Bacon Lettuce Photo

by Joe

The image is part of a series called watch. Sometimes you get a vague suspicion that you’re being observed, and I was/am trying to relay that feeling with this series. It’s not particularly strong on its own this way, but I’m planning to have the rest of the series finished sometime this summer.

As for the technical aspects, it was fairly quick and dirty. I used 2 Nikon SB800 speedlights triggered via CLS. One was set on the ground behind the crate and aimed through the handles to cast the shadows. It was set to 1/4 and had a florescent gel on it. The second light was fired into a wall at camera left about chest level at [I think] 1/64 power and had an amber gel. I used a Nikon D300 and 28mm f2.8 prime - the exposure was 1/250th at f8 to kill ambient light and provide the depth of field I wanted. Also, shot in 14-bit to retain better colour tonality and shadow detail.
For processing, I did minor curves and white-balance adjustments in Adobe Lightroom 2, exported as a 16-bit TIFF. Then, some selective dodging to the tv and legs, and colour balance adjustments in Photoshop CS3.

Lighting, whether natural or artificial, is the most important element of photography. Lighting can create the mood and add an element of emotion to your images. This is a perfect image to display the eerie feeling created by just adding some lighting.

Make sure to check out Levi’s blog to see what else he’s up to. Also his awesome Royksopp post.

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by Joe

This place is located by Lake Biwa (the biggest lake in Japan), it is a kind of theme park whose motif is the scene of the village landscape of Netherlands. I was lucky enough to visit this fantastic place just when the tulips were in full bloom and on such a sunny day.
I took this by GR Digital, the point and shoot camera. One of the great points of this compact camera is the expression of lucidness of the blue sky. I think GRD succeeds to render the subtle blue in this photo.
This composition is so natural for me. Trying to capture the whole shape of the windmill and tulips, I set the camera on the ground and cast up. Accordingly, this photo gets the effect of “how ants see the world”.
And I did post processing via Adobe Lightroom. I modified color temperture a bit and lifted chroma saturation up in a way. No cropping. During the post processing, I just paid attention to keep the image that I had felt when I took, the smell of the ground, the warmth of the air, the ray of the sun shining on the flowers, etc.

This is such a great shot! Composition is fantastic, perspective is incredible, and the colors. WOW! The contrast of the blue sky against the pink tulips. Not to mention the magnificent structure and the forced perspective which makes the tulips look just as grand and massive as the windmill.

Here are some specs on the image:
Shutter: 1/1250
Aperture: f/3.2
ISO: 64

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by Joe

For me, photography is about a moment. I love landscape photography for its unpredictable nature. You can go to the same place again and again and always get different results. Sometimes you get a great scene and don’t capture it the way you wanted. Other times, everything comes together just perfectly. On this particular morning, I awoke, stuck my head out and looked at the still dark sky…clear sky…the enemy of the landscape photographer. I almost gave up and returned to bed, but I thought I should go and enjoy the sunrise anyway.

The clouds did come in a little later as I was driving to the jetty. I shot a few just as the sun was rising, but they didn’t have what I was after. Having the sun in the frame it was also very hard to get a good balanced exposure. This shot was a very conscious decision to extend the exposure time using a 10 stop B+W neutral density filter and a ND grad to balance out the sky. The sun is not far out of the frame to the right. For me this filter is worth every cent. It allowed me to get a 30 second exposure at ISO 100 with the sun well and truly up in the sky. So I managed to get this ultra long exposure for the time of day when I would have normally been getting exposures of a fraction of a second.

For me this was a great day, a reminder always to try some different things, and not take the conditions at face value. Having the filter, the tripod, the grads, the mirror lock up, the cable release, all seem like a chore initially, but after a while it is simple and quick, and the results are well worth it. I used to blend two exposures to get foreground and sky well exposed, but that is impossible to get right if you are doing ultra long exposures with clouds around water as the two won’t match with the clouds moving. My advice is to buy what you can afford and slowly build up your equipment as you can, and experiment often. If you feel like going back to bed…don’t do it…you need to be out there and practicing to get better!

Exposure: 30 seconds

f-stop: f11.0

Focal Length: 24mm

ISO: 100

Camera: Canon 5d

Lens: EF 24-105L

Editing: Lightroom 1.0

Andrew is a photographer from Perth, Australia

by Joe

It was a nice and sunny morning and while having a walk, I found this beautiful calendula against a bush…. both were facing direct sunlight (from the backside… facing my camera)! The bush with its numerous porous leafy surface instantly meant an excellent bokeh backdrop…. and I did just that! The rest was Lightroom….

Aviral’s photography is a great example of how one can use aperture and depth of field to make a beautiful image.

by Joe

This photo was taken on the day before I left the island of Boracay in the Philippines. The sunsets there are said to be one of the most beautiful and I can only confirm that. The sky was so clear and colorful that I decided to include it as the main subject in the photo. What I also like about it are the typical sail boats of Boracay that create a stunning silhouette.

Details: Nikon D40, f/3.5, ISO 200, focal length 18mm,
contrast enhanced in Adobe Lightroom 2

Marin Tomic is a 21 year old student from Austria/Croatia.

Notice how he used the strong back light to create a strong silhouette of the image? Try it next time you go out to take photos, but try not to burn your retina