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Twelve Ways to Improve Your Photography

The first of what will be a series of short books covering photographic related topics. Hopefully useful, sometimes thought provoking or at least interesting. Most will cost no more than $5, and the first one is on me.

No-charge! Free! Nada! No-strings attached.

All I ask is that you provide me with some honest feedback in the comments below. Maybe even suggest a few topics you would like to see covered in future offerings. Maybe if you really like this one you might give me a follow on Instagram or Facebook?
Feel free to pass this on to a friend whom you think might find it interesting.

To receive your copy, simply head over my store.

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“Get it Right In-Camera” or “Fix-It in Post”

Sunset in the Val D'Orcia, Tuscany

You have undoubtedly heard both familiar phrases before. “Get it right in camera” is the purist’s view, believing that the only purpose of post-processing is to restore a faithful version of the subject. “Fix-it-post” on the other hand, holds that the shutter click is only the start of the creative process; post-processing is a valid way to create and extend the message of the original image. Adherents to the first position hold that any editing beyond the bare minimum renders an image outside the realm of photography; not worthy of a ‘serious’ photographer’s attention. The ‘Fix-in-post’ crowd looks at the “get-it-right-in-camera” crowd as creatively stunted; out-of-step with the times and the technology.

I’d like to suggest a different approach: sticking exclusively to either view suggests arrogance or laziness, possibly both, and does a disservice to both.

To be sure, there are certain things that must be taken care of in-camera. Sloppy exposure settings may be correctable in post, but then again, they may not. Failing to see, and compose to eliminate, distracting elements might be fixable in post, but then again, they may not. In any case it’s far more efficient to take care of these distractions in camera, than waste significant time in front of a computer screen trying to fix them later.

To put both approaches in context let’s take a look back at the history of photographic processes.

Back when photography meant creating images with black & white film and processing it in a chemical darkroom, many technical and artistic decisions were made well after the film was exposed. Choices of film developer, processing time and temperature among others affected image contrast and acutance (perceived sharpness). Choices of printing paper also affected image contrast and tone. Cropping an image to strengthen the visual relationships or to offer alternative interpretations was considered normal and often necessary

No less than Ansel Adams used the chemical darkroom to extensively edit his images to achieve his artistic goals. Consider a contact print, basically an unedited version of the image as captured in camera, (on the right) with a final print of “Moonrise” (on the right), one of his most recognizable images. Which do you prefer?

Which do you think adheres most closely to the photographer’s vision?

When colour photography arrived, the chemical processes used then (and now) allowed far less opportunity to edit the visual and tonal relationships than was possible in the black & white world. Photographers had to now concentrate to a far greater extent on controlling these elements as part of the initial production; carefully controlling lighting contrast and colour temperature within the comparatively more limited capabilities of colour film.

And, once colour transparency films become popular, particularly as the newer film stocks filtered down to the increasingly popular 35mm format, the game changed again. Owing to the small size of the film frame, cropping become largely frowned upon; the loss in quality was just too great for many applications. On top of that there was now a greater disconnect between the creation of an image in camera and its conversion to published image. In the past, B&W images were developed and printed either by the photographer or a trusted assistant who worked closely with the photographer to realize his or her vision for an image. The rise of 35mm transparency film changed this. In the extreme case a photographer would send the film from an entire shoot off to the client, who would take care of the processing and editing of the images. National Geographic photographers worked under this model for years, never seeing the processed images until their return to the Nat Geo offices, often months later. Even absent this approach, photographers came under increasing pressure to “get it right in camera”. The locked in nature of the film and processing left limited ability to alter colour and contrast. Since the end-product delivered to the client was the actual piece of film exposed in camera, the photographer simply had to manage contrast and colour in the field. The small size of the 35mm frame also drove a need to maximize the use of the entire frame, so cropping in camera was essential to creating maximum image quality.

Digital changes all of this. Control of contrast and colour is now to a greater extent back in hands of the photographer. As digital photographers we have a range of control over almost every aspect of these qualities with our images that simply was not possible with colour film. This control is not infinite though; failing to deal with excessive contrast or allowing unwanted distractions against a complex background will mean too much time spent trying to correct these problems in post, often with less than desirable results. Getting an image as close to perfect in camera will always provide you with a better starting point than failing to deal with technical and aesthetic deficiencies in camera and later trying to correct them in post. “Getting it right in camera” is still important. It’s just that thinking of the creative process as done at the moment of exposure is just so darned limiting!

So, how should post-processing fit on to the creative process?

On this Ansel can provide some guidance as well. Adams was a proponent of previsualizing the final image – seeing it in your mind’s eye, ideally before exposure. To be sure, this takes lots of experience and a well-developed visual sensibility. The technical process of capturing an image, shutter speed, aperture choice for example, must be second nature – requiring little conscious thought. After the moment of exposure, post processing can play a large role in moving from the merely objective to a more subjective level of image making. Ansel referred to the objective form of image making as an “External Event”, describing an approach to image making reflected in saying,

“I came, I saw, I snapped”.

This is mostly about “memory preservation”, birthdays and annual vacations for example.

Beyond this, Adams elevated image making to an “Internal Event”:

“I came, I saw, I interpreted and visualized”.

Previsualizing what you want the viewer to see in your image — what you are trying to communicate about your subject, allows you to look past what a subject merely looks like… to what it feels like; to the emotional response you want to elicit in a viewer. Image making then becomes more a process of communicating thoughts and feelings about a subject than merely recording a likeness. An approach to image making that is wholly based in the “Get it right in camera” sensibility eliminates the possibility of creatively using the tools available in post to this end.

In no way am I suggesting that creative, interpretive photography in the digital age requires the use of the tools in post-processing — far from it. Ansel Adams didn’t create iconic images of the American West simply because he was exceptionally proficient in the darkroom, he produced iconic images because he used the tools of the darkroom to realize in print, that which he had previsualized in his mind, either at the moment of exposure, or later as he worked with the image in “post”. In the same way, digital post-processing simply provides an additional set of tools to realize a photographer’s intention, her previsualized intent for an image.

A different kind of Lightroom Course…

Lightroom is merely a tool. No different than a new lens, a filter, or a studio light. Using any tool begins with understanding what you are trying to accomplish; understanding the problems that need to be fixed, choosing the appropriate tool and lastly, knowing how to use it.

In my course, “After the Click” I encourage participants to stop thinking of the tools in the Lightroom Develop module as a technical exercise carried out in rote fashion. There is a reason why you stopped to raise your camera to your eye to capture an image; something about the subject, the arrangement of visual elements or perhaps the light that stopped you in her tracks. The first step in realizing the potential in an image, is understanding what you are trying to communicate to a viewer. It’s often not so easy to define clearly for yourself what it is you are trying to say. Sometimes an image may not be about a pleasing arrangement of shape line and colour; sometimes a mood is the thing you are trying to communicate.

A few years ago, I spent several days in Pienza, a magical town at the northern edge of the Val d’Orcia region of Tuscany. Via Santa Caterina to the west of the old town forms the local evening “passeggiata” and affords spectacular views of the valley to south. The Villa and roadway in the image on the left was photographed from up here using a 300mm lens (FF equivalent). Shooting through almost a mile of late afternoon haze tends to kill off a lot of contrast, leaving the image a quite flat with excessively cool shadows.

From my vantage point above the valley, I was struck by an overwhelming sense of warmth and tranquility created by light of the approaching sunset as it swept across the land. Using the tools in Lightroom (on the right) allowed me to recreate more closely the feeling of being there than was the case with the straight out of camera image.

In the end, I’d like to suggest a different approach. Neither the “Get it Right” crowd, or the “Fix-it in Post” crowd are wrong; but neither is right either. “Get it right as possible in-camera” will always be the best starting point for creative refinement. However, being too dogmatic about it gives up the creative possibilities offered by thoughtful post processing. In the past there was no good choice other than getting it right in camera. This is no longer the case. However, relying on post to correct basic composition or exposure is at best, laziness, and lack of attention to craft. At worst, it suggests the image maker hasn’t thought about what they are trying to say… or perhaps that they have nothing to say at all.

My point in all this is simply to say that dismissing extensive but thoughtful post processing out of hand is to place limits on photographic expression that is artificial. To justify these limits by drawing a box around photography and dismissing anything outside that box prevents photography from evolving, and just as importantly ignores the history of photographic processes. I’m certain that were Ansel Adams alive today, he would be all over the possibilities of digital post processing.

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Lightroom Classic — After the Click

My online course. “After the Click, Refining Your Vision in Adobe Lightroom” is newly updated and expanded. I wrote this course partly as a response to many other courses out there which for the most part are based mostly in procedure; focusing on process… sliders and check boxes, etc. Instead, the focus has to start with vision and intention; where does the image need to go in order to realize the photographer’s artistic goals? Once that is clear in your mind, only then can you start to edit an image. Instead, we start off the course with a discussion of photographic vision and how the tools in Lightroom can be used to refine and shape this.

The most important elements of success for any image are set at the moment you click the shutter. All we can do later in post is to refine and strengthen what is already there. The visual weight relationships are a good example of something that can be successfully refined using the tools in Lightroom, so we spend time understanding visual weight and how we can influence this in post.

Written material (fully illustrated) covering ~200 pages and 4.5+ hours of video instruction. Plus, ask me anything (well, photographically at least) plus upload images for discussion.

More information at www.bpsop.com/after-the-click

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Wait for the Trigger

This is such a simple concept, and yet it’s so often overlooked by photographers.

I’ve been re-reading Jay Maisel’s “It’s Not About the F-Stop”. Among so many jewels of wisdom contained there, this one stood out: “Wait for the Trigger”. How often do we encounter a lovely scene, point our camera at it and press the shutter? How often is the result a lovely, well-composed background without anything significant going on? I see this often in my classes and workshops, particularly so in travel images. How many pictures of the Eiffel Tower have you seen that look remarkably alike?

The question to ask yourself is, “Why this image – why right now?” What makes it unique? What makes it “my image”? Jay’s point is that every image needs a “trigger”, a reason to make that image at that exact moment. Without it he points out, “your picture can become wallpaper”.

The image above is from the Jardin de Marqueyssac, above the Dordogne River in Southern France. Compare this to the “postcard shot” below.

I wasn’t happy with this rendition; it needed something more, something to make it unique. Fortunately, it had been raining earlier in the afternoon and a little patience soon paid off when a few minutes later a lady walked into my frame holding a red umbrella. That was the trigger. Click… got it

In Iceland, Skógafoss is a popular stop along the southern ring road. Here again some patience was all that was needed to allow most of the tourists to clear from my field of view, leaving a lone figure in red to provide the trigger, along with scale, visual interest and balance to the composition. It’s also a nice counter point to the cool greens and bluish tones that dominate the rest of the image.

View of Outdoor restaurant in St. Mark’s Square, Venice Italy

Another trip, a different time. From the top of the Campanile in Venice’s Piazza San Marco, I was taken by the pattern of tables at one of the restaurants in the Piazza below. While the pattern was interesting, it also needed something to provide the trigger. At that time of day, the restaurant was just setting up for the evening rush and not much was going on other than a few waiters milling around the tables. I watched this for a while shooting the odd exposure with different combinations of waiters and other people. Nothing was really working, until all but one waiter left the scene leaving the remaining fellow to strike a pose. That was the trigger. Click… got it! Time for dinner.

Sunrise on Kauai. I watched this group of people at the top of the cliff as the sun rose over the horizon. Amidst all the selfies over the next 10 minutes nothing stood out visually. Nothing provided the trigger… until one brave fellow ventured near the edge of the cliff.

The trigger isn’t always related to a specific moment (let alone, to the presence of a human figure). I love the patterns on Hosta leaves, and we have several growing in containers on our patio. As lovely as they are, after a while you begin looking for something different, something unique to difference your next image from all the others. The lone water droplet clinging to this leaf was the trigger, breaking the symmetry of the pattern on this leaf and providing a unique centre of interest.

The Trigger often provides a centre of interest by breaking a pattern, introducing an unexpected element, or providing contrast in colour or tone. Sometimes, it arrives just in time to complete a composition.

The image above is from Chania, on the island of Crete. Without the lone figure walking into the frame on the left, the image doesn’t work. It also wouldn’t work if the individual wasn’t wearing the white hat. The figure balances the composition and completes a triangle with the tops of the lamp, the distant lighthouse, the white hat and the base of the lamp. The white hat adds visual weight to the left side, allowing it to successfully compete for the viewer’s attention with the other elements in the image. The triangle is important to the success of the image because creates a visual path to move the viewer’s eye through the frame. Finding ways to move the viewer’s eye through your frame helps to hold the viewer’s attention and prevent visual boredom.

Jay’s idea of “waiting for the trigger” is really a variation of Sam Abell’s idea of finding an interesting background and waiting for something interesting to happen in front of it. (yes, I know – I’m a terrible name-dropper!) This often requires patience, but just as often requires thinking about what needs to happen in your image to create the trigger and make the image uniquely your own.

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Simplify …

Creating strong images is often more about what you choose to exclude from your compositions than what you include. Extraneous objects, distracting bright spots, or other visual detritus rarely add anything to what you are trying to say visually. All elements of your images possess “visual weight”: that tendency for each element to grab and hold your attention. Different elements possess different amounts of visual weight, forming a sort hierarchy of things that grab your attention. Successful images minimize the visual weight of elements in your images that are not part of what you are trying to say photographically allowing those important elements to grab and hold your viewer’s attention. If an element in your image adds nothing to your visual message, it automatically takes away from it. Simplifying your compositions is one of the easiest ways to minimize the visual weight of distractions and strengthen the impact of your images.

A classic example of extraneous objects diluting your compositions is the “tree growing from someone’s head in a group portrait” scenario. Solving this, and other similar problems in composition is simply about being aware of your background and finding a point-of-view that eliminates or at least minimizes the impact of these distracting elements. Solving these problems boils down to recognizing those elements that are important to your visual message and eliminating those that are not.

Begin by identifying what you are trying to say: what you are trying to show the viewer, or what you are trying to make them feel about your subject. This is harder than it sounds, since often your “subject” is not a “thing”; it can also be a mood, a concept, a colour or shape, or the relationships among these.

I came across the image above along the backroads of Tuscany, while scouting for one of my workshops. For me, this wasn’t a landscape so much as it was about the line of the hill punctuated by a row of cypress trees, and the complementary colours of the blue sky and the red clay typical of the Crete Senesi. It was just those elements that were important to me, nothing else; not the winding road just out of frame or the green grass along the ridge of the hill. In a bygone era when we shot film, I would have chosen a high saturation film like Fuji Velvia or Kodak E100SW and underexposed this scene to drop the lower shadow values to near black and saturate the remaining colours. In the digital world it’s better practice to expose for good shadow detail (while being careful not to blow the highlights!) and then drop the shadow detail out in post…. a very simple adjustment in Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw. The result is just what I saw in my mind’s eye when I peered through the viewfinder.

The image below is another example of the same concept. This image is not for me a picture of the clock tower in this Italian town, rather it’s about line, shape and colour. Dropping the shadow values here allowed me to remove the distracting detail in the sides of the buildings below the clock tower, leaving strong lines to support the tower against the blue Tuscan sky.

When you can’t eliminate distracting elements by changing your point of view or creative use of exposure, you can at times reduce their impact through selective focus techniques (using longer focal length lenses and/or wider apertures to limit depth-of-field) or perhaps even shooting through something to obscure the distracting elements. In the image below, shooting through some foliage in my backyard and using a macro lens wide-open at f/2.8 eliminated the distractions of tree branches and garden tools in the background.

To quote Jay Maisel, “You are responsible for every square millimeter of what is in your viewfinder”. Understanding what is important to your visual message and eliminating everything that doesn’t add to this will result in simpler more impactful images.

Join me in my class, “After the Clickrefining your vision in Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw” at www.BPSOP.com to discover how to identify the visual weight relationships in your images and how to refine these in post to clarify your visual message.

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The Importance of Patience

“Sometimes things aren’t clear right away. That’s where you need to be patient and persevere and see where things lead.” — Mary Pierce

“Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.” — Samuel Johnson

These quotes, the first by a 20th century French-American Tennis player, the second by an 18th century British writer, are both relevant to creating great images in the 21st (or any) century. We live in a fast-paced world that demands instant gratification and waits for no one. Allow this mind-set to seep into your image-making and you might end up with images that are less than they might have been.The importance of studied patience in your photography can’t be overstated. It’s rare to arrive at location, find an ideal subject and create the best image possible in the opening seconds. Situations around your subject develop and change, the light changes, your subject changes, even your thoughts about the image you are trying to create change. Unlike the studio, nothing in the field is under your control; if conditions aren’t right, you have to wait… or plan to return another day. Even when the conditions are perfect: perfect light, perfect background, working your subject is essential to finding that elusive moment where it all comes together. To paraphrase Jay Maisel, that moment where “Light, Colour and Gesture” come together to create that one great instant for you to capture.National Geographic photographer Sam Abell relates that when he finds and interesting background he will often set up and wait, sometimes for hours, for something interesting to happen in front of this background. (Backgrounds are almost more important than the main subject in a successful image)

This image didn’t require hours, but it did need about 45 minutes, plus a 1/125th of a second to create. I was instantly intrigued by the contrast of the warm interior tones and the blue of the signage and awning in this store in Aix-en-Provence. But it was just another storefront; it needed something more to bring it together and complete the story. Over the course of those 45 minutes I hung out across the street, watched as customers came and went, as people hurried by… and waited. In the fading twilight I had nearly given up when the storekeeper emerged from the store in her blue apron, with a large watering can and began watering the plants displayed on the street. That was the moment I had been waiting for, even though I hadn’t anticipated it at the outset.

Sometimes the action in front of you is unpredictable and is happening so fast that you can’t be sure you have the best image possible in any single frame. Back in the film days, we recognized this implicitly and since we couldn’t instantly review our images we shot lots and lots of frames, “just to be sure”. In the digital age we can instantly review each frame, leading to what NatGeo photographer Cary Wolinsky calls the, “I got it” syndrome. Your camera LCD is a woefully inadequate device with which to analyze your compositions, making decisions to pack up and move on it alone dicey at best. Furthermore, “How do you know you have captured the peak moment anyway?” Situations will always continue to develop and change after you pack up and move on. The image above is one out of more than 150 frames shot over a half hour sitting on the shore of the Na Pali coast of Kauai. Perched on some rocks, remote release in hand, I knocked off frame after frame trying for that instant when one wave reflected off the rocks and ran smack into the next oncoming roller creating enormous eruptions of water. This is the only frame where this happened.

Particularly where people are the subject, fleeting moments that really make a composition are exactly that: fleeting. Even when you think you’ve “nailed it”, it pays to stay on the subject, vigilant and ready.The image above on the left, was made from a comfortable seat in a café on the Placa in Dubrovnik. Sitting with a glass of Prosecco, watching people and the flow of life around us, camera in hand. The sun was low in the sky, and a portion of the square where I was sitting and where people were walking by was in shade, while the far wall was still lit by the late afternoon sun. Over the course of a half hour or so, I shot many frames, none of which were working… and then these two girls stepped into the picture, for just a second one of them raised her smart phone, snapped a picture and moved on.The image on the right was shot from the top of the campanile in Venice’s St Mark’s Square. I had been shooting the pattern of tables in the café below. Something was missing. I needed something to add the exclamation mark in the pattern, to complete the composition. Waiters were moving in and out of the frame as I shot this, but nothing really came together until the one solitary waiter walked out among the tables, struck a pose, and moved on all within about 10 seconds. I think the image was worth the grief I took from my family for being late for dinner that night — sometimes we have to suffer for our art.

Sunrise, 10,000 feet abouve the Pacific Ocean

Sometimes as well, we have an image in our head but it’s success depends entirely on conditions beyond our control. If you really want this image badly enough, you have to be prepared to persevere and return until those conditions present themselves. This fisheye view of the sun rising above the caldera atop Haleakala on Maui took three visits over five years for the weather to cooperate and produce the image I had in my mind. I know I won’t garner much sympathy for having to return to Maui multiple times…. but there you go.So when you are out shooting, don’t settle for the first frame, work your subjects, find those fleeting moments, keep coming back until you get the image you are after.