Category: Miscellaneous

Photography is a two dimensional medium which we use to represent a three dimensional world. The basic visual cues that allow us to infer the third dimension in a photograph include:

Size — whenever we have familiar objects in the frame, we use their relative size as a clue to their relative distance from us.

Focus — Something which is sharply focused in an image will be perceived as being either closer or farther away than something which is clearly out of focus.

Visual cues such as receding lines — the familiar illusion created by the lines a highway that appear to converge into the distance.

The two images above use size as one visual cue to the which elements are closer to the viewer, and which are further away. The flower also uses differences in sharpness to aid in creating an illusion of greater three-dimensional depth: the bloom that is both sharper and larger appears to us as being closer. The image of the Amsterdam canal boat uses relative size, as well as converging liners to create the illusion of depth.

There is also another visual cue that we can use to create or enhance the illusion of “three-dimensionality”: the relationship between light and dark tones in an image. All things being equal, areas in a picture that are lighter in tone will appear to advance toward the viewer, and those that are darker will appear to recede.

The Abbey Senanque near Gordes in Provence sits in a roughly north-south oriented valley. Because of this, by the time the sun rises above the surrounding hills, we are well past the the time of best light for this type of image. The situation is a little better in the evening, so I prefer to arrive just before the sun’s last rays leave the valley. By then the valley floor with its the rows of lavender in front of the abbey are in shade, while the bell tower is catching the last warm shafts of sunlight. While I liked the arrangement of shapes in the image, the lighting of the open sky makes the lavender appear flat and a bit lifeless. Lacking here is the impression of “roundness” of the rows of lavender plants. This is a good opportunity to work on the light – dark relationships in the foreground to re-create some of the dimensionality that is missing, but which is so immediately evident when standing in front of the Abbey. Creating the illusion of depth is a simple process of making the tops of the rows appear lighter than the ground between the rows. This difference in tone is already present to a small extent: all we are going to do is enhance what is occurring naturally. There are several ways to accomplish this task, but this is one that I like because it is simple to accomplish, and is easily controllable to create any effect you are looking for.

1) Begin by opening the image in Photoshop

2) Next, add a new layer by selecting Layer>New>Layer from the menu.

3) Set the Mode for this new layer to “Overlay” and select “Fill with Overlay neutral color (50% gray). Name the layer with a something descriptive… like “Dodge & Burn

4) In overlay mode the neutral gray we have filled the layer with has no effect on the image at this point. If however we paint on the layer with a gray shade that is lighter than 50%, we will lighten the underlying tones in our image. Painting on the overlay layer with a shade of gray which is darker than 50% gray will darken the underlying tones in our image.

5) You are going to paint on the overlay layer with either white and black, so hit the “D” key to make sure your foreground and background colours are set to the Default black and white.

6) Begin by setting your foreground colour to white (if it isn’t, hit the “X” key to swap it so White is the foreground colour )

7) Pick up a soft-ish brush and size it for the areas you want to lighten

8 ) Set the opacity of your brush quite low, say around 10%. As we paint, we want to build up the areas that we are affecting slowly. It’s easy to overdo the effect of this adjustment. Also, set the “Flow” to something less than 50%: this will also help to build up the effect slowly.

9) Paint along areas you want to lighten. I painted along the tops of the lavender rows… adjusting the size of the brush as needed. If you work slowly and build up the effect gradually with a low flow setting, you don’t have to be extremely accurate in your brushing. Swap the foreground and background colours to make black the foreground colour (hit the “X” key), and paint in areas that you wish to make darker. I painted in the spaces between the rows of lavender in this image.

10) Here is my completed overlay layer, and the layer stack in Photoshop. If you wish you can further adjust the intensity of the effect by adjusting the opacity of the overlay layer.

And here is the completed image:

By playing on a few prejudices of our eye-brain visual system, we can easily restore some of the feeling of texture and three-dimensional form lost to the flat lighting of our foreground.

With Christmas and New Year behind us, the summer travel season is only a few short months ahead. It’s not too soon to be thinking about the capturing the best travel images of your life. As a photographer, the chance to travel and immerse myself in another culture while working to capture the essence of a place is a challenge I simply cannot turn down. But creating compelling travel pictures is no easy task.

Perhaps you have had the tortuous “pleasure” of sitting through a friend’s travel slide show, where each image is accompanied by the phrase, “This is us in front of the [insert name of well known travel icon]”. When a professional travel photographer decides to cover a destination, the first thing they do is research the location. Travel books, Travel web-sites, both commercial and those of the government tourist agencies are all good sources of information. Learn about what may be going on at your destination when you arrive. On what day of the week is the local farmer’s market? When are the local holidays? If possible, plan your trip to coincide with local festivals: these are excellent opportunities photograph people when they are out and about. Google your destination to death! To see how professionals cover your destination, search the web-sites of the major stock photography sites: Corbis, Getty and Masterfile. Now that you have a good idea about what you will encounter when you arrive at your destination, think about letting your images create a story of what the place is like: what it’s like to visit there, perhaps even what it’s like to live there. Good Travel Photography and Film Making share many of the same attributes. This makes sense, since both disciplines are essentially story telling mediums. Film Makers think in terms of three basic types of images: Establishing Shots create the overall view of a location. “This how the location looks”: is it set near the mountains, or the sea? Is it an urban or rural environment? Higher points of view can be useful in creating establishing shots… look for balconies, hillsides or observation towers.

Medium Shots provide the substance of your story; this is where you get right into the locale: street scenes, architecture and portraits shot with normal lenses or so-called “street zooms” are good examples of this type of image. This is also where you should let your compositional creativity loose: use these as an opportunity to look for patterns and colours to enhance the impact of your images.

Detail Shots (Film-makers would refer to these as “close-ups”) are in many ways the most important type of travel image: as human beings we are all the same: it’s only in the details that we are different from one another. While they need the other two classes of images to provide context, details provide the visual vocabulary needed to define a culture. Without them you’re missing the most important part of your story. Used in a slide show, or album of your travels, detail images may not occupy the screen for as long as other images, or they may be smaller and collaged together with other images, but be sure to include at least a few in every show.

With a bit of planning and some thought about what you want to communicate to your viewers, you can tell a story that will convey volumes about your subject; often with almost no need for words. Suppose you wanted to create a story about the life of the small independent lavender farmer in Provence. One of the larger lavender growing regions in this part of France is on the high plateau above Valensole in the Alpes de Haut-Provence. The four images below encompass an establishing shot, (the landscape), medium shots of two brothers in the fields where they work. The details of sun burned faces and weathered hands tell a story of years of labouring under the hot Provencal sun.

Start planning now to make this year’s vacation trip the most photographically rewarding one ever, be sure to plan for establishing and medium shots, and keep your eyes open for those telling cultural details. Best wishes for the New Year to all of you!

This is consistently the most common first complaint I hear in my Digital Printing course at www.bpsop.com. This is true even among photographers who understand the need, and have taken the time to calibrate and profile their monitors.

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