Craig Stocks Arts Portrait and Wedding Photography in Delavan, Illinois
August
I don't normally enter photography contests, but the annual Morton Pumpkin Festival Photography Show is an exception. I started entering there by a rather round-about way. A few years ago, my mother took a couple of my photos off of her wall and entered them in my name while I was away on a business trip. I didn't know about it until she called to tell me I'd won second place.
I don't know how many years it takes to become a tradition, but I've entered the contest each of the next three years. I guess I've done pretty well since I've earned four more ribbons in the Professional division, including a Best of Show and a 1st Place. I think my mother would say it's become a tradition.
So, now I'm preparing for this years contest on September 11, so I have to decide which photos to enter. I'm on the fence about the image below. I really like the story, and the unanswered questions. There's a woman taking in the sun on the horizon, but the body language and the solitary set of tracks on the beach leave you to wonder what she's thinking. Is she pondering some of life's biggest questions? Is she sad? Or lonely?
Of course, the real story is somewhat less dramatic. The woman is my wife, and we were enjoying a quick trip to the San Simeon area, which is along the Big Sur coastline in central California. I was busy with the camera, and she had walked ahead to enjoy the sunset. When I saw the composition of the large rock, sunset and her, I quickly set up the tripod. She started to move out of the frame, but I asked her to stay there. The body language is a reaction to the cold January weather.
August
I've started advertising my wedding photography on Facebook. You may never see the add on your Facebook page, but you can see the linked page right here.
Digital processes have been something of a two-edged sword for both photographers and brides. For photographers, it has lowered the cost of getting into the business, but it's still pretty expensive if you want equipment that will produce professional results. The bigger change is post processing. Instead of simply sending rolls of film off to a lab, most photographers spend hours in front of the computer. I typically spend as more time processing images than I spent photographing the wedding.
There are big changes for brides as well. Proofs can be viewed online, and they're normally available in just a few days. That makes it really easy for out of town guests and relatives to see the images. But even with online proofs, most of my brides still request a set of printed proofs, which I provide in a convenient proof book. That gives her something to take to work, or to dinner with friends. It can be passed around, and she doesn't need a computer to show them off.
Albums are another huge change. Today's albums are a far cry from the one from my wedding in the 1970's. Modern albums look more like high-end photo books or magazines, with full-page and double-page layouts, text and graphics. They're truly a keepsake that will last for years.
I do worry about brides who opt to not get an album. I think many couples simply settle for a DVD of images, and they probably have good intentions of putting together some sort of album. But, I'll bet most never get around to doing it. And, most DVD's will fade over time. In as little as a couple of years, the images may be gone, and then it's too late. That's why I also offer album design as service, whether with my photography or your own images.
August
And now, as they say, for something completely different. I saw this surprise lily growing in the back yard the other day while I was mowing. They're a strange flower. When they pop up late in the season, it's just a stalk with the flower on top - no leaves anywhere. I guess I'm not really a plant lover since I searched out the nicest one I could find, and then cut it down to take a picture.
I played with a number of different arrangements, but settled on the cobalt blue bud vase and a simple, white seamless background as my favorite. Lighting is very simple, just a medium softbox just a foot or so to the left of the flowers, and a second light on the background.
August
The proofs from Michael and Janea's wedding are now available online. You can click on the link here, or you can select Client Proofs on my main web site and find a link there. The proofs are divided into six separate galleries, so you can go directly to the section you want to see.
August
I really like this photo of the bride and her father during their dance at the reception. It represents a special time for both the bride and her father. It symbolizes the change in her life, and give the father one last chance to be her Daddy. Of course, in modern times, that's not really the case anymore, but the tradition continues on.
Of course, I also want to comment on the lighting. Receptions can be very difficult to manage. Normally, the lights are down very low and the people are moving quickly. The traditional approach is simple flash on camera, and that produces a usable record of the events. But, it doesn't capture the depth of the feel of the event.
My approach is to set up a "room light" which is a studio strobe mounted high on a light stand and positioned at one end of the room. Then, my assistant provides a mobile light from the opposite direction, and I fill in the shadows with a third flash on my camera. All of the strobes are linked by a radio signal so they all go off at once.
In this image, the room light (coming from camera right) did a perfect job of highlighting the brides face. The direction of light also gives some form to her dress by creating highlights and shadows. The father's face is in the shadow, but frankly, he's just not as important.
Another big advantage of the room light is called "depth of light." Since the light is rather far away, the light doesn't fall off nearly as much as if it were placed close to the action. The big advantage is that the background is well lit as well. In this example, we can clearly see the crowd in the background, so they're not just dancing in a black void.
I also used a relatively slow shutter speed to pick up the ambient light. In this case, the lights from the DJ's setup create beautiful patterns of shadow and light on the floor and help recreate the mood of the dance.
August
OK, one more post from last weekend's wedding. The bride had seen a photo of a bride and groom walking on railroad tracks, and she wanted to do a similar photo. Of course, what the bride wants, the bride gets. But I really do like the result. It's not a typical setting, but it's not way out either. I particularly like the interaction between the bride and groom, and the groom holding her shoes.
So, why did I post two photos? These aren't necessarily my favorites from the set, but they illustrate the difference in lighting. As with nearly all of the photos, my assistant is holding an off-camera flash to add direction to the light. For whatever reason, it failed to fire for the image on the left, so you can easily see the difference lighting makes. To me, the photo on the left shows railroad tracks with a bride and groom nearly silhouetted. However, there's no mistaking the subject in the image on the right - it's the bride and groom. They're brighter than the background, and the colors are much richer and vibrant.
With modern tools, shots like this are so much easier than they were in the "old days." Digital cameras are great, but the photographer sill has to choose the tools and create the photograph. If you want more information, you can see a recent tutorial I posted about using fill flash outdoors.
August
This is a more traditional wedding day photo, and the day just wouldn't be complete without a few portraits of the bride and groom. You can easily tell that the couple are thrilled with their special day. They've spent countless hours planning and preparing, and and it's all paid off. They even had beautiful weather for their wedding day.
There are a few things about the photo that make it different from most wedding photography. First, notice their position. Rather than staying at the front of the church, we're near the back. That allows a wide view of the beautiful sanctuary, and lets the image tell you about the couple and the setting. It also creates a composition with leading lines all around that point right to the bride and groom and lead your eye right to them.
I also really like the lighting. The bride and groom are being lit by an off-camera flash shooting through a umbrella. The umbrella creates a soft light with soft shadows, and the off-camera direction creates depth and dimension. I also added a second off-camera flash directly behind the couple pointing back toward the camera. That creates a little glow around the veil, and also adds the reflections to the ends of the pews.
I know I sound like a broken record, but lighting is so important. I see too many photographers shooting with simple, on-camera flash, and the result is harsh lighting with no depth. Recently, another photographer told me that he did mostly weddings, and only had time to use on-camera flash. I don't buy it. For this photo, my assistant was holding the light, and it takes no time at all for him to move to the correct position. If you're investing the time and money in a photograph, you should do it right and get the best possible result.
August
Here's another wedding photo you don't see every day. The point of view is from behind the alter, looking out over the bride and groom into the sanctuary. No, I didn't go up there to take the photo, I'd never do something like that. Before the ceremony, I positioned a remote camera on top of a 12 foot light stand. The camera was rigged with a Pocket Wizard remote that could be triggered by pressing a button on a matching Pocket Wizard transceiver. The result is a view of the ceremony that no on else has.
I wanted to make sure the camera wouldn't interfere with anything, so I had check with the couple, the minister, the wedding planner and the church videographer before hand. I've heard some real horror stories from ministers about the behavior of some wedding photographers, so I wanted to assure them that I wasn't going to tread into sacred territory. During the ceremony, I stayed at the back of the church or in the balcony. I also avoided using a flash at any time during the ceremony.
Modern digital cameras have really affected the wedding photography market. Many brides are questioning why they should pay a professional when their friend or relative has a good digital camera and can take good photos. To an extent, they're right, anyone can take a sharp, well exposed photo. But, a good wedding photographer provides more than that. They should be giving you something you can't get from everyone else.
Next time, I'll post a more traditional picture of the bride and groom, but with a couple of twists to improve the photo.
August
Here's another image from Saturday's wedding. It was obviously done later in the day near the end of the reception. Again, it's not your typical wedding photo. It might seem a little gimmicky to some people, but I think the bride and groom liked it.
I think part of the appeal of this image is the way the bride and groom are looking at each other. You can certainly see the "love" in the picture. I also like that it features the bride's four brothers and sisters spelling out the word.
The setup for the picture is pretty straightforward. The camera is on a tripod and I held the shutter open for five seconds. That allowed the flashlights to trace out the letters. At the end of the exposure, my wife triggered the off-camera flash she was holding, and that flash of light illuminated the people and froze them in time.
This was the first time I'd done this shot, so I learned a few things along the way. It was easier than I expected to show the folks how to make their letters, but I forgot to let them know that they would be visible in the final image. I also whish I had placed a second flash out of the frame to camera-left and slightly behind them to outline their shadow sides.
Keep checking back for more samples from the wedding. If you want to see some extreme examples of painting with flashlights, check out the Sprint commercial on YouTube featuring a group of artists who've taken the idea to a whole new level.
August
We had the opportunity to photograph a beautiful wedding this past weekend, so I thought I'd post a few of my favorite images. Along with the photos, I'd like to share some of my thoughts about why I like the image, and some of the background of how we made the image. I hope you'll agree with me that the photos are different from most wedding photography. I think it's the difference that make all the difference..
The image on the right shows the bride and groom with the Bible passage from Genesis that was read by her father during the service. Notice also that her wedding ring is sitting in the fold of the Bible, and the ring is casing a heart shaped shadow.
I really like the mood this image captures. The warm tones and contrast between the shadows and highlights gives the image a real sense of depth and dimension. Normally, I'd want to be able to see the subjects eyes, but in this case, I like their gaze directing us to the Bible and the ring.
Pictures like this take some extra work and understanding of exposure. The light on their faces is from an off-camera flash shooting through an umbrella. The light on the Bible is from an LED flashlight being held above and behind the couple. The trick is balancing the two different type of light (one continuous, the other instantaneous) into a single, balanced exposure. There was also a small amount of Photoshop work to balance the colors of the two lights, since the LED flashlight tends to have a blue color cast.
As I work through the nearly 2000 frames, I'll post a few more of my favorites.
August
These are a few of my favorite things! I love my Pocket Wizard Mini TT1. It lets me cheat my camera's synch speed up to 1/1000th of a second, and even beyond if I'm careful. If you're not a photographer, you probably don't appreciate what that means to me. In simple terms, it give me the creative freedom to add off-camera flash to outdoor scenes, even in bright sunlight. It's the off-camera flash that makes the image pop.
I just posted a new tutorial where you can read more about the TT1 and how to balance off-camera flash with bright sunlight.
July
The old homestead. Roll your mouse over the picture to see it today.
July
Ah, the heat and humidity of July in Illinois. I've been wanting to get out to a local corn field at sunset, but it's been too clear or too cloudy. We finally had a decent day last week, but the heat and humidity were a challenge. The temperature was close to 90, and the humidity was about 90%. I was already running later than I wanted, and as soon as I got the camera out, the lens fogged up, so I spent the next several minutes dealing with that.
I've gone through a number of iterations with the images, and finally settled on the one above as my favorite, or maybe it's just my least unfavorite. I like the balance with the horizon right at 1/3 of the way up, and the bright spot of the sun is about 1/3 of the way from the right side. In terms of composition, the 1/3 points are referred to as "power points" and are usually a good choice for locating the main subject in a photo. Of course, rules are made to be broken, but you generally want to avoid placing items of interest in the middle.
July
Among photographers, Ansel_Adams is known as much for his masterful darkroom technique as for his photography. He once said that the negative is the score and the print is the performance. Being a musician as well as a photographer, he understood the similarities of the processes. Like the musical score, the negative doesn't change. But translating the negative into a finished image is a very personal thing, Given the same negative, different expert printers will produce different prints, sometimes drastically different. Even the same person may print an image differently from day to day, or year to year. And even if you try to make two identical prints, there may be differences.
How many people really appreciate a good, well-finished photograph? I believe overall print quality is declining, and with it, peoples' expectations are lower than ever. In this digital age, most photos are never actually printed, they're simply viewed and shared on a computer. So, I'm really talking about finished image quality, not just physical print quality.
They say that if you want to produce good finished images, you have to look at a lot of good finished images to know what one looks like. I think that's true for everyone. The more good images we see, the better we can judge. I'm afraid the converse is true as well, the more we're exposed to lower quality, the lower our expectations become.
In the "old days" nearly every image we would see was done by a professional photographer, and most were processed into printed form by a darkroom or graphics expert . Newspapers, magazines, and billboards were the most common media, and all images were professionally prepared. Most photos that were framed and hanging on walls were done by professional portrait or wedding photographers, and printed by custom labs that specialized in serving the photo industry. The only exceptions were our family snapshots and slide shows, but how often did you really look at snapshots? We probably saw thousands of high-quality images in a week, and maybe a handful of snapshots. We were accustomed to looking at well executed images.
Today, our online world is different. E-mail, Facebook, Flickr, and all of the other online photo sites specialize in sharing our snapshots. News organizations frequently publish bystander cell phone photos. The majority of images we see on a daily basis are snapshots, so we get used to that level of image quality.
Even the commercial, online sources don't seem to have the level of quality control that magazines had. Maybe they can't afford the cost, or the time. Look at the array of images you'll find on Yahoo for instance. Rather than looking at closely at each image, back up and look at the page overall. The density and color balance of the images won't match. Some will be too red, others too yellow or green.
And, of course, everyone's monitor is different. What looks good on your monitor may look terrible on mine. To really judge an image on a computer, you need a large, high resolution monitor that's been properly calibrated and profiled.
As good as they are, cameras don't make finished images. Using today's digital SLR cameras, it really doesn't matter which camera you use. They'll all produce a good starting point. Whether on film or digital, capturing a good photo requires a certain set of skills, composition, lighting, exposure, posing, etc. Making a good finished image is another set of skills. The best photographers have mastered both sets of skills.
July
Our house was full of kids the other day when our grandsons and nieces were all visiting. The cousins don't all get together very often, but when they do, they always have a good time. I wanted to get a shot of the group, so I took them into the studio for a quick group photo. They were pretty wound up from playing all afternoon, and I quickly realized that I wasn't going to get a typical portrait. So instead, I told them to do a group hug, and they responded enthusiastically! When I went through the images on the computer, I decided the four-up presentation was the best way to show the moment.
July
I recently posted a new tutorial explaining some of the story behind the photo below. One of the unusual aspects of the photo is that I used a strobe off-camera to light up the tuffa. Without the flash, the tuffa would have appeared as a silhouette and would have blended into the silhouette of the mountains in the background.
I just finished matting and framing a rather larger version of this photo, and it reminds me again about the difference between "taking" a picture and "making" a picture. I'm not talking about Photoshop manipulation. I'm referring to all of the work that needs to be done between capturing the exposure and producing a final, professional quality print.
It was also a good reminder that finished prints is a part of photography that is disappearing. In the old days (i.e. film era) you had to make a print of your photograph if you wanted to easily share or display the image. A print is a tangible thing you can hold in your hand. You can look at it any time you want, and you don't depend on some other technology to create the experience, you just look at it. When you're done looking at it, you can choose to display it somewhere, or you can put it away out of sight. But, it's still a thing, and it still exists.
A print is also a permanent rendering of the artists intent. The blue sky and the red clouds are the colors I intended. I even choose the size of the display, and an appropriate mat and frame to show the print at its best.
I worry that digital photography is taking that experience away from us. It's certainly not an inherent flaw of digital photography, it's our reaction to the perceived ease of sharing digital images online. It's certainly cheaper to simply upload an image on the internet, and let people look at it. In theory, every person in the world could look at the picture. But their experiences will be different. Some will see the picture on a large, clear monitor where the colors closely match what I saw on my monitor. Others will look at the picture on the tiny screen of their super-duper cell phone, and they'll have a different experience. As an artist, I want to create and share a visual experience, but I can only control the experience if I make an image into a finished print.
I think there will also be a very different perception of value. I doubt if anyone would pay to view the image online. And, an image file doesn't have much value as an object. I can make as many free copies as I like. I can make backup copies, so that I don't have to worry about losing it. Digital pictures displayed online, or even stored on a DVD just don't have much perceived value.
But a framed and matted print is a different matter. Certainly there's the cost of the materials. Then, there's the cost of my time to make the print and assemble the whole thing. There's also the artistic value that comes from my choices of color, size, materials, and precision in putting it all together. Hopefully, the artistic value raises the value of the whole thing to something more than the cost of materials. But even if it doesn't, I have the satisfaction of knowing I produced a thing, and I'm happy with the result.
June
It's summer, and the wedding season is in full bloom. We shot a real interesting wedding a couple weeks ago. The bride's father performed a rather traditional Lakota ceremony, complete with food offerings to represent the four seasons (water, meat, corn and berries) and a ceremonial pipe. It was also a challenge since the ceremony was outside at Wildlife Prairie State Park near Peoria.
The park is a beautiful venue, but we were in the midst of a midwest heat wave (and a humidity wave), so it was rather uncomfortable. Hot summer afternoons also mean bright, unforgiving sunlight.
We did a couple of things to deal with the weather. When you're shooting outside, the main thing to avoid is having the sun shining on the subjects face. You can either position them so the sun is behind them, or better yet, find a shaded area. In the example above, we positioned the bridal group in the shade of some trees and a building. That allowed me to bring in the off-camera flash from camera left to light the group while balancing the exposure for the background.
By the time we got to the larger groups and alter return shots, it was later in the afternoon and most of the ceremony area was falling into shade. Here, we used both techniques by having the groups in the shade, and we're positioned so the sun is behind them. Again, we used the off-camera flash coming from camera left to create a more pleasing light than we'd get just from the available light.
June
This time, I'm writing about photography, and patience. The old saying that "good things come to those who wait" is certainly true when applied to taking landscape photos late in the day. Look at the sequence of photos below and notice how dramatically the scene changes as the sun gets lower in the sky.
All of the photos here were taken at Donner Lake in East-Central California, just off of I-80. Donner Lake is named for the famously failed Donner Party who spent the winter of 1847 trapped in 24 feet of snow at Donner Pass, freezing, dying, and eating each other to survive.
We were on our way home from California and were spending the night in Truckee, California. After checking into the motel, we toured the Donner Pass State Park, and then went down to the lake (also in the park) to do some hiking around the lake. It was so beautiful and peaceful we decided to just eat dinner there at the picnic tables, then hang around for sunset.
All three photos were taken with a 24mm focal length, which is just on the verge of being an extreme wide angle. The wide field of view helps give the photos a sense of depth, with objects in the foreground, middle ground and background. I also used a 2-stop graduated neutral density filter to keep the sky from getting too bright. It's kind of like wearing sunglasses that are only shaded on the top.
The first photo in the series (see below) was taken about two hours before sunset. It's not a bad picture, but the sun is still pretty high in the sky, which creates a lot of dark shadows. Personally, I'd consider this a nice snapshot, but not a great landscape photo, and certainly not a fine art photo.
Now look at the second in the series. It was taken about an hour and a half after the one above, but still about 15 minutes till sunset. It's also from a little different location, but that's not the point. The point is that the lower angle of the sun allows the light to skim across the tops of the rocks, which gives more depth and dimension. The light is also becoming softer, so the shadows aren't quite so deep.The lower angle also helps to tame the sun's glare on the water. Lastly, notice how the color of the light has changed, so the entire scene is a little warmer.
The last photo was taken just three minutes later. The sun was just slipping behind the mountains, so the foreground was now falling into the shadow, but the trees and mountains in the distant were still getting some sunlight. The setting sun's light is now quite warm, making the trees appear more gold than green, but the cool color of the shadow keeps the foreground a cool shade of blue. The resulting color contrast between gold and blue creates an additional layer of interest in the photo.
One other item of interest. Notice how the water becomes much smoother in the last photo. The wind had calmed some, but the biggest change is the shutter speed. As the sun got lower in the sky, there wasn't as much light, so I was able to use a slower shutter speed. The shutter speed for the top photo was 1/45th of a second so the ripples in the water were pretty well frozen in time. The bottom photo had a shutter speed of 1/2 second. The much slower shutter speed allowed the ripples to average out, giving the water more of a smooth, silky appearance, and the smoother surface helped accentuate the trees' reflections.
June
After two days of driving, we finally made it back home to Delavan, just in time for a couple of Midwest thunderstorms. After spending the last year and a half in Phoenix, Boston and San Francisco, I have a better appreciation for the Midwest's reputation as "tornado alley." We never saw storms in any of our travels to even come close to the last two days.
I thought I'd go ahead and post one more photo from Grand Teton National Park. This is another of the composites where we took turns taking each others pictures. People occasionally offer to take our picture, but I always decline. I've seen too many cameras dropped in the handoff from one person to the next, and I'd just as soon get home with mine still in one piece.
June
We had another outstanding day, but then, it's probably hard to have a bad day while you're touring Grand Teton National Park. We spent the night in Jackson, Wyoming, and then went thru the park today from one end to the other. The weather was still rainy with broken overcast most of the day. In a way though, it was nice to see the Tetons shrouded in clouds and fog.
We also had pretty good luck finding critters. We saw lots of elk, a couple of moose, and a few herds of bison. We also some a variety of white tail and pronghorn on the road south from Jackson.
May
We sure covered a lot of ground on Tuesday. We started the day at the Bonneville Salt Flats, also known as Mecca for those who believe true sports involve burning fossil fuels and require hearing protection. Unfortunately, it was raining, and the salt flat was a 1/2 inch deep salt lake. Oh well.
From there, we toured through Salt Lake City, and then headed north to Jackson, Wyoming. Today we'll hike in the Grand Teton National Park, then get back on the road for home.
May
Bodie, California is one of the largest ghost towns in the West, and it's just a few miles north of Lee Vining. It's sure an interesting place to walk around, everything is left just as it was when the last residents left. There's furniture in some of the houses, drinks, on the bar, all kinds of stuff. Unfortunately,
The town is slowly falling apart, which raises the question of how to maintain a ghost town. It's being cared for by the California State Parks as a State Historic Site. Their approach is to maintain roofs and windows to keep the buildings dry. They also have added some support beams. Other than that, they pretty much let it go.
May
We had a couple of good stops along the road today. The day started off with a trip up the mountain in a cable car at Squaw Valley. We didn't try skiing, but the view was tremendous. From there, we drove around the northern half of Lake Tahoe. It's beautiful, but pretty built-up and full of tourists.
We ended the day at Lee Vining, CA, which is the home of Mono Lake. As the water level in Mono Lake has been drawn down to water Los Angeles, the calcite deposits on the bottom have been exposed. These tufas and common photo subjects in the area. It almost looks like a moonscape. Imagine a cave turned inside-out.
May
We're headed back to Illinois. Today, we drove up into the Sierra-Nevada Mountains, and are spending the night at Truckee, CA, home of the Donner Pass.
If you remember your history, the ill-fated Donner Party got trapped by winter storms in the winter of 1846. After they ate all of their food, and all of their animals, they started on each other. Tomorrow we head south through the Lake Tahoe area to Lee Vining, Ca. Lee Vining is the town closest to Mono Lake.
May
One of the aspects of digital that I really like is that as the tools get better, you can go back to your older images and re-processes them with new software. The image below is a good example. I took the picture in April 2006 along the Mississippi River near Dyersburg, Tennessee. The camera I was using at the time was pretty good, but not great by today's standards. More importantly, the software at the time was at least three generations behind the current state of the art. It had about half the resolution of today's cameras. More importantly, it had a tendency to exhibit quite a bit of noise in the image, especially in dark areas.
I happened to run across the original file, and wondered how the new Photoshop CS5 would do with it. One of CS5's new features is greatly improved noise reduction, and it really did the trick with this image. When I processed the file four years ago, I found there was a lot of noise in the grass area, and it really detracted from the image. With the new CS5, the noise is gone.
This was never an option with film. Once the film was developed, it was what it was. You could make new prints from the negative, but you couldn't go back and develop the negative again with a newer chemical. Just another reason I like digital.
May
The other day, Yahoo! featured a story about America's Top 10 Road Trips. It was very satisfying to see that we've managed to have driven on eight of the top 10. The only two we're missing are the Huna Highway in Hawaii and the Million Dollar Highway in Colorado.
They listed California's Big Sur at the top of the list, and I have to agree. Highway 1 along the coast of California is filled with truly spectacular scenery. And it's not limited to just the Big Sur area. The Northern stretch of Highway 1 from San Francisco to the Redwood Forest National Park area has scenery that rivals its more famous southern sibling.
May
The other day, I watched another of the seemingly endless videos teaching how to control your automatic exposure camera and TTL flash to get the right balance. I don't have anything against auto-exposure, or TTL flash. But when I listen to the contortions people go through to trick the auto system, which was itself tricked by the scene..... well, wouldn't it be easier to just set the camera and flash manually?
In the video, the photographer was trying to balance flash with daylight. To pull it off, he ended up dialing in minus 2 to 3 stops of exposure compensation in the camera (just to get back to a sunny-16 base exposure) and then plus 2 to 3 stops in the flash compensation to get to a good flash exposure. And that, after a lot of trial and error and chimping. And he's the teacher!
The photo to the right is a good example. The photo was taken in mid-June, just a little after noon. I would have had a difficult time getting the "auto" exposure features to figure it all out. Instead, I just set the camera and strobe using a few, simple rules-of-thumb.
It's hard for beginners to get their heads around why the camera misleads them, and then how to dial in an offset to adjust for it. My hypothesis is that it would be easier to learn just a few basics of exposure, and then set the camera and flash for what you want. Quick, done, get what you want.
Maybe it's fear of having to learn something they think will be hard that scares people off. If only they understood how hard they were working, just to avoid working a little. I'm sure the same is true of human nature in other areas of learning as well.
May
Can you guess from the photo below that we were off hiking in the redwoods again? This time, we went to the Humboldt Redwoods State Park in Northern California. It's a beautiful park with a number of groves of old growth Coastal Redwoods. The world record tree is somewhere in the park, standing over 370 feet tall. They keep its location a secret to avoid the crowds of people trampling its roots. But we sure saw plenty of giant trees, a number of them more than 360 feet tall.
The picture below was taken looking almost straight up with an extreme wide angle lens. I know it's a very common technique, but to me, it's the best way to convey the trees reaching for the sky. National Geographic took a different approach by creating a top to bottom panorama of a tree to show it in its entirety. But, they also had a team of people working together over a period of weeks to make the photo. You can see the result on the National Geographic web site.
April
This particular image was taken in December 2009 on Jekyll Island in Georgia. It's another high dynamic range (HDR) image done with Photoshop CS5's new HDR Pro. I've also included the three separate exposures that were used to create the final image. I really like the results from HDR Pro. In particular, I seem to be able to get much more realistic results. I also like that it is tightly integrated with Photoshop, which I see as an advantage versus Photomatix Pro.
The sequence of exposures shows the challenge. The first shows the foreground nice and bright, but the clouds and sky in the background are completely washed out. The last image captures the details in the clouds, but the foreground is completely black. The middle exposure shows the middle ground between the two extremes, but even there, the foreground is too dark and the sky is too bright.
April
If you like tutorials, be sure to check out my latest entry to learn the tricks to green screen photography.
April
Here's one last image from last week's session with Asha and Nailah. Again, it's a posed picture showcasing the acting skills of the twins. Like all digital photos, it started out as a color image, but I felt the warm tones just didn't sit right with the mood of the picture, so I converted it to a fairly high contrast black and white.
April
Lately, I've been doing some portfolio photos for actors and models. Besides the standard photos, each session usually includes some fun photos. That was the case yesterday with the twins shown here. Asha and Nailah are not only models, they're quite adept at acting and dancing as well. It was amazing to watch them play off of each other.
We also tried something a little different. Hopefully, when you look at the photo below, you'll begin to wonder what's happening outside. What is she seeing? Who's the second person, and how does she enter into the story? The photo doesn't offer any clues, so you have to make up your own story.
The photo is entirely setup. Asha is looking out the window toward a flash I've located outside about 10 feet away. Nailah is inside, positioned to add a second shadow, creating a little mystery in the final image.
Quite a bit different from nature and landscape photography. But, that's one of the great things about photography, you don't have to focus on just one style (no pun intended).
April
One of the new features in Photoshop CS5 is HDR PRo. I've posted High Dynamic Range photos in the past, and there are a variety of ways to produce one. Up till now, the standard, professional tool has been Photomatix Pro. But now, Photoshop has upped their HDR game with the new HDR Pro that's included in the new CS5 version.
The question then becomes which to use. To help answer the question for myself, I processed the same three-frame HDR image shown below in both Photomatix and Photoshop CS5. (Roll your mouse pointer over the image to see the Photomatix version.) The verdict, I like the CS5 version better. Grain wasn't too much of an issue with this image, but I found the tones much more believable and workable from CS5. In particular, the shadows in the foreground grasses were rendered much better by CS5.
April
Be sure to check out my Tutorials page. I've just added a link to my basic photography instruction material that I prepared last year while I was at the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.
April
We like to use our weekends to explore the area, so this past weekend we went north to the Point Reyes National Seashore, which is about 30 miles north of San Francisco. The photo below shows the old boathouse from the Castle Rock trail. It's about as far as you can get from the entrance, since it's the end of the trail that extends from the end of the road.
We had beautiful weather on Saturday, but Easter Sunday was cloudy, windy and rainy. We didn't have much luck with Point Reyes biggest attraction - whale watching. Deb's usually pretty good at spotting whales, so I assume they just weren't there. Oh well, it was still a nice weekend, even with all the rain and wind on Sunday.
April
Here's another photo from our excursion in the Marin Headlands. This is the Point Bonita Lighthouse which is located in the Marin Headlands. We were fortunate to be able to tag along with an Earth Sciences class that was there to see the lighthouse and study the various types of rocks. Of course, our timing was off. We had already made the trip down and back up the rather steep trail when we met the class group, so we repeated the trip.
March
In life, you never know what's around the corner. And in a big city, a wrong turn can turn into an unforeseen opportunity. The photo below of the San Francisco skyline was just such an opportunity. In the process of getting from the Marin Headlands (north of SF across the Golden Gate Bridge) back to Santa Clara (60 miles south of SF) we decided to just take Lombard Street from the GG Bridge to the Embarcadero. What we didn't realize was that Lombard doesn't go all the way, it comes to a dead end at the parking lot for the Coit Tower.
Ten dollars and an elevator ride later, we were at the top of the 210 foot tower, which sits atop Telegraph Hill, which is 273 feet high all by itself. The end result is some great 360 degree views of San Francisco. The only drawback is that the windows in the Coit Tower are very deep, and sealed with Plexiglas, so you can only see narrow areas at once, or about one fifth of the panorama below.
So, How did I get a panorama showing everything from the Bay Bridge on the left to Chinatown on the right? I went from window to window taking separate frames. Then I used Photoshop to combine them into a single panorama.
This image also had some special treatment in the newest version of Photoshop. I'm one of the beta testers for Adobe Photoshop CS5, which will be officially announced on April 12th. Beginning today, I can post images that were edited in CS5, and also confirm that the image was edited in CS5. Unfortunately, I can't tell you about the feature that helped improve this image. For that, you'll have to wait until April 12.
March
You can tell it's spring - flowers are really starting to bloom everywhere. Deb and I spent the day yesterday exploring the Marin Headlands. We found these calla lilies along the trail to the Point Bonita Lighthouse. Also, as usual, we found a lots of folks enjoying the park. We even had the opportunity to tag along with an Earth Sciences class.
March
Did you notice the new look? I frequently tinker with the web site, but I decided it was time for a complete overhaul. I wanted to give the site a more current and professional look. My design goal was to minimize distractions and let the viewer focus on the photography. I also wanted to better showcase my portfolios, and help guide the viewer to their area of interest. Once the template was completed, the majority of the content was moved from the old site pretty much as-is. If you find any problems with the new design, please let me know at craig@craigstocksarts.com
March
If you've been following my blog, you'll already know that I'm currently serving as a volunteer photographer for the National Park Service at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. What a great deal! They send me out to explore and photograph some of the best scenery in the Bay area. They get pictures to use in publications and web sites, and I get to contribute while doing something I love.
Actually, the NPS relies very heavily on volunteers, and the GGNRA has the largest volunteer program in the park service. It seems like I run into volunteers nearly everywhere I go. Unlike me though, most of them are doing real work, like pulling weeds or planting trees.
Spring is starting to arrive, and the flowers along the beach area are beginning to bloom. I took the photo below yesterday at Montara State Beach while out "on assignment" for the GGNRA. Montara State Beach is along Highway 1 just north of Half Moon Bay. It's one of the many beach areas that are easily accessible from the highway.
March
I thought I'd post an image in black and white for a change. I haven't posted many in B&W. I really do like B&W, but I don't tend to use it very often. I think it's a holdover from my early days when everything at the newspaper was black and white. In those days, color seemed like a true luxury.
This photo was taken while we were hiking along a stream in the Napa Valley last weekend. The flowing water is blurred due to the long (4 second) shutter speed, which gives it that cotton-candy look. The large rock is covered with green lichens, which is what originally drew me to the subject. In the color image, I like the color contrast between the bright green lichens and the cool blue of the sky reflecting in the water. I also like the image without color when it becomes about the texture and tone of the subjects.
Roll your mouse pointer over the image to see the color version. Which do you like best, and why?
March
During this time of year, the Napa Valley has their annual Mustard Festival. The point of the festival is the mustard plants that are grown between the rows in the vineyards. The purpose is to refresh the soil. The mustard plants compliment the grape plants and return needed nutrients to the soil. We expected to see sights like the vineyard shown above all along the valley. What we found was only a few of the vineyards had mustard growing, and lush scenes like this were rare.
We didn't stop at many of the wineries, and we were a little surprised that nearly all of them charge $10 to $25 for samples. But, at the end of the day we decided to head up into the mountains to one of the more remote wineries. We figured that at least we would have some great scenery.
We ended up at the Pope Valley Wines vineyard, and it was by far the best stop of the day. Not only did they offer complimentary tasting, they practically insisted we try everything. Then, the took us on a tour of the facility and explained the history of the area. If you're in the area, we highly recommend the trip into the Pope Valley.
February
Here's another photo from our outing last week. This one was taken from the Marin Headlands on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge. The wide angle view shows the entire north shore of the San Francisco peninsula. Alcatraz is visible on the left side of the frame, and downtown SF shows through the vertical cable supports on the bridge. Moving further to the right is the Presidio and Fort Point, which sit at the southern end of the bridge. Beaches line the shoreline extending from the end of the bridge to the right. The first is Bake Beach, which is also part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Surprisingly, it's also a clothing-optional beach at the north end.
February
It's been a while since my last post. The reason? My computer died and it's taken Dell almost two weeks to get it fixed. I was triple fortunate though. First of all, it was covered by warranty, so it didn't cost me anything but time. Second, it was some combination of the mother board, CPU or graphics card that died, so all of the data on the hard drive was safe. And thirdly, I had just finished running a backup about an hour earlier, so I felt confident that I would recover, no matter what. I certainly reinforces the importance of keeping current backups.
Of course, we've made good use of our time. We've been able to visit a number of local parks. One of our new favorites is Big Basin Redwoods State Park near Santa Cruz. It has about the only remaining giant redwoods south of San Francisco.
The photo below is (obviously) from San Francisco. it's actually along the bay near Fort Point, which is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. You can't really tell it from the photo, but I was only about 3 feet from the seagull. When I saw the seagull sitting on the column, this was the picture I envisioned. But, to get all of the background, I needed the extreme wide angle provided by my 14mm lens. And, with an extreme wide angle, I had to get close to the seagull to keep it from just being a dot. I walked slowly to the angle I wanted, and then slowly crept up closer and closer, taking frames as I went. Eventually, I got close, the bird posed, and Deb kept a watch for the occasional rogue wave.
January
After a week of one rain storm after another, we were blessed with fair weather for the weekend. We took advantage of the weather and drove down to the San Simeon area of Big Sur. Needless to say, the scenery is breathtaking. One of the highlights was Elephant Seal Vista. This is an parking area along Highway 1 that overlooks a beach that used by hundreds of elephant seals. They gather here in the winter and spring to rest, mate and give birth.
Click on the picture below to view the photo gallery including photos of the elephant seals and an assortment of birds.
I've also added a new tutorial describing how I use High Dynamic Range photography techniuqes for one of the images in the gallery.
January
Here's another photo from our visit to Bosque del Apache in New Mexico. I like the abstract simplicity of this shot. It was taken at dusk as the Sandhill cranes were flying in for the night. The cranes spend the day grazing in the fields throughout the park. At sunset, they fly back to one of the shallow wet areas for the night where they protect themselves from predators as they sleep standing in the water. Then, at sunrise, they fly out for another day of grazing.
The challenge with this photo is digital noise. Roll you mouse pointer over the image to see the before version.
Noise is most obvious when shooting in dark settings, such as indoors or late in the day. In the days of shooting film, we had to deal with grain in an image. Some people liked it, others dedicated their craft to avoiding it. The same is true with digital, it's somewhat a matter of taste.
In this image, I felt the noise was very distracting. The imge is about the birds and the peach to blue color gradation of the sky. The excessive noise became another subject competing for the viewers attention. Because the noise was so severe, I had to use a variety of techniques in Photoshop to smooth the sky, but I think it makes it a much stronger image.
January
I've set up a very small gallery with a few images from the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The first few are from last week when I went scouting in the Marin Headlands area. There had been reports of a bobcat around the stables, and there were frequent reports of coyotes. I was lucky and managed to find both of them, along with some quail.
The rest are from the Martin Luther King Day activities. The park scheduled a number of volunteer events, mostly cleanup and trail maintenence. I covered the activities at the Presidio. Unfortunately, the rain showed up in full force, and we even had a little hail. The foul weather didn't seem to slow anyone down, they just put on rain suits and went to work.
January
California here we come. We're now settled in our apartment in San jose and we're starting to explore the area. It's always exciting to start new jobs in a new area. Today, we'll locate Deb's work locations, and then go explore San Francisco and the Golden Gate area.
During the trip west, we decided to take an extra day for the trip and visited the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge near Socorro, New Mexico. What a place! It's managed as a wetland bird habitat and provides wintering grounds for tens of thousands of ducks, geese and sandhill cranes. We also spotted eagles, road runners, coyotes, deer and elk. You can see a small web gallery right here or by clicking on the photo below.
The last two photos in the gallery are from the Very Large Array Radio Telescope located 50 miles west of Socorro.
January
We had some late-night visitors in our front yard late on New Year's Day. As I waked past the kitchen window on my way to bed, I noticed a shadowy figure in the snow. At first I thought it was a large dog, but quickly realized it was a deer. I called Deb to come for a look, figuring that they would quickly scamper off. Instead, they moved closer to the house to some barberry bushes about 15 feet from the kitchen window.
Even with the full moon, it was hard to see more than just a silhouette. I grabbed the closest camera (a Canon G10) and tried grabbing a photo through the window. But, it just wasn't up to the challenge. The on-camera flash caused too much glare, and the full moon didn't provide enough light without the strobe.
I assumed they'd take off after the flash, but they completely ignored it and just kept munching on our shrubs. Realizing I had more time, I retrieved my "big" camera and set it up to trigger a flash remotely. Then we could hold the flash up to one window and take the pictures through a different one to light the deer and avoid glare. The biggest challenge was to focus - auto focus doesn't work in the dark. So, I had to focus as best I could, then check the photo on the LCD, and adjust the focus manually.
Sights like this are a big part of why we like living in the country. A few days ago, we had two foxes playing in the woods just beyond our driveway, and birds and squirrels are everywhere. As Deb said, we'll never walk past that kitchen window again without looking out to see who's looking back.
January
Well, it's a new year and our time at home in Illinois is drawing to a close. One of the highpoints for me was building a project with each of my three grandsons. They all enjoy being in the shop with me, so each one got to to choose a project. The oldest wanted some shelves for his video games. The youngest wanted to make a gun, and the third wanted to make a sword. Of course, he wanted a "real" sword made out of steel!
Now that the holidays are behind us, it's time to get back on the road. Deb's new assignment is in Santa Clara, California. (Santa Clara is just outside of San Jose, which is at the southern tip of the San Francisco Bay.) As always, she'll be doing home health nursing. I'll spend part time as a volunteer photographer for the National Park Service at the Golden Gate National Recreational Area, which includes a number of parks and historic sites, such as Alcatraz. I'll also be on the lookout for freelance photography and teaching opportunities.
December
Happy Holidays!
What a year this has been. Both Deb and I began new chapters in our lives when I retired at the end of 2008 and Deb began to work as a traveling nurse. During the first half of 2009 we were in Southern Arizona where Deb did home health nursing in the western Phoenix suburbs while I volunteered as the Artist in Residence at the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. The second half of the year took us to Boston where Deb had the opportunity to visit patients while surrounded by historic sites and I did freelance photography, teaching and consulting.
We've found we really like the travel nursing experience. It's a great way to see a part of the U.S. in enough depth to feel like you've really had the experience. At the same time, we both greatly enjoy the work we're doing. For me, it's an opportunity to return to my creative roots in photography. For Deb, even after more than 30 years of nursing, she's still gets excited when she can help someone. (That's why she serves as a volunteer EMT on the local rescue squad where we're home.)
I'd like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all of the visitors to my web site, and wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
By the way, I also added a quick tutorial describing how we take pictures of the two of us, using the photo from Martha's Vineyard as an example. You can see it here.
December
Photos from the Pekin Suzuki Strings 2009 Christmas Concert on now on-line. You can read more about the program and see the photos here.
December
It's vacation time. My father and I are in Jekyll Island, Georgia for what is becoming an annual golf outing. We've each been here a few times in the past, starting over 40 years ago when I was 15. We came again in the 80's when he retired, and again last year to celebrate my retirement.
The weather today was perfect with a high around 70. The forecast is calling for rain on Wednesday, but generally nice otherwise.
Besides golfing, I enjoy getting out for sunrise and sunset photo opportunities. The photo to the right was taken today along the north shore of the island.
I've set up a new web gallery with a selection of photos from Jekyll Island. You can see it here.
November
Our last weekend outing was to Martha's Vineyard. The island is just off the shore of Cape Cod, just a little south of Woods Hole. We took a ferry from Woods Hole to the island, and then used buses to get around. Since it was so late in the season, most of the shops were closed.
The photo below is at the lighthouse at Edgartown, which is along the south-east shore of Martha's Vineyard.
