Blog – Prism Point Photography

The Importance of Backdrops and Backgrounds

The BACKGROUND behind a portrait subject can really add to the mood and feeling.

If you’re photographing someone outdoors often a shallow depth of field (that is, a low number f-stop, or using “portrait mode” on your camera phone) will make the background a bit or a lot blurry thereby focusing the attention on your subject. The higher number of the f-stop, the more of the background will be recognizable. Choose your effect!

In the studio a choice of colors for the backdrop can compliment the color of someone’s clothes or bring out the color of their eyes or skin tone. Bright and light colors reflect a lot of light and give a happy, upbeat feeling. Dark colors can create mystery and drama which can be additionally enhanced by the use of colored gels or a grid to narrow the light casting the subject’s face into partial shadow.

Company or staff portraits have unique challenges. If you’re expanding or have regular turnover it’s wise to stick with a consistent look/color for each INDIVIDUAL, keeping the same background/backdrop as well as props if you want them featured.

If you’d like a GROUP photo, but can’t get everyone into a large enough space for all of them, or it’s too hard to schedule everyone at the same time, then consider photographing them – in the studio -in small groups of two to four at a time. By keeping the background and lighting the same Photoshop can be used to combine the whole crowd into one large picture. This is also a useful idea for staff changes. You’ll only need to shoot the small group that that person was in again and a new large portrait can be remade. Sometimes a single person can also be added to a convenient space remaining in the back of another already photographed small group.

Prism Point Photography can do all of these ideas for you!

Events

How To Take Pictures of Flowers

HOW TO TAKE PICTURES OF FLOWERS

Think the letters: CLAB plus P

Camera – know your camera and how it works. At minimum, find and get used to the icons: macro, portrait, landscape. If you own a tripod, use it for landscape shots.

Light – observe the light. Best light for close-ups: morning, shade, diffused and back-lit. For landscapes all of those and including late afternoon.

Angle – Use more viewpoints than just looking straight down. Think low, (sitting, kneeling, lying flat), side angles, far away, very close-up.

Background – be observant of colors, contrast. Use a shallow depth of field to throw it out of focus.

Patience and planning – Plan ahead for the right light, right time, and the right weather. Watch weather reports. Be patient at a location for the light to change.

These are the subject categories I would cover in depth using many photographic examples during a power point presentation of HOW TO TAKE PICTURES OF FLOWERS. Additionally, if desired, hands on experience for participants can be part of the activity. If you, or your group of flower lovers might be interested in hiring Prism Point Photography for your next meeting, please contact jeanine.vitale@gmail.com

Teaching

How To Take Pictures of Fireworks

How to take pictures of fireworks

This post is for students or those who want to know more about the subject, and is directed towards use of a DSLR camera.

Get to your location early so you can get a view w/o blocking someone else’s as you’ll likely be kneeling often if seated on the ground. If you’re seated in a short lawn chair it might even be better. But note that you’ll be looking straight up at the sky often in many locations. You’ll need to be able to lean back that far to aim your camera. You’ll definitely need a tripod or some very steady object on which to set you camera as the shutter speeds will be too slow to hand hold w/o causing blurring. I recommend the tripod! If you’re on the ground you won’t need to fully extend the tripod legs, but you’ll likely be kneeling upright for many shots. Ideally you’ll have a cable release and a piece of stiff cardboard to hold in front of your lens. With your camera set on manual put it on “B” for bulb or basement. This setting, which is indeed tricky, will allow you to keep the shutter open for 2 or more bursts of the fireworks on the same frame if desired, but the results can be wonderful! No cable release means you’ll need to have the timer set on 2 secs. But I’ve found this to demand a lot of guesswork as to when the next burst will appear. Swinging up a tripod arm as the burst flies up into the air is more effective. But use what you have. There’s always next year.

Why all the precautions? The idea is to NOT touch your camera once the shot has begun as it will result in blurry shots. Please practice finding your camera’s buttons and dials by touch. It will be dark and you will be momentarily blinded after each shot. Make sure you know where the button is to light up your settings if you have one. You can bring a small flashlight to practice your set-up but there sill be no time to use it once the display starts.

Suggested settings: ISO-100, F- 7.1 – 8.00 generally, Focus – set and locked onto Infinity. Most definitely take it off of auto-focus. Disable your flash. It won’t reach the heavens anyway, and might instead light up the back of someone’s head in front of you! That would mean a lot of Photoshopping later! Shutter – 2- 5 seconds if using a timer, or use the bulb (B) setting. This B setting will open the shutter once you press the shutter button (cable release) and it will remain open until you click the shutter button (cable release) again. This means, you will need to cover the front of your lens with the cardboard piece I mentioned above in between shots if you want multiple exposures. Take off your lens hood if it is the petal shaped kind as light will sneak in the sides of it behind the cardboard. For multiples it’s a guess how long to keep the shutter open. The brighter the blast, the shorter the exposure. Try 1- 2 seconds, cover the lens then repeat with the next one and close it. I time it the old-fashioned way by saying quickly to myself, “One Mississippi, two Mississippi…” Practice that with the second hand on a watch!

Ready to go? Kneeling or sitting on a chair point your camera at the sky where you hope the burst will be. Practice with your tripod’s arm so it is flexible enough for you to move it quickly, but not so loose it isn’t steady. How far up to the sky can you look? Once the display gets going you’ll have to work fast with both hands and arms. There will hardly be any time to review anything w/o possibly missing the next great one. Usually the first couple are your practice shots. But if you have a few seconds, do a review to see if your timing is working well enough.

When it gets to the big finale up your F-stop to F-16 to help prevent over exposure as multiple shots will come at once. You’d better know where that F-stop dial is!

Need I say “practice” again? If you’re using a point and shoot camera, please email me jeanine.vitale@gmail.com and I’ll send you some other pointers for that kind of camera.

Have fun!

Portraits

Blinking in Photos – what can a photographer do…

Have you ever had an important photo marred by someone blinking in it? There are ways to nearly prevent it from occurring as the picture is taken and ways to correct it later in Photoshop if necessary.

First, why do people blink? Obviously, it’s a natural instinct to protect the eyes from bright light. Some people’s eyes are more sensitive than others to both sunlight and flash on a camera or strobe light in a studio. If you’re photographing outside, try to have your subjects face away from the sun, or put them into the shade, turn their backs to the sun, or having a deflector shade held in front of them to the side to block the sun. If the photo is taken indoors, bounce your flash off a white ceiling or wall on the side and not directly into the person’s face. That will create better shadows and a more pleasing diffused, softer light as well and certainly will eliminate red eye!

If you’re photographing a group – outside or inside – and notice that some of the members are blinking in each picture, stop and ask them if they know they are very sensitive to bright light. They may not have wanted to say anything when the photography session started. But now the whole group can work together. Tell everyone, in order to prevent blinking, that you want everyone to close their eyes. On the count of three everyone should open them – and smile! Try it a couple of times so they get the hang of it. Why this method? From observation I find that if you work quickly, this doesn’t give the eyes a chance to react and close.

But as a photographer you have a last resort if you know Photoshop, and you’ve been using a tripod while photographing the group, and have taken several shots in a row without the group moving around, and your light settings and distance have remained the same in each shot. And that is, “stealing” the open eyes of that someone who’s been blinking in almost all the other shots. Copy and paste them into the best group shot where their blinking occurred. You have to be careful with the angle of someone’s head. Hopefully they didn’t change it too much. Get familiar with the various Edit-Transform options to get it just right. I admit it. I’ve had to do it to save important shots. A wedding, a baptism, family reunion … You know there’s only ever so much time to stage these group shots while trying to make everyone happy at the same time. And when it’s over you can’t do it again. Thankfully with digital cameras you can check your work on the spot and redo quickly if you catch it. But with larger groups it’s sometimes hard to catch. So, be safe and take multiple shots as mentioned above.

Events

Why hire a professional photographer to print your pictures?

Sure, you can download your pictures as given to you by the photographer who took your family’s photos or your wedding or whatever and, print your own. There are advantages to this. You can make your decisions later when you have the time – if you ever get to it! And if you’re not picky about the quality, then who cares? But there are good reasons for having your photographer print them for you.

Here’s why –

I have a lovely, Epson photo printer dedicated to only printing pictures. This kind of printer is superior to most home printers. It has an array of fade resistant inks and produces high quality photos that I print using Epson photographic papers. This process gives the best results which will last many years.

Additionally, cameras generally photograph in a 2 x 3 ratio, i.e. a rectangle. (mine does). Although this ratio produces correctly sized 4″x 6″ prints it does not directly accommodate either 5″x 7″ or 8″x 10″, two of the common frame sizes that families often want for display purposes. If a 2 x 3 ratio picture is simply enlarged to fit one of those other sizes by you, or your local pharmacy or discount dept. store, often you are left with either part of the printed picture being cut-off, or an annoying white border left on the edges to fill it out so that it fits into the desired frame. What to do? The photographer (i.e. “me”) can correctly do the necessary, artistic cropping and enlarging. If the picture can’t be cropped to fit a 5”x 7” or an 8” x 10” frame, then I can create a ‘faux’ border around the sides. What is a ‘faux’ border like? This provides a colored mat that is added to the edges of the original picture. It has a visual texture, added in photoshop, with a color or colors that match key elements in the picture, and thus eliminates the white border already mentioned above. The result is a more professional, finished look that fits neatly into your frame.

I hope that answers some questions you might have had about printing or maybe didn’t even know you had!