Kat Eye Studio

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Exploring with a Camera: The Lights of Night

Welcome to December’s Exploring with a Camera! This month we’re going to be exploring the Lights of Night. It’s the perfect time of year to get out and play around with some night photography, since there are such short hours of daylight here in the northern hemisphere and all of these extra holiday lights hanging around.

I’m going to do something a little different this month. Instead of having a whole new Exploring with a Camera topic, let’s refresh on a few oldies but goodies on the photography of night and lights. Be sure to read all the way to the end because I’ve got an extra-special bonus that I want to be sure you don’t miss!

December’s Fog, Benton County Courthouse in Corvallis, Oregon

Night Photography

Tony’s Studio, San Francisco, California

You can revisit Exploring with a Camera: Night Photography to take a look at the basics of night photography. In this article, you will find tips on everything from the blue hour, reflections, and color cast, to handholding your camera for good night shots without a tripod. It’s based on all of my “lessons learned” from wandering at night on our travels around Europe, where I discovered the fun and beauty of a city after dark. These tips are timeless… The techniques I share on getting good night/low light images while hand-holding the camera in this post are ones I still use today.

Holiday Lights

Tree Lights, Albany, Oregon

In Exploring with a Camera: Holiday Lights, I focused in on the specifics of capturing those holiday lights. Revisit this post to get some ideas and tips on capturing city lights, bokeh lights, and twinkle lights. I also take a look at capturing lights in a different way with reflections and shadows, and address the awful “ghost lights” you might sometimes find in your images upon review.

Creative Lights

Exploring with a Camera: Creative Lights will give you a few ideas beyond the basics! Visit this article to learn about layering in and out of focus lights for an interesting view, using zoom to create cool effects, and capturing the funky hologram effect I’ve shown above. These ideas lead you to more abstract creations with the lights of night.

An Added Bonus

I’ve got an added bonus for you too! In my next email newsletter, which should arrive in your inbox on Sunday, I’ll have a PDF with even more tips on night photography. One of the photographers in our local PhotoArts Guild, John Ritchie, is an accomplished night photographer. Take a look at this gallery to see his night photography work.

Last year, John combined his lessons learned on night photography with a tripod and my tips on handheld night photography to create a tip sheet for our guild. He’s graciously allowed me to share it with you all. It’s a fabulous resource! It will arrive with the next Kat Eye News so be sure that you are signed up.

Are you ready to get started? I am! I’m planning to go out in the early hours of the morning this weekend and capture the lights of night. I’ve just purchased a cable release this week and I’m ready to carry my tripod around to play with some new techniques I’ve learned from John.

You can share your explorations with us here through the end of December. Go through your archive, or go out and try something new. Share your city lights, home lights, indoors or out. It doesn’t have to be holiday-related, anything goes as long as it’s the Lights of Night!


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Into the Light

We continue our Exploring with a Camera topic of Chiaroscuro this week, with a look at walking into the light. You can get some great strong light/dark contrast when you are indoors and look out into the light. In this situation, instead of having the subject illuminated against a dark background, the subject is dark against a light background.

This image was taken at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. After a while I was overwhelmed by the museum’s vast and varied collection, so I began wandering the museum looking more at the architecture than the artifacts. I stopped at an overlook above the main doors and photographed the movement of people in and out. There was an ebb and flow to the motion. It made me wonder where all of these people are coming from, and going to. I wondered where this woman was headed with such purpose. The strong light/dark contrast, the focus and her isolation from other elements highlights her as the subject.

How is your exploration of chiaroscuro going? Have you found examples in your archives? Have you experimented yet? Share your results with us here! The link up is open until November 30, so you have plenty of time to explore.


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Exploring with a Camera: Chiaroscuro

Greetings! Welcome to November’s Exploring with a Camera. This month I am going back to Italy, literally and figuratively, as we study chiaroscuro, or light/dark contrast. I found myself creating of images with strong light/dark contrast on my recent trip to England, reminding me that I used this technique on a regular basis when I was living in Italy. Images like this can create a strong mood and story.

Chiaroscuro is an Italian word, combining the words for light (chiaro) and dark (scuro), and it refers to an artistic technique of using light and dark to render an object as three dimensional in two dimensional art. It is commonly used to refer to very strong light and dark contrasts in a piece of art, such as seen in the works of Caravaggio and Rembrandt. If you aren’t familiar with their paintings, give the links a quick click to see some examples.

In photography, the concept of chiaroscuro can be used to create dramatic images. Creating an image with strong light/dark contrast has some challenges, however. Let’s take a look at how to overcome them so we can use this wonderfully dramatic artistic effect.

Contrast and your Camera

The built in light meters in our digital cameras are a fantastic tool, but they can’t read our artistic intent. The camera’s automatic settings are programmed to work with the light meter to get an even exposure across the frame. It reads the light and dark and recommends an exposure to get an average, based on mid-tone grey. This works great when we have even lighting and want the entire frame illuminated, but when we have a situation with a strong light/dark contrast, the automated exposure can be dramatically wrong. If there is a small amount of light compared to dark areas within the frame, to get the average exposure camera will try to make the darks lighter, and will overexpose. If there is a small amount of dark in light, the camera will try to make the lights darker, and will underexpose.

For an effective chiaroscuro image, you need to expose for where you want the detail. To do that, you will need to compensate your exposure manually, increasing or decreasing the exposure to get the desired effect. You can use manual mode or exposure compensation in the creative modes to adjust the exposure. Look up exposure compensation and exposure modes in your camera manual to learn more. (If you’re not clear on this, my Digital Photography Basics ebook will be ready very soon and it has a more thorough explanation. Sign up for the Kat Eye News to be notified when it’s available.)

For the typical chiaroscuro effect, a small amount of light in dark, you will want to underexposure. This will keep the dark tones very dark, almost black, while the light tones will not be overexposed. Play around with your exposure, however, to see what works best for the specific image you want to create.

If your light source is actually in your frame, don’t worry if your highlights are overexposed. In the example below, underexposing further would render the view out the window visible, but would have put the figure in silhouette — not the desired effect. With chiaroscuro, you want to see the form of the subject.

You can also adjust your highlights and shadows in post processing to create greater light/dark contrast. In this image, I pushed the shadows darker to create more contrast between the figure and the alley.

Finding the Light

It takes the right lighting situation to create a chiaroscuro effect. You need the contrast of light in dark, which requires a light source that drops off fairly quickly into darkness. An interior room with one window, an alley opening into sun, or a light at night all provide the opportunity for creating with light/dark contrast.

There is no specific direction the light needs to be relative to the camera. In my examples, I get chiaroscuro effects with backlight, side light, and top light.

Interior hallway with back light from outdoor access

Inside house with side light from north facing window

Interior with top light from lamp.

Focal Point

When you have a strong light/dark contrast, it will become the focal point of your image, whether you intend it or not. Going back the concept of visual weight, strong light/dark contrast has a strong pull on the viewer’s eye. If your intended focal point is not the part of the image with the strongest contrast, there will be competition between the two. I’ve found that creating the focal point in the point with highest contrast is effective.

In this image below, the focal point is the door at the end of the alley. The backlighting makes the door the highest contrast element in the image. In addition, all lines lead to this door, and the door is in focus. All of these give the door visual weight, pulling the eye right to it.

Now consider a similar image, with the wall in focus instead of the door. Does it work as well?

I don’t think so. The strong light/dark contrast still pulls my eye but since it’s not in focus, my eye has to wander around the image trying to find the intended focal point.

Let’s also consider the effects of color in the image. Bright color can be as strong as light/dark contrast when considering visual weight. You will notice that many of my chiaroscuro images are in black and white. Color can, at times, be a detractor from the intended focal point. Consider the alley image again, this time in color. Does it work as well as the black and white?

In my opinion, no. The green of the leaves and wall attract my eye and detract from the door. The image is not as strong in color.

Practice makes Perfect

Creating effective chiaroscuro images takes practice and experimentation. To play with this technique:

  • Find a place with a point light source, like a lamp or a window in an otherwise dark room.
  • Grab a volunteer to model for you or set up a small still life.
  • Take multiple images from different angles and at different exposures, and also try varying your intended focal point.
  • Review the images and see what works out of the camera and with post processing.

Have fun! I look forward to seeing your exploration of chiaroscuro images. You can link in and share through the end of the month!


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Framing a Flower: Another Process of Elimination Example

Happy Sunday! I usurped my usual Exploring with a Camera wrap up post on Friday to celebrate my 1000th blog post (don’t miss the giveaway!), so I’ll finish up this month’s exploration of the Process of Elimination today with another example sequence from my recent trip to England.

First let’s look at the final image, and then let’s talk about how I got there.

Finished Product

It all started as I climbed a steep cobblestone street in Hebden Bridge, and noticed this lonely pink flower. I was attracted to the bright color and the contrast it provided against the brown of the town and green of the foliage. I took 19 frames of this scene in all, playing with the different elements. I won’t share all 19, but I’ll share enough for you to get the idea of what was going on in my head. All of the photos except the final image are straight out of camera, so ignore the exposure and focus on composition.

#1: Flower against the background of the town below.

The background, even with a shallow depth of field, is too busy and doesn’t give the contrast I was seeking. I changed my point of view to capture the flower against the brick and slate of the building. I have four images with various compositions similar to #2.

#2: Flower against the background of the building.

While this image has an uncluttered background (good elimination!) the images seemed flat to me, so at this point I stepped back to get the wider scene I was seeing. There was so much great texture in the hand rails and cobblestones as well. I took four more images with various horizontal compositions, similar to #3.

#3: The wider scene.

I liked the diagonal lines and the textures, but the original reason I was attracted to this scene, the flower, seems to get lost. I tried again with a vertical orientation, which puts more focus on the pot and flower. Closer!

#4: The wider scene, vertical orientation.

From there, I explored including or removing the different elements that remained in the frame. The hand rail posts and the tree were the main elements I was excluding/including, through both the focal length of my lens (zoom) and the angle of view. #5 is one with more of the tree included, while #6 is one with less.

#5: Including more of the tree and handrail at left.

#6: Excluding much of the tree and the handrail at left.

After 10 vertical images, playing with placement of the tree and handrails relative to the pot, I was ready to move on. This was an extremely steep cobblestone road and it was starting to rain, I was worried about slipping on my way back down.

The best image of the sequence was #5 above, and here it is again with the final crop and edit.

Finished Product

What I like about this is the frame created by the tree in the upper left, the slate roof at top, and the handrails at left and right. These elements frame the pot and bring your eye to it, where you (hopefully) see the lonely pink flower pop out in contrast with the surrounding colors and textures.

If I were able to go back in time, I would try a couple of things that might further help the “framing” of the pot. First, I would see if I could get a little more separation between the leaves of the tree and the pot, by moving myself to the left. I would have to balance that with the space between the pot and the right handrail getting smaller, but there appears to be ample room. Second, I would see if I could get a little more separation between the leaves of the tree relative to the slate of the roof, by getting down a little lower. I think the slate of the roof would make a better framing element to contrast with the brick and frame the pot.

Since I can’t go back and try again, I am happy with the end result. Between the exploration I did with composition in the field and the further review and adjustments at home, I have an image I like that successfully conveys what caught my eye. I’ve also learned a couple of things from the exercise, around paying more attention to the framing elements relative to each other, which will stay with me the next time I go out and photograph.

So, what have you learned in this exploration of the Process of Elimination? Can you see how this kind of intention and attention to detail can help your photos? Share a link to your exploration or let me know what you’ve learned in the comments below.

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What a Scooter Sighting can teach about the Process of Elimination

Oh, how heavenly it was, to be back in the land of scooters! I didn’t spot any scooters in my excursions around Yorkshire, but London had a nice selection of scooters to photograph. I’ve come to realize that my little scooter photography obsession is as much about place as it is about scooters. Usually when I’m capturing a scooter sighting, I try to find out if I can find an interesting composition that tells you about the place the scooter was parked, through the context I choose to include. Interesting scooters and interesting places, a perfect combination!

When I have a scooter sighting, it’s the perfect opportunity to use the Process of Elimination, which we’re studying this month in Exploring with a Camera. This wonderful scooter was spotted on the Hampstead workshop photowalk, just off Brick Lane. I thought it might be interesting to share my Process of Elimination for this image. All of the images shared are straight out of the camera except for the final edit.

The first sighting was from walking down the sidewalk behind the scooter. It’s an interesting scooter, not your usually cute one, but I thought the chairs would be great to include. It wasn’t a busy street (thankfully) so I stepped out across/into the street to explore the scene. The first shot I tried was vertical, going with the lines of the scooter.

The vertical orientation doesn’t include enough of the chairs, which really add interest to the scene. The background becomes more of a distraction with this framing, with bits and pieces of too many things. So, the next step was to try horizontal.

Better! Got the chairs, the interesting window with the reflections, the graffiti. But the scooter is too high in the frame. The foreground of the road is doing nothing for this image. I want more of the interesting background. As I framed up the next image, this guy walked buy. Quick, catch him in a good spot!

OK, I like where he is in the frame but this image is not really what I was looking for in the scooter sighting. He’s a distraction. So I capture essentially the same frame without the guy.

You will note that I included the car on the right in the frame. That was intentional. I had the framing mostly the way I wanted it, but including a little extra would give me the most to work with later for cropping since I didn’t have time to work the scene further. I needed to move on, as the rest of the participants in the class had moved way up the street and I was lucky I hadn’t been run over by a car by this time.

Into Lightroom for crop and edit when I got back home, and here’s the final image again:

An interesting scooter in an interesting place — I couldn’t ask for more in a scooter sighting! I’m going into scooter withdrawal now that I’m home. The only one I see is in my garage, and believe me, that’s not a place you want to see! If you sight a scooter, please share it with me on Instagram or Twitter using #scootersighting. I need to get my fix one way or another. 🙂

Have you been thinking about the Process of Elimination this last week? How has the idea of eliminating what is not essential to your message affected your capture or edit of images? Please share with us! You can link your exploration into the comments on the original post here. There are a couple of folks already linked in, so be sure to visit to see what they’ve found. And how do you like the process of linking into the comments? Would you rather have a linky? Let me know! I’m on the fence myself. I kind of miss the linky.

PS – I’m off to the Vancouver Gathering with David duChemin this weekend. Yay! I’ll be away from the blog for a few days, but I’ll tell you all about it next week!

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Exploring with a Camera: Process of Elimination (2nd Edition)

Welcome to October’s Exploring with a Camera! This month I am sharing a “second edition” post, repeating the topic Process of Elimination that I first wrote a little over a year ago. I had already planned on doing a second edition post this month, since I just returned from England on Monday and knew I wouldn’t have time to prepare a new topic. But I hadn’t decided what topic I wanted to repeat yet.

I come back to this specific topic for a couple of reasons. I’m rereading Photographically Speaking to prepare for my workshop with David duChemin next weekend, and came across this quote:

The way we express ourselves first depends on our having intent. No author throws random words on the page in hopes that they will somehow make sense. Yet we photographers do it all the time. We make photographs wtihout fully engaging in the process, without being mindful of our intent for that one image. But if you identify that intent, it narrows your gaze and helps you choose the best lens, the best shutter speed or aperture, or suggests you shoot from a different, better perspective. Intent matters. It is the prime mover. Without it, we are engaging in little more than accidentally exposing light to film or a sensor.

Using the Process of Elimination to create a more interesting image in Yorkshire.

In the A Sense of Place workshops I taught the last two weekends, we talked about intent. We talked about knowing what you want to say, in order to create stronger images that tell a story. For me, the Process of Elimination is a big part of creating photographs that express what I want to say. I think this is a fundamental concept that all of us should revisit from time to time, so here we go!

Some situational context: When I first wrote this we were still in the process of settling into our home after our move back from Italy.

For the next couple of weeks we are going to focus on the Process of Elimination. Funnily enough, this topic idea came to me several weeks ago, well before our container from Italy arrived last weekend. For the last few days, we have been pursuing a physical process of elimination in our home. We have so much stuff, now that our Italian belongings have been delivered. Trying to figure out what to keep and what to eliminate has been overwhelming at times, but the end result of elimination is always so much better. I can breathe and focus.

There is a great parallel with photography here! I started noticing in the last few months that many of my images and compositions are based on eliminating the elements that shouldn’t be in the image, as much as deciding what should be there. This is one reason I struggle a bit with composition in painting. With a painting, I get to add whatever I want to the composition, which is not how I normally operate. In my photography, much of the image is formed as I take away elements that don’t belong in the picture. The choice of what to take away will depend on what I am trying to convey with my image. What caught my eye? What is of interest here?

Let’s look at some ways to pursue the process of elimination…

Framing

For this exercise, I am going to distinguish framing from cropping. Framing is how you frame the composition in the camera at the time of taking the photo, as compared to cropping which is done in post-processing. Framing is the best way to work through the process of elimination, because you can take multiple shots. You can study angles and changes to what is in your frame real time, making adjustments as you go.

The lead in image I took in Carbondale, Colorado is a good example. The focus is on the bike, and the color/texture of the wall behind it. Blue and white bike, textured blue wall. Those are the elements that caught my eye in this scene. Before getting to that shot, however, I started with this one:

Blah, isn’t it? Bike is in the center, and there is nothing that grabs you about the image. The shadows from the tree just out of the frame on the left are strong and distracting. I consider this a “warm-up” shot, helping me to work toward what I wanted to convey. First step, capture the bike and the wall. Then, use this to help me see where I want to go. For the final image at the top of the post, I worked to eliminate the strong shadows and focus just on the bike and the wall. Magic!

Here is another scene from Colorado, this time Old Colorado City, where I used the process of elimination. This is never how I would present the scene, I took this to set the stage for what comes next.

The contrasting bright colors of the purple flowers and the blue architectural detail caught my eye. This shows the scene I was working with. As framed above, I would get the color, but would the image would not be interesting. So I work to eliminate. I find an angle that focuses on the contrast between the purple and the blue.

Better, but there are still too many distracting elements. The pole and signs as you look down the wall and street on the right are distracting. The water spout in the bottom right is a distraction also. The white details from the door frame in the upper left aren’t helping anything. So, focus in further, change the angle slightly and…

We’ve got all purple and blue contrast, a pleasing composition that keeps the focus on what I saw and wanted to convey, and nothing to distract.

Let’s look at one more framing example. On my last trip to Florence, Italy, I came upon this scene walking the backstreets. Shown below is the angle I originally saw it from.

Look at that fantastic bike, being used as a store display. If you can see the bike in all of the distractions, that is. Between the street signs, graffiti, store door and shaft of sunlight you might not even notice the cool bike. So I moved, I changed my angle on the scene to the other side of the street.

Better. Quite a few distracting elements were gone, but then the new element of the door in the background was added. How to use it became the issue – crop it out or keep it wholly in the frame? What about the entry on the right, and what is that yellow thing, a handle of some cart? This image is still too busy. It was time to try again, really thinking about what I wanted to focus on. It was the bike that caught my eye, and the fact that it was being used as part of the store display. So, changing angles again, and focusing in on the store display aspect, I created one of my all time favorite photos…

Isn’t that a huge difference? From random snapshot to interesting piece of art, by the process of elimination.

Cropping

Let’s face it, we don’t always get the best possible framing in the camera. We may be moving too quickly to study the scene, or might not notice a distracting element. Cropping in post-processing is a fantastic tool for the process of elimination.

There are times where cropping completely saves the image. Consider this example, from Pavia, Italy. I was intrigued by this vintage Fiat on the street, but I didn’t stop to study it. One click and I moved on.

It might be interesting to show my friends the cool Fiat I saw in Italy, but it is nothing exciting. I would never show this here on the blog. I had to focus in on the interesting parts… the vintage license plate, the cobblestone street, and the cool reflection of the Italian architecture.

And there it is! An image that says “Classic Italian Transport” and not “I was wandering around in Italy and I randomly snapped this photo.” The process of elimination worked for me here.

This image from Germany is one I’ve shared before of how dramatic cropping can save a shot. I loved the architecture and the vineyard on the hill behind the building:

There was just too much building and not enough interest, however. Where are you supposed to look? Cropping to focus in on the architectural detail but keep the vineyard behind yields this image:

So much more interesting. Now you know where to look! You can see the details of the bottle-glass window, the timber framing, and the painting under the eaves along with the context of the vineyard behind. A great image to show the classic German architecture of the Rhine River Valley.

Now, cropping dramatically has its consequences. You can lose significant resolution in the image. The final cropped image will not be able to be printed as large as it could have been. You might be surprised, however, just how much cropping an image from a modern digital camera can withstand before you have problems with printing resolution. Since I’m primarily sharing online, I don’t have to worry about it too much, but it’s good to keep in mind.

It is interesting to note that both of these cropping examples are from 2009, very early during my Italian assignment. As I took more photos and improved in my photography, I’ve gotten so much better at seeing and framing my images at the time of capture. All of the examples in the framing section are from the last few months. The practice of cropping in my post-processing over the last two years has helped me learn the process of elimination at the time of framing that I use today.

To be honest, I still crop most of my photos just a tiny bit. While I do most of my framing at the time of capture, what I see through the viewfinder and what the camera sensor captures is slightly different. Distractions may creep in there on the edges. That’s ok with me, I know I will pull the photo in my editing software anyway to make any final adjustments. Cropping is just one of those final adjustments.

Cleaning

One last, rarely-used tool in the process of elimination is cleaning. Cleaning is where I use the clone-stamp tool in Photoshop Elements [update: or spot removal tool in Lightroom] to copy over a distracting element with pixels from another area in the image. I consider cleaning a last resort, because it takes a lot of time and it will not always work. I get the best image at the time of capture with as little distraction as possible, and I know if the distractions can be cropped or cleaned later.

In this example from Burano, I was going for the line of colorful houses and already envisioned some fun processing for color. No matter how I framed it though, I couldn’t get the line of houses where I wanted without that last bit of pole on the right in the image.

Clone-stamp to the rescue! I removed the pole by copying other parts of the pavement onto the area with the pole. Can you see any evidence of it? Not so much at this resolution. You will also notice a slight crop, which removed some of the pole too, making my job easier.

Much better, I think. The focus is on the blue house, and the pole is no longer there to distract on the right.

I captured this great building from the top of the tourist bus, in Barcelona. I liked the repetition of the shapes, light and shadow of the windows. I was at a good angle to building, being high up on the bus, but I couldn’t move from my seat to eliminate the streetlight in the image.

Because of the repetitive nature of the light and shadows, it was easy to clone the shapes and shadows of the balcony and remove the distracting streetlight. This final image was also straightened and then cropped for composition, which also helped to remove some of the streetlight. With a conversion to black and white, it’s all about the repeating pattern now.

It’s important to note that every image cannot be saved this way. Cleaning only works if you have the “raw material” elsewhere in the image to copy over the distracting element. That is not always the case. This is a technique to learn and practice, so that you have a better feel what can and can’t be fixed later in your post-processing.

Keep in mind, cleaning takes a lot of time. It is much quicker to capture a distraction-free image than to clean it in post-processing. If you love the post-processing part of digital photography, that may be fine for you. That’s not where I prefer to spend my time.

The Process Works

I hope these examples help you to see how the process of elimination works to create interesting images. Often a great image is hiding inside a so-so image, if you can remove the distracting elements. There was something in the scene that captured your eye to begin with, so focusing in while eliminating other elements will help you tell your story.

Keep these ideas in mind as you practice the process of elimination:

  • Think about what you are trying to convey in your photograph. What was it about the scene that caught your eye or made you want to point your camera at it? What story do you want to tell? That is what you need to focus on. Eliminate all elements that distract from your intended message.
  • Move yourself to change your perspective. Will the distractions be eliminated if you move higher? Lower? Left? Right?
  • Zoom in, with your feet or your lens, to focus on the subject. Or, zoom out to keep the context in the image. If you can’t decide, go back to Step 1. When you are clear on what you want to convey in the image, the decision of subject/context is easier.
  • Watch and wait if needed. Sometimes the distractions are mobile, and if you wait to click you can create a stronger image.
  • Crop in post-processing. This is a great tool to eliminate unwanted distractions and learn more about how framing your image makes a difference.
  • Clean out distracting elements in post-processing. It may be possible to remove a small distraction in post-processing by “cleaning.”

Now, it’s your turn! Share your images using the Process of Elimination, and if you can, also share an image that shows the “before” situation. That will help us see how you eliminated the distractions to create a stronger image.

I’m trying something new this month and instead of using a link tool, you can share a link to images using the process of elimination in the comments here. This way, there is no time limit and you can come back and share later if you have a great example.

Thanks so much for your participation in Exploring with a Camera!

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