One of the more interesting projects I’ve explored in photography is shooting birefringent crystals. Birefringence is the splitting of a light ray by a crystal into two components that are at different velocities and are polarized at right angles to each other. What this means in terms of photography is that when light passes through the crystals, you can see rainbow colors in the unique and beautiful forms that make up the crystal.
One of the most wonderful aspects of travel photography is shooting festivals. The color is outrageous, the costuming is visually exciting, and there are a million things to shoot all at the same time. It’s frustrating that we can’t be in more than one place at a time (those darn laws of the Universe get in the way all the time!). If you can plan your trip to include some kind of festival or celebration, it will be a highlight of the trip. Virtually everywhere you travel where there are people, you’ll find some kind of festival. It’s just a matter of doing some research on-line to find out when they occur.
The pearlescent colors that appear in soap bubbles are endlessly fascinating if you take the time to look at them closely. It is chaos at its most beautiful—a random mix of color that, unfortunately, we can’t freeze with our mind to examine any one instant in time. With a camera and flash, however, we can capture these amazing works of art and examine every detail, even though each design lasts only milliseconds.
A unique way to create complex geometric, multicolored designs is to attach tiny Christmas tree lights to a bicycle wheel and spin it in a dark room or outside at night. I found 7 ft of Christmas lights powered by 3 AA batteries online for about $12, and that was just enough to cover the entire circumference of the front wheel of my son’s medium sized bike. I took the wheel off the bike with a simple crescent wrench and used black electrician’s tape to affix the lights and the wires onto the rim, figure A.
One of the ways to draw attention to a subject is to find—or set up—brightly colored objects in an environment of a muted or earth-toned background. The eye is immediately drawn to color, and this is a poignant way to make a powerful and dynamic visual statement.
Shooting in a studio intimidates a lot of photographers, but the truth is it’s not hard at all. There are a few basic lighting configurations to learn, and with the immediate feedback from the LCD monitor on the back of the camera, you can see immediately if you have the lighting, the pose, and the expression you want. In addition, you don’t need a huge space and it’s not necessary to spend thousands of dollars on lighting equipment. You can even set up a mini-studio with a $10 photoflood and a background with a white wall or a piece of black fabric.
Photographers love telephoto lenses. We can’t always get close to the subjects we want to shoot, and a telephoto lens allows us to fill a significant part of the frame with them. That makes a picture with a lot of visual impact. Virtually all subjects are dramatized by the use of a telephoto—wildlife, children, sports, nature, architectural design, flowers, and more.
Photoshop is a photographer’s best friend today. It has given us unprecedented creativity and the ability to do things to pictures that heretofore were impossible. Some people claim that the emphasis has shifted away from superior picture taking, and in its place people now think “I can fix it in Photoshop.” While it is true that many problems can be corrected after the fact, good photographic skills are still required to take great images. While a full exploration of digital darkroom techniques awaits another volume of this Guide I thought I’d give you a sense of what can be accomplished with this type of after-exposure work. And while I concentrate on Adobe Photoshop techniques here there are many more programs and plug-ins that can do the job as well.
Photography has radically changed in the last decade with respect to the equipment we use to capture images. It has also changed radically in our ability to manipulate our photographs in ways that were impossible just a few years ago. What has not changed are the fundamental photographic principles that make a great picture. These include the principles of composition, good exposure technique, non-distracting backgrounds, finding compelling subject matter, using lenses creatively and of course being aware of light.
I recently had the opportunity to photograph poison dart frogs, and I was excited to do so because these unique creatures have brilliant colors and are endlessly fascinating. While they make for amazing pictures, they also present significant technical challenges. I had to do some thoughtful planning before I attempted to shoot them. I started out by buying several tropical plants...