Great Portraits in the Great Outdoors

If you have ever photographed your weekend outing, family reunion, or a special vacation getaway with your friends or family, you know that outdoor photography can present some very special challenges. This is true even for the most seasoned photographer. Direct sunlight can be harsh. Unwanted objects can interfere with your composition. Proper color rendering can be problematic. And many times, good old Mother Nature is just not feeling cooperative. Perhaps, there’s not much that can be done about Mother Nature, but with some practice and patience you can overcome many of the other challenges you face as an outdoor portrait photographer. Along my journey as a photographer I’ve learned some outdoor techniques that may benefit those who choose to follow:

1. Keep it simple.
    The subtle pattern and color of an adobe wall, the simple repeating pattern and muted tones of planks on a fishing pier, or the uniform color of a patch of blue bonnets, snapdragons, or yellow primrose can serve as wonderful backdrops for your outdoor portraits. When you are composing your portrait, you want your subject to be the focal point that all eyes are drawn to. Busy patterns, large areas of excessively vibrant colors (especially a mixture of different colors), or over imposing forms in your foreground or background that are not treated properly, can really distract from her if you are not careful.

2. Control the depth of field (the range of distances from your camera that are in focus).
    The edge of a forest, or mountains in the distance may render beautifully as a backdrop for your subject with proper control over the depth of field. If you have an SLR camera, you can adjust your depth of field to bring the background more or less out of focus relative to your subject. This serves as eye control for the observer of your portrait. The eye is naturally drawn to what is brightest and most sharply focused. If your subject is sharply focused relative to the background, she will be accentuated as the focal point of your portrait. Controlling the depth of field is accomplished by adjusting your aperture setting (the size of your lens opening, expressed in f-stops). The smaller the f-stop the larger the opening of your lens, and the smaller the depth of field will be. For instance, when you see a photograph in a nature magazine of a beautiful butterfly in a patch of flowers, and the butterfly is in razor sharp focus but the flowers are gently blurred; this was accomplished by the photographer using a narrow depth of field (small f-stop setting). For bright light situations this may be difficult to achieve. For any given intensity of light, as you open up the aperture (lower the f-stop) you must increase the shutter speed (thereby decreasing exposure time) to avoid over exposure. Increasing the shutter speed generally reduces resolution in the image. Experiment to find the combination of aperture setting and shutter speed that gives the result you desire.

3. Be mindful of distracting objects behind your subject.
   What is plainly a bush, a mailbox, or a birdhouse to your eye, can appear like an extra appendage growing out of the top of your subject’s head in your two dimensional portrait. You may get some interesting effects this way, but generally they will not make a good impression on your subject. Take the time to find an interesting angle that eliminates distracting objects from the background.

4. Control the light.
  “Down light” (e.g. harsh midday light) is generally undesirable. Due to the shadow patterns it creates, it can bring out the worst in your subject … can anyone say, “Raccoon eyes”? “Lateral light” (e.g. early morning and late afternoon light) is much more desirable. Lateral light can be controlled and directed to create beautiful shadow patterns across the face of your subject. There is a saying with many photographers who shoot outdoors, “the first tree in the forest is best” for a background. The reason is, the canopy of the first tree controls the harsh down light, but being on the edge of the forest, you still have lateral light to work with. The same idea holds true for porches or the edge of any other type of overhang. Professional photographers sometimes use shade cloth and reflectors to block down light while directing available lateral light to enhance their subject and achieve their desired effect.

5. Correct the color.
    Before the digital age, corrective filters or special films were mostly used for color correction in outdoor portraits. With digital cameras, the color can be corrected using your white balance setting (expressed as color temperature in degrees Kelvin). Most digital cameras today do a pretty good job of automatically adjusting the white balance for outdoor exposures. If you would like to experiment with your manual white balance setting use the table below as a guide.  For a more detailed understanding of the meaning of color temperature correction, see the article at: http://www.sizes.com/units/color_temperature.htm

Temperature Typical Sources
1000K....... Candles; oil lamps
2400K....... Early morning sunrise
3200K....... Tungsten light bulbs
4000K....... Fluorescent
5200K....... Typical daylight; electronic flash
6000K....... Cloudy Day
7000K....... Shade


Keeping your composition simple, controlling the depth of field, and eliminating objects that may distract from your subject, all help to accentuate your subject as the focal point of your portrait. Controlling the available natural light and correcting the white balance of your photographs can reveal and enhance the true beauty of your subject. Beyond this, make it your aim each day to unleash your creativity that you may see the world around you in fresh and unique ways. Never be content with seeing the ordinary as ordinary. Just stop and think for a moment, everything there is, is ordinary to someone. Art is created by those with the ability to see beyond the ordinary, to interpret their world in an exceptional way, and to reflect their interpretation for others to see. So, experiment and don’t be afraid to try something new. The world is abundant in forms, textures, colors, and patterns of light ... all the handy-work of God. Grand landscapes and magnificent man-made structures are not required for great photos in the great outdoors. May Mother Nature always cooperate with you, and may the force be with you all!

A Brief History Of Photography

For centuries images have been projected onto surfaces. The camera obscura and the camera lucida were used by artists to trace scenes as early as the 16th century. These early cameras did not fix an image in time; they only projected what passed through an opening in the wall of a darkened room onto a surface. In effect, the entire room was turned into a large pinhole camera. Indeed, the phrase camera obscura literally means "darkened room," and it is after these darkened rooms that all modern cameras have been named.

The first photograph is considered to be an image produced in 1826 by the French inventor Nicéphore Niépce on a polished pewter plate covered with a petroleum derivative called bitumen of Judea. It was produced with a camera, and required an eight hour exposure in bright sunshine. However this process turned out to be a dead end and Niépce began experimenting with silver compounds based on a Johann Heinrich Schultz discovery in 1724 that a silver and chalk mixture darkens when exposed to light.

Niépce, in Chalon-sur-Saône, and the artist Louis Daguerre, in Paris, refined the existing silver process in a partnership. In 1833 Niépce died of a stroke, leaving his notes to Daguerre. While he had no scientific background, Daguerre made two pivotal contributions to the process.

He discovered that by exposing the silver first to iodine vapour, before exposure to light, and then to mercury fumes after the photograph was taken, a latent image could be formed and made visible. By then bathing the plate in a salt bath the image could be fixed.

In 1839 Daguerre announced that he had invented a process using silver on a copper plate called the Daguerreotype. A similar process is still used today for Polaroids. The French government bought the patent and immediately made it public domain.

Across the English Channel, William Fox Talbot had earlier discovered another means to fix a silver process image but had kept it secret. After reading about Daguerre's invention Talbot refined his process, so that it might be fast enough to take photographs of people as Daguerre had done and by 1840 he had invented the calotype process.

He coated paper sheets with silver chloride to create an intermediate negative image. Unlike a daguerreotype a calotype negative could be used to reproduce positive prints, like most chemical films do today. Talbot patented this process which greatly limited its adoption.

He spent the rest of his life in lawsuits defending the patent until he gave up on photography altogether. But later this process was refined by George Eastman and is today the basic technology used by chemical film cameras. Hippolyte Bayard also developed a method of photography but delayed announcing it, and so was not recognized as its inventor.

In 1851 Frederick Scott Archer invented the collodion process. It was the process used by Lewis Carroll.

Slovene Janez Puhar invented the technical procedure for making photographs on glass in 1841. The invention was recognized on July 17th 1852 in Paris by the Académie Nationale Agricole, Manufacturière et Commerciale.

The Daguerreotype proved popular in responding to the demand for portraiture emerging from the middle classes during the Industrial Revolution. This demand, that could not be met in volume and in cost by oil painting, may well have been the push for the development of photography.

However daguerreotypes, while beautiful, were fragile and difficult to copy. A single photograph taken in a portrait studio could cost $1200 in 2015 US dollars. Photographers also encouraged chemists to refine the process of making many copies cheaply, which eventually led them back to Talbot's process. Ultimately, the modern photographic process came about from a series of refinements and improvements in the first 20 years.

In 1884 George Eastman, of Rochester, New York, developed dry gel on paper, or film, to replace the photographic plate so that a photographer no longer needed to carry boxes of plates and toxic chemicals around. In July of 1888 Eastman's Kodak camera went on the market with the slogan "You press the button, we do the rest". Now anyone could take a photograph and leave the complex parts of the process to others. Photography became available for the mass-market in 1901 with the introduction of Kodak Brownie.

Since then color film has become standard, as well as automatic focus and automatic exposure. Digital recording of images is becoming increasingly common, as digital cameras allow instant previews on LCD screens and the resolution of top of the range models has exceeded high quality 35mm film while lower resolution models have become affordable. For the enthusiast photographer processing black and white film, little has changed since the introduction of the 35mm film Leica camera in 1925.

Take Time To Read Your Digital Camera Owner’s Manual

All cameras come with an owners manual, but so few people take the time to read it.  Once they get past the basic operations, they get anxious to go out and try the camera.

Maybe all the new terms are confusing or there seems like too much information to digest.  This is understandable, but by not reading the entire manual, you limit yourself and many cool features of your camera are never used.  Hopefully you will find the following suggestions helpful in getting the most from your digital camera.

After your first overview of the features your camera possesses, decide what you would like to explore the most.  Pick only one special feature.  Read the instructions on what this feature can do and how to use it.  Don’t worry if it isn’t completely clear, that will come in time.

Now the fun part.  Take your camera and start using this special feature.  Try all the different settings within this one feature.  See how your pictures change.  Explore what this feature does.  Don’t stop until you know this feature inside and out  and don’t go onto the next feature until you have fully explored this one.

When you are satisfied you know the ins and outs of one special feature, return to the owner’s manual and pick another special feature you would like to learn.  Repeat the above process with this feature, only returning to the manual when you are satisfied you have mastered the new skill.

By working through the owner’s manual in this way, you will find it isn’t so overwhelming.  The hands-on practice of each skill will help you learn it thoroughly.  When you have covered all the cool things your camera will do, go out and enjoy them all.  You will be glad you took the time to become friends with this wonderful creation.

Tripods - How to Avoid Blurry Photos

All of us had the experience of shooting photos just to find out they look blurry or too soft. In almost all cases the reason for that is camera movement. When the camera moves while the shutter is open the result is a soft or blurry photo. Usually camera movements are small and for that reason in high shutter speeds the camera does not have an opportunity to move enough. However in some scenarios such as slow shutter speeds or high zoom values even the tiniest movement will result in a blurry photo.

Most photos are taken when the camera is held in your hand. The hand is an unstable platform and tends to move quite a bit. Moreover new digital cameras are smaller and lighter than ever before and are much harder to keep stable. Another cause for camera movement is aggressively pushing the shutter button which in return moves the camera. It is always better to squeeze the shutter button very slowly to prevent the camera from moving. Choosing the right camera for weight, grip and shutter button sensitivity is a recommended way to minimize camera movements in the future.

As a general rule photos that are taken with slow shutter speeds or high zoom values should be taken using a more stable platform than your hand. A stable platform can be anything that is stable: a table, a shelf, a chair or a newsstand in the street. However, the platform that is considered the most stable and professional is the tripod.

There are many types of tripods and they vary in size, weight, price and other features. The most important criteria when choosing a tripod is to pick one that will be easy to use. For example if you are traveling consider a tripod that is easy to carry and lightweight otherwise you will end up leaving the tripod in the hotel room while missing great photo opportunities. On the other hand if you take photos in a studio consider a heavier professional tripod.

Another important feature to consider is the tripod’s height. Many tripods can be locked at any height up to a maximum. Ideally you would want a tripod that extends to your height allowing photos to be taken from the same angle as your eyes as if they were taken by hand. Many portable tripods extend to a waist height or less. In these situations the tripod will be put on a raised platform or the photos can be taken from a low angle.

In cases where a tripod is not available but a stable platform is needed you can improvise by using many other available platforms around you. For example you can place the camera on a table when taking a photo or if you’re outdoors you can use a newsstand, a tree to lean on, a fence or anything else that is stable enough.