Digital Work Flow FIVE P’s

As I prepare for the “Vacation with Vanelli” workshop series, I’ve organized a simple teaching procedure for the workshop. I call these the Digital Work Flow FIVE P’s, from picture to print. Throughout the years, I’ve experience success and pitfalls from not understanding these steps. Each step is a lesson in its own. The workshop series was developed to guide you, to give you an understand of these steps. It will point you in the right direction to find more information when you are ready.

Plan:  a flexible intention of action.
When starting a new project, it’s important to have a flexible plan of action and understand plans may change. The first wedding I photographed, the bride requested 8 x 10’s I realized I cropped too tight in the camera and the photos looked great for an 8 x 12! Start with your end result in mind.

Photography: using light to make pictures.
With the advent of digital cameras, more and more people are involved with photography. Leaving your camera in auto mode generally produces great snap shots. To produce a photograph, understanding ISO, Aperture and Shutter is paramount. Using light, color and textures help tell the story when the photographer isn’t there to explain it. The workshop will teach these principles as we photograph beautiful local landscapes. Location lighting and studio lighting will also be covered.

Process: a series of creative actions directed toward enhancing photographs.
Lightroom and Photoshop have replaced traditional dark rooms. The workshop will teach how to streamline these powerful tools giving us more time in front of the camera instead of the computer.

Print: a work of art made by inking a surface with a raised design.
There are many options for printing your photographs these days. From self printing to professional services, the workshop will give you valuable insight on affordable and creative ways to print.

Post: a modern way of using Social Media to display your photography.
Social media uses Internet and web-based technologies to talk about and showcase your work. Using the most popular media, Flickr, Facebook and Twitter, (to name just a few) you can share your photography privately for family and friends or allow the world to enjoy them. The workshop will teach you how to prepare and upload your files to these services.

Learned more than HDR

Last Sunday I was fortunate enough to be a guest of  Scott Bourne at his workshop in Tampa Florida. His special guest, Trey Ratcliff and the subject, High Dynamic Range (HDR). Before the seminar started, I struck up a conversation with an attendee. He said he saw a huge differences from the photos he took Friday; the night before the seminar, and Saturday, after he took the seminar. He couldn’t believe what he had learned in just one day. This gave me a high expectation of the workshop. I wasn’t disappointed!

On the surface, these two motivated instructors taught the fundamentals of HDR. The more I listened, the more  I realized they were teaching more than HDR. It takes a masterful instructor to teach one topic and sneak in concepts and theories that can be applied to any subject.  To keep this post simple, I’ve outlined the philosophy I came away with from the workshop.

Trey Ratcliff:

• Blues give other colors their vibrancy.
• Important to put complimentary colors together.
• Lens choice 14-24.
• uses google earth to scout out his locations.
• communicate feeling through temperature.
• perspective crop
• Nik color Efec 3.0 – tonal contrast for HDR look

My favorite quote from Trey: When you can’t get the shot you really want, there are always plenty of other shots around.

When shooting HDR

• Aperture priority mode
• Tripod level
• Auto bracket
• Cable release
• Nikon VR or Canon IS off
• Use PhotomatixPro for tone mapping
• Use Photoshop to complete your image

Scott Bourne

• HDR doesn’t have to stop with color, convert it to black and white.
• Recreate the image the way YOU saw it.
• The human eye sees about 11 stops of light, the camera only sees about 4
• Try vertical Landscape panoramics
• Photography protects memories
• Every photo or painting should have a little mystery in it.

My favorite quote from Scott: Be authentic, be yourself. That’s how you become different.

A Few Guidelines (not rules)

• Look for leading lines
• make the photo lead the viewer on a path
• Watch horizontal lines; either on top or bottom avoid the middle
• Study the old masters.
• Look for odd numbers like 3 trees or 5 benches.
• Look for shapes and colors.
• Landscapes need a strong foreground.
• Focus 1/3 into the landscape.
• When taking photos of people or anything with eyes, try to take the photo at their eye level.

Acronyms

Subject
Attention
Simplify

Entire shot
Detail
Focal length
Angle
Time

Look up
Look down
Look all around

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Making a Good Exposure

Making a good exposure in the camera is the all important first step in documenting your research. Whether you use film or digital it is crucial to have a good starting image to work with. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard something like this from an excited researcher: “..the experiment that we did last summer turned out to be really important and we want to publish a plate of images….we took pictures with the labs digital camera and they’re pretty dark and sorta fuzzy but can you fix them up and make one ready for a possible cover shot….it’ll take too long to redo the experiment just for photography so this is all we’ve got to work with…”. After much hemming and hawing and the old “_rap in, _rap out” speech, I do what I can but usually the results are not good and almost never cover quality. To prevent this situation from occurring again, the following sections will discuss the makings of a good quality exposure.
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