventure….’Til next week…

Author: Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training Site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client Site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

GHOST TOWN FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY - SILVER CITY, IDAHO; Part 1

I’ve been doing fine art photography of ghost towns and old cemeteries for over 40 years. One of the best ghost towns I ever photographed was Bodie, in the high country East of Yosemite National Park, off Highway 395. But, that was 40 years ago before it started falling apart; now they’re having to prop-up some structures. It wasn’t until I moved to Idaho that I discovered a rich new (to me!) territory of subjects to really enhance my fine art portfolio.

Because of all the mining that took place here in Idaho there are a lot of ghost towns in the mountains—mostly North of Boise. But there is Silver City, one of the best ”ghost” towns just South of us, that is well known for it’s many intact buildings, operational hotel, bar and restaurant. It looks like it’s been coming back to life. At just over 63 miles from Meridian it takes about 2 hours to get there; the last few miles are on a narrow, rutty, dirt road. We went there in June with friends in their 4x4, crew-cab pickup and had no problem. In the winter though the road is impassable except by snowmobile. 

I think Silver City is better than Bodie in many ways. There’s a lot of variety in its buildings and they are still standing without supports. There is a really nice cemetery and the topography is far better; the town is nestled in some hills so there are elevation differences that make for more interesting compositions while Bodie is built on a flat empty plain.

Here’s an example of Silver City topography…

 f11.0 @ 1/500 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 40mm

This image was a natural for a B&W conversion because I knew that the dark tones of that outhouse would contrast nicely against the old white church in the background. In addition I wanted to get rid of all the greenery in the scene that distracted form my main two subjects.

This B&W conversion was done using Adobe Camera Raw.

A detail image of a front porch….

f5.6 @ 1/800 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 40mm

Going for the textures in this image: I was drawn to this scene because of the slivers of sun light slicing through the uncovered boards of the porch overhang.

TECH NOTE: Processing for texture; I used NIK’s HDR Efex Pro single image Tone Mapping here; using the Dramatic preset.

A Low-Light Interior Detail…

f4.5 @ 1/25 sec., ISO 3200; Lens @ 32mm

This is the old telegraph office inside the hotel. Set-up in 1874 it was the first telegraph in the Idaho Territory.

TECH NOTE: This had to be B&W so I converted it in NIK’s Silver Efex Pro using the fine Art Preset. Then I selected one of NIK’s Film Emulations (the Agfa100) for the monochrome look I liked best.

Then out at the Silver City Cemetery….

f5.6 @ 1/500 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 40mm

They have some of the best wrought iron work I’ve ever seen at a cemetery. I enhanced the color and texture of the rust in Adobe Camera Raw for this image.

Next week in Part #2 I’ll show some before and afters of images I dramatically altered for artistic effect.

’Til next week…

Author: Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training Site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client Site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

WHY I CONVERT SOME COLOR IMAGES TO B&W AT CIVIL WAR EVENTS

I usually know when I snap the shutter if an image is destined to be a color or B&W image because of how I compose a scene. In other words when I’m doing Civil War Re-enactments I will design some to be in color when there is a compelling color feature in the scene. When there’s little color in a scene, if I want an historical look, and I can see good contrast between what will be blacks and highlights then black and white usually wins out.

This image had those features….

f5.6 @ 1/640 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 142mm

In addition this image had the posed look that we see in much actual civil war photography. Of course back then that posed look was necessary because their cameras’ film (coated glass plates) was so slow that every image was a time exposure (with the camera on a tripod) where nobody could move or they’d get motion blurred photos. That’s why there are no action photos of the Civil War!

I designed this image to be color….

 f4.5 @ 1/640 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 200mm

Backed-off, using my lens at 200mm, I carefully composed this image to PLACE that flag EXACTLY where it is relative to this soldier while he was moving around unaware of my presence. I purposely chose the aperture of f4.5 to blur the flag and background enough that the flag would not dominate the scene.

This scene had to be B&W….

f5.6 @ 1/640 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 155mm

This image of the gun crew, taken seconds after they fired a cannon, was visually polluted by the colorful crowd in the background. That’s why I waited for them to fire giving me that cloud of smoke to help obscure the background.

TECH NOTE:

• To further obscure the background I converted the color image in NIK’s Silver Efex using their Antique Plate 2 preset, which not only creates a nice warm tone monochrome, but also adds a white vignette around the image effectively increasing the smoke in the scene.

Another image designed for color….

 f8.0 @ 1/500 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 200mm

Again using my lens at 200mm I layered and compressed these elements: the flags and a model of a civil war cannon are on a table while in the background, some 25 yards away, are some full scale cannons.

TECH NOTE:

• I focused on the Union Flag to make it really stand out and used an aperture of f8.0 to blur the Confederate Flag and the background cannons, but still make them identifiable.

Back to a more historical look….

f5.0 @ 1/1600 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 40mm

I have two layers of processing on this image. 

• First, I put the color original into NIK’s Single Image Tone Mapping using their Dark preset to really enhance the cannon smoke.
• Second, I converted in NIK’s Silver Efex using their Antique Plate 1 for a straight warm monochrome.

Here’s the original image….

Original Color

The color original is just way too colorful and cheerful a setting for a Civil War Re-enactment! In addition I had a sign on the left side that had to be removed.

Sometimes enhanced color is called for….

f5.0 @ 1/200 sec., ISO 800; Lens @ 47mm

Our Civil War volunteers here in Idaho always have their blacksmith there doing authentic iron work of the period. For this image I wanted to enhance the red hot steel, the sparks, and the textures in the anvil so I processed this in NIK’s Tone Mapping using the Structured 2 preset.

I’ll finish with a classic B&W candid….

f4.5 @ 1/400 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 200mm

Since the Union’s uniforms make nice clean black when converted this was a natural for B&W. This old soldier in the shade of a tree, with dappled light filtering on him in this introspection, was also done with my lens set at 200mm. I used my favorite portrait aperture of f4.5 to create a nice bokeh background enhanced by the lens’ shallow Depth-of-Field.

That’s all for this week.  ’Til next time…

Author:  Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training Site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client Site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

USING MONOCHROME TO REMOVE DISTRACTIONS IN PHOTOGRAPHY

Some subjects must be rendered in B&W or Monochrome because they simply lack color to begin with and they have excellent texture as well—such as old barn wood—then it’s a slam dunk. When color helps the center of interest or IS the center of interest than a B&W conversion will probably weaken the image. But, how many colors and where should they be within the frame? I’ve found in my studies of art that simplifying your color composition and placing powerful colors in one of the “crash points” by using “the Rule of Thirds” can make an image very powerful and not overwhelm the viewer. The point is when using color you must design the color composition into the image before you trip the shutter. If that not possible and you have a compelling subject, as in my example below, know that you will have some editing to do in “post”.

My Criteria to Convert Images to Black and White:

My basic philosophy on converting color images to B&W or monochrome has not changed since I was “shooting” film; the best B&W images have:

1. Directional Light; that makes Shadows
2. Good Blacks and Whites
3. Texture and or Details
4. A Strong Center of Interest

I think today’s example image meets my criteria….

f6.3 @ 1/500 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 73mm

This image was converted to monochrome using NIK’s Silver Efex Pro-2. NIK is one of my favorite methods of conversion because it offers a lot of choices and styles as well as emulations; and it has 38 preset styles and 18 film emulation modes. 

My Process for this image:

• Brought down the highlights in ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) and made a jpeg.
• In NIK Silver Efex I selected the Antique Plate1 preset because I wanted a warm-tone monochrome not just B&W.
• Lastly I put a vignette on the image to darken the corners.

Here’s my original color version….

Original color version

This is a great example of color chaos! With this much uncoordinated color in a scene the viewer’s attention just bounces around all over the frame. In addition his lime green cowboy shirt was just not the classic, old time, cowboy style of image I was looking for!

That’s it for this week…Questions? Don’t hesitate to ask…’Til next week…

Author: Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

DIRECTIONAL NATURAL LIGHT: PHOTOGRAPHY FOR TEXTURE

In photography, as in most of the visual arts, directional light is the essential ingredient in creating drama, depth, mood, mystery as well as three dimensionality and texture. And when I say directional light I mean light that strikes the subject from any direction other than from the viewers’ (or camera) position. In addition, when outside, using natural light I look for light that strikes my specific subject in a way that highlights its best features. That requires observation on my part to determine the best time of day for that subject.

One of my favorite things to photograph are old farm equipment and machinery—the older the better—and when these things are left outside in the elements they become especially attractive to me! So, when we visited some friends, who live in central California’s farm land, and I saw their old rusted farm machinery I was all over it!

Sitting under a tree was this large rusted, lumber saw…

f7.1 @ a/500 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 47mm

The spotty light, filtering through the tree’s branches and leaves, from directly above skimmed the saw blade’s surface revealing its marvelous textures. I just waited for the most interesting pattern of shadows that accentuated the teeth of the blade. 

The other side of this saw was nice too….

f20.0 @ 1/80 sec., Iso 400; Lens @ 24mm

At the time the light filtering down through the tree was not adequate—the motor that powered the saw had no light on it so I went onto other subjects and came back 30 minutes later for the lighting you see in the above image. 

Going in close, using my lens at 24mm, with a very small aperture (f20.0) gave me the depth-of-field to show that cool old motor giving this image a nice foreground and relevant background feature.

This is what I was doing while waiting for good light on the saw…

f5.0 @ 1/250 sec., ISO 400; lens @ 45mm

Parked in an out building that was open on one side were some old tractors. This soft directional light is what I call Barn Light. The key here is that only open sky (without direct sunlight) is the source of light. This is one of my favorite types of light and it’s easy to work with. However, because the light level is lower a larger aperture, higher ISO and/or a tripod is sometimes needed.

On the other side of the old Ford tractor…

f10.0 @ 1/30 sec., ISO 800; Lens @ 15mm

I love the grease and grime coating the engine of this old Caterpillar tractor.  Since there was barely two-feet between each of these tractors and I wanted to capture this tractor’s treads I used my 15mm Fisheye lens (angle of view: 180 degrees) handheld at f10.0 and bumped my ISO to 800 for a useable shutter speed.

What I want to stress here is that you should not settle for just any kind of light. For dramatic, interesting, fine-art images you must wait for the best light. If it’s not directional you come back later when it is; That’s all there is to it!

That’s it for this week…have a question don’t hesitate to ask…’Til next week.

Author: Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

VARIATIONS ON A THEME; POST PROCESSING DIGITAL FILES

I’ve been revisiting my archives back to my early digital files, some as far back as 2000, when I got my first digital camera. What’s nice to see is that those old CD’s (Yes, CD’s!) can still be opened on our new computers and loaded into Photoshop!

I can open these old JPEGs in Camera Raw and do my favorite tweaks I do today with my new DSLR’s RAW files. After that I go to my favorite plug-ins for some artistic interpretations.

Here’s a finished artistic version of a file from 2003…

This image was form my second digital camera—the Fuji FinePix S-2 Pro, which produced jpegs at around 4.0 MB. Not much by todays standards, but we managed, with careful exposes, to produce some outstanding 30x40 images from our S2’s back then.

Black & White Processing Technique:

Step 1—NIK HDR Effects Pro 2 (Single Image Tone Mapping). Used Grannys Attic Preset with my modifications.

Step 2—NIK Silver Effects Pro 2—Used the Antique Plate 2 and modified it to my B&W taste.

Here’s the original file…

f13.0 @ 1/180 sec., ISO 400

This was an old hotel under renovation in Sacramento, California. I thought, with those ripped and tattered window shades, that it had the kind of creepy vibe that I could do something with.

Here’s the Color Interpretation….

I like this version mostly because of that red triangle in the second window (top left). It looks like a broken shard of glass.  I like the rust stains on the paint beneath the windows as well.

Color Processing Technique:

NIK HDR Effects Pro-2 (Single Image Tone Mapping).I used the Granny’s Attic Preset and tweaked it to my taste.

NOTE:  In addition to the obvious artistic changes to the original file a side benefit of processing an image in NIK’s HDR is that the size of the file is increased a lot.  With this image the original file was increased from 3.69MB to 6.06MBs.

However, I think that the Black and White rendition of this scene promotes the creepy vibe I imagined when I saw this building.  What do you guys think—the color or the Black and White?

’Til next week….

Author: Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training Site:  http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client Site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

QUICK ROADSIDE ART PHOTOGRAPHY

On our way to a funeral in Hailey, Idaho we passed by what looked like an old church in the little town of Corral, on the Camas Prairie, off of Highway 20. I noted it, but didn’t stop because the light in the late morning was not great relative to the building; in addition there were no clouds.  However, on our way back we hit that area at about 5pm. So, I stopped for a few minutes to see what I could get in that light. I discovered that this was an old school; the sign on the building indicating its operation from 1908 to 1953. What caught my eye was the old bell tower and the cross pattern with the diamond feature on that end of the building.

Here’s one of my wilder versions of that feature…

f14.0 @ 1/250sec., ISO 200; Lens @ 40mm

I wanted to really enhance that old wood and the clouds so, I used NIK’s, HDR Efex Pro 2, single image tone mapping using my version of their “late summer” preset.

Here’s the master shot of the school at 5pm.

f14.0 @ 1/250 sec., ISO 200; Lens @ 65mm

In the morning there was no light on the bell tower side of the school; it was all in shadow. Now we have nice hard light (for hard, textured, subjects I like a hard light) where earlier with it in shadow the light was too soft, which eliminates shadows and texture. In addition, now we have some clouds in the sky; I prefer clouds to an empty sky.

And rotating my view…

f14.0 @ 1/250 sec., ISO 200; Lens @ 73mm

You’ve gotta do this kind of subject in B&W as well!  I converted my RAW color image to B&W using NIK’s Silver Efex Pro2, using their Antique Plate 1 preset. A nice traditional B&W presentation for this subject.

And then clouds aligned over the bell tower…

f14.0 @ 1/250 sec., Iso 200; Lens @ 67mm

I really like this up angle with the “cloud piercer” look of that bell towers spike! The crossing, directional, light on the bell tower is picking up lots of detail in those old boards as well.

All told I spent 6 minutes taking the set of images and covered three angles, The wide view and the close-in crops before the wind blew away the clouds! Done.

Well almost—I spent a Lot more time in post doing these creative versions you see here!

Let me know if you have any questions…’Til next week…

Author: Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

PHOTOGRAPHY IN LOW LIGHT AND DYNAMIC RANGE

The first time I photographed a Japanese Tea Ceremony was in 2004 at the Hakone Japanese Gardens in Saratoga, California. At the time I knew nothing about this ceremony, so I just photographed the moments that looked interesting. I had no idea it would take so long or could be so complex just to make some tea! 

At that time in my career, as a professional photographer, I was using the second generation of digital camera (the Fuji Fine Pix S-2 Pro). So, when I encountered scenes with very low light I used the camera in B&W mode to maintain quality images. Back then digital cameras were very noisy at any ISO’s 400 and beyond if even slightly under exposed. They were particularly ghastly in color due to “color noise”. This tea ceremony was in very low light and even at ISO 400 I used fill flash at 1/30 second. As the ceremony wound down I turned the flash off and went to ISO 800 and 1600 at 1/15 second. 

f6.7 @ 1/15 sec., ISO 800; Lens @ 153mm

When she turned to the audience and paused, at the end of the ceremony, the directional light on her hands was great. Quickly going to 800 ISO gave me a hand-holdable 1/15 sec. to capture this dramatic image. I don’t know that today I could have captured this scene any better using my 2018 DSLR.

Some more B&W jpegs straight out of the camera….

 f4.8 @ 1/30 se.c, ISO 400 with Flash Fill

I’m still amazed how good these B&W images look using my 2nd generation digital camera from 14 years ago.

f4.8 @ 1/30 sec., ISO 400 with Flash Fill

These fill flash images look this good because we were using the new (back then!) Gary Fong lightsphere flash diffusers on our on-camera flash. 

FLASH FORWARD FOUR YEARS (2008)

Four years later digital cameras have advanced significantly. I now have two of the Fuji FinePix S-3 Pros (we always bought two at a time; and since I was on the Fuji Talent Team, we got our cameras direct from Fuji USA at cost! The Fuji FinePix S-3 Pro had their unique Super CCD SR sensor that expanded the cameras’s dynamic range to 13.5 EVs; the highest scoring dynamic range of ANY camera, when it came out in 2004. In fact, to date (2018) it’s still one of the highest scoring cameras (DXOmark.com) for dynamic range; the top cameras are currently scoring around 14.5 EVS.

So, going back to the Hakone Japanese Gardens for one of their annual events (the Matsuri 2008) I was ready to try that Low Light Tea Ceremony again, this time using my Fuji S-3 Pro.

This time I kept my camera in color mode…

f2.8 @ 1/45 sec., ISO 800; No Flash

This scene would be difficult for a lot of todays digital cameras! The girl is in white in a dim environment and there’s that window with direct sun falling on greenery outside. This is a very high dynamic range scene.  With the Fuji Pro S-3 set to Wide Dynamic Range the girls white kimono has excellent detail and you can actually see detail in the outside greenery,. No other cameras in 2008 could do that; they would just record the window a pure white and clip the highlights in her kimono. In fact, most cameras today would do poorly with this type of scene.

Here’s another from that scene…

 f2.8 @ 1/45 sec., ISO 800; No Flash

These images were shot as JPEGS and because of the low light I used ISO 800 to be able to hand hold my camera. What makes the resulting image quality still more remarkable is that digital cameras have Less dynamic range as the ISO goes up (along with more noise). That’s why most professional photographers try to keep their ISO’s down to 100 to 200 ISO; that’s where most cameras have their highest dynamic range. Well the Fuji S-3 and later S-5 cameras had better dynamic range at 800 ISO (13 EVS!) than most cameras do at 100 ISO.

So, when evaluating your next camera purchase the camera does matter, the sensor size matters, how it handles dynamic range matters, along with ISO noise and your skill with analyzing your subject all matter. Have questions, don’t hesitate to ask…’Til next week.

Author: Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman 

Training Site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client Site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com