Street Photography

Some times to capture a candid image stealth is required. This Hasidic boys were waiting in line for a ride at a County Fair. I used a Sony 828 with a Zeiss lens set at 28mm. The Sony had a body with LCD that could be rotated up or down 90 degrees. With camera at waist height, prefocused, I was able to capture the image undetected. Other techniques include setting up 3-5 bracketed shots that fire off with the 2 second timer activated whilst the camera is hanging around your neck. Enjoy, Jeff

La Mezquita de Cordoba

This is the Mezquita of Cordoba Spain. A beautiful mosque later converted to a magnificent cathedral. Shot hand held with a Panasonic Lumix LX5, the color image was processed to Black and White to create a more contrasty, slightly grainy image. I usually go for more abstract asymmetrical images but the architectural balance of the Mezquita roof captured me. Enjoy, Jeff

Adirondack Stream

Fall colors sometimes look dramatic as a monochrome image when appropriate filters are used. Here this color image was converted to B&W and then an orange filter was applied. The orange filter has the effect of lightening reds and oranges to create a diverse monochrome image. Enjoy, Jeff

Civil War Re-en actors

Photographing Civil War re-en actors is a great way to polish your environmental portrait skills. These generous folks allow you to photograph them. Notice where necessary, I chose an f stop that would allow for a blurred background on my 50mm Minolta Lens. I converted the images to monochrome sepia for a more realistic period effect. Enjoy, Jeff

A touch of Americana

A found shot in front of Home Depot! Edited in Lo- Mob. Enjoy, Jeff

Buddhist Colors

I try to look for patterns, mixed with colors. These Buddhist items filled the bill. Enjoy, Jeff

Koi in motion

Koi are great subjects. They come over to you, in motion, hoping for food. Using the App, Slow Shutter on my iPhone 4, I shot about twenty images at .5 to .25 sec with appropriate exposure compensation. I liked this one best for the mix of colors and how the Koi were arranged. Then editing in Photoforge, Dynamic Light and PS Express it was complete. Enjoy, Jeff

Sea of Umbrellas

A grab shot tonight at SPAC as the rains came down on the lawn seats. Slightly edited in PS Express. All done with iPhone. Enjoy, Jeff

Portrait in Black and White

This is Bart, a Harley enthusiast that I shot a few years ago. Like the Latino Fair shot below, club rallies also make a great place for people photography. You have to know when to ask permission to shoot someone and this is one of those places. I thought this fellow was most interesting with his eye patch, pipe and cane. He reminded me of an old warrior that had seen his share of battles. Shot with a KM Maxxum 7D DSLR , I just today converted it to a B&W image using Simply B&W, on my iPhone. I used a blue filter to darken the walls and his jacket, which also lightened skin tones, making the important central area of this environmental portrait stand out. Added a touch of contrast and grain. Looks like it was shot with Tri X. Enjoy, Jeff

New Terrific Black and White Photo App

This is a photo I edited with Simply B&W. Check it out: a new App for the IPhone that gives you film camera like control over a monochrome image. Colored filters, contrast and brightness adjustments as well as vignette and simple framing is available. This
original color image made a great test image of this photo App
Enjoy, Jeff

The Spanish Dancer

Street Fairs......what a great place for people photography. No need to sneak around. Just blend in, sway with the music, find interesting subjects and shoot! I find most folks are happy that they are being photographed at these events. No need to ask permission and ruin the candid moment. This was a Latino Festival in Albany today. I wandered there with my trusty KM Maxxum 7D and Tamron 28-300 lens. To avoid blur I chose a high enough ISO of 400 that would allow for a fast shutter and enough of an F stop to keep the moving subject sharp. Settings were: F5.6, and 1/800 sec . I included one shot at wider angle to capture the young girl enjoying the dance ( to create the environment of the scene) and one as a portrait close-up, minimizing the background.

Enjoy, Jeff

The Sunflower

Early morning. Radiant light and a sunflower. It doesn't get prettier.
Enjoy , Jeff

The Path

I saw this path yesterday on a morning hike. It's S curve, fence and light intrigued me, I saw it as a painting more than a photograph. Taken with the iPhone I edited it in Photoforge to create an oil painting effect, then tweaked it in Dynamic Light to bring out a bit of the dynamic range. Enjoy, Jeff

Perspective

Barnegat Light. I chose to shoot it from it's base, including the moon still visible at sunrise. Look for different points of view to show your subject. Taken with iPhone and True HDR. Enjoy, Jeff

The Moving Sunset

Taken these eve from the deck of the house in Surf City. I used an App called Slow Shutter which allows you to manually control the shutter Tv and dial in exposure compensation. Setting it to 1 second and 1.5 stops of exposure compensation , I quickly panned the iPhone over the scene which included dunes, dark sand , light sand, water then sky. Further edited in Photoforge and framed in Camera+. I really like the painterly result. Enjoy, Jeff

The Beach

Taken this AM with True HDR on the iPhone. Because of at least a four stop difference from foreground to sky, I chose an HDR approach to capture the dynamic range of the image. A straight shot could have been done with a 4 stop Grad filter on a regular camera after exposure for the foreground. Or, in computer one could use masks and blend modes to balance the exposure. Enjoy, Jeff

Gorilla in Black and White

I took this shot two years ago at the wonderful Bronx Zoo. The Gorilla Habitat is one of the best in the world and allows you a true window in our genetic cousins ( only about 5% DNA difference!). Shooting with a Canon SX10 with its wonderful super-zoom 28-560 lens I captured this shot in color. What a pose this huge male silverback gave me. The color image is nice, but I felt that the color subtracted from the power of the image. Using a great little PS plug-in, "Convert to B&W pro" from the Imaging Factory, I adjusted the color channels that effect the monochrome output very selectively to create this. A link to their site and program

http://www.theimagingfactory.com/data/pages/info/cbwp.htm

Enloy, Jeff

The Mushroom

A simple large bland looking mushroom found in my office parking lot. Put down a tarp, lay down and using my iPhone took the shot. The original was a dull mushroom with ordinary lighting, but this I created in Photoforge 2 using multiple layered effects to create a more interesting image. Enjoy, Jeff

The 1954 Chevrolet

Another example of American design beauty. Shot with a Lumix LX 5 in 1:1 format, ISO 100, f3.5, handheld. Processed in Iris Photo Suite, framed in Camera+ on the iPad. Enjoy, Jeff

The Olds

I have a certain nostalgia for these wonderful gas guzzling cars of the 50's and 60's. Gas was 20-25 cents a gallon, they had great back seats, and were works of design art. Look closely at the hood of this 1956 Oldsmobile . The symmetry, the sleek, unwasted graphic design, the symbol of power over the world. America ruled then, we all knew it and were proud. Technical stuff: taken with a Lumix LX 5 in 16:9 format, ISO 100 at f 3.5. Lightly edited in Iris Photo Suite. Enjoy, Jeff

Instagram. Another creative app for the iPhone. More and more I realize that often the joy in image making is just that, the making. Even with a regular camera we can not recreate the reality of what we saw. I find stretching that reality with artistic creative photography is what gets
me to smile. Enjoy, Jeff

What a perfect subject for an old photo App. This shot of a civil war re-enactor was shot a while ago in color then transformed to a near "period" look with Old Photo Pro on my iPhone. All done at the auto dealer while waiting for my car. What a nice way to pass the time. Enjoy, Jeff

Three women enjoying Prospect  Mt  in Lake George. I was intrigued by their colorful clothes in contrast to the other T shirted- shorts tourists. Enjoy, Jeff

I was intrigued by the opposition / composition of this viewer studying the self portrait of Pissarro   Or was Pissarro studying him?  Enjoy , Jeff

Changing the landscape

How to create beautiful sunflower images

One of the great thing about iPhotography are the Apps. This terrific cheap, at times free tools allow you to create an artistic image from a plain one. Here are two sunflowers, ordinary enough, then tranformed. First I used an App called Qbro which takes a square format image and allows you to create certain film like filters to enhance. After I moved the pic to Photoforge applying layers of water color and oil painting effect. After that I used Photoforge's curves tool to brighten the central part of the image. Lastly, moving to Camera+ I applied two frames to finish the work. The iPhone is truly allowing photographers greater creativity, in hand, allowing for image enhancement on the fly, with out being tethered to a desk or laptop computer. Enjoy! Jeff

How to Shoot Fireworks

Fireworks. Always a challenge to get and make a great image. This image is actually an Exposure Blend ( not HDR mode- tone mapping) of 3 images in Photomatix Pro. One can do this in Photoshop with Blend Modes and masks, but Photomatix makes it much easier.

First- Shooting technique. Pick a good location with buildings to frame the bursts. Turn off NR in your digital SLR, ISO 100, Bulb, f11, tripod and cable release. Your best shots will be early on when there is still color and as you can see, a rim of sunset hue remaining. Later on there is too much smoke for decent images. Exposures range between 4-8 seconds, depending on the bursts. You get a feel for it in a few minutes. One can also use a black card between bursts to get multiple bursts on the frame without blowing out the shot.

Second-Processing. Pick about 3 images and align them in PS or let Photomatix do it for you. After that, a little curves adjustment, saturate the firework trails color a little and apply noise reduction if needed. I used Noise Ninja, which did a great job. Another noise reduction technique is to take a Black Frame first ( pic with lens cap on) for 5 seconds and use this to subtract noise in PS with Difference Blend.

Enjoy, Jeff

The Belly Dancer

• The Belly Dancer. I liked the subject so much, I reworked some of the images in Topaz Adjust to deepen color and contrast. By putting 3 images up, a greater sense of movement is created. I am going to get this printed, matted in a tri-mat and then framed. Enjoy, Jeff

How to Use Slow Sync Flash

Our good friends David and Elaine took us to a wonderful Middle Eastern restaurant near Newton Mass. The food, company and the Belly dancer, Kaleen were all superb!

I posted this image to show you an example of Slow-Sync Flash, a technique that allows one to capture and convey motion and still define what is the subject. To do this I used the Lumix LX5 on ISO 200, F4 and 1/8sec with forced fill flash. The flash part of the exposure captures enough detail in the face and the ambient light exposure captures the motion. To see more in a short slide show to music, go to my Smugmug site at:

http://morninglight.smugmug.com/Photography/Videos/17864478_brVG5w#1366338883_vzBz8c7

Emotion after the Freihofer

My good friend Sandy got me a Press Pass to shoot the annual Freihofer Run for Women, June 5th. After the race, the Albany County Fire Dept sets up a hose with a wide spray for the runners to cool off. This is my favorite time of shooting during this event. To capture the emotion and stop the water droplets I shot with Tv Priority at 1/500th second, ISO 200, F11 to capture this scene. I love the emotion and joy that this runner shows. Enjoy, Jeff