Photograph Everyday Stuff

Weeding the garden might not seem to be a particularly photogenic activity, but if you're a gardener it's an important (and all too real) part of life and often we ignore documenting those mundane chores in favor of photographing more glamorous activities. But in terms of building a well-rounded family album, it's those everyday moments that probably create some of the nicest memories. After all, you probably spend more time with your family doing chores around the house and yard than anywhere else.

A few years after my father passed away I was going through some boxes of old photos and I came across one of him cooking dinner and I was just thrilled. There he was, just living life and cooking for the family as he so often did. You can't go back in time and photograph those moments because once they're gone they're gone. But when you unexpectedly discover a shot like that, it's like finding a rare old gold coin that you didn't know you had. Considering the fact that he was also a professional photographer, there is a surprising dearth of snapshots taken around the house, so whenever I find a shot like that I am ecstatic. It's those little moments that fade fastest into history and photos of them really bring the past back sweetly.

These days I keep a camera with me around the house and in the yard almost all of the time. In fact, one of my point and shoots lives on the kitchen counter (and thankfully the cats haven't turned it into a toy yet) and I shoot pictures of the silliest things: the veggies I've just picked in the garden, that cats sitting on the porch watching the birds (so far no litter box photos, but I'm sure they're coming), fading flowers in vases on the kitchen counter and even just the mess of books that clutter up my desk all of the time.

Today there are a lot of people involved in "picture of the day" groups in photo-sharing communities. These folks shoot a photo every single day, without fail, even if they can't think of anything to shoot. They shoot their dinner on the plate, the laundry piled up by the hamper, the kids watching TV and anything else that crosses their path in their daily lives. I think this is a fantastic idea. Photographs of beautiful sunsets and pretty scenics are great (they're partly why I got into photography), but it's the photos you take of your spouse or kids out in the garden, covered with dirt and working with a smile on their face that will warm your spirit those winter nights when you're updating the family album.

Show the True Size of Objects

I've talked in previous posts about the importance of using objects of known size to show scale in landscape photos. But it's just as important to show the true scale of unusually large or small objects by including other objects that we can use as measuring sticks.

As with landscapes, among the best subjects to use as scale indicators (at least for large subjects) are people. People not only add some human interest to photos, but we're all pretty familiar with the size of another human being.

Getting a person in the shot usually isn't very difficult (especially if you have kids or friends with you), though it's funny how hard it can be to find one when you need them (and how hard it is to get rid of them when you don't). I shot this photo (at the annual Rhode Island Air Show) of a C5 Galaxy Transport plane well after the throngs of people had left and while there had been literally tens of thousands of people surrounding this plane earlier, I actually had to wait several minutes for this man and his kids to walk into the shot. The lone little grouping of people seemed to exaggerate the size of the plane more than a mass of people swirling around it.

I think the real sense of scale in the shot though comes from two other things: the truck that is parked under it's wing (with lots of room above it to spare) and the cluster of tiny human figures under it's wings. The plane is huge (it can carry more people than a 747--or transport 20 helicopters) and the tail section is so tall that I had to use the widest lens I had with me (an 18-70mm Nikkor) to get both the tail section and the nearby people in the same frame--and I still had to stay back quite a bit.

Scale comes in handy with small objects too--like photographing a bug sitting on a thimble or a tiny seashell in the palm of a child's hand. Come to think about it, showing the scale of small objects is a good idea for a future posting!

Turn Around and See What's Behind You

One of the flaws that I am most guilty of in photography (I have flaws?) is getting obsessed with one subject or one area of a location to the exclusion of other interesting possibilities around me. I'll often get so intent on getting a good shot of a particular object or detail, for example, that I forget to lift my head and look around and see what's to the left or right or, more often, behind me--and it's an oversight that has caused me to miss some great shots.

The day I took this photo, for example, I was photographing some old steam locomotives and trying to find an angle that would show the ruggedness of the hulking old engine (and considering that nearly the entire engine was painted jet black, it was a bit of a challenge, too). Typically, I was working at the end of the day and the sun light, which had just pierced through an overcast sky, was shifting and fading quickly, so I kept shooting and refining the shots until the light was no longer sculpting the edges of the engine. I worked one particular shot for about 10 or 15 minutes and barely lifted my head from the viewfinder other than to step forward or back a few feet or to check camera settings. Also, because I was standing on oil-slicked railroad ties and rails while I was shooting, I was also concentrating on keeping my body vertical.

Finally the light was a bit too far gone and I'd run out of ideas and angles and I turned to start walking back to my car. Wham! There right behind me was this extraordinary old water tower up on a hill and silhouetted against an incredibly tumultuous sky. It was the clouds in the sky, in fact, that had been playing havoc with the lighting on the locomotive, but it never occurred to me that the sky itself might hold a great shot. And to be honest, I never even noticed the water tower until I turned around to leave and looked up--and almost simultaneously heard my girlfriend say, "That's a pretty shot." (This thing where she notices great shots that I don't see happens a lot, trust me.)

I had just enough time to pop off exactly three shots before that nice edge of light slipped off the left side of the water tower and the sky returned to the on-again, off-again dismal gray mass that it had been. The moral of this tip, I guess, is to remember to take the time to lift your head and look around even if you have to force yourself to look away from your main subject. Don't get so focused that you fail to look around--especially when the light is changing fast, as it does at the beginning or end of the day. Of course, it doesn't hurt to have a friend along to look out for things that you might be missing. I'm lucky, I travel most of the time with someone has an artistic eye and who is always spotting things that I don't see--and that's not a bad quality to have in a travel companion.

Photoshop Tip: Go Wild with Color Controls

Learning to use Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, or any other photo-editing program for that matter, takes time--there is a relatively long learning curve, especially if you're new to editing. Many photographers who have worked in traditional darkrooms in the past pick up editing skills faster that those who have never worked in a darkroom, but still, there is a lot to learn. But that doesn't mean that you can't have some great creative fun along the learning path--you can.

One fun way to get to know what things do in an editing program and to get some cool illustration effects as you learn is to just experiment--let your imagination run wild. You really can't hurt your computer (or yourself!) by playing with editing controls and all programs have a "reset" button that lets you go instantly back to all default settings. So no matter what sticky corner you back yourself into, you can undo it very quickly. Remember too, in Photoshop you can always get rid of the last step just by going to Edit>Undo or unravel many steps by using the Edit>Step Backward command. If you are going to experiment with an important image, however, you should "duplicate" (in Photoshop it's just Image>duplicate) the image first and work on a copy. That way no matter what creative rabbit hole you plunge down, your original image is safe.

Among the most fun (and easy) controls to play with in Photoshop (and other programs have these or similar tools) are the color control tools. With just a quick push on a slider or a click on a palette option, you can transform the most mundane of images into very colorful and imaginative new images. Sometimes what you'll create will be wild 1960's Peter Max-looking "art" and other times it will be utter garbage, but no matter what the end result, you'll begin to understand just what each different tool does--and you'll begin to see how, in specific situations, those tools that you're using in your creative sandbox can also be very useful to correct and enhance photographs. You can manipulate the hue/saturation control, for example, to turn any photo into a total abstraction in seconds, but in time you will find yourself using it to fine-tune colors and hues on almost all of your images.

To create the blue version of Saint Denis (from the facade of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris), I used just three simple tools: First I used the "Posterize" tool to reduce the image to just five distinct tones (you can choose the number of tones or colors that you want); then I used the "Gradient Mapping" tool to shift the entire image into a blue palette (in that tool you simply click on a color swatch to see the effect instantly on your image); and then finally I used the "Hue/Saturation" control to saturate the blues even more. That's it. Three clicks to take it from the straight image below to the colorful one above.

Don't be afraid to experiment with any controls in your editing program. The sooner you get past the fear that you might "ruin" something, the more fun you'll start to have. And if you love color like I do, you're going to have a great time surprising yourself by just clicking and dragging and sliding those color controls.

Recover Your Lost Goodies & Save 15%

Here's a quick note to help you save a few bucks and protect your equipment:

In June I wrote about a company called Trackitback that helps you recover lost items like cell phones, cameras, lenses, luggage, etc. The way the service works is that you pay a small fee for a sticker that goes onto whatever piece of equipment you want to protect and then if you lose that piece of gear and someone spots the sticker, there is a free and very reliable way for them to return your gear to you. I normally don't talk about products or sales in this blog, but this is an inexpensive service that could save you a ton of money and heartache.

I just heard from the company this week that if you use the code word "CAMERAS" when you're checking out, you'll get a 15% discount. The discount is good through the end of August. Check out the Trackitback site for more details on how the service works.

Make More Money on Ebay with Good Photos

Despite the fact that I don't think Ebay is half as fun or profitable for individuals as it once was, it remains one of the best ways to sell old photo gear at a decent price. Over the years I've sold quite a bit of used gear and I've always gotten a fair price for it. But there are some tricks to getting a good price for your used photo equipment (or anything else) on Ebay and one of them is to take a good photo of what you're trying to sell.

With very little investment in equipment you can create "product" shots that will look like they were made in a studio. The only thing I bought to shoot this photo of a spot meter, for example, was a sheet of white poster board at the local craft store and it cost under a dollar. For lighting I just used a living room lamp placed to the right of the products (obviously you can see the shadows from that lamp) and a second piece of white board on the left to bounce light back into the shot.

Here are some quick tips for taking good Ebay photos:

• Use a plain background. Again, a piece of white poster board is really cheap and if you keep it clean it will last for years.
  
• Include all of the accessories that you're selling with the product but don't include anything you're not selling. In this instance I was selling the spot meter with its original manual (very important to include the manual if you have it), its case and the lens cap. This is everything that came with the meter.
  
• Include a separate shot of the original box if you have it. Always keep all of the original packaging because it raises the resale price substantially. I have a closet shelf in my office where all of the original packaging is stored forever (or until I sell the gear).
  
• Don't fret too much about lighting. Again, I used a table lamp with some fill from a white card and that created a clean-enough looking shot. Alternately, you might consider buying a white shooting tent (which, ironically, you can often find for sale on Ebay) so that you can create perfect shadowless shots of your items. I recently bought a tent but haven't used it yet--I'll report back when I do.
  
• Shoot both overall and close-up shots. It doesn't cost that much more to include several photos in an online ad (Ebay or elsewhere), so take the time to shoot close-up shots of any important details. For this meter I also included a close-up of the LCD panel. If there is any damage, be sure to take a close-up of that so that the potential buyers can see that it's only a superficial scratch, etc.
  

If you take an hour or so to create a nice photo of your used gear, you are definitely going to increase your odds of getting the best price. I have a hard time selling used gear (it's probably partly a stupid sentimental thing) but at times in my career I've wanted to buy a new lens or a new body and selling off the old stuff has made that a lot more affordable. Selling higher-ticket gear is usually more profitable because the fees don't affect the price as much. Also, be sure to check out Amazon as a potential venue for selling used gear--you may find the fees more reasonable.

Soften Landscapes with Hazy Light

I'm as guilty as anyone of waiting for nice sunny days to go out and shoot pictures. Maybe its my inherent laziness that says if it's a bit too cloudy or hazy, I don't have to bother hauling out the cameras and shooting any pictures. But soft hazy light can be a real blessing, especially in landscape photography and it's far better to embrace it than use it as an excuse not to shoot.

The nice thing about working on very hazy or overcast days is that the contrast is dramatically reduced which makes getting a good overall exposure much simpler. I shot this photo in the aperture-priority mode (using a Nikkor 24-120mm zoom at f/18 to get good depth of field) and while I shot in RAW and could have easily tweaked the exposure in the conversion process, the exposure right out of the camera was fine. Another nice thing about hazy lighting is that you get those lovely muted and saturated colors that so often get blown away in bright direct sunlight. In fact, it was the many different shades of green contrasting with the red barn that caused me to slam on the brakes (literally--unfortunately for my passenger) and hop out to shoot the photo.

I shot this photo toward the end of the day with thunderstorms threatening and the sky turning deep gray behind me and, in fact, a few raindrops fell on me during the 20 minutes or so that I worked the shot. A deep sky might have looked nice in this shot and I would have included it had it fit the composition naturally. But I wanted the barn to dominate the scene and if I had zoomed back at all (to take in sky) it would have diminished its impact. Also, I really like the way the haze on the hill behind the barn provides a hint of depth to the scene.

Embrace the hazy light of cloudy or pre-stormy skies and you'll love the softness it lends to your landscapes and the nice rich colors you'll get in your prints.