Beyond Megapixels

Book reviewers needed….

vernons — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:58:00 +0000

BeyondMegapixels each month gets a bunch of books to review and I normally have to turn away publishers due to resource issues or simply not having enough time to complete the review. So I have decided that if readers on our site are interested in reviewing and writing book reviews then this is a win win for both of us. Doing these book reviews will hopefully generate a little bit more of a community feel to the site.

If you become a book reviewer you get to keep the book for free, postage and packing is also free. If you have a blog we will also include a link to your blog in the review.

Below is what we expect from a book review:

1. Honest book review.

2. Reasonable length reviews 300-400 words.

3. 3 weeks to finish the book review and submit the review to us.

4. Reviews must be unique and only posted on BeyondMegapixels

If you would like to become a reviewer, please use the contact us form to register your interest.

Note: BeyondMegapixels doesn’t charge a fee to publishers for reviewing books. We don’t ship books to countries outside of the US.

Also if you have written a book that you would like reviewed on our site, please use the contact us form to schedule a book review with us.

Thanks!

Picture courtesy of lulubookreview

Portfolio Tips

Laura Charon — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:19:07 +0000

The possession of a portfolio is an integral part of selling your photographs – whether you are selling your own prints, or selling your skills as a photographer. Creating a collection of the work that you are the most proud of establishes your skills in a visual way that will draw potential clients and customers.

Start by determining which of your shots you consider to be the best. If you are specializing in a specific kind of photography (portraits, weddings, landscapes, flowers, etc.), choose a selection of photos of that type, but choose a variety of compositions – black and white, macro, wide angle, perspective variations, and the like.

If you are not specializing, choose from a variety of subjects – people, landscape, architecture, etc. As a personal challenge, try to re-create the type of shots that are attracting the most attention in the market these days. Look at the work of other professional photographers, such as portraitists, wedding photographers, food photographers, landscape and wildlife photographers. Review trade magazines such as architecture, home and garden, photography, and design. Get ideas from these sources in order to expand upon the types of work present in your portfolio.

It helps for the file size of the digital photographs to be as large as your camera allows, in order to maintain the detail of the image when the photo is printed out in large sizes. Also, keep in mind, if you are uploading to certain photo sharing websites, sometimes the upload programs have an automatic setting to re-size the photos to make uploading faster. Make sure you turn this option OFF (I found this out the hard way on Flickr – YEARS of photo uploads, resized to a smaller size than the originals, and I no longer had the originals of many of my photos saved anywhere else).

Next, develop a signature that you can add to your photographs – it helps to maintain the copyright of your work, and also adds a little extra advertising for people to see your signature when your work is hanging in a home or business! I have written a tutorial for how to add a signature to your photograph using Photoshop CS3, it can be found here. Add your signature to each photo in your portfolio.

Showcase your portfolio in two ways – on-line, and printed. If you have a website, post your portfolio pictures in their own section of the website. If you use a photo sharing site (Flickr, Shutterfly, Photobucket, etc.), have a separate folder or group for your portfolio pictures. In this way you can direct people to your portfolio’s URL for quick and easy access to examples of your work.

Print a copy of each of your portfolio photos in 8×10 format, then put them in a professional looking binder or album. Often times photos look different on-line versus in printed format, so it’s important to have both versions available to show perspective clients and customers. Plus, in this digital age, it’s kind of nice to have physical prints that you can hold in your hands. Other things to include in the physical portfolio are a title list of the images (with perhaps some interesting back-story to go along with them), and a thumbnail page which provides an overview of all of the images in the portfolio.

Consider providing examples of your post-processing expertise. “Before” and “after” shots demonstrate that you have the ability to make good shots better, and that you know how to remove slight flaws (blemishes, red-eye, clutter). It is important to retain the positive aspects of the shot without making it look over-edited.

Some photographers find the prospect of assembling a portfolio of their work to be a bit intimidating. I hope that these tips have helped you to take the next step toward developing your own portfolio. Be proud of your skills and of your work, and don’t be afraid to show it!

Photo Credits: All of the photos used in this entry came from my own portfolio. In order of appearance:

Back-Lit Seuss
Oregon Rose Garden
Twilight
Chilies

Inspiring Emotion – Technical or Talent?

Laura Charon — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:27:16 +0000

Every bit of the knowledge that I have about photography and post-processing is self-taught. I learned by reading, by watching, by doing, by trying, by failing, and by trying again. I’ve often wondered about how much my photography might be improved if I pursued a formal education in the subject. Would my photography actually be better, or would I just learn what I need to know faster than I would if I continued on the self-taught route?

How much is innate talent, and how much is knowledge and education? Surely it’s a combination of both. How do you explain art? How do you define ability? Can the emotion that is created when viewing a photograph be defined in technical terms? It’s these kinds of ponderances that keep me up at night!

I do absolutely know that I learn more by teaching and explaining to others. In order to explain a technique, or a “rule”, or a method, I am required to have at least a working understanding of it. This is one of the (many) reasons why I’m grateful to be writing for Beyond Megapixels – it has provided me with the opportunity to learn and grow as a photographer, myself.

It is a challenge to meld the technical and artistic aspects of photography. For instance, there is a technical reason “why” this photograph is visually appealing:

Sure, we can talk about balance and color and the rule of thirds; the aperture and shutter speed; the possible post-processing techniques used to achieve this shot. But mostly I just like to sit and gaze at it, and let the emotion that it inspires in me to blossom. When I look at this photograph, I don’t see “rules”, I feel peaceful, and a little homesick.

That, in the end, is what I hope to achieve with my photography. I want to inspire emotion, not analysis. Circling back to the original intent of this article, can one learn to inspire, and to draw forth feelings and reactions with their pictures? Or is it a talent that you either possess, or don’t possess?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject. For those of you with formal education in photography, how did learning the technical aspects of “why” and “how” help to better create emotion in your photography? For those of you who are self-taught, such as myself, are you concerned that there is some “secret” that you’re not aware of, that’s keeping you from achieving the “next level” in your photography?

Let’s get the discussion started! Leave your thoughts in the comments and let’s all help one another toward a better understanding of this passion that we share.

Photo Credit: “Flashback” by Richard O on Flickr Creative Commons.

On-Line Photography Collaborations

Laura Charon — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:00:47 +0000

Participate in one (or all!) of the following on-line photography collaborations, open to all!

- Shutter Sisters hosts a Flickr pool where participants submit their favorite shots. One photo per day is selected to be featured on the daily click. They also sponsor The One Word Project, where participants submit their interpretation of the “word of the month”. Check out picture hope and one sweet shot as well – Shutter Sisters is all about sharing your great photographic creations!

- Digital Photography Assignments are provided by the Digital Photography School. Post your response to their weekly photography assignment – one “winner” is featured each week on their main page. Registration (free) is required to participate. Check out their forums for Critique My Shot, How I Took It, and Share Your Shots as well!

- There is a Flickr Group for just about every subject under the sun. Join a group based on your home town, state, or country. Like taking pictures of architecture? There’s a group for that! Like taking pictures of sunsets? There’s a group for that! Like taking pictures of pets wearing costumes? There’s a group for that too! Share and collaborate with other enthusiastic photographers, and make your photos visible to hundreds, if not thousands, of people.

Photo Credits (in order of appearance):
- “Snow Geese at Bosque del Apache” by Howard Ignatiuson Flickr Creative Commons.
- “Ocean Swirl” by The Tahoe Guyon Flickr Creative Commons.
- “Casa Batllo #6″ by Tobias Mandton Flickr Creative Commons.

Share Your Photos

Laura Charon — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:01:56 +0000

This is one of my own photographs that I am the most proud of, at the moment:

This is a picture of the Lower Falls at Yellowstone National Park, where my husband and I vacationed last summer. I feel that the photo is composed well, gives a nice perspective with the teeny, tiny people standing on the lookout point to the right, and it’s tack-sharp all the way through the size spectrum. So, I’m pretty proud of it!

I would love for our readers here at Beyond Megapixels to share one photograph that you are currently the most proud of, and why you’re proud of it. Please submit your contributions in the comments, and next week I will feature three randomly selected contributions for an entry on this site.

I look forward to seeing your prized photos!

Creating a Photo Montage

Laura Charon — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:20:49 +0000

Recently I was invited to join the F.O.A.M. group on Flickr. F.O.A.M. stands for:

Food
Outside
Abstract
Myself

Participants in the group take daily photos of food, outside, an abstract shot, and a shot of themselves, then arrange the shots into a montage (a term often used interchangeably with “collage” and “mosaic”, but they’re really all quite different) and post to the Flickr group. Something like this:

Now, this montage was created very easily, using the free Mosaic Maker tool provided by Big Huge Labs. It’s a very fun site and gives you the opportunity to get creative with your photos. However, the resulting file quality is sometimes lower than what you would like if you were doing something special with your images.

It’s almost as simple, thought somewhat more time consuming, to create this type of a montage in Photoshop CS3. The hardest part is getting the alignment right, whereby the images used in the montage are all sized identically, and the spacing between and around all of the images is identical.

Start with four photos that are identically sized (you can resize a photo by cropping, or by going to the Image menu and choosing Image Size). Open a new canvas in Photoshop, and make sure it’s large enough to fit all of your montage photos (you can adjust the canvas size by going to the Image menu and choosing Canvas Size). Set the background color of the new canvas, which will become the background color of the montage.

Next, copy each photo (Select/All/Ctrl-C or right click-copy) and paste it into the montage canvas (Ctrl-V or right click-paste). As you paste each new photo, a new layer is created. As you move each photo into its grid arrangement, lines will appear in the screen to help “snap” each photo horizontally and vertically into alignment.

Another way to align the photos in the montage is to select all of the layers (except the background layer) by holding down the shift key and clicking on each layer in the Layer Palette. Then go to the Layer menu and select Align. You can then align the photos according to their edges or their centers, horizontally or vertically.

When you have the photos arranged to your liking, flatten the image, then crop any excess background color that may exist around the edges.

For Jocelyn

Laura Charon — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:50:08 +0000

My very good friend Jocelyn has been diagnosed with breast cancer. A local restaurant hosted a benefit party for her on Tuesday night, and I provided the photography. I thought I would share some of my favorite shots with you.

I think more than anything else, I enjoy photographing parties. I love getting candid shots as often as I can, capturing moments and emotion when people aren’t posing and smiling for the camera.

For this occasion I used my 50mm f/1.4, since the setting was dim, and I just really hate using a pop-up flash (my next purchase is going to be a Canon Speedlite 580EX II Flash). Some of the shots didn’t come out tack-sharp, though I was able to make some improvements with Photoshop. It really is a skill that I am constantly practicing, getting clear shots of candid moments where nothing is staged, nothing is posed, nothing is arranged, and you only have a moment to act quickly and capture the shot.

Sometimes, it isn’t about perfection. Sometimes, it’s about the memories, the hope, and the love.

Exposure: 0.125 sec (1/8), Aperture: f/1.4, Focal Length: 50 mm, ISO Speed: 800

Exposure: 0.033 sec (1/30), Aperture: f/1.4, Focal Length: 50 mm, ISO Speed: 800

Exposure: 0.025 sec (1/40), Aperture: f/1.4, Focal Length: 50 mm, ISO Speed: 800

Exposure: 0.02 sec (1/50), Aperture: f/1.4, Focal Length: 50 mm, ISO Speed: 800

Exposure: 0.05 sec (1/20), Aperture: f/1.4, Focal Length: 50 mm, ISO Speed: 800

Exposure: 0.04 sec (1/25), Aperture: f/1.4, Focal Length: 50 mm, ISO Speed: 800

Exposure: 0.02 sec (1/50), Aperture: f/1.4, Focal Length: 50 mm, ISO Speed: 800

Exposure: 0.033 sec (1/30), Aperture: f/1.4, Focal Length: 50 mm, ISO Speed: 800

Photo Credits (all): Laura Charon.

Home

Laura Charon — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:32:23 +0000

The Portland Head Light, Cape Elizabeth, Maine.

Photo Credit: Laura Charon

A Wordless Wednesday contribution.

Photographing Infants – An Update

Laura Charon — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:17:38 +0000

Regular readers of Beyond Megapixels may recall my request for advice a couple of months ago, about how to photograph an infant.

Well, last week baby Oliver was born, and last weekend I visited him and his parents and his big brother at their home. I brought my gear with me, and with the help of Oliver’s parents, we got an impromptu studio set up.

Here are a few things I learned while photographing the baby:

1. At four days old, the best pictures were taken while Oliver was dozing. When such young babies are awake, they’re generally hungry or in need of a diaper change, which equates to grumpy faces being made at the camera.

2. Such young babies cannot be posed, they can only be placed. The photographer must work according to the baby’s whims, with the shots that we have in mind being secondary.

3. The 50mm f/1.4 worked very well in low light, so we didn’t have to disturb the baby very much with light sources. However, I’m still getting used to it – on auto-focus, the lens tended to focus on the parts of the image that it wanted to focus on, which didn’t necessarily jive with what I wanted it to focus on.

4. Bouncing the light source (a single bulb in a clamp-on fixture) off of the white ceiling, and off of a white screen affixed to one of the walls, worked really well to achieve the soft sort of indirect lighting we wanted for the photographs. Also, necessity is the mother of invention – in a couple of cases, we bounced the light off of an empty white pizza box.

5. A soft black fleece blanket is an invaluable tool. We laid the baby on it, and held the edges in various positions, to give the images the black background we were looking for. I might just buy one of those for my own use, I can think of a million scenarios where it would come in handy.

6. A boppy pillow is also an invaluable tool. Newborn babies are rather boneless and need lots of support – laying the fleece blanket over the boppy pillow provided just the support the baby needed for the photographs. We utilized the parents’ ottoman, which we could easily move around the room and light sources as needed for the individual shots.

7. One shot that we wanted that was too hard to achieve was of the baby laying across daddy’s forearm, on his stomach, head supported by daddy’s hand. The baby ended up looking uncomfortable – I think when the baby can support his own body and control his own limbs better, the shot will be possible.

8. An hour is the upper limit for a newborn’s patience for a photo shoot, even when taking several, well, we’ll call them “coffee breaks”. I’m thinking that several sessions spread over a couple of weeks, at a half-hour at a time, would be optimum. I plan on going back in a couple of weeks to take more photos, and it will be a delight to see how much the little one has changed, even over such a short period of time.

All in all, I took many pictures and came away with a handful that I felt were satisfactory. As a first attempt at infant photography, I have mixed feelings about my success. As a photographer, I want every single shot that I compose to come out perfectly. As a realist, I understand that it takes a hundred photos, sometimes, to come away with one great shot. No matter how many years we’ve been working on our passion, practice, patience, and perseverance will always be necessary!

My sincere thanks to everyone who left their helpful comments in the original post. I put them to very good use and really appreciate the advice!

Photo Credits (all): Laura Charon.

Examples of Great Composition

Laura Charon — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:00:52 +0000

Hello friends, I’d like to start a discussion on photo composition. Sometimes it’s easy to define why a photo does or does not have great composition – sometimes it’s hard to define. There are a lot of great “rules” out there to keep in mind when composing a shot – balance, rule of thirds, avoiding mergers, framing, simplicity, perspective, etc. Developing an intuitive eye for composition takes a lot of time, and practice practice practice.

I will expound upon individual composition “rules” in future entries. For now I thought I’d provide some great examples of composition, from my perusal of Flickr Creative Commons.

(Also, in a blatant bid for sympathy, I have the flu and my medicated brain isn’t up for coherent explanations right now!)

A great, almost literal, use of the concept of "framing".

Nice use of the horizon line - 1/3 up the frame instead of centered. 2/3 up the frame works well when the focus is on the ground, too.

Lovely and simple, with great balance.

Another lovely example of simplicity, with great application of the "rule of thirds".

A very cool use of balance, framing, simplicity, AND perspective.

Please feel free to share your own examples of great composition in the comments!

Photo Credits (in order of appearance):
- “Outside the frame” by Hamed Masoumi on Flickr Creative Commons.
- “And the road goes on and on” by Eugeni Dodonov on Flickr Creative Commons.
- “My Breath of Joy” by Vincepal on Flickr Creative Commons.
- “Rose Bud” by Abhijit Tembhekar on Flickr Creative Commons.
- “Tiree Perspective” by MacJewell on Flickr Creative Commons.