World War II and Depression-era America was mostly documented in black and white. That’s color photos of the time belonging to the Library of Congress is so engrossing. Shot in color at the same time as more widely recognized black-and-white photos, these images offer a vivid look into American life in 30’s and 40’s. We’ve picked a few favorites of the more than 1500 images total contained within the Library of Congress’ Flickr account.
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
In music they say the spaces between the notes are just as important as the notes themselves. Similarly in photography, it can be the spaces that are not in the light that add impact to an image.
If it were not for the shadow cast by the dirt bike, it might be difficult to tell it was off the ground.
Shadows help tell a story and enhance the mood and visual power of a photograph. In fact, they can be so interesting, that they “overshadow” the subject itself!
By focussing your attention on the shadows, you can create beautiful compositions full of contrast, form, and minimalist simplicity. An object and its shadow will strengthen each other. Sometimes you might even want to cut the object out entirely, and play with capturing only the interesting shadows that are cast by it.
In this image of a small plant, it is really the shadow that is the main subject for the image would have very little interest without it.
Photographing shadows works best with strong, simple shapes that make interesting graphic designs such as flowers, sharp lines, or even human beings. After all, who hasn’t taken a picture of their own shadow as it stretches out across the sidewalk in front of them?
You can use shadows compositionally the same way you would use any other element in the scene: as leading lines, patterns, curves that guide the eye into the scene or to create a balance of negative and positive space.
Look for patterns created by shadows. Here, an interesting pattern is formed by the sandstone blocks and their shadows.
If you put your camera on an automatic mode (even aperture or shutter priority mode) and try to photograph a shadow, it’ll probably come out too light. This is, after all, what cameras are designed to do – expose with enough brightness to see detail. Of course, this isn’t always what we want, and shadows are a prime example of when you need to manually change your exposure to make sure the shadow remains in darkness.
There are a few ways that this can be done:
Late afternoon sidelight created a pattern, an interesting repetition of lines, in this arcade.
In this image of a sand dune, the shadow adds form to the dune and creates a strong and balancing line in the image. I made this image mid-afternoon during a scouting trip. It turned out much better than the image I made of the same location later in the day when the right side of the dune was entirely in shadow.
Next time you’re out shooting, make a point of noticing the shapes of the shadows. Challenge yourself to actively use them to create mood, to add dimension to your subject, or to take center stage in a creatively crafted composition.
Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.
Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.
Add Impact to Your Photos by Including Shadows
Photographer Nick Ballon stumbled across the Lloyd Aero Boliviano headquarters on an annual trip to Bolivia. He was captivated by the expansive property and dilapidated buildings he saw, and his curiosity sparked a photo series and collaboration with Bolivian writer Amaru Villanueva Rance. Six months exploring the grounds, talking with employees and researching the long history of the dying airline has resulted in a stunning photo series and a book called Ezekiel 36:36. Click through for a glimpse into the L.A.B.
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
 Photos: Maria_Naverno, JuanCarlos87, Stasyaposhkute, Brianvw1, Juliefab.  |
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Datamoshing sounds kinda like that fun thing you used to do when Slipknot came on the radio in 2002.
While pushing some punks around is totally fun, pushing pixels is fun and less likely to get you elbowed in the face.
So how do you push the pixels around in your photos? Glitché. It’s an app that lets you warp your photos using computer errors and bugs.
You get to pick from eight different types of glitches, each of which you can manipulate to your liking. Swirl, tap, and paint different effects like slit-scanning, 3D renderings (!!!), psychedelic color inversions, and datamoshing.
Within a few minutes of your first glitches, you’ll see why some call Glitché “the Instagram for digital psychedelia.”
In other glitch news, Year of the Glitch is selling glitch art blankets (Thnx, Doc!).
Glitché — Turn Phone Photos into Glitch Art [Thnx, Darby!]
p.s. We’re hiring for an amazing opening at Photojojo. Apply and learn more to be our Editorial & Community Lead.
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Godalfoss – Waterfall of the Gods – is one of the most striking natural features of Iceland, a country famed for, well… striking natural features. My Modern Metropolis has published a gallery of 12 stunning images of Godalfoss, including a shot taken by dpreview contributor Erez Marom. Click through to feast your eyes, but be warned – it will make you want to take a trip to Iceland.
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Photography & Video. ]
Twice as dense as New York, and four times as crowded as London, Hong Kong is a fascinating mix of natural landscape edged by incredibly dense human construction.
Michael Wolf, a German photographer, focuses on the latter, turning the vast structures of the city into strange stand-alone landscapes that show the enormity and relentless repetitiveness of this vertical urban environment.
On the one hand, it is fascinating to see just how overwhelming the overarching rhythms of the buildings are when you take a broad view. At the same time, though, individuality begins to emerge as you zoom in and narrow the scope of your perspective.
In his book Architecture of Density Wolf explores the patterns and scales of his new home city, testing different angles and distances while remaining focused on the sometimes-bleak yet awe-inspiring man-made side of this incredibly packed island.
As his main series of photographs show (versus the scout shots directly above), attempts to distinguish scales through details and color seem almost hopeless against the large-scale monotony of it all. To be fair to its inhabitants, however, those upper-level images tell only one half of the story – visiting Hong Kong has many more dimensions than can be seen looking only from on high.
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The cautious photographer is always conscious of what’s happening to their images when they’re being shared online – whether they’re being resized, re-compressed or otherwise modified from the original. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter all treat images differently, but a new cheat sheet can help you keep your pictures sharp by detailing the pixel dimensions of just about every component on the major social networking sites. Click through for more details on connect.dpreview.com
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of meeting the Digital Photography School headmaster, Darren Rowse, in person at a conference we both attended called the World Domination Summit in Portland, OR. The message of the conference (yes, the name invokes much curiosity) is simple: community, adventure, and service. It’s a large group of people that enjoy life, live adventures constantly and give back in service of others. That’s one of the reasons why I love writing on this site so much, I get to share my experience and knowledge and help you!
Me and Darren Rowse
Darren was one of the keynote speakers and he most of the attendees (3000+) inspired to move forward and live our dreams. He even fulfilled one of his childhood dreams on stage, but I’ll leave that for Darren to share with you!
One thing I’ve always wanted to do is visit the Sea Lion Caves in Oregon. So after the conference my husband and I headed to the coast for a few days. We camped in one of the state parks, in the middle of the woods and sand dunes, it was awesome being in nature. But, being a photographer I couldn’t just sit around the campfire and do nothing, so out came the camera!
It’s really not that hard to create some really cool images that will impress your friends. I’m going to walk you through my process for creating the image above and how I adjusted as I went to get the desired result. Remember photography is a journey, not a destination, don’t expect to get it perfect on the first shot – I never do!
Here are my 5 tips for you on creating some fun campfire images.
A tripod is essential for doing this type of photography as you’ll be dealing with some really long exposures, mine ranged from two to ten full seconds. Make sure you have a sturdy tripod and if you want to get in some of the photos you can either use the self timer, as I did and run into the scene, or get yourself a handy wireless remote you can put in your pocket and fire the camera from your spot in the image.
ISO 400, f/4, 1/8th of a second
The image above is the first one I made and I wasn’t happy with it. It didn’t have the mood I wanted and the sky was too light. So I had a snack and waited about an hour then made the following image. I’ve given the exposure data for each shot so you can see how I adjusted it as the sun went down and the amount of light diminished.
ISO 1600, f/4, 2 seconds
Okay, so that’s way better but I felt it was still missing something. I really liked how the light was streaming out of the holes in the rim of the fire pit. The exposure is just right on the background but it seemed a bit boring.
Notice also that I increased the ISO to 1600. If I hadn’t my exposure at ISO 400 would have been 8 seconds. It’s pretty hard to keep perfectly still for 8 seconds so I sacrificed gaining a little bit of noise to get what I felt was a more reasonable 2 second exposure time.
Going from the last image, I knew wanted to add a bit of a light to to the tent, to make it look like it was glowing. So I took my headlamp (get one at a camping supply store or use a flashlight) and turned it on inside the tent. I aimed it at the back wall facing away from the camera so I didn’t get a hot spot, and it lit up the whole tent quite evenly. If you have a larger tent you may need more than one light inside.
**NOTE: do NOT put fire or a gas lantern inside your tent! Please practice good fire safety habits at all times.**
ISO 1600, f/4, 2 seconds
Okay almost perfect, except for a couple of little things. As we had just put a log on the fire it was pretty intense and bright. That brings me to the last tip.
There’s no way to control the intensity of the fire except by darkening the whole image, but if I do that then my background will basically disappear into a black abyss. So we waited a while before doing the next image. I also added a second head lamp, this time on the picnic table seat behind us. It is pointed back towards us and I placed it careful so we’d be in front of it and the light itself wasn’t hitting the lens directly.
Here’s a couple of the final shots, with which I was quite pleased. I changed my camera angle a bit and re-cropped but otherwise they are very similar. Notice these last exposures were a bit longer. The light in the sky was almost completely gone so in order to get any detail in the background I had to increase the overall exposure, taking care to not overexpose the fire.
ISO 1600, f/4, 5 seconds
ISO 1600, f/4, 5 seconds
Focusing at night is very tricky because your camera can’t see in the dark, neither can you! The best way to focus is to have your friend hold a light where you’re going to sit (or put it on a chair). Aim the light directly at the lens, which will allow the camera to “see” it and lock focus on that spot. Once it’s locked, just switch to manual focus, taking care not to bump the camera or accidentally turn the focusing ring. If you move the camera or recompose the scene, just do the same procedure over again.
If you want to read more about other night photography techniques I’ve done a couple of article on Light Painting and some special effects. Links to them below:
Since we still have a little bit of summer left in the Northern Hemisphere, if you plan on doing a little camping take the camera gear along and give this a try! You may find your travel companions get into it and have a little fun with it as well. Also gives you a great way to do some fun group photos. You can also use flash if you’re so inclined and skilled. Please do share your images with us and any other tips you want to add that I may have missed.
Cheers, Darlene
Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.
Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.
5 Tips for Creating fun Campfire Photos
Nokia’s Lumia 1020 is the company’s second attempt at a 41-megapixel camera phone, and it’s been generating a lot of hype. As the follow-up to last year’s 808 PureView phone, Nokia’s latest has much to prove. The 808 remains one of the best smartphones we’ve ever looked at in terms of its photographic capabilities, so we’ve been keen to get our hands on the 1020 which melds Nokia’s innovative ‘oversampling’ technology with a more modern Windows operating system. We offer our first look at the Lumia 1020 on connect.dpreview.com.
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
Photography has been around for almost two hundred years, but amazingly, it’s only in the past couple of decades that it has gained widespread acceptance as an artform. These days, images by significant photographers command very high prices. But How high is ‘very high’? Internet community FreeYork.org has published a list of the ten most expensive photos ever sold. Click through for the list.
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
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