http://www.batsonphotography.com/blog/index.htmlCurrent Updateensteve@batsonphotography.comCopyright 2010 Steve Batson2010-10-26T13:52:18-07:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 Tue, 29 Jun 2010 18:54:55 -0700steve@batsonphotography.comNone2010-10-26T13:52:18-07:00http://www.batsonphotography.com/blog/files/c4632f799fd1ca2b85ab859cffff8adb-10.html#unique-entry-id-10http://www.batsonphotography.com/blog/files/c4632f799fd1ca2b85ab859cffff8adb-10.html#unique-entry-id-10
The following honeycomb or wasps nest was on the fence in my backyard. i could have just taken a picture of it, but that seemed boring to me. So, I zoomed in really close and then cropped even more before uploading the picture. I’ve made a commitment to myself to shoot one of these a day from now on unless I’m physically incapable for some reason and must miss a day or more. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. You can use any camera and spend only a few minutes. But make the minutes count and do something different than you normally do. Just don’t do a snapshot.

Here’s one of my “Photo of the Day” images. If you want to see more or follow my work, I’ve setup a separate blog to post them on at:

http://batsonphotoaday.blogspot.com

Enjoy!


]]>steve@batsonphotography.comNone2010-10-19T16:10:56-07:00http://www.batsonphotography.com/blog/files/6e319488d4537fa9f3e75c60060b23dc-9.html#unique-entry-id-9http://www.batsonphotography.com/blog/files/6e319488d4537fa9f3e75c60060b23dc-9.html#unique-entry-id-9
Holidays are a great time to take nice photos that you can not only use to decorate your home, but they also make great opportunities to take nice family portraits. Don’t miss the many opportunities as we head into the Holiday Season!!!


]]>steve@batsonphotography.comNone2010-10-02T10:07:41-07:00http://www.batsonphotography.com/blog/files/9e41630442273bb615ec5a126fa51e27-8.html#unique-entry-id-8http://www.batsonphotography.com/blog/files/9e41630442273bb615ec5a126fa51e27-8.html#unique-entry-id-8



I don’t like rigid or canned posing styles. I like my subjects to be comfortable, so I usually want to see what ideas they may have, suggest some ideas of my own, and then let them naturally fall into a pose with minimal guidance. This usually looks more natural because subject is more likely to be at ease rather than worrying about holding every part in place. They are essentially being themselves. ]]>steve@batsonphotography.comNone2010-09-03T14:02:47-07:00http://www.batsonphotography.com/blog/files/6ae26e7bff8e8aa83209ebc422ad8b40-7.html#unique-entry-id-7http://www.batsonphotography.com/blog/files/6ae26e7bff8e8aa83209ebc422ad8b40-7.html#unique-entry-id-7


- Lighting is VERY important. While it’s not always possible to get to the outdoor location you want to photograph at the ideal time, if you can plan to be somewhere at a certain time of day, it’s best. Even better, if you can scout out the location ahead of time and find out when the sun hits certain parts of the scene at different times of day, that can help you determine when to arrive. There’s no absolutes, but in many situations, you will find it best to do morning or late afternoon shots so the sun is lower in the sky. When the sun is high over head, it is often too bright and can make it very hard to get nice blue sky without everything else in the scene going dark. You want enough light to light up the scene but not enough to blow out the color in the sky and make it look white. You will have some control over this with SLR cameras or camera’s that give you a lot of manual setting (assuming you are familiar with settings), but if you like to shoot in automatic with the camera, you will most likely have much better luck choosing a time where the sun is low in the sky. Sunrise and Sunset are obviously great times when you get all the nice orange and red tones, especially with some clouds thrown in, but those settings may require a tripod and control over the camera settings as well.

- Focus - Generally, with an outdoor shot, you will want everything in focus. If you are using a point and shoot camera, or have your camera in Landscape mode or fully automatic, you will usually get everything in focus. With SLRs and camera’s with a lot of control, you may need to set them in such a way that everything will be in focus or acceptably sharp. Again, Point and Shoot cameras will most likely do this. You can set your camera to Landscape mode if it has it. On an SLR, you may want to set the camera to Aperture Priority Mode and set the fstop setting to as high a number is possible, such as f22. Word of caution though, when you set to high fstop settings, the aperture is closed up quite a bit letting much less light in and the camera will need a slower shutter speed to get a good exposure. If there’s a lot of light, you may be ok. If you want to experiment, you go on the web and read about the “Hyperfocal” setting, this allows you to get most everything from near to far in focus depending on the settings where normally close up objects might have been a little out of focus. Hyperfocal is not a setting in the camera, but a way you must set it up and focus, so you will need to do some reading and experimenting since I won’t be going into it here. The photo above was shot using the hyperfocal technique.

- Rich Colors (or tones in black and white) - Exposure will be very important, but also Color Temperature. For Film, Daylight balanced film which is most common and probably what you are using. For Digital either set the white balance to Auto or Daylight, or you can use custom white balance, but you will need to research that and read up on it in your camera’s manual. That may be a topic for a future blog post. I’d also recommend ISO 100, but no higher than 400. The higher the ISO, the more grain or noise you will have in your photo. That may or may not look good in a print, especially if you enlarge it. On the computer, you may want to adjust the brightness, contrast, and saturation to get a nice, crisp, colorful picture, or nice tones and contrast in black and white. With film, and even digital, you can give instructions to some labs to adjust for nice, crisp color. The proper post processing may be required to really get the image you want, and the local retail chain store or club’s technicians may not be up the task and the machines auto settings may or may not give you the print you are looking for.

Hopefully, some of this has been helpful. Next time, I may venture into Custom White Balance which helps get accurate color on your digital camera.

]]>steve@batsonphotography.comNone2010-07-13T16:16:55-07:00http://www.batsonphotography.com/blog/files/9ecf33fd4da8c07149bb02c725fcd264-6.html#unique-entry-id-6http://www.batsonphotography.com/blog/files/9ecf33fd4da8c07149bb02c725fcd264-6.html#unique-entry-id-6
1) The better quality photo you have, the better the print results will be. Lots of movement, overexposed or underexposed images can reduce print quality.
2) During editing with photoshop or other decent photo editor, if you can resize the image to 300dpi, you may get better print results, but you can certainly get your photo lab to print your images where they may not have before.
3) Excessive cropping will dramatically reduce your image and print quality as will excessive editing operations.
4) Avoid multiple saves of JPEG files as well as emailing your phone images to yourself so you can get the image on your computer to print later. Most of the phones will automatically size down the resolution of the file when emailing it. While it may still look great on your computer, the print results will more than likely be less then desirable.

There’s many other things you can do to insure best quality prints, but these are some of the biggies. If you use care when taking your photos and use these tips, you should get best prints possible from the images you provide the lab. There’s no guarantees and your camera it’s lens can make a huge difference as well. Best thing to do is test the results and determine what suits you best. And keep in mind, a little grain in enlarged prints is not always a bad thing since you typically view those from a farther distance where the grain won’t be an issue.


]]>steve@batsonphotography.comNone2010-07-06T16:56:38-07:00http://www.batsonphotography.com/blog/files/0e3479b158a78e85188f8520b184e403-5.html#unique-entry-id-5http://www.batsonphotography.com/blog/files/0e3479b158a78e85188f8520b184e403-5.html#unique-entry-id-5
The first, and most important in my opinion, is practice! Practice using the features of your camera, practice taking pictures of all the different types of things you want to photograph, and if you are shooting digital, practice editing your photos to make them their best! That doesn’t mean you get sloppy with the camera and “Fix” your photos, it means that do things that used to be done to film in the dark room. You crop to the sizes you want will cropping out anything that may be distracting if possible. You adjust the image for brightness, color tone and clarity. That doesn’t mean you over do it, just make the image look the best it can without distorting it or making it look fake. You might however do things like remove dust specks, blemishes, etc. that can be distractions.

The second thing is, to always be working on learning more and improving. The best way I’ve found to do this, is to constantly discuss your work with others. Open yourself up to take and give constructive, friendly critiques. Also be willing to give the same to others that may be less experienced than you or just want another opinion. It’s easy to avoid these things because we don’t want to hurt the feelings of others, and we certainly don’t want our feelings hurt. A properly done critique does not need to be hurtful. It should be thoughtful, positive and encouraging. It should also contain suggestions to help improve the image either through editing and/or cropping, or in technique next time. Now matter what a person’s skill level, everyone has something to learn and something to offer others.

The best way I’ve found to do this is with On-Line Forums where you can upload images for comment, or view images from others, read the comments given and even give your own comments if you feel you have something to add. Everyone wins and it doesn’t have to cost anything or take a lot of time.

If you are interested, I would like to invite you to visit my free Photographer’s Forum open to anyone interested in photography. Best of all, since it’s all on-line, it’s available 24/7.


The Digital Photographerzone

]]>steve@batsonphotography.comNone2010-07-02T15:49:59-07:00http://www.batsonphotography.com/blog/files/e8e7e4487ecba7a393c6d20a9d0ba1c9-4.html#unique-entry-id-4http://www.batsonphotography.com/blog/files/e8e7e4487ecba7a393c6d20a9d0ba1c9-4.html#unique-entry-id-4
- Know your Subject - Why are you taking the picture, what do you want people to see in the picture. If you can’t answer that, then is it worth taking the picture?

- Eliminate Distractions - If you have trash cans, clutter, trees or poles that look like they are growing out of peoples heads or bodies. Even messy hair or screwed up collar that may distract the viewer when looking at the photo. Sometimes you just change your camera angle or position, sometimes you may move things out of the way or have someone fix their hair, etc.

- Bring Focus and Attention to the subject - This can be done in many different ways. Partly by eliminating the distractions as mentioned above, but also by using various techniques. You might shoot real close to your subject by zooming in (don’t get too close or you will have trouble focusing and can cause a distorted picture). You can blur the background with the proper settings. You can also use surrounding objects, trees, etc. to “Frame Your Subject within your picture. You can use lines such as roads, bridges or paths to draw the viewer’s eye to the subject. Possibilities are endless here. Use your imagination.

Give these tips a try and see what happens to your photos, I think you will be pleasantly surprised!


]]>steve@batsonphotography.comNone2010-06-30T15:48:11-07:00http://www.batsonphotography.com/blog/files/f8bb22f7fd2815448c0e567a526ef70c-3.html#unique-entry-id-3http://www.batsonphotography.com/blog/files/f8bb22f7fd2815448c0e567a526ef70c-3.html#unique-entry-id-3
NYIP Guide to Photographing Fireworks


The following is a composite that I did shooting individual fireworks using the techniques in the article and then cutting and pasting over the pyramid building shot that I also did from the same location on the same night.






]]>steve@batsonphotography.comNone2010-06-30T07:39:08-07:00http://www.batsonphotography.com/blog/files/d284462c818b1c3677752bdc94c4ba71-2.html#unique-entry-id-2http://www.batsonphotography.com/blog/files/d284462c818b1c3677752bdc94c4ba71-2.html#unique-entry-id-2
Is it worth the risk of trusting important event photography to a friend or relative simply because they have that nice new camera and will do it as a favor or free? If they are trained in photography and can consistently show good work, then maybe it is. If not, some extra consideration may be a good idea. You have to ultimately make this decision and be willing to accept what you get.]]>steve@batsonphotography.comOur Blog2010-06-29T19:38:31-07:00http://www.batsonphotography.com/blog/files/ec06b210f12b20d59d2db1aa05cb6ba0-1.html#unique-entry-id-1http://www.batsonphotography.com/blog/files/ec06b210f12b20d59d2db1aa05cb6ba0-1.html#unique-entry-id-1
Wedding Clients Now Want

• The High Resolution Digital Files to make their own prints and for backup purposes
• Web Sized Images to post on their websites, blogs and send through email
• In many cases, they want faster, better service at lower prices

A new trend I’m seeing is what I call “The Digital Wedding”. The photographer is hired to do the photography and provide the digital image files to the client and let them take care of getting prints made and putting albums together. While this is something many photographers are not happy with, it’s increasingly what the clients want. The balance will be to provide quality images, service and support to the client to enable them to get the best possible prints. If handled properly, I see this as a win-win situation for both the photographer and client.

]]>steve@batsonphotography.comOur Blog2010-06-29T18:55:20-07:00http://www.batsonphotography.com/blog/files/093372acbc972dcb01ef4c71f44429e4-0.html#unique-entry-id-0http://www.batsonphotography.com/blog/files/093372acbc972dcb01ef4c71f44429e4-0.html#unique-entry-id-0
]]>