"Jen Smiles"

2012-08-17 - "Jen Smiles"    

Category: Non-Studio

Contest Score: 24/27 - Third Place

Print medium: Matte paper

Print Size: ??

Location: In the shade on a sunny day

Story behind the photo: Needed a model for my first people competition, and asked a good friend!

Camera gear:

- Canon Digital Rebel XTi

- Canon 50mm f/1.8

- Handheld

- Natural lighting

Photo Specs:

Raw Image > saved as Tif

Focal Length: 50mm

Exposure: +1

Aperture: f/2.0

Shutter Speeds: 1/500

ISO: 100

Software used:

- Photoshop

Lessons learned:

- Friends make great models when trying to learn.

- If it's a sunny day, take photos in the shadows... Direct light on portions of the face will blow out details.

- Some sort of highlight in the eyes from a light source will prevent the look of "Dead eyes".

"Hey Big Fella"

    2012-08-17 - "Hey Big Fella"

Category: Studio

Contest Score: 20/27 - Didn't place

Print medium: Matte Paper

Print Size: 11x17

Location: Jen's basement

Story behind the photo: Jen had a really cool sign that once said "Barber", her husband cut the sign in half to only read as "Bar"!  Along with that, she had a mannequin's head and some army fatigues from her husbands visit to Afghanistan, so I put the two together to make a weird scene... I love the absurd, and that was my aim for this portion of the shoot...

Camera gear:

- Canon Digital Rebel XTi

- Tamron 18-200mm telephoto lens

- Tripod

- Softbox for lighting

Photo Specs:

Raw Image > Converted to JPEG for print

Focal Length: 35mm

Aperture: f/5.6

Shutter Speed: 2 seconds

ISO: 100

Software used:

- Photoshop

Lessons learned:

- It helps to know optimal camera settings, which I didn't at the time of the shoot.  Things would have been easier with a higher ISO given the low light conditions of the basement.

- You can use a light inside a softbox as a make-shift diffused light source.  Studio lights are better, but sometimes you have to make due...

- I should have used Camera Raw to even out the colors between the fake man and my model.

Final Thoughts:

  Learn your camera by taking tons of shots... you'll only get better by knowing your gear!  One thing to aid in that is to search Youtube or Linda.com for tutorials specific to your camera gear.

"Rotting Away"

2012-08-03 - "Rotting Away"   

Category: Black & White

Contest Score: 23/27 - Did not place (at least one person received a perfect score this evening)

Print medium: Digital Upload

Location: Somewhere in New York state

Story behind the photo: I decided to go on a road trip around northern New York and spotted a large riverbed along the road... I saw a pull-off and decided to take a stroll.  Great road trip through the mountains!

Camera gear:

- Canon Digital Rebel XTi

- Canon 11-18mm Ultra wide-angle

- Remote shutter release

- Tripod

Photo Specs:

Raw Image > 3-image HDR saved as Tif > Saved as Jpeg for upload

Focal Length: 11mm

Exposure: -2, 0, +2

Aperture: f/4.5

Shutter Speeds: 1/125, 1/500, 1/2000

ISO: 200

Software used:

- Photoshop

- Photomatix HDR software

Lessons learned:

- Needed to work on contrast between black & whites. Camera Raw would have been a good tool to use for adding contrast (Alt+Shift+A) in photoshop.

- Could have brought some of the highlights back using Camera Raw as well.

"Cleveland Stadiums"

   2012-08-03 - "Cleveland Stadiums"

Category: Color

Contest Score: 26/27 - 2nd place (at least one person received a perfect score this evening)

Print medium: Digital Upload

Location: The roof of the Terminal Tower in Downtown Cleveland, Ohio.

Story behind the photo: Being a member of CPS, we occasionally are granted access to places that the general public isn't able.  About 3 times a year, we are allowed up to the roof to take photos of sunset and a few hours after!  One of my absolute favorite field trips to take downtown!

Camera gear:

- Canon Digital Rebel XTi

- Tamron 18-200mm telephoto lens

- Remote shutter release

- Tripod

Photo Specs:

Raw Image > Converted to JPEG for upload

Focal Length: 28mm

Aperture: f/6.3

Shutter Speed: 4 seconds

ISO: 200

Software used:

- Photoshop

Lessons learned:

- I should have used camera raw (Alt+Shift+A) in Photoshop, to pull back some of the highlights.

- Used the Lens Correction filter (Shift+CTLR+R) in Pbotoshop, to correct the distortion from the lens.  Some of the buildings had lines that weren't parallel, so I did what I could to correct them.

Final Thoughts:

  Night photography is great fun, and I highly recommend it for anyone with a tripod!  Fool around with long exposures and playing with lights.  There are a ton of great tutorials on Youtube about light painting and other night photo techniques that yield some incredible results!

 Unless you are trying to make an abstract photo with extreme angles, you should try to correct any unparallel building lines.  Judges have been known to drop points for this during competitions.

  If you haven't already, I highly recommend saving your images as PSD files, as you have the ability to go back and retouch things that you wouldn't be able to with Tiffs or Jpegs.  Equally as helpful is to "convert your layer to a smart object", as you'll be able to go back and fix some of the changes you made... Make sure you "flatten your image" before you save to Jpeg (for digital uploads), but don't save over your PSD with the flatten image or you'll lose the layers. The downside is that PSD files are much larger, and require more hard drive space. With dropping prices on hard drive space, this is a problem easily circumvented!

"This Cat Thinks You Stink" (I couldn't find the original print of this photo, so the name could be different)

2012-07-20 - mlem  

Category: Color

Contest Score: ??/27 - Did not place

Print medium: Matte paper

Print Size: 11x14

Location: The Cleveland Animal Protective League (https://clevelandapl.org)

Story behind the photo: I volunteer as a cat photographer, where I spend my entire Saturday taking and editing photos of adult cats.  I avoid taking photos of the kittens because they don't need any help getting adopted... My love for the absurd draws me to photos where cats are sticking out their tongues... there's just something about it that makes me giggle like a little girl (which I'm not ashamed of!).  I've actually narrowed it down to a science, so that I can almost predict when they are about to do it!  It doesn't always work, but I can usually get several during a shoot.

Camera gear:

- Canon Digital Rebel XTi

- Canon 50mm f/1.8

- Handheld

Photo Specs:

Raw Image > Converted to TIF > Converted to Jpeg to for printing

Focal Length: 50mm

Exposure: +1.33

Aperture: f/2.2

Shutter Speed: 1/50

ISO: 800

Software used:

- Photoshop

- Noise reduction software

Lessons learned:

- Had some hot spots that I should have removed by either burning the area down, or by using Camera raw in PS and pulling back the highlights.  The later of the two would be less destructive to the overall photo.

- Although I love when cats stick their tongues out, I recall one of the judges mentioning that he took points away for that very thing.  I still really like this photo, and actually have it hanging on my wall!

- I cropped this photo down from a 2x3 format to a 4x5 format to remove unnecessary portions of the photo.

"Terminally Excluded"

2012-07-20 - "Terminally Excluded"  

Category: Black & White

Contest Score: 19/27 - Did not place

Print medium: Matte paper

Size: 11x17

Location: Parked in Whisky Island park, then launched directly into the Cuyahoga near the first train bridge near the mouth of river. http://planning.co.cuyahoga.oh.us/whiskey

Story behind the photo: A friend and I took some kayaks on to the Cuyahoga River for some fun... So I brought my dslr, hoping that I wouldn't flip, and lose all my gear.  While floating downstream, I found what I believed to be the perfectly framed photo... with a flowing river, it makes it difficult to stay in one spot... so I'd snap the shot, then have to paddle back upstream... take a shot... paddle... so on and so forth, until I captured what I was hoping for!

Camera gear:

- Canon Digital Rebel XTi

- Tamron 18-200mm telephoto lens

- Cokin Neutral Density filter (handheld because I forgot the bracket again)

- Handheld

Photo Specs:

Raw Image > Converted to JPEG for printing

Focal Length: 28mm

Aperture: f/5.6

Shutter Speed: 1/200

ISO: 100

Software used:

- Photoshop

- Noise reduction software

Lessons learned:

- I cropped out some extra space around the photos... I don't think this negatively affected the image.

- The photo lacked contrast between the whites and blacks, causing it to be a bit muddy.  I should have used camera raw (Alt+Shift+A) in Photoshop, to give a greater contrast.  The blacks needed to be more black, and the whites, more white.

- The photo was a little over-processed using the noise reduction software, causing it to look a bit too smooth.

Final Thoughts:

 Make sure you print to the appropriate size sheet for the level of detail in your photo.  If you find that you have areas with low details, hotspots, or substantial grain/noise, consider printing on a smaller sheet that won't highlight your photo's downfalls. Printing to the wrong size sheet could cost you points, where every point matters.

Don't be afraid to have a little grain in your photos... Too much could be detrimental to your overall contest score, but too little could also do the same.  The key is to find a happy medium.

 If you haven't already, I highly recommend saving your images as PSD files, as you have the ability to go back and retouch things that you wouldn't be able to with Tiffs or Jpegs.  Equally as helpful is to "convert your layer to a smart object", as you'll be able to go back and fix some of the changes you made... Make sure you "flatten your image" before you save to Jpeg (for digital uploads), but don't save over your PSD with the flatten image or you'll lose the layers. 

 The downside PSD files is that the photo size will be much larger, thus requiring more hard drive space. This is a problem solved by buying extra hard drive space for relatively low prices.  Do your homework and don't buy something that's often prone to failure or data loss... just food for thought.