A fun pic.. me today, while Paolo, the other photographer, and me were testing the lights.
Photographer Michael Willems in Drumbo, ON
Me today
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Category Archives: Picture of the day
Juxtapose!
What I mean, in today’s tip, is this: your pictures look interesting if there is a juxtaposition in it – a contrast, an unusual difference between opposites.Big and small. Ugly and Beautiful. Organic and technical. red and green.
Or like in this picture, old and new:
Old and New
When a juxtaposition is combined with another “interest”, such as “curves”, or here, “reflections”, so much the better.
And here one more, with blue and an intriguing shadow: intrigue (making the viewer work it out) is always good in pictures!
Old and New and Blue and Shadow
A recent class
Here’s a recent shot of a recent Advanced Lighting class in Mono, Ontario:
Lighting Class, Mono, Ont.
(Lit by two flashes, one in a softbox and one with a grid).
Simplify…
I recently shot the picture below, during a Creative Urban Photography walk in Oakville.
Can you see how it is simple, how it is defined more by what it does not show than by what it shows? That is often the case: simple is good, and when the viewer has to piece things together that is a good thing.
Eat.
OK, do not eat quite yet.
I shoot events. All the time. It is what I love to do.
And these events are organized by corporations, or wealthy people, or governments, or charitable organizations. You name it. People like to get together. And all these people have paid a lot for the food – or sweated, making it.
And food is ephemeral: it’s there – then it’s not.
This is where photographers do a very useful job. One good photo, and that food exists forever. Like beauty, or youth.
And like these delicious strawberries, which I shot at a very nice private event in Toronto on Labour Day:
Strawberries, by Michael Willems
There. And this too:
Food Shot, by Michael Willems
The way to do this:
- Set your camera to manual exposure mode.
- Expose two stops below ambient (choose aperture and shutter so that the meter reads -2. This might be 400 ISO, f/4, 1/60th second).
- Make sure your aperture is fairly open (that’s the “f/4”).
- Bounce your flash off the ceiling/wall behind you.
- Focus on the closest part.
- Tilt as needed.
Your images will be loved by your client. The book can now include food shots as background or detail shots. The food is now good forever. The investment is secured for all eternity. And the story is a better one: not just grip-and-grin images, but also “background”.
Blog notes
Hi there audience!
I am just back from shooting a very enjoyable event – a birthday party. It is such fun to shoot these events.
Cakes
Four hours shooting, and two or three hours of post-production work. All great!
More about events and how to shoot them – and what to shoot at them – in the next few days, but first, a note about why to shoot them.
We only live a few years – “three score years and ten”, according to Leviticus. Thank G-d this is no longer the limit (the person whose birthday was being celebrated in the picture above will no doubt join me in being thankful), but even though it may be twenty years more now, there is a limit – And then we’re gone. And we long for the days gone by.
But when we have good photos, we remember. We mark those days, those places, those events, and those people down forever. And in doing so, we own them forever.
So please… have your significant events photographed. A few dollars is nothing compared to eternal memories.
And that is why I like to help people learn photography. That is what this blog is all about: about learning the skills that will make you a really good photographer.
This blog is, and will always remain, free. But in return, you can do something for me: spread the word. I see that I have several thousand visits a day, but I would like that to be several tens of thousands a day, or several hundreds of thousands. So please tell your friends and acquaintances; write about this blog; or link to it.
And above all – read it, daily. I post every day and I hope you find it useful. Let’s make this community the best educated in the world. Photographically speaking of course.
Now… I’d like to hang around – but I need to write tomorrow morning’s post!
Blur is bad. Always. Or…?
Or is it?
Bike, Toronto, Aug 2010
Indeed not. That is why you have a shutter speed priority (Tv/S). Sometimes you want to show motion, and you do that by blurring things.
I took the shot above while panning at 1/15th of a second (and f/22 at 100 ISO: it was a bright day in Toronto). It shows “in a hurry”, dynamic motion much better than a “frozen” picture of the same subject would do.
Dark
Always carry your camera, even at night.
I just got back from teaching, after an executive portrait shoot this morning.
But I want to talk not about light, but about lack of light. And how when it gets dark, you do not put away your camera. Like I carried mine, just the other night in Montreal:
Montreal, night scene, handheld (Aug 2010)
Montreal, Rue Hutchison, Aug 2010
Montreal, "The Shining", handheld
All those were handheld shots.
Tips for those:
- Hold the camera steady!
- Use a wide lens, since they are more forgiving of motiong
- Make it a fast one the fastest you can get (I used a 16-35mm f/2.8 on a full-frame camera);
- Use a high ISO if handheld (but low if using a tripod);
- Expose down 1-2 stops (use manual, or use aperture mode and Exposure Compensation “minus”) ;
- Shoot multiple times to make sure!
If you do it that way, it is easy. And you will be happy with your images.
Nature close up
Nature can be beautiful, as in the snap I made in downtown Toronto yesterday afternoon:
Bird, Fountain and Flowers (Toronto, 29 August)
Sometimes, as in this example, nature is best seen close up; sometimes better using wide angles.
That is the kind of thing we will be going over in the upcoming full-day Nature Walk workshop, which, take note, has now been brought forward to 11 September. It is also one of the subjects I go through in the Henry’s “Creative Urban Photography” half day walkaround I do in Oakville.
Choosing the right angle is a very important part of making (not “taking”!) a photo, and it is one of many subjects covered.
Oh, the photo? A 70-200mm f/2.8L lens, set to f/4 (I wanted the bird to be sharp, and these birds never sit still for more than a moment). At 200 ISO, that gave me 1/250th second. I used the Canon 7D camera, because its 1/6 crop factor gave me a longer reach (the 200mm effectively became 320m).
Quartier des spectacles
You know how photographers always talk about framing as one useful technique?
Today’s shot of the day shows some framing, of Montreal (taken yesterday from the 8th floor of the Hyatt hotel at the Desjardins centre). Framed by a frame, fancy that:
Montreal Quartier Des Spectacles, framed