kargen

Thank you!

Looks like the last time I posted was ten years ago. Spent most my time in the photography area back then. Been so long since I tied a fly I'm unsure I am getting anything right. Watching a video on knots they had a link to this place and I'm glad I found it again. Had fun and learned a lot last time around and am sure that will happen this time as well. Still doing photography so thought I better share one if I remember how.

The Scott Kelby books are really good. I have several for each version of photoshop I have ended up with over the years. Best thing to do is get a small notebook grab your camera and go out shooting. Record your settings for each shot, and a brief note on conditions (cloudy, sunny all that fun stuff) and just see what works for you. I was always told a very long time ago that film is cheap. With digital it is even cheaper so playing with settings takes nothing but some time.

Grab The Photographers Market 2009. It has a list of all kinds of magazines that are looking for photos. You can find how to submit, what type of photos they take, what they pay and what they need. THey also have a few quick little articles about how to request guidelines and things like that.

Should work okay. Lots of studio photographers do it. Showing the art director an image on a monitor beats the heck out of showing them a polaroid like we used to do. Just be sure your monitor is calibrated so what you see as a well exposed photo really is a well exposed photo.

I use the Tamarac Expedition 5 to carry a lot of my camera gear when traveling. I put in my cleaning kit, back-up batteries, a couple of lenses and other assorted crap. I usually don't carry it though when I am out stomping around and shooting. It stays behind for the most part. I used to have a vest that was made for photographers but I wore it out. Looking to replace it I decided to go with your standard ole vest most fly fishermen use. It is about the same other than the name and didn't cost as much. Probably more durable as well? It has plenty of pockets and pouches, most that I can get to easily and is hard to beat for convenience while actually out and about among the critters. When I get back to the car I just transfer the lenses and stuff back to the camera bag as it offers more protection when traveling. It is amazing how much stuff will fit in one of those vests, and with the bigger lenses in their own cases there are plenty of places to tie them on for a while.

I like shadows in a photo, they help show depth. I'm guessing you had your lights set up kind of like copy light, one left of camera and one right of camera equal distances from the subject. You might try setting one light near your camera and maybe a little above camera. Set the other light off to one side. Looking at the shadow you have se the light to the side about at the angle your left light is at. Set this light back a little farther than the center light, and if you can make it so it isn't so soft as the center light. If the shadow produced is to harsh you can move the side light farther back, or you can put a white card off to the side of the photo opposite the side light to bounce some light back in. You have black and white in your subject so that is going to cause some problems. Your exposure is going to have to be right on to get detail in both the blacks and the whites. You might be able to bounce a little extra light into the dark areas with small mirrors or white cards if you want to take the time to place them.

backlighting wasn't exactly what I meant. I was talking more of any light that puts the face in shadow than actual back lighting. With the hat you are going to get shadows on the face. A white card or a diffused flash will take care of the shadows. You do want some shadows though to show shape and depth on his face. Just not real harsh shadows.

Have him close his eyes real tight before you take the photo. Have him open his eyes on three and snap the photo as soon as he opens his eyes. That will take care of the squinting and narrow look of his eyes caused by the bright light. Alternatively you could but a big black cloth or something just beside the camera and have him look at that. THat also helps cut down on squinting and you don't have to have good timing. If you backlight him have a white card bounce some light back into his face. That will take care of the shadow under the hat. Placing the care below him out of frame works best as you don't get cross shadows, but to either side is also okay if the fill doesn't overpower the rest of the light. Peterjay already mentioned the focus, but I'll repeat anyway because it is very important. I'm not sure what the camera is focusing on but in a couple the eyes look soft. Be sure to focus on the eyes when shooting portraits. I would also give yourself more room in the photo. Back up a bit and don't fill the entire frame. That way when it comes time to make prints you have some wiggle room and can make different sizes from the same photo by adjusting the crop. Backgrounds for the most part look good. THe last one is kind of busy just off the subjects right shoulder and in the third one I might have picked that long grass stem going off on its own, but other than that they do not distract from the subject. THrowing the background out of focus like the first two is a great way to go with complex backgrounds. If the background isn't going to be soft or out of focus try to keep it simple or it could distract from the subject. Northern sky gives you the deepest blues if you are in a position where you can take advantage of that, and as was pointed out earlier you want to avoid harsh sunlight if you can.

Great shots there, I really like the last three but I have a question. How the heck did you keep the camera/tripod from blowing over with all that wind?

Not sure this will help on something as small as a fly, but we used to spray metal surfaces with either dulling spray, hair spray or deoderant that left a powdery residue on the surface. Used it all the time on the spokes and rims of bicycles and stuff like that. Just a light spray would really knock the glare down. It can also be sprayed on black surfaces where you lose detail to make it look lighter and like there is detail there. Doesn't take much. You might even have something laying amongst all your feathers and other goodies that could be applied to the wire to dull it some.

Not sure about the other stuff but with slide film five stops begins to push what the film can handle unless your exposure is right on.

It is your light source. Each type of light has its own color tempeture. The eye for the most part corrects this for you but your camera is limited in what corrections it can do. If your camera has different white balances you can set one of them will work better than the default.

I shot this caterpillar last summer. Mine isn't exactly a macro shot though.

I think the Taco Bell buying the Liberty Bell in Philly story was probably one of the best all time. I've only pulled one semi good one myself and it was due more to luck than anything else. At college I stayed in the dorms on a floor reserved for pre-vet and veterinary students. Knowing most probably loved animals I put flyers up around in the hall saying the dorms next door were showing Disneys Aristacats and 101 Dalmations. This was before you could rent movies on video tapes so of course some decided they wanted to go. I forget what price I put on the flyer but by blind idiot luck it turned out perfect. I set the time to 7:00. Now the fun lucky part. The dorm next to ours decided to have a talent night that same night starting at 8:00. They were charging people from dorms other than their own whatever price I put on the flyers just by coincedence. Turned out to be a lot of pre-vet students just a bit confused and maybe even slightly upset. They were slightly upset enough that I never fessed up to the prank.

I agree, the hunting magazines really are getting away from the triumphant hunter shot more and more and going with a live animal or more scenic shot. I like that trend. It is as you said though hard to do with fish. I was mostly commenting on fishing magazine covers, though the verticle shot with room at the top and one side still applies to most magazines no matter the subject. If given the chance I shoot horizontal shots and then do vertical shots with the subject to the lower left in one and to the lower right in another. Until recently I was in a real bad habit of not shooting something if I thought it might not sell. An example is this photo. I shot that a long time ago. The scan is kind of muddy, but the photo on the slide isn't bad. The problem is it would never sell because the guy is smoking. Somewhere inbetween when I took that shot and now I developed a habit where I would have not even considered shooting that photo simply because it wouldn't sell. Now I shoot a lot for fun, and keep an eye open for what might sell. Sometimes they are the same, and sometimes vastly different. Fishing is one area I don't get to photograph very often. Living on a semi arid desert kind of does that. With more cameras becoming available that can go underwater I bet before long we start seeing some habitat photos on the cover of fishing magazines though. If I were in a position to shoot more fish related stuff I would really consider building a library of underwater shots of fish and habitat. fish underwater with a fly hooked into a lip might be a direction covers could go.

I usually don't think of shots as hero shots but more as cover shots. Covers are verticle and almost always must have the top and one side available to accept a text overlay. The cover shot also has to tell a story all on its own. For fishing magazines the hero shot described in this thread works perfect for the cover shot. That is why they become cliche. The cover shot usually pays much better than an inside photo and pros are going to shoot a good portion of their stock with the cover in mind. Assignment photography on the inside lets the photographer be a little more free, but even on assignment a photographer will be aware of any chances to shoot a possible future stock cover shot. Covers are usually cliche because the masthead and blurbs on the cover are always in the same place and very few photographs work well with that defined space. I prefer photos where it looks like the subject is unaware of the camera. Even when shooting a wedding if I could get away with it I wouldn't do formal portraits. The problem is what I like isn't what will sell in a wedding album and what I like isn't always suitable for a cover or a magazine. So I always shoot in two modes. I shoot for what I like and for what I think will sell. I shoot a lot of verticle with plenty of room around the subject, then I do what I want. I guess the hero shot is just that. It is the stand alone shot that can tell the story all on its own. Usually it is the cover shot. The essay shots aren't heros. They need help to tell the story, but can tell a more complete story. They are found inside the magazine, and if done right work well together. Going off on a tangent one of the best selling stock photos of all time is a wheat stem with the sun out of focus setting in the background. It was used on a cereal box, a laxitive product, an airline ad and several other things. Photos of just clouds are also often on the best seller list each year.

I can get close with my Pentax ME Super. I got it the first year they were offered and was still using it until I went to digital. I also still have my Praktica that I used before I got the Pentax but since I haven't taken a photo with it for about thirty years that probably doesn't count. and if I can really cheat I have my grandmas Brownie that she bought sometime in the early 1930s. The best part of that is I also have all the negatives she shot going back over more than seventy years.

I've been on the computer to long! My first glance at the 4th photo I thought, wow where are those mountains at. For some reason I saw the waves coming in as clouds and the rocks as mountain peaks above those clouds. It looked really impressive as an expansive mountain range. Still looks good though as a shoreline. The third is my favorite also.

A cousins house was broken into and one thing grabbed was her computer. As it turns out she hasn't been keeping back-ups of her photos. She lost several years worth of family photos, but might get most back as she shared them with the rest of us through E-mail. Anyway that event caused me to think it has been a while since I sorted my photos and put them on disk. So I have another project for this weekend as if I needed more stuff to do. As I was sorting my photos I decided as a diversion I would share a few. the worlds most stupid dog. What you don't see in that photo is just four feet to the left is two empty dog houses. The dog in question is half black lab and afraid of water. He has no idea that a car could be dangerous and will sit and watch while a rabbit eats his food. He does chase birds on occassion though and has even grabbed a couple out of midair. That and fetch is his only skills. A business card I did the photography and design for. Was mostly done in photoshop. I liked the one where the small photo had the yellow background best, but the client went with the other one. Part of a doll collection I photographed. My first magazine sell was to Doll COllectors. Since then I have shot a lot of dolls. THis one was with window light and a reflector opposite the window. got suckered into shooting a wedding. I told them I didn't have the equipment to do formal groups, but I guess that fact somehow escaped them. I ended up doing all kinds of formals including one shot with over thirty people in it. Isn't great, but considering all I had was an on camera flash with a diffuser it wasn't bad. Adding to my misery they waited until late when the kids were all tired to decide they wanted the above photo. this one took a while what with tired kids, and parents that kept distracting them thinking they were helping. There is a fairly famous photo of a minor league baseball game that was taken during the National Anthem. It was right at sunset and the light was really just right. I had that photo in mind when I took this one but I missed. None of my photos have the flag where you can really see it, and the light didn't come on like in the baseball photo. Still I kind of like this one. same team (blue) different game. This photo I cropped to get rid of some players on the left. a studio shot. I used two wood frames in the shot and just put a bunch of stuff out front and inbetween. The closest frame was later used to frame a print I made. This was shot with a 4x5 and unfortunatly there was some loss in the scan. another studio shot. My mom wanted a photo of an old barn with cool scenery around it for Christmas one year. Stuck in Dallas I couldn't find a good old barn so I shot this for her instead. Again was done on 4x5 and for some reason the scan didn't turn out very well. I've photographed this quite a few times. There are three others around an abandoned building and I photograph them and the building a lot. THere is also a church across the road I like to photograph. I always thought people knew the stones were there but I showed the photos to a relative and she was surprised. This gravestone belonged I think she said to her great granddad (might have been great great) and she said they had no idea it was there. the church across the road. While looking for that earlier mentioned Christmas present for mom I found these ponies just North of Dallas so I took a few shots. This was taken at Coors Field. That is the center fielder and you can't tell it in the photo but he is deep in center field. The photo also doesn't let you know that he threw a strike to home plate to get a double play. He caught the fly, the runner on third tagged then went and was gunned down no problem. very nice throw. Photo is nowhere near as good as the play it fails to represent. That be the random photos. Comment and critique as you see fit.

The rule of thirds is one part (a primary part) of the Gestalt theory. The theory as a whole deals with flow. Where do the eyes enter the photograph (or other artwork) where they next move and so on. The rule of thirds is used as the guideline of where to position things. Your photo is divided into three equal parts vertically and horizontally and you should try put the area of interest where a horizontal and verticle line crosses. With the tall object (flower stems) placing the flowers petals on the upper horizontal line makes sense. Whether to place on the left side or right side could be decided some by the boundries and any curves in the photograph. If you had put the flowers on the right would the background and open area to the left be less distracting than the background and open area to the right in this photo? The lamp post in the background is kind of distracting, but the light object off to the right isn't as distracting. The eyes will tend to drift to that lighter area, but because of the curve shape we are brought back towards the flowers instead of going out of the photo. If your subject were a flying bird or something else that was moving the rule of thirds would give your bird room to fly. You would have the bird on the right third of the photo if he is flying left. Focus, shape, color, lightness darkness and other things all play a part in Gestalt theory, and a lot of books have been written about it. Some eve tried to find a formula to make the rule of thirds more precise, but I think what my Gestalt instructor told us in class sums everything up very well. We should be aware of the rules so we know when to not apply them. For your photograph I think you did well as far as the rule of thirds goes. Other than the lamppost everything in the photo seems to drag the eyes towards the subject. Personally I think the three little buds off to the right help balance the photo as the only thing in focus on that side of the photo. I also like the orange leaf drawing attention from all that green.

The 2nd photograph her arms should be about the same angle as they are in the 3rd photograph. When photographing females you want more flow than you want angles. When she holds her arms up high like that the angles are more masculin then femanine (sure I spelled at least one of those wrong). I was taught in portraiture class that the arm flow is especially important in wedding photos where the bride is holding the flowers. At one wedding seminar the photographer said she should hold the flowers like she was trying to hide that certain area down below. He was a bit more crude about it though. Anyway the point was though to have the arms flow more than create angles. The background around her head is kind of busy, but not much you can do with backgrounds sometimes. Overall a nice set of photos. Just one more quick comment as I look again. In the first photo you should have gotten rid of the three twigs in the bottom of the shot that cut into her dress. Not a big thing really, but something as a fashion photographer you would want to always be aware of.

I have some time to waste before things really get started around here so I did some looking around on the subject. Turns out as with everything else opinions about mirror lock up are all over the place. Everything from it is an old wives tail to mirror shake is the most evil thing in all of photography. One place had an arguement going on whether or not vibration reduction lenses offset the effect of mirror shake, and there was no agreement there either. I did find one place that seemed to make a little sense though. Not sure if the info is right, I guess everybody just needs to test it for themselves. Still an interesting read and maybe a good place to start. http://bobatkins.com/photography/tutorials/mlu.html

The colors I did with the gradient tool in CS3. One of them I picked red/green and set the mode to difference and it produced all kinds of colors. I tried multiple applications on top of each other, and also tried just one application from different angles until something popped up that I liked. I was also playing with the filter render/difference clouds but I'm not sure I posted an example of that. Using that just gives different colors. The 2nd one after getting the colors I wanted using the gradient tool I used the filter artistic/Plastic Wrap. I think to get the colors I used the red/green gradient set on difference and went from top left corner to bottom right, then did another gradient from close to the middle bottom up and to the right about a third down the right side is where I ended up. The 2nd gradient gave me a lot more colors. THe third one I went into the B&W mode with CS3 (CS3 has a really good B&W tool) and adjusted the hue then added a texture.

Nice shots! I played with one for a while. I hope you don't mind.