A Guest Post by Robin Ryan

I’d like to talk today about the potential offered by Neutral Density filters, and how they can make your photos more unique.

The smooth watercolour feel in the above photo is due to a Neutral Density 64 Filter. This filter has interested me lately and this photo demonstrates one of its primary uses: to smooth out water and skies without the use of post-processing. I think the results are perfect, and I’d love to have this on my wall.

A Neutral Density Filter is one designed to block out a substantial amount of light. This enables the photographer to slow down his shutter speed and/or shoot at a faster F-stop.

Most photographers will use what is called an N2, N4, or N8 filter to smooth out waterfalls, rivers, oceans. This photographer has used an N64 filter which is far stronger, letting him have an exposure of 60 seconds at f/16 for this image. Without the filter, the photographer would have had to use f/2 to get away with a 60-second image, or less than a second at f/16.

An N64 filter allows for 1.5% of available light to enter the lens. Here is comparison table for the other filters, courtesy of wikipedia:

Filter Name F-Stop Reduction % of Light Transmitted

ND2 has an F-Stop Reduction of 1 which means 50% of the light gets through
ND4 has an F-Stop Reduction of 2 which means 25% of the light gets through
ND8 has an F-Stop Reduction of 3 which means 12.5% of the light gets through
ND64 has an F-Stop Reduction of 6 which means 1.56% of the light gets through
ND1000 has an F-Stop Reduction of 10 which means .1% of the light gets through

Options

It’s important to remember that filters are designed to fit your lens circumference. Look at the front part of your lens and check for a 2-digit number followed by mm. Common circumferences are 77mm, 72mm, and 52mm.

Robin Ryan is a Vancouver-based photographer always hunting for beauty through the rain. Or in it. Anyways, he runs “Your 1000 Words” and his portfolio is found at www.robinryan.ca

It was the first time she had done anything like this.

After all, fear of the unknown took her outside her comfort zone. Treading on new territory, pushing the boundaries of her photography, and allowing herself to be stretched would take all the courage she could muster. In her mind, there were a good many others more qualified. In the end, none of that mattered, she would do it anyway.

Tasra Dawson** climbed onto the bus with 33 other photographers. They had met for the Pictage PartnerCon (a photography conference) in New Orleans, taking 4 days to network, learn, and be inspired by massively successful pros in the industry. Tasra herself had spoken, and helped write and produce a film series for the event along with her husband Ron, but the experience she was about to walk into was less familiar and more daunting than standing on that stage before hundreds of people:

Shooting street images of strangers… with their permission.

She would meet her goal while out on a photo walk. It was the first she had ever done. It was to be a time when photographers pile onto a bus, travel across the city, and take pictures of various things, places, and people.

The fact that this photo walk was in New Orleans was surreal for her. When Hurricane Hurricain Katrina had hit in 2006, her parents had been on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Being in a place that had been touched by the same destruction near to her parents, made her feel as though she was experiencing family history. She was seeing it all with her own eyes. She would be documenting it with her own eyes too.

Tasra breathed. She had her camera. She had her gear. She had comrades. Together, they could embark on this adventure, and she was excited about what might come her way. The sense of adventure motivated her. She was a capable and successful photographer. The confidence she always instilled in her students and blog readers would have to be placed in herself.

The tour would cover the lower 9th ward – one of the places hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina. The first stop was Flood Street. She had ten minutes. She got off the bus, and didn’t allow herself any thought but one: Take pictures and go wherever it may lead.

She began to shoot. After a few shots, she turned and began taking pictures of what looked like a building just after destruction had passed – not years later. As she photographed, she noticed a man coming toward her. Her heart began to race wondering if he’d tell her to stop or get mad. She looked around for support but found herself alone.

This is it.

She took her courage and started a conversation. “Were you here during Katrina?” She asked him and received a nod in response. “Do you live around here?” His response “Not around here. I live here,” and he motioned to the building she had been photographing. He was there during the rising of the waters. He was there, in the top story of his house, when the water was up to his waist. He just couldn’t bring himself to leave, even in the face of danger; he had to stay.

For Tasra, the moment of truth came at that moment: “Would you mind if I took your picture in front of the house?”

To her relief, he said yes. After a few shots, the man asked if she wanted to go inside – inside his house. Her heart jumped. She was amazed. Amazed that the moment was not nearly as intimidating as she thought. She wondered if there were other moments and opportunities she missed because of her lack of confidence. She knew there were.

  

She walked into the house with a few other photographers. The first image she saw was the broken roof on the right side of the house. The light was streaming through the vacant opening, creating a beautiful shaft of light. As she took pictures, she asked about the different rooms, and the man shared. She could hardy believe how much she was able to document such a precious story of a man who would have rather died than leave his home. His courage was inspiring.

And she was able to experience this simply because she stepped out of her comfort zone.

The time passed quickly. After 15 minutes, she heard the bus honking for the return. She didn’t want to leave. The time had been unreal. As she walked back through to exit, the man passed through the light shaft – first image she had seen upon arrival. A quick snap captured one of her most precious images; not because of the rising smoke in the light, and the intense contrast of the textures, but because encapsulated in this one image was the entire story of a courageous man.

Tasra walked away with a new sense of confidence. She could be the photographer she had always wanted to be, but never thought she was. A photographer who captured beauty in stories and experiences that other people may not have. As she got back on the bus, she was content. They had only finished their first stop but she felt as though she had her story – the one she came for.

The lesson ushered in a new level for Tasra. She realized that situations may require certain risk, but sometimes the risk is not the end. There are rewards for stepping outside ones comfort zone. And often, those rewards are priceless.

** Tasra Dawson is a nationally acclaimed Senior Portrait photographer from Georgia. Tasra is involved with her husband Ron as a Creative team member for DareDreamer Media, and spends full time work as a photographer, blogger, and artist. Tasra takes part in “Pro: You”, a series of lessons learned on the road of professional photography. Her daily work can be found online at: www.TasraMar.com and www.TeenIdentity.com.

DPS thanks Tasra for the time she invested interviewing for this story.

One of the more popular threads in our forum over the last few weeks has been a question from one of our members – TheKingInYellow – who asked fellow members for suggestions on ’stocking stuffers’ for Christmas. He and his wife give each other stocking stuffer gifts and he’d like his to be photographic in nature.  

I thought it a fun question to open up here on the blog – what photography stocking stuffers would you like to receive this Holiday season?

The definition of a stocking stuffer for the purpose of this discussion is from the asker of the question – “a stocking stuffer is something relatively small, and under $20 or so.”

There you have it – what would you suggest?

PS: in the next few days here at DPS we’re going to be launching a stocking stuffer of our own – our very first ebook! Stay tuned for more on this!

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I wanted to talk a little about a different kind of exposure for your photography… the kind that results in more people seeing your work. I have had a lot of people ask how to get their photos seen and many believe that simply posting photos to a site like Flickr is all they need to do.

If you are taking the time to create something, I think it is important that you also make the effort to have it seen. It will help you grow as an artist and may lead to new opportunities you didn’t expect.

Here are some tips I recommend for getting your photos out to a wider audience:

1. Find websites that may want to display your work

Realize that the websites don’t have to be photography-related to show your images. Sites like Flickr, Smugmug, DeviantArt, etc are all great places to show your work to other creative types… but non-photography sites may have a bigger pool of potential viewers.

I have seen more and more blogs pop up that post a variety of content, including art… all of those sites are a great place to submit your photos to. If you specialize in a certain type of photography (landscapes, portraits, macro, whatever), do a little searching on the web to try and find websites that might want to use those types of photos. They probably won’t pay for the images, but you’ll get credit for the work and you will probably get a link back to your gallery or website.

2. Use the Creative Commons license

Creative Commons is a way for you to maintain the copyright of your work while still allowing others to copy and distribute your images. Websites are more likely to display your work if the license allows it and there are a number of search engines available that will only show images licensed under Creative Commons.

Since I started licensing my images under Creative Commons, I saw a huge spike in the number of sites using my photographs… all of which have linked back to my website or my Flickr page.

3. Make your photos useful

Try and think of creative uses for your photos that will increase their value (and potential views) beyond just showing them in a gallery. For example, I posted a handful of images on my website to be used as desktop wallpaper. I know others who take and share photos specifically to be used as textures.

Images can be made useful in a variety of ways. Figure out the one that works best for your work and you can bet that it will bring in a whole new audience to your photography.

4. Create a Blurb book

A friend turned me on to Blurb a while back and I have been a fan ever since. A Blurb book (or any photo book publishing service) is a great way to keep a portfolio of images handy. Keep the book in your house to show off to family and friends or have one with you while meeting potential clients. The book will make you look more professional and it can be more convenient than carrying around a traditional portfolio.

As an added bonus, a site like Blurb can be a source of new viewers in and of itself. I put together a collection of images as a Blurb book and I have noticed a fair amount of traffic coming to my personal site from the Blurb listing.

5. Talk to your local paper

The first photograph of mine ever published in print happened because I called my local city paper with an idea for a story and some images they could run along with it. The paper liked the idea and I had a photo in print a few weeks later.

News outlets are always interested in hearing story ideas and they are usually happy to look at any photos you have that they might be able to use. If you think a photo of yours is newsworthy, don’t wait for the papers to come to you.

6. Business cards for your website

When photography comes up in conversation, I will usually mention that I have a website where people can view my work and give them a card printed from Moo.com. It doesn’t have to be a traditional “business card”… usually mine are just a photo on one side with my name, website and contact info on the back. Any type of business card will work, as long as it has your site’s URL included. People are much more likely to remember to check out your stuff if they have a card, so remember to carry a few with you when you can.

7. Social networking

It probably goes without saying, but using services like Twitter and Facebook to show your work is an extremely effective way to expose more people to your work. I generally make a post on Twitter during a shoot and then I will put up another message when those finished photos are uploaded. It’s a great way to let people know what you are working on and where they can see it… it is also a nice way to attract new viewers to your photos.

How do you approach this and get your images viewed?

This post is Chris sharing his experience of getting his images viewed – how have you gone about it? What is the image that you’ve had viewed the most and how did you achieve it?

Chris Folsom is a hobbyist photographer who spends much of his time photographing abandoned buildings. You can view his site at www.studiotempura.com or see more of his photos at Flickr.

His photos have been published in newspapers and on numerous websites.

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Adobe’s favourite son is often considered to be a powerful but daunting program yet many consider it to be an essential tool for photographers who take their efforts seriously.

Photoshop in a Weekend, based on CS3, attempts to open the application and to be seen as a companion to the original Adobe manual.
It begins with the lowdown on the companion programs — Photoshop Elements and Lightroom — and places them in the appropriate hierarchy. Successive pages deal with the key components, like Bridge, the role of Camera RAW and Image Ready.

A useful chapter explains the methods of calibrating your system, from camera to monitor, then onto the role of colour management. Ignore the latter at your peril!

Step by step author Mark Cleghorn explains the functions of Tool Bars, Palettes, Layers, Channels and how to interpret the histogram. These explanations are set out in such a fashion that you can delve into the book at any time and use it as a handbook on how to use each feature. Even such simple items as rules and guides are dealt with in detailed discussion – and you would be surprised at how many people get flummoxed by them.

Basic corrections such as exposure and contrast, colour adjustments, retouching, cropping and rotating images get the same close scrutiny.

Numerous illustrations are used to balance the texts in the tutorials; some may feel they are too small, but the overall text-to-picture balance I feel is about right.

Overall, an excellent manual to accompany the original manual.

Author: Mark Cleghorn.
Publisher: Photographer’s Institute Press.
Distributor: Capricorn Link.
Length: 174 pages.
ISBN 978 1 86108 557 3.

Grab a copy of Photoshop in a Weekend at Amazon for $15.56 (22% off).

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Many digital photographers get a little obsessed by the ability that their zoom lenses give them to get in nice and close to their subjects.

While there’s a lot to be said for the power of zoom lenses (in fact many manufacturers are developing cameras with bigger and bigger lenses like the 20x optical zoom on the Olympus SP-570 that was announced this week) photographers who exclusively shoot at the longer focal lengths that their camera and lens offer could be missing out on some wonderful perspectives and framings.

Today I want to present you with 17 shots – all taken with wider focal lengths (mostly with 10mm lenses). I hope these give a little inspiration to rediscover the wider end of your camera’s zoom.

I’ve included the focal lengths of those images with EXIF data that reveal the focal length used.

If you’ve got some wide angle images to share don’t forget to drop by the forum to post some of them for the rest of us to see, be inspired by and learn from.

Further Reading – read more about creatively using the lens distortion that shooting at wide angle lenses can bring in portraits.

Don’t miss future posts like this – subscribe to Digital Photography School.

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For this month’s DPS Writer’s Critique, I thought I’d turn things around.  It has been suggested before that there should be the opportunity for blog readers to not only voice their critique of the monthly photos, but that they should also show the rest of us what they were thinking.  And that’s what we’re going to try this month!

With that concept in mind, here is one of my photos I am releasing under a Creative Commons license.  You are free to take it, play with it, adjust it and, generally speaking, improve it.  I’d highly suggest downloading the original CRW (RAW) file here for best results.

Take a stab at editing this photo and post your results in the comments section below.  My ego can take it.  Please also take a moment to explain what you did so others may learn from your critique.

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Butterfly Lighting is one of the most flattering and artistic ways of lighting the face. As it’s name would denote, Butterfly Lighting is created by the way in which you angle the light to fall on the face of your subject. Often used by celebrity photographers, this style of lighting can be achieved by a single off camera light and a reflector.

Here’s a step by step guide of how to achieve perfect butterfly lighting:

1. Face your subject at 7.8 view: Start by facing your subject directly to the camera, then turn the head just to hide the far ear. This view of the face is most flattering as it minimizes the face.

2. Hold your off camera flash 1′ above your subject, and 3′ toward the front to eliminate any possible shadowing on the face. You will also create a shadow beneath the chin, thus hiding any excess weight there.

3. Place a reflector just below the edge of your frame. The closer your reflector is to your subjects chin, the more even the spread of light. This reflector will soften that shadow and eliminate a harsh contrast.

4. Light for catch lights: You want your subjects eyes to be well lit and fortunately, with the angle of your main light in front/above, and the fill light coming in from below, your subject should have large round catch lights in both the bottom and top part of the eye.

For such beautiful results, Butterfly Lighting is among the most simple of the “directed” studio lighting options. As you can see, Butterfly Lighting will yield gorgeous results, without a great deal of precision or drama.

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Weekly Assignment

The Economy is on everyone’s mind at the moment, and our forums are no exception. This week we wanted you to show us photos that represented the troubled economy. Our winner this week was bmjesus’s dropping coins. The depth of field in this shot was very effective with a strong focus on the coins, and the movement of the coins was nicely captured. One of the things that stood out in this shot was the human aspect of it and the sense of despair that it conveyed. Our first runner up was BryanC’s Beaten Dollar. This photo was one that stood out not necessarily because of the photo, but because of the idea and the post-processing that brought that idea into reality. It is a creative idea, and it also interjects a bit of humor in a sometimes dark situation. Last, but not least was was gapsoteric’s A Question that Nobody Can Answer. The woman in this shot was begging for coins in a bus terminal in the Philippines. The shot grabbed our attention and puts a takes an emotional look at what can happen during an economic downturn.

Turn it up to 11 this week because the assignment is Noise/Sound. The challenge is to display an audio medium in a visual format… not something that is easily done. In case you’re new to the assignments or you just need a reminder of the rules, there are only a few to remember. First, the photos for this week’s assignment must have been taken between 4-18 November 2009. Second, your post must include the date the photo was taken and either “Assignment: Sound” or “Assignment: Noise”. And finally, your EXIF should be intact and it’s useful if you can include some of the main points (e.g. camera, lens, aperture, ISO, shutter speed, etc.). Next week’s assignment will be Kinetics. For the assignment the moving part of your photo should be your camera. Zoom the lens, move the camera in your hands, and if you’re really brave, you can even throw the camera in the air. Good luck!

Hot Threads

• Photography Stocking Stuffers: It seems like the holidays are right around the corner, which may mean it’s time to start thinking of (and hinting about) stocking stuffers for the photographer in your life. If you’re looking for ideas for small photography gifts under around $20, check out this thread, and if you have ideas, add your own.
• Water Figures: Without a doubt, rt80639 posts some of the most awesome high speed photography shots. In this thread, he explains how he took his latest speed photography shot involving paint on a speaker. This one really shouldn’t be missed.
• The 12 Days of DPS: On the first day of DPS what did your true love bring to you? Based on the old Christmas carol, SoxAddict has started a series of threads for some numeral shots. See the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth days over in the forum and post you own shots.
• What Would You Do: Another week means it’s time for another chance for you to practice your post-processing skills on another member’s photo. Whether you’re a novice or a pro, you’re welcome to participate in our WWYD challenges.

I’ve been asked a few times why I’ve decided to use flickr as my image hosting site instead of some of the many other options available to me.  If I’m going to be completely honest, it’s that it was the only one I’d heard of when I got my account back in 2005.

But let’s forget about that for a second, and instead concentrate one why I stay at flickr.  It’s because of all these additional things I can do at flickr other than just host my images.  Keep in mind, this is written from a die-hard flickr user’s perspective, and I don’t have experience with any other photo-sharing site, so other sites might have these things, too (let us know in the comments!).

Edit Your Photos

Did you know you can edit your photos on the flickr site?  They have partnered with Picnik to provide users with some editing tools at the touch of a button.  All you have to do is click the “Edit Photo” link above of your photos, and Picnik opens up:

While some tools are only available to people paying for a Picnik Premium account (a separate account than the flickr Pro account), even non-paying members can rotate, crop, adjust exposure and contrast, sharpen, reduce red eye, or even apply effects like boosting color, or adding a vignette.

For more information about Picnik and how to use it, see flickr’s Picnik FAQ.

The Many, Many Flickr Groups

Groups are probably my favorite thing that flickr has to offer.  It’s a way to organize like-minded people and photos together.  Groups are created and maintained by other flickr users and it allows people with similar interests and/or photographs to come together, see each other’s photos and socialize.  While there are TONS of groups out there, my favorites are of one of these types:

• Inspiring/Challenging – There are tons of “challenge” groups on flickr, ones that inspire other photographers to branch out and try something new.  Two great examples of this are Flickr Group Roulette (or FGR) – where a different flickr group is chosen every day and members are challenged to take a photo that day that represents that group, and Theme of the Week – where a new theme is posted every week for members to photograph.
• Local Groups – It’s pretty easy for me to feel alone with my photography obsession sometimes.  If you feel the same way, try looking up your city in the group search – I’ve found a number of local groups near me.  Many of them do monthly events – like photowalks or shows of members’ photography.  Browsing the pool of photos in these groups is also a great way to find new local photo opportunities.
• Groups for other websites – Let’s face it, we all want to get our photos seen by more people somehow.  A lot of websites will display photos that readers have submitted to their flickr group.  It makes sense that photography websites would do this – but other sites do, too! My personal favorite is consumerist.com, who has their own flickr group.  Not only do they post their favorite submissions to the group every Friday, but they also use the photos from the group for almost all of their articles (giving the photography credit and a link back to their flickr page).
• Educational – Did you know there are groups for specific camera types and editing software?  When I first got my Rebel XTi, I actually found a group called My New Digital Rebel XTi – and that was just one of a number of XTi groups on flickr.  The groups not only show off what the camera can do, but are full of other users that can help answer questions about how to use it.  In addition, I edit all my photos in Gimp, so the Gimp Users group has also been extremely helpful and informative.

Partnerships with other sites

I already mentioned picnik above for editing photos, but there’s a lot of other sites that have ties into flickr that allow you to use their site easier.  For instance, I know a lot of people love moo.com for their cute mini-moo cards, business cards and more.  While you can upload photos from your computer, if you’re using a flickr account and already have the photos there, you can easily import the photos.  Flickr has listed a handful of third-party sites with flickr integration here, but another one of my favorites not listed is bighugelabs.com.  Like moo.com, you could just upload photos from you computer, but entering in your flickr id makes chosing phtoos even easier.  They offer a number of different ways to turn your photos into something more – like adding special effects, making calendars, adding a frame and more.  The one I use most often is the Mosaic Maker, which I used to create this collection of fall photographs I took last year.

So what’s your favorite thing about where you host your photos?  Did I miss something great about flickr, or does the site you use offer something more?  Let us know in the comments!

About the Author: Jennifer Jacobs is an amateur photographer who runs iffles.com – a site for photography beginners. She’s also addicted to flickr and you can follow her stream here.