Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies
Looking for a great gift for someone who loves photography? Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies is a great gift for anyone who wants to improve their photography. Several ratings and review highlights follow below. Details about the book’s contents are in this article and you can order it at a discount at Amazon.com.
OSU’s Stone Lab Photo Workshop, 2012
Next year’s nature photography workshop on Lake Erie’s Gibraltar Island will be August 9-11, 2013. Mark your calendar now. Join us next summer at OSU’s Stone Laboratory for a fun, action packed, informative, and inspirational weekend! Some preliminary information is on this page at JimDoty.com. The Stone Lab site has not been updated with next year’s information.
They are different, and the iPhone 5 camera is definitely faster, but is the image quality better? That may depend on how you like your low light images to look. Do you prefer sharp and noisy, or a smoother with image detailed blurred? Read this review.
Last Light on Mount Rundle
This is a lesson in patience. Most photographers missed this sunset. I was on location four separate evenings hoping to capture stunning sunset light on Mount Rundle. It only happened once. It also helps to know where to be, when, and how to meter in high contrast lighting situations.
Landscape and Nature Photography by Jim Doty
Update, October 5: The workshop will be from 1:00 – 5:00 pm, one hour longer than originally planned.
I will be doing a photography workshop October 6, 2012 from 1:00 – 4:00 pm in Calgary, Alberta Canada. Thanks to the sponsoring organization, there is no charge for this workshop!
Point Iroquois Lighthouse, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
Fall color will soon be sweeping the country. To make the most of it, you want to be at the right place at the right time. With some help from the internet, I will help you find the best fall color locations and arrive at the peak of the season
Bill Biggart’s final photograph. He was killed when the second World Trade tower collapsed on top of him. He was 53 years old.
Bobcat, Before and After a Tonality Adjustment
With the right software, you can do amazing things. There are some lighting situations where it is almost impossible, and certainly not practical, to get the correct white balance setting in the camera. This bobcat photo is an example. The best, fastest, and simplest solution is to get the right while balance setting after the fact using software like Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). A few minutes work with ACR can make a huge difference in the look of your photo.
Bumble Bee and Flowers
There are a lot of apps that claim to jazz up your iPhone and Android photos. A few of them will actually do wonderful things to your photos. If you want to turn some of your photos into “paintings”, there is a great app that will do that for you.
Nature Photography by Jim Doty
Ohio State University is again offering the photography workshop “Capturing the Wonder of the Outdoors”. Spend a fun and exciting weekend on Lake Erie’s Gibraltar Island while learning to take your outdoor photography to the next level. The workshop is August 10-12, 2012 and there is still time to register.
Jim Cathey Comes Home
This evocative, Pulitzer Prize winning photo by Todd Heisler has been widely shared on the internet. Jim Sheeler’s deeply moving story that accompanies the photo (a Pulitzer Prize winning article) isn’t nearly so widely known. His article follows. Heisler and Sheeler both worked for the Rocky Mountain News at the time.
Lightning over Yukon
The unique photo above was taken during a thunderstorm over Yukon Oklahoma. The view is looking west on old U.S. 66, “the Mother Road”. You can see the lighted sign over the “Yukon’s Best Flour” mill. The sign is no longer on, so the Friends of Yukon are raising funds to relight the sign. To support this project, I am donating 20% of all sales of my Yukon Oklahoma prints to relight the sign.
War of 1812 Ceremony
When doing photographic coverage of events, it is important to do some closeup portraits of people involved in the event. I always look for participants with interesting faces.
Thomas Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale, 1800
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.â€
From the Declaration of Independence, signed July 4, 1776. Written by Thomas Jefferson (1762-1826). 3rd US President (1801-09).
More images (including Thomas Jefferson’s original draft and George Washington’s personal copy) and the complete text follows the break.
The Strip, Las Vegas with Fireworks
You can point your camera at the sky in auto exposure and autofocus modes and fire away whenever you see a burst of fireworks, but for the best quality photos, it helps to know a few tricks of the trade. It’s easy when you know what to do.
Caribou, image circle, sensor sizes
What is a “field of view” crop on a digital camera? What difference does it make if your camera is full frame, or has a field of view crop? It makes a BIG difference, so I just updated my illustrated article on the digital field of view crop. It will help you understand how to work with your lenses and how to chose lenses that will work best with your camera (and a warning about lenses that won’t work with, or could even damage some cameras).
Kristina, portrait on a covered front porch
On a sunny day, a covered porch can be ideal for portrait photography, especially if it is facing south. A covered porch gives you nice soft light which is ideal for portraits.
National Geographic’s Kurt Mutchler, Executive Editor, Photography
OK, admit it. If you are serious about your photography, you would like to see one of your photos in National Geographic. Sadly, the odds of that are about as good as they are for starting in an NBA basketball game. So the next best thing is to meet one of National Geographic’s photo editors. That dream came true for me last week.
Jumping Spider living in an Iowa kitchen
I visited my two sons over Memorial Day weekend, and coincidentally, both of them have spiders living in their homes (with their blessings).
Fountain Kiss, Bicentennial Park
I was working on my last photo of the day for the “Picture Today, Inspire Tomorrow” project on May 15 at ADAY.org (more info here). When I planned my day, I wanted to end up at the fountain at the new Bicentennial Park in Columbus, Ohio. It is a great place to take pictures. As I visualized the image ahead of time, children would be playing at the fountain, creating blurry silhouettes. I already have a “children in the fountain” photo in my files, but all photos had to be taken on May 15.
Portrait in the Park
May 15 was “Picture Today, Inspire Tomorrow” day. All around the world people were invited to take pictures of their day and upload them to ADAY.org. All photos had to be taken between 12:01 am and 11:59 pm local time. Uploads were limited to a maximum of 10 photos.
Balanced Rock, Arches National Park
If you are heading for Arches and Canyonlands National Parks (and you should if you are a photographer), I highly recommend you read Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey before you go. No other book will give you quite the feel that Abbey does for what this harsh and unforgiving land was like more than a half century ago before it became more accessible to the average tourist.
I read an on interesting article on Pinterest and copyright law at DDK Portraits. Copyright issues are or should be an ongoing concern for photographers and other visual artists. The author is both a photographer and an attorney which provides an interesting perspective. You can read the article here.
Hands on the Keyboard
Tomorrow, May 15, is “Picture Today, Inspire Tomorrow” day. It is the day to take pictures of your daily life and be part of an international photo day. This is kind of like the “Day in the Life” books, except anyone can participate, it is international, and it is non-commercial. All photos must be taken on May 15 between 12:01 am and 11:59 pm local time.
Double Arch, Arches National Park, Utah
Arches National Park is an iconic destination for both tourists and photographers. It is one of the more spectacular locations in North America with a wealth of photographic possibilities in Arches and other nearby parks.
All of the photos in Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies.
The digital contact sheet above has all 271 photos in Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies. Curious about the statistical breakdown of the photos, I gathered them all together and went through them one by one to make note of the location, the type of photo (portrait, landscape, etc), camera used (film or digital), and the year each photo was taken. Obviously, the photos reflect the content of the book. You would expect to see wildlife photos in a chapter on wildlife photography. But I thought the photos might say something about my general photographic preferences as well.
Wildlife Location Guides
It’s spring and photographers are thinking about places to go and subjects to photograph. If you are thinking about photographing wildlife this year, the first is finding wildlife. In the case of common wildlife, that’s easy. You can find squirrels in your own back yard and ducks at a pond in your local park. But if you want to photograph something a little more exotic, like Chachalacas or Green Jays, you need to know where to look for them (the southern tip of Texas).
Denali at Sunrise, Denali National Park, Alaska
Mastery of light is a key to great photography of any kind. Anticipating great light in order to be in the right place at the right time is one of the keys to great landscape photography. I was searching for great light on Denali (or Mt. McKinley as it is called in the lower 48).
Great Gray Owl, Whitefish Point, Michigan’s U.P.
My photo of a Great Gray Owl and the story behind the photo inspired the e-mail question below. My answer follows, along with some additional information, visuals, and links.