Photo Journal

Posts filed under: Photography Techniques

In Praise of Erasmus

Variation on a theme by Erasmus, or how many ways can I take this photo?

Soft light confession

You can save yourself a lot of stress if you have a light setup you can fall back on that you know will work every time and in almost any situation—a fail-safe lighting solution.

Random acts of genius

Photographers talk a lot about gear and methods and often insist that the choice of tools is irrelevant. But this film, and the scene above in particular, is a great study in how the choices of method and tools are manifest in the final product of an art

Flatland

Embracing the two dimensional nature of the photograph and shooting in the style of a graphic designer.

Rules for Herds

Using lessons from cinematography to improve your photography and why the 'rule of thirds' won't ever get you very far.

One light, two ways

Lighting some casual one-light portraits using the Profoto Softlight Reflector (with grid) and the Elinchrom 72" Octobank.

Recipe: Water Drops

Today we're going to look at one of the tiny little marvels of fluid dynamics that happen in front of us everyday in those invisible fissures of time that elude our vision. What follows is one way to shoot water drop photos

Recipe: Smoke Photos

These are very easy to make, require minimal gear, and you can end up with some surprising and beautiful results.

Some Notes on Saturation

The tools we use effect us more than we like to admit. We are so accustomed to working on computers that we tend to forget that the interface of a modern operating system is little more than a set of visual metaphors.

Lighting the Landscape

Using flash and portrait techniques is useful in landscape photography too and the Nikon CLS system makes it really easy

16th Century Strobists

What is most interesting from the point of view of a photographer, however, is the way Barocci has lit his subjects. It looks surprisingly like electronic flash. For a photographer this is a common backlight situation; although somewhat obscured by clouds

Photography Etudes

Music school provided a great photography education; that's where I learned to practice. And you do learn to practice. Practice in itself is a skill. Yet photographers are generally not taught how to practice.

Ambient Heaven

I've been away again for several weeks in Wyoming pursuing some personal work which included among other things photographing behind the scenes at the Cody Stampede Rodeo. I'm back home for a while and will be editing photos and making blog postings here…

The real color

Although it's been years since I've loaded a roll of 35mm film into a camera, I still shoot some transparency and b&w film in large and medium formats. I like the options my 4x5 camera affords and the digital options in large format