In my article Anatomy of a Self Portrait, I showed you how to, among other things, fill every crevice with light using multiple off-camera flashes. Today, I felt like doing the opposite, namely: filling almost every crevice with darkness using multiple off-camera flashes.

The Setup: I decided to shoot an image of me at the piano. I don't really play but you don't know that. This shot was in Ambient light from the recessed tungsten bulbs over my shoulder and a small amount of blue light coming in from the window above the piano. There is also a lot of clutter in this room (it is a junk room) and architectural details in the background.  I need to eliminate these distractions.

Bad light and bad image. I turned to software in my time of need. The light was coming from the wrong direction and software has a difficult time with that. I decided to do what I could with off-the-shelf basic software.

Software Solution: Software used to be my salvation and still is when I can't reshoot or didn't shoot the image in the first place. Into my image editing package I go for a little targeted brightness adjustment to tone down the periphery and accent the items I choose. I wanted emphasis on my hands and face and just a hint of a piano.  My goal was  moody introspective look. The result was dismal.

To eliminate the light I couldn't control, I turned off the tungsten and the room lights (fluorescent) in the adjoining rooms. I also plugged the window with a blanket. Starting from scratch, now I was the light bringer.

Attempt 1: Using Two Flashes, I set one on top of the  piano with a Lumiquest Softbox. The other was set to at the end of the keyboard with a Lumiquest Snoot. I was happy with the keyboard lighting but the face light illuminated to much area. I can see the background again and the sheet music and t-shirt logo are too distracting. The mood was too wistful. I wanted drama.

Already I had a much more usable image than before and I could probably take this into an image editor and get a superior image to my earlier attempt but I decided to take another step by relighting the image. I liked the warmth of the light so I kept it in trying to invoke a little lamp or candle-lit feel.

Attempt 2: With a Speed Grid  from Honl replacing the Softbox, I was able to get the quality of light on my face I desired and eliminated the spill over as well. Now I had effectively created two spotlights in a sea of blackness. The mood is getting more serious-don't you think? I wasn't happy with placement or exposure yet but I am getting closer to my goal.

Light placement was off on my face but the hand was great. As long as I could remember the chord, I was set there.  I needed to adjust my 580EXII with the Speed Grid to give me a wider throw and a better aim. I moved it back and closer to the piano lid's edge and fired away.

Third Attempt: With everything set, I dialed back the Speed Grid light on my face to 1/4 power. I set the Snoot light on my fingers to 1/4 power also. The camera was set to manual with an ISO of 100, an F8 and a 1/60th of a second shutter fired on a 10 second timer.  All I had to do was pose with some modicum of emotion.

I was pretty happy with the results. The pose was better too. Had this been a real model, I think I could have evoked the drama necessary to pull off the look I was after.  Note that the sheet music visible in the Software Solution shot has vanished and the intruding Indezine logo on my shirt has faded into the shadows.

The Setup: Canon 20D on tripod with a ST-E2 trigger driving two EX580 flash units.  The flash unit on the Piano was set to Manual at 1/4 power with a Speed Grid attached. The flash below and to camera-right with a Lumi-quest Snoot also set to Manual at 1/4 power.

The setup photograph was taken with a Canon A550 with onboard flash. (as evidenced by the nice shiny door panel)

In a room full of bad light, you can fill it with light of your own. Sometimes,however, the photograph requires that you fill it with darkness of your own so that you can invoke emotion with carefully selected splashes of light. It depends upon the needs of the moment.

Rikk Flohr © 2008

In my post dated May 9th, 2008 I announced the date of my next Costa Rican Photography Expedition. The dates have changed slightly and the tour will be leaving two days earlier to enable an extra day in the Arenal Volcano Area.

The new tour date is:

February 17-24, 2009

Information regarding the tour can be found at the Worldesigns Tours web site.

Book a trip and come shooting in Costa Rica with me.

Rikk Flohr © 2008

Windows users have no doubt long noticed that the start button located on the task bar keeps a log of the usage statistics for each program initiated by clicking the Start Button  and then navigating through the Start Menu.

The most used applications are at the top in order of the number of launches. Here is my Taskbar captured by Snag-it from Techsmith.

You can "Pin" items to the top so they are always where you expect them to be.   These are the programs that sit above the gray line.

I have done this with Bitstream Font Navigator because I am often in a hurry when I need a font added. Character Map is invaluable for finding special characters like the © that appears at the bottom of my blog posts. Quicken is there for my wife so that she can find it.  Interestingly enough, MS puts IE, Outlook and Windows Mail into this self-important position as well.  Go figure.

The remaining applications are there by pure usage.

CorelDraw X3 is the big dog. I launch it more than any other program. I run a small design company specializing in CorelDraw so that makes sense. Even though X4 is out, I have been doing my client work through X3.  Now that SP1 is out for CorelDraw X4, I will likely see the X4 rise and the X3 eventually fall.

I also do web design so MS Expression Web is near the top. Web sites require a lot of updates.  MS Office Accounting is next because I diligently maintain books so I can get paid. The next one surprised me. MS Excel? I have no explanation. I must use it a lot. It is number 4 after all. Number crunching is not something I normally do. Perhaps closer evaluation is needed to determine its prominence. Lightroom is next. It would be higher but every time Adobe releases a new updated, it gives it a new executable file. The old are deleted and that is why Lightroom (1.41) is so low. Normally it would be third or second.

The bottom five tends to fluctuate more than the top five. Windows Live Writer (on which I am typing this post) is popular with me because I blog so fricking much. Notice that positions 6 and 8 are occupied by the same program in two different versions.  Corel PhotoPaint is my workhorse editor but I am starting to use the new version more than the old. When it falls off and I am satisfied that SP1 has shored up the application, I will likely eliminate X3.

Firefox is in position seven because I cross test web sites on various browsers.  SyncToy sits firmly in number nine position because I am a backup fanatic as some of you readers know. Sitting in number 10, just off the graphic is Snag-it which I used to grab the image for this post.

Surprises?

Photoshop didn't make the top 10. It is languishing in number 17. PSP X2 is sitting at number 18. Combine all four image editors and they are probably number 1. MS Word is sitting at number 13. Now that I blog in Live Writer, Word is sitting lonely and seldom used.

Video applications are lower than I expected as well. Camtasia IV and Studio are in the top twenty but lower than I thought they would be.

Where is PowerPoint? Oh yes, it is on a desktop shortcut. Maybe we better talk about that next.

Caveat:

If you launch via a desktop shortcut or a quick launch toolbar instead of the start menu, your statistics do not appear to affect this order.  I use Windows Media Player every day but it never appears on this list because I launch it from the quick launch bar.  Likewise with Outlook (I guess that is why MS pins it to the start menu) and IE (my browser of choice today) and other sundry items either placed by me or for me by installation routines.

I think our start menus tell us much about our software usage habits. I can tell where the bulk of my work lies quickly by looking at the order of the icons. I can also tell when a version is replacing its older counterpart by watching one slide up the line as the other descends. By right clicking from time to time and expanding the icon list to a ludicrously large number I can see how many programs are hitting occasionally.  Google Earth comes in at number 17. I could have sworn I played with that more often.

What does your start menu say about you?

Rikk Flohr © 2008

Using Lens Limitations to Your Advantage

Blog readers, I am still traveling out west. I haven't had much time to write or even do much shooting. For those of you waiting for news of my recovery from my last disastrous post, suffice it to say, I am ok and the gear is recovered.  On with the show.

The occasion of our visit out west put me at my nephew and God son's baseball game. Ever eager to try out new shooting opportunities, I looked upon cheering my nephew as a shooting opportunity.  Baseball is played in the late afternoon and evenings.  Light is constantly changing. In this game, we had bright sunlight,  a thunderstorm blocking the setting sun, twilight, artificial lights and everything in between.

Shutter speeds on my Canon 70-200 MM F2.8L IS Lens ranged from ISO 200 at 1/2000th of a second to ISO 500 at 1/320th of a second (all at F2.8). The failing light and the razor-thin depth of field kept me on my toes. 

The construct of the ballpark also tried my skills. It seems that ball parks are constructed of chain link fence. In my youth, chain link was limited to a tall behind-the-plate backstop and a waist high boundary down each foul line. Now, fences are much higher and surround the entire field.   The fence mesh openings are smaller than the primary of most telephoto lenses making for difficult photos-not to mention finicky auto-focus mechanisms.

There are few options for the budding sports photographer. The openings are typically limited to the dugout entrances and the outfield corners.  These views are limited in revealing most of the field and are often clogged with inbound and outbound players.  The outfield openings are simply too far away to make effective photos.

The view from the scorer's booth is safely above the fence but offers a less exciting view of the action and looks more like the shots taken from the stands than action at the player's eye-level.  It is also uncomfortable shooting over the scorer's table and the people who need to be there.

The winning solution to the dilemma is to take the tack of submarine captains everywhere and get inside the range of the torpedo before it can arm itself.  With a camera lens this means you must get inside the focus ability of your lens. The telephoto lens I was using focuses to roughly 1.5m on the close side. I was already limiting my aperture to the widest setting (yielding the least depth of field) for the purpose of faster shutter speeds.

By closing the distance from my lens to the fence I was able to shoot through the fence. I placed the center of my lens on the 'hole' in the links and moved it until my lens hood rested on the fence itself.  At this close range, the fence becomes all but invisible.  Long focal length, combined with wide-open aperture and close proximity to the fence render the steel barrier practically invisible.  The shot above of Mat sliding into first base was shot through the fence at relatively close range.

Ball games aren't the only place where getting inside the resolving limit of  your lens can be a benefit. Zoos, construction sites, highway bridges and many others are locations where mesh of one kind or another can be negated by judicious placement of your lens in proximity to your barrier. It is also much easier than trying to clone out fuzzy diamond-shaped  patterns.

Rikk Flohr © 2008

Those of you who know me well know that I am a fanatic about equipment redundancy and data back up. I have written about it many times in the past. Sometimes, the best laid plans and the most meticulous planning will result in a situation whence there is no recovery. Yes, I was caught with my pants down-again.

Mount Rushmore photographed with my
last line of defense-a cell phone camera.

Case in Point:

My late Spring-early Summer expedition West was in day two of twenty-one days. I had just finished setting up camp at Grizzly Bear Gulch near the Rushmore Memorial. Grizzly Bear Falls is the only South Dakota fall I have never photographed.  I grabbed my Canon 40D with the 17-40 MM F4L lens and the Canon 5D with the 70-200 MM F2.8L lens and set out on the trail of the elusive falls.

"Some ten or fifteen seconds of
floundering and I was extricated from
the very cold water of Grizzly Creek"

The trail was deceptive but I finally made my way to the falls. Before snapping a picture, I decided to scan the scene from a rock sticking over the pool below the waterfall.  Recent rainfalls in the area had removed layers of protective soil from beneath the boulder on which I stood. The rock gave way and slide me feet-first into the chest-deep water.

The 5D was over my right shoulder and went three feet under the water. The 40D was around my neck and though I tried to hold it above the water level but was unsuccessful. Some ten or fifteen seconds of floundering and I was extricated from the very cold water of Grizzly Creek.

Damage toll: 5D=Dead, 40D=Powers on but gives only errors, 70-200 Zoom: interior puddle that measures about 1/4 cup. 17-40: no apparent damage.  Signs of moisture on view screens and damp fog everywhere.

With 19 days to go out of 21 both my cameras were out of commission.  The first order of business was to remove batteries and memory cards to  minimize damage and hopefully save the few images on the cards. I hiked the mile back to the tent and sought dry clothing.

"Just my luck we would have
great light and wonderful fog!"

While I drove to Rapid City to purchase some emergency desiccant I called my wife to have my backup equipment air freighted to me. It was late and I would not see this equipment for three days.  My next call was to my my insurance agent.  I insure all my equipment and had no doubt I could get material replaced but would it be in time to save my shooting schedule?

Long story short, another trip to a camera store in Rapid City, SD to verify the mortality of the equipment, I had new gear on the way from B&H. It will arrive on day 8 of 21 saving the bulk of my shooting schedule from disaster.

Key Points:

1. Insure your gear
2. Keep an inventory list
3. Leave a backup camera in a safe place
4. Have your phone numbers and policy numbers available.
5. Keep your schedule flexible

As a result of having accidentally leaving my 20D backup behind at home, I was forced to live for three days with a 2 MP enV2 cell phone as my primary digital camera.  Just my luck we would have great light and wonderful fog! I had to cancel shooting the sculpture workshop at Mount Rushmore and rework my waterfall shooting schedule based on equipment arrival.

The fortunate items in this laundry list of disaster were that my phone and my key fob for my car were also dunked but were in a higher pocket and didn't get damaged. Otherwise, I would have been stranded with no phone (and no disaster camera).

This exercise proved to me that I cannot out-plan disaster but I can plan to cope with it should it strike. Now, if only I had brought that extra laptop…

Rikk Flohr © 2008

Well blog readers, I have to actually go into the field and shoot some photographs. We photographers often do that-shoot pictures, I mean.

I will be at a National Monument

for a week photographing and participating in a sculpture workshop.  From there it is on to Northern Wyoming for a week of shooting my old haunts:

Devil's Tower

Bighorn Mountains

and then the 50th anniversary part of my in-laws where I will be shooting a 4-generation family portrait.

I will try to blog from the road when Internet Connections and time permit.

Rikk Flohr © 2008

Or, with no budget…

I have been getting a few questions about techniques in the blog lately. A common question, to paraphrase is: "Rikk, I don't have all that fancy gear. How can I …?" So today, I accepted a self-challenge.  With no items other than those found in an office environment, and my son's $ 149.00 point-n-shoot digital camera, create a passable product shot. To make things tougher on myself, I did it in my typical office environment which includes:

• Shady side of the building
• Fluorescent lighting
• Twenty minutes to get it done

I chose these criteria because the web developer or presentation professional often has only a few minutes to incorporate the latest widget into the bosses' presentation or the new web catalog.

Today's Camera Choice

I used my son's Canon A550 to accomplish today's task. It has a macro setting that I used for the picture. I also set the camera to manual, ISO 400 and the flash to 'on' for the image today.  These settings were arrived at by trial and error after a few test shots of my subject.  Another thing I did was to zoom the camera out to its telephoto setting to minimize perspective issues and control my flash-to-subject distance.

Home-made Diffuser using Transparent Tape

The flash was a little hot on the cellophane window on the box and the background so I needed to soften it up a bit. Using only objects in the office, I tried a couple of experimental items before settling on a double layer of transparent tape. I made a little diffuser over the on-board flash.

The Setup

I found a piece of 13x19 inch inkjet paper to use as a glossy background. I used a second sheet of paper as a reflector to brighten up the side opposite my office window.  11x17 Copier paper would work just as well if you are in an ink-jet-free office.  I placed the background on my wine rack (yes, I have a wine rack in my office) and set up the shot.

Pre-editing Image

The resulting exposure created a 7.1 MP JPG for me to take into my image editing program and prep for use in a web page.  I rather liked the reflection from the shiny paper but knew that I would be sacrificing it in the editing process. I also had a little bit of background shadow with which to deal. A soft shadow, true-but one that needed removing none-the-less.

Having a box with nice square edges made the masking easy and after plucking it off my background, adding a color to match my web's color scheme, giving it a fountain fill for visual interest, and adding a modest shadow for grounding I ended up with a very passable image.

Post-editing Image

I left a little room for some words across the bottom of the picture but other than the copy, this image is ready to go. Elapsed time from putting my hands on the product to finished image ready for insertion into a web page or presentation was 18 minutes and 15 seconds. (Yes, I did stop-watch myself)

DSLR with Soft Box

Compare this with an image shot yesterday using a Canon 40D and a soft box. This image has not been to an image editor yet but you can see that the budget shot, at this size, is very comparable. The shadow created by the on-camera flash is the largest detractor to the budget shot.  But, compare it with the image the client supplied from their old web site and you will see worlds of difference.

Original Product Shot Provided

Final analysis: Assuming I had an inexpensive digital camera available-less than 10 cents. I used two sheets of paper which could be returned to their source and reused, two inches of transparent tape that had to be discarded and 1/100 of the rated use of a set of AA batteries. 

For low-resolution use such as a PowerPoint™ presentation or a web site, it is possible to provide a quality product image using a simple digital camera and no lighting equipment.

This doesn't replace professional product photography but on a tight deadline and no budget it will get the salesman out the door or the product on-line.

Rikk Flohr © 2008

Recently, I've been frustrated trying to shoot panoramic photographs of room interiors. I decided today to take a different tack on the problem. I am pleased with the results.

The problem with interior panoramic photographs is those dang windows to the outside world. They are almost always many stops of light brighter than the ambient room light. At night, they tend to many stops darker. You just can't shoot all your panoramas at dusk. The building invariably faces the wrong way for that. So you are left to shoot in that 15 minute window of balanced light, resort to software shenanigans or light it yourself.

Using Ambient Light and
Replacing the Windows in Software 

Here is a photo of my first panoramic attempt at a tight interior. It was shot with ambient light - very warm ambient light.  I waited till noon to get the light as even as I could out the window. The windows completely overexposed anyway. I ended up shooting the windows separately and painstakingly cutting and pasting them in via image editing software. Notice those nice barrel-distortion curves. It was no picnic!

Next, I tried the HDR Route of panoramic photography. By bracketing exposures and then combining them, I was able to compensate for widely-varying light conditions inside and out and get and image which (barely) made me happy.

Multiple Exposures combined
into an HDR Image in Software 

HDR photographs are starting to get very old to me. I was one of the early proponents of the process of using software like Photomatix to combine multiple exposures. After looking at some recent photography shows, the promise of HDR has faded into the annoying obscurity of the latest fad effect. It screams fake instead of the truthful mimicry of the range of human sight which was its original promise.

Discouraged with software solutions of replacement pains (no pun intended) and the gimmickry of combining exposures in a slightly-less-than-realistic manner, I turned to one of the basic tenants of photography. "Get it right in the field."

As you know I have been experimenting with Strobes in the field, courtesy of the Strobist's teachings.

 
A Flash-aided Panorama

Today we attacked the problem with off-camera strobes. Setting the camera to manual and exposing for the windows we find our base exposure. The remaining trick is to get the light balanced for the room.  A Canon 580EX flash with a Sto-Fen Omni bounce was used at 1/2 power + 1/3 stop. It was mounted above the tripod and circled on the panorama rig as I moved it around the room.  I ended up with a darker shot in some corners than I wanted originally.

Into my old lighting suitcase I went and pulled out an ancient Spiratone screw-in strobe and placed it in the overhead fixture. (You can actually see its reflection in the glass of the lighthouse picture) Now, I had enough light to light the room evenly. Well, evenly enough to determine that I had some really ugly stains on my carpet. 

What does anyone do with these stupid-looking panoramas? They make QTVR movies and sell them to real-estate agencies, remodelers and others for their web sites! The Video is Here (4MB Download and you must have Apple QuickTime on your system to view it, move around inside and zoom in and out.

Again, and not to sound like a broken record ('broken record'? that expression is a little long in the tooth ('long in the tooth'? Am I that old?)) Let's see-did I count the parenthesis correctly? Anyway-I digress. To repeat myself. Capture Correctly and Save Work!

Tonight as I sip an nice merlot, I will contemplate my next task. Building a dual flash panorama rig that allows two strobes to be mounted on either side of the camera as the rig spins…

Rikk Flohr © 2008

Often, free software is overlooked by photographers. I am as guilty as any of this trait. Outdoor photographers, particularly those who are in love with sunrise and set, moon rise and set and those who love to shoot astronomical phenomena like star trails and deep sky objects  are ever in search of tools to aid them in finding the right place at the right time. Into this scenario enters Stellarium.

Stellarium is a free planetarium software package  based on open source. It is available for Mac, Windows, and Linux. It offers you the ability to enter your own location, save it as a preset and use it to find out the times of sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset, phase, proximity of other night sky objects. Not only are the times offered, but you can find out where to look on the compass to see the sun peaking up behind that favorite rock formation or to find the moon setting behind your favorite lighthouse.

Another feature of Stellarium allows you to play the night in real time or at fast speed so that you can plan your shooting for tonight, tomorrow morning and anywhere in between.  This is particularly handy for determining the exact time an subject will interact with your location over the course of a long weekend or a month of great weather.  In combination with a map and a compass, it becomes a deadly precision tool in getting your tripod placed in just the right spot.

The program offers realistic horizon portrayals to help orient you and you have the ability to incorporate your own panoramic photos into the scene as well.  See this link.

The best part about this software is that it doesn't require a connection to the Internet. It works where ever you and your laptop are making Stellarium a  legitimate field tool for any outdoor photographer's gear bag.  Find out more about Stellarium at www.stellarium.org.

Three images where Stellarium put me in the sweet spot!

Here is a video where I used Stellarium to put me in the sweet spot. Check it out today!

Rikk Flohr © 2008

"I want to see

you in Costa Rica!"

Fellow photographers, travelers, adventurers and fun seekers, we have set the date for the next Costa Rica Photo Adventure from Worldesigns Tours.  Come along with me as your instructor for Photography, Software and the Costa Rican experience. You've walked Balboa Park in San Diego and stalked Bourbon Street in New Orleans with me as your guide.  You might even have been with me on my last February's Costa Rica Adventure. You've watched me teach image editing at PowerPoint Live, CorelWorld, the upcoming CorelDraw Unleashed User's Conference and at various Camera Clubs throughout Minnesota.  You've read my photographic trials and travails on the blog network and you've seen my imagery at the Fleeting Glimpse web site. Now is the time to go with me on a real photographic adventure.
 

Costa Rica!

FEBRUARY 19-26, 2009

Gallery from the 2008 Trip 

Our tours are limited in size to ensure that our photographic participants receive the individual attention, instruction and aide they require.  It doesn't matter whether you a pro with bazooka-sized lenses or a for-fun photographer with a point-n-shoot, we will tailor our training and activities to your needs.

The tour operator has authorized me to offer an early booking discount of $ 200.00 for those who sign up for a tour by June 30, 2008 for the February 2009 tour.  Take advantage of this by going to the Worldesigns Tours web site and signing up for this once-in-a-life time adventure.  I want to see you in Costa Rica!

Rikk Flohr © 2008

Multiple off-camera flash in action

"…incredible results to counter the
most severe of circumstances…"

If you followed my blog recently, you will know that I am hanging out at the Strobist's Blog. The Strobist advocates the simple use of off camera strobes, portable and relatively inexpensive, to create professional lighting results. Yesterday my B&H box arrived with several new strobe toys which allowed me to expand my lighting arsenal. I set up a self-portrait example to test equipment and technique.

I think one of the things that distinguish professional-looking portraits from shots like this is the ability to show detail in those dark and bright areas. In other words the ability to see beyond the dynamic range of the light available.

With a basis for exposure, I can start looking at my ambient light picture and selecting problem areas and build from there.  I began to set up off-camera flashes to light my room.

Notice how the ambient window light falling on my face is nearly neutralized. The window side of my face is now too dark and the area on my desk is in too much shadow for my taste. Adding a second off-camera flash seemed like the best course of action given the room's tight layout.  There was no place to set up a reflector.

This shot is nicely lit but one element is missing-the monitor's image (see first image). Exposing the windows ( a huge distraction if over exposed, and lighting me correctly meant I had to sacrifice the image on the monitor. That is what image editing software is for. It is much easier to replace that monitor display than to expose for the display and try to fix the windows or the room interior.

Speedlite with Omni-bounce	Canon DSLR with ST-E2 Wireless Flash Controller	Speedlite set on desktop

Above were the three components used to create the portrait. Below I have photographed a wide angle shot to demonstrate the relative locations of each component used.

Final analysis: Off-camera flash give you a powerful edge in creating more professional and dynamic pictures. Adding a second flash and a few key pieces of equipment like wireless controls, flash accessories and a stand can give you incredible results to counter the most severe of circumstances.

With digital, you can experiment, meter, and achieve incredible results-even through trial and error. A little practice and these things will start to become second-nature.

Now, off to Big Woods State Park for a little off-camera multi-flash nature photography…

Rikk Flohr © 2008

"It's not what's in the mirror-it's what's left inside." ~ Stevie Nicks, Sometimes It's A Bitch

The lure of Image Editing Software is subtle, seductive and self-indulgent. Nothing reinforced this like the recent event of taking my own passport photo. The purpose of a passport photo is to give a reasonable likeness of yourself to identify you when traveling abroad or attempting to gain reentry to your homeland. After taking the photographs of my wife and I in the most flattering light I could find, the temptation to touch us up a bit was overwhelming.  Long story-short, I maintained control and did only the most minimal of retouching so that our photographs wouldn't be too far from the truth.

The following exercise is not as indicative of self control.

I took this self portrait while working out a lighting set up for an upcoming shoot.  I used a Canon 100 MM F2.8 Macro-a lens too sharp for traditional portrait work. I decided it was a little harsh and needed softening. I used some varied techniques to 'Hollywood Up' my image.

Most of my retouching skills were learned in books and seminars.  Katrin Eismann's book, Photoshop Restoration and Retouching is a great place to start. It has many techniques that can be applied to all image editing software packages. I used Corel PhotoPaint in today's exercise for example.

Here is the end result of my efforts. It is an example of self-indulgent over retouching. While I love the way I turned out in this retouch, I know, after letting it ruminate a few days that it was too much.  This is a problem with editing software. People don't step back and think about what they've done.

One of my latest workflow operations is to evaluate what I have done through the lens of time. I find that I am over exuberant in editing an image because I am caught up in the adrenaline rush of the process. After leaving it sit for an hour, a day, a week, and then revisiting the project, I find I can often dial back my editing a bit and achieve a more realistic and ultimately more pleasing result.

Here, I have overlaid the completely retouched image with the original file. By setting the transparency to 33% or, the opacity to 67 percent if you prefer, I can softly fade the retouch into the original yielding a more realistic, yet nicely retouched image.

I liked the image even though it was just a lighting test and my expression is a little wide-eyed.  One of the tricks Hollywood and tabloids us to make celebrities larger than life is to enlarge the eyes slightly-only a 102% or so. I had done this in my original retouch but forgotten to take it back when I did my final blend. So I did it again.

 
Split Screen showing retouching before and after.

You can see now the eyes are subdued and not as large as in the original retouch. I am happy with the final product and feel that it represents me well. It is what is inside but perhaps not what is in the mirror. After all, the goal of portraiture is to give the rendition we expect of our loved ones and ourselves.  If we have to sit on it a day or two and then dial it back to reality - the delay is worth the effort.

Final Image after Retouching and Partial Reversal

Rikk Flohr © 2008

One of the big mistakes most people make when taking pictures is they way they stand-or rather that they stand. Kodak taught us long ago to hold the camera to our eye and steady ourselves before snapping the picture. What resulted from this was a generation of photographers who learned to take pictures at 4.5 feet off the ground.

Just thumb through your picture albums and you will see that most pictures of children have the ground or the floor as the background because the parent is shooting down on them.  How much more engaging is a picture when we put ourselves in the perspective of the subject?

A child will always look better when photographed at eye level.  The same is true of many other objects. I was out shooting wildflowers at Big Woods State Park yesterday and this was on my mind.  Actually a lot of things were on my mind. Last week's article was about a different trip to Big Woods where I concentrated on using flash in bright daylight. This trip was the same except that I was concentrating on using flash that wasn't affixed to the camera.

This photograph is only possible when you have the flower at eye level. Unless your flower grows five feet tall or you have a convenient ditch in which to stand, you are going to have difficulty getting this perspective on a subject. I laid on my stomach for this shot but was propped up on my elbows so the camera saw about 12 inches from the ground. It matched the height of the blossom nicely.

Sometimes it is necessary to get even lower if your subject is particularly low or you are adjusting the placement of the background in your image.

This shot of an emerging bloom was taken from about 6 inches off the ground. In order to move the orange glow closer to the blossom and give the top of the frame a little more interest. From a little higher placement at capture, I would have moved the lower part of the background higher in the picture and lost some of that delicious orange color that makes the image for me.  A little off camera flash to the right lights the flower and leaves the background dark. Leaving me with a flower that pops and a background that compliments but does not compete.

Other times you dig down deep to get some foreground in shot. This can be particularly helpful in creating an artistic context to the shot.

In this shot, the camera is two inches off the ground and I am using the foreground grass as a diffusion element to give an impressionistic feel to the image. This flower was in total shade so I didn't use a flash , being satisfied with the soft light as it was. The shallow depth of field of the macro lens enhances the dream-like quality of the image and makes it softer and more painterly without having to resort to software.

Bottom line is get to the bottom. Go low to match your subject's perspective and you will be rewarded with pictures that look nothing like a snapshot.

Rikk Flohr © 2008

Spring is in the air-finally. Those of us in Minnesota saw our last snow melt a week ago. Those of us in Minnesota who are photographers are itching to get shooting. Today, in spite of the poor light (blue skies and mid-day sun), poor conditions (windy) and poor time of year (brown vegetation with sparse emerging plants), I went out to practice some manual flash techniques in preparation for the wildflower season.

Round-Lobed Hepatica

Having spent some time over at the Strobist's Blog, I have been eager to try out some less-than-automated flash photography.

Though armed with reflectors and sunlight my wildflower photos have been lacking something-some extra punch. I decided that maybe a little manual shooting like I did in the old days before Aperture Priority and Flash before ETTL, was in order.  This is a departure from my usual technique to use natural light and then do the remaining corrections in image editing software.

"What a difference a little
well-placed flash can make!"

In the second shot, the same blossom was photographed with the Canon 580EX flash set to 1/16 +.3 EV  power at 90° with the bounce card deployed. As you can see, the flower is much more evenly illuminated. The background, while lighter, no longer dominates the flower. The nice backlighting provided by the sun is still present as are the shadows cast by the petals in the upper left. Overall this image is going to be much easier to w