CAMERA MAN

Both a young Himba woman and the Namibian landscape are bathed in golden light. Her expression seems to be one of contentment—at least in this moment—inspired by the sight of her homeland awash in the sun’s glow.

This photograph was submitted to the 2015 National Geographic Photo Contest. Submit your best photo for a chance to win.

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from National Geographic Photo of the Day

In a previous article, I discussed shooting with the light at the subject’s back, creating a “halo” lighting pattern. Aside from being a particularly stunning light pattern, it automatically eliminates one of the biggest problems we have as photographers: squinting and closed eyes.

With the light coming from the rear, the face is in shadow, and with no direct light, there’s no need for the model to squint. But what if we want a more conventional lighting pattern and want to shoot with the light coming from the front or coming from the side?

Here are a couple tips to help avoid the problem.

First, we know that the light from the sun is more beautiful the closer it gets to sundown. The harsh white of midday turns into a nice golden glow.

Good news! It is not only prettier to look at, it’s easier to look at, too. So the first step in getting rid of squinting is to shoot closer to sundown.

Second, for some subjects, it’s almost impossible for them to look toward the sun. They have overly sensitive eyes and will almost always be squinting.

I don’t know why, but for some reason people with lighter colored eyes—blue eyes, green eyes—seem to be more sensitive to light.

Here is a tip that can help. This should only be used in cases where nothing else is working, as it’s difficult for the subject to pull this off and look natural, but it’s better than squinting.

As photographers, we’re constantly counting to three and shooting. This is generally done to capture a smile, but it can also be done to avoid squinting.

Have your subject posed the way you want them and then have them close their eyes. You count to three, and they open their eyes and smile. They only have to have their eyes open for a second or so, and if they can look natural it can be the difference between a truly great shot and another one for the garbage.

Opening the eyes and looking natural—while knowing the sun is going to get to you—can take a bit of practice. Take the time to run through it a few times and not only will you get better shots, but every photographer that ever shoots them in the future will benefit as well.

Third, some subjects aren’t particularly sensitive to the light, but to a flash. They tend to squint in anticipation of the flash going off.

The obvious solution is not to use a flash, but sometimes we need one, so here is an idea: don’t aim the flash at the subject. Bounce it off the ceiling or an adjacent wall.

Yes, I know there’s no ceiling outside, but there are plenty of adjacent walls. (The side of a truck will do the job!) Just be careful not to use a colored wall because that will put a colored tint in your photo.

By the way, bouncing a flash is almost always the preferred method, not just with “squinters.”

Another idea is to use a reflector. That way you can bounce more light into the subject and may not need a flash. Or you can use it as your bounce “wall.”

You can finally eliminate closed and squinting eyes from your photos!

About the Author:
Dan Eitreim writes for ontargetphototraining.com. He has been a professional photographer in Southern California for over 20 years. His philosophy is that learning photography is easy if you know a few tried and true strategies.

Go to full article: Tips to Eliminate Closed Eyes & Squinting in Portraits

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Article from: PictureCorrect

from PictureCorrect

I always like it when resourceful photographers get their hands on some outstanding equipment and just let loose with it. The video below is made by Mitch Martinez, who set up no fewer than 48 DSLR cameras to capture these stunning shots:

The slow motion itself is a fantastic visual effect, but when you see the same image from multiple angles, you really get to see the shape of the flames and how they take life in front of the performers.

The whole video uses no CGI and no visual effects. What you see is what happened in the studio, and when you see it in 48 cameras it makes it even more real than it was for the people who were there.

Go to full article: 48 DSLR Cameras Used to Capture Fire Breathing

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Article from: PictureCorrect

from PictureCorrect

This past May, photographer Grant Mallory and his girlfriend Maria celebrated Maria’s college graduation by embarking on an epic road trip around the United States. Mallory wanted to capture each National Park’s scenic locations in a unique way, so he brought along an LED hula hoop and had Maria pose for light painting portraits.

“Although it took a lot of patience to get the shots, I am glad that we took the time to do it right,” Mallory tells PetaPixel.

Here are some of the photos they’ve made thus far:

Crater Lake, Oregon

Golden Gate Bridge, California

Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah

Redwoods National Park, California

Olympic National Park, Washington

Badlands National Park, South Dakota

Olympic National Park, Washington

The couple are documenting their travels on their blog, He and She Travel. You can also follow along with his photography through his Flickr photostream.

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Image credits: Photographs by Grant Mallory and Maria Jacob and used with permission

from PetaPixel

This past May, photographer Grant Mallory and his girlfriend Maria celebrated Maria’s college graduation by embarking on an epic road trip around the United States. Mallory wanted to capture each National Park’s scenic locations in a unique way, so he brought along an LED hula hoop and had Maria pose for light painting portraits. “Although […] from PetaPixel

Pelicans are terrifying creatures. They swallow everything whole—birds, fish, fellow baby pelicans in their first few years of life. After dying from suffocation, the eaten animals are slowly digested by the birds’ stomach acids.

But, hey, look how cool their mouths look in the sunlight!

That little fish is in the bird’s gular pouch, a huge batwing-like flap that can expand and contract. The goofy-looking birds also eat crabs, lobsters and lizards, along with common birds—even pigeons in cities. But fossil records indicate that pelicans have been around for roughly 40 million years, so the system seems to be working out for them. Nature is a strange and fascinating thing.

Go to full article: Interesting Photo of the Day: Down the Pelican’s Throat

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Article from: PictureCorrect

from PictureCorrect

picsbuffet is a new visual image browsing system that lets you explore and search millions of photographs through an interface that feels like Google Maps.

Developed by researchers HTW Berlin, the service groups photo search results into multiple layers. The highest level is least specific, and it contains all kinds of photos about all kinds of subjects. As you zoom in to a particular photo, the photos on each level are more and more similar to the photo you’re zooming into.

Clicking on a photo enlarges it and gives you a link to the source where it was found. A heatmap in the upper left corner of the screen shows you other areas of the layer where there may be relevant and interesting photos.

Here’s what a search for photographer looks like when starting from the highest level and then zooming into the photo “map”:

Here’s a video showing how picsbuffet works:

picsbuffet version 0.9 currently contains over 1 million stock photos found on Fotolia, and the service works with Chrome and Opera browsers. The team is planning to add more photo sources and more browser compatibility in future versions of the service. Head on over to picsbuffet if you’d like to try out the system for yourself.

from PetaPixel

picsbuffet is a new visual image browsing system that lets you explore and search millions of photographs through an interface that feels like Google Maps. Developed by researchers HTW Berlin, the service groups photo search results into multiple layers. The highest level is least specific, and it contains all kinds of photos about all kinds […] from PetaPixel

Want to see a super early example of a photo being faked through compositing? Look no further than this circa 1902 photo, titled “General Grant at City Point.” It appears to show General Ulysses S. Grant posing on a horse with a large number of soldiers in the background, but it’s actually the combination of three different photos.

The photo, which is found in the Library of Congress’ catalog, is attributed to photographer Levin Corbin Handy, the nephew (by marriage) of Civil War photographer Matthew Brady. Handy worked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, shooting portraits and offering his photo services to the US government.

Here’s a look at the original photos that were used to create the image above: the head is from an 1864 portrait of Grant by photographer Edgar Guy Fowx:

The horse and rider’s body is from an 1864 portrait of Major Gen. Alexander M. McCook:

Finally, the background is an 1864 photo of Confederate prisoners captured at the battle of Fisher’s Hill, Virginia:

NPR writes that after Brady died in 1896, Handy inherited a a collection of negatives from the renowned photographer and began to license images to various publications. To satisfy demand for the photography, he also created new photos that blurred the line between real and imagined.

And that’s how we ended up with this bizarre composite photo of General Grant posing on someone else’s horse on someone else’s body.

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P.S. This example of historic photo fakery was featured in the exhibition Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop at the Met from 2012 through 2013. The show has also spawned a new book with the same name.

from PetaPixel