Special Feature: Do it in Camera

In this issue’s special feature we look at tricks and techniques to create your images in camera and not rely upon the computer to do all of the work.

Creative In-Camera Photography

With Destina Munro LPSNZ

PHOTOSHOP AND LIGHTROOM have added considerable diversity to the art and creativity of photography. This is a wonderful thing and so much fun (if you have the tools and time).

Exploring creativity in-camera can also help develop your technical ability and extend your personal creativity. I would like to share a few tips for building creativity in-camera. This is using aperture, shutter speed, ISO, over and underexposing, and most importantly, finding the image.

The examples I show have all been created in-camera. There is always a bit of basic darkroom editing done in Lightroom, such as adjusting the contrast, highlights, shadows, white, blacks, and perhaps a bit of saturation to enhance the colours. This takes all of a few minutes. It probably takes longer to go through and discover which of your images conveys the right message!

So here’s to experimenting, embracing your mistakes, having fun, and exploring a bit of photographic art — outside the strict guidelines of creating a perfect image. Find inspiration

As a photographer you are most likely to look to an inspirational photographer, or two or three, but I suggest you look at artists as well. They still use theories of design, composition, colour and mood — which photographers use. Two of my inspirations are Uta Barth, who explores subject-less photography with an emphasis on light and shade; and New Zealand painter John Drawbridge, who expressed his art through abstract and colour, and the use of visual metaphors such as framing and concepts of memories.

You still need to explore and develop your own style — but a few coffee table books from the library to gaze over from time to time will keep the creative thoughts flowing.

Let’s look at a few examples and exercises to try.

Atmospheric - out of focus

Lighting is pretty important, of course, and this is no different to taking images out of focus. The two examples here are both taken at dusk. They have no defined subject, yet the images still express an emotion through a point of focus enhanced by the colour, shadows and light.

Using a telephoto lens, and a preference for aperture priority, set your aperture to the widest opening (F5.6 or less). Then, using manual focus — focus on the scene — turn your lens to take the scene slightly out of focus. Take several photos at various stages of ‘out of focus’; it takes a few images to get it right. I have yet to successfully replicate these images, which makes them quite unique in their own right.

The key is to think about colour and shape, as well as composition, such as horizons, thirds, and the typical elements you would consider when creating an ‘in-focus’ image. Once downloaded, do those tweaks in Lightroom and look to see if the image needs cropping (which is most likely in my experience).

Create a diffused image using reflections

Diffused can mean several things… You may want to take an image through light fabric, a curtain or a window. The examples here are taken through a window to achieve the soft. diffused effect. The image challenges your perception of seeing, with the colours inside the building complementing the scene being photographed through the window.

Open the aperture up wide such as F2-F5.6 (this softens the dirty windows in each of these images as well), and set a low ISO (depending on the lighting conditions). Manually focus while looking through the window, and adjust the focus to ‘find the desired reflected image’. Think about how the colour impacts and also how the tonal range complements the set.

Using the rule of thirds to place elements within the image may help to strengthen the composition.

Create images that tell a story

Here I have taken photos of my daughter, from the outside looking in, while she is creating a garment. Again manual focus is best, enabling you to decide that right level of blur. Why blur? Why not? Look at the surrounding light, shadows, and glare, and take these into consideration when taking the photo. Are you looking for colours that are soft and diffused, strong and bold, complementary or contrasting? Soft curves and vertical lines strengthen the composition of these images. Negative space adds an element of mystery and the images are subtle and incomplete yet still tell a story.

Over and under-exposing

When you are wanting to do intentional camera movement, put your ISO to 100, using Aperture Priority with an F stop of up to F22 (or higher or lower) and the exposure to +1 or even +2. Those settings will enable you to have a slower shutter speed on a bright day, so you can pan your camera. On the back of my camera, there was really no image… But a tweak in Lightroom, pulling down the black as shown, will give you some resemblance of an image. Overexposing drains the saturation and gives you pastel colours as shown in the third example (with minor tweaks in your editing software of choice). The third image was taken slightly out of focus and over exposed from a fast moving boat. The colours were then enhanced in Lightroom.

Dark tones and mood

When using intentional camera movement, don’t limit yourself to sweeping the camera horizontally or vertically; try sweeping your camera around in a circular motion. The settings for these images were ISO 200, F22; the left had a shutter speed of six seconds and the right was 3.2 seconds. The time of day was 7.00 pm in summer. It’s exciting, seeing what might evolve! The images were taken looking under a boatshed, with the sea foam contributing to the atmospheric elements.

Look for patterns, shapes, lines

With patterns, shapes and lines, as suggested earlier try to limit yourself to photography around your own home, where it may be a bit more challenging. The top two examples are overexposed, slightly out of focus, and taken down my hallway. Not the most exciting location, but it can test your ability to see and just focus on the evening light coming in from the windows, falling on the doorframes and door openings. It was cropped to square and the colour toned to blue. If you have been to the Len Lye Centre you may recognise the entrance to the gallery with very little editing other than a crop.

There is much more to explore than just these few simple techniques. See what you can find around your home and local area in the evenings or mornings when the light at its best, but you are not limited to this time either. Have fun and enjoy the creative process. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me at destinamunro.com.

Nature Photography Society of New Zealand

Exhibition

A showcase of members’ images

Colours of Nature

22 April – 2 June 2021 Art On The Quay, Ruataniwha Kaiapoi Civic Centre, 176 Williams St, Kaiapoi

Straight out of Camera

By Paul Whitham LPSNZ

THERE IS NO doubt that software such as Photoshop makes it very easy to create images, but they are not the only means of doing so. In this article I’m going to give you four techniques for creating images totally within your camera.

1Free lensing This is a technique where you shoot through a lens that is not actually attached to the camera. It is not the easiest to master but the variability in the results adds to the appeal. Also, as the camera does not need to talk to the lens you are not limited in using lenses that will fit the mounting. To give this a try, firstly make sure that your camera will allow it to take images with no lens attached, and also that it will allow images to be taken when it is not locked in focus. To do this varies by brand and model, so I suggest that you need to read the manual. Set the camera and lens to manual focus, and on the lens set its focus to infinity (normally denoted by an eight on its side).

Then, looking through the viewfinder, position the lens in front of the camera and move it around until you get the result you want.

A word of warning. This technique is best used when there is not a lot of wind around, as you are leaving your sensor wide open to the elements.

2Shooting through objects As the name suggests this technique simply involves putting an object between the lens and the subject. This will create an element that covers the whole image or simply a part of it. There is almost no limit to what you can place there. Sheets of glass are very popular if you want to cover the whole frame, while crystals and lights are great if you want to have it limited to one area.

Generally, when using this technique, we will be using manual focus; otherwise the camera is likely to focus on the object rather than the subject. Therefore, it is often easier to focus first on your subject before you actually move the other object in place.

3Double exposure In a double exposure you take two or more images and combine them into a single frame in the camera. This technique was available in certain film cameras and has now been applied in the digital world.

You’ll need to check your camera manual to see whether the model you have can do it, and also what it can do. This varies greatly between brands and models. In some cases you have to take sequential photos and you have no control over how they’re blended. Other cameras allow you to choose your original photo and give you control over the blend. In fact, some modern cameras give you the ability to preview the original image as an overlay in the viewfinder while you take the second one. This makes it a lot simpler to position the subject to create the effect you are after. 4Special lenses All of the techniques mentioned so far involve no additional expense. The final technique is to use special lenses, attached to the camera, that are designed to produce particular results. One of the most common of these lenses is the Lensbaby range. These enable you to dictate what will be in and out of focus within the same image.

Another popular approach is to use old film lenses, particularly ones that were not known for their sharpness in the first place, such as the Russian lenses. To fit these to modern cameras you need adapters which are readily available and not all that expensive. While some people don’t like using adapters, as there is a perceived loss of quality, that is not an issue in this case.

Improving the Images that You Take

By Paul Whitham LPSNZ

HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON said that your first 10,000 images are your worst. He was essentially referring to the old adage that practice makes perfect.

Although Henri lived into the digital era (dying in 2004), he was referring to film. That would have involved some 300 rolls of film. Hence it would have taken you a long time to shoot (and be very expensive). However, with today’s high-capacity cards and rapid frame rates, I could easily shoot 10,000 images in a couple of hours and not actually learn much in the process.

This is often referred to as spray and pray.

Here are a number of exercises that can help you make those 10,000 images better.

1Film challenge There are several variations to this challenge but essentially what you do is regard the card in your camera as if it was a roll of film. You can choose whether you want this to be a 24 or 36 exposure roll. The other limitation is that you can’t delete any photos on the card to allow for a greater number to be taken. You have to keep every image.

Photo by César Abner Martínez Aguilar on Unsplash

The purpose of the exercise is to slow down your shooting and to make you consider each shot before you press the shutter. Some people take the exercise further by turning off the preview screen and not looking at any images in the field. I think this is taking the challenge a step too far. Another aspect of this type of challenge is removing the thought that you will “fix it in post”. Instead, try to get your settings as close to what you want when pressing the shutter.

When he spoke to the National Convention in Queenstown, professional photographer Mike Langford said that he always shot in RAW and JPEG at the same time. He would expose to get the JPEG image on the back of his camera exactly how he was seeing and feeling the shot at the time it was taken. When he came back to his computer he would only ever use the RAW files if he wanted to significantly alter an image. Even then he would use the JPEG as a reference image.

2One lens This is a challenge that I will often take up when I’m going to an event that is not really important to me. Therefore, I am using it as practice rather than something I seriously want to record. I will choose to take only one lens, and quite often that will be a fixed length prime, rather than a zoom.

Most of us have collected a bag full of lenses over the years and we will take them out on shoots and waste a lot of time swapping between them.

But we never really take the time to work out what each of the lenses can do on its own. This exercise lets you do that because when you are limited you need to adapt. You’ll gain an appreciation of how the focal length influences what you can shoot.

You’ll discover how fast the lens is in terms of coping with different lights, and you should also be able to discover the sweet spot where the lens produces the sharpest results.

The reason that I generally go with primes is that they require me to think about where I am standing relative to what I want to shoot. This generally means getting closer to the action rather than standing back with a long zoom lens.

3Shoot blindfolded My wife did this exercise as part of an arts diploma; initially I thought it sounded ridiculous until I tried it myself. You need to work in pairs with the photographer being blindfolded and the other person guiding them around an area.

The point of the exercise is to not actually take pictures but for you to develop a muscle memory of where the most important buttons on your camera are and how to change settings without having to look at the camera.

It is no coincidence that manufacturers have spent a lot of time and effort in the ergonomics of the camera design. On most cameras you will find that your finger and thumb will fit nicely over the most important controls. Generally, the wheel that controls exposure will move in a third of a stop. Therefore, three clicks in either direction is a full stop change.

Being able to change your settings without needing to look at the camera will help, especially in fast paced shooting environments.

Photo by Houcine Ncib on Unsplash

Chatham Island Photo Tour 2021

8 Days, 7 Nights on Chatham Islands ex Wellington

10 – 17 September 2021

• Professional Photographer Tutors teach at your pace with location shoots, workshops \ critique sessions and 1 -1 assistance. • Local Guides show you their island.

• Onsite Tour Leader manages the tour full time from departure to return to Wellington. • All Meals and Transport Included.

• Optional side trips include a day on Pitt Island, Fishing, the outer Islands of the Chathams archipelago.

• Return flights on Air Chathams, accommodation at Hotel Chathams • Limited places available

Costs (Inc GST) from Contact

Single (Shared facilities) $5577 Nick Maitland

Double \ Twin $5677 E nxpxnz@gmail.com

Superior $5777 M 027 605 3447

25th Laurie Thomas NZ Landscape Salon 2021

By Kathrin Affeld

ONE OF THE most anticipated events on the country’s photographic calendar is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. The Laurie Thomas New Zealand Landscape Salon has been organised by the Christchurch Photographic Society since 1996, in honour of its former member, Laurie Thomas, who was internationally recognised for his photography of the New Zealand landscape. Since its humble beginnings 25 years ago, the Laurie Thomas New Zealand Landscape Salon has undergone a complete transformation from slides to digital images, and now attracts up to 700 entries from amateur and professional photographers alike.

The salon encourages entrants to be creative and present their own interpretation of the New Zealand landscape; it therefore has no prescriptive definition of a “landscape”.

The salon is unusual in that the winner will be presented with a unique trophy known as “Wind & Water” - to keep. The trophy was designed by Lesley Sales FPSNZ and symbolises the essence of the New Zealand landscape: water, wind, trees and light. Lesley says its shape suggests a mountain and the forces acting upon it to carve out the landscape. Mountain streams flowing down the mountainsides are depicted by paua shell inserts. The action of the wind is suggested by an invisible, implied line that begins as a curl on the outside edge of the mountains and flows across the landscape. Trees clinging to the mountainsides add another dimension, that of vegetation and plant growth. Light defines the shape of the mountain, illuminating the waters, the shapes, and the trees, silhouetting the shapes of the landscape.

This year’s salon will be judged by South Island judges Jackie Ranken AIPP & NZIPP Grand Master, Mike Langford AIPP & NZIPP Grand Master and Tony Bridges ACPP (Dist.), FPSNZ.

The 2021 Laurie Thomas Salon will open for entries on 1. May and close on 23. May 2020. It is open to all photographers, regardless of whether they are affiliated with a club or not. Entry details can be found at https://lauriethomassalon.com.