Smash and Grab Photography

On Shadows and Reflections

2012-02-07T07:39:00.002+03:00

[I've been thinking about what to do with the blogspot blog for some time now. Given the rate at which I post updates it would seem the decent thing to do would be to let it die. However, I just love the large image format. And I love the back catalog of posts here. So here goes. We're keeping it.]

Part of developing as a photographic artist must be developing your own style. I would have to say the tastes of the day are really towards increasing punchiness in images. Today, an image must leap off the page, upturn your cornflakes and upset your dog just to stand out from the fire hose of images most of us are subject to. I don't exempt myself from this observation. If anything, I'm a real sucker for a punchy composition and nose-bleed colour. However, there is still something to be said for the subtle and unobvious.

Above, you see a nice detail of a screaming red Corvette. It's nice enough and seems quite simple. However, it rewards a repeated glance. That second set of tail lights? It's a reflection in the shiny chrome bumper. And what is that subtle shape on the left? Why, it's the shadow of my Crown Graphic. Look deeper still and you can even start to see the texture of the paint.

Nice. Subtle.

What Is Special About Large Format Portraits

2011-10-15T00:27:00.003+03:00

There are many things that are special about pictures taken with a large format camera. Amongst just a few of the advantages are:

1. Huge film area means a huge canvas for light to play on. Huge detail, huge tonal range, tiny grain
2. Full camera movements. Tilt, slide, shift. You choose the plane of focus. You craft the image
3. The ground glass. You see exactly what the film will see. Ability to frame exactly. Ability to judge focus and depth of field exactly
4. Uncompromised lens design.

Actually, the list goes on and on. But for me a lot of the magic happens when you put a real living person in front of that big camera.

What do you see in this image? Softness and sharpness? Smooth tonality? An extra sense of reality? All of that and just a sprinkling of magic.

And this picture you are looking at is the very worst possible presentation of this piece of film. It is scanned on a terrible scanner using a very DIY technique of scanning the film in four slices and sticking them together in Photoshop. The film was even scanned still inside its plastic holder. Despite all of that the magic shines through.

Large format photography is the essence of photography and has been for more than a hundred years. The DSLRs of this world can never match it because they will never have a sensor spanning four inches by five inches. I look forward to creating more magic with this camera over the coming year.

Capturing The Essence

2011-10-12T22:41:00.002+03:00

How do you capture a place? Sometimes it is easy. London? Houses of Parliment, London Eye or Tower Bridge. Seattle? Space Needle. Portland?

Hmm....

From a month's visit this was the best I managed. I was trying to get some of the more recogniseable buildings into the frame as well as some of the trees and the stream of cars heading up Burnside Road. To emphasize the road I kept the shutter open until I saw cars travel the whole length of all the visible road. To get the skyline nice I shot this just after sunset when the sky was getting nice and rich and dark blue.

LDR

2011-09-27T23:01:00.002+03:00

Look at these soft delicate tones. Even this ugly utility box looks magical. This is overcast morning light. Flat light. Low Dynamic Range light. Here are some more low dynamic range scenes:

Sunsets
Sunrises
Portraits
Scenes in "Golden Hour" light
Forest scenes

In other words. Most actually beautiful scenes.

HDR

2011-09-27T22:33:00.002+03:00

High Dynamic Range. Sounds good, right?

This is a an example of one of the few sorts of scenes I can really imagine wanting to take that actually has a high dynamic range. This is taken straight into a glaring sunrise with the foreground in complete silhouette. It was deliberately massively, mind-blowingly overexposed so that I could retain some of that foreground detail which, honestly, it would have been difficult to see clearly with my own eyeballs in that light.

Most scenes that are high contrast are unattractive and make bad photographs. These sorts of scenes usually look ugly in real life so it is the height of optimism to expect them to magically look great in a photo. In cases like the above where a scene has very high contrast but DOES look good we normally want to convey that high contrast feeling in the photo. This usually means letting a foreground darken to a black silhouette or letting the brightness of the bright parts burn to white.

Most HDR photographs that are successful celebrate the unreality that usually comes from excessive use of HDR software on massively high dynamic range scenes. This is, in fact, it's own artistic style. It's not a style I like but it certainly has quite a following.

I mostly shoot negative film. This capture medium has the capability to capture huge dynamic range in a single exposure. It also has very good properties at the extremes of its range. It "rolls off" organically (like our eyes do) and never "clips". This particular film, Kodak Ektar, may be the highest dynamic range capture medium on the planet which is why there is so much detail available in this crazily over-exposed scene. But most of the time, this extra latitude is best used to remove the worry about missing a shot through incorrect exposure. I do shoot carefully but with negative film I feel an extra confidence that when I press the shutter the shot is in the can.

First Thoughts

2011-08-18T12:35:00.004+03:00

Photographs are like stories, music or dreams.

There are some that wash over you. You grasp them as a whole. They produce a mood and you are not aware of how or bothered by this.

Some photographs, however, invite you in. They are rich in detail and promise more. You want to count the trees or people or threads. You want to see into all of the little windows. You want to roam around that distant meadow.

Both of these types of photograph are important. Any camera can take the first type, although these can also be the most difficult and rewarding type of photograph to take. As humans, however, we are ever aware of our limitations. It is this second sort of photograph that taxes equipment and technique. You simply cannot put more in the finished picture than you captured at the vital instant. The traditional answer to this has always been bigger film in bigger cameras.

As such, I am now the owner of a Crown Graphic 4x5 inch press camera. This is the camera that you always see the news photographers in hats shooting in old movies. With more than fifteen times the film area of 35mm you can shoot the equivalent of 300 megapixel images given good modern film and decent scanning. In addition to this you have a more flexible camera which can use movements to bring more of the image into focus at once or to correct perspective.

So what is the flipside of all of this potential and possibility? Complexity. And this is also where the Crown Graphic really sells itself to the artistic photographer. In exchange for less flexibility than most "serious" large format cameras the Crown Graphic gives you a lot of convenience and assistance. For example, the camera can be set up in seconds since it becomes its own carrying case when folded up and has adjustments that allow you to quickly set up the camera "zeroed" and focussed at infinity. After all, this camera was made to be used handheld and often in fast-paced environments.

So how has this camera changed my life and my thinking? It has made me think. It has made me think about exposure. It has made me think about composition. It has made me think longer and harder on the question, "Is this shot worth taking?" It has opened my eyes and mind to the optical magic that lies at the heart of every camera but is usually hidden. The ground glass of a view camera is like a magic window. Through its frosted surface we glimpse dimly the very inner workings of light. All is laid bare, nothing hidden. We see the world backwards and upside down, just as the film sees it. We see at once the effect of every slight shift or tilt or swing.

We learn faith. As we take responsibility for our own film loading and unloading. As we take responsibility for our own exposure settings. As we take responsibility for dark slides, shutter cocking and correct sequences of events we learn the necessity of a certain discipline and of trusting in that discipline to deliver the desired results.

The Feel Of It

2011-08-08T18:39:00.002+03:00

This is a good example of telling the story with something that illustrates the event better than the real thing. This is a great illustration of a drag race. However, the cars don't burn rubber like this in the race. This is actually the tyre-warming burnout.

Chopping Off Heads

2011-08-08T18:36:00.002+03:00

What your father told you was wrong. It is perfectly OK to chop people's heads off in photographs. In this picture of a mounted warrior on a war horse I have isolated only a very small portion of the front flank of the horse's armour.

Isolation

2011-08-08T18:31:00.002+03:00

A general rule of thumb is that you want to fill the frame with whatever is the subject of the photograph. Like all rules, there are exceptions. Here the isolation is illustrating the small size of the object and the bleakness of the surroundings. This is effective and possible mostly because there are no distractions in the surroundings.

The Miniature Effect

2011-07-30T09:01:00.003+03:00

Photography is an art of exclusion. This is something I have said before. But you exclude in order to focus attention on whatever it is you are trying to show.

Normally, having the subjects be this small in the photograph would be a good way to lose them. However, part of what I am showing is how much the subjects shine forth in their surroundings. Although they are small in their surroundings their surroundings offer nothing which competes with them. They are a little like the stars in the night sky.

This is another situation, of course, where you must rule the camera rather than let it push you around. Most cameras will want to overexpose a scene like this because the camera can't know that the scene is supposed to look dark and that the few tiny bright things are actually the subject.

Also, note that although there is an awful lot more in the frame than the subject none of it detracts. Subtly, in fact, the surroundings frame and contextualise the subjects.

White Balance

2011-07-30T08:48:00.003+03:00

Once upon a time people shot pictures using a chemical process called film. If you wanted to alter the white balance you either screwed a colour correction filter onto the lens before taking the picture or you used a different film that was balanced for "Tungsten" (for indoors) rather than "Daylight". Because both of these steps are somewhat inconvenient most non-professional photographers simply didn't. They shot everything on daylight film. This is the equivalent of setting your digital camera white balance to "Sunny" instead of "Auto". Guess what, lots of great pictures were taken!

Different flavours of light have different characters to them. Most can be pleasant (apart from flourescents, which often look green and unpleasant). Auto white balance will attempt to turn all of these light sources to "white" and is a leading cause of photos looking sterile and boring.

Here is an example of one of the "warmest" light sources commonly encountered -- candlelight. But this very warmth is what makes things in candlelight so beautiful and warm and comforting to behold. The daylight balanced film used here has fully captured that warmth.

When I do shoot my digital camera I almost always use daylight white balance rather than auto. I can't remember when I last changed that setting. And the digital pictures almost always look great in every light. And gone are the days when two photos taken seconds apart look completely different thanks to auto white balance making a different white balance "guess" each time.

The Scene

2011-07-25T10:02:00.002+03:00

An event happens over a span of time.

A picture freezes a moment in time.

How do you choose a point of view and an instant that tells the story of the event?

Find A Detail

2011-07-25T09:57:00.002+03:00

Painting is the art of inclusion. You start with a blank canvas and you include the things that will make your picture.

Photography is the art of exclusion. You start with the world and you exclude things until you have a picture that says something. If it is not helping your picture it is hurting it.

This urn was very nice but the striking part about it was the design around the opening. If I had shown the whole urn my picture would not have been as strong.

What Does Your Camera Know About Exposure?

2011-07-25T09:49:00.002+03:00

This is typical of the sort of scene that a camera on auto will get wrong. And if it is a digital camera you can bet that the bright parts will go to detail-less white.

Look at this scene. It is mostly dark. It is a dark room. It is supposed to be. But how must the camera know? It can't.

The simplest way to deal with this situation is with a control that all cameras will have which is called "Exposure Compensation". It is usually marked with a "+/-" marking. If you find that you are getting a too-bright picture in a scene like this and losing the bright parts simply hit "-" a few times and take the picture again. Don't forget to set it back to "0" when you are done!

How To Make Big Look BIG

2011-07-25T09:34:00.002+03:00

This is a really big truck. But it could easily look small in a picture. I have used two techniques here to make it look big. One is to fill the frame. The other is to use a wide angle. The number one reason why things look smaller in pictures is a mistaken urge to "get everything in". You must decide what a picture is about and ruthlessly exclude the things that don't serve that. Wide angle lenses make things look bigger because you shoot things from a shorter distance. Standing far from things will make things look distant, even if you fill the frame.

Cel - A - Bra - Tion

2011-07-17T17:32:00.003+03:00

How to show an event?

It's not the way you would think.

I always bring a wide angle to the fireworks to capture the event. Almost always my best shots come from a telephoto.

This picture works because it tells the story symbolically. There is a miniature version of the fireworks display here. Enough to say "fireworks". There is also the Sheraton hotel which is a major Doha landmark.

Together they tell the story better than any of the "get it all in" shots.

Colour Photography Is About Colour

2011-07-17T17:21:00.002+03:00

I think this picture says that better than any words. Yes, this is a cloud. But the picture is all about the colour and the texture.

What Is Your Point Of View?

2011-07-17T17:11:00.002+03:00

It gets harder and harder to take an interesting shot at my work. This is a common problem. Most of the most beautiful locations and buildings have been photographed countless times. People are still ready, however, to see them in a new way. The secret to this is not a new camera, a new lens or a piece of software. Find a new perspective.

Always Be Open To Awesome

2011-07-03T00:46:00.002+03:00

As I look at this photo again it struck me just how often the amazing is present in the mundane. This was the result of a particular moment in a particular sunset at a particular time of the year. It was probably there to be seen for a few minutes. The picture came from seeing what was happening as it happened and being prepared.

Look For Something Special

2011-07-01T07:24:00.005+03:00

Look at the reflection on the water from the building in the middle. Show people something they don't see every day.

Say More With Less

2011-06-22T22:45:00.002+03:00

It's a big block Stingray Corvette. But then, if you know what one looks like you knew that...

The Path That Leads To Glory...

2011-06-20T06:16:00.001+03:00

...It is a rocky path. It leads to a narrow gate. Run to it!

Are You Ready?

2011-06-19T06:29:00.001+03:00

Maybe you go to the beach a hundred times and see nothing. Maybe. On that morning when God's splendour shines forth, will you be ready?

Be ready.

The Best Camera

2011-06-18T13:36:00.000+03:00

It's the one you have with you!

Decay

2011-06-15T07:00:00.002+03:00

Sometimes beauty is found in the transition between when something is made by men in accordance with their vision and its ultimate return to the earth. For subjects of decay, technical perfection of the photograph is not always an asset. In fact, the opposite can be the case...

A Well Made Thing Is A Thing Of Beauty

2011-06-12T22:50:00.003+03:00

I had been taking pictures of Lise and Candy's cakes when I decided to shoot some of my photo gear with the same lighting. There is a particular beauty to a functional item that is made with care and precision. I think this photo of my teleconverter shows some of that.

Technical Article I: Advanced Negative Film Scanning

2011-06-03T20:48:00.002+03:00

The following is an article I put together to sum up briefly what I have learned over the years about scanning negative film. The picture above is a picture I took on Kodak Ektar negative film with my Mamiya M645 medium format camera. I developed it and scanned it according to the techniques discussed in the article.

TITLE: Approaches to Scanning Negative Film

Chromes Are Easy

Slide film has always been admired for the impact it delivers. You take the shot - wham! A final result pops straight out of the development tank. Pop it in a viewer or projector and you are instantly transported to the scene where you took the photo!

Negative film is not like that.

Negative film is a lot like a digital RAW file. The potential is there to make a number of different artistic interpretations of the scene you photographed but more work is left to you, the artist. Give the same RAW file to three different people and they will hand back three different JPEGs. The same goes for three scans of the same colour negative. And unlike slide film there is no "original" to hold up to a window and argue with the scanner operator about regarding accuracy of colour, contrast, etc...

So, who would want to shoot this beast we call colour negative film? Only people who:

Want lower film costs

Want to use local processing

Want to use locally available film

Want a HUGE amount of exposure (and therefore highlight and shadow) latitude

Want to use cameras with bad or no meters in changing lighting situations

Want to photograph in high-contrast lighting without HDR

Want maximum creative control

etc.

Taming the Beast

So, how do we tame this beast?

Let's say that although you want creative control you don't want to be dealing with a pile of jelly. Let's say that you are after some measure of control over how your negative film gets translated into a positive. What are your choices for solid "known starting points"?

Here are your main choices:

Use your scanner software's "negative film" setting

Use your scanner software's "positive film" setting and invert in your image editing program

Use your scanner software to scan as a linear positive and use some dedicated conversion software for the positive conversion

The Dreaded Orange Mask

If there is one aspect of colour negative film that strikes fear and uncertainty into the heart of (almost) every photographer it is that weird orange mask. Yes, the film clearly contains the inverse information of the scene. Bright is dark, yellow is blue and so forth. So far, this is like black and white negative film and easy to understand. However, with the addition of the orange mask the film becomes something that is very difficult to evaluate with the naked eye on a lightbox. Why, oh why oh why do they do that?

Why They Do That

Well, the best explanation I have ever read is here. However, every time I read that I understand it. A day later, however, I can never remember. Let me give you the big takeaway that will dispell a lot of needless confusion about negative film: THE MASK IS THERE TO ENSURE EVEN COLOUR BALANCE WHEN PRINTED OPTICALLY.

So, How Does This Help Us?

Confusion often leads to magical thinking and unfortunately you will see a lot of that in relation to different methods for scanning colour negatives. If you are confused about the fundamentals you will never feel sure about the reasons for your methods.

What this tells us is that when we scan, the red channel is the strongest colour on the film. Some in the dyes, some in the mask. The green channel will be less strong and the blue channel will be weakest.

The Important Part

Although we see the three colour channels at quite different strengths (and although this ratio varies from one emulsion to another) the film is designed so that if the exposures for all three channels are equalised then the final "print" will have a correct colour balance. For "print" you can read "scan".

The traditional way of doing this would have been to illuminate the print paper through the film using three primary colour lamps and varying the time for each primary to acheive a nuetral colour balance. If you took an unexposed frame and varied the exposure of each primary lamp source until it printed grey on your colour paper you would have found this ratio. If you used this ratio to print any frame on this roll that actually had an image you would expect true colour from that frame on your print.

Applying What We Know

So what needs to happen at the scanner level is for the ratio of the three primaries to be determined, the necessary exposure to be determined and the exposures set appropriately to capture as much detail as possible for each primary channel. This is the place where things often go wrong for a lot of people. Then channels need to be equalised in exposure, inverted and applied a gamma value (since the scanner sees in linear vs. photographic paper or our eyes seeing in log).

The "Negative Film" Option in Scanner Software

Typically the "negative film" option of scanner software guesses at this balance rather than measuring a piece of unexposed film since there typically isn't necessarily unexposed film in the selected scan area and the software takes a "frame-by-frame" view of the world. Instead, the software will look at the actual colour curves in the image and "guess" at the probable endpoints. In 95% of images this can work great. However, it also explains why two frames of the same subject on the same strip can come out with different casts when scanned this way.

The other way this can go wrong (depending on the software) is the clipping that can occur when the guesses at the endpoints are not conservative enough. A lot of software is notorious for this but I find that the current version of Nikon Scan (4.0.2) does a very good job most of the time. Vuescan has a feature where you can specify a section of base emulsion and let the software "memorise" the colour and opacity of the mask which allows the colour balance and exposure to be calculated once for a whole roll. This is a great feature but I do find the interface on Vuescan to be a bit of a train wreck so I must admit that although I own Vuescan I don't use it.

The "Positive Film" Option plus Manual Inversion

With the "positive film" option of the scanner software you make a tradeoff. On the one hand it is very unlikely that the software will clip any of the channels. On the other hand, it is scanning them all with equal exposure giving you an "orange" positive whilst at the same time applying a gamma (the same gamma) to all the (at this point un-equalised) colour channels. What this leaves you with is a rather difficult beast to work with in Photoshop or whatever.

The two biggest problems are that you have thrown away a whole bunch of potential sensor resolution on the two weaker colour channels. In "negative film" mode the scanner software is generally smart enough to equalise the exposure for each channel. In "positive film" mode the channels are assumed to be of equal strength.

In this workflow you would make your scan. You would open the orange-looking scan in Photoshop (or similar) balance the image initially by setting endpoints at each end of each colour channel. You would then invert the image and you would have something close but because the gammas were applied (by the scanner software) before the channels were equalised the gammas are now different for each primary so you would then tweak the colour curve for each channel by eye until the image looked neutral.

The Linear Scan and Dedicated Software Option

This is where I currently find myself and where a lot of others do as well. There are still some pitfalls here.

The first pitfall is working out how to equalise the exposure for the primary colour channels without clipping. The second is working out what method to use to convert the negative image to positive.

Equalising The Primary Channels

So far I have worked with Vuescan, Konica Minolta's scanner software for the Dimage Scan Dual IV and Nikon Scan. All of these programs let you set the gain for each colour channel independently. It may be in different places and called different things (Nikon Scan calls it "analogue gain") but it will be there somewhere. What you want to do is give the green channel about a stop more exposure than the red channel and the blue about half a stop again more than the green. You don't need to get this exact so you can eyeball it from the histograms and the preview. Doing this will ensure you get the scanner's full dynamic range on all three colours. The exposure difference is actually done by the scanner exposing the film to the different colours for longer or shorter durations during the scan. Just like in optical printing!

When you are doing this you will want enough exposure to come close to white in the brightest portions but leave yourself some buffer. You don't want to clip. In Nikon Scan if you leave the "Master Gain" set to zero and use "Auto Expose" the software should keep you from any clipping.

ColorPerfect Plugin

ColorPerfect make an extremely good product with only a few drawbacks. One is that it works as a plugin for Photoshop. If you don't have Photoshop and can't afford it (like me) then it also can be used with another image editor called PhotoLine which works with some Photoshop plugins.

ColorPerfect is capable of some very advanced image processing but the interface certainly takes some getting used to. I struggled for some time with the default conversions which often looked great but seemed much grainier than the results from Nikon Scan's "negative film" mode. I found that I was a bit happier after I made the black and white point thresholds more conservative. ColorPerfect has presets for just about every film emulsion, even modern ones. For example, they currently have a preset for the new Protra 400.

negfix8 Script

negfix8 script

negfix8 is a fairly simple bash shell script that uses the free ImageMagik libraries and is what I currently use. Unlike ColorPerfect the script has only one purpose and that is to find the correct endpoints for all three colour channels and the invert it and set an initial gamma. It also normalises the result making it a suitable source image for further processing. All of the other options basically have a goal of producing a near final image. I like the conservative and consistent result of the negfix8 script which in essence resembles optical printing in its simplicity.

Pros and Cons

In researching for this article I ended up doing some comparitave conversions on some difficult images. In the process I learned a bit more about the comparative merits of these options.

negfix8 is great for just safely converting everything in a batch. It is a script so it is very easy to just point it at a folder full of scans. It won't mess anything up because it is set not to clip and it doesn't try to do anything clever. If you love to do most of your work in Lightroom or Aperture you will really like negfix8. Also, you don't need any other software (apart from the free ImageMagik libraries).

ColorPerfect, however, really can get the best out of the images that it works well with. It is a piece of software you have to watch, however, precisely because it does try to be clever. Watch out, particularly, with low contrast images which it will try to stretch to full contrast. Also watch for images with nothing very dark in them which it will again stretch the contrast on to make the darkest parts black. And the controls are not the easiest to figure out.

Having said all of that ColorPerfect can work real magic with many images. It will give you people that really look like people. It is fantastic at removing colour casts. It will give you a consistent tone right across the image from the shadows to the highlights. The hits you get out of ColorPerfect will be big hits. Just expect to have to learn its quirks.

Oh, and it's a plugin so if you don't have Photoshop you will have to get a program that takes Photoshop plugins. I use a shareware one called PhotoLine.

Where There's Muck There's Brass

2011-05-29T20:39:00.002+03:00

This is an eight minute exposure. It was very dark where I took this. It was the middle of a wasteland with nothing but dirt, an old truck and a typical new Doha compound of villas. I had noticed, however, that the truck was a nice shape and the light (what there was of it) was of a nice quality. The only remaining thing was to walk around and find the right composition.

See A New Earth

2011-05-29T19:02:00.003+03:00

Isaiah 65:17: For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former shall not be remembered or come to mind.

The secret to making new interesting pictures in old familiar places is being able to see old things as new.

This is a sign I pass twice every single day I go to work or leave it. But this day, God let me see it in a new way.

Turn Around, Bright Eyes

2011-05-29T18:57:00.001+03:00

This was taken at about the same time as the "Burning Bush" photograph and was the result of some very good advice I always try to take. When there is something stunning in the sky, look behind you. There may be something quite different and equally stunning the other side.

Expect Amazing

2011-05-18T18:44:00.004+03:00

This is currently my most popular photo on Flickr at the moment, according to their "interestingness" ranking system. I took it during a photo outing with friends on a very rickety cheap tripod less than a minute after breaking mine.

I call it, the burning bush.

Under The Sea?

2010-12-19T02:04:00.003+03:00

Film has so much range.

In the film days people used to complain about slide film, especially high-contrast slide film, for its unforgiving short exposure range. This is because the negative film that most people used had such an incredibly high usable range that people could be four or five stops off on their exposure and still walk out of the lab with a stack of beautiful prints.

Now that digital is mainstream everyone knows that you have to get the exposure perfect. Exposure is so unforgiving on digital that even high contrast slide film looks positively generous in its exposure range.

I underexposed this shot very badly. I'm not sure how much but to the eye this frame looked almost completely black. However, after about twenty minutes my scanner ate through that darkness to reveal an extremely usable and lovely image. Viva the revolution!

Colour And Mood

2010-12-19T01:59:00.001+03:00

Colour and mood are all that are on show here and also all that are needed.

Look Back

2010-12-19T01:49:00.001+03:00

When I visited Zubara fort I took a number of photographs that I thought were good. I then packed up my stuff and left. But I looked back. I stopped the car. I saw this and I took it.

Do look back.

Light And Shade

2010-12-19T01:43:00.002+03:00

This photograph is something that caught my eye on my way to work. I was caught by the texture on the sail. However, developing the photograph to highlight that would have lost detail in a number of other places. To keep the detail in the shadows as well as the bright portions of this picture required a fair amount of work boosting and subduing the light at various levels. Does this sound unnatural? The picture doesn't look unnatural.

The reason is that when we look around a scene we adjust the "exposure level" of our eyes. We reduce our sensitivity to brightness when we look at something bright and we boost it when we look into somewhere dark. And we do all of this as we glance around a single scene.

What Is The Difference Between Film Grain And Digital Noise?

2010-12-19T01:37:00.002+03:00

Film grain (even in colour film, even in extreme cases like this) doesn't suck. This looks more like an impressionist painting than a photograph.

Lest We Forget

2010-12-11T14:20:00.001+03:00

We can buy the best equipment, learn the best technique and walk around the most beautiful areas. However, ultimately a good landscape photograph is a gift of grace to the photographer.

Defects

2010-12-11T14:16:00.002+03:00

As a rule I am not one of those people who look after camera faults to create interest. Sometimes, however, a defect can add a certain something to a picture...

This is taken with a small pocket camera that seems to have worn out light seals.

Format and Composition

2010-12-11T14:13:00.003+03:00

In a way that I have yet to really understand, different cameras incline you to different sorts of pictures. This is a scene in Education City I had often walked past which never really seemed to lend itself to photography by any of the SLRs I was ever carrying. One day I walked past with my new pocket camera and bingo.

When The Sun Finally Rose

2010-12-11T14:11:00.001+03:00

Well, that was pretty special too. Same morning as the two below.

Home By The Sea

2010-12-11T14:10:00.000+03:00

And another from the same morning.

Readiness

2010-12-11T14:05:00.002+03:00

This is one of the more striking of a series of pictures I took early this year on a single trip out with the family. We went to Zubara Fort because we had been nearly seven years in Qatar and never seen it. We then camped at Fuwairait. That evening and morning saw some of the most amazing sky I have ever seen in Qatar. As it happened I was well placed to capture this divine gift as I had all of my camera along.

Did I know what was coming? No. Fortune favours the ready.

Banality

2010-12-11T14:03:00.001+03:00

As photographers we all love the epic scene. The dazzling sunset or the moment frozen in time. However, some "snapshot" sorts of pictures can also carry power.

Firemen, Policemen, Soldiers and Outdoor Photographers

2010-11-20T14:35:00.003+03:00

What do they have in common? This:

95% of the time there is nothing going on. The biggest enemy is boredom. Days will go by without any significant work being performed. The good ones spend this time honing their skills, equipment and reflexes.

5% of the time is why they do their job. In this fraction of their time they are matching their wits with their subject in face of rapid change. Often every last ounce of their ability, skill and equipment is required of them in the shortest space of time. There is usually no margin for error. What they pour out in this sliver of time is what keeps them going. When it is on, it is make or break. When it is on, there are no excuses.

The Master Painter

2010-11-20T14:33:00.000+03:00

Here is one of his abstracts...

You Already Own It

2010-11-20T14:23:00.003+03:00

What is the best camera? In a phrase popularised by Chase Jarvis, it is the one you have with you!

Good pictures (good landscape and outdoor pictures, that is) come from being in the right place at the right time and noticing where God is moving the lights. Light is everything in a photograph. Although we normally have the sun as our "key" light, God uses all sorts of modifiers. Different sorts of clouds, different arrangements of clouds, different amounts of atmospheric dispersion (more in morning and evening giving us those great colours), different amounts of suspended dust and water particles. He also provides all sorts of fill via reflectors (like seas, lakes, cliffs and buildings), the rest of the sky (whether blue or cloudy), and other sources.

When the lights are tuned to "magic" it's showtime! And you normally have only minutes to capture something before it changes. A pocket camera can save you some heartache when you suddenly realise, it's ON!

Free Telephoto

2010-11-20T14:16:00.003+03:00

Did you ever wish your SLR had the same "digital zoom" option that your crummy pocket camera has. Well, it does!

All current DSLRs -- and any good film scan -- have enough and more resolution for most likely purposes. Don't feel like you can't crop. If only the middle of the image contains the picture you want, crop. You will have a weaker image if you DON'T throw away the stuff on the sides that is doing nothing.

This image is less than half the film image, and it is only 35mm. Yes, you can start to see a tiny hint of grain but it doesn't look bad. Even printed large on a wall this will be a good image.

And the free telephoto? This the exact same picture I would have gotten with a lens of twice the focal length.

Silhouettes

2010-11-20T13:57:00.002+03:00

If the sun is behind a person or object and you expose for the ambient light you will get a silhouette. If you get a good shape, that can make an interesting image. If it is sunrise or sunset and the sky is also a nice colour you can make a very nice image.

What Do You Not See Often?

2010-11-16T14:18:00.002+03:00

In Doha it is clouds. Hardly ever seen in summer. Still rare in winter. To see them dramatically on the horizon with this great colour going on is not to be missed.

Composition

2010-11-16T14:15:00.001+03:00

Composition and selective focus. Pretty much the only two ingredients in this shot. Just keep your eyes open!

Some Things Are More Important Than Colour

2010-11-16T14:13:00.002+03:00

It's just that, the way I shoot, I find not many things are. Colour, colour, colour!

Eyes Open Always

2010-11-16T14:08:00.002+03:00

...and, camera with always! Saw this just as the sun was setting through the window of a Subway restaurant whilst in the middle of some hectic errands. The sky will not wait for you to go home and get your stuff. You are lucky if the sky will wait for you to set up a tripod.

It's (Almost) All About The Light

2010-11-16T14:05:00.002+03:00

Ever see some wonderful light and WISH you had a good subject to shoot in this great light? Try shooting whatever crummy subject is in front of you at the time. This was taken out my rolled down car window at a red light.

Backgrounds

2010-11-16T14:00:00.003+03:00

So, I wanted to document a modification I have made to my 35mm strip holder for my Nikon Coolscan 9000 ED scanner. I was standing in our family room and all around me was the junk of a busy family household. None of it would have made a good background. Then I saw the curtain we have hanging between the room and the passageway and how the morning sun was coming through.

Bingo!

It is a good discipline to try and make each shot good. Even if it is not intended as an "art" shot.

Rubbish!

2010-11-07T00:16:00.004+03:00

Rubbish on the film, rubbish on the beach. Somehow, each reinforces the message of the other. And somehow, the picture still manages to paint a romantic picture of the seaside. Even soiled.

No, I don't understand it either.

You Pays Your Money You Takes Your Chances

2010-11-07T00:09:00.002+03:00

The quality of processing at the photo lab I now use is often good. Sometimes, however, it's a little less than good. This is what this strip of film looked like AFTER the Nikon scanner had removed all the dirt and scratches it could. I shudder to think what a raw scan would look like. I suppose this is not Photo World's finest hour.

On the other hand, in a weird sort of way I think that the dust and lint and whatever does not detract from this particular shot. I take a lot of carefully composed pictures but when I shoot with the little Vivitar it's a much looser and more casual affair. After all, if I really wanted to take time with it I would get the camera bag and tripod out of the back of the car...

Yes, It Is Sharp

2010-11-07T00:02:00.002+03:00

One of the first really successful pictures taken with my new pocket camera. It's a sunrise from a trip to the beach. Not a bad result from a camera with a fixed lens that will probably never see a tripod and has to live in my lint-filled pocket. I hope it lasts!

Local Architecture

2010-11-06T23:54:00.002+03:00

While the Arabs that live in this part of the world have been using the same traditional tent design for many hundreds of years, there is a case to be made that the design was not original but copied. Of course, to copy this design would require rather keen eyesight!

The "tent" web of a local jumping spider on a wall. The entire "tent" is probably 1cm across. I took this by reversing my 24mm lens and then stacking closeup lenses in front of that.

Artist's Tools

2010-11-06T23:49:00.002+03:00

What do you want in a pocket camera? Sixteen megapixels? HD video? A three inch LCD?

I was looking for a full frame sensor and an f2.8 lens.

I ended up with this. I'm still learning to drive with it but it suits me for now. It's nice to have something that is always in my pocket.

Yuk is Yum II

2010-11-05T16:10:00.002+03:00

What is poignant about this picture is the brightness of the "clouds and sky" design in the window and the dinginess of what the place has fallen into.

In The Shadows

2010-11-05T15:36:00.002+03:00

One of the wonderful things about cameras is the differences in how they see the world. They can freeze a raindrop. They can peer into fly's eye. They can turn a roaring surf into a mist of vapour. And they can see into the darkest shadows.

I think there is an in-built fascination with what lies in shadow.

Yuk is Yum

2010-11-05T15:29:00.003+03:00

Ah, decay! Of course the splendor of God's creation in full burst of newness and perfection is wonderful material for photography. However, the slow return of the things made by man to the earth from whence it came can also be quite wonderful. There is something about the two ends of the life of a person, creature or thing that are more poignant than the boring middle bit. Much as the two ends of the day have more to offer than the middle.

Don't Be Afraid To Cut O-

2010-11-03T15:20:00.002+03:00

I wanted to concentrate attention on this thrusting face of another of Doha's new towers. If I had included the other side of the building the emphasis would not be where I wanted it to be. Photography consists of two steps:

1. Noticing something that strikes you
2. Making a photograph that shows that something in an unambiguous way

Iconic Through Isolation

2010-11-03T15:05:00.002+03:00

This is a very recogniseable building in Doha's new skyline. However, it gets a whole new look in this view because the buildings that normally surround it are out of frame. This illustrates the importance of having open eyes and an open mind. The things that really had to come together for this shot were:

1. The spotting of this angle
2. The lighting (position of the sun)
3. The sky

Studio photographers can make their own reality to some extent. The landscape photographer must learn to work with what God gives him!

What Do You Do When It All Goes Wrong?

2010-11-03T14:54:00.002+03:00

The sun is one minute from setting. The car has just stopped and you have just broken your tripod. Improvise!

I borrowed a wobbly, flimsy $10 tripod and balanced the camera on it to take this.

Beautiful Portraits

2010-11-03T14:43:00.000+03:00

They come from beautiful people. Like my friend, Reggie.

The Extraordinary Ordinary

2010-11-03T14:37:00.001+03:00

Keep your eyes open!

The Importance of Beginnings

2010-11-03T14:27:00.003+03:00

Beginnings are so important. Beginnings are a time for faith. Faith that what is begun will prosper. Only in the future can we look back and see the true import of what was begun.

I hope this picture will stand as a record of the beginning of my wife and daughters' business, Cupcakes. Along with their partners Aisha and Mahdi.

Smile!

2010-10-14T03:34:00.002+03:00

I mostly point my camera at things rather than people. People photography is an entirely different undertaking. The technical aspects are important but must be mastered and almost forgotten. From the moment a portrait subject steps into the studio the most important aspect of achieving a usable photograph is the photographer's ability to put the subject at ease and catch the most flattering and representative moments. To my mind, a good portrait does not just show the subject in a flattering way, it also shows something of that person's unique character and personal beauty.

How To Make The Stars Align

2010-10-12T09:26:00.002+03:00

This is probably my most worked for and storied image. It was taken about the time of the summer solstace. This was the full moon closest to the solstace. I had been scouting the Corniche area and I had been examining different views of the museum, especially views that aligned the various faceted faces of it. Using a planetarium app on my iPad I worked out that the moonrise would very nearly align with a view of the museum that lined up nicely. I realised I would need to be ready because I would have less than a minute after moonrise to get a shot with the museum and the moon.

If you click through to my Flickr you can read a more full account. The only way to get pictures that have something extra is to do something extra in the preparation stage. In this case it was knowing where the moon would be and when. Another example might be arriving when the right light should be ready and recognising the seasons and weather in which light is best. Another might be scouting out areas where new things are being built or old things destroyed.

High Impact

2010-10-12T09:22:00.002+03:00

Simple is high impact. Red is high impact. Neon is high impact. This photo is high impact.

Be Bold

2010-10-07T12:34:00.001+03:00

The colours were great with the late light on this huge yellow word by the Corniche. Showing the whole word was not the best picture. What made it a picture was the bold shapes and simple colour contrast. This picture shows that.

Accentuate the Positive

2010-10-07T01:45:00.003+03:00

The Qatar Museum of Islamic Arts is positively bristling with solid geometric angles. For me, the best photographic statements of this are ones in which the geometric lines so formed are in harmony. Often this means a long telephoto and the correct alignment.

A nice contrast in this particular image is the turbulent sea and chaotic huddle of boats at the bottom of the frame.

The Epic in The Mundane

2010-10-07T01:42:00.001+03:00

The right lighting and angle can trasform something as mundane as a cement decoration on a flyover interchange.

The Photogenic in Everyday Life

2010-10-07T00:30:00.002+03:00

A typical Doha street scene. Perhaps not the same as your local street...

Cupcakes

2010-10-07T00:09:00.001+03:00

Taken as a "storefront" shot of my wife and daughter's new business, Cupcakes. Site: http://www.cupcakes.com.qa

Overlap

2010-10-07T00:07:00.000+03:00

Seen at an underpass.

The Gift of God

2010-10-05T23:35:00.002+03:00

Let's face it, sometimes God just gives you a gift. This whole picture was a gift. I was actually traveling to work early on a road I had never been on. I saw the sun rising and I got out. I saw these trees and vehicles and managed to frame the picture but I had no idea if it would even come out sharp since I was shooting handheld with a long lens on medium format. It wasn't until I got the film back that I saw the bird on the branch in the centre that really just pulls the whole picture together.

Give thanks!

Previsualisation

2010-10-05T23:24:00.002+03:00

This is a picture that I literally saw from a distance. I saw the arrangement of the buildings from this vantage point and set up the camera to take it. It was a month before I had finished the roll and gotten the film back but it was exactly what I wanted to achieve.

The experience and confidence to visualise pictures like this can only be earned by constant observation and daring to take a picture of each interesting thing you see that you think might work out.

Film Highlights

2010-10-05T23:16:00.002+03:00

This shot was actually overexposed. If you look at the actual piece of film it doesn't look as nice as this, it looks a bit washed out. If this were a digital shot it would be pretty much ruined. I'd have funny colour halos as the individual colour channels started to clip. If I tried to recover highlights from a RAW shot I could probably hang on to some detail but most of the colour would be starting to go grey.

Film has compression in the way it handles extremes of light. Whilst it handles changes in light level in a linear manner (well, technically, logarithmically) over most of its range it doesn't cut off hard. At the extremes it compresses at an increasing rate which prevents individual colour channels going weird and keeps some level of detail even in extreme areas. Because of this, the overexposed slide I took of a morning skyline scene has yielded one of my most popular images.

What Hides In Shadows

2010-10-05T23:10:00.002+03:00

This is just a shot from the last car show I was at before my car got smashed between two trucks. Often it doesn't matter too much what you take the picture with but here it was very helpful that I shot it on Fuji Velvia. Firstly, the film has handled the weird lighting in a way that still looks attractive. Secondly, with a good scanner a great deal can be pulled out of those rich Velvia shadows.

Extraordinary Light, Extraordinary Picture

2010-10-05T16:00:00.001+03:00

At night, the light sources come alive. Each artificial light source comes with its own colours. Add in the flames from a barbeque and even the garden wall looks great!

Something Old, Something New...

2010-10-05T01:32:00.001+03:00

What should a girl have on her wedding day to make it special? And what lifts an ordinary photo? Is it the lurking muck and disorder in what first seems so orderly?

Time To Reflect

2010-10-05T01:31:00.001+03:00

Bad pun? Yes. But good photo!

You Don't Have To Be Rich...

2010-10-05T01:27:00.001+03:00

I took a lot of more glamourous subjects on this roll than this simple pile of bricks. However, this was one of the better pictures.

Look around you.

Controlling the Frame

2010-10-05T01:24:00.002+03:00

There is no wasted space in this composition.

Basically, I have taken the very geometrical Museum of Islamic Arts and further deconstructed it to this very abstract assemblage of features which remains very recognisable.

Convergence

2010-10-05T01:22:00.003+03:00

In the "being in the right place at the right time" department I submit the above.

What made me drive around and get out was what the sun was doing on the side of the central building here. What made me press the shutter when I did was the gift of the dhow passing in front.

Overcast Light

2010-08-04T22:48:00.003+03:00

Overcast light can be dull. It can also be magical.

If the light has no direction then things are dull. If there is direct sun contrast tends to be very harsh. In between is a sweet spot where a bit of sun can give definition whilst the high bright clouds provide loads of magical clean "fill".

Learn to recognise it and then find a nice subject quickly!

Grain Does Not Equal Noise

2010-08-01T14:46:00.002+03:00

This is a good example of how even in a colour photograph grain can be nice. The fundamental difference between digital sensor noise and grain is that sensor elements are arranged in a rectangular grid whereas silver clusters (or, in colour film, dye clouds) are randomly arranged and spaced. This gives a much more organic texture and can actually enhance some images.

This is a very fine grained film and normally would not show graininess but this particular image is a tight crop of a 35mm frame so it is greatly enlarged, making the grain visible.

Wide Angles Emphasize Geometry

2010-07-24T21:58:00.002+03:00

So use that to your advantage. The trick is to get the camera completely square to the scene because wide angles also exhagerate any misalignment of the camera and any horizontals and verticals in the scene.

Interest is added to the scene by the addition of people.

You Won't Know If You Don't Try

2010-07-24T20:59:00.002+03:00

I was getting very frustrated with my current cheap scanner and wondering if I could do a better job with my D80 and lightbox if I was careful how I set things up. So I tried it out. For this and another few night shots it worked great. For light shots it was awful unless I did so much masking to block extra light from reflecting on the film that it was more hassle than the scanner. I would never have known if I hadn't tried and, as usually happens in these situations, I learned something. And this picture came at great from that process.

If you want to grow, try things you don't know.

Get Low

2010-07-24T20:52:00.003+03:00

This is a great illustration of how unnecessary are most of the things that are sold to photographers. What does sharpness have to do with this shot? What does freedom from falloff, or freedom from flare, or colour accuracy have to do with this shot? It is good to have good equipment so that its limitations don't constantly dictate to you but it is amazing how strong an image can be without most of the things that people worry so much about.

So what makes this work? A good subject, a good viewpoint (low with the cars streaking around me) and an involving composition.

Seeing What You Can't See

2010-07-24T20:44:00.002+03:00

This is one of those shots that aren't so obvious without the benefit of experience. It was quite dark and the white foam coming out of the storm drain was something you had to look at for a minute before you really noticed it. I was able to picture this before I took it only because I now have a good idea how rushing water will look in a long exposure and what the perspective distortion from my 15mm is like. I knew I wanted to point it down to emphasize the foam and make exciting lines out of the background lights. I knew roughly how the colours would render in a long exposure and how details would start to appear that my eyes couldn't see.

Experience comes from doing so get out there and shoot!

People In A Moment

2010-07-22T07:49:00.002+03:00

What makes a great people shot? Is it the lighting? Is it the lens? As people ourselves we are intensely attuned to other people. What makes a people shot is the right moment.

Disparate Items

2010-07-21T22:53:00.002+03:00

The symmetry of the overhead latice and the grubbiness of the ventilation grill are at odds. They are at odds in shape, in distance, in angle, in cleanliness. It is what makes the image work

Viewpoint and Framing

2010-07-21T22:44:00.003+03:00

One of the difficult things to visualise when starting out in photography is the concept of the relationship between angle of view and perspective. Different lenses have different power to magnify the view before the camera and can produce more or less magnified views of the scene in front. However, the perspective will be unchanged as long as the camera is in the same place. In other words, it is impossible to distinguish between a picture taken with a 100mm lens and a picture taken with a 50mm lens and cropped. To get a truly different viewpoint requires moving yourself and the camera somewhere else. In this case, a high balcony.

Another thing to note here is the use of some nearby buildings to frame the distant view. This has the effect of focussing the viewer's attention at the point of interest.

Summer Snow

2010-07-21T22:37:00.002+03:00

This is an optical trick of the light, but a fun one. The rain was pouring down buckets and I was trying to get a shot of the lightning. The lightning was above the clouds so I gave up. I decided I would get a shot of the rain itself so I popped the flash. This is the result.

Just Enough

2010-07-21T22:34:00.002+03:00

A lot of my strongest images are largely abstract. However, abstract images with no sense of reality can be quite unsettling. I think the trick is to get just enough sharp to identify the subject.

Another trick present here is in sense of scale. This little plant is actually tiny. Because I am very close and looking up at it, though, its inherent resemblance to a tree is reinforced.

Capturing a Feeling

2010-07-21T22:27:00.002+03:00

A common misconception is that the job of a photographer is to make some sort of copy of a slice of the world in a slice of time. In fact, the job of a photographer is to use a representation of the world to express a feeling and induce that feeling in the viewer. To this end it is not always necessary to be able to define exactly what it is that creates that feeling as long as you know how to create it.

This photograph of a small flower blowing in the wind conveys a lot of that motion and feeling of bright windiness. It is also one of the first images I have processed using a piece of software that does a better job of turning negative images into positives. It does a better job not because of any measurable specification but because the images converted to positive with it have more "reality" and more "depth".

Decent Colour In Poor Light

2010-07-21T22:24:00.002+03:00

This is a picture of the hood of a baby blue Corvette under hideous sodium light. Although the colour is not perfect in this negative colour film shot it is miles better than I could achieve with my digital D80. Modern negative films deal very well with difficult light -- especially mixed difficult light.