Rediscovering Photography

Taking ‘professional’ quality photos of room interiors has gotten much easier since the advent of digital photography. One of the nice things about using online photography resources is the amount of information that is available to help you learn about taking good digital pictures.

In days of old, you assumed that to get good interior photography shots you needed a van load of lighting equipment and all the associated paraphernalia to properly light a room and get good quality photos. Now, with the ability to receive instant feedback from your camera, you can make shots that would have been difficult to take with film in the past.

Recently I was visiting a friend who is a professional kitchen designer. He mentioned that he had just completed a nice kitchen project that turned out very well. He said he would have liked to submit photos of the job to his local association’s design contest but the submission deadline was only a few days away and he didn’t have time to have the photos professionally shot.

Of course when I heard that I immediately said “I’ve got my camera with me. Let’s run over and give it a go!”

(In the future I will have to remember to look before I leap.)

We arrived at the home in the middle of an extremely hot and bright June day. And the kitchen had a large southern facing window above the sink that did not have any type of blinds. One part of the room was as bright as a supernova and the other corners seemed terribly dark by comparison.

I spent quite a bit of time trying to get some decent shots thinking that I could use my flash to ‘over power’ the sun. But a SpeedLite is no match for midday sunlight.

Finally I decided to try something different. We found a few pieces of cardboard and blocked the window as best we could. Then we turned on all the room lights to their highest settings. I mounted the camera on my tripod and took a number of shots at low ISO and an F11 stop without using the flash.

While the results would probably make a pro laugh, I was fairly amazed at how the photos turned out. The shot above (click on the picture for a larger view) was shot at a setting of 15 seconds at F11, ISO 100. The bright kitchen window is just off to the right. And even though it looks like you see the regular sun reflected in the range hood, this was just the amount of bright sun that sneaked by the edges of the cardboard during that long exposure.

So here’s a way to manipulate lighting without carrying around a ton of lighting equipment. Instead of trying to add light to even things out, take it away and use a longer exposure. If I would have had more time that day, I can see now how I could have adjusted the lighting for any part of  the interior shot by ‘taking away’ light.

If you have to do an interior photography shot ‘on the spur of the moment’, use whatever you have a available to block light that is too bright to even out your light sources and you’ll come away with a nice result. Don’t worry about how dark it gets. The camera doesn’t care and it’s just a matter of taking a longer exposure. In my opinion, the cost for roll of masking tape and some cardboard sure beats the price of big set of lighting gear. And it’s a lot easier to carry around!

There is an old story about a young newcomer to New York City who stopped a stranger on the street and asked ‘Can you tell me how to get to Carnegie Hall’?. The stranger thought for a moment and then replied, ‘Practice Son, Practice’. The same is true with your camera. You can take better digital pictures with a little bit of practice.

• Take lots and lots of shots. The change to digital photos from film in photography has given anyone who wants to improve their photo skills a tremendous gift. Learning how to take good pictures with a digital camera is much easier than it would have been in the old days of film. When you’re taking pictures don’t just stop at the standard snapshots that are normally taken. Walk around, experiment, try anything. Since there is no film to buy or processing to wait for you can see your results as soon as you download your pictures. Carefully go through your shots looking at what is good and what is bad. You can learn a lot from the immediate feedback you get with digital.
• Look at the LCD or through the viewfinder before you click the shutter. An old friend of mine that taught me a lot about photography had a saying, ‘Look, then click’. If you remember this one piece of advice I guarantee the quality of your photos will immediately improve. Really ‘look’ at the picture you are going to take. This is especially true if you’re taking a picture of a person or a group of people, look at the whole picture before you take the shot. Too many times we focus on our subject and forget about everything else. Make sure the background and foreground don’t have items or objects that will ruin the shot.
• Always be on the lookout for a good photo. Keep your camera handy and as many times as you can during the day try to look at things as a camera would see them. And when your ‘camera eye’ says this would be a great shot, do it. Every photo you take, even if it doesn’t turn out to be as good as you thought it would, gives you feedback and the opportunity to learn for your future photos.
• Get in closer. Yes, I know every thing you read about photography repeats this over and over. But it is so true. If you are at the Grand Canyon with a group of people decide first if you want pictures of the scenery or of the people. If you want to take a photo of the group, use your best skills to pose them nicely and then get up close and take their photos. The photo will show the scenery a little in the background, but your aim was to record the people. If you want to show that the group of people are at the Grand Canyon and you want to include a large shot of the scenery, pose them differently so that they are included in the picture but acting naturally enjoying their experience and go for the ‘large view’ shot without worrying about getting everyone’s faces or smiles. (You’ll have that in the close up.)
• And finally, read your camera manual. I know you did that when you first got the camera. Now dig it out and read it again. You will be surprised by what new and interesting information you will find. Do it now, trust me. Things that you skimmed or didn’t completely understand or remember when you first looked at the manual will now make sense. Most people don’t use many of the excellent features and options that are available on modern digital cameras just because they look at the manual once and never again. Learn the tool that is your camera. It’s a wonderful machine.

So try some of the ideas above out. And if you want a few more, here is an earlier post I wrote about taking good digital pictures. I was so happily amazed when I first had the realization of how much faster and easier it was to improve my photos skills when I changed to digital.

If you’ve got some good tips you’d like to share or questions about some of these ideas, leave a note in the comments. I’d love to hear from you.

Finally! This is the time of year that the weather will finally begin breaking here in central Minnesota. The urge to get out with the camera is becoming too strong to ignore.

I started to look through some of my past year’s photos to see where I’d been and what I’d shot, and suddenly came to the realization that it’s time for a paradigm shift in how I go about searching for new shots. Rather than just going ‘out’ it’s time to become a little more structured. And if this structure helps to improve my chances of getting a decent shot, then the planning is worth it. So here are some thoughts and ideas to think about:

Step #1: Your old ‘bad’ photos are the best photos you have ever taken. Review them often.
(If you don’t have any, then go take some. Of anything.) The photo to the right is just a representative shot of what conditions look like on a ‘big cloud’ day. But a different location with better foreground features could make this into a great shot. Look at your old shots with a new eye. How can you change things to make them better? If photography is your hobby and not your profession, you are probably limited to the amount of time and other resources you can spend. And this is discouraging to some. We all wish we lived in a more ‘photogenic’ part of the country. But by thinking through your projects and re-evaluating what you see and have seen, you can change your ‘snapshots’ into something you’ll be proud to hang on your wall.

Step #2: Photos are made from light. Plan ahead and be prepared for change.
No matter if you are going out for a day or an hour, target subjects that will work with the available light and current weather or the with the lighting and/or tripod you can take with you. By doing a little planning in advance, you can increase your chances of getting a good shot. And if possible, have a backup plan if conditions change. It seems they always do.

Step #2.5: Take 1,000 photos a day.
What? 1,000 shots a day? Well maybe I am exaggerating a little here. But the idea is that no matter where you go, there are great shots that you could have taken if the light was different, or the weather was different, or it was a different time of year or time of day. So snap a bunch of shots anyway no matter what else you do. Change your camera to the lowest jpg setting if you don’t want to use up your card or disk space. Just take snapshots, lots of them. These photos will give you loads of ideas of what could be done with the subject if you went back at a different time. Here is an example shot of a tree. It’s a nice tree but the photo is just one of the shots I took one day on a hike. But as you can see from the other examples of the same tree below, it can take on a lot of different looks.

Step #3: Prepare a list of projects in advance of your outings so you can take advantage of any weather condition.
I have been working more and more with the idea of planning trips or photo treks with specific projects in mind. The specific items to consider are:

• Time of year.
• Amount of time available. (Going for two hours or two days?)
• Weather conditions. (Which usually means how much and what kind of light will be available)

There have been many times in the past when I have had free time early in the morning or in the evening or on a weekend when I would just take off on a ‘photo’ trip. Over the past years I have put on many hundreds (really thousands) of miles and been to many places. But I now realize that I passed a tremendous amount of good photo opportunities and really don’t remember many of the things that I saw. And I had a camera with me! Now I really wish I would have just flipped the setting to jpg-small and continually snapped away at whatever I saw. The shots would not have had to be ‘good’. But having that record of where I’d been and all the other miscellaneous things I saw would now give me a tremendous amount of material to use to plan new effective outings and an excellent amount of ‘idea-generators’.

Step #4: A pencil is sometimes more valuable than a camera.
Take a notebook and pencil along whenever you go out. Keep notes on thoughts you have even if you haven’t found that ‘perfect’ shot to take. Make notes about subjects (things) you see that you think might make a great shot, but need to be found in a different context or at a different time. When you are out with your camera you are at your most creative level. You are thinking about what you see and what you can shoot. Jot down notes about these ideas and when you get home review them. Add your ideas to your master list of projects that you want to work on. Then after you review and update your projects, make a targeted list of what you want to do on your next outing. With a little forethought you can be ready to have a productive and much more enjoyable time on your next excursion if you have a plan ready. You have really increased your odds of coming back with a great shot.

Step #5: If you have a GPS, turn it on.
If you don’t, get some maps of the areas you plan to be shooting in or print them out from the Web. When you see something that would make a great shot mark a waypoint on your GPS or mark it on the map. I have used this technique to good advantage in the past. If I’m out in the summer and see a spot that I think would make a great shot in the winter, I mark it. I have been to many of Minnesota’s State Parks and have marked interesting spots with a note about what and when might make it a good spot to revisit. And now when I’m out, I can check GPS and look at the list of nearest waypoints to see if there is something interesting close by that I otherwise would have forgotten about.

Step #6: Expand your workflow to include what really counts.
(I know, I know. There are only supposed to be 5 steps.) There is a measureless amount of information on the Web on the best way to handle your digital workflow. People spend hours writing and reading about how to best manage their photos and files on their computers and what programs to use to convert their digital data into viewable or printable photos. This has to be important to professionals, and is important to pro-amateurs as well. But after a number of years of shooting digital and taking tens of thousands of shots, I am becoming convinced that the planning and work you do when you are not in front of the computer is the most important. When I first ventured into digital, I spent many, many hours processing the photos I had taken. There is a lot you can do with computer workflow, but as they say, you can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear. Personally I know that if I would have spent the bulk of those hours in thinking about the big picture of what I was trying to accomplish rather than what exact radius and threshold setting I should use for the unsharp mask for a shot I would have many more pleasing and enjoyable photos.

Learn all you can about photography and photo techniques, and all you can about digital workflow and processing. But also stop and step back and look at it all in context. Look at your old shots and ask yourself ‘why do I like this one?’ and ‘what could I have done to improve this?’. I guarantee you’ll come up with effective and exciting ideas about what you will be doing the next time you pick up your camera.