Photographer Coach

Someone once said that if your photos don’t seem interesting, that’s only because you weren’t close enough! Given physical limitations, we often resort to zoom lenses or print enlargement to get closer to the subject. However, digital image magnification now gives us another way to do this. This image of the bumblebee is actually a digitally magnified portion of the original. Let’s see the original and learn more about this technique.

One of the only good reasons to have a digital camera with high resolution (5 megapixels and above) is so that you can digitally zoom in on an area of the image and not have that zoomed in portion become all choppy or noisy. The lower the resolution of the original, the worse the magnified area will be. Realize, too, that with most digital cameras, you can choose low, medium, or high resolution. Best to use the highest setting if you think you’ll want to enlarge or edit the images later on. Read the rest

Olympus EVOLT E-510
10 MP Digital SLR (Single Lens Reflex) camera

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The E-510 is one of several entry-level digital SLRs on the market, clocking in at under $1000 with the typical inexpensive short zoom. Olympus film SLRs have always been quirky, and their DSLRs seem to follow suit. A good analogy is driving a Subaru after years of driving other Japanese cars—the controls are oddly marked and not positioned in the standard locations. Read the rest

Holga 120CFN
Medium Format Fixed Focus Film Camera with Lens and Built-in Flash with Color Filter Wheel
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What’s a Holga?

A Holga is a cheap Chinese plastic medium format film camera. Essentially, a toy! Yes, I did say FILM camera! Why review this decidedly lo-tech dinosaur? Well, simply put, the Holga lets you express your creativity in ways that digital does not allow. Shoot a roll of color slide film and then have your photo processing people cross-process it as if it were negative film (For Kodak and similar films, that would be C-41 instead of the proper E-6). Check out my Holga shots here and see what you think!
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Happy Holidays! Christmas lights are very tempting to us photographers, aren’t they? Unless you have a “Xmas Lights” setting on your digital point-and-shoot, how are you going to make a photo like this?

First of all, you need to find a photo-worthy scene. This image was shot in Love Park (in front of City Hall) in Philadelphia. The Robert Indiana “Love” sculpture is a favorite destination photo site for tourists. Each year when they put up the 50-foot decorated tree behind it, the whole scene bursts into life! That is, at night. During the day it’s kind of mediocre. So how to photograph it at night? Read the rest

Someone asked me the other day, “How can you get great contrast in a color photograph?” My answer was (and still is), “Sunny day and bright, fully saturated contrasting colors.” Short of that, you’re going to have to do a lot of work with a photo editing computer program.

It’s quite easy to get great contrast in a black and white photograph, provided the image is made up of mostly black blacks and white whites (not innumerable shades of grey between). Upping the contrast is generally very easy to do with photo editing software, your main concerns being 1) loss of shadow detail and 2) burning out the highlights. Color is a bit more difficult, what with there being all those, uh, colors. When you stop and think about it, its kind of unusual to see much naturally occurring contrasting color. Perhaps this is why we find deciduous leaves so much more interesting in the Fall than at other times of the year! Read the rest

Author: Amy Arbus
Publisher: Welcome Books
Year Published: 2006
Rating:
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On April 28, 2007, Amy Arbus did a lecture and book signing at the photography Gallery 339 in Philadelphia. For some lame reason, I did not attend the lecture. I did, however, go there and buy the book with the intent of getting her to sign it. Read the rest

Pentax K100D
6.1MP Digital SLR (Single Lens Reflex) camera
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The low cost competitor enters the DSLR market! The obvious question: “Are we still to consider it so?” Not really, as it costs the same as its competitors in the consumer-grade DSLR market. Pentax has never had much snob appeal or cachet. However, the lenses have always been great and the (film SLR) bodies workhorses. So let’s see how the digital version measures up! Read the rest

People portraits are tricky. What’s key to a successful one? Well, aside from technicalities, its all about respect and interest. Respect your subject and show interest in who they are and what they do. You’d be surprised how many people will let you photograph them!

I shot this image in a thrift shop. A very photogenic couple was testing out a sofa and I was hunting for people portraits for a book I’ve since written. I told them they looked great together and asked if I could photograph them for the book (it always helps the creative process if you carry your camera everywhere!). They gladly agreed and I came away with a great shot and an introduction to the band “Sunsplit,” in which the couple play. Read the rest

What’s Octoberfest without a pig roast? The woman ahead of me in the meat line was snapping a cell phone shot of her dinner, so I just shot her hand shooting her subject! Its kind of trendy to selectively desaturate a color image these days, and I get caught up in it too. Read on and I’ll tell you how I did it!

The original is just not a great looking photo, is it? Composition-wise, I liked it, but it has its problems. I shot it on the spur of the moment and didn’t have much time to set my controls (Canon Rebel XT with Canon 28-135 mm lens). I figured I could salvage it somehow in Adobe’s Photoshop. Read the rest

Happy Halloween! This is an image of an eight foot gargoyle that graces the entrance of Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. I shot the original in black and white (Canon Rebel XT with Tamron 28-200 mm lens), then added sepia toning in Photoshop. Read the rest