“It seems to me that the subject of Bill Dane’s pictures is the discovery of lyric beauty in Oakland, or the discovery of surprise and delight in what we had been told was a wasteland of boredom, the discovery of classical measure in the heart of God’s own junkyard, the discovery of a kind of optimism, still available at least to the eye.” John Szarkowski, director of photography, Museum of Modern art 1962-1991
I received Bill Dane’s wonderful book, Bill Dane Pictures …it’s not pretty. 50 Years of Photographs I’m still in love, in the mail today.
For those unfamiliar with his work, Dane has been actively photographing the world around him for over 50 years. Since 1969 he has generously mailed over 50,000 of his photographs as postcards to people. More recently he has been active on Flickr where he continues day in and day out to share his world with the rest of us.
Yesterday he shared a diner scene from Tracy, California in 1970, earlier today he shared a bit more abstract flower from Oakland in 2011.
As you work through his flickstream you find yourself moving from Las Vegas in 1972 to Mexico City in 1974 to Olympia, Washington in 2018. The one constant thing is that Bill is there with his camera walking you through his unique view of the world. His view of the world, as his book title admits, is not always pretty, but it is like no other photographer you’ve probably ever seen. It’s not easy work to get through but it’s rewarding when you do.
Accompanying his images in the book are his own sttaccato like typed words. Like a beat poet Bill opines on his own photographic path as well what he sees around him — words to go with the pictures. It’s part personal history/biography, part documentary, part politics, part life vision — always poetic.
“Hunt treasure strike-snap-gather edit judge
I still photograph like it’s 1969 sort of
Advancing weaving focused scanning dam Bill hold still
Leica Rangerfinders straightforward refinement guess settings real good
Film has wonder dept forging Tri-X darkrooms mail
Costco for color prints to edit send
2007 My last film camera Contax SLR zoom-macro
Digital Nikon D80 with the 28-105 macro”
In my own artist’s statement, I quote the great Charles Bukowski who once said that endurance is more important than truth. As far as endurance goes Bill’s got it. He’s got it in spades and you have to admire that. Bill’s spent time hanging out at workshops with Friedlander and Arbus. He’s had shows at MoMA, his photographs hang in the permanent collections of MoMA, SFMOMA, the Art Institute of Chicago — and yet here he is day in and day out still putting work up out there for the public where? At Flickr? Yes, at our beloved Flickr.
Interestingly enough the title of Bill’s book actually comes from Bukowski’s poem “I Met A Genius.” The poem is about a 6 year old boy on a train ride with Bukowski who sees the sea for the first time and remarks upon seeing it that “it’s not pretty.” It’s the sort of innocent honest insight that can come from a child who has not been saddled down with society’s version of the sea as a remarkable and beautiful scene, the way most artists might present it.
Bill gives us a messy world, it’s not always pretty, but it’s worthwhile to see it as he shares it. It is a bit of a junkyard as Szarkowski suggests, but there is beauty in the junkyard as well.
Weighing in at over 300 pages of high quality printing and limited to only 500 copies, do yourself a favor and pick this one up before it sells out and before one of these big name museums decides to do a retrospective. You’ll have an original collector’s item. Bill Dane is a treasure — and so are his flickrstream and book.
The post Black and White Still Life Photography: How to Do It (And Why It Matters) appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Rick Ohnsman.
In the quest to improve your photography, sometimes the best approach is to slow down, concentrate on the basics, and be purposeful and deliberate. Working in black and white will do that. Making still life images will do that.
Combine the two, and you get black and white still life photography – which is an excellent way to make some great images and become a better photographer while you’re at it.
One of my most successful images of all time is this very minimalistic monochrome composition. It taps into the power of black and white and still life.
The power of monochrome
I will often use the terms monochrome and black and white interchangeably, but there is a subtle difference.
Black and white photos are just that: images with tones from white through black and all shades of gray, but with no color information whatsoever.
A monochrome image, on the other hand, might have a color tint. For instance, you can create a warm, sepia-toned shot or a cool, cyanotype photo. A single color – with various shades – would be present in the image.
A sepia-toned image is monochrome, but not black and white in the purest sense.
But note that this article applies to both black and white photography and monochrome photography equally.
Why black and white?
Early photographers had no choice because they couldn’t shoot in color. Monochrome images were all they could make.
Of course, this ultimately was not a serious limitation; many of the most iconic photographs ever taken are black and white. Surely even non-photographers have seen what might be one of the most famous black and white still life photos of all time, “Pepper No. 30” by Edward Weston. And I can confidently say that Weston’s photo would not be better if it had been made in color.
Today, the default choice of most photographers is color. Because our world is in color – as are most of the photos we encounter – “seeing” in black and white is a skill you must develop.
You must learn to look at a subject with an eye toward the basics – the “bones” of an image, if you will. Shape, form, tone, and texture are those bones, and the best black and white images play to those strengths, where color is unnecessary and even a distraction.
Is this the yellow brick road? Perhaps, but the strength of the shot is “good bones” in all the areas monochrome excels: shape, form, tone, and texture. It also utilizes some good compositional elements. Color is not needed.
Learning to see in black and white will, of course, make you a better black and white photographer. But if you can see in black and white while recognizing and taking advantage of the structural elements of a subject, you’ll become a better color photographer, as well.
Color then becomes an enhancement to an already-good image – one with a solid “bone structure” of shape, form, tone, and texture.
Why still life?
My two favorite genres of photography are probably still life and landscape.
Why?
It could be because they are so opposite. In landscape photography, you can rarely move the subjects in your scene, you compose by where you stand, and you don’t have much control over the light. Often, you must wait for the light to be just right, and you must be ready if and when such a moment happens.
The elements, the layout, the composition, the lighting, the camera position; you’re in control of everything when you make a still life photo.
Still life photography makes you the master. You set the scene, deciding what to add in and take out. You arrange the objects for the best composition, you choose the camera position, the lighting, and any additional components comprising your shot.
Then, when you’re satisfied and ready, you take the photo.
In a word, still life photography give you complete control.
Where can you find subjects for black and white still life photography? Where can’t you?! How about the silverware drawer? Here are some creative still lifes with a few forks.
You might also find good still life subjects in the vegetable bin….
…or get back to the “roots of photography” with a subject like this.
When considering subjects for black and white still life photography, remember what gives an image “good bones:”
Shape, form…
…tone…
…and texture.
Then add another distinct advantage. Consider this definition:
“A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or man-made (drinking glasses, books, vases, jewelry, coins, pipes, etc.).”
A real advantage of still life photography is that your subjects are still. They don’t move.
So in still life photography, it won’t matter if your shutter speed is 1/30s or 30 seconds. Being able to have such flexibility over your choice of aperture, shutter speed, and ISO is huge, and it opens up all kinds of possibilities that other genres of photography don’t offer.
Light painting is one of those unique possibilities. Since you don’t have to deal with a moving subject, you’re free to “paint” a subject with light during an extended exposure.
And this makes for some dramatic still life shots:
A still life subject that doesn’t move lends itself well to light painting. If you need a 15-second exposure and still want to stick with ISO 100, it’s no problem.
Lighting
Lighting for black and white still life photography comes back to the advantage we already identified:
Control.
The lighting instruments you choose, the modifiers you use, the number of lights and their placement – it’s all within your control.
Let’s break this down a bit more:
White balance – Since you’re processing in black and white, you can ignore the color temperature of your lighting instruments. And this frees you up to use all kinds of light sources, from flashlights, LEDs, and daylight to candlelight, fluorescent lights, and incandescent lights. Yes, as you convert an image into black and white, the color tones will respond differently. But you can handle adjusting your black and white tones if your white balance is initially off. I’ve often “rescued” impossibly bad color images simply by converting to black and white.
Placement – We spoke about the “bones” of shape, form, tone, and texture, which exist in all photos but are more readily apparent in black and white. In black and white still life photography, you get the opportunity to accentuate these “bones” with your careful consideration of lighting placement and control. Want to emphasize texture? Rake a hard light across the subject from the back or side at a low angle. Do you want a soft look? Try a broad light source, like a softbox, that illuminates the subject from the front. You can light your subject to create the look and mood you’re after. As the saying goes, “No rules, just right.”
Want to create some dramatic texture? Use a single hard light source – in this case, a simple flashlight – and rake it across your subject’s surface from the side.
Or you could have the low, late afternoon sun backlight your subject, again to emphasize texture.
A camera trick to help your visualization
In order to make this trick work, you must shoot in RAW.
(Also, I highly recommend you shoot in RAW all the time. Here’s why this is important.)
Now, when shooting in a RAW format, your camera will always capture a color image (and that is what you want).
The playback image you see on the rear LCD, however, will not be the RAW file. Instead, it’ll be a JPEG representation of the image.
So if you want to get better at seeing in black and white, why not switch the JPEG to black and white while keeping the RAW image in color? That way, after taking an image, you can immediately see it in monochrome – but you’ll still keep all the color details for post-processing later.
Bruce Wunderlich, a fellow dPS writer, describes how to set up your camera to do this. He promotes it as a way to better compose color photos, and it is good for that – but if monochrome is where you’re headed, it’s even more beneficial.
So read Bruce’s piece, set up your camera accordingly, and you will have a real aid in making black and white photos.
A still life doesn’t have to be a tabletop object, nor must it be shot under artificial light. This agricultural implement was shot outdoors in bright sunlight. The story of the shot is the repeating patterns. The yellow and red colors of the machine would only have distracted the viewer. Having my LCD set to preview the image in black and white helped me visualize the shot!
Editing for black and white
After a session of black and white still life photography, you’ll bring the images into post-processing as RAW color images.
Color?
Yes. Even if you’ve set up your camera using the recommendation above – where the LCD displays your images in black and white – your actual RAW images are still in color.
That’s a good thing. It’s during editing that you will convert your photos to black and white.
This will allow you to determine how various colors will be converted to monochrome. For instance, back in the black and white film days, you could darken the sky by shooting with a red filter. Because the red filter would block most of the blue light, the sky was rendered very dark on the black and white film.
Today we can create those effects during editing. When converting from color to monochrome, you can adjust the luminance of specific colors (e.g., you can darken the reds, the blues, and the yellows), thus affecting the overall look of the image.
Lightroom offers a nice black and white conversion tool, and there are a number of good articles on black and white conversion in Lightroom, such as this one by Andrew Gibson. You may also wish to try other methods of black and white conversion. A popular option is the Nik Silver Efex Pro plug-in from DxO, but there are dozens of other programs and methods for converting from color to black and white.
Without the limitations of having to make the color in a photo “look right,” you are free to creatively take the tonality in your black and white images wherever your creativity leads you.
The original image at left; a black and white conversion with boosted green luminance in the center; a black and white conversion with decreased green luminance on the right.
Age your photo
Here’s another fun black and white still life photography trick:
Replicate a vintage black and white look!
First, make sure you find the right subject. I recommend working with old collectible objects. Then capture the shot and enhance it afterward with effects such as sepia toning.
It can be a fun and instructional exercise to gather some objects, set up a pleasing composition, light it, photograph it, and create a monochrome file complete with sepia toning.
Collect some items to create a theme, make your still life black and white image, then edit it to produce a “period look.”
Take your “aged” still life even further with some special effects!
Gather some objects, decide how you want to set your scene, light it, take your shot, then go for an antique look with a sepia tone. Canon 50D | Canon 50mm f/1.8 | 1/15s | f/22 | ISO 800
Black and white still life photography: Now go do it!
You can and should read up on the concepts and techniques of photography, but there’s only so far “book learning” will take you.
Black and white still life photography will slow you down, make you think, concentrate your efforts, and force you to really study things.
You just have to dive in and do it!
So gather some subjects, decide how to arrange and light them, determine where you want to place your camera, what focal length you will use, how you will expose the image – all of those things.
Think about what you’re doing, what you’re trying to communicate, and why you’re making the photo.
Take your shot, evaluate it, consider what might make it better, and shoot it again.
Then repeat! There’s no hurry. You’re making photographs, not taking snapshots. You are the master when you practice black and white still life photography.
And that, as they say, is the beauty of it. Go make some great shots!
As always, leave your comments, questions, and photos in the comments section below. Best wishes!
This was shot outdoors after the early morning dew beaded up on this lupine leaf. I put a piece of black cardboard behind the leaf, then did some further clean-up in the edit.
The post Black and White Still Life Photography: How to Do It (And Why It Matters) appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Rick Ohnsman.
Today, Qualcomm revealed details of the Snapdragon 888, its next-generation flagship mobile chipset, showing what kind of features, functionality and performance we can expect to see in flagship Android mobile devices in the coming year.
The Snapdragon 888 is a System on a Chip (SoC) that consists of multiple processors atop a single substrate. These include multiple CPU and GPU cores, as well as additional mobile and AI components for powering all of the features we’ve come to expect from flagship mobile devices.
At the heart of the Snapdragon 888 is Qualcomm’s Kryo 680 CPU, which is the first to use ARM’s new Cortex-X1 architecture for its 2.84GHz core, alongside three Cortex A78 performance cores (2.4GHz) and four A55 efficiency cores (1.8GHz). Qualcomm claims the Snapdragon 888 performs 25% better while using 25% less power, compared to its predecessor, the Snapdragon 865.
For the GPU, Qualcomm is using its new Adreno 660 GPU, which it says offers 35% faster graphics rendering performance while using 20% less power. This new chip is said to be the best increase in year-over-year performance and should pave the way for better display technology, including better support for 120Hz screens and improved OLED display uniformity.
On the photography front, Qualcommm has made drastic improvements to the image signal processors (ISPs) seen onboard previous Snapdragon chips. The Snapdragon 888 will feature three separate Spectra 580 ISPs. Now, with these three individual ISPs, Android smartphones that offer three cameras — most often a standard, ultra-wide and telephoto — will be able to capture full-resolution photos and video (up to 28MP per camera for stills and 4K HDR video per camera for video), with a maximum bandwidth of 2.7 Gigapixels per second.
Beyond using up to three cameras at the same time, this triple-ISP array also allows for a number of firsts in Android smartphones. If not limited by onboard storage and caching, the Snapdragon 888 technically enables 12MP photo capture at up to 120 fps, as well as a maximum single-image capture of up to 200MP.
The chip can also be able to capture 10-bit HEIF stills, capture 4K HDR10 video (while simultaneously capturing 64MP stills), support 8K video capture and feature no-limit slow-mo video capture at up to 960 fps. 4K video will also be able to be captured and played back at 120 fps on the same device.
Moving onto connectivity, the Snapdragon 888 will feature Wi-Fi 6 speeds up to 3.6Gbps, Bluetooth 5.2 (dual antennas), and Qualcomm’s new X60 5G MOdem-RF system. This new 5G modem supports both sub-6Ghz 5G with carrier aggregation as well as mmWave 5G with speeds up to 7.5Gbps. Battery performance while using its 5G capabilities should also be improved thanks to its new integrated design.
Other features include a new Hexagon 780 processor for AI and computational performance, as well an on-device Qualcomm Secure Processing unit. In addition to improved security within the operating system, this new Secure Processing unit also creates cryptographically sealed photos making it the first Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) compliant smartphone camera for ensuring image integrity in a world of increasing misinformation and deepfakes. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Qualcomm is working with Truepic, who is a CAI partner alongside Adobe, Twitter The New York Times and others.
You can watch the full Snapdragon 888 unveil on Qualcomm’s Day 2 Keynote from its Snapdragon Tech Summit, below:
Qualcomm hasn’t set a specific date for when the Snapdragon 888 will be available, but it expects the first devices with it at their core to be released in Q1 2021, with commitments from Oppo, Motorola and others having already been made.
As we’ve seen with past Snapdragon SoCs and the smartphones that use them, it’s possible not all of these features will be seen in a single device. Some flagship smartphones that use the new Snapdragon 888 might choose to make the most of certain photo and video features, based on the accompanying hardware they put inside their device. While Snapdragon is offering plenty of computational functionality, it’s ultimately up to the smartphone manufacturers to extract the most from it with equally-capable storage, camera systems and more.
100 best lockdown portraits revealed from Duchess of Cambridge’s Hold Still project
Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, and the UK’s National Portrait Gallery have put together a digital exhibition of the 100 best portraits taken during the lockdown and submitted to the Hold Still photographic contest. The images, centered around the themes of Helpers and Heroes, Your New Normal and Acts of Kindness, will become a print exhibition later in the year and will tour the UK.
Set up to document aspects of life in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland during the global coronavirus pandemic, the Hold Still project was launched by the Duchess, a keen photographer herself, in May and was open for entries for six weeks.
Organizers say they received 31,598 entries which were judged by the Duchess alongside the Director of the National Portrait Gallery, a poet, a photographer and the Chief Nursing Officer for England. The judges said they selected the winning images based on the ‘emotions and experiences they convey rather than on their photographic quality or technical expertise’.
We’ve rounded up ten of the 100 images in the following gallery, but for more information and to see all 100 portraits visit the National Portrait Gallery website.
THE DUCHESS OF CAMBRIDGE AND NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY LAUNCH HOLD STILL DIGITAL EXHIBITION
Final 100 images unveiled in landmark community project to create a photographic portrait of the nation
The Duchess of Cambridge and the National Portrait Gallery have today unveiled the Hold Still digital exhibition, featuring one hundred portraits selected from 31,598 submissions during the project’s six-week entry period. Focussed on three core themes – Helpers and Heroes, Your New Normal and Acts of Kindness – the images present a unique record of our shared and individual experiences during this extraordinary period of history, conveying humour and grief, creativity and kindness, tragedy and hope.
Launched by The Duchess of Cambridge and the Gallery in May, Hold Still invited people of all ages, from across the UK to submit a photographic portrait which they had taken during lockdown. The project aimed to capture and document the spirit, the mood, the hopes, the fears and the feelings of the nation as we continued to deal with the coronavirus outbreak.
The Hold Still judging panel included: The Duchess of Cambridge; Nicholas Cullinan, Director of the National Portrait Gallery; Lemn Sissay MBE, writer and poet; Ruth May, Chief Nursing Officer for England and Maryam Wahid, photographer
The panel assessed the images on the emotions and experiences they convey rather than on their photographic quality or technical expertise. The final 100 present a unique and highly personal record of this extraordinary period in our history. From virtual birthday parties, handmade rainbows and community clapping to brave NHS staff, resilient keyworkers and people dealing with illness, isolation and loss. The images convey humour and grief, creativity and kindness, tragedy and hope – expressing and exploring both our shared and individual experiences.
A selection of the photographs featured in the digital exhibition will also be shown in towns and cities across the UK later in the year.
International law firm Taylor Wessing are supporting the Hold Still project in partnership with the National Portrait Gallery. They are long-term supporters of the Gallery and have sponsored the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize for the past 12 years.
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Making bread
Photographer: James Webb Location: Colne, Cambridgeshire
This is me and my son Jake making bread together. Baking was something that I enjoyed but didn’t get to do very often. Lockdown gave me the opportunity to bake and enjoy this passion with my children. During this time we started off making flatbreads, cupcakes, muffins and the like, and then moved on to bread. Baking became a daily pleasure we were all able to enjoy together. We’ve continued to bake as a family and my children have enjoyed learning how to knead dough and the process of proving before baking. Making bread has become the new normal in our house and is a hobby now enjoyed by the whole family.
Glass kisses
Photographer: Steph James Location: Cowfold, West Sussex
My 1-year-old little boy and his 88-year-old great grandma, who miss each other so much at the moment. I captured this beautiful moment between them whilst dropping off groceries. Kisses through glass.
This is what broken looks like
Photographer: Ceri Hayles Location: Bridgend
This is what broken looks like. This is operating for 3 hours in full PPE. This is dehydration. This is masks that make your ears bleed because the straps have slipped and you daren’t touch them. This is fighting an invisible enemy that becomes more visible each day. This is a face I never thought I’d show the world, but one which I wear more and more. I took this photo to have as a reminder of how far I’d been capable of pushing myself when I needed to. I sent it to my family to tell them what a hard day it had been and they were all so shocked by it. The person they know as being so well put together, always wearing a smile, was not the person they saw that day. Looking back on it now, I feel immensely proud of the commitment shown by myself and my colleagues to provide safe care for patients, even in the depths of a pandemic. We still wear full PPE for all of our cases, and you never get used to it, but I know we’ll keep doing it for as long as it is needed.
Last precious moments
Photographer: Kris Tanyag and Sue Hicks Location: Chicester, West Sussex
This portrait was taken by Kris, the clinical lead in the care home where Phil lived. Kris took the photograph for Phil’s daughter, Sue who submitted the work. Sue said: ‘As I approached the window my father’s smile lit up the world. Probably belying the fact that he couldn’t really comprehend why, after normally frequent visits and companionship in his twilight years, his daughter hadn’t been allowed to visit for the last three weeks. Easter Saturday 2020 and these precious, intensely emotional moments, will stay with me forever. One week later our wonderful dad, grandad and great grandad passed away peacefully. I can never fully express my gratitude to the carers who, sensing the situation and having looked after my father with love, care and compassion for seven years (as well as my mother for 3 of those years), made those moments possible.’
Kris explains: ‘We devised a plan for Phil to see his daughter Sue via a glass wall and communicate using mobile phones. Hearing our plan gave Phil a burst of energy to go in his wheelchair, hold a muffled conversation, reaching over to put his hand on the glass wall, convinced that he was touching Sue. Struggling to speak but hearing Sue made him so very happy. Their expression of emotion through tearful, smiling eyes and touching hands; the entire conversation was just one amazing moment!’
Funeral heartbreak
Photographer: Bonnie Sapsford and Fiona Grant-MacDonald Location: Cockermouth, Cumbria
My brother, Barry, lives in the Lake District and could not travel to be with his family when our beloved Gran died of Covid-19 on 3 May 2020. Her cremation took place on 13 May in Edinburgh with only 8 people in attendance – and Barry had to watch it live online – but we were so proud he suitably dressed for the occasion. His wonderful partner, Bonnie took this powerful picture and sent it on to us. The family all missed him greatly and our hearts were shattered at the realisation that our grandmother’s first grandchild could not be with her on her final resting day.
At the end of a shift
Photographer: Neil Palmer Location: Reading, Berkshire
This is a studio portrait of Tendai, a recovery and anaesthetics nurse, who was born in Zimbabwe, and now lives in my local town – Reading, Berkshire. I wanted to portray her caring side as well as a look of concern and uncertainty that many of us have experienced during this pandemic. It’s why I chose a lower than normal angle and asked her to look off camera, placing her half way down in the frame.
Justin, from the outside in
Photographer: Sara Lincoln Location: London
Justin didn’t know about my project when I turned up at his window with a camera. I just so happened to be across the road, capturing his daughter Safi and her family, who had volunteered to be a part of my ‘Outside In’ project, which documents my community living life in lockdown, through the window. Safi asked if I wouldn’t mind popping over to capture a frame or two of her father and I am very grateful that I did. It was wonderful meeting this brilliant man albeit through the window. We spoke about this project, his art collection and how he manages to keep his plants so well. We talked about how surreal everything is right now, how the weeks have been for him isolating alone and his plans to jet off to France as soon as this madness is over. He finished up by telling me he had a spot of hay fever… A session that wasn’t meant to happen, happens to be one of my favourites.
We’re really lucky to have a garden
Photographer: Robert Coyle Location: Sale, Manchester
The weekend is here, lockdown continues and Bernadette and Francis enjoy the garden. One Friday, as I finished emailing at the kitchen table, my wife had taken a chair and a drink outside to enjoy the evening sun. We were doing our best, like the rest of the country, with work, childcare and news of daily death tolls. Our son, had taken to relieving himself on the plants, much to our initial amusement and then slight frustration.
Everyday hero
Photographer: Arnhel de Serra Location: London
When I drove past Richard I had to do a double-take, as I couldn’t believe he was out on his postman’s round in fancy dress. I asked if I could photograph him, and over a few days we got to know each other. Given the doomsday scenario that the media were portraying in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, I felt very strongly that here was a man who had something deeply personal and positive to offer his community. Is it an earth shattering news story? Probably not. As a human interest story however, I feel that his generosity of spirit should be celebrated, and I am delighted that he will be part of this very important project.
Never without her grandma
Photographer: Melanie Lowis Location: Teddington, London
Millie (5 years old) made a cut out of her much loved grandma (73 years old). Millie sees Grandma almost daily and lockdown prevented the pair from seeing each other. As a retired teacher, Grandma would have made the perfect partner to help Millie with home schooling. The bond between this grandma and granddaughter is truly a special one and when lockdown ends, and the real grandma can return, it will be a very happy and emotional reunion.
Great black and white photography is stunning. It’s eye catching, emotive, and expressive. Usually, it’s also wonderfully simple. So is still life photography. In this article, I’ll give you seven tips on how to create stunning black and white still life photographs. Before we get into the tips I’d first like to answer a couple of foundational questions: What makes Continue Reading
The post 7 Awesome Tips for Black and White Still Life Photography appeared first on Photodoto.
Canon has published its second-quarter (Q2) financial results, which covers from the beginning April 2020 through the end of June 2020, and, as you would expect in these difficult times, the camera division isn’t looking all that great.
Canon made it clear in its first quarter (Q1) results that things would get worse before they got better; and Q2 numbers are the first concrete evidence of just how much the COVID-19 pandemic has hurt the camera division in an already-declining market.
Across all of its divisions, Canon reported a loss of ¥8.8 billion ($ 83.3M), marking the first time in its 82 year history the company has been in the red on a quarterly basis. Canon says in its investor presentation that the ‘impact of global economic stagnation [due to the COVID-19 pandemic] was inevitable as we faced rapid drops in actual demand in various businesses and were confronted with limited business activity.’
As for the imaging division, Canon reported net sales of ¥141.7B ($ 1.35B) and an operating profit of just ¥800M ($ 7.65M). While seeing any operating profit is good news in this environment, the numbers are still a stark contrast to Q2 2019. Net sales were down 30.8% and operating profit was down 93.9% year-over-year (YoY).
In the Imaging System breakdown, Canon attributes the decline in net sales to there being ‘fewer image capturing opportunities, such as travel and other events.’ due to COVID-19. Canon says it ‘will take time for sales to recover as cameras are considered a luxury item,’ but it’s projecting the entire market to be down 40% to just 5.4M units and its own unit sales down by the same proportion, to 2.5M.
In addition to Canon elaborating on its cameras being used as webcams for video conferencing and communication, Canon also says it plans to ‘enhance’ its concept camera initiative, with new models expected to be out before the end of the year.
Despite the big fall in Q2, Canon is expecting operating profit to only fall 66% for the full year, and sales by value only 20%. This suggests it expects models such as the R5 and R6 to make up for some of the poor Q2 performance. The company says these models and the RF lenses will ‘solidify our position in the full-frame camera market.’
Compared to Canon’s end-of-2019 projections, which anticipated total sales of ¥787B and an operating profit of ¥53.7 for the 2020 fiscal year, its new Q2 2020 projection for total sales of ¥643.9B and operating profit of ¥16.1B is a drop of 19% and 70%, respectively.
As for how it intends to handle the direction of its camera division post-COVID-19, Canon says it will ‘accelerate measures to streamline operations’ and ‘expand business areas that utilize optical technology.’ Specifically, Canon says it will ‘work to facilitate our aim of switching business domains, leveraging the optical technology we have cultivated so far, and reallocating resources to new fields such as automobiles and industrial-use sensors.’
Although acknowledging that the camera market has declined faster than anticipated (pre-COVID-19), Canon emphasizes that its position – that ‘sooner or later the market will settle down and consist solely of users that are particular about imaging’– has not changed.
Summed up, the numbers are down across the board, but they aren’t all that surprising considering the current state of the camera (and global) market. Canon expects to further expand the use of its sensor and optics technology to industrial and automotive use, but still plans to streamline its operations to make the most of its ILC and compact camera products.
You can read all of the financial results by visiting Canon’s investor relations webpage.
Are camera filters obsolete in the age of digital photography? Can’t we just Photoshop images? Not so fast! We take a look at four filters you still need in your camera bag.
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The post Great Fruit and Vegetable Still Life Photography Ideas appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Rick Ohnsman.
Before there was photography, artists used paints and brushes to record their visions onto a canvas. Fruit and vegetable still life images were common subjects for many. Even today, in art schools, a fruit bowl might be an early subject. Learning to reproduce shapes, tones, color, and replicating the way light, shadow, smooth reflective objects, and dull matte objects look in the light – all those things would be part of your training.
We, as photographers, would do well to take a similar approach to our photography. We have it easier in many ways; not needing paints and brushes to create our images on a blank canvas. However, learning about light, composition, and technique are still foundational lessons.
If you are stuck at home, this could be a good opportunity to slow down, work on the kitchen table, relax with a slow-paced style of photography, and learn some new photography skills. A fruit and vegetable still life project could be just the way to spend a quiet day at home.
Putting these kiwi slices on an inverted glass pie plate, and then putting an LED flashlight under the plate, so the light shone through them, was the key to making this photo.
Subject selection
There are several reasons why fruits and vegetables make good still life subjects. They have interesting shapes, textures, colors, and details. As they are food, we can work to make them look especially appetizing, selecting the freshest and best subjects to be our “models.”
People who specialize in food photography will often use the talents of “food stylists” who carefully pick just the right subjects. They then use tricks, much like a fashion makeup stylist would use, to make their “models” as flawless and stunning as possible.
If you have access to choice fruits and vegetables right now, by all means, go seek such subjects. On the other hand, if being restricted to home means you need to use that somewhat sad-looking collection of carrots from the bottom of the refrigerator, just take your photo in a different direction.
If all you have is some sad looking carrots from the bottom of the refrigerator, go with what you have. Note the “wood backgrounds” here are actually printed sheets from a craft store.
Types and styles
In the early-to-mid 1600s, the Netherlands saw the rise of a collection of artists we now refer to as the “Dutch Masters.” A realistic style, emphasis on dramatic directional lighting, and the play of light and shadow are earmarks of the look. A good example of a Dutch Golden Age still-life artist is Willem Kalf. See his image below, “Still Life with Lemon Peel.” Now, as a photographer, how might we emulate that look?
Still Life with a Peeled Lemon – Willem Kalf (Dutch, 1619 – 1693) 1664 Oil on canvas * Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection * Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
A favorite technique of mine for emulating the Dutch Master’s look is light painting. I discuss this at length in my DPS article, “Learn these Two Techniques for Dramatic Light-Painted Photos.”
A distinct advantage of still life photography is that shutter speed is not critical. If you need a multi-second exposure, no problem. Work from a tripod so your camera is rock-steady, lock up the mirror on a DSLR to minimize vibrations, and use a cable release or perhaps the 2-second timer to trip the shutter. Go to full-manual mode. Keep your ISO at the lowest setting to minimize noise. Select an aperture based on how much depth of field you seek, and select a shutter speed for however much time you need for the “painting.”
Grab your flashlight and paint away.
Seeking to emulate the style of the Dutch Master’s paintings, I made this light-painted shot using just the illumination of a small flashlight and a 10-second exposure.
A favorite photographer I follow now on Instagram is Carlo Denino. Often with just a single fruit, vegetable, or other subjects, he produces exquisite light paintings. I encourage you to give his images a look and see if you can then emulate his style. I know from personal experience it’s not nearly as easy as it might look!
Lighting
Light Painting
Light painting is just one way you can go when doing fruit and vegetable still life images. Natural lighting can often be great and will require nothing more than your camera.
Dutch Master’s images were typically painted to look like they were illuminated by a single light source off to the side.
Find a window where you can place your subject and see if you can create the look. If you need a little fill to reduce the shadows, a simple reflector or even a white card can do the trick.
Always keep an eye out for photo subjects. Both of these were done outside when I just happened across the scenes. The shot on the left was done with my LG V30 cellphone. The one on the right, when I happened to have my camera one day on a neighborhood walk.
Non-conventional lights
Explore how other lights that would be considered non-conventional for photography, such as LED-flashlights, can work. Yes, they will not usually be as bright as standard photo lighting, and their color temperatures can vary. But they do have the advantages of being cheap, small and portable, and perhaps something you already have on hand. Use long exposures to compensate for their lower light output, and when you shoot in Raw mode, finding a good white balance will be much easier.
When working close to small subjects, an LED flashlight might be all the light you need, especially when with still-life, your shutter speed can be as long as you want.
Flash
Speedlights can be another option. You will typically not want your light to come from the front of your subject, so your pop-up flash or hot-shoe-mounted Speedlight isn’t the best way to go. If you can, get the flash off the camera and fire it with a remote trigger. Or perhaps use a flash cord to get it away from the camera. If not, try bouncing the light off the ceiling, a wall or a reflector to redirect the light and soften it.
Bright sunlight and a shutter speed of 1/3200 second was the trick to freezing the motion of these shots. Splash photography with fruits and vegetables is a great combination creating a “freshness” look.
Tricks with conventional photo lighting
If you have dedicated photography lighting, that’s great. Give it a try and perhaps use your fruit and vegetable still life subjects to explore some new lighting techniques. Try different ways to modify the light with snoots, reflectors, flags, diffusion, gobos, colored gels, or whatever else you can think of.
Unrestricted by time or pressure to get it right quickly will open you up to experiments you might have never tried. If you fail twenty times but come up with a new and exciting technique just once, you can consider your experimental lighting play a great success.
Lighting direction
With their interesting colors and sometimes translucent nature, fruits and vegetables can lend themselves to some interesting lighting techniques. Rarely will you want to light from the front of the subject as this will produce rather flat and uninteresting light.
Instead, try side lighting to emphasize texture, backlighting to perhaps create some nice rim-lighting, or if you want to get some really creative looks, lighting through your subject.
Fruits and vegetables that can be sliced thin work great for this. For example, I made thin slices of a kiwi, then made a platform from a glass pie plate under which I placed an LED flashlight. The light shining up and through the slices really emphasized the color and detail. Citrus fruits work well for this technique too.
Experiment and see what you can create.
Citrus fruits sliced thin make great subjects for backlighting as the colors and textures are so interesting. We also expect to see them in drinks and scenes like this.
Backgrounds
As with any other photo subject, carefully consider the background when you stage your fruit and vegetable still life image. You will want a background that complements and doesn’t interfere with your subject.
Quite often, the best background will be the simplest. Consider using a completely white or black background if that works for the image you’re trying to create. Lightroom makes it very easy to blow out whites or totally blackout shadows with the adjustment brush aided by other tools like the clipping indicators and Auto and Range Mask. Paint out what you don’t want to keep the focus on your subject.
The fruit here is more the “supporting cast” in this shot of a raspberry lemonade cupcake. However, all the elements of this shot were carefully chosen. The background is a piece of scrapbooking paper from the craft store.
Of course, the other option you always have with photography is blurring, and thus simplifying, your background with a limited depth of field.
If you are a new photographer just trying to get your head around how depth of field works, the slow and deliberate nature of making fruit and vegetable still life images is a great way to experiment and understand the relationships of apertures, focal lengths, and their effects on depth of field.
Spritz things up
A favorite trick of food photographers looking to make their fruit and vegetable still life images look fresh and also add interest is to use a spray bottle to spritz their subjects with water. Sometimes to create larger droplets that hang better and last longer on the subject, they will add a bit of glycerine to the water.
Macro
The structure of living things is often fascinating, and being able to explore fruits and vegetables up close can reveal some really interesting things. Whether you use a dedicated macro lens, extension tubes, bellows, close-up filters, a reversed lens, or a combination of these, macro work is just the thing to divert your attention from your troubles while you focus on the unseen world.
Working inside in a controlled environment with no wind and complete control of the lighting will also help you learn macro techniques.
Get close and explore the detail with a macro shot. Often my LG V30 cellphone rivals even my dedicated DSLR macro lens.
Tell a story
When making fruit and vegetable still life images, it can enhance your photo if you add other objects to help “tell a story” about your scene. Rather than simply take a photo of an apple, slice the apple, add a cutting board and a knife to invite the viewer to consider what might have been going on. Add props that enhance the theme and avoid those that distract. Consider what makes sense in that particular scene and things you would naturally find paired together.
Add other items to your fruit and vegetable still life images to help tell a story.
High and low key
Fruit and vegetable still life photography can sometimes lend itself to high and low key renditions. To briefly define the terms, high-key is a lighting and exposure style that is very bright and contains little or no shadow. Contrast ratios, that being the difference between the lightest and darkest tones, are minimized. High-key photos will often have an “ethereal” look to them.
Two high-key images done very differently. The raspberry shot used a fast 1/1000 second shutter speed, the onion a slow 1/13 second shutter speed.
Low-key images are the opposite and typically quite dark, often with shadows that are totally black. They will often be quite contrasty with few mid-tones. Sometimes a low-key shot will use highlights in certain places to emphasize shape and form. Back and rim-lighting can lend itself well to a low-key look.
Here’s an exercise to try; take a fruit or vegetable, compose your shot, and make a “normal” exposure. Then, without moving the camera or subject, change the lighting and exposure to give it a high-key look. Now change the lighting and exposure again and see if you can get a low key look. This is a fun way to explore lighting techniques and understand the dramatic difference lighting can have on a scene.
Still life that moves
We call it “still” life because, most often, the subject doesn’t move during the exposure and is static. But need it be that way?
Fruits and vegetables can make great subjects for some dynamic images. In my article “Making the Shot: Your Guide to Creating Stunning High-Speed Splash Photos Without Flash,” I show some fun ways to make some really exciting images. You’ll note that almost all of my subjects were fruits and vegetables.
Still-life doesn’t have to be still. The short duration flash of a Speedlight froze the action in these shots.
There’s also this image from my “How to Use Multi-flash to Capture Compelling Action Photos” article. The orange pepper stood out nicely on a dark background and allowed me to make the stroboscopic image as it flew through the air.
Mom may have told you not to play with your food, but here, it’s entirely appropriate and a whole lot of fun.
Mom might have told you not to play with your food, but for photographic purposes, you have my permission to go crazy.
Conclusion
Many of you may be homebound and looking for creative ways to keep up your photography practice. Making fruit and vegetable still life images has some advantages;
It uses subjects you may already have at home.
It lends itself to a variety of different lighting techniques.
Macro photography is a possibility.
You can explore all kinds of new techniques.
If you get some really good shots you may be able to sell them as stock images.
After you’re done, you can eat your subjects!
Get back to your roots. A shot one day when visiting a farmer’s market.
Have fun with your fruit and vegetable still life photography, and post some of your great shots in the comments below.
If you’d like feedback, critique, and have a question about how to do something better, post that too. I try to answer all comments and look forward to hearing from you. Best wishes and be well!
The post Great Fruit and Vegetable Still Life Photography Ideas appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Rick Ohnsman.
Videographers waiting to be able to record 5.9K ProRes Raw video footage from the Lumix S1H to their Atomos Ninja V will have to wait a bit longer as statements from both camera and recorder manufacturers have confirmed that while the expected firmware release will go ahead on Monday, May 25, Raw video won’t be included.
Atomos says a technical issue is the cause and that the delay will be ‘slight,’ while Panasonic concentrates on the other new features firmware v2.0 will bring to users. Both companies say they’re working together to rectify the problem.
There’s no indication what the problem is, but only that it cropped up in beta testing and that both companies want to ensure recording quality is at its best before the firmware is released. A new release date for the raw video feature will be announced ‘shortly.’
Firmware V2.0 for the Panasonic S1H adds ProRes Raw video capture capability when paired with an Atomos Ninja V recorder.
While the v2.0 firmware won’t have its headline feature when released on Monday, it will still offer these new features:
LUMIX S1H Firmware Version 2.0 (*RAW video data output function is not included.)
Down converted output over HDMI during [6K]/[5.9K]/[5.4K] video recording is available.
In Creative Video mode, it is now possible to disable the operation of starting/stopping video recording by pressing a shutter button.
In Creative Video mode, it is now possible to set [Rec Quality (My List)] from the control panel.
The value of noise reduction in [V-Log] in Photo Style has been expanded to [-1], designed to suppress ghosting or afterimages that could have previously occurred in some situations.
It is possible to prevent the enlarged view window of MF Assist to be output over HDMI.
There were cases where colour banding appeared in 4:2:0/10-bit video recording in some situations. This bug has been minimised.
There were cases where the REC RUN time code did not count up when the video was not recorded on an SD Memory Card but was recorded on an external device over HDMI. This bug has been fixed.
It is now possible to set [AF+MF] in AFC mode.
It is now possible to assign functions to the lens’ Fn buttons when the Panasonic LUMIX S PRO 70-200mm F2.8 O.I.S. (S-E70200) is mounted.
It is now possible to assign function to the Fn buttons of Sigma L-Mount interchangeable lenses.
When attaching a lens using the Sigma MC-21 mount converter and [Image Stabilizer] > [Lens] is set to ON , Body I.S. (Image Stabiliser) suppresses roll movement.
[Backlight Illumination Period] has been added to the menu of Status LCD. [ON1] prevents the LCD backlight to be turned off.
It is now possible to select the card slot to save the JPEG images developed by in-camera RAW processing.
[0.5 SEC] has been added for an option of [Duration Time (photo)] in [Auto Review].
[Off (Disable Press and Hold)] can be assigned to the Fn button. It disables operation when the button is long-pressed.
The Fn button can be used for checking aperture effect while the button is pressed.
To prevent improper operation, touch-control is disabled for [Delete All] operation in playback mode. Only cursor buttons can be used for [Delete All] operation.
There were rare cases where the camera froze during [Segmented File Recording] or during recording at 400 Mbps under a particular set of conditions including the type of SD Card used. This phenomenon has been improved.
Aperture and shutter speed can be controlled using front/rear dials when the rear monitor is set to OFF.
There were cases where F stop value control failed depending on the maximum F stop value when non-Panasonic L-Mount lens is mounted. This bug has been fixed.
The new firmware will be downloadable for free via the Panasonic Japan support pages.
Atomos press release:
Atomos Ninja V and LUMIX S1H RAW firmware delay
The firmware updates enabling the much-anticipated Atomos Ninja V and Panasonic LUMIX S1H RAW over HDMI combination have unfortunately been slightly delayed from the original 25th May release schedule, to ensure the highest possible level of RAW recording.
An unforeseen technical issue has come to light in the final rounds of beta testing that needs rectification prior to shipping. The companies are working together to complete the development as soon as possible. We apologise to our mutual customers waiting for the functions this release enables.
Please note that Panasonic will be releasing Ver 2.0 firmware on May 25th with various improvements to camera functions, however will not include the planned RAW HDMI output feature. Atomos will release its Ninja V AtomOS for LUMIX S1H HDMI RAW in-line with Panasonic’s RAW output firmware.
The post How to Create a Pep Ventosa Inspired Still Life appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Charlie Moss.
Pep Ventosa is a Catalan artist who creates incredible images that explore the boundaries of photography. Made from multiple layers of similar photographs, they create an abstract and often surreal effect with a painterly feel. Ventosa usually creates pictures outside, but you can borrow his ideas to create a Pep Ventosa inspired still life.
This is an ideal experiment for someone new to working with layers in Photoshop who wants to try and create a fine art inspired still life. You’ll find that even the most mundane objects can create beautiful, ghostly images.
Shoot your base images
First of all, you’ll need your base images. I started with a simple tabletop set up next to a window so that I could work with natural light. You could also use studio lights or lamps for this technique, and different lighting will produce quite different results!
Once you have your camera set up and an interesting object in place to photograph, take your first image. Then rotate the object a small amount and shoot another. I like to take at least ten images, which seems to always create a good effect. If you choose to start working with lots more images, you begin to run into Photoshop’s file size limitations quite quickly!
Make sure that you place your camera on a tripod the first time you try this out. This will keep your background consistent and allow you to move the object without worrying about having your camera in the same place each time. Once you’ve mastered the technique, you can experiment with moving the camera as well as the object in a different variation of the Pep Ventosa inspired still life.
Work in Lightroom Classic
You can choose to import the images straight into Photoshop and layer them into a stack manually if that’s your preferred workflow. However, I really like the Lightroom Classic functionality that can do all this for you.
As you can see, the images are all very similar, but each one is slightly different from the last. I’ve tried not to blow out any highlights or get too much black in the shadows. Having the images quite flat in this respect can be helpful when you start to work with the layer blending modes in Photoshop.
Take this opportunity to also clean up any blemishes or marks on the backdrop. Anything left in now will be harder to tidy up later.
When you’re ready to start layering your images, select them all in Lightroom Classic and then select the “Open as Layers in Photoshop” option. This will create an image file that has all of your base photographs stacked on Photoshop layers. Now you’re ready to start the fun bit of editing your Pep Ventosa inspired still life.
Work with Photoshop blend modes
Blend modes can be intimidating if you’ve never used them before, but this experimental image can be a great time to play with them. There are 27 different blending modes in total, which gives you lots of options for your Pep Ventosa inspired still life.
At the top of the layer stack is a drop-down box that is available as long as you have a layer highlighted. This is where the blend modes are hiding. Each option allows the layers underneath to show through according to different computer algorithms.
For the image above, I set each layer to “multiply” blend mode and changed the opacity to between 25% and 50%. This results in an extremely dark image at the end (because the colors multiply together mathematically), so I also added a Curves Layer to bring the exposure back up to something normal.
Spend some time experimenting with different blending modes. In my experience, Soft Light and Overlay also give interesting results. Some of the others might, too depending on your base images.
Finishing your image
Once you’ve finished adjusting your layers, you can save the image, close Photoshop, and open Lightroom Classic back up. Now you can polish the image, adjusting the colors and tone to suit your style.
Once you’ve edited an image in Photoshop and taken it back into Lightroom Classic, you can treat it as you would any other image. That means you can apply any effects, filters, or presets to the image.
If you’ve never worked with presets in Lightroom Classic before consider buying a large set to get you started. As you experiment with them and use them more and more, you’ll get to know how the settings work, and then you can start building your own.
Changing the colors in Lightroom Classic can change the whole mood of a photo. A dark, shadowy blue image can feel quite melancholy and introspective, while a warmer-toned image can feel more hopeful and even joyous.
When you shoot a still life image, it’s not just the subject that conveys emotion, but the colors too. So while you’re finishing off the colors in Lightroom Classic, make sure that they’re helping to communicate your message.
Consider how you’ll print your image
These kinds of images are really begging to be printed quite large on beautifully textured paper. And there are plenty of labs that will do this for you. A textured paper can really enhance the fine art feel of a Pep Ventosa inspired still life, working sympathetically with the multiple layer effect that you’ve created in Photoshop.
If you don’t intend to print your image, you could try adding textures to your work instead. Open the image (again) in Photoshop and try out different textures until you get an effect that you’re happy with. Remember, textures are always best kept subtle!
Conclusion
There are so many different ways you could use this technique. You could combine it with other photographic techniques, or different post-processing. And of course, there is an infinite number of different subjects that you could photograph.
Please do try your own Pep Ventosa inspired still life. And don’t forget to post your results in the comments – I’d love to see the different ways that we all interpret this idea!
The post How to Create a Pep Ventosa Inspired Still Life appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Charlie Moss.
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