Once every few years we are blessed with a celestial event, a partial or total lunar eclipse. On February 20, we witnessed the last total lunar eclipse until 2010. I took advantage of the situation, and clear sky’s in southeastern Michigan to put together some cool shots of the event.

Lunar Eclipse, October 27, 2004

The last time I photographed the lunar eclipse was way back on October 27, 2004.

Last week I photographed poison dart frogs, as well as some other fascinating creatures, in anticipation of setting up a macro workshop where the subjects will be reptiles and amphibians. These frogs are intriguing. They are very beautiful and very, very small -- one of them could sit comfortably on a dime -- and it was obvious to me that I needed a flash because I'd be shooting at my smallest lens aperture, f/32, for maximum depth of field. The problem, of course, is that my 580 EX Canon flash sat too high on the camera body and the light would go over the top of the frog. Even with a specialized bracket that held the flash right above the lens, I was afraid the light wouldn't illuminate the underside of my subjects and I'd be facing serious contrast issues.

I solved the problem with a ring flash. The Canon MR-14EX has two small flash units inside the ring, and this allows you to actually create a lighting ratio. The flash output is diffused for a soft look, and the only problem I knew I'd face was a reflection in the eye from the ring of light. This would have to be touched up in Photoshop -- there was no way around it.

The photos you see below were the result of my efforts. I was very pleased with the lighting, especially considering how difficult such small subjects are to shoot with artificial light.

The macro workshop will be announced in my free newsletter that I send out every month. If you would like to sign up for this newsletter, visit my website: jimzuckerman.com and on the home page fill in your email address in the appropriate box.

When photographing cityscapes filled with distinctive modern buildings, I'm always on the look-out for strong lines and bold reflections. At the same time, beautiful late-day sunlight helps pump up colors and, in general, makes things look soooooo much more dynamic than in harsh middle-day sunlight.

For the accompanying photo, a telephoto zoom (80-200mm) let me zero in tight on this sunset light-and-color scene. I chose an upper part of the glass-walled building that had excellent diagonal lines and that was catching the evening light. I liked the key focal point too: the reflection of a neighboring warm-lit building.

Searching for graphic-design scenes keeps my shooting eye sharp, provides lots of creative fun, and even results in some satisfying images too. Now that's a combination that's hard to beat!

Note: Check out my Creative Light and Composition and Creative Close-ups online photography courses, and also BetterPhoto's digital photography school.

Light, Line & Reflections - (c) Kerry Drager
Sunset, office building, Sacramento CA; f16 @ 1/15 sec; 80-200 zoom set at 200mm; ISO 200; tripod

When I fly commercial airlines, I often have my camera at hand to capture beautiful cloud formations. I hate shooting through double plastic windows, but of course there is no choice. I have still been able to photograph a lot of useful images that serve as backgrounds
and composites for other photos in my files. The picture you see below is a combination of a statue in the Bonaventure cemetery in Savannah, Georgia with a top view of storm clouds at 35,000 feet. To enhance the color and mood of the photos, I used Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0 filters. These offer a phenomenal range of effects that can make a serious impact on your creativity.

I always enjoy getting out and looking for photos - even when I don't have a specific project or assignment in mind. It's a fun and challenging visual workout. And when a low-in-the-sky sun casts a warm glow and long shadows, then things are particularly inspiring!

On a recent photo quest, I discovered a multi-story parking structure amid a group of office buildings. It caught my attention due to its graphic-design potential - a product of architecture and beautiful late-day light. I used my telephoto zoom to zero in for a very tight composition. No sky, no ground, just a nice light-and-shadow show.

Getting out in fine light is a terrific way to escape the creativity doldrums. After all, just about everything looks better in eye-grabbing light - even parking garages!

Note: See my Creative Light and Composition and Creative Close-ups online courses, and also BetterPhoto's online photography school.

AFTER: Light-and-Shadow Pattern (c) Kerry Drager
sunset at parking garage, West Sacramento, CA - 80-200mm zoom @ 170mm; f22 @ 1/60th sec; ISO 200; Nikon D3; tripod

BEFORE: Parking Garage

I photographed this Chinook military helicopter yesterday as it flew by my house. The sky was white and very boring, so I combined various sunsets behind it until I decided to try something a little more dramatic. I had taken a remarkable explosion at an air show a couple of years ago and I thought that would make an amazing backdrop. The issue, of course, was how to cut out the chopper from the bland sky and make it look real.

Since the background was completely white, the answer was actually very easy. I copied the image of the aircraft to the clipboard (Command/Ctrl A and then Command/Ctrl C) and then pasted it on top of the photo of the explosion (Command/Ctrl V).

In the layers palette, I pulled down the blend mode submenu (where you see the word 'normal') until I found 'multiply'. When this was selected, miraculously the white sky disappeared and all I was left with was what you see here.

In my "Photoshop: Creative Techniques" here at Betterphoto, I discuss how to do techniques like this, and as part of the critique process I talk about technical know-how as well as the artistry that goes into making images with impact.

Jim

by Scott Stulberg

In my course called Stock Photography Boot Camp here at Better Photo….one of the things that I stress the most is the importance of finding people for your images. The best selling photographs at just about any stock agency worldwide usually have people in the images. These are the most sought out images from so many advertisers all over and they need people of all ethnicities and looks for their images. These images, although not always the easiest ones to capture, can produce some of the top money making images for anyone with a desire to make money from their photos.

Probably the top category for shooting people for stock is Lifestyles. Some examples of lifestyle images are of family, work, success, happiness, the future, reliability, trust, food, time, teamwork, winning, competition, money, culture, conceptual ideas, school, education, computers and so many more. It can cover so many aspects of normal everyday life and these are probably the most needed images for so many stock agencies worldwide. I love finding people that have the right look, on the street locally or especially when I travel….and I ask them if they would want to model for me. I let them know that I will pay them or give them photographs in exchange and most of the time they say they would like to. Many of my students express to me how hard it is to get up the courage to ask strangers to pose for them……but in time it gets easier.

Below are a few shots from a shoot I did a week ago on the campus of UCLA , where I also teach photography. I had met these 2 adorable Korean girls and their mother in the video store and fell in love with them. I gave them a card, they looked at my website and then called me and we set up a shoot. They were amazing to shoot and I ended up getting some great shots from the shoot that day. Many of the shots are just typical everyday kind of poses and these kinds of images do extremely well for big and small stock agencies. These are typical lifestyle situations and when you set them up…you try and make them look as realistic as possible and not too posed. You will wind up with many winners if you think of good set ups and locations.

Getting people in your viewfinder is the key to money making images if you ever want to pursue shooting stock. But don’t forget to have them sign model releases or else those images will not be worth as much as they could. Model releases are the key to stock when shooting people. And shooting photos of people of every age and nationality is the key to making real money in stock!

Last week I participated in Fotofusion, an annual event in Delray Beach, Florida sponsored by the Palm Beach Photographic Center. Many well-known photographers gather and speak on all kinds of photographic subjects from nude photography to Photoshop and from traveling with a digital camera to butterfly photography. It’s a wonderful event, and I learned a lot of things from the other instructors and I’m sure they learned from me.

On one of the early morning shoots at a nearby wetlands preserve, I photographed this anhinga drying its wings. It was a dynamic shot because the graphic design is so strong and the lighting so beautiful. I enriched the color a bit in Photoshop, but besides that it’s unaltered. The bird posed for me and held this position for at least 15 minutes, so I had plenty of time to get a perfect exposure. I shot this on shutter priority and used the evaluative meter mode. It was taken with a 500mm f/4 IS Canon lens. Canon, one of the sponsors of the event, made quite a few of the super telephoto lenses available for students to try them out, and everyone got amazing images.

As an instructor with BetterPhoto.com, I experience many questions from students regarding file management. In my Photoshop and Elements for Nature Photographers course, I recommend to my students a specific system to managing our ever-growing libraries of digital images. Most important, is the practice of keeping your original images separate from images you work with, and prepare for output.

Backgrounds are more important than many photographers realize. Distracting elements, unwanted highlights, and bold lines that are not part of the subject will pull our attention away from the important part of a photo.

For example, look at the two shots I did in India. The first one shows a sunny highlight on the plant at the left. This isn’t terrible, but it’s definitely not ideal. By changing my shooting position in the second photo, I eliminated the highlight and now nothing in the background detracts from the subject. Sometimes all it takes is a small movement to get rid of undesirable elements behind a subject, and that can make or break a picture. In my Eight Steps to More Dramatic Photography course here at Betterphoto, I have one entire lesson devoted just to backgrounds because I feel that they impact a picture so much. By paying attention to what is behind your subject, your photography will take a quantum leap forward in professionalism and artistry.

While it may be disappointing not to make the perfect image, no one ever learned a thing by being perfect. The reality is: every mistake is an opportunity...an opportunity to learn and to enhance your skills. In fact, it could almost be argued that if you don’t make mistakes, you’ll never learn, expand your horizons, and improve.

All mistakes aren't good (for example, dropping your digital camera in the ocean while out at sea), but all come with a lesson. There are mistakes you will be able to learn more and less from. There are times when the risk of mistakes will ‘cost’ more. The best mistakes are those that come with the least dreadful impact.

Looked at in the right way, the opportunity created by making a mistake is potential for learning and the true joy of pure accomplishment.

What to Do When You Make a Mistake
When you make a mistake -- whatever it is -- it isn't time to sit back and lament; it is time to sit up and take notice. It may also be a moment to congratulate yourself for trying new things and not being afraid of confronting what you don't already know.

When a mistake happens:

1. Acknowledge that something went wrong, and don’t assume it is a reflection on you (or anyone around you).
   
2. Study the consequences and understand why things went wrong.
   
3. Plan a counter action or means of avoiding the same mistake in the future.

The first is both the easiest and hardest of these steps. People like to blame themselves or someone else and distract from the sense that something merely happened. Forgo the blame as there’s nothing positive there. The next two steps are where it counts. Look at the event and what went wrong, research or ask questions about the things you don’t understand, and make a plan for avoiding the same thing happening again. You can write down your answers, and keep a notebook to keep track if it helps. All you want to do is plan to avoid making that same mistake again. The plans can be trivial or complex.

Often you’ll be tempted to lean on the advice of others that they gained from experience, and that can be a good thing by helping you avoid making terrible blunders. As long as you digest the suggestions and lessons it helps; it helps less so if you take anyone’s word for granted. Practice what you read in tutorials, lessons and books before you assume you really understand it. And when you practice allow yourself to explore at the fringes where things might just go wrong and that’s where you’ll learn.

Summarizing Mistakes?
Mistakes can come in shooting, in choosing a lens, in working with or against the light, in shooting too few frames, choosing the wrong exposure. You'll see them in bad choices for tools you use in Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements). Don’t be afraid of making the mistakes, of posting them to your gallery, of showing them to people who might help let you know what went wrong or offer opinions. That is research. Opinions will vary as will solutions, and your preferences and techniques for avoiding the mistakes will expand as your experience grows. As your list of mistakes grows it is something you can wear like a scarf or badge of courage and show off in the experience you've gained. Mistakes accumulate with hard work, and experience. You make more of them as you challenge yourself with new styles, ideas and techniques. The more of them you make, the better they will make your images.

If your goal is to be a better photographer, don’t make mistakes, revel in them.

As the year comes to a close I’ve been thinking about photography generally, or the gadgets or the tricks or even the specific photographs. I’ve been thinking about what photography is. Basically it is a way to communicate. I can tell you about the condition of a spark plug or a house that is up for sale. I can also hope to say something that is basically beyond works a poetic or a Zen communication. While I think that all of us, who think of ourselves as photographers are trying to at least participate in the latter style of communication, I’d like to say a few words about the more workaday forms of photography. I find that there is something incredibly satisfying in making an image that communicates something that is both important for a client and in some way beautiful. While I often try to make visual poems I find it very special to be able to execute craft well. I enjoy the challenges of commercial photography.

Now I started in photography because I saw an Edward Weston photograph when I was in high school. Edward could make an image that communicated, not just what a thing was, but in some way, what its essence is. There have been times that I have been lucky enough to see some of that in my photographs, on a good day anyway.

I’ve been doing photography for about thirty-five years. I still find the challenges and the art compelling. I hope all of you will have a chance to practice the craft and make a few compelling images. I am attaching three images to this blog. One is a commercial image, another is an image I took a few days ago, and the third is one of my all time favorites. No prizes for guessing which is which. Have a great New Year and may your batteries last as long as you need them to.

Entry Way © John H. Siskin All rights reserved

Union Station #1, Los Angeles © John H. Siskin All rights reserved

Clouds © John H. Siskin All rights reserved

Many photographers know that the eyes are the key to a great image of people. They are the first thing most of us focus on when we view a photograph. They also can set the mood and tone for the image in the way the eyes are captured in the photograph. In my class here at BetterPhoto called Eye to Eye: Capturing the Face, I love to talk about how powerful the eyes are to great photographs of the face. One of the most important things to keep in mind is the focus……if the eyes are not critically sharp, then most viewers will not appreciate the image as much as they should. It is because are brain does not deal with soft focus very well.

Try to cross your eyes for more than a few seconds and you will see what I mean. Blurriness is not a nice feeling and that goes for photographs as well. When we are used to having things as sharp as possible in real life….then even in a two dimensional form as in a photograph, our mind wants that to be sharp too. So keep an eye on the eyes and make sure that you focus on them when photographing the face.

One other thing to keep in mind is that your subject does not always have to be looking at the camera. Most of the time, it is preferred to have the eyes looking right into the lens…but many great shots can be created with your subject looking away from the lens or even having their eyes closed. Shots like this can create a mood that otherwise cannot be conveyed with their eyes open and looking directly into the camera. In the following examples, I have some images with eyes closed and also looking away from the lens. I purposely tell my subjects to close their eyes or look away from the camera to create these images and I love the mood that it creates. Try this for yourself when you can and see what you come up with the next time you are photographing someone…..you might just surprise yourself!

I often return to the scene of previous shoots - particularly landscape or cityscape subjects that I found enticing in the past! There are a number of good reasons why I do this:

1) To stretch my creative vision - by looking for new ways to photograph "old" subjects. 2) To catch the scene in different lighting. 3) To improve upon past efforts - i.e., by fine-tuning a previous composition or by trying a different technique.

A frequent "go to" spot is a nearby country pond, and I photograph there in all types of light with all types of compositions. See the photos below. After catching a wide-angle version during a phenomenal sunset (and writing about it in a recent blog), I returned the other day for another sunset view - Sunset Reflection Close-up below. But although the colors were less vibrant and a slight breeze prevented mirror-like reflections during this followup shoot, I found a telephoto close-up image I liked. As a result, it became an enjoyable revisit to a favorite subject.

Have fun stretching your vision, and best wishes for an outstanding 2008!

Note: See my Creative Light and Composition and Creative Close-ups online courses, and also BetterPhoto's online photography program.

Sunset Reflection Close-up ... (c) Kerry Drager
at my CA country pond; f7.1 @ 1/25th sec.; ISO 200; 80-200mm zoom @200mm; tripod & cable release

Pond Wide-Angle - previous day
(c) Kerry Drager

When it comes to sunset photography, it really pays to not only be there - i.e., in a good location with camera in hand - but also to remain flexible in order to take full advantage of the outstanding light.

Late one day just down the street from California's Capitol, I had planned a wide-angle shot of the colorful sky and colorful Sacramento River reflections. But I saw how the low-in-the-sky sun was making the Tower Bridge light up in the warm glow. I then used my telephoto zoom to zero in tight on the graphic-design pattern of strong vertical and diagonal lines. And, as is often the case in late (or early) day, the shadows were all in the right place ... and the bright sunlit colors popped out in contrast.

Have fun getting out and shooting sunsets, but make sure you're ready for an unplanned visual adventure!

Note: See my Creative Light and Composition and Creative Close-ups online courses, and also BetterPhoto's online photography program.

Bridge Pattern at Sunset ... (c) Kerry Drager
Tower Bridge, Sacramento, CA; 80-200 zoom @ 200mm w/Nikon D2X; f/22 @ 1/40th sec; ISO 100; tripod w/cable release