Photocritic photography blog » Photo Critique

Get a photo critique!

Haje Jan Kamps — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 07:29:27 +0000

I have been doing Photo Critiques on this blog in the past, but it’s starting to dawn on me that perhaps a blog isn’t quite the right way of doing these, so instead I’d like to start doing them on Flickr.

If you would like me to critique your photographs, here’s how to get on the list…

Follow these steps

1) Get a Flickr account (you should probably do this anyway, it’s free, and Flickr is awesome)

2) Upload 3 photos you’d like me to critique It’s important that you choose three photos, because it’s difficult to give systemic advice on a single photograph. Also, it may be worth not necessarily taking your 3 best photos, but do pick photos that you are proud of, but which you feel might be improved – and yet you don’t know how. NOTE: Nudity and similar themes is perfectly OK, but remember to mark your links with (NSFW) – I don’t want to get my readers in trouble at work or with kids just because they clicked on a wrong link

3) Check your Flickr settings Please ensure that you allow notes on your photos, as these make critiquing much easier for me. Also, the photos have to be of a reasonable size – I can’t critique thumbnails :) If you haven’t turned on notes, I’m afraid I won’t be able to do a critique.

4) Add a comment to this post where the URL leads to your Flickr stream. In the comment itself, please tell add a link to the 3 photos you’d like critiqued on Flickr

5) Pay to skip the queue (optional). You may have spotted that there’s a pretty long wait on these now – I simply don’t have the time to do them all as quickly as I like. If you would like to skip to the top of the queue, and receive your critique within a week – guaranteed – make a donation of $50 via PayPal.

What happens next?

As far as possible, I will follow the structure I’ve outlined in my Doing a Photo Critique article – it’s worth a read if you haven’t yet.

Finally, remember what I said in my ‘dealing with negative photo critiques‘ article – you may not like everything I have to say, but my intention is to help you become a better photographer. If you only want to hear that your photography work is ‘OMG AWESOME LOL’, then you’re not in the right place :)

Also, it’s worth nothing that despite of persistant rumours of the contrary, I’m only human, and I will only do critiques when I feel I can actually make a useful impact – sometimes I may do 3 people in an evening, other times I won’t do any for a while. Partially, it’s because I’m crazy busy with work some times, but sometimes, I’m just plain lazy – do forgive. If you’re desperate for me to critique you immediately, check out step 5 above to find out how you can skip to the top of the queue.

The boring bits

By following the steps above, you give me a non-exclusive license to use your 3 photos as illustration images to a photo critique, if your particular critique somehow works well as a separate article on Photocritic. I will not use your photos in any other circumstance without conferring with you first.

I will pick and choose which photographers to critique first – it’s not meant as an insult if yours sits there for a while while I pick off newer entries first – it may just be that I haven’t got much useful to say about your photos because they already are perfect, or perhaps I’m struggling to vocalise what I like / what I would improve about your particular photos. Don’t take it personally!

Photo: Portrait of Queen Elizabeth II by Photocritic.org on Flickr

Photo Critiques Competed so far

You don’t have to submit your own photographs for critique, of course, it’s entirely possible to learn huge amounts about photography by reading good critiques of other photographer’s work, so here, I’ve collected the criticisms and praise I’ve done on Flickr so far:

Oct 8 ‘09: solofotones - Man with Paper, Street performer and Juntos
Oct 8 ‘09: MondoUNC – Sweater Weather, The Virgins and Cupcake.
Oct 1 ‘09: ooomidgetmanooo – Portrait 1 and Portrait 2
Oct 1 ‘09: HoneyJar – Autumn Leaves, Como Lake from Bellagio and Tulips
Jul 7 ‘09: HeraldK – Admiration, Shadows and Irish Coastal Road
May 25 ‘09: Jacob Wighton – Ants!, Flight of the Birds and Sneaking!
May 1 ‘09: Jack Makio – Ugandan Mother and Child, Dasiy and Plazma light
May 1 ‘09: Jeff – The Remarkables and Milford Road
Apr 28 ‘09: Jack Fussel – Speckled, Bar Bar Bana and Stunning.
Apr 27 ‘09: MrSimbol – Manila by the bay, Business as Usual and High and Dry
Apr 26 ‘09: Per – Heavy Lifting, Bench and Martin Luther King Memorial.
Apr 26 ‘09: Ilan – (Final) Rest, Man and Together and Alone II
Apr 26 ‘09: Mark – Holy Trinity Silhouette, The Long Drive Home and Autumn
Apr 25 ‘09: Adricv – Jean-Claude, de Haiti, Puppet Shop and Moving Sculpture
Apr 25 ‘09: Gary Kurtz – Photo 1, Photo 2 and Photo 3

There is also a hyper-exclusive invite-only Flickr group where you can see some of the photos I’ve critiqued, called, imaginatively, Critiqued by Photocritic.

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If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator or RSS reader, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. If you spot this anywhere, please contact legal@kamps.org so we can take legal action immediately. pcrss31283940 / 20100312

A shot at street photography

Haje Jan Kamps — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 10:28:16 +0000

Recently, I realised that while I do an awful lot of writing about photography, I’m not actually spending all that much time actually taking pictures myself anymore.

A sad state of affairs – especially as I recently bought a gorgeous Canon 50mm f/1.4 prime lens. (I could rant about prime lenses for hours, but I’ve done so in a previous post, which (if I may nest my parantheses and be so bold as to recommend one of my own articles) is well worth a read), and I have a fabulous city right on my doorstep.

Anyway, so I have never really done that much street photography before, but I figured it’d be a crying shame not to have a go at it…

For someone who hasn’t done much (read: any) street photography before, I think I did pretty well – these are some of my favourites:

Mean Fiddler

This photo, Mean Fiddler by Photocritic.org on Flickr, was a lucky one indeed. Shot from the hip just as he was finishing playing a song, the colours came out magnificently, and I got quite lucky with the focussing as well – Seeing as how I was shooting from the hip at f/1.4, it wasn’t as if I had a lot of leeway with my depth of field.

Technical Details: Canon EOS 450D with a Canon 50mm f/1.4 prime lens. 1/320 second at f/1.4 and ISO 100, metered in Aperture-priority AE with a -2/3 stop EV bias. More tech info here.

"Is he taking a picture of me?"

This photo, "Is he taking a picture of me?" by Photocritic.org on Flickr, was taken in the midst of a St Patrick’s day parade on Trafalgar square. She was hanging out with some of her friends in front of a fountain, and the light kept catching her, so I figured I’d try and capture that. The back-lighting was quite tricky (and, considering that all of these photos were taken on a single attempt, with one shot at getting it right, I think I got lucky), and I’m happy that I was shooting this in RAW, because I needed to do a few adjustments to make the photo come out well.

Technical Details: Canon EOS 450D with a Canon 50mm f/1.4 prime lens. 1/1250 second at f/1.4 and ISO 100, metered in Aperture-priority AE with a -2/3 stop EV bias. More tech info here.

Dreaming over Coffee

This particular shot, Dreaming over Coffee by Photocritic.org on Flickr, came about right at the beginning of the walkabout in London – I was in line for the queue at Nero coffee, and spotted this girl, who was sitting there, enjoying her coffee, and being rather blase about checking out the cute guys walking by – what is more summerly than that? When the moment came, I simply lifted the camera to my face, snapped the shot, and paid for my coffee. Simples.

Technical Details: Canon EOS 450D with a Canon 50mm f/1.4 prime lens. 1/200 second at f/1.4 and ISO 100, metered in Aperture-priority AE without EV bias. More tech info here.

Me too, brother. Me too.

This one, Me to, brother. Me too. by Photocritic.org on Flickr, was taken immediately after the girl above. We were sitting on the statue in the middle of Seven Sisters, and were watching the world go by. This fellow just showed up, stopped right next to me, and stared at the sky for a bit – His T-shirt made me laugh, so I couldn’t not take the shot.

Technical Details: Canon EOS 450D with a Canon 50mm f/1.4 prime lens. 1/200 second at f/2.8 and ISO 100, metered in Program-mode AE with a -2/3 stop EV bias. More tech info here.

MOAR!

If you want to se more, you can see the whole set on Flickr.

Also, if you haven’t seen many updates from me recently, it’s because I’m out of the country for a while, doing a load of photography and eating a lot of lovely food while visiting my parents in Mumbai, to be precise. When I come back, I’m finally moving back to London again – if I can find myself a place to stay, that is.

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When less is more

Haje Jan Kamps — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 00:01:04 +0000

It can often be incredibly tempting to try and fit more information into a photograph. Understandably so – wherever you turn, you find a barrage of information. Minimalism truly is a lost art in photography, and you’d be surprised to find that it’s actually quite difficult to get right.

In this photo critique, I am doing things in a slightly new way, and I’m cherrypicking some of the best photos that have been submitted to me over the past couple of months. Together, we’ll explore photographic minimalism, and how you can make hellastrong photos with less.

Showing emotions

Minimalism is one of those concepts that’s difficult to wrap your head around – In one way, it can be described as just keeping it simple, but there’s a lot more to taking a good minimalist photograph.

Take this photo taken by Sondra Evans, for example: On the surface, it is just a photo of a series of cake candles on a black background, but look closer: despite of its deceptive simplicity, the image is telling a story… Some of the candles are burned down further. Why? Also, all the flames are pointing to the left, which gives me, personally, a feeling of longing. I read from left to right (as do you, I would hope, esnes yna ekam dluow siht fo enon ,esiwrehto), so the fact that the candles are left-oriented makes me feel as if they are pining for the past. I associate candles with romance, birthdays and love, but given the blackness and the sombre settings, I’m thinking candles of mourning: Are the candles on a grave? Or on a coffin? Is the photographer mourning the loss of a loved one?

So many ideas, thoughts and feelings, invoked by such a simple photograph. I love it.

Surrealism

The minimalist movement started in the late 1960s, which sort of makes sense: I’m all for the music of the era, but tie-dye would do my fucking nut – no wonder people were striving for simplicity. As a stepping stone to post-modernism, minimalism works very well when combined with surrealism – and that’s where Grzesiek’s photograph comes in…

Photographing a light-bulb upside-down, combined with the strong patterns created by the walls around it is a stroke of genius – and I love how the image causes you to re-think perspective, lighting, and photography itself. It has often been said (by myself, but more importantly, by people who actually know a lot about photography) that photography is all about light (hell, the word itself means ‘drawing with light’). Photographing a light source, then, becomes a documentation both of the method and the result of a photograph at once – that goes both for the photo of the candles, and this photo of the lightbulb.

This is a particularly good example of how you can use clean, simple lines, and a philosophy of ‘less is more’ to great effect. I’d be proud to have this hanging on my wall – wouldn’t you?

Playing with light

To me, minimalism is all about doing creative things with lighting: by being selective about what you light and how you have a fantastic opportunity to pick out details from a scene.

Rachel’s photo to the left, for example, illuminates the side of a coffee table (is it? or is it a chair? A cane? An electric guitar?). This particular photo has quite a bit of noise in it, sadly, and I would have cropped it entirely differently, for effect.

If you light something to make something disappear, or to allude that there is something more to the image, I always feel it is more useful to actually include the blank space in the image.

Rather than making what you’ve carefully lit the center of the focus of the image, you’re essentially drawing the onlooker’s attention on what isn’t there – check out the image to the right.

What you are looking at is the same basic photograph as the one Rachel sent me, but re-coloured, and re-cropped in Photoshop. The large area of nothingness adds to the interest of the photo, because it’s practically jumping up and down, screaming ‘look at me! I’m mysterious! I’m an enigma! Try and solve me!’. Dunno ’bout you, but I find that strongly appealing.

The photo above is a simple egg in an egg-cup. Lit from the right and behind the photo, I’m particularly fond of this image (but then I would be – I took it), because around 96% of the frame is pure black – yet the 4% that aren’t give enough ‘feel’ that it’s perfectly possible not only to know what, exactly, you are looking at, but also add a sense of mystery and very strong visual lines.

The egg-in-eggcup is an odd one as well, because it conforms quite strongly to the rule of thirds, but the elements that fall on the dividing lines are not actually visible in the image. In effect, your eyes are ‘filling in’ the bits of the photo that are missing, and creates a pleasing visual image out of something that ain’t there. Call me a geek, but stuff like that makes me smile on the inside.

While we’re in the mood for crazy lighting schemes, do realise that side-lit subtlety is but one way of getting powerful images. The photo on the left, taken by Fernando (you might know him as MonkeySensei if you hang out on DeviantArt much), is a cheeky little example of how to do things differently. This image is almost Sin City-esque in its simplicity, but I love it.

The technique applied for taking this photo is so easy it’s almost embarrassing: Go outside on a dark night, find a tree, blast it with your flashgun on full pelt, et voila – a perfect photo. The composition in this image is what really gets me though – it’s almost as if the branches create a gradient feel to the image, as if they are cracks in an ice surface, propagating throughout the photograph. Especially amazing is that this photo barely has any grays in it: Everything is either pure white or pure black – you can’t get much plainer than that. Fantastic.

Colour in minimalism

Of course, if you’re trying to keep things simple, going black-and-white is the easy way, but you can get some really stunning results by using colour, too. Jason Deehr, for example, sent me a photo which was minimalism with a twist: By using a background and a subject that are of very similar colour, suddenly the photograph becomes a celebration of colour, life, and warmth.

The tonality of ochre, light orange and yellow plays a careful, intricate game, turning what would be a rather sombre black-and-white image into a vibrant ode to life. There isn’t much of a story in this photograph, no pretenses, no deeper meaning, but it all just doesn’t matter – it’s gorgeous, simple, and full of optimism and innocence.

Of course, by varying the colours, you can create a whole series of moods – a yellow, an orange and a red panel in a triptych, anyone? It would make a great way to greet visitors to your house – hang three next to each other in the hallway!

While strong colours are a good option, a larger degree of subtlety can also have desirable effects – take this photo by Paul Mongan, of an unusual building, for example:

I was torn as to whether the photo can be labelled as ‘minimalist’ or not – but similarly, it’s easy to see how the very same scene could be photographed at a different time of day, for a much stronger impact.

The high contrast between a clearer sky (or, perhaps, just overexpose the sky so it becomes much paler) and the distinctive shape of the building roof, could be a strongly striking, and visually appealing, impactful image. Of course, in my mock-up (to the right) you do lose much of the colour, but you do re-gain a lot of the oomph that I feel an image like this should have: washed-out colours and low contrast don’t cut it when you have source material which is crying out for drama.

People, but less

Obviously, there’s nothing to stop you from including people in your adventures in minimalism either – It’s just far more difficult.

One of the main reasons is that people are complicated shapes – faces are anything but minimalist, and there’s hair, ears, legs, arms – by the time you’ve taken a shot, you’ve got enough clutter in there that it’s difficult to fill an image with the tranquility and simplicity that minimalism is characterised by.

Rachel’s experiments in keeping portraiture simple, however are particularly effective. The style of the image on the right remind me of the work of the amazing Katie Cooke (who runs the Slowlight pinhole photography website), and is a good example how slight motion blur can actually smooth out an image quite a bit – certainly something worth further experimentation.

One way of simplifying portraiture is to go the high-contrast, slightly surrealist route (like my photo to on the right), but none but the nuttiest among us would concede that the picture is minimalist as such.

Challenge

So, it’s challenge ‘o’ clock, folks – can you take a portrait of a person that leaps off the screen, which is simple – even minimalist – yet captures a characteristic of the person you are photographing? If so, post it on DA, Flickr, or similar, and post a comment to this post with the link – I’d love to see it!

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Portraiture: Borrow their soul!

Haje Jan Kamps — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 00:04:18 +0000

A few years ago, I was part of a creative arts project in Arizona and southern Utah, where we did a lot of work with Native American people — a ‘world through our eyes’ type thing. One of the things that was brought up when we were dealing with more traditional tribes, was that we weren’t to take any photos. Perhaps surprisingly, some people believe that when you take photos of them, you steal a part of their soul.

Religions and superstitions aside, I think it’s a good way to look at portraiture. Stealing souls is a bit harsh, but if your photographs don’t at least borrow a little bit of soul from your subjects, I believe you may have failed as a photographer.

For this article, I’ve chosen to do a critique some of the photos submitted to me by Isaac – an USC film student with a passion for photography. His images illustrate very well how adding a touch of feel (or soul, if you will) can lift your portraiture.

With his photos, Isaac included a note. Now, normally, I don’t pay much heed to what people say about their photos: if they can’t stand on themselves, they aren’t worth critiqueing. In this case, I made an exception: Essentially, Isaac is begging to be kicked to the kerb:

Compliments are nice, but for someone in my position they are useless – I’m a newb and I need people to tear my work apart so that I can improve. Please, please, I beg you, be as harsh as you possibly can. Thanks.

… Which I would have done, if his pictures were actually bad. Luckily, they aren’t. Without any further ado…

Isaac’s first photo has is titled ‘arms’:

At first, I wasn’t quite sure what to feel about this photo. It’s terribly messy, and you can’t actually see anything of what is going on. I’m also not a big fan of the photographer being reflected in the camera, on a general basis. In this one, however, the expression of the photo comes together in a wonderful way.

To me, it seems as if this photo is taken in a changing room. The girls are performers, preparing to go on stage, perhaps. The girl on the left is showing a slightly worried expression, and is looking at the photographer through her hand in the mirror, while the other model is completely obscured in what seems like a dancer’s pose. Is she snapping her fingers? Is she fixing her hair?

The tension in this photo — and much of its soul — comes from the tension in the photograph. The photographer is intruding into a world where he doesn’t belong, and the way the models obscure their own face almost seems as a defensive gesture, even though the body language of both girls are very open.

Along with the tension and the colour repetition (there is only one accent colour, and it’s pink. It’s reflected in the light source, on the photographer’s shirt, in the left girl’s hair band and the right girl’s top), the thing that intrigues me about this photo is that you can follow the path of the light. Take the left model, for example, you can see her head, then her head in the mirror. You can then follow the light beam through the hand which is obscuring her face, which you can also see in the mirror, and then into the photographic lens. As a photographer, this multi-layered self-referential image is very appealing and exciting to me.

On a technical level, I would probably have tidied the image up a little bit. Darken the background more, black out the writing (on the mirror? On the photographer’s shirt?), and get rid of everything to the left of the left model, and to the right of the right model. Once that has been done, it will increase the focus of the photograph.

The final thing which makes this image really work for me, is that if anyone has had their soul ’stolen’ in this image, it’s the photographer himself. The models are obscured, and the only person who you can connect with (despite the camera stuck in front of his face), is the person taking the photo.

A powerful, cheeky, and inventive photo indeed.

In Isaac’s second photo, entitled Mika, he’s using a different set of techniques:

In a way, I really wanted to read a lot of meaning into this photo, but there’s something about it which doesn’t quite allow that for me. The car in itself is delightfully dilapidated, and the dirt, decay and entropy it and the background represents makes a fantastic backdrop for telling a story.

The model is beautiful, and very well captured on your behalf. The problem I have with the image, however, is that she just doesn’t look quite right in her circumstances. The way she is dressed and posed gives the photo an impression of ‘look! an old car! let’s take a picture on it’. If she was dressed differently, there would have been an opportunity for a whole series of different stories worth telling. Dressed very beautifully and glamorously, it could be a story of being lost / being out of ones element. With more frizzy hair, perhaps a scruffy, stained t-shirt, and with dirty, bare feet, it could be a story of despair, loss, and hopelessness. Open the bonnet and make her a spanner monkey, with some creative lighting and perhaps with a streak of oil on her cheek, and you have a classic ’sassy mechanic’ shot. Sat in the car, perhaps in a bikini, or even nude, it’s a different story again.

I think this photo is an excellent counter-example of the above. All the elements are there: The model is attractive and sultry, the background looks bloody amazing and is well cropped, and the lighting is quite beautiful. However, you haven’t captured the ’soul’ of the photo, and we’re left with an image that, whilst interesting to look at and quite pretty, doesn’t move me at all.

That doesn’t meant that the photo is beyond saving, of course — technically, it’s close to perfect (the only thing I’d address is the lighter area in the top right of the image. Getting someone to stand in the way of the sunlight, setting up a screen, or just cropping / editing it out in Photoshop would take care of that), and as I say, both the model and the setting have a lot of potential.

… Which semi-elegantly leads me to the last image of today’s critique. Another photo of Mika:

This photo fills me with wonder. What’s going on? Why is she stood in the sunshine in front of a half-pointed wall? Her eyes are kind of closed. Is she tired? Is she reacting to the sun? Is she on drugs? She does look sort of suspicious. Is she trying to hide from something or someone? Is she suspicious herself, of does she mistrust the photographer? Is she angry at the photographer?

With an initial impression like that, you’re bound to catch the attention of onlookers, which is a great start in the battle towards getting a photo noticed.

On a technical level, I think I’m not too fond of the sharp side-light. The shadow of her eyelashes on her nose is not particularly flattering, and while it does look as if you’ve used a reflector to lighten up the ‘dark’ side of her face (did you? Or is it merely light reflected back off the wall? It doesn’t look as if there is enough wall surface for that amount of light reflection), it isn’t quite enough. The main thing I have a problem with from a technical point of view, is that even in this photo, it’s possible to see that the model has absolutely gorgeous eyes. We want to be able to see them properly! A fill-flash would definitely have come in handy here. While you’re at it, perhaps a little bit more light on the wall behind the model as well — the sharp contrast between the white and the light olive colours carry this image — use it!

Right, with all that out of the way, let me say that this image is bloody good. Just like the first image, it harbours a lot of emotion and it tells (or rather, hides) a story. The light is low on the horizon, which to me says ‘evening’ or ‘morning’. Based on the make-up, I want to think evening. Or is it morning? Is her tiredness because she’s been out all night? But she doesn’t sweaty or messy enough to be out all night…

Obviously, I haven’t got the faintest idea who the model is, nor what her relationship to the photographer is, nor what her personality is like. Conflicting images of misspent youth, worry, intelligence, drug abuse, perhaps. Whatever it is, this photo oozes feeling, emotion, and — yes — soul.

Right, I do realise that this is the least useful critique I’ve done on here in a long time. There’s just something that really works in this image, and it drives me spare that I can’t put my finger on what it is. I have an idea I’ll come back to this image many times in the future, and every time, I’ll be left wondering. It’s a sign of unbridled greatness. Sort out the technical details, and you’re on to a proper winner. Thank you so much for sharing this.

Can anybody else add anything to the critiques? Do you agree? Not sure? Do you completely disagree? Well that’s what the comments are for.

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Doing a photo critique

Haje Jan Kamps — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 00:40:14 +0000

I’ve spent a lot of my days critiqueing stuff. Back in the days, when I did a lot of writing, I went to Folkehøgskole. (kind of like an artistic boarding school where you faff about for a year while you decide what to do with your life. As far as I know, it’s a Scandiwegian concept — I’ve written more about the folkehøgskole over on Everything2.com). Part of the school idea was to give each other feed-back on writings done in class.

Giving feed-back on something is really easy. Giving useful feedback on a subjective matter — such as photography — is, in fact, extremely difficult. That’s why I’ve created sort of a check-list with some tips as to how I like to do critiques.

Photo: Valencia by Photocritic.org, on Flickr

The first question you have to consider is this: “Why are you doing a photo critique?”. After all, by the time you’re doing the critique, the photo has been taken. It might be hours, days, even months or years since the photo was taken. Perhaps it was taken abroad, or in a situation where the photographer will never be again. In other words, it is important to remember that a photo critique isn’t about a single photo: it’s about how a photographer can develop as a snapper, both technically and artistically.

“I like this photo, the contrast is cool” means nothing to the photographer, it only means that you like this particular photo, and that you feel that contrast is a good thing. “I like this photo, because it shows you’ve thought about the lighting, and the increased contrast adds to the overall impression of the amount of time you’ve put into lighting this item”, for example, would encourage the photographer to continue putting more work into their lighting. They’re on the right track.

So, when you’re writing a photo critique, try to break away from the single photograph, and try to take a wider approach to the way you look at photos by a particular photographer.

Also remember that there’s no right or wrong in photography. Gross technical errors (vast exposure problems, for example) can be universally wrong, but artistic considerations are not universal. Personally, I have a strong affinity for tightly cropped black and white photos. I have a friend who loves to do landscapes in colour, and I find it really difficult to give him useful critiques, because it’s not my style of photography…

Finally, if you’re the photographer getting critique, don’t get defensive. If fact, just shut the hell up. Getting people to talk to you about your photos is a rare opportunity, so don’t waste it. Let people talk (even if you think they’re full of shit), it’s their opinion, and your target audience should be important to you. Let them rant, and if you really have to, defend yourself afterward, once it’s all finished. Although — honestly — if you feel you have to defend yourself, you might want to take a step back and consider why :-)

Photo: Valencia II by Photocritic.org, on Flickr

Right, so how can you do a photo critique?

1) Look

First of all, take a close look at the photograph. Let your eyes scan it closely: Make sure that you’ve caught every possible detail of the photo. If something jumps out at you as being really good or really bad, note it, but don’t say anything

2) Interpretation

Now, talk about the photo for a little bit. This is the thing that is most frequently overlooked when doing critiques, but is actually one of the most useful things you can do to a photographer. For the interpretation, start off by saying “When I look at this photo, I feel…”. Explain what sort of emotional response the photo raises in you. Follow up with “I think this photo is about…”. Any symbolism you spot, tell the photographer. If you aren’t sure, let them know that.

3) Technical points

The next thing to take care of, is the technical points. Is the photograph technically okay? Did you spot dust, is the exposure okay, is there any unwanted blur (wrong focus, motion blur, zoom blur etc)? Are the colours accurately represented? What’s the contrast like? Could the photographer have used lighting differently? Would a bigger or smaller aperture have been beneficial?

4) Artistic points

What do you think about the crop and aspect ratio? If the photo is in black and white, should it have been in colour and vice-versa? Is there a good balance between the foreground and the background? Would the photo have worked better with a different prop / model?

5) Good points

This is where you point out what you like about the photograph, and why. The why bit is most important: If you can’t tell why you like X, Y, or Z, there’s no point in mentioning it. “I like the sky” is useless. “I like the colour of the sky” is better. “I like the deep blue colour of the sky because it contrasts nicely with the yellows and reds in the photo” is perfect. Put some thought into this.

6) Points worth improving

This point is saved for last, because you’ve made the photographer more confident about their photograph by now. It is still important to remember that the photo has been taken, and that this photo can’t really be changed anymore. As such, there’s no point in slating people for their photographs. Tell them one or two specific points that could be improved on this particular photo (‘clean up dust’ and ‘turn into black and white’ are useful suggestions, as they can done in the darkroom), and perhaps one or two points that you would have done differently, if you were the one taking the photograph.

Photo: Orange tree in Valencia by Photocritic.org on Flickr

7) Overall

How did this photo appear to you overall?

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Rediscovering black and white

Haje Jan Kamps — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 09:38:42 +0000

In our newest instalment of the photo critique series, I’m taking a look at a series of black and white photographs taken by Kevin Bost. In the process, I’ll be exploring why Black and White photography still has a valid place in today’s colourful society…

Black and white photography...

Black and white photography is very much the cradle of photography: Before colour, there was black and white. Before that, there was paint brushes and paint. Many photographers saw the introduction of colour photography as the death of black and white, but they were wrong: In fact, even today, a lot of photographers work largely — even exclusively — in monochrome. Why?

To me, black and white has an amazing quality to it — Seeing something in monochrome allows you to give it a detachment from reality.

Seen at its very simplest, any photograph has four elements: shape, texture, lighting, and colour. Think about a tennis ball: The basic shape is round. The texture is fuzzy and hairy. The colour will often be yellow, and lighting will determine how you perceive it all. The interesting thing is that of all of these qualities, you can’t strip many of them away: You can ignore the shape by getting in close enough to focus on the texture (using macro to capture the small hairs on the tennis ball, for example). You can ignore the texture by getting far enough away that the texture doesn’t matter, or by adding a motion blur (a spinning tennis-ball photographed with a long enough shutter time will have no texture). Without lighting, you wouldn’t be able to see the ball at all.

Colour falls in a completely different category: By stripping it out of your photography, the other qualities of a photograph — especially textures, which often are drowned out by colours — become more apparent. Stripping away colour, then, abstracts yet familiarises a photograph.

Going to Kevin’s first photograph is a phenomenal way of illustrating how textures suddenly become vastly more important. The reason why this photo appeals to me is the way the asphalt on the road springs out at you. The lovely contrast in the top-right of the image, combined with the relatively lower contrast in the rest of the photo adds a touch of drama.

To me, this appears to be a photograph commenting on aspects of mental health: The deep black of the trees contrasting against the blown-out highlights on the horizon. The way the photographer takes up a significant part of the photo without really being visible. I don’t know the photographer, and I don’t know how accurate my interpretation might be.

While the general principe of the photo is exciting to me (I loved the angled composition), it does have some serious flaws. I wouldn’t have minded the vastly blown-out horizon so much — it’s one of the charms about black and white photography, that strong contrast and even going outside the dynamic range of your film / imaging sensor / printing paper can look damn hot — but the building and the plants along the road on the left side are a bit peculiarly exposed. The old adage of exposing for the highlights and developing for the shadows (as discussed in an earlier photo critique) would have come in handy here, as it would have allowed you more data to work with, so you can either keep the telegraph poles on the horizon, or so you can edit them out successfully in Photoshop.

If I personally had taken this photo, I would have gone back with a tripod and had a shot at turning it into a High Dynamic Range photograph, just to have some more data to work with to help it along.

Kevin’s second photo had me a little bit baffled. Mostly, I just can’t figure out what’s going on here. Sure, it’s some guy driving a car in the rain, but what intrigues me is the hand. The thing around the wrist — is that a hospital tag? What is the liquid on the driver’s hand? That looks a lit like it could be blood. Is it a doctor, on their way to an emergency? Is the heart-shaped item on the dashboard a radiogram? Is the guy about to be a father?

It is a really simple photo, which interestingly enough draws its focus, yet again, from its wild and varied contrast. The sky is completely blown out. The dashboard is pure darkness. And the hand is the only part of the photo that stands out as being ‘correctly’ exposed. A very fascinating photo that raises a ton of questions.

The real question, though: If I hadn’t done a critique of this photo, would I even have looked at it a second time? Probably not: it’s a guy in a car. I would never have noticed the heart, the armband or the blood(?) on his hand. Personally, I think this would have been a better photo if the background had been a lot calmer. A long, open motorway, perhaps, or a forest, or even a hospital in the background… Anything to stop you from looking out of the wind shield, wondering what you’re supposed to be looking at.

Of all the photos Kevin sent to me, this is by far my favourite, and it also rather clearly embodies what I feel black and white photography is about. The photo comes across as an impressionistic piece, in that his toes are in a blur (is it because he’s in a river, and the refractions work as a motion blur? Maybe…). The torn trousers and the fluid motion of the water bring holiday-type-thoughts to my mind. While this photo might have a lot less of a message than, say, the previous photograph, it is a much more appealing photo to me, visually. This photograph wouldn’t be out of place in a trendy restaurant or an edgy art gallery: It’s obviously not a snapshot of someone’s feet: Deliberation, planning, and exquisite exposure comes together to create a powerful visual image.

In addition, it’s worth noting that this photo doesn’t look as if colour would have added much to it: It’s all about the motion and texture.

On a personal level, I would probably have treated the photograph to a slight re-crop. It’s a personal preference thing, which doesn’t necessarily add much to the photo the way the photographer intended, but I’m very much a ‘get into the action’ kind of guy: In artistic photos, I find you often don’t need the context that is added to a photo. As such, with a bit of re-cropping, I landed at this:

So, why should people still bother with black and white in the digital age? Well, in many ways, black and white photography has become easier than ever. By using the digital darkroom (and especially by using the channel mixer to turn a colour photo into monochrome), you get a lot more influence and control over how your photograph is rendered.

That, and what is there not to love about monochromatic art? If it was good enough for Ansel Adams, it’s good enough for me…

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Think of photos as paintings

Haje Jan Kamps — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 00:00:50 +0000

There’s a lot to be said for how the accessibility of affordable digital cameras has improved the level of photography overall, and I’m strongly in favour of the idea that digital photography is a good thing.

The downside of digital photography is that we are seeing a whole generation of people who never saw a frame of film as something precious. There are thousands upon thousands of photographers out there who only started thinking about photography when they weren’t limited to 24 or 36 frames before bringing the film to the local shop, and then wait for hours for the results.

Waiting for 2 days for a letter to arrive? Rubbish — Use e-mail! Looking up something in an encyclopedia? Bollocks to that — throw yourself at Google, and you’ll have an answer in seconds. You don’t even have to know the alphabet or be able to spell the word you’re looking for anymore.

The same thing is happening to photography, and it’s happening fast. In a way, it is sad. I remember when I started out taking photos. I was given a 24 exposure film, and it had to last me a month, because I couldn’t afford to buy, develop, and print more than a single roll of film per month. Digital cameras didn’t exist, computers weren’t powerful enough to do even the simplest image editing, and learning of your own mistakes was a terribly long-winded process.

Everything is different now, and it is difficult to say if it is better or worse. I’m guilty of it myself: Instead of planning carefully, measuring light properly, framing everything perfectly, I snap 20 photos to get the light right, 15 more to get the framing right, and a few test shots for good measure.

All in all, it took a painter with a photo camera to remind me what I am doing wrong with photography.

As part of my Photo Critique sessions, I received an e-mail from Kate Ferris, who lives in Scotland. She’s special in the fact that she doesn’t classify herself as a photographer. In fact, she’s an artist first and foremost, and uses photography almost as a tool to help her along. I don’t know if her workflow is meticulous and slow or quick, measured, and precise, but whatever she is doing, it’s showing in the her photographs.

As she says: “I take photos as paintings”, and I think it is a philosophy that is worth exploring further…

Photographic impressionism

Kate submitted 4 photos for critique, and for the first time in Photocritic history, I’m going to use them all in the critique. The first photo is by far the least good of the lot, but it is being let down on technical grounds rather than on the idea. Titled “Inside looking Out”, it is a photo of an urban scene photographed through a window. The neon yellow near the bottom of the photo looks as if it could be a police officer. The yellow reflections in the window make me think that perhaps the photograph was taken from a bus, and the absolutely ridiculous amount of grain evident in the photo tells me that she was really pushing her camera to the max. It’s probably the only way to capture this photo — especially if it was taken on a moving bus — but the neon, combined with the red light towards the right side of the photograph (a brake light? A stop light) and the more yellow light above it appeals to me.

The great thing about this photo is that it would be easy to re-create, and easy to get it right. The effect is created by streams upon streams of water cascading down the window, and the tasty bits of the image are due to the reflected light. So — grab some lanterns, and re-create the photo in your front garden. Different color lights in the lanterns. Camera on a tripod at a low ISO (100 would be great). Get the water hose out to get the window properly streaming with water. And start experimenting. This photograph is impressionism at its finest.

You can’t see anything of what is going on, and yet it is appealing on a level I can’t quite grasp myself. This photo is rubbish — but the idea behind it is fantastic, and all it needs is some more experimentation, a little more planning and a bit less grain.

Photographic realism

The next step on the arts ladder in our adventure in photography is realism. You know those paintings you see in museums where the scene looks as if it could be real, but then doesn’t quite work out? I recently went to Edward Hopper’s exhibition at the Tate in London, and found his works to be downright unsettling. With every photo, there would be something subtly wrong, which upset my photographer’s eye for a picture. Eventually, I worked it out: It’s the lighting. Shadows are missing. Shades are going the wrong way. The most important parts of the images don’t have any highlights on them.

The second photo in this critique invokes that very same feeling on me. I have no idea what I am looking at here — it looks like copper nailed to a wall, perhaps in an old museum or a theatre — but that is not important. The strong, but interrupted vertical lines, along with the unidentifiable object to the left, and the strongly contrasting colours on the right really appeal to me, somehow. It is quite obviously the case of spotting something which appealed to Kate, which she set out to capture. Again, the grain is rampant in this photo (and the particular way the grain manifests itself indicates that this photo is a victim of heavy increases in contrast in Photoshop), and the photograph would have been far better if it had been a more pure representation of the scene, but the idea behind the photo is great. Kate, if you can, go back to the same place, bring a tripod, and try again. I love how you’re thinking, it’s just the execution that’s letting you down.

Photographic Expressionism

Taking a leap of faith into yet another photographic period. The third of Kate’s photos is a bound into expressionism. Moving away from the documentary sphere and into the realm of emotions, the expressionists bend reality to illustrate a frame of mind. To me, this photograph, obviously taken on a beach somewhere, very strongly invokes the feeling of just that. The only frame of reference is a very small speck of sand that isn’t blurry. The rest of the image is a wild mixture of motion, turmoil, and very strong contrast.

Is it a technically perfect photo? Far from it — the foam on the wave is over-exposed, the darker areas of the foam have a very odd blue tinge to them, and I wish a little more of the sand had been stationary and in sharp focus. Having said that, this photo succeeds where many other entries to my photo critique completely fail: It’s illustrating an emotion and has a message. More than that, the photographer saw something that nobody else saw, and decided to try to express it in a way that would show it to casual observers: By capturing it as a photograph.

De Stijl

The last photo from Kate is a lot more conventional than the others, but is also the most technically accomplished. The sharpness is spot-on, the exposure is fine, and the colours have a subtle vibrancy in their own right. The-unhurried simplicity of the ropes hanging in the water is an image of deep, heart-felt tranquility.

I know I’m probably pushing the comparison a bit far, but if I were to compare this photograph to a photographic style, it would have to be De Stijl. The most famous Stijlist — Piet Mondrian — became famous for the forced simplicity in his art works as he introduced a strict minimalism and what he saw as a level of order and harmony beyond what common humans could achieve normally. This photograph is rather close to that ideal: Dark colours, prime colours, simplicity and tranquility united in a photograph that would have looked marvellous on my living room wall. Why? Because anybody could have taken it, but one person took the time to capture it for all to see.

Have you completely lost your mind?

Well, probably. The thing is, I’m a little surprised myself at how moved I am by these photographs. Normally, I’m the first to point out the technical flaws in a photo.

There’s a moral to this story, though, and that is that there is a name for people who take perfectly exposed, impeccably focused and faultlessly framed photos every single time: Technicians.

If I were a photography teacher, I’d take on a visionary student without the technical skills over a technically perfect photographer who lacks the imagination. Every time.

So, if you learn one thing from this critique, let it be this: Take a closer look at painters, illustrators, and other artists of times gone by — visit a gallery or two, and stop to think why their art works. Then take as much time as you need to re-create some of it as photography. Trust me, there’s greatness on that path.

Let’s all try it: The 5 shot challenge.

Finally, I have a challenge for you. Take out your digital camera, and go for a walk outside. On your entire walk, you are only allowed to take 5 photographs, and they have to be of 5 different scenes. If you screw up a photo for any reason, you have lost that scene, and are not allowed to try again.

Think of photography as painting. Be meticulous. Be precise. Spend a lot of time looking through the viewfinder. When you’re sure everything is perfect, pull the trigger.

If you try this, I’d love to see the results — post them in a Flickr gallery or on your blog or something, and post a link to it in the comments to this post.

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Using Shallow depth of field

Haje Jan Kamps — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 00:00:20 +0000

So, you’ve got your exposures down pat, and your framing is getting better by the day. Excellent. What is next? Well, the lovely Andrew Ferguson, who I know via LiveJournal, submitted a couple of photos for critique that illustrate the next logical step forward: Using shallow depth of field in a creative context.

The first hurdle for many photographers is to get stuff in focus in the first place. The next hurdle is to get the things you want to be out of focus, err, out of focus. Awesome. So how do you go about doing that? Well, let’s learn from Andrew:

This photo, which he asked me to take from his overall rather nifty Flickr stream, serves as an excellent example of how you can use DOF to create a multi-layered image.

The eye is automatically drawn to the parts of the photo that are correctly exposed and in focus, whereas the over-exposed background, which is blurry to boot, gets less attention. If this image had been pin-prick sharp all the way, it would not have had any impact whatsoever: The messyness of the people in the background would have seriously detracted from the overall impression of the photograph.

As it stands, I have no idea what the item of jewelry is, or if it means anything. Quite apart from that, the choker the person in the foreground is wearing is vicious-looking, and her black dreaded hair strengthens the impression of a person who has embraced the ‘goth’ lifestyle.

The foreground is rather strongly contrasted with the background, in that it is a very unusual portrait, which can in fact be interpreted in several ways. The two that sprang to mind:

1) The phrase ’show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are’ springs to mind with this photo: Instead of showing a full-on portrait of the person who is in focus, the photographer chooses to express her personality through that of her friends, despite the fact that the friends are out of focus.

2) This person is ostracised from her group, and her alternative clothing style, her going-against-the-grain type personality and what comes across as a strong personality is rebelling, but she is paying the prize in the form of loneliness.

If the people in the background had been in school uniforms, or otherwise ‘conformist’ clothing, I would have leaned towards option 2. I believe that this would have made a stronger photograph on an emotional level, too. However, one of the people in the background has blue hair, and the guy standing up seems to have blond dread-locks, which leads me to conclude the 1st explanation.

Obviously, this photograph has a lot going for it in terms of ’showing a little, hiding a lot’, with multiple possible explanations. It is one of the things I quite like about it, but what really makes this image is how it goes about creating this illusion: By using a very large aperture (f/5.6 at ISO 200 and 24mm focal length, in the case of this photograph), there is only very little of the image that is actually in focus: The foreground model’s jewelry and the far-most locks of hair.

In the beginning of this critique, I explained how this image could easily have been completely rubbish, but I hope that the long-ish monologue (which really wasn’t meant to be quite that long, honest) serves to illustrate how the limited DOF has helped pull this image up. It isn’t perfect — If it were, I would have been able to come up with a more consistent story as to what is going on in this image, and why the people in the background are relevant — but it’s a very fine photograph because it allows the viewer to spend some time thinking, making up his/her mind.

If I were to come up with any ways to improve this image, it would be to use different people in the background, perhaps dressed as jocks, nazis, or even as circus clowns. The point is that they need to serve as either a connection or a contrast, and at present they are too similar, yet too different to offer an unified message in the photo.

Bokeh

Shallow DOF and bokeh go hand-in-hand as two rather important concepts in photography, and it is something that is worth keeping in mind when you are working with limited depth of field: The type and quality of the lens you are working with has impact on how the out-of-focus parts of your image look. In Andrew’s photo above, the out-of-focus elements of the image are works of impressionistic art in themselves (See the crop to the left, for example).

Because of the beautiful out-of-focus qualities, this image works well. If you experiment with the same, but discover that your out-of-focus backgrounds don’t look as expected, try it with one of your other lenses. If you have any cheap lenses, try with them as well – I have a couple of no-brand, cheap-as-chips lenses that are nigh-on useless for any quality photography, but I keep them around beccause they have tremendous qualities for shallow depth of field photography.

The only real way to find out which lenses work and which ones don’t is to experiment, so have a go!

Andrew’s second photograph is this one, of an old motorbike:

… Which I’m not going to say a lot about, other than the fact that it is – yet again – an excellent example of careful use of depth of field.

The photo was taken with a Canon Digital Rebel XT and a moody old 24-105 EF lens at 50mm, 1/250 sec, f/4.0 at ISO 400, and I really enjoy what the increased grain at ISO 400 brings to the photograph. With these kind of lighting conditions, you could easily have shot it at 1/125 ISO 200, or 1/60 ISO 100, but the trade-off of faster shutter time and increased grain works very well, perhaps especially because it’s such a gritty topic of photography.

As a personal preference type thing (i.e lots of people would disagree with me), I think the photograph is too bottom-heavy. The sticker on the fork of the bike is disturbing, and while the dirty, oily rag over the bike, combined with the indicator and the reflector of similar, yet different shades of orange really lift the photo, I think there’s too much going on, and too little of a focal point. I like how you’ve used the rule of thirds in the composition of this photo, and it is fine just the way it is.

Because this is my photo critique, however, and because I can’t let a photo stand without a few suggestions for improvement, I’ll go in line with my usual demands: I would have loved this photo to be a lot tighter, and higher impact.

A humble re-crop suggests the following, for example:

This version uses a different approach to the rule of thirds: it breaks the image by using diagonals. The rain-cover is the only things that stands out in the image because it is teh only thing that is straight down. Everything else is at a diagonal: The rain grid in the background, the boke itself, the outline of the rain cover on the left side, etc. As I say, it’s very much a taste thing, and I would most certainly not insist on an approach such as this one, but I feel that the re-crop also highlights the strength of the original photo – the tack-sharp focus on the bike itself, and the out-of focus-ness of the background.

Finally, the out-of-focus areas on the last photo here shows how much of a difference a different lens can have: The small stones in the asphalt and the slats in the rain grid in the background are not particularly aesthetically pleasing in their own right. Everything else being equal, this photo would have looked rather differently if you had taken it with the same lens as the one you used for the first image.

So, what’s the lesson to take home from this critique? Use a limited DOF to offset your foregrounds effectively, but beware of how different lenses can make the background highlights (‘Bokeh’) look very different from each other. Finally, remember that expensive lenses don’t necessarily have a more pleasing out-of-focus experience.

Andrew, thanks for sharing your photos, and good luck with your future photography!

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Expose for the highlights…

Haje Jan Kamps — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 09:00:00 +0000

Today’s topic came about after I was sent some fabulous images from Ben Darfler, as part of our photo critique series. He sent me four excellent photos, and I picked two that illustrate a common theme: How to expose a photo correctly.

You would think that exposing a photograph correctly would be easy – you just point the camera at what you want to take a picture of, and let the machinery take over from there, right? Well, most of the time, that will give pretty good results, but if you have ambitions of developing as a photographer, manual exposure is where it’s at.

The way you choose your exposure is one of the biggest differences between film and digital photography. When photographing with film, you want your shadows to be drawn as well as possible; because of this, my high-school photography teacher would drone on about “Expose for the shadows; develop for the highlights.” Well, digital changed all that…

Perhaps surprisingly, a digital imaging chip works much like slide film does: The more an area is exposed, the brighter it gets. Up to a point. Beyond this point, you get ‘burnt out’ images, where a larger area of the image is pure white. This is because your film is beyond its dynamic range. If you think of a film as a continuous light-meter gauge, (which it is, essentially), ‘burn out’ is where the light meter has gone off the scale: If you are putting water into a 1 litre measuring jug, and the jug is full, it will still read ‘1 litre’, even if your entire kitchen floor is full of water.

Which brings us to the first picture:

Thanks for submitting it, Ben! Right, in this photo, we have an awful lot of interesting things going on. The unusual shape of that rock, combined with the gnarly trees, the interesting sunlight, and the stream at the bottom are all competing for attention. My first advice, then, would be to tighten up the focus of your image. What was it that intrigued you about this particular scene? Why did you decide to take the photo? That is what you need to decide on, and that’s where your focus needs to be.

Composition

Personally, the barren-ness and the alien landscape appeals to me, while the evergreen(?) trees in the background draw my attention away from these particular aspects. Perhaps you could take about five steps to the left of where you were standing, and eliminate the green from the image that way?

The second thing you could consider is if your cropping makes sense. There’s an awful lot of space at the top and bottom of this image that doesn’t tell a story. Why is it there? Walk, or zoom, in closer to get rid of it, or just chop it off in Photoshop. I’m all for negative space, so in this particular photo, I’d probably go for a square frame – like the crop shown to the right.

Sharpening

A little side note: When taking a closer look at your photo, I see that it’s sharpened quite a lot – either in-camera or with image editing software – to the point that it is actually quite disturbing to the overall image. You can see this has been done by the white ‘halo’ around the barren trees in the background.

Exposure / burned out highlights

The biggest problem in the photo is that you are plagued with serious burn-out on the rock, which detracts from the overall photo. This is a technical issue, not necessarily a creative one. If this image was in the beginning of your portfolio, and I were an art director or a gallery director, I’d close the portfolio right there and then, and send you on your way, instantly losing interest.

It’s a typical beginner’s mistake, and that’s why I’m happy you decided to submit this photo, because now I have an excuse to explain how you can avoid it!

What you are looking at in the white areas, is the ‘burn out’ I started talking about in the beginning of this post. You can actually see it digitally too: Open up your photo in Photoshop, and choose “Levels” from the Image – Adjustments menu. You should see a curve which looks a lot like the one seen to the right of this paragraph.

Discovering overexposure

The Levels tool shows a graph of the presence of the brightness of the pixels in your photo. Left is perfect, pitch black, and right is complete, perfect white. As you can see from the graph, you haven’t got a single perfect black pixel, and a sharp spike to the far right of the graph. This indicates that quite a few pixels are ‘off the chart’ – which is why you can see the white stuff in your final image.

Many cameras have built-in histograms (that’s what that graph is called – on Canon cameras, click the ‘info’ button a few times, I’m sure Nikons have the same function), so you can inspect the tonal values of your photos in the field.

Avoiding overexposure

So, now that you know what the problem is and how to spot that something has gone wrong, how do you avoid it? The answer is in the title of this post: Expose for the highlights. In your case, I can’t tell from the photo what shutter time and aperture you used. The solution is simple: You should have used a faster shutter time, or a smaller aperture (ie. a larger aperture number). This makes the whole photo darker, which means that you capture more detail in the highlights. As you can see from your graph, however, you have no ‘black’ pixels, so no harm would have come from exposing the image a little less.

If you prefer to shoot fully automatic, you can force the camera to take a light metering from the lighter areas of the frame by aiming your camera at the lighter area, pressing the Exposure Lock button (marked with a star on Canon cameras, with EL or AE on some other cameras), then framing your image, and finally clicking the shutter to take the photo.

If you don’t wish to do that, you can use EV compensation to force your camera to underexpose, you can use AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing) to hedge your bets on getting the right exposure, or – the most recommended option – you can just use manual exposure settings, check the result, and adjust accordingly.

Now that you have exposed for the highlights, you can use the Levels tool discussed earlier to bring out the detail in the shadow parties of your photos. You’ll be amazed how much detail is hidden there: Just open a few of your photos and play with all three of the sliders. The leftmost black point slider discards dark tone information from an image, the rightmost white point slider discards light tone information, and the middle mid point slider can be used to induce a bias towards bright or dark photos. For an excellent tutorial on what the Levels tool is and what it does, check out this tutorial over on the Cambridge in Colour site.

Can the photo be saved?

For your particular photo, I don’t think there is a lot of hope of ’saving’ it… Or is there? I had a play around with it. I turned it into Black and White (using the channel mixer), and increased the contrast ridiculously (by pulling the black point and white point sliders towards the middle of the histogram) – as seen to the right. It isn’t a great solution, but the result is striking, if nothing else.

Try a polarizer

Finally, in this photo, it appears that the highlights are, in fact, sunlight reflected of a moist surface. If I were you, I would have tried using a polarizer filter (more about those on the Luminous Landscape website) to see if you can filter out the reflections. If this would have been possible, you could have gotten away with this photo with similar brightness levels, whilst avoiding much of the reflected sunlight.

Learn more…

If you want to learn more about exposure, you’ll want to have a look at the Zone System (try Norman Koren’s website, or Wikipedia) – it is a tried and tested system explaining all of this in great detail.

Ben’s 2nd picture:

Ben, your second picture is – rather obviously – a drastic departure from your first shot. It has a limited depth of field, which leads the leaves and the branches in the background to be out of focus. This helps the foreground leaves get pulled in as the natural biewing points in the image – a very cool effect indeed.

I love the near-perfect chronographic opposition between the blue background and the orange leaves (open your image in photoshop, then invert the colours of the photo to see what I am talking about), and the lighting is perfect. As is the exposure, the framing is interesting, and there isn’t a lot to detract from the photo itself.

There isn’t much of a message in this photo – it isn’t a love note, an emotive photo, or anything like that, which means it won’t appeal to all people. It isn’t even very original: Sure, I could go out and photograph an image exactly like this on a late summer’s day, as could any other competent photographer out there, but – and here comes the important bit – that is not the point of this photo. It is a technically perfect photo with vibrant colours. If I had taken this photo, I’d have it printed out, and hung it on my wall. It’s one to be proud of.