Street Photography: Awkwardly Fun

Posted on November 9, 2011 by AmberBemis

In my photo class last week we had what our professor like to call ‘ the annual shoot out’ during this class we take our first attempt at street photography. We worked in teams of 3 students getting 2 hours to shoot, edit and post our pictures to our class blog. I was really nervous about this day because I am typically not a fan of being put on the spot but after some wandering around I had so much fun, I am now really excited about street photography! Normally I like plans and being in control of a situation but with street photography I loved the idea of not know what was going to come next. I also loved that I was so worried about getting just one good shot only to download my pictures and find that I had tons of great photos : ) I am just a beginner at this but here are some tips that helped me when shooting street photography:

1. Yeah it’s going to be a little awkward … taking photos of random people walking around on the street is always going to be strange. I try one of two tactics, either I take my photos and then explain what I am doing to the subjects or I try to be discrete enough that my subjects don’t even notice me. A way to be more discrete is by using a camera designed for street photography. Here is a site that does a comparison of 5 cameras used for street photography. I am a big fan of the Panasonic LUMIX DMC-GF2 with 14mm but the site shows that you can even use an iPhone!(making me want to purchase one even more)

Partner in crime @DanielleBeyer <---- follow her on Twitter

2. Take a buddy… when we first started my group decided that it would be a good idea

to split up in order to cover more ground. We went our seperate ways, I walked around for a little bit but I was too nervous to shoot any big crowds by myself plus I was shooting with a Canon Rebel T3i not really your most discrete camera. So I ended up calling one of my group members and we shoot a few things together we both agreed that it was much easier and we felt way less ‘creepy’ haha… hey if you are going to be a creepy camera girl you might as well have a partner in crime 🙂

3. Have fun with it…lately many of my photo projects have been very stressful and I feel like I have been lacking a little creativity. Doing this street photography assignment reminded me how much I love photography and the joy I get from taking pictures for fun! Don’t get me wrong I wasn’t doubting my love but sometimes I get caught up in making something super artistic and creative but that isn’t the way it works… you can’t force creativity it just happens! Here are some of my photos from my first attempt at at street photography! Expect many more soon 🙂

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I know it sounds strange and uncomfortable but I think everyone should give street photography at least one try! Please share your street photos with me : )

Studio Photography 101

Posted on November 7, 2011 by AmberBemis

I shared with you in my last post, How to Become a Photo Superstar, my first stab at studio photography was not fun. I am still a little scarred from the experience but I decided it was time to take another shot at it. I am so glad the second attempt was much more successful than the first, here is an easy step-by-step guide to beginner studio photography:

1. Get everything set up. If you are using a table or not get your backdrop ready before you start setting up your lights.

2. Have a lighting plan. Decide how you want your image to turn out and what types of lights you will need,Photo.tutus.com explains the different types of studio lights.

You will also need to decide how you want to place you lights, watch this excellent video by Gavin Hoey to see a detailed description on how to set up a three point lighting

3. Meter your subject. Use a meter to determine the correct F-stop to set your camera at. I had no clue what a meter was until a few weeks ago, I don’t think I could live without it now! In my first attempt at this stuff I didn’t use the meter and my photos were so terrible. To meter connect the sink cable into the back of your main light (the light that you want to flash first) connect the other end of the cord to your meter, get the meter as close to your subject as possible, press the pop button so the flash goes off and the meter will tell you the correct F-stop to set your camera to. I normally meter 3-4 times to make sure I am getting an accurate measure!

4. After you have all your gadgets set on your camera, plug the cable that was in your meter into your camera and you are ready to shoot! You may have to adjust your lights a little but the hard part is over 🙂

Please share your studio work with me and any tips that have helped you!

A simple guide to HDRI Photography

Posted on October 24, 2011 by AmberBemis

High dynamic range imaging (HDRI) photography is a technique that allows photographers to capture a greater range of light and dark ranges in a photograph. It sounds complex and difficult but with these few steps it is actually really simple and can produce very beautiful images.

First I will give you a little background information on why I am doing this because like most other photo things up until about a month ago I had no idea what HDRI photography was. UW Oshkosh has decided to launch rephotography project, the media photo class that I am in now will be producing the images. We are taking images from the 1960s and rephotographing them either in the same location or taking a new angle on the meaning of the photograph. The image I selected is of the old smoke stack. Below is my recreated image! Enjoy 🙂

The smoke stack no longer exists but you can tell it is the same area by the trees and sidewalk.

Steps:

1. Locate a scene with dynamic range in lighting. For this project obviously I just had to work with what I could get but trying to pick a time of day, like sunset will help get more range.

2. Make sure to use a tripod, since the photographs will be merged together in photoshop even the smallest movement can ruin your photo. Refer back to my tripod post for more information.

3. After you have securely attached the camera to your tripod and set up your scene set your camera to zero exposure and take your first shot. Then you will take two underexposed shots and two overexposed shots. If your camera doesn’t have exposure stops like the one pictured then you will manually have to adjust your shutter speed, don’t adjust your f-stop because it will change your depth of field. Refer by back to my post, A guide for photo ‘newbies’ for a refresher on aperture and shutter speeds.

Here is a quick example of manual bracketing:

Stops Shutter speed Aperture

(+2) 60 F8

(+1) 125 F8

(0) 250 F8- This is your baseline

(-1) 500 F8

(-2) 800 F8

So maybe you are thinking… ok, how do I find the baseline? Don’t worry I didn’t understand this either. What you do is make sure you are using your manual setting, look in your viewfinder and click your trigger button down just halfway, when you do this you should see a bunch of little number pop up on a line… ok, got it? Now set your aperture to the type of lighting available then adjust your shutter speed so the ticker is right in the middle on zero and ta-da! This is your baseline you can adjust your math on the shutter speeds as needed.

4. Last and easiest step! I use Adobe Photoshop for this but I am sure there are other programs out there you can use. The steps you take in photoshop are File> Automate> Merge to HDR Pro. Yep, it’s as easy as that!

I hope you enjoy my first attempts, please share your HDR photos with me!