TEXTURED BACKGROUNDS

Dear reader, if this entry or my other blog entries don't answer your specific photography questions, you can call me on the phone anytime for advice by clicking here.

One of my great joys when photographing people is placing them in front of textured backgrounds. I do this in the studio quite often, but more interestingly, outside in villages, towns, and cities.

This photo was taken in a small village in the south of Hungary. Because many of the houses are built with plaster, and are painted with wonderful pastel hues, there are always great locations available for portrait sessions.

When planning a photo shoot that has a textured background, look for the following qualities:

1. The texture should be rough, but somewhat uniform, and consistent.
2. Different paint colors will have different emotive characteristics.
3. Aged and worn backgrounds usually have more soul.
4. Direct sun will show more texture, but makes portraits more difficult.
5. instead of using a low f-number, try using a tripod and a higher f-number for greater background and foreground sharpness.

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Mark's photographic prints for your wall can be purchased at www.markhemmings.com

Mark can be hired as a photographer or filmmaker via www.hemmingshouse.com

DEFOCUSED PHOTOGRAPHS

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Rarely is it acceptable to take photos out of focus, however there are times when such a practice can yield strange and wonderful results. Fine Art photography often utilizes certain elements of defocus, and sometimes stock photography. Much to my surprise, I have had many stock photo sales from my intentionally out of focus photographs.

Not every subject will work out of focus however. The technique seems to require a scene that emotes a feeling of loss, confusion, distress, or loneliness. I took the above photo in the Toronto airport, of a captain reading the flight info screens. I immediately grabbed my camera, set my focus to manual, and captured an image that speaks of confusion . . . in my mind an airplane captain should not need to find out where his plane is located.

Give this technique a try, and don't forget to keep the photos a cool tone instead of a warm tone. A bluish cast aids in the sense of isolation, whereas a warm toned photograph tends to be inviting and embracing.

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Mark's photographic prints for your wall can be purchased at www.markhemmings.com

Mark can be hired as a photographer or filmmaker via www.hemmingshouse.com

CROPPING FOR POWER

Dear reader, if this entry or my other blog entries don't answer your specific photography questions, you can call me on the phone anytime for advice by clicking here.

Cropping in the digital age is extremely easy. Not only is it easy, but your chosen crop is repairable, if you feel that you made a mistake (this is the value of using the RAW file format).

Most digital cameras have a standard rectangular aspect ratio. Some images however might fall apart if left un-cropped. Why is this? Too much useless and unnesessary space either above or below the main subject matter.

This attached photo of musicians was a prime example. I was extremely pleased with the quality of light on the faces and upper bodies, however below the waste was just pure shadow. I could have left the shadow in, but I felt that the image would express much greater power and authority if it was a bit tighter. I decided to keep the viewer's attention on that which is the most emotive, and get rid of the unwanted elements.

Now, here comes the more controversial part. I believe that cropping just slightly below the top of the head is (sometimes) another means of positing greater drama and strength within a portrait. If you say this out loud at a photographer's association meeting, they would no doubt shout you down quite quickly. However, it is not the photo associations that effect and forcibly evolve compositional design; it is the fashion and art magazines that set the trends. Look through Vanity Fair, or even a J. Crew catalog, and you will see that the photographer or graphic designers are far less concerned with "appropriate" cropping, as they are with creating visual power. Often you will see crops with the tops of heads cut off . . . I like this, as it is indicative of an attitude of indifference toward established visual precepts.

The only downside to intelligent cropping is a loss of resolution. It is best therefore to increase your resolution in your RAW converter prior to any Photoshop editing.

Mark's photographic prints for your wall can be purchased at www.markhemmings.com

Mark can be hired as a photographer or filmmaker via www.hemmingshouse.com

SOLVE OVER-EXPOSURE

Dear reader, if this entry or my other blog entries don't answer your specific photography questions, you can call me on the phone anytime for advice by clicking here.

There may be times when you do a portrait and the image is just a bit too over exposed. The skin tone looks pink/white-ish, and there seems to be no way to color correct the model's face. Instead of deleting the photo, you may be able to salvage the image by making it a black and white photograph. There are many ways to create monochrome images in Photoshop, however for this specific skin tone issue, the normal Hue/Saturation slider works the best. Drag the Saturation slider down to 50%, 25%, 10%, etc., until you get a look that you like. The greater the desaturation, the more your over exposed skin problem will be corrected.

Coupled with the desaturation, I tried a slight warm tone to the above sample image, and found that it worked nicely.

Mark's photographic prints for your wall can be purchased at www.markhemmings.com

Mark can be hired as a photographer or filmmaker via www.hemmingshouse.com

FRESH SNOWFALL

Dear reader, if this entry or my other blog entries don't answer your specific photography questions, you can call me on the phone anytime for advice by clicking here.

Today's entry is not so much an instruction, but more of an encouragement to get out of bed early the next time you have a winter storm! If you are living in a southern climate, you are at this moment missing out on a cold snowy day . . .

The best conditions for winter photos are early morning after a storm. The mornings are usually calm, which means the snow will still be resting on the tree branches. If the sun is out, you will be guaranteed excellent images. The early morning sun will warm up the image, and will provide a welcoming and happy feel to your photos.

If it is still cloudy when you start shooting, my suggestion is to use a blue filter mixed with a slight soft focus filter. If you are a digital shooter set your white balance to Indoor Lightbulb setting, which will give you a blueish image, then apply the Guassian Blur filter. This combination will produce a more dreamy, wonderland style of photo.

Regardless of the type of sky you have, early morning fresh snowfall images are always fun to create.

Mark's photographic prints for your wall can be purchased at www.markhemmings.com

Mark can be hired as a photographer or filmmaker via www.hemmingshouse.com

BLOWN OUT HIGHLIGHTS

Dear reader, if this entry or my other blog entries don't answer your specific photography questions, you can call me on the phone anytime for advice by clicking here.

While I love this photo that I took of a Japanese bride, I didn't realize until after that the white highlights were blown out. When this happens detail is lost, as there is no other tonal information except pure white. Pure white does not allow for any adjustments; all ability to adjust tonal values is lost.

There are a number of ways to correct for this, but one way is to do two exposures utilizing a tripod. If the subject has dark skin and is wearing very light clothing, try the following technique:

1. Ask the model to remain perfectly still.
2. Take your first image with a proper exposure of the face.
3. Reduce your exposure, and quickly take a 2nd photo exposed for the bright clothing. Make sure there are no extremely white highlights (unless you purposefully want pure white).
4. In Photoshop or another image editing program that allows you to layer a photograph, place both images together, resulting in a two-layered image.
5. Click on the Eraser tool, and start erasing either the clothing, or the face, depending on which layer is on top. Make sure the eraser is Feathered for a soft erase.
6. If you find it doesn't look right, try it again until you are confident in the process. If your tripod was sturdy, and your model was still, you should have a perfectly registered, and well exposed image.

Mark's photographic prints for your wall can be purchased at www.markhemmings.com

Mark can be hired as a photographer or filmmaker via www.hemmingshouse.com

LENS BABY

Dear reader, if this entry or my other blog entries don't answer your specific photography questions, you can call me on the phone anytime for advice by clicking here.

No, the blur on this photo is not done with Photoshop, or vaseline. It was from a special lens called "Lens Baby". It is a flexible bellows lens that was based on the old lenses used at the turn of the century. The nice thing about this lens is that you can choose the location of sharp focus, and the rest of the image will be a pleasing blur.

I was a bit skeptical of this lens at first, but I thought I would try it out on a trip to Hungary that I took a few years ago. I was so thoroughly impressed with it that the whole trip was photographed with the Lens Baby!

The Lens Baby is available at most large camera stores. If you can't find one, do a search and you will find the company's website.

Mark's photographic prints for your wall can be purchased at www.markhemmings.com

Mark can be hired as a photographer or filmmaker via www.hemmingshouse.com