So this is by no means new advice, it is just a lesson I had to recently re-learn. Here at PhotoComment we get the opportunity to review a fair amount of products and to date – in my experiences – there has never been a serious issue with them. This time I was not so lucky. Hence the black frame above to illustrate this article.
Motor sports photography can be one of the most technically challenging types of photography there is. Even when you know the theory behind the right technique, that award winning photo is, many of the times, just impossible to get. Add to that the high speed action and danger of motor sports photography and you have a recipe, not only for photos coming out badly, but also possibly a quick trip to the hospital. Continue reading »
So, you have a bunch of photos you want to resize to email or upload to a website. (PhotoComment’s Photo Friday Competition for example) However you don’t have access to PhotoShop or the like and need to do them in a hurry. Well here is a simple yet often overlooked method for quickly resizing your photos on any PC.
Buffalo near Punda Maria camp in Kruger Park
The Cape Buffalo has the reputation of being the most dangerous animal in Africa as they have apparently killed more people than any other animal. The buffalo is a placid animal but if cornered or wounded its first instinct is to attack. Buffalo are common throughout the Kruger Park, are a very rare sighting in the Pilanesberg and are not found in Etosha or the Kgalagadi. The biggest herd we saw was at the Mlondozi dam from the picnic site. This herd was huge and numbered at least 2000. We watched them coming down to drink and they just kept coming – the whole area was covered with black dots that looked like ants.
It has been a rather busy week here as we are wrapping up the August issue of the magazine. There are some great images inside this one with the Student Portfolio coming from an award winning Vega student, a review on a Canon DSLR and… I think I might be saying to much already but it will be out in the first few days of August so sit tight.
With the flu fighting hopefully drawing to an end we can catch up on all the products and other things we have had to review. Look out for our upcoming review on an Olympus camera, The Samsung Galaxy S II superphone, a book or two and that is just the top of the to do list.
I have finally sat down and done it! I have created my ultimate photography bucket list. It is something that I have been meaning to do, but never had the time.
We like it when you – our readers – ask us questions which we consult and work our hardest to answer. Recently we got a question which raised a debate among all that we spoke to. Carolyn Gregorowski asked us:
I thought I needed to calibrate my screen in order to get the best results when editing. So I researched a little about the Spyder 3 Elite and I am none the wiser to say the least. There are pretty mixed feelings & findings about the product. Do you have any advice please? Is it worth calibrating? Why? Maybe you have actually used this devise and can get me a little closer to the “real” experience rather than the ”sales” jargon one finds at suppliers.
Well Carolyn, there was a fair debate on this as I said but here if you read on you can see commercial photographer Sean Nel’s feedback when we asked him about it.
Kayaking helps you get down low, closer to the eye level of your subjects, making the images more portrait-like
So many times I would be driving along various bodies of water- lakes, bays, estuaries, rivers- and I would see a beautiful scene. I’d rush to the nearest place where I could safely pull my car off the road, grab my camera gear, and find the parking bay full of others clicking away or realize I’d already taken hundreds of pictures from the same spot. Over weeks and months the frustration slowly built. I needed to be able to get away from the road and over the water. I’d day dream of my own personal dirigible where I could float above, composing new scenes, arriving at new angles that no one else could access. Alternately I’d imagine the expensive, fancy boat I would have for quickly motoring out there to capture fresh perspectives and angles. I’d be free of the roadside and of all the other photographers.
Professional nature photographers make it look easy don’t they! A giraffe silhouetted against the setting sun; savannah landscapes of acacia trees under deep blue skies and the action sequence of a hungry cheetah catching a terrified springbok.
Yet wildlife photography, which sits next to bird, landscape and macro photography the umbrella of ‘nature photography’, is extremely challenging. Unlike studio photography there is very little that is under your control. To obtain good images you need to have the right equipment, know how to use the various items and have photographic vision. Basically you need to apply what is commonly known as the Five-P’s of photography. I’ll briefly list them here:
There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t see someone on Twitter asking what camera they should buy, and where possible we like to help out with advice based on the cameras we get to review. At the same time, its difficult to give full reasoning in 140 characters. This post then is a more detailed answer to the question asked by @bakedbyjoanna on the topic of what camera to buy.
365grateful.com from hailey bartholomew on Vimeo.
The video above was highlighted recently by Digital Photography School whose RSS feed is part of my daily Google Reader Fix. It got me thinking though, we often say shoot with a theme or pursue personal projects to keep you own creative juices flowing, perhaps combining the two can take this concept even further.
I have also recently read an article that argued that shooting more does not mean you will improve. I hear and understand much of the argument in that article and am not an advocate of mindless shooting, but I believe it was Gary Player that said the More he practiced the luckier he got and the same applies to photography. Practice and experiment with new things and if you don’t know what to shoot give yourself an assignment.
I must admit, I am a bit of a procrastinator and have been thinking of doing a 365 project to take and post a picture a day. Are there any readers our their willing to do this with me?
Gorilla Child
Another idea, look through your photography archive and see if you can find family pics over the last number of years, scanning old negs or prints where you can and look to make a large photo collage or even better, a photo book. If you are not sure where to go for your printing you can Pop into your nearest Foto First and get the full service offerings they have. Just a thought.
This was imported on the iPad with a camera connector kit and then edited using Photogene.
Photographers give this some thought today:
Dear Photographer taking my family’s pictures today.
All people are unique. All Families are different. Please don’t make us pose unnaturally to our natures. My toddler does not sit still and pulls faces when he does – you’ll need to be prepared for that.
We are not just some other family you are taking pictures of today. We have individual relationships that we express between us - please honor and try to capture those.
I do not want my family photo’s to look like the Smith family shots you did last week, last month or last year. I don’t mind if you try one thing new and experiment to get the best pics of my family. A balance of professionalism and ingenuity please.
Please communicate with me about what my expectations are and what your capabilities are.
I think thats all – I ought to still leave you with the creative license. So please be creative.
Love from Your Client (who knows a bit about the visual arts)
At our recent Parkour Photo Walk I was interested to see Werner Strauss’ approach to shooting the fast paced action using a slower shutter speed to better communicate the sense of speed and motion. A few weeks later I tried the same thing (partly by accident as I was not paying a lot of attention to the shutter speeds while still figuring out the Canon EOS 7D) and came across some great effects particularly when combined with the Nissin Di622 flash off camera. Sometimes it’s a good idea to break out of the “freeze the motion” mind set and pay around or experiment a bit. What do you think of the image above, do you think it would be as effective without the motion blur?
Shooting silhouettes can be fun and challenging all at the same time. The following tips will help you create compelling silhouettes that demand a second look.
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