The Photo Classroom

The Concept:

Have you ever taken a photo of a beautiful sunrise or sunset with all those warm hues that we love (like oranges, yellows, reds, etc.) only to find that your resulting image was lackluster at best. Or maybe, you might want to make your average sunset photo look more warm and pleasing? Either way, one of most rewarding concepts, in my opinion, for sunrise/sunset photography is the difference that changing your white balance can make in the camera.

In essence, the mistake most photographers make is to leave their cameras in Auto WB all the time including at the beginning and the end of the day. The problem is that Auto WB allows the camera to adjust the color reproduction and when the scene you are shooting has lots of warm tones in it, the camera thinks that it should make the warmness turn cooler and adds blue back in, often ruining the effect you were going for. Therefore, if you did nothing else, you could use your Daylight/Direct Sun WB setting instead of Auto WB and likely will get a result truer to what you see. However, if this does not reproduce the scene accurately, or if you are like me and you would like to accentuate the effect of the warmth, you have some other options. In terms of using the preset (the WB “modes”) on the camera, going to Cloudy/Overcast adds some warmth and going to Shade adds even more. Or if you would rather use the Kelvin WB control on your camera, the higher you go on your Kelvin temperature, the warmer the image will be. The warmest you can do on most cameras is 10,000 degrees Kelvin. Below you can see examples of all the different WB options I tried on a photo of the sun about 20 mins before sunset last night as well as an image of the color the way it actually was.

The Assignment:

Get up early or go out late and try a variety of different white balance settings on your camera of the sunrise or sunset. It is a ton of fun to not only know which setting records it accurately, but to make it into whatever “look” you favor all in the camera.

The Concept:

In this Weekend Edition of Today’s Photo Minute, “Shoot and Share” we have two challenges to go out and shoot as well as share our favorite images with others. The purpose of this is to not only get the camera in our hands but help us to look creatively for things around us that can be made into awesome photographs.

The Assignment:

Challenge 1: Food – What a delicious challenge we have this weekend. It is not often you can create some neat images and then enjoy eating it too but this week you can. This challenge can include prepared dishes, fruits, vegetables, etc. and can be shot outside or inside (try by window light if you do not have a flash you can use or enough ambient artificial light). Have fun with this challenge

Challenge 2: Starburst – In one of our last Today’s Photo Minutes, I did a session on Creating a Starburst in Your Photos which you can go back and check out. This can be done with the sun but other point light sources can work as well. A flash pointed at the camera lens, a streetlight, even a bright enough refection off of a shining object (such as a water droplet), can have the same effect when you use the higher range of apertures on your lens. In fact, now would be a great time to try out various high apertures (F16, F22, F32, etc.) on your lens and see if there is a difference in the starburst effect and at what point you might lose some sharpness (due to diffraction).

When you get your images ready by late on Sunday, please share those with the rest of us who are participating as well. If you are on Facebook, please post them as a comment to this particular post. If you are not on Facebook, feel free to email your entries to [email protected] and I will be glad to post them.

The Concept:

In this Weekend Edition of Today’s Photo Minute, “Shoot and Share” Brian Osborne gives two challenges to go out and shoot as well as share our favorite images with others. The purpose of this is to not only get the camera in our hands but help us to look creatively for things around us that can be made into awesome photographs.

The Assignment:

Challenge 1: Architecture – Find a structure, building, house, etc. and practice your architecture photography. This challenge does not have to include a whole building but might be just a piece of it like an interesting window, door frame or similar.

Challenge 2: Small Stuff – This could be an insect, flower, still life or any number of other subject matters that you think would fit “small stuff” Practice your close-up photography skills and make sure to get the amount of depth of field that you want in the final image (remember the closer you get to a subject the less depth of field you will have so you may want a higher aperture).

When you get your images ready by late on Sunday, please share those with the rest of us who are participating as well. If you are on Facebook, please post them as a comment to this particular post. If you are not on Facebook, feel free to email your entries to [email protected] and I will be glad to post them

The Concept:

In Today’s Photo Minute, we introduce the easy technique to get a starburst effect in your photos that have a point light source such as the sun, a streetlight, etc.

The Assignment:

Go to the highest aperture (F16, F22 or F32) on your lens and find a point light source. Be careful about looking through the viewfinder at the sun unless it is a sunrise or sunset situation or very small in the frame. You can do the same with a streetlight at night, a spotlight, a bright reflection off of a lake or a water drop, etc. and see how it looks in the final image. Sometimes you can see even more effect by shooting through trees, etc. with the sun just coming around the edge of the foreground subject. Be aware that you might see some results of lens flare (direct light hitting the lens can cause loss of detail in the shadow areas, streaks of color in the photo, etc.). Have fun seeing what you can do with this technique in different situations.

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The Concept:

It is time for a weekend edition of Today’s Photo Minute with “Shoot and Share”. We have some more fun challenges to encourage all of us to get out and do some photography as well as share our images with each other.

The Assignment:

Challenge 1: Black and White – Black and white photos are always classic and popular. This challenge is open to any subject matter but will give us the creativity to see what neat images we can create that look great in black and white. Remember to look and or edit your images so that you have a good contrast range with a deep black tone in the photo and a nice white tone as well.

Challenge 2: Sunlight – Given our weather this week, I figured this would be an appropriate challenge to see what the theme of sunlight means to you.

When you get your images ready by late on Sunday, please share those with the rest of us who are participating as well. If you are on Facebook, please post them as a comment to this particular post. If you are not on Facebook, feel free to email your entries to [email protected] and I will be glad to post them