Blueberry Fields Green Screened In

Late summer is magic. I'm very lucky to live a few short miles from a blueberry farmer whose major income is derived from people willing to pick ripe blueberries for hours on end. I'm an avid customer who looks forward to getting down on my hands and knees, crawling around and at the base of dozens of blueberry bushes for my annual store of berries.

Wanting to give back, I made blueberry muffins and produced the photo of the basket and glass of blueberries in my studio. The studio backdrop was my evenly lit green wall. Having a backdrop of a single color that contrasted dramatically with the muffins allowed me to easily select the muffins and napkin. The glass was much trickier to work with, but its clean edges allowed the Pen Tool to shine.

My final task was to closely examine the muffins for lighting conditions and color balance. I then went to the fields one more time to make the background image. A cloudy day gave me the soft lighting I needed, even though the sky was nearly white. I toned down the sky in Photoshop, choosing not to drop in a blue sky in its place. A clear blue sky would not have been credible given the lack of harsh lighting and sharp shadows within the scene.

Pulling together two photographs can be a daunting task. It isn't as simple as dragging one photo into another Photoshop file. The artist needs to match color balance, lighting conditions, and camera angle of the two images. Focus needs to match a reasonable depth of field. The quality and quantity of shadows need to match. It's a task for an artist, not just a computer graphics person.

The resulting photograph was given to the owner of the blueberry farm for marketing purposes. His blueberries keep me healthy. Why not help him as well?

Frost Close-up

The most delightful images sometimes come from examining nature close-up. Luckily our small outdoor grill was covered with frost one morning. It black surface was the perfect backdrop for the intricate crystals. Even though I used a 100mm macro lens, I still had to severely crop the resulting image to arrive at this composition. This resulted in a rather small file that will not look good if I try to make a large print from it.

Image size and image resolution are the pillars of working with photographs. Understanding the concepts can take a few tries, but their importance can't be overemphasized. In Photo 1: An Introduction to the Art of Photography you will receive a thorough explanation of these issues. You can find this book at http://goo.gl/Aou5IE .

Beautiful Autumn Woods

There's nothing more serene than a woodland path along a quiet stream. The peacefulness is unforgettable, This photo brings me back to this place every time I look at it.

The image was made with a 4x5 field camera, the kind used by Ansel Adams in the early- to mid-20th century. It quickly became a best seller for me. In Photo 1: An Introduction to the Art of Photography, I teach readers about the value of large format cameras and why they are so useful.

Feel free to pin this photo and post it to your Facebook page. If you wish to use it for other purposes, please ask me about it in the Comment section below.

A Copyright Lesson

I lost a friend to cancer a couple of weeks ago. His wife, also a good friend, asked if I could work on a photo of the two of them together, her hand on his shoulder, clearly an image taken by a studio photographer at a church function.

She wanted me to scan in the photo, remove her hand from his shoulder (a relatively easy task in Photoshop), print out an 8x10" copy for the funeral. I turned the print over and saw the photographer's name. Thinking it would be easy to contact the photographer and get permission to work with the photo, I told my friend I'd be happy to help out.

Then I went online. I searched for the photographer's business and found a LinkedIn page that included the website. When I clicked on that link, the website had been taken down. I searched online for the photographer's name and found an address and telephone number. I dialed that number and learned it had been disconnected.

***LESSON: If you want to earn an income from your photographs, be accessible!

Back to the story. I kept searching online and found a listing that told me the photographer was currently working in a government township position. I searched for the office phone number and called the next day. I was told the photographer had quit that position two years ago and was now working at a different town in a different job. I called that office and was told he was on vacation for the remainder of the week. I told the lady my situation and that I needed the photographer's permission to use the photo. She told me it would be fine to do so.

***BEWARE: People who don't have authority to give you copyright permission will still gladly do so, despite their lack of authority. You need to know this isn't sufficient for legal purposes.

The lady was kind enough to give me the photographer's e-mail address. I wrote to him and he responded respectfully fast. He told me his fee to allow me to use the photo, and I paid it within 24 hours. I scanned the photo, remove my friend's hand from his shoulder, send the file to my professional printer in another state, and get 24-hour shipping of the new print back in time for the funeral. The print arrived one day before the funeral.

This story had a happy ending because I was willing to dig for information. I didn't give up. That was my responsibility as a person wanting to use a copyrighted photograph. In Photo 1: An Introduction to the Art of Photography you will find chapters on copyright law and best business practices. They will help you understand the significance of this story.

Feel the energy

It was the spring after my camera had been stolen from directly in front of me by muggers in London. My heart pounded in fear every time I thought about taking my replacement camera outdoors. The term "panic attack" definitely applied despite all of my internal coaching. Following my own policies adopted from Julia Cameron's book, The Artist's Way, I tried to find a safe environment to regain my courage. The safe environment came from a friend and farmer who allowed me onto his property to make photographs. This potato blossom was one of the photos emerging from that experience. It was so good to be close to the land, to feel the sun's warmth, and to overcome massive fear.

This photograph was made on trust. I couldn't actually see through the camera as it was resting on the ground. I could only aim in general toward the plant and the sky. It only took a few tries with the zoom lens set to 28mm.

There was a lot of contrast in this photo. So much so, in fact, that I opened the raw file in Adobe Camera Raw several times, changing the exposure values each time and individually saving the resulting files. By using the Merge to HDR function in Photoshop, I was able to get detail wherever I wanted it. This process, called pseudo-HDR, comes in handy when you can't stabilize your camera for an entire series of photos set to different exposures. HDR is discussed at length in Photo 1: An Introduction to the Art of Photography.

Every worthwhile endeavor

It's so much easier to give up and give in when you're tired. You hit speed bumps in your road to success. People challenge your sanity. Circumstances challenge your finances. You can either walk away or continue on your path. Learn to see these obstacles for what they are: temporary obstacles. Find other solutions. Surround yourself with people who believe in your goals and will help you achieve them. Then plan on getting up tomorrow and start working toward your goals again.

This photo is ideal for a project like this because of its composition. The clear leading lines formed by the grass led your eyes through the photograph. The touch of color in the ladybug gives a single focal point on the rule of thirds, one of the best known compositional guidelines in art. The shallow depth of field renders the distant background very blurry and nondescript, perfect for a text overlay.

In Photo 1: An Introduction to the Art of Photography, the chapter on composition discusses these and more ways to improve the composition of your photographs. You can find it at http://goo.gl/Aou5IE, or click on the link to the right of this blog to become an owner of Photo 1.

Live to your full potential

There were been times when I had to sacrifice my dreams for the needs of my family. In fact I used to make those sacrifices quite often without being asked to do so, thinking that this practice made me a better person. It didn't. It prevented me from reaching my own potential. There are sacrifices in any family, but I've learned to draw the line when it comes to certain dreams I want to fulfill. Surprisingly, I have received nothing but support when I've stood up for those dreams and taken the time I needed to make them come true. My dreams are worth it, even if an occasional feather gets ruffled!

This image was made with a 100mm macro lens at an aperture of f/2.8 (aperture priority). I carefully set the marbles in a shallow plastic box and lay the feather across the top of the box. Using a tripod was essential to hold my camera still enough for the photo. I metered directly off the marbles, which I thought were middle gray in reflectance. The only Photoshop work was a bit of clean-up along the feather with the Spot Healing Brush tool.

Photo 1: an Introduction to the Art of Photography discusses all of these subjects at length. It is written for the beginner but also stretches the horizons of an intermediate photographer. With its added chapters in composition and lighting, you can quickly learn enough to improve the photographs you take. You can find the book at http://goo.gl/Aou5IE.