Photo insights August '14

Jim Zuckerman’s

PH OTO I N S I G HTS

August 2014

• Mixed lighting portraits • Neon edges on black • Cityscapes • Face Mirrors • New post-processing course • Student showcase • Photo tours

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Mixed light portraits Neon edges City scapes Face mirrors New online course Whats wrong with this picture?

Short and sweet Ask Jim Student showcase Back issues On the cover: A tall ship, Norfolk Virginia. This was shot at 11am with harsh light; the sunset was added in post-processing using a blend mode.

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hotography does not capture what you see. It can come close, but in most cases you will be disappointed if you expect your pictures to look exactly like how you saw a scene or subject.

For example, we never see out of focus foregrounds or backgrounds like you get with telephoto lenses and macro lenses. Similarly, we never see exaggerated perspectives and disproportionately large foregrounds typical of extreme wide angle lenses. The key to being able to previsualize photographs is having the ability to see as your lenses perceive our reality. In other words, even before you lift the camera to your eye, you should learn to see in your mind’s eye the compression and shallow depth of field that you capture with a telephoto, and then you have to imagine and envision the distortion of perspective that a super wide angle lens like a 14mm or16mm (or a 10mm on a cropped sensor) lens gives you.

In addition, our eye/brain combination doesn’t see contrast as a camera does. During midday, for example, we can see tremendous detail in the highlights and the shadows while the digital sensor makes shadows black and sometimes overexposes highlights to the point where all detail and texture are lost. Only by shooting in diffused light and/or using significant post-processing techniques can we bring a contrasty scene back from the brink of the trash can.

Learn how to see as your lenses see, and learn to be aware and sensitive to contrasty shooting situations, and you will take a quantum leap forward in your photography, photos@jimzuckerman.com www.jimzuckerman.com 3

Mixed Lighting Portraits

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hat we think of as white light isn’t necessarily white. The light emanating from tungsten sources such as living room lamps is more yellow than white, and the type of light we see on overcast days and in deep shadows is bluish-white. When the sun is high in the sky, it gives off white light untainted by other color hues, but at sunrise and sunset it is golden yellow. The light from electronic flashes is virtually identical to the sun at midday.

Sometimes photographers go to great lengths to ‘correct’ non-white types of light to simulate the sun at noon to maintain the integrity of the subject’s colors. You can create a custom white balance, you can use glass filters that screw on the front of your lenses, and you can manipulate col-

or when shooting RAW files and, to a lesser extent, when taking pictures in jpeg mode. In Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom, the temperature slider can quickly move through the

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color spectrum and change the color hues to anything you want no matter what white balance you used for the original capture.

A technique I use often is to combine the golden colors of sunrise, sunset, tungsten lights, or the light that comes from candles with the cooler, bluish tones of deep shade and dawn.

I don’t make any correction at all except, perhaps, to intensify the colors. This combination of colors looks great for many types of subjects, and for portraits it’s especially interesting.

The portrait of a young Korean girl on page 4 exemplifies what I’m describing. She was a neighbor of mine, and I made the ‘window’ just to photograph her. This is a sheet of glass, 16 x 20 inches, with wood molding cut and glued onto it to look like an old fashioned window. I had her sit on a chair in my

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garage facing the open door, so she was in deep shade. Even though it was sunny outside, the shade of the garage meant a bluish cast. I exaggerated the blue by using a tungsten white balance setting on the camera. At the same time, I lit the side of her face with a single photoflood (consisting of a $10 reflector from a hardware store and a 100 watt light bulb). I clamped the photoflood to another chair for support.

The tungsten WB setting produced a natural skin tone color (it’s slightly pinkish because the color temperature of the light bulb was less than 3200K) while the deep shade of the garage became much more blue than I saw with my eyes.

I specifically wanted this kind of exaggeration of color.

In the case of the Balinese dancer at the upper right of page 5, I used a daylight balanced flash with the golden colors of sunset. This kind of

mixed lighting makes a unique visual statement.

The model in Venice, Italy at the bottom of page 5 was photographed using daylight white balance. This is a setup I do during the annual workshop I conduct here. She is lit from a large bank of windows on the right plus the sconce on the left. The combination of daylight and tungsten lighting produced a lovely portrait.

The Burmese novice monks on the previous page posed for my photo tour group just inside a doorway in the narrow space provided for the reclining Buddha. Similar to the portrait of the Korean girl, I used tungsten white balance. That exaggerated the bluish tones of shaded daylight, and it made the candle light close to what our eyes see in terms of color balance. Had I used daylight WB, the Buddha wouldn’t have been blue, and the light from the candles would have

been much more red/yellow.

If you use mixed lighting for portraits but realize after-the-fact that you would have preferred a different white balance, that’s not a problem if you shoot in RAW mode. Simply experiment with the temperature slider in ACR or Lightroom and watch the color relationships change.

For the portrait below of a friend of mine and his 1876 bicycle, I combined flash with tungsten lighting. I used daylight WB so the light from the flash was correct, and I allowed the artificial lights on the ante-bellum home to appear yellowish. I chose twilight to make this shot so the cobalt color of the sky would embellish the color palette of the image. I placed the flash directly behind the model and used a Pocket Wizard to trigger it. The exposure was determined by trial and error. §

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UPCOMING PHOTO WORKSHOPS Baby WildlifeWorkshop Hinckley, Minnesota June 26 - 28, 2015

Baby wolves, skunks, coyotes, bobcats, lynx, foxes, bears, plus adult animals.

Frog & Reptile Workshop Close-up encounters with poison dart frogs and exotic reptiles in St. Louis, MO.

Sept. 20 - 21, 2014

The Pantanal, Brazil: Jaguars at the river’s edge plus caiman, giant anteaters, monkeys, pink dolphins, and unbelievable birds.

November 8-20, 2014

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NEON EDGES

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am always looking for unique techniques in Photoshop to transform photographs into artistic and surreal pictures. I’ve been drawn to this kind of imagery from the beginning of my career.

When I was in elementary school, I remember being taught a technique with crayons. You would scribble a multitude colors on a piece of paper, covering the entire area. Then you’d cover all the colors with solid black. When you scratched the black crayon layer off in some kind of interesting design, the colors showed through the scratches and the black made the colors stand out. The technique in Photoshop that I show here is very similar to what I did with crayons as a child, but you don’t have to be able to draw. The form of the subject is already defined by the photograph. You can see what

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I’m referring to in the portrait of two costumed models in Venice on the previous page and the tall ships, below.

The technique is simple. Open a photo in Photoshop, and choose one with well defined lines.

Trees, architecture, landscapes, faces, sailboats, and many other subjects look great. Large areas in an image that are fairly even in tone and color, such as expanses of the sky or even skin in a closeup, don’t translate well with this technique.

Under the filter pulldown menu, choose: Filter > stylize > find edges. Then use Image > adjustments > invert. This latter command flips the image from positive to negative. You can then add contrast and/or color saturation to taste.

Not all photos work well with this technique, but many do. It’s fun experimenting with it. §

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CITYSCAPES

eautiful city skylines make great pictures. The picture of Denver, below, and Chicago on the next page are examples. There are three aspects to shooting skylines: (1) finding the best vantage points, (2) shooting at the right time of day, and (3) and getting a perfect exposure.

Photogenic view points Finding the best vantage points from which to photograph the city in which you live is easy.

Simply drive around and you are bound to see excellent views of the city, and asking photography friends or camera club members will def-

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initely point you in the right direction.

When visting other cities, you have to do visual research. The two best resources are post card racks in stores and Google. If you search online before you travel to a city, which is what I do, you can get many ideas of what to shoot. You won’t know how to get to the vantage points you found, so hire a taxi and show the driver photos that you’ve printed out or that you carry with you in an iPhone or iPad. Tell him or her that you don’t want to go to the place in the picture; rather you want to go to the place where the photographer stood to get that shot.

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Many times a city will have a classic view of the skyline that everyone knows, such as the the wonderful vantage point of Shanghai, China, below.

But every city has other wonderful photographic opportunities if you just knew where to find them.

There are three things I seek out when I am looking to shoot beautiful cityscapes: (1) Rooftop restaurants that have great views such as the elevated perspective on Salzburg, Austria, right, (2) hotels that are situated such that some of their rooms offer stunning shots of the city like the overview of the Tower Bridge in London at the top of the next page, and (3) observation decks on tall buildings.

I took the picture of Chicago on page 13, for example, from the public observation area of the 94th floor of the John Hancock Building.

spectacular views either on the ground floor or in one of the upper floors. When I travel, I now choose hotels specifically for the photographic potential of their views. In Singapore, for example, I stayed in the Marina Bay Sands Hotel so I could enjoy their infinity pool on the 57th floor, but more than that so Sometimes hotels have restaurants or bars with I could photograph the city at night from the

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observation area on the same floor, below. It’s truly stunning.

Time of day Architectural details of buildings can be done at any time of the day, but photographing a city skyline is similar to shooting a landscape in that light is critical. The best times are sunrise, sunset, and when the sky is overcast (providing you know how to replace the white sky with a cloudy sky). In addition, when low fog hangs around tall buildings, that also provides excellent photo opportunities.

My favorite type of lighting, though, is definitely twilight. The mixure of colors is beautiful, and the contrast between the cobalt blue sky and the artificial lights of the city is dramatic.

Following twilight the sky goes black, and that is also a great time to shoot. The picture of the Singapore skyline, below, is an example.

Unfortunately we photographers can’t be at multiple vantage points at the same time, so we have to choose which one is the best. Usually we are able to shoot at twilight from only one

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Become a better photographer with

eBooks

Click on any ebook to see inside

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location because the best colors last only 10 to 15 minutes or so. Night photography lasts hours, so you can take in many more locations after dark.

Exposure Digital cameras have changed the way I expose for cityscapes, particularly the shots at twilight and night. When all photographers shot film, we didn’t have the advantage of seeing our exposures immediately on an LCD monitor. Therefore, we had to know what the standard twilight or night exposure was (10 seconds at f/8 with 100 ISO film). Using this setting didn’t allow for subtle variations in lighting conditions, and that’s where experience allowed us to tweak the exposures (or bracket our pictures) so they were guaranteed to be perfect.

Now we don’t have to remember a formula or make subtle adjustments to the exposures based on experience. Nor do we have to bracket out exposures (unless doing HDR). Digital cameras make twilight and night exposures very easy.

All you have to do is take one picture using an automatic exposure mode, such as Program, Aperture priority, or Shutter priority. If it’s not perfect, make adjustments using the exposure compensation feature built into every digital camera. You can tweak the exposure in 1/3 f/ stop increments either plus or minus. If the first adjustment isn’t right-on, the second one should be. As the light changes, say from dusk to twilight to night, the exposure compensation will change. So, expect that. In this way, you will take perfectly exposed pictures of city skylines with no insecurity at all. §

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Face Mirrors

oth sides of a face are not the same.

You can prove this by mirroring either side in Photoshop, and the result is a person you’ve never seen before! It’s pretty eerie.

The portrait below is an example. This is a friend’s daughter, and she wore a sari I bought my wife from India. I photographed her against a white background (it looks gray due to the light falloff from the studio flash units), lower left. I then selected the left side of her face and body and mirrored it for the image below right. I added color saturation and a

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gradient of color to the background, but you can see that the shape of the face and the unusual symmetry resulted in, essentially, a different person.

I did the same thing with my niece on the following page. My brother asked me to do something ‘different’, and he definitely came to the right place! First I mirrored Jesse’s face, and then I added the eyes of a gecko to embellish an image that was already a bit strange.

Here are the steps you can use to create a mirrored face:

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1. Open the photo of a face in Photoshop.

With the retangular marquee tool, select half the face verticallyt. Make sure the selection divides the nose evenly.

2. Use Edit > copy. Now the selection is in the clipboard, Photoshop’s invisible holding place for one photo or a part of a photo.

3. Deselect using Select > deselect.

4. Choose Edit > paste. This pastes the selection onto the photograph, and this is now a floating layer.

5. Choose Edit > transform > flip horizontal.

6. Use the move tool to move the floating layer

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in place to align with the other half of the face.

7. Enlarge the image to 100% to make sure the floating layer and the background photo are perfectly aligned. If not, you can nudge the layer using the arrow keys. Now, flatten the layer with Layer > flatten image.

The mirrored face is now complete. At this point, you can add, embellish, or go off the deep end to produce something wild and crazy.

Masked faces are also good subjects with which to experiment as you can see in the picture below that I took in Venice, Italy during carnival.

The person doesn’t have to be facing the camera. They can be somewhat turned away, and then the face takes on a very unusual shape. §

New OnLine Course:

Post-processing

by Jim Zuckerman

Virtually all digital photos require postprocessing to improve contrast, color saturation, and exposure. In addition, problems like chromatic aberration, keystoning, and distracting backgrounds need addressing.

In this four week course, Jim demonstrates techniques to make good images into great images. Jim will critique your work with kindness and honesty, and included is a weekly phone call should you wish to discuss your picture taking, equipment, travel planes, marketing, or anything else photographic. After completing this course, you will have the confidence to process your RAW files with expertise and artistry. Consider the knowledge contained in this course essential to your photographic goals.

Click HERE to read more and to register.

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What’s wrong with this picture?

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took this picture of rosy paintbrush flowers on Mt. Evans in Colorado. I was taken up to the top of the mountain by my wonderful hostess in Denver, Nona Radin, and we went early for the low angled sunlight on mountain goats. On the way down from 14,000 feet, there were wildflowers everywhere. The problem, though, was that the sky was clear. The 11 o’clock sun was directly above me and the light was terribly harsh and contrasty, and even though the flowers looked beautiful to my eyes, I knew that the pictures would be a waste of time.

Therefore, the only way to take good pictures was to find flowers in the shade. There wasn’t any shade available, though, so the best I could do was use something to shade the flowers. For the picture above, I asked Nona to stand next to the clump of flowers to block the sun, but because it was virtually above us, she couldn’t shade the entire bouquet of wildflowers. If she leaned too close, she would block a portion of the painbrush from the camera’s point of view. I gave her my hat in an attempt to shade the upper left corner, but it didn’t work. We needed something larger but didn’t have anything to use.

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The problem with the sunny area at the top left is it’s distracting. Our eye is always drawn to the brightest part of a photo first and it feels compelled to return over and over again to that highlight. This inevitably pulls our focus away from the subject or from the important parts of the picture. This is true if the light area is behind or in front of the subject, and whether or not it’s in focus or out of focus. Therefore, it’s a good idea to make the subject the lightest part of a composition. This isn’t always possible, but it should be the goal.

To correct the problem, I used the clone tool in Photoshop to completely replace the unwanted highlight. Now all of the attention is distributed evenly across the flowers. One thing to note here is that virtually all floral photography, whether it be individual flowers, clumps of wildflowers, or manicured gardens, should be photographed in soft and diffused light. With an overcast sky, it’s easy to get beautiful pictures of flowers. The colors lookmuch richer and more saturated (contrary to popular believe) in the final pictures compared to shooting the same subjects in direct light. If you don’t have shade or an overcast sky, use anything at your disposal to block the sun from the flowers. § 23

SHORT AND SWEET 1.

The article in this issue entitled Face Mirrors also applies to landscapes, architecture, and many other subjects. This is Yosemite. Instead of selecting only part of the original image, as I do when mirroring a face, I mirrored the entire original.

3. If you are forced to shoot in harsh sunlight, orient

yourself so the sun is at your back. I photographed this marmot in Colorado around 11am, and the sun was already very high. Still, with my back toward the sun, the animal was lit primarily from the front. That mitigated some of the problems with bright sunlight.

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2.

Most photographers don’t equate extreme wide angle lenses with portraiture. However, you can use 14mm and 16mm lenses for a unique perspective, as I did in this shot of a pregnant Himba woman in Namibia.

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Wide angle perspectives on wildlife are rare simply because in most circumstances we can’t get close enough without being injured or killed. At the top of Mt. Evans in Colorado a herd of about 15 goats walked right through the parking lot, and I was able to take this low angled shot with a 24mm lens from five feet away. §

Photography Tours 2014 - 2015 MONGOLIA September, 2014

POLAR BEARS October, 2014

CHINA January, 2015

JAPAN February, 2015

NAMIBIA June, 2015

VIETNAM, CAMBODIA, LAOS Sept, 2015

BOTSWANA/SOUTH AFRICA June, 2015

BURMA (MYANMAR) Sept, 2015

THE PANTANAL, BRAZIL November, 2014

CARNIVAL IN VENICE February, 2015

MADAGASCAR August, 2015

CUBA October, 2015

For a complete list of all the photo tours/workshops Jim is conducting, go to his website: www.jimzuckerman.com.

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ASK JIM

Every month Jim will answer a question from his online students, from people who participate in his tours and workshops, or from subscribers to this magazine. If you have a question you’d like Jim to answer, please drop him a note at photos@jimzuckerman.com.

Q:

Jim . . . I photographed one of the radio telescopes at the VLA (Very Large Array) in New Mexico, and I like the colors in the sky (even though they are exaggerated somewhat). But there is something wrong with this picture. What do you think the problem is?

Cory Martin, Leavenworth, Washington

A: The problem with this picture is that the silhouette of the telescope isn’t ‘clean’. By that I mean

the clouds are interfering with it. What makes a silhouette successful is the graphic design of the subject. If that design is artistic and well defined, it will work. If the silhouette is too busy, truncated, or poorly defined, it won’t work. This picture would have been much better had the sky been devoid of clouds, even though I think the clouds are beautiful by themselves.

© Cory Martin 2014

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Polar bears from ground level Oct. 28 - Nov. 3, 2014 plus arctic foxes, snowy owls, and other wildlife

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Get professionalcritiques critiques of yourof work Get professional your work with Jim’s online courses with Jim’s online courses Betterphoto.com betterphoto.com Learn composition, exposure, Photoshop, beginning fundamentals, techniques in low light photography, flash, making money in photography, and more at your convenience and on your schedule.

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Student Showcase

Each month, Jim features one student who took beautiful and inspiring images on one of his photography tours or workshops. It’s really fascinating how photographers see and compose such different images even though we may go to the same place. Everyone gets great images on my trips.

Nona Radin, Denver, Colorado, Carnival in Venice, Italy

Š 2014 Nona Radin

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Student Showcase, continued

Š 2014 Nona Radin

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Student Showcase, continued

Š 2014 Nona Radin

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PHOTOSHOP WORKSHOP in my home

Sat. & Sun., December 6 - 7, 2014

Photoshop is a photographer’s best friend, and the creative possibilities are absolutely endless. In a personal and ‘homey’ environment (I have a very cool classroom setup in my home), I start at the beginning -- assuming you know nothing -- but I quickly get into layers, cutting and pasting, plug-ins, using ‘grunge’ textures, modifying lighting, and a lot more. I promise to fill your head with so many great techniques that you won’t believe what you’ll be able to do. I go over each technique several times to make sure you understand it and can remember it.

creative ideas that will inspire you to produce amazing images with the pictures you’ve already taken.

Photoshop instructors approach teaching this program from different points of view. My approach is to be as expansive in my thinking as possible in creating unique, artistic, and compelling images. In addition to showing you how to use the various tools, pull down menus, layers, and so on, I spend a lot of time giving you

Contact me if you would like to participate in the workshop and I will tell you how to sign up (photos@jimzuckerman.com). All you need is a laptop and a lot of your pictures. If you don’t have a laptop, I have two Mac Book Pro laptops I can loan out for the duration of the workshop. §

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I live in the Nashville, Tennessee area, and if you fly into the airport (BNA) I will pick you up. If you drive, I’ll give you my address and you can find my home on Mapquest. For the $450 fee, I include one dinner in my home (prepared by my wife who is an amazing cook and hostess) and two lunches, plus shuttling you back and forth from my home to your nearby hotel.

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PHOTO INSIGHTS®

published by Jim Zuckerman, all rights reserved © Jim Zuckerman 2014 email: photos@jimzuckerman.com physical address: P.O. Box 7, Arrington, TN 37014

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