The View Finder
Catawba Valley Camera Club’s Newsletter
April 2015
Photograph by Donny Teague
C a t a w b a Va l l e y C a m e r a C l u b
Volume 4, Issue 4
April, 2015
Does Your Subject Have To Look Into The Camera?
by David Peterson
People are such chameleons. We’re usually quite candid and real around one another,
but once someone takes out the camera, it’s all over. At this moment, most people
look straight at the camera and smile. While this isn’t such a bad thing (in fact it’s
quite good most of the time), it isn’t particularly creative. You can usually make a
much more interesting picture when your subject isn’t looking directly into the camera.
Inside this issue:
DOES YOUR SUBJECT HAVE TO
LOOK INTO THE CAMERA?
2
FINDING THE BEST QUALITY OF
LIGHT DURING THE DAY
3
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
3
LORDS OF THE LANDSCAPE QUIZ
4
WEB SITES TO TRY
4
ASK TIM GREY
4
BENTONVILLE FILE TRIP PHOTOS
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2
DOES YOUR SUBJECT HAVE TO
LOOK INTO THE CAMERA?
In the above photo, the guy isn’t even looking at the camera. He’s too preoccupied
with something else on the horizon. The fact that you can’t see what’s catching his
interest makes this picture stand out even more. It engages your curiosity.
You Get To Tell A Story
What do I mean? Well, everybody knows what’s going on when your subject is looking straight into the camera. Your subject is telling your viewers that she is being
photographed, and that’s about it. Photos like this tend to tell your viewers that your
subject is having a good time, but it mostly means your subject is focused on getting
his picture taken.
When your subject looks somewhere else, the story immediately changes. Suddenly,
the camera is no longer the center of attention. Your subject is concerned about
Continued on Page 8
2
5,6,7
8,9
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4
ASK TIM GREY
9
VIDEO LINKS YOU MAY LIKE
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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3
FINDING THE BEST QUALITY
LIGHT DURING THE DAY
10,11,
12
LORDS OF THE LANDSCAPE QUIZ
ANSWERS
12
CLUB OFFICERS & PRESIDENTS
REPORT
13
APPLICATION FOR MEMBERSHIP
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C a t a w b a Va l l e y C a m e r a C l u b
Volume 4, Issue 4
April, 2015
Finding the Best Quality of Light During the Day
by Barry J Brady
Light quality is
determined by the
source of the light.
Small light sources
that are far from the
subject, will create
harsh lighting
conditions, while a
large light source
will create soft
lighting conditions.
Light is the main ingredient in any photograph. Without light, you cannot make an image. Photography is all about drawing or painting with light. One book I read on the
subject said that light IS the subject in photography, in many ways, this is true. Light is
a difficult phenomenon to quantify. Most of the time, we don’t really think about light
in our day to day lives.
Shoot for the light…
Continued on page 10
Calendar of Events
Apr 1
Competition - Projection - Low Light (W/O Flash)
Randy Knauf
Apr 10
IMAGE*INATION CONTEST Reception
Janice Setzler
Apr 15
Instruction - Awake the Light
Mollie Isaacs
Apr 18
Field Trip: Greensboro - Winston Salem - Big City
Robert Hambrick
May 6
Instruction: B&W Image Processing
Jon Kral
May 20
Competition - Projection - Open
Randy Knauf
May 29
WEEKEND TRIP: Chattanooga, Tn.
Judy&Doreen
June 3
Competitio - Print - Open
Randy Knauf
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C a t a w b a Va l l e y C a m e r a C l u b
Volume 4, Issue 4
April, 2015
Web Sites to try
Lords Of The LANDSCAPE
Sometimes our peerless native trees and shrubs prefer that
proper names.
1.
http://500px.com/popular
http://digital-photography-school.com/
The longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) is one of eight pine
species native to N:orh Carolina and is notable for its needles, which can reach 15 inches in length. The longleaf
pine was once a vital part of what type of industry in our
state that make use of its sap and turpentine?
http://photonaturalist.net/
http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com/tip/
A. Furniture
http://www.steeletraining.com/
B. Naval stores
http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/
C. Home-building
2.
Click on the links above
Sourwood (Oxydendrum arboreum) grows throughout
most of North Carolina and is famous for the honey that
bees make from its pollen. Sourwood is also known as lily
of the valley tree and by what other name due to its deep
red color in the fall?
Ask Tim Grey
Our club has a good quality digital projector but some people are not always happy
with how their images look when projected.
Would it make a substantial difference if we
took the extra step of calibrating it or will
we always see a difference between the projected image and the display on a calibrated
monitor?
A. Ruby tree
B. Crimson tree
C. Sorrel tree
3.
The redbud tree (Cercis canadensis) is found across our
state, and in the spring, it brightens forests with its brilliant
pink blooms. This tree goes by another name, which it
shares with what biblical figure?
A Solomon tree
B. Joseph tree
Tim's Answer:
C. Judas tree
4.
Mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia) is a native North Carolina evergreen shrub that provides beautiful flowers in the
spring, Thick and tangled growths of laurel are sometimes
referred to as what?
Calibrating and profiling your digital projector will indeed
have a tremendous impact on the accuracy and consistency
of the display of projected images.
A Laurel trap
Put simply, if all club members calibrate the monitor display they use for reviewing and optimizing their photos,
and you calibrate the projector being used to display
the images at your club meetings, you can expect a
very good match between what the photographer created on their own computer and what is being displayed by your projector.
B. Laurel cage
C. Laurel hell
5.
Found across North Carolina, the black gum (nyssa sylvatica) tree is sometimes called a black tupelo, Hollow sections of black gum logs were often used by settlers to make
what type of device ?
A. Beehive
The key is to make sure everyone is calibrating to the
same target values. For example, you could specify
B. Washpot
C. Butter churn
Answers on page 12
Continued on page 9
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C a t a w b a Va l l e y C a m e r a C l u b
Volume 4, Issue 4
April, 2015
Bentonville Civil War Battle - Field Trip Photos
Photographs by Janice Setzler
Photograph by John Setzler
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C a t a w b a Va l l e y C a m e r a C l u b
Volume 4, Issue 4
April, 2015
Bentonville Civil War Battle - Field Trip Photos
Photographs by Doreen Sugierski
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C a t a w b a Va l l e y C a m e r a C l u b
Volume 4, Issue 4
April, 2015
Bentonville Civil War Battle - Field Trip Photos
Photographs by Donny Teague
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C a t a w b a Va l l e y C a m e r a C l u b
Volume 4, Issue 4
Continued from Page 2
April, 2015
Does Your Subject Have To Look Into The Camera?
There are so many more emotions you can capture, and
this is just one of them. Consider trying excitement, frustration, sadness, and anything else to spice up your photography.
something else. If your subject is looking at a point outside of the frame, your viewer will always be curious
about what’s catching your subject’s interest (just like the
image above).
But if your subject is looking at something inside of the
frame, you have a chance to tell a story about the person,
place, or thing your subject is interested in. When you’re
taking the picture, think about why your subject should
care about what he/she is looking at. Give your subject
some extra advice on how to better play the role. This is a
posed shot, after all. You might as well get the emotions
right.
One Important Rule For Framing
Your Images
Whenever your subject isn’t looking directly at the camera, you need to do one extra thing. You have to create a
space for your subject to look into. If your subject is
looking to the right, add some more space to the right. If
your subject is looking to the left, make sure he isn’t
pressed up against the left side of the frame.
You probably wouldn’t try to get these kids to pose, but
the above photo is a good example of telling a story with
two subjects who aren’t looking directly at the camera.
The two kids are focused on playing with another, not on
the fact that someone is taking their picture. The story is
about them, not you.
When Looking Away Creates Tension
Sometimes you can use someone’s gaze to tell a story
about a difficult situation. The image to the right does
just that. The two people aren’t looking away from the
camera because they’re interested in something outside of
the frame. They’re looking away from one another because they’re angry.
Continued on Page 9
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C a t a w b a Va l l e y C a m e r a C l u b
Volume 4, Issue 4
April, 2015
Continued from Page 8
Continued from Page 4
Does Your Subject Have To Look Into The Camera?
Ask Tim Grey
The photo of the frustrated couple is a good example of
this rule. The photographer left some space on both sides,
so you get a sense of where each person is looking. If the
photographer were to leave this out, the photo would feel
cramped, and it wouldn’t adequately convey the feeling
of marital distrust.
that everyone should calibrate to a color target of 6500
Kelvin and luminance of 100 candelas per square meter
(cd/m2). If everyone uses the same values, you will
achieve a high degree of consistency across multiple displays.
To actually calibrate the digital projector, you'll need a
monitor calibration package that supports digital projectors as well as standard displays. One such package that
works very well is the X-Rite ColorMunki Display package, which you can find here:
Looking Away From The Camera =
Much More Interesting
Start taking more pictures like the ones I’ve shown you.
They’re much more interesting than your run-of-the-mill
party photos. With images like these, you get a chance to
tell a story and convey emotions. That’s much more powerful than what happens when you simply tell your
friends to say “cheese.”
http://timgrey.me/colormunkidisplay
***
***
Video Links you May Like
How to Freeze Action with External Flash
Time lapse Photography Captures Erodium Seed that Drills Itself Into the Ground
How to Use Focus Stacking for Tack Sharp Photographs
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C a t a w b a Va l l e y C a m e r a C l u b
Volume 4, Issue 4
Continued from page 3
April, 2015
Finding the Best Quality of Light During the Day
Warm sunset colors over the Vancouver runway
As a photographer however, light is your currency. Without it, you cannot create an image. If you were in a lightproof room, with no light entering the room at all, it
would be nearly impossible to make a photograph. However, if you were to light one candle in that light proof
room, suddenly you could make many images. Light is
the key to every photograph ever made.
Time of day is key
You will be shooting either in daylight or nighttime conditions and often in the soft light between day and night.
Each situation comes with its own challenges. If you are
serious about taking your photography to the next level,
you need to be shooting more often during the golden hour
of the day. The golden hour occurs from about half an
hour before, until about an hour after sunrise in the morning, and then an hour before sunset, to about 20 to 30
minutes after the sun has gone down in the evening. If you
are going to shoot in this soft light, you will need a tripod,
the rewards will be well worth the effort. It is not always
possible to shoot at these times of day, so below are some
guidelines about shooting throughout the day. Another
good time to photograph is during the blue Hour which is
the hour after the sun has set (more on this later).
As a result of light being so ethereal, the photography
world has tried to make sense of it. Photographers speak
about the attributes of light, namely: quality, direction,
color and intensity. In this article, I want to look at the
first of those definitions, known as quality of light.
What is quality of light?
Light quality is determined by the source of the light.
Small light sources that are far from the subject, will create harsh lighting conditions, while a large light source
will create soft lighting conditions. Another way to think
of it is to look at the shadows that are created by your
light source. If the shadows are clear and defined, then
your light source is small relative to your subject, and the
light is harsh and high contrast. If the shadows are blurry
or nondescript, then the light source is large compared to
your subject, and the light is soft and low contrast.
1. Shooting in the middle of the day
Many of us were taught to shoot under bright sunlight, in
the middle of the day, with the sun behind us. Sure, that
can work, but you won’t get dramatic results every time,
in many cases, your images will look very average. This is
because light is harsh at this time of day.
A small light source could be something like the popup
flash on your camera. This is a small, sharp source of
light that will blast bright light into your scene. It creates
hard shadows and will create a high contrast scene. A
large light source could be the light on an overcast day.
The sun’s light is scattered, or diffused, by the cloud cover so the light becomes larger, soft, and less defined.
Generally, when the sun is high in the sky, it is a small
light source compared to the subject. This means that your
subject will have very bright highlights and very dark
shadows. This is high contrast scene. Also, the shadows
will be very well defined and the light will be very directional. In other words, you will be able to see clearly
where the sun is because the shadows will be very well
outlined.
If you are photographing a wedding at midday in the summer (this is often the case) and the bride is in the full sunlight, you will have some harsh shadows under her eyes to
deal with. That’s not to say that you should never photo10
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Volume 4, Issue 4
Continued from page 10
April, 2015
Finding the Best Quality of Light During the Day
It is for these reasons that photographers choose to shoot
in the early morning or early evening, these times produce the most dramatic images.
graph in the midday sun, you can, but you need to know
how to deal with the contrast situation. That might mean
you need to use a reflector to put some of the light back
into the bride’s face, or use some fill flash to lighten the
shadows under her eyes. Remember, the brighter and
smaller the light source, the harsher the quality of light.
Panoramic image taken at midday in full sun. The image works because the image is properly
exposed for the bright sun.
2. Shooting during the golden hours
3. Shooting during the blue hour
Shooting in the early morning, before the sun has risen, or
shooting at sunset as the sun goes down, gives you a great
opportunity to capture images, in dramatic light. Many of
the scenes that people love to see in photography, are very
often low light or golden hour ones. The reasons why
these times are so good to shoot at area:
Blue hour conditions don’t always occur, but when they
do, the results are spectacular. For the best possible blue
hour conditions, you will want a sunset with very little,
to no clouds in the sky. Summertime is normally good
for this, but any time of year can work. If there is 80%
cloud cover, you will probably not see the blue light in
the sky, so a clear sky is important to make this work.
Blue Hour is the time after the sun has dropped below the
horizon and the sky goes a radiant blue for a while. The
blue lasts anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour, and
that’s the time you want to be photographing.
The light is golden in colour and changes colour from yellow, to orange to magenta.
The light is soft, i.e. no major contrast such as hard shadows and very bright highlights.
To make sure you get it right, be in position and set up
20 minutes before sunset. That way, when the light starts
getting good, you are able to hit the shutter release and
make some great images. Cityscapes work really well for
Colors are more exaggerated, the color of the light is far
more emphasized, much more oranges, reds and magentas
are visible in the scene.
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C a t a w b a Va l l e y C a m e r a C l u b
Volume 4, Issue 4
Continued from page 11
April, 2015
Finding the Best Quality of Light During the Day
blue hour images. The reason is that the sky will go blue,
but the city will be reflecting the yellowy, orange light of
the sunset. This means that you will have the sun setting
behind you.
The beauty of blue hour images is that that the blue and
yellow colors work well together, they are complementary
colors on the visual color wheel, so the scene is visually
appealing. If you are not sure about when blue hour will
be, you can visit this site and simply enter your city name
and it will tell you what time it will be occurring in your
city, on a given evening and morning. There is even an
iPhone app you can download to work this out in the field,
pretty amazing!
Golden hour shot of the city with a warm glow in the sky.
Blue hour panoramic, the blues and the yellows work well in this image
What do I need to use to get the best images
A tripod is always a good idea. You will be able to make
sure that your camera is perfectly still as you make longer
and longer exposures. As the light starts fading, your exposures may be a few seconds long, this is impossible to
handhold without getting blurred images. Use the best
quality lenses you have and a cable release or remote shutter release to avoid any camera shake. You will want to set
your camera up in manual mode and have your aperture
settings at f/8 or f/11. Set your shutter time accordingly,
make sure your ISO setting is at 100 and you are ready to
go. When the light show starts happening, click away and
enjoy the results!
Lords of the Landscape
1. B. Naval stores
2. C. Sorrel tree
3. C. Judas tree
4. C. Laurel hell
5. A. Beehive
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C a t a w b a Va l l e y C a m e r a C l u b
Volume 4, Issue 4
April, 2015
Club Officers
President:
Vice President:
Secretary:
Treasurer:
Image Coordinator:
Webmaster:
John Setzler
Tom Devlin
Judy Young
Stan Bolton
Randy Knauf
Ed Lane
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
We’re on the Web
http://cvcameraclub.org/
President’s Report
Spring is on its way! April is going to be a busy month. We have a field trip to Greensboro
coming up on April 18th and we just finished the Bentonville Civil War Re-enactment field
trip. Thanks to all who participated. It was a huge event with over 6000 re-enactors and over
twelve thousand spectators at Saturday’s battle and about the same Sunday.
Next week’s meeting (April 1) is a Projection Competition with the Assigned Subject “Low
Light” and following that is our Imag*ination Contest Winner’s Reception at the Art Museum
on April 10th at 6pm. I hope to see as many members as possible there to welcome our participants. Our April 15th meeting will host a presentation by Mollie Isaacs- Awake the Light. I
have heard this lady speak and she is great!
We are making great progress on the Steve McCurry exhibit and Reception. Thanks to Dennis
Hacker and Chip Young for their efforts on that project. You will hear more about that later.
Looking forward to seeing all of you behind the camera.
John Setzler
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C a t a w b a Va l l e y C a m e r a C l u b
Volume 4, Issue 4
April, 2015
Application for Membership
NAME_____________________________________________________DATE__________________
ADDRESS_________________________________________________________________________
CITY_____________________________________STATE________________ZIP_______________
PHONE: HOME (____)____________WORK (____)___________CELL (____)_______________
E-MAIL___________________________________________________________________________
Please print clearly as our club correspondence is conducted via e-mail.
Dues are $35 per year. Meetings are the first and third Wednesday of each month. Students: $15 per year.
New Member ____ Renewal ____ CLUB USE ONLY: Date Received______________ Cash_______ Check______
Please indicate your preference for committee membership on which you would serve if asked.
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Publicity ____ External Judging ____
Club Website: www.cvcameraclub.org
Occupation:____________________________________________________________________________
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My skill level in Photography would best be described as: Beginner ___ Intermediate ___ Advanced____ Professional ____
Do you have accounts with: Facebook ____ Google+ ____ Twitter ____ Other ___________________________________
Shoot Mostly: Film ____ Digital ____ Both ____
Camera Make: Canon ____ Nikon ____ Sony ____ Other _____________________________________________________
Photography Interest: (Check All that Apply)
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Other _____________________________________________________________________________
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