After 12 years of using a digital camera

I first began using a digital camera in 2005: it was a 2 megapixel camera...I was psyched!  Wow...two megapixels.  Today that camera would be junk, but it was my introduction to digital photography and I still keep it as a memory to those early days. The Canon Mark III is my choice today, with a Sony a6000 backup...I did own the Canon Mark IV for almost a month before returning it for a refund..why?  Because the LCD, no matter what settings I used, never gave me the rich images I could see on my Mark III LCD..it may sound stupid and ridiculous, but I am a visual photographer; if the image on the LCD doesn't give me the tones and depth of color I need to give me an idea of how an image needs to be edited, I don't want that camera...sometimes, you have to realize, that technology and the latest model of camera aren't going to always be better for you personally...so my suggestion is:  if you love the camera in your hand, don't upgrade just to have the newest technology, sometimes a camera you are accustomed to using that is giving you what you want is all you need.

Personal Projects

This is for you and for me.  It is about the importance of finding interesting things to shoot during a normal day...not on a tour or a workshop, but at home or at work or out walking. Why is it important to have a personal project? Is it important or a waste of time?
Personal projects are one of the most important things you can do with a phone or point and shoot camera. You carry a phone around because it is small and relatively obscure; easily put in a pocket or pocketbook, but it is your link to better photography if you know how to think creatively. You will develop a better eye for composition if you use it regularly.
I often give myself little projects for the day or week when I am out walking my dog or driving around doing errands. Last week, even though I hate to compose with trees because they are so darn chaotic and difficult to make into a composition, the idea was to photograph trees for one week whenever I was out in the woods. Therefore, whenever I was walking the dog, I had my point and shoot or phone with me: looking, getting cranky, pulling ticks off, then looking for compositions again.
Attached are a few images from my week, they are not great shots that will win competitions, but who cares?
They are my practice images, forcing me to try harder to make sense of the forest and maybe learning a little more about graphic elements. You can photograph anything for a day or week..forks with different lighting, light bulbs, doorknobs, light fixtures; I have even stooped to photographing an old toilet discarded near a shed.
Don't be lazy; make the effort.

Creating Images with Impact

 All of us have seen photographs that move us emotionally. Images with impact or mood that have an elusive "something" that makes us go wow. It might be the color, light, composition or subject, but how it is presented to the viewer is what makes that image special. The Canadian Rockies are amazing in the right light, but pretty dull when cloud or fog covered. The ocean can be beautiful but it can be boring if the composition and light are bad. 

  Since I am primarily a landscape photographer, the light is critical to my images.  In the wrong light or bad light, images can really fall flat...I speak from experience. 

  There is a learning curve to photography, it takes time to develop an eye for good composition and a feel for lighting...it has taken me years of practice (and looking at photographs and paintings by masters of photography and art) to get somewhat proficient. But there are many days when my images fall flat and must be deleted: don't be afraid to delete the junk! Some people never delete images until they see them on the computer, however, I will delete in camera if the composition fails when I review them on the LCD. You must be cutthroat about your images, because as good as you may be in Photoshop or Lightroom, if your shots are bad, admit it..why waste time editing something that should be deleted. Some people don't like to shoot at the same places; that's ridiculous...I keep going back to Beavertail or other areas on the coast because weather is always changing; even my attitude changes day to day..I might be cranky one night, but in a good mood the next: it will have an impact on how I photograph.

   Here are a few examples of what I am discussing.  The first one is taken at Ponagansett Falls in Scituate. Be patient!  This night the sky looked like a dud, but as the sun set some clouds appeared on the horizon and things began to change..These three images were all taken within a half hour of each other.

The next image is a wide angle taken at Castle Hill in Newport. I was moving around on the rocks looking for a good composition about an hour before sunset. Always try to get to your location at least an hour prior to sunset; it gives you time to scout for the best spot and do test shots. The second shot was taken as the sun was setting and the clouds and rocks formed diagonals leading to the lighthouse.

The next image is in the Canadian Rockies...the first shot was taken without sun. It was cloudy and foggy but it was worth waiting for the sun to break through the clouds, because it burned off a lot of the cloud cover revealing the mountains in the background.

The last one is the combined use of twilight and slow shutter speed. The first ferris wheel shot was taken when it was not moving but was somewhat lit near twilight. The second, which is obviously better, was taken at twilight when there were passengers and the wheel was turning.

   I know a lot of photographers will tell you they shoot only at F8, the sweet spot on their lenses..that is nonsense. I shoot at F16, 18, 22...the diffraction is minimal with the newer lenses; I need to shoot at those apertures to allow light to hit the sensor a long time to get the effect I am seeking; F8 doesn't work for me unless there is wind, then I will use it on the foreground to stop movement..also, I use every filter imaginable on my lenses: soft edge grads, hard edge grads, NDs, polarizers, reverse NDs: whatever it takes to give me what I want... 

To me, the most important thing about getting an image with impact is looking at the world with awe. Nothing is jaded to me. Think of everything you see as if it were for the first time.

Photographing at Home

  Most people tend to do most of their photography when on a workshop, meetup, tour, or on vacation. The problem with this is that between those times, there is almost no shooting.  The camera is put away until the next adventure; this leaves you at a disadvantage dealing with composition and creativity. To improve your eye, it is important to photograph consistently and in order to do this, it is necessary to shoot near home or even in your home.
   And it is important to know your camera well; this can come in very handy at night or when your flashlight fails. If you are struggling with your camera settings, how can you be creative? If you have custom functions, learn to use them. I am primarily a landscape photographer and have three custom functions set up for this genre.  If I am under pressure to shoot as the light is changing rapidly, these are my fall back settings:  they can be manipulated if necessary.
   A lot of you are saying,"It is boring where I live; there is nothing to shoot.". This is when you have to be creative and dig deep into your  brain for ideas. The images I have attached were all taken in or near my house.

This is a light bulb in a dark corner of my cellar...I flipped the image vertically.

The next image is a bunch of leaves on a thistle plant that I happened to pass on a walk with my dog.

The next image is a bunch of trees in the woods...nothing special about them, so I used a slow shutter speed and moved the camera vertically to get something interesting.

The final image is a coil of rope..that's it...it was at a boatyard lying on the ground. I picked it up and changed the shape of the coil so it had more of a vortex feel.

As you see, there is no great image here, but there is a learning opportunity.  They are all decent images that gave me an opportunity to work with composition and creativity. And even with color.

Maybe you have to force yourself to do it initially, but the exercise is well worth the effort.

Composing Creatively

  This image shows implied diagonals which drive the eye to the center and directly to the lighthouse. This is a very powerful way to get the viewer to look into an image. The clouds point to the lighthouse as do the rocks in the foreground...there is no doubt about where you are supposed to look. There is no escape from the dynamism; the use of diagonals aimed toward your subject is one of the strongest ways to lead the eye.

This is a photograph with a diagram of the Rule of Thirds imposed. The rule is often overused but if you are a newbie photographer it can help a lot to achieve a better composition. When I began photographing digitally quite a few years ago, it helped me to superimpose the grid on my live view image, so try it and see if it helps with composition.

The two images below demonstrate the use of time (with a 5 stop ND filter) to improve or change an image.  The top one is taken at f18, 24mm and 15 sec.

This image was taken with the same aperture and focal length, but with the 5 stop ND: the time was 150 seconds.

The feeling is totally different when an ND is used on an image..in the second image the clouds show more movement as they streak across the sky and the ocean is a lot softer.  So it is important to remember that time can change the whole look of an image. Also, any people moving will disappear from the image at 150 seconds.




Who says you can't use bulls eye images, and have to keep things out of the center? If a subject is round, it works well.

and remember that a spiral can really draw the eye into an image:

Curving shapes are also leading lines into an image; look for them everywhere: the curve of a beach or a stream. In this image of Mistaya canyon, the river leads the eye to the mountain in the distance:

Remember that while it is a good idea to keep the horizon out of the center of an image, sometimes with reflections it is best to keep the horizon dead center.

Balance is very important to an image: light and dark must balance and act as counterpoint to each other. Look at Rembrandt's images, he is the master of chiaroscuro...he placed light where it was important, yet maintained dark to balance the image. This image has light behind a seastack from the sun, but the dark, larger shapes on the left help to balance it.

Try to incorporate some of these ideas in your images, or not if you choose...but work to improve composition every day; be creative as a child again.

Learning light

   Light is the life force of all landscape photographers; it can make or break an image.  Learning about light should be your primary goal if you are a landscape photographer. This is an easy primer about light and the difference it can make in an image. Underexposing a stop will often increase the color saturation when shooting at the edges of light. Use graduated neutral density filters, polarizers and solid neutral density filters as needed.
   It is important to remember that when shooting sunrise or sunset there are clues that tell you where you are in the progression of light and time. When shooting at sunrise there a change of hue giving  an indication of the progression of daylight beginning with the predawn colors: blue, lavender, pink, red, orange, yellow...all of these may appear quickly one after the other and when it hits the yellow color, that's when you are about finished with sunrise.
  Sunset is the opposite but after sunset you may be able to continue shooting for quite a while in the twilight hours, even continuing into darkness if you choose to photograph the stars. So here is the progression of sunset: yellow, orange, red, pink, lavender, blue, then black...remember that an hour after sunset there is twilight with beautiful blue skies for photographing cities enabling the buildings to stand out against the sky; whereas with a black sky, the buildings have no edges and disappear.
Also, in the mountains and sometimes along the shore there is a brief moment of alpen glow when the sky suddenly lights up with a pink color after the sun sets.
Here are some examples of the effects of light on an image:

In the upper image, the light is too pale; it was shot a little too early for good color...the lower image was shot shortly afterward when the sun had almost set and color was intense.

Here in the Andes at Mt Fitz Roy: the first image was taken too late after sunrise so it is washed out..the lower one was taken as the sun hit the mountain directly and lit up the red granite.


 The two images below show the effect of photographing in a short time...the sky in the image at bottom was taken right as the sun came up and lasted about 10 seconds..but it gave some color to the sky.  The image below on left was taken a few seconds later when I put the camera in vertical position, however, the light was over.