Mardi Gras 2010

Balcony On Bourbon Street

One of my favorite cities to visit is New Orleans. And everyone knows the best time to visit the Crescent City is during Mardi Gras.

This year Mardi Gras came a bit early. The temperature ran in the 30′s and 40′s, which is a little chilly for that region. But that didn’t stop anyone from having a good time.

Up on the balcony there is a guy cheering in a yellow shirt. You can’t see what he is cheering for in this shot. He is cheering because one of the women in this crowed lifted her shirt, which is an interesting tradition. The girls flash and and somebody throws them beads. Well, there are no flashing pictures on this blog. I’m going for a ‘PG’ rating.

Another great tradition at Mardi Gras is the parades. There are a ton of them. The entire celebration goes on for at least two weeks.

Drew Brees throws a footbal to parade watchers

In this shot to the right, Drew Brees, the quarterback for the New Orleans Saints throws out some Mardi Gras footballs to parade watchers. This was in the Bacchus parade, where Drew was the king of the parade. This was about a week after the Saints won the Superbowl. So I don’t have to tell you how excited the people of New Orleans were about him at that moment.

First Mardi Gras

When I shoot pictures at an event like a parade, I don’t just focus on the event itself. I try to get the people attending the event. I don’t know these people at all. But I asked that man if I could take a picture of his daughter. They were thrilled and the mother told me how this was the first Mardi Gras for her daughter. She just looks too cute with those beads draped over her hair.

Sure, it was Mardi Gras and most of the excitement was about the parades and the partying in the French Quarter. But I wanted to capture some of the character of this town in my photos. So I made sure to get some of the elements that contribute to that character. For instance I couldn’t resist getting a shot of this river boat.

River Boat

Street Musician

And one of the things I love most about New Orleans that music literally fills the streets of the French Quarter. Here is a shot of a street musician playing his trumpet. I advise you to bring a roll of singles with you when you visit the French Quarter so that you can tip the various performers that you encounter. This guy was playing just outside of Cafe Du Monde, where I was enjoying coffee and beignets.

And finally, you can hardly visit the French Quarter without

St. Louis Cathedral

visiting the St. Louis Cathedral.

I talked to a lot of people while I was there and a lot of them had the same story. They came to the city either to visit or to help build homes after Hurricane Katrina and they decided to stay. I can see why.

Shooting Flowers Closeup

My wife complains that I don’t buy her flowers enough. So today I bought some flowers and started taking pictures of them. Now I can hang these pictures on the wall and we will have flowers forever. Problem solved.

Well, maybe it isn’t that simple. Maybe she’ll want real flowers once in a while too. That’ll be great because I enjoy taking pictures of flowers anyway. That was the real reason I bought these flowers and she knew it. I just wanted to take some pictures tonight and I decided shoot flowers.

I picked up four kinds of flowers and also a vase to hold them up for the shots. The total price was about $25. Not bad for an evening of photography.

I used a black paper background for these shots. In the future I will do similar shots with different colored backgrounds. But this time I used black. I actually had a roll of black background paper that I hung from a background stand. But you could just tape black sheet of poster board to the wall. If you do then try to get some that isn’t very glossy.

I used a total of three lights for these shots. I wanted to show off the textures and to do that I lit from both sides. I placed an Alien Bees B400 light on the left and right of the flower and shot them through a translucent umbrella. This put some highlights and created shadows that gave the texture I wanted but it was still kind of dark on the inside of the flower. I need to throw some light in there.

I started by placing a silver reflector on the table just in front of the flower. I was hoping that would throw enough light in there to open it up but that didn’t quite do it. So I used a third light, this one a Nikon SB800 speedlight with diffuser cap on it.

I also took the liberty of composing my shots in such a way that the flowers were cropped about half way. The reason I did this is because I am hoping someone may purchase these images and use them for a card or an advertisement. The large empty space gives a graphic designer to place her message. It is also kind of artsy. Just a plain old picture of a flower would be kind of boring. So I moved around and tried to see the flower differently.

And by the way, the lens I used was a Nikkor 70-200 mm F/2.8. That isn’t a cheap lens but it is worth every penny. I’d love to get a nice macro lens for shots like this. I don’t have one since this isn’t the type of photography I normally do.

In any case, I had fun and now I have some nice flower images that I can upload to my website. Have a good one.

Photoshop Tip: Adding a Watermark

Whether you take photographs for the purpose of selling them or just for fun, you own the copyright of the images that you take. You may want compensation if someone uses your images or you may just want to be in control of how they are used. It is important for photographers to know their rights as copyright holders, especially those who publish their photos on the Internet.

In the digital age it has become easier than ever for copyright violators to publish an image without paying for it. On most websites you can save an image simply by right clicking on it. Even if the website blocks that method, a savvy computer user knows how to get into the web browser’s cache and find the images anyway. But there are ways to help protect your images. One way is to make it inconvenient for the copyright violators to use your images by applying a copyright notice watermark. The watermark is not a silver bullet against image piracy. With some careful cropping or cloning in Photoshop, a determined violator may be able to remove the watermark. But it is at least a reminder that you do own the copyright and plan to enforce it. Also, it is normally less work for the person to contact the photographer and pay a reasonable fee for the usage than to do a lot of Photoshop work. So in this post I am going to show how to apply a watermark on your images and prepare them for display on websites. I am going to be working with one of my own images. If you want to follow along then you can do so with one of your own images.

Step 1 – Opening Your Image

I begin with an image that I created while walking through the downtown area near my home.

 

Step 2 – Selecting a Font

I am going to apply a copyright notice watermark in the lower right corner. For starters, I click the Text Tool on the toolbar. In the screen shot, you’ll notice the Text Tool because it is shaped like a capital ‘T’ and is already selected.

After selecting the Text Tool, you will notice the options bar at the top of the window. This has options for the currently selected tool. The options available to us for the Text tool are related to changing the font, size, and other items that affect the appearance of our text.

For my font, I chose the Pristina font with a size of 36 points. You can play around with the fonts and sizes for your own tastes. There is also a swatch showing the color of the text that has yet to be written. Mine is white. If you need to change yours then click that swatch to bring up the Color Chooser dialog.

In the cells next to R, G, and B, I type of the values 255, 255, and 255. That gives me white. Choose OK to dismiss the dialog.

I’ve left the other options in their default state.

Step 3 – Dropping Text On The Image

Next, while the Text tool is still selected, I click anywhere on the image. This will add a vector layer where I can type my text. Then I can adjust my font and position the text anywhere I want.

The text that I used is “© Jeff Suddeth 2009″. To get the copyright symbol on Windows you have to hold the ALT key while typing the numbers 0, 1, 6, and then 9. But you have to type them on the number keypad, not the numbers at the top of your keyboard. Since my laptop doesn’t have a number keypad, I used a different method. I opened a Microsoft Word document and from the “Insert” menu, I picked “Symbol”. From there, I chose the copyright symbol. Then I selected the symbol in my Word document and hit Control-C to copy that symbol to the Windows clipboard. Then I went back to the image in Photoshop, selected the Text Tool, clicked the image to drop the text on there and hit Control-V to paste that symbol in. Then I could type in the rest of the watermark as normal.

My apologies to Mac users, but I do not own a Mac and I cannot verify the method of creating a copyright character on the Mac. A quick Google search pulled up a post that said the keyboard shortcut on the Mac is “Alt/Option + g”. So good luck with that and if anyone wants to buy me a Macbook Pro (the 15 inch one) I promise to make my articles more Mac friendly.

Step 4 – Viewing the Layers Pallet

So here we are. We just dropped some text on the image. If your Layers pallet is not visible then please make it visible from the Window menu. My layers pallet is shown below.

You can see that the text has been added to a new layer. I ended up dropping the text right in the middle of the image, which is not where I want it, but that is okay. I will move it later with the Move Tool. For now, I want to get the watermark looking the way I want.

Step 5 – Making the Text Look More Cool

Right click on the Text layer in the Layers pallet and choose “Blending Options”. You should get the Blending Options dialog.

 

The first thing I do is check Bevel and Emboss, which gives the text sort of a 3D look, as if it has been punched out of the image. I then lower the opacity of the layer to about 50%. This makes the text translucent so that you can see what is on the layer beneath it. I like doing this because I want the watermark to be there without drawing the eyes away from the actual image. The Layer Style dialog should look like the following.

 

I also want to add a shadow behind the text, just because I can. So I click on the Drop Shadow text box. But don’t just click on the check box. Click on the words “Drop Shadow” so that you will get the options for that shadow affect.

Now you can see the options that allow you to play with the shadow. The only options I mess with for this purpose are the Angle, Distance, Spread and Size.

The angle sets the angle where the light comes from that is casting the shadow. The distance affects how far that light is from the text, which affects the length of the shadow. The spread and size affect the spread of the shadowed pixels and how dark the shadow is. You can play with this until you get something you like. I generally set my angle to about 150, distance to 20, Spread to 5, and size to 10. If you don’t like it you can always open this Layer Style pallet to change it. So try some settings and click OK to accept them.

Now the image looks like this.

 

Step 6 – Moving the Watermark

My watermark looks fine to me. But I still want to move it into the lower right corner. I click on the Move Tool for this purpose. The Move Tool is way at the top of the Tool Box. It looks like an arrow next to a crosshair. When you select that Move Tool, make sure that the Text Layer is the active layer. Notice in the screenshot above that in the layer pallet, it is the Text Layer that is selected. That is the layer we want to move. So with the Move Tool selected and the Text Layer selected in the layers pallet, click anywhere on the image and drag until you get that copyright text in the location you want.

 

Now that my copyright notice is in a position I am happy with, I am ready to save my changes and publish this to the world. But remember, JPG images do not support layers. So before you can save it as a JPG, you must flatten the image. When you do that, the text layer is gone and you will have no way to change the styling of that text. However, if you save the file first as a Photoshop PSD file then you will be able to open the file in Photoshop later and work with the different layers. So save the file now as a Photoshop file if you want to. Otherwise, go ahead and flatten the image by clicking on the “Layer” menu and choosing “Flatten Image”.

If you check your layers pallet, you will see that you now only have one layer, the background layer.

Step 7 – Saving For the Web

Now we want to save the file as a JPG for the web. Before I do that I like to change the resolution of the image so that the file size will not be so large. 72 Pixels per inch is fine for a computer screen. So I am going to the “Image” menu and selecting “Image Size”. This brings up the following Image Size dialog.

 

I changed the resolution to 72 Pixels per inch and left everything else alone. Then I clicked OK to accept this change. When the dialog goes away, the image “shrinks” on the screen. Well, yes. I shrunk it when I lowered the resolution to 72 PPI. At the same zoom level, that would result in a smaller image. If this disturbs you (and it does disturb me for some reason) then you can zoom in some more by holding down the Control key and pressing the ‘+’ character a few times.

Finally, I am ready to save the image. From the “File” menu, I choose “Save As” and type an appropriate file name in the File Save dialog box.

 

When I click the Save button I will be presented with another dialog that will allow me to specify the quality of the image. This setting will affect how much the image is compressed. JPG files use a “lossy” compression algorithm, which means that every time you save a JPG image it will be compressed and some data will be lost, affecting the quality of the image. For publishing to the web, my main concern is file size. The image quality will be good enough for a computer screen. So I choose a quality setting of about 8 or less. If I were saving a file that I might want to print I would have saved it with a much higher resolution and I would go with the highest quality.

 

Step 8 – Done.

So I set the quality to 8 and click OK. I now have a JPG file that is reasonable in size and quality for the web with my copyright watermark prominently displayed, yet not impacting the overall affect of the image. The final result is below.

Understanding Your Exposure Modes

Cameras just keep getting smarter and smarter. You can leave your camera in automatic and take your pictures without even having to think about what you are doing, right? Well, not exactly. Cameras are getting better and better at picking exposure settings that will produce an average tone of medium gray across the view. For a lot of snapshots, that is good enough. But cameras do not know what the creative juices flowing through your head are thinking. You may be taking a picture of a Polar Bear eating rice in the snow. If your camera is on automatic it is going to see all that whiteness and say, “Oh, my! That is bright. I better darken things up a bit.” And then your white snow will come out gray and ashy looking.

In this picture of the squirrel I had the camera on an automatic mode. It saw some bright sky and the darkness of the tree and it chose an exposure setting where the tree was so dark that I could hardly see the squirrel. I then took the shot over after making an adjustment to get the image you see here. So even with all of the technology built into the cameras of today, it is still important to learn about how the exposure modes work so that you can achieve the affect you want.

One aspect of exposure is the Aperture. The aperture is the size of the opening in the front of the camera. The larger the aperture is, the more light that comes in. So you make your photo brighter by letting in more light, in other words, choosing a larger aperture. Aperture is measured in “F Stops”. An F Stop is a ratio. So you normally see it written like a fraction of 1. For instance you might have an aperture of F/8. The larger the opening, the larger the ratio – which means the number on the bottom of the fraction gets smaller. So F/8 is smaller than F/4. F/11 is smaller than F/8. A photo taken at F/11 would let in less light than one taken at F/8, and therefore be darker.

Another cool thing about aperture is that it affects the depth of field of your photo, that is the depth of space that is in focus in your photo. If you are shooting a portrait you may want a shallow depth of field so that the person is in focus but the background is not. However, if you are shooting a picture of a room, you probably want the entire room in focus. In that case you would want a very deep depth of field. Shooting with a wide aperture, say F/2.8, gives a more shallow depth of field. Shooting with a small aperture, such as F/11, gives a deeper depth of field.

The shutter speed is the amount of time the shutter is open. A longer shutter speed lets in more light, and would create a brighter image. Shutter speeds are measure in fractions of a second. A typical shutter speed is 1/250 of a second. Longer shutter speed will also record movement if the subject is moving. So if you leave your shutter open for a long time and a car drives by, you will see a blur in the photo showing that movement.

The other thing that affects the exposure of your photo is how sensitive the camera’s sensor is to light (assuming we are talking about digital photography). You can control that sensitivity with a setting called ISO. If I tell you that my exposure is F/3.5 at 1/80 of a second you should probably ask me what my ISO setting is or you will still not know enough information.

If you are shooting on manual mode then you can control both, the aperture and the shutter speed. This is where I am most of the time. By controlling the shutter speed, I can show motion. And by controlling the aperture I control the depth of field. I like to be in control of both. I’m kind of a freak like that.

However, sometimes I just want to shoot without thinking too much. For those times I go with an automatic mode called Aperture Priority (AP). In aperture priority I set the aperture (the F stop) and the camera will pick a shutter speed that gives what it thinks is the optimum exposure. This way I can still control depth of field and let the camera do the rest.

Another mode is called Shutter Priority (SP). In Shutter Priority mode I pick the shutter speed and let the camera pick the aperture to produce optimum exposure. This is nice for sports. I can go with a fast shutter speed to capture that fast moving athlete and let the camera pick the aperture.

If I am feeling really lazy then I can go on full automatic with a mode that Nikon calls “Program”. Possibly Canon has a different term for this mode. In Program mode the camera will pick the optimum aperture and shutter speed according to whatever algorithm some engineer in Japan programmed into it. I never use this mode because I think I am a better photographer than that engineer who wrote that algorithm ten years ago.

How the camera picks an optimum exposure is probably different with each camera maker. My Nikon camera checks the tonal values across the image and compares those values against thousands of images. It finds the one the current scene most closely matches and picks the exposure settings of that image. If the result is too dark or too light then I can influence the exposure by applying an “Exposure Value” or EV Value. For instance, if the above image came out darker than I would like then I can add a +.3 or +.7 exposure value to bright it up a bit.

It is also worth knowing the metering modes of your camera. I’ll cover those in another post. But for now, think of the metering mode as you telling the camera which parts of the image to consider when deciding how to set exposure. You might, for instance, choose a center weighted metering mode, which tells the camera that you are more interested in getting correct exposure for the center of the photo.

As intelligent as cameras are today, it is too easy to just use their automatic features and not worry about things like exposure. But sooner or later you will run into a case where the contrast is so great in the scene that the camera does a poor job choosing exposure. If you take the time to learn about shooting on manual exposure mode, and learn how the other exposure modes work, and how to influence them with different metering modes and EV values then you will be much happier with your pictures.

 

 

Shopping for Lenses

People often ask questions about which photography gear they should buy. One of the most frequent questions is about lenses. This is also one of the most important questions. There are a number of things to take into consideration. Your budget, for instance, will likely carry a lot of weight on your decision. Lenses can be pricey.

What you would like for me to say is that a lens in the neighborhood of $300-$500 will deliver the kind of results that you want. Unfortunately, I can’t say that. But I can’t say that it won’t meet your needs either. It really depends on what you want to achieve with your photography. What I want to achieve is fantastic portraits. Can I get that from a cheap lens? Yes and no.

There is more that makes a good portrait than just the lens. The background and lighting can make or break a portrait. The right pose. The right smile. Getting the subject of your portrait to bring out his or her personality will also improve a portrait a lot. You don’t need a high end lens for any of that. And let’s face it. Some people are so beautiful that the real challenge is to take a bad picture of them. So yes, you can take a good portrait with a cheaper lens.

However, one affect I like to achieve with portraits is to have a shallow depth of field. The depth of field is depth of space that is in focus in the picture. The foreground is blurry and the background is blurry, while the subject is in sharp focus. This contrast in sharpness make the subject look even more sharp. It also really makes the subject jump right off the background. Consider the portrait below, which is of my son.

Notice at the bottom where the ground is blurry in the foreground and in the background but it is in focus right in the area where he is standing. This gives the image a dreamy quality and it helps the subject of my portrait pop away from the blurry background. I really like being able to control the depth of field to achieve different creative affects with my photography.

There are a few factors that affect the depth of field. One factor is the aperture of the lens. A larger aperture (smaller F number) will produce a more shallow depth of field. Another factor is the focal length of the lens. A longer focal length will produce a smaller depth of field. So if you want to have a lot of control over the depth of field in your photos then you probably want to make sure you get a lens that gives you that control, meaning a fast telephoto lens.

Another thing that affects depth of field is the distance between the camera and the subject. When I took this shot below I used a Nikkor 70-200 mm F/2.8 lens. I shot wide open at F/2.8 in natural light with a focal length of 200 mm. I also stood back about 20 feet.

This particular lens also has Vibration Reduction, which is very helpful when hand holding a camera. But VR also adds to the cost. Still, as expensive as this lens is, I wouldn’t go with out it.

I could have saved hundreds of dollars with other lenses but I would be losing a couple F/Stops or possibly giving up the VR. In any case, I probably would not have been as happy with the images. In fact, I probably would have gone back later to buy the more expensive lens anyway.

But like I said earlier, there are other qualities about photos that you can still achieve with cheaper lenses. It really depends more on what types of pictures you want to take.

Photography Subject – Your Pets

Although I am a People Photographer, I do have a soft spot for animals, especially those that live in our homes and become members of our families. You probably take pictures of your kids every year, so why not take pictures of your pets? I think a lot of us already do. So I wanted to blog about it.

Photographing pets isn’t always easy. In fact, it can be quite difficult, depending on the type of pet you have an how well it listens.

Above, you can see my cat, Molly. We adopted her from the Animal Rescue Foundation (ARF) and not only is this post an opportunity to talk about photography, but it is an opportunity to talk about a ARF, which I think is doing a great thing for these animals by providing them temporary homes until they get adopted. The cool thing about Molly is that she was 2 years old when we adopted her. She already knew things that we were going to teach her, like not jumping up onto the dining room table.  Anyway, if you are going to bring an animal into your family, I hope you consider adopting one from an organization, such as ARF. Here is a link to the group we adopted Molly from. http://www.arf-il.org  Now onto the photography discussion.

When I photograph people, I don’t normally use a backdrop. I prefer to get them out in their natural environment doing the things that people do. For engagement shots, for example, I get the couples walking and holding hands and laughing. The point is making them look like a couple in love. This is much more interesting then two people standing there saying, “Cheese!”

Well, it isn’t much of a stretch to apply that same concept to pets. If I am taking picture of a cat, I want it to be doing “cat things”. Now I could drive myself batty trying to get Molly to sit up on a posing table for a portrait that makes her look like a blue ribbon winner of a feline beauty pageant. But that isn’t what normal cats do. My cat loves to play with the teasers I buy for her, especially the laser pointer. So I want action shots of her wrestling around with these toys.

In shot above, she was just sitting on the edge of our piano, like she often does, looking out the picture window. Fortunately, I had my camera nearby and grabbed a shot as quickly as I could.

That reminds me of a couple other tips about photographing your pets. You never know what they are going to do next so keep your camera near by at all times. Get shots of them doing things that are typical of their behavior.

Another tip is get down to pet’s eye level. Perspective is important. Don’t take the picture from the standing position looking down at your pet. Get down on your belly if you have to and get to their level.

Also, picking the right background makes a big difference. If you know you want to take a picture of your pet, pick a nice looking background and see if you can get your pet to play or nap in that area.

The other thing is light. In the picture of Molly, she was looking out the picture window in daylight. There wasn’t a need for flash so I didn’t use it. If I did need to use flash, I would have placed the flash on a lightstand and bounce it off of the white ceiling or wall. Also, I would have used a stuffed animal as a stand-in to get the lighting the way I want, and then try to draw molly to that position with the laser pointer or one of her other toys, or perhaps a snack.

Lastly, I did a little post processing on this image. I gave the green in her eyes just a bit of a boost and I did some sharpening. Her eyes are a lovely green but not THAT green. Lastly, I put a vignette around the image. Darkening the edges with a vignette helps the subject stand out a bit more.

Hello world!

I’m beginning my wedding photography blog with a shot I took of the groom and the men in his party standing on a bridge in the Japanese Garden. It was a rickety old bridge that probably was more of a decoration than an actual bridge. I was a little nervous about having the men get up there. What a disaster that would have been!

Fortunately, the bridge held. And we got a nice shot of the men for the album.