Ok. After considering what Blogger can do and what Wordpress can do I chose Wordpress. I will therefore not be updating this blog any further and if you would like to continue following my blog please go to
http://richarddalgleish.wordpress.com/
Sunday, 23 May 2010
Sunday, 9 May 2010
Wordpress versus Blogger.com
Am currently trying out Wordpress blogsite. Not really happy with this site and how it deals with positioning of images on the blog page. Pretty crucial thing when doing a photography course...
Don't really want extra work in migrating this document over but at same time don't want to spend my time fiddling about with layout and worrying over the look and feel of the blog and how the site appears to "interpret" what I want.
Will play about for a few days before I make up my mind.
Don't really want extra work in migrating this document over but at same time don't want to spend my time fiddling about with layout and worrying over the look and feel of the blog and how the site appears to "interpret" what I want.
Will play about for a few days before I make up my mind.
Friday, 7 May 2010
Learning how to walk.
God am feeling rusty. Been such a slow start to course for me. Feel like I am having to relearn how to walk. Am having to learn study skills, time management and the general nitty gritty administration side that keeps coursework ticking along. On top of this am using digital camera that I am not as familiar with as previous camera which I had for years. Past week have been teaching myself Photoshop familiarising myself with histograms, layer masks and so on.
Ever feel like screaming...?
On plus side I found some useful guides to help. This about the most useful for me.
www.open.ac.uk/goodstudyguide/
Has some useful ideas plus there is a link to buy the guide or some excerts to download on pdf format.
Ever feel like screaming...?
On plus side I found some useful guides to help. This about the most useful for me.
www.open.ac.uk/goodstudyguide/
Has some useful ideas plus there is a link to buy the guide or some excerts to download on pdf format.
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Exercise 4 - Editing
This exercise is multi part and in summary is involved in taking a set of images and performing successive edits on the set to produce a selection of just two final images. In sequence the edits are technical edit, selects, first select, group review and final triage.
The initial selection of images comes from Exercise 1 - your own workflow -1. The shoot consists of a series of 46 portrait shots of my son.
Choice 02 - I like the orange hedge in the background thrown out of focus by the apertur helps to focus attention of portrait. Background slightly messy. I like the off centre pose and not looking into lens.
Choice 03 - very happy pose cropped tighter than others. Again I like the background. Model looking straight into lens. Burnt out highlights in hair.
Choice 04 - My favourite picture. Very relaxed and manages to capture a certain happiness and cheekiness all at the same time.
Choice 05. Very simple pose with old shed in background. Direct look into lens.
Slightly soft focus which depending on point of view either adds to detracts from picture. Dislike the position of the hands and would prefer then either in shot or cropped.
Similar to first shot, but like hand position more natural although lacking a little in the facial expression.
The final selection did prove difficult. I was able to edit down to final three. From here I did have an obvious favourite but choice between last two was touch and go and each picture had elements I liked. I will show final selection below.
My standout favourite picture of the shoot. was an immediate and obvious choice for me. Have cropped image and tidied this up very slightly from original, reducing highlights in hair and shadow in face.
I chose this picture and present here partially edited to remove some of the highlights. Imperfect in many ways but reason I chose it was because of the smile and the direct look into lens. Like the background although telegraph pole sprouting from Robbie's head not ideal and I might also have taken that out.
Conclusion
A very useful structured exercise in editing. Reducing from a large set of photographs using a series of "filters", starting with broad filter, getting rid of technically imprefect pictures although I did choose to qualify this by keeping pictures I thought worth retouching. Next looking artistically at photographs and removing those that don't satisfy creatively. Also removing pictures that were wimilar and finidng best of those From there to final selection was a process of applying successively finer "filters being more and more critical and discerning.
I have never used such a structured approach and instead would have jumped in at end stage looking for final picture as my first selection.
Gave me a useful insight to process that photo editors might go through to find successful competition entrant or photograph for publication.
The initial selection of images comes from Exercise 1 - your own workflow -1. The shoot consists of a series of 46 portrait shots of my son.
My immediate first comment about the technical edit is that for the shots taken there are very few shots obviously out of focus, showing camera shake or badly exposed. This is partly due to exercise where it was controlled, well paced environment with time to consider each photograph, use a tripod and to consider where I wanted to the model to be in each shot. There are pictures where the sunlight had burnt out a little of the highlights in the hair. As this is fixible I have chosen not to reject such shots at this stage.
The next edit will be for the second exercise taken of a street scene and I can already see that this technical edit phase will capture much more faulty pictures just by nature of the exercise.
The next phase is the initial selection. This is a more creative selection and is subjective, dependant on personal preference, likes and dislikes. Of the intial 46 I retain 19 shots at this stage. I will show my inital selection below:
I will show photographs below which are the result of my first select. I will also detail my thought process for subsequent "passes" as I reviewed selection to further whittle down selection until we reach final choice difficult choice.
Choice 01 - What I like about this photograph is the compact relaxed pose and the slightly cheeky expression. slightly burnt out on hair but nothing that can't be fixed.
Choice 02 - I like the orange hedge in the background thrown out of focus by the apertur helps to focus attention of portrait. Background slightly messy. I like the off centre pose and not looking into lens.
Choice 03 - very happy pose cropped tighter than others. Again I like the background. Model looking straight into lens. Burnt out highlights in hair.
Choice 04 - My favourite picture. Very relaxed and manages to capture a certain happiness and cheekiness all at the same time.
Choice 05. Very simple pose with old shed in background. Direct look into lens.
Slightly soft focus which depending on point of view either adds to detracts from picture. Dislike the position of the hands and would prefer then either in shot or cropped.
Similar to first shot, but like hand position more natural although lacking a little in the facial expression.
Dislike messy background although do like expression and tighter crop. Burnt out in face. I think of my first select this is my least favourite and so already likely to be dropped by next edit.
The final selection did prove difficult. I was able to edit down to final three. From here I did have an obvious favourite but choice between last two was touch and go and each picture had elements I liked. I will show final selection below.
My standout favourite picture of the shoot. was an immediate and obvious choice for me. Have cropped image and tidied this up very slightly from original, reducing highlights in hair and shadow in face.
I chose this picture and present here partially edited to remove some of the highlights. Imperfect in many ways but reason I chose it was because of the smile and the direct look into lens. Like the background although telegraph pole sprouting from Robbie's head not ideal and I might also have taken that out.
Conclusion
A very useful structured exercise in editing. Reducing from a large set of photographs using a series of "filters", starting with broad filter, getting rid of technically imprefect pictures although I did choose to qualify this by keeping pictures I thought worth retouching. Next looking artistically at photographs and removing those that don't satisfy creatively. Also removing pictures that were wimilar and finidng best of those From there to final selection was a process of applying successively finer "filters being more and more critical and discerning.
I have never used such a structured approach and instead would have jumped in at end stage looking for final picture as my first selection.
Gave me a useful insight to process that photo editors might go through to find successful competition entrant or photograph for publication.
Monday, 3 May 2010
Exercise 3 - Histogram - Average Contrast
I have taken pictures of a little burn (stream) at side of a wall. The green of the foliage, with the darkness of the water and the paleness of the stonework in the wall produce a good average contrast image.
I have take pictures across a wide exposure and show three examples below with associated histograms.
Average exposure.
Over exposure by approx -1 stop.
Under exposure by approx +1stop.
As can be seen as the exposure lengthens and more light falls upon sensor, the resultant histogram shifts towards the right . As the picture has no clipping moving the exposure in this way does not make the exposure too black nor too white, although changing exposure by more than 1 stop would start to produce clipping as seen in previous examples.
Exercise 3 - Histogram part 2 - Low Contrast
I have split up the histogram blog into 3 just to make it more readable.
For the low contrast category I initially took some pictures of a heron fishing. Sadly perhaps not best choice of subject as birds do have a tendancy to move or fly away. How inconsiderate. The reason I took pictures of the heron was that the loch where it was wading was almost oily with grey feathers of the bird made for quite a flat, if dark scene.
As I didn't get all the pictures I wanted I have chosen a picture and adjusted the exposure manually by using Photoshop to get spread of exposure across several stops. Sitting at computer making picture 1 stop lighter or 1 stop darker and seeing how the histogram responds is actually quite interesting. Histograms not something I have ever paid much attention to before.
Below is the original photograph.
And here are the manual adjustments made in Photoshop.
-2 stops from original
-1 stop from original
+1 stop from original
+2 stops from original
As can be seen every time exposure changes by +1 stop the histogram moves towards the right hand side of graph. similarly changing exposure by -1 stop will move histogram towards left of the graph. It is worth noting that graph does just move, it also expands as it moves. So +2 stops from original has a wider range of light and dark.
For the low contrast category I initially took some pictures of a heron fishing. Sadly perhaps not best choice of subject as birds do have a tendancy to move or fly away. How inconsiderate. The reason I took pictures of the heron was that the loch where it was wading was almost oily with grey feathers of the bird made for quite a flat, if dark scene.
As I didn't get all the pictures I wanted I have chosen a picture and adjusted the exposure manually by using Photoshop to get spread of exposure across several stops. Sitting at computer making picture 1 stop lighter or 1 stop darker and seeing how the histogram responds is actually quite interesting. Histograms not something I have ever paid much attention to before.
Below is the original photograph.
And here are the manual adjustments made in Photoshop.
-2 stops from original
-1 stop from original
+1 stop from original
+2 stops from original
As can be seen every time exposure changes by +1 stop the histogram moves towards the right hand side of graph. similarly changing exposure by -1 stop will move histogram towards left of the graph. It is worth noting that graph does just move, it also expands as it moves. So +2 stops from original has a wider range of light and dark.
Exercise 3 - Histogram part 1 - High Contrast
In this exercise looking to familiarise yourself with histograms by relating each to the actual image as as aid to recognising the basic characteristics of an image.
Before I continue I think it is worthwhile explaining quickly what a histogram is. Basically a simple graph w
here tone is plotted against quantity. A histogram will show the distribution of brightness values of individual pixels in an image with deep shadows at the far left hand side and towards right hand side will show bright highlights. Useful to show distribution of tones across a wide dynamic range. The vertical height of the graph shows the relative number of pixels at each brightness level between black and white.
If any of the graph shows as spikes on either of the extreme right or left hand side of graph then this indicates that parts of the captured image are outwith the maximum and minimum brightness levels detectable by the camera sensor.
Before I continue I think it is worthwhile explaining quickly what a histogram is. Basically a simple graph w
here tone is plotted against quantity. A histogram will show the distribution of brightness values of individual pixels in an image with deep shadows at the far left hand side and towards right hand side will show bright highlights. Useful to show distribution of tones across a wide dynamic range. The vertical height of the graph shows the relative number of pixels at each brightness level between black and white.If any of the graph shows as spikes on either of the extreme right or left hand side of graph then this indicates that parts of the captured image are outwith the maximum and minimum brightness levels detectable by the camera sensor.
Ok enough of the theory onto the exercises and some practial examples.
High Contrast
For this part of the exercise, I took some pictures for this in Edinburgh's High Street, looking through closes (or alleyways you might call them). The pictures were difficult to expose with bright daylight through the far end of the close and the actual walls and road of the close very dark. I bracketed exposure and so got some under exposed, over exposed and close to well exposed.
When looking at output histogram I could see that the under-exposed photograph had most of the tonal range contained in the left hand side of the graph with a spike at this point. We are seeing lots of pure blacks with some of the image too dark for the sensor. You can see from screenshot below that there are large areas of shadow clipping represented by the blue. For completeness I have also shown picture without the clipping turned on.
The over-exposed photograph does have a wider spread of tone although this is partly due to the amount of the frame which is over exposed in relation to rest of frame. There is however a large spike at the right hand side of the histogram which I will expand on below. The red areas in the screenshot above show the areas of highlight clipping in the frame. for completenss I have shown the same image with clippingturned off.
High Contrast
For this part of the exercise, I took some pictures for this in Edinburgh's High Street, looking through closes (or alleyways you might call them). The pictures were difficult to expose with bright daylight through the far end of the close and the actual walls and road of the close very dark. I bracketed exposure and so got some under exposed, over exposed and close to well exposed.
When looking at output histogram I could see that the under-exposed photograph had most of the tonal range contained in the left hand side of the graph with a spike at this point. We are seeing lots of pure blacks with some of the image too dark for the sensor. You can see from screenshot below that there are large areas of shadow clipping represented by the blue. For completeness I have also shown picture without the clipping turned on.
The over-exposed photograph does have a wider spread of tone although this is partly due to the amount of the frame which is over exposed in relation to rest of frame. There is however a large spike at the right hand side of the histogram which I will expand on below. The red areas in the screenshot above show the areas of highlight clipping in the frame. for completenss I have shown the same image with clippingturned off.
If I crop frame just to show the over-exposed section (shown below) then it can be seen that the histogram shows a spike at the right hand side of the graph, at the opposite side of the graph from an under-exposed photograph. The graph below shows that the section of the photograph in bright sunlight has lots of highlights or pure white and that the spike shows that the captured image is too bright for the camera sensor.
Lastly I show a picture which is close to being correctly exposed. As picture is very high contrast, it still shows small amount of both highlight and shadow clipping. As these are quite small I could adjust the shadows and highlights to remove this clipping. The histogram tells me that the image is still too dark.
The tonal spread in this shot covers a wider range than in both the previous examples although still tends towards black. As an aside. I have played with this picture and can remove the clipping and make the tunnel far lighter. As it happens I think the darkness adds to the picture.
As a final illustration, I have adjusted shadows and highlights within Photoshop and the resultant image with histogram is shown below.
Sunday, 2 May 2010
Further thoughts on worksflow
Have been thinking about workflow and how having a set approach and range of tools for every photo assignment could standarise the nuts and bolts of photography, giving rise to treating captured images in an efficient and regular way. With a standard process in place in the background, treating photographic output in a "production line" manner would this allow me to give more thought to the "execution of the image capture" ?
Here is workflow broken down.
Stage 1 - Planning
1. Receive commision or project or simply have an idea in your head for photoshoot.
2. Research subject - viewpoints, places of interest
3. Plan photoshoot whether this be views you would like to capture, lighting techniques you would like to try out or poses you would like your model to try. Bare in mind that this plan should have element of looseness and adaptabilty.
Stage 2 - Pre shoot checks
1. Check equipment, do you have all the cameras, lenses, accessories and so on. Do have have enough film and or memory cards. Are batteries fully charged?
2. Do you know how to use all relevant features of equipment? Might be no time to dip into instruction manual so pre-plan and if possible practice techniques beforehand.
2. Do you have a plan b should something stop working ? Again element of adaptabilty. Can you replan shoot another time or must it be done on the day?
Stage 3 - On the day
1. When taking photographs you can stick rigidly to plan mentioned in stage 1 and as in Excercise 1 or you can be more relaxed and open as in Excercise 2. this can depend on subject matter and many other factors.
Stage 4 - Developing Image
This stage will be similar for film and for digtial and involves any final corrections in the lab or on the computer. In my case I will be using computer.
1. Edit photographs to eliminate unsatisfactory shots.
2. Make any adjustments to photographs, whether this be cropping, colour balance, brightness and contrast or tidy up photograph in any way.
3. Review slection to provide further critique and ensure final selection is of best quality.
4. Save final image and add "keyword" data in photo software to ensure that you can find relevant picture.
Here is workflow broken down.
Stage 1 - Planning
1. Receive commision or project or simply have an idea in your head for photoshoot.
2. Research subject - viewpoints, places of interest
3. Plan photoshoot whether this be views you would like to capture, lighting techniques you would like to try out or poses you would like your model to try. Bare in mind that this plan should have element of looseness and adaptabilty.
Stage 2 - Pre shoot checks
1. Check equipment, do you have all the cameras, lenses, accessories and so on. Do have have enough film and or memory cards. Are batteries fully charged?
2. Do you know how to use all relevant features of equipment? Might be no time to dip into instruction manual so pre-plan and if possible practice techniques beforehand.
2. Do you have a plan b should something stop working ? Again element of adaptabilty. Can you replan shoot another time or must it be done on the day?
Stage 3 - On the day
1. When taking photographs you can stick rigidly to plan mentioned in stage 1 and as in Excercise 1 or you can be more relaxed and open as in Excercise 2. this can depend on subject matter and many other factors.
Stage 4 - Developing Image
This stage will be similar for film and for digtial and involves any final corrections in the lab or on the computer. In my case I will be using computer.
1. Edit photographs to eliminate unsatisfactory shots.
2. Make any adjustments to photographs, whether this be cropping, colour balance, brightness and contrast or tidy up photograph in any way.
3. Review slection to provide further critique and ensure final selection is of best quality.
4. Save final image and add "keyword" data in photo software to ensure that you can find relevant picture.
Wednesday, 28 April 2010
Panic
Phew logged on here tonight and it asked me to create a new Blog. Thought for a second it had lost mine. Actually i had just logged in a different account. Did make me think however and will backup contents of blog regularly.
Monday, 26 April 2010
Funny
Got accosted in street today twice. Lucky old me. A chap stopped in street and accused me of being a snooper for the DHSS or as he put it "spying on folk on the brew". Then after that some woman came rushing out of a shop because I had dared to photograph her window display.
Comparison between exercises on workflow
So what are my conclusions about the two different styles of workflow required for a formal portrait session and a street scene.
Well...there are elements of both styles of workflow that can come together,
- namely trying to plan in advance; for example what picture do you want to take, what lens and equipment do you need, is battery fully charged and do you have sufficient space on the memory card.
- the casual approach can work in both planned and unplanned sessions, trying to be ready for the unexpected.
- the selection and edit process (which are covered in future exercises) remain a constant.
In summary I think that a workflow can be generic and suit all circumstance but that different styles and genres of photography require flexibility in approach.
Exercise 2 - Your own workflow 2
I used a street scene for basis for this assignment. Session was un-limited in terms of time with an indeterminate number of shots.
I found the workflow used in this exercise to be far more casual and less regimented that the previous. At times I was able to review pictures I was unhappy with, bracket exposure and retake however there was an element of grab shots where time was actually very limited. Blink and moment is gone. In general the session was less organised as although I had an idea of what I wanted to photograph from the outset, the lighting and the subjects were actually fairly random and uncontrolled.
I found the workflow used in this exercise to be far more casual and less regimented that the previous. At times I was able to review pictures I was unhappy with, bracket exposure and retake however there was an element of grab shots where time was actually very limited. Blink and moment is gone. In general the session was less organised as although I had an idea of what I wanted to photograph from the outset, the lighting and the subjects were actually fairly random and uncontrolled.
Most obvious difference between the two workflows represented by exercises one and two is in number of pictures. The casual, unstructured and open ended nature of assignment gave rise to much more pictures whilst I looked for suitable images.
As for previous exercise I will wrap up thoughts on experiences on workflow in a seperate blog entry.
Monday, 12 April 2010
Exercise 1 - Your own workflow 1
This assignment was a portrait session. Session was time limited with on the spot development and improvement of composition, taking a sequence of images and looking for improvements in subject's pose and facial expression. The workflow continued with selection of image and processing of the selected images.
For this exercise I used my son as fairly willing volunteer.
The exercise of planning workflow for a portrait session was quite controlled, organised and even regimented. Giving time to take arrange image, arrange and adjust composition, lighting by using reflector, even setup camera on tripod and working through preset range of poses.
Workflow was very suitable for a formal portrait session, however, for my own personal preference would prefer more informality and a slightly more flexible approach.
Below have shown sequence of shots. these are unedited at this stage. I will use this sequence for exercise 4 on editing.
For this exercise I used my son as fairly willing volunteer.
The exercise of planning workflow for a portrait session was quite controlled, organised and even regimented. Giving time to take arrange image, arrange and adjust composition, lighting by using reflector, even setup camera on tripod and working through preset range of poses.
Workflow was very suitable for a formal portrait session, however, for my own personal preference would prefer more informality and a slightly more flexible approach.
Below have shown sequence of shots. these are unedited at this stage. I will use this sequence for exercise 4 on editing.
I will do exercise 2 on workflow then wrap up my thoughts on workflow in a blog after that.
Sunday, 11 April 2010
Hello
Introduction
A big hello to the wide world out there. A little about me to start.
I come from Edinburgh. I am 44 and married with 2 children. Photography wise, my dad was always interested in photography and there were always camera in the house. I started out using a box brownie and made my way onto the world of the SLR with an old Russian Zenit. In the past year have finally taken big leap and replaced my film based 35mm Canon system with a digital setup.
I last studied with OCA back in 2005 when I was studying Photography 2 - Social Documentary. Had a little gap because of things at home so now getting back into swing with a level 1 course. Have always been interested in photography and have decided to take plunge and work towards my degree.
I started out with OCA as was unhappy with getting films back and not having results I had hoped for. So embarked on a a formal course to improve standard of my camera skills and learn how to see the image I want before I press the shutter. I am now at stage where this has changed round and I would expect to see certain results every time.
Had my Photography 1:Digital Photography Practice (bit of a mouthful - hate acronyms but is DPP just easier to say?) course for about 6 weeks now. So far have been enjoying course.
Have to admit have been away from any kind of studies for a few years now so finding the discipline of forcing myself to make time for home study a bit challenging to say the least. Now that I have got round to starting a blog am hoping this will be a little spur to me.
I do tend to take notes as I go, capturing thoughts about specific photographs or situations or techniques so sitting down at computer and wrapping some sense around my notes is a new thing.
Good couple of days, started an assignment in spring sunshine. Model setup, day planned, happy with poses and lighting and bam, broke my tripod. Sums up start of year for me. Despite this setback am feeling positive.
Equipment
Rather than me saying what equipment I have been using in every single blog thought would get that over and done with here. Some people not overly interested in what equipment you use and instead focus (excuse pun) on final image rather than on how you take picture, where from and what equipment you use. If you are one of these people just skip this next part.
Here goes anyway, my camera is a Canon EOS 5D. I have never used this for a course before as for last course I used 35mm SLR film camera. I have a couple of zoom lenses; a 24-105mm and 16-35mm. I also have a fisheye 15mm lens. Would like to have longer zoom, something like a 70-200mm but can't afford this yet.
Software wise I use Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop Lightroom 2. I shoot my pictures in RAW as this gives me the most latitude to make any changes I need on the computer.
A big hello to the wide world out there. A little about me to start.
I come from Edinburgh. I am 44 and married with 2 children. Photography wise, my dad was always interested in photography and there were always camera in the house. I started out using a box brownie and made my way onto the world of the SLR with an old Russian Zenit. In the past year have finally taken big leap and replaced my film based 35mm Canon system with a digital setup.
I last studied with OCA back in 2005 when I was studying Photography 2 - Social Documentary. Had a little gap because of things at home so now getting back into swing with a level 1 course. Have always been interested in photography and have decided to take plunge and work towards my degree.
I started out with OCA as was unhappy with getting films back and not having results I had hoped for. So embarked on a a formal course to improve standard of my camera skills and learn how to see the image I want before I press the shutter. I am now at stage where this has changed round and I would expect to see certain results every time.
Had my Photography 1:Digital Photography Practice (bit of a mouthful - hate acronyms but is DPP just easier to say?) course for about 6 weeks now. So far have been enjoying course.
Have to admit have been away from any kind of studies for a few years now so finding the discipline of forcing myself to make time for home study a bit challenging to say the least. Now that I have got round to starting a blog am hoping this will be a little spur to me.
I do tend to take notes as I go, capturing thoughts about specific photographs or situations or techniques so sitting down at computer and wrapping some sense around my notes is a new thing.
Good couple of days, started an assignment in spring sunshine. Model setup, day planned, happy with poses and lighting and bam, broke my tripod. Sums up start of year for me. Despite this setback am feeling positive.
Equipment
Rather than me saying what equipment I have been using in every single blog thought would get that over and done with here. Some people not overly interested in what equipment you use and instead focus (excuse pun) on final image rather than on how you take picture, where from and what equipment you use. If you are one of these people just skip this next part.
Here goes anyway, my camera is a Canon EOS 5D. I have never used this for a course before as for last course I used 35mm SLR film camera. I have a couple of zoom lenses; a 24-105mm and 16-35mm. I also have a fisheye 15mm lens. Would like to have longer zoom, something like a 70-200mm but can't afford this yet.
Software wise I use Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop Lightroom 2. I shoot my pictures in RAW as this gives me the most latitude to make any changes I need on the computer.
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