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BarCampCHS 2010 Photo Session

Before I get into my recap about my photo editing session at BarCamp Charleston 2010, I wanted to share with you a quote from an interview I heard this morning while walking my dogs. The great Ron Bennington was talking with the legendary Quincy Jones, and Mr. Jones said something that just sent shivers down my spine. “I always wondered who was the designer of all of this stuff…. From races, to flora, to the whole universe. It’s astounding design” to which Ron responded, “It’s interesting how we all knew that when we were babies – everything was amazing, and then somehow we just forget about it”. To that Quincy Jones told Ron, “I never forget”. The man is the quintessential artist, and he summed up the reason why I ever wrote a song or made a picture. Life is amazing, and we should never forget the details of what, to quote Quincy Jones, make it so astounding.

OK, so back to yesterday’s event. I got up at an ungodly hour to go to BarCamp, but when I found out how far some people traveled to be there (a bunch of people from the far reaches of SC, NC, Georgia, and even one guy from Italy), I quickly got over my grogginess. I wish I knew this beforehand, but after we checked in we had to pitch our session ideas to an auditorium filled with attendees. I had nothing prepared, which was particularly evident when the people doing a salsa session has music and brought out dancers for their 30 second pitch! After I stumbled though mine, we all had to anxiously wait for the schedule of sessions to be made. I got stuck with the last hour of sessions of the day, which was at 5:00PM. That was cool – it gave me plenty of time to get the shots I needed for the session I was presenting.

The Photo Session:

The first person I tapped to be a model for me was a girl named Ebony, who was wearing an outfit that looked like she knew she was going to be in a photo shoot. She’s got the look of a model, but I don’t know if she actually knows that yet. When I met up with Ebony prior to the portrait session, she was talking to another girl who was wearing cat ears on her head and was appropriately named Cat. Bingo, another outgoing girl who was very photogenic! I enrolled her into my posse of tech conference models.

After I shot each of them individually, I asked them to pose for some shots together:

The girls were awesome, and as you can see in the shot at the top of this post, they were very energetic and easy to direct. Once we started and the lights were flashing while I was barking out directions, a small crowd started to gather around us. I overheard someone asking another bystander if this was an outdoor conference session on photography – I guess in a way it really was. That’s the beauty of BarCamp – there is no rigid structure, it’s all done on the fly. Even a local reporter, Andy Paras from the Post & Courier tweeted the photo shoot!

After I was done shooting Ebony & Cat, I needed at least one more victim, er, I mean model. I saw two girls standing nearby and told them what I was doing the shoot for and asked them if they would like to participate. They seemed happy to help out. Now, I didn’t want to do the same thing I did with the other two girls, but I did want to use the same location. I asked them what they were at the conference for, and they told me they were attending for art. Awesome! I pried a little deeper and found out that they are behind Charleston Art Magazine, and they had a copy of it with them. OK, we have something to work with here. I had Stacy and Olivia sit on the stairs and read their magazine.

It was looking great and then a third girl came over and wanted to join in as well. This created a problem, because for the way I wanted to position them in the shot, a shadow was being cast on the newcomer. I grabbed my other SB-600 flash and handed it to Stacy, one of the art mag girls, and told her to point it at the inside of the magazine as a flash bounce. Now we’re talking – all three girls had beautifully lit faces.

I didn’t even have to give these models much direction after that because they were having a lot of fun with the whole thing.

Developing Photos In A Digital Darkroom Session:

During my session on editing photos in a digital darkroom, I picked 3 photos from the shoot to edit. The first one I did was of Cat jumping alone. Here’s the original shot of her unedited and shot in RAW (the following originals were all converted to JPEG for the web in iPhoto):

We talked about the basic theories in editing photos. Our goal with this photo was to show the high energy of Cat. We started out by minimizing the distractions and problems. The biggest problem with this shot is my umbrella in the top corner and the bright sky just underneath it peaking through the leaves. We decided the most effective way to eliminate this problem was to crop it out. We also wanted to slightly darken the white parts of the cat ears because they were reflecting the light a lot and drawing the eye away from her expression. We then added a graduated filter to the bottom left corner because the bright foliage was pushing the eye out of the frame. We added some vignetting to further pull you into the center – the lines of the palmetto tree and the building all add to the energy and direction of her jumping, but with the vignette we are able to stop the motion from immediately leaving the top of the frame. Here’s the final edit:

BarCamp Session Portraits Cat Final Edit

Next up was a photo of Ebony on the stairs. Here’s the original (click it to enlarge it):

Once again, we needed to minimize or remove any distracting elements. In the top left corner, the pole from my umbrella crept into the frame as well as a leg from the stand on the bottom left corner. Easy stuff to miss on the 3″ LCD screen of your camera. This time a crop wouldn’t be good because we agreed that the composition was just right and we didn’t want to change it at all. So, we discussed the options, and decided to use the spot removal tool in Lightroom to remove the unwanted objects. The top one was easy as the wall was a flat surface devoid of any patterns. The bottom was a bit more difficult because on the pattern of the stones. We eyeballed it to recreate the lines of the stones with a couple of spot removal areas, and it worked out really well. After that, I wanted to demonstrate how to use the adjustment brush to whiten her teeth. The problem was, she, nor Cat, were in need of it! We went through the motions and shared a laugh when I went the wrong way on the brightness slider and turned her teeth black. After that I wanted to show everybody how to diminish the bags under her eyes, but once again, she didn’t need it. Ahh, to be young again! Again, we went through the motions and dumped the file into Photoshop and used the clone stamp tool, set to lighten, to slightly diminish the extremely minimal darkness under her eyes. Back in Lightroom, we talked about the tone curve, and used it to adjust the contrast and then used the basic panel to brighten it up and pull the saturation ever so slightly. We also talked about the name badge she had plastered on her sweater, but for the sake of time I decided it would be a bit more elaborate to remove than the stuff in the corners and we just talked about the possible ways to use Photoshop 5’s new content-aware filter to remove it. I might try that on my own on another shot of her since I really haven’t given that tool a good test drive yet. Here’s the final shot:

BarCamp Session Portraits Ebony Final Edit

For our last photo, I wanted to talk about techniques for converting to black and white. I used a shot of the Art Magazine girls for this edit. Here is the original of this shot:

First off, we got rid of that sneaky light stand leg in the bottom left corner. We used the spot removal tool, which we decided was not really appropriate this time around, but would have to do since we only had a few minutes left in the session. I also adjusted the crop to remove the windowsill at the top of the frame after trying to darken it with the paint brush tool because I also wanted to get rid of the handrail on the right. Normally, I wouldn’t convert this image to black and white because I like the color of it, but it does have some great elements for a monotone image – great lines, the awesome texture of the foliage, and the light on the girls’ faces. So, we talked about the conversion process a bit. I showed them that we could simply remove all of the saturation and vibrance to make a black and white image, or we could just click on the black and white option of the basic panel in Lightroom to open up some fine tuning options in the B&W panel. We went through adjusting the different color sliders to see the effect they had on the image. Then we discussed a third option that turned out to be what we finally used for the conversion which was exporting the image to Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro. We quickly ran through the presets and picked the “full spectrum” preset and made some minor tweaks to the contrast and structure sliders. Here is the final image:

BarCamp Session Portraits B&W Final Edit

And here’s the same image again in color, because frankly, I still like it better in color!

And with that the session ended, as did the “unconference” that is BarCamp in Charleston, SC. I was honored to be a participant in this years event and can’t wait until next year!

My Theory On Post Processing

I wanted to focus my philosophy on photo editing before I give my session on developing photos in a digital darkroom at BarCampCHS this weekend. To me it is an important element in photography that is often skipped by many. I don’t know if it is because people feel that it is too difficult or too time consuming, but since when is anything worth while easy? OK, here goes…

When I was a musician and my band recorded our first CD, we didn’t know anything about mastering. It was something that we cheaped-out on and the sound quality suffered because of our ignorance. We put all this effort into making a record, but didn’t put the right icing on the cake! Post processing is like sound mastering. You don’t need to change the product, you are just trying to enhance it – polish it up and make sure it looks the best that it can look.

This doesn’t mean you should ever shoot with the mindset that you can fix it in post. You should make the best digital negative you can in the camera. The ideal post processing situation is one that takes only minor tweaks to establish your final product. Proper exposure means a clean digital file, and good composition will yield you the highest possible resolution. These are skills that still need to be mastered, but the skill of post processing is just as important.

For my realistic editing techniques, I’m looking to make the photo pop, or stand out. The edits are subtle, and for most people they are not even noticeable, but they are very deliberate. I want to enhance a point of focus, or guide the viewer’s eye through the photo to drive home whatever point the photo is trying to make.

For more creative editing, when I’m trying to create a certain look, I start out by experimenting with different techniques while capturing the image that will allow me to successfully manipulate the file afterward to make my vision a reality. Sometimes there is a fine line between photography and digital imagery. It’s up to you how far you want to take the editing process. I sometimes will dabble in the unrealistic representation of a subject, but I would much rather leave the subject in tact and use the editing tools to further define a feeling or meaning though saturation, dodging, burning, contrast, etc. Most of the time that mood or feeling was there when I made the photo, but sometimes you want to smack the viewer over the head with it. That is completely OK, because there are no rules to this!

Lets take a look at a self portrait I made yesterday for my “No Shave November” personal project. I want to show you the original file first. I shot this in RAW (which is the file format you want to shoot in if you plan on editing your photos). RAW doesn’t show you all of the fancy in-camera optimizing magic that your camera is capable of doing when you shoot in JPEG. It’s the raw data that your camera sees. it’s a digital negative. So here’s the RAW file of my giant head from yesterday (converted to JPEG for the web in iPhoto):

I chose this photo to show you because the shooting method I used to capture it was done deliberately to capture a specific look that I wanted to realize in Lightroom. I was standing a few feet in front of a wall, and there was a wireless Nikon SB-600 flash on a stand right behind me pointing at the wall. In front of me is another SB-600 shooting into a Photek Softlighter umbrella. I shot at f/4.5 at 250th of a second and ISO 200. There was a lot of light going on. I wanted to cut the ambient light and only capture the light from the flashes, so I shot at the fastest speed possible and adjusted accordingly. Admittedly, I could have adjusted it a bit more to get an even better exposure, but doing a self portrait is a pain in the ass, so I’m happy with what I got!

I brought the photo into Lightroom and made some heavy deliberate tweaks to achieve the look I was going for. The major changes are illustrated here in the basic panel of Lightroom’s develop module:

The other panel I wanted to show with you here is the Tone Curve panel. Notice the very strong “S” curve. This is a typical high-contrast curve. The beauty of a program like Lightroom is that you can visually tweak this curve to your taste. There is no mathematical formula to this, it is purely an exercise of taste.

Also, as part of my project, I limited myself by only using a square crop, so this is my final image after I cropped it and did some other minor tweaks such as lightening my eyes and diminishing the bags under them:

As you can see, the integrity of the image itself has not changed at all, but the quality of it is much better. Sure, if I shot in JPEG, the image would look better than the RAW version I showed you straight out of the camera, but the edited version not only looks better to me than anything my camera could do for this type of shot, it also looks exactly the way I envisioned it to.

On Saturday, I plan on shooting some photos in the morning at the conference, and then I’ll walk you through the editing process for three different techniques for developing them. It should be fun and I’m excited for it – I hope you are too!

Charleston Magazine’s Last Page

I mentioned in a post last month that I had some exciting news from Charleston Magazine, and today it came through. The photo above was selected for “The Last Page” in the November issue. The Last Page is a feature that showcases artwork from a local artist.

I’m especially excited to be involved in this month’s issue because it is Charleston Magazine’s first ever music issue. Music is a big part of my life, and if it weren’t for music, I wouldn’t have met my wife or enjoy the life I have today. It inspires me most out of all of the art forms, and it’s a big part of what drives me every day. To be included in this special issue as a photographer is a real wake-up call to my ambition as an artist.

Just last night, I was watching this video from the keynote of the 2010 PDN Photo Plus Expo by Chase Jarvis. He brought out a group of creative leaders connected to the world of photography and their stories of how they got to where they are in their careers made me realize that I’ve been somewhat blindly meandering down a path that sounds very similar to these very people that I admire. At some point, I’m going to have to make a choice to either grab the bull by the horns, or sit out on the sidelines.

It’s quite a difficult thing to even consider. I like my current career, but it leaves little room for a right-brained soul like me to breathe. I got into photography as a creative outlet. I walked away from my career in music because it was becoming a job and it was losing its ability to be that outlet (and the pay sucked). I don’t want that to happen with photography. I also don’t want to think that I could have done something that I consider meaningful and let it go because I was too chickenshit to pursue it. The most depressing thought in the world is of how many great ideas, paintings, songs, or photographs weren’t released to the world because somebody didn’t have the balls to see it through.

Over the next couple of days, I’m going to explore some of the themes that drive me artistically, so please check back soon to join me on this journey.

No Shave November 2010

Sorry to scare you with my giant head there, but today is November 1st, and as my neighbor reminded me, it’s “No Shave November”. There’s a ton of Facebook fan pages for the grizzly event – I like this one.

Long story short, I’m going to be taking a self portrait of my face every day for the month and track my facial growth. I had a head start on it – the photo above is me after a weekend of avoiding the razor. You can only imagine the shag that will be there come December.

I won’t post every shot on this blog, but I did set up a Flickr set to organize all of these shots in. Taking a self-portrait everyday for any length of time is a challenge in itself, but I’m keeping myself limited to a square tight crop to minimize the variation. Won’t you join me on this journey to emulate the great Grizzly Adams?

2010 Halloween Party Guest Portraits

On Saturday night my family hosted our 3rd annual Halloween party. I wanted to share the portraits I took of the guests as they arrived. I set up an outdoor studio in our front yard and the kids (some adults too) had to get their portrait made before entering the party. The portraits are freely available to download for our guests (just click the download button above the photos in the store), and if you would like to purchase prints or gift items, you can do so right from the same page! Here is the link to view and download all of the photos: http://jwnphoto.zenfolio.com/halloween2010

Another fun activity we concocted for this year’s party was a fortune teller tent, and the perfect fortune teller was portrayed by our beloved friend Mira, who did an amazing job. Just look at her in action:

We can’t say enough thanks to all of the parents who pitched in and helped during the big party. We can’t wait to do it again next year!

Coastal Carolina Fair 2010

So, I’ve been talking a lot about this photowalk in the past week and it has finally come and gone. I spent a total of four hours watching, listening, smelling, tasting, and shooting the fair this year. I left the family at home because I didn’t want to hold them back with all of my lallygagging, but we will be going back again as a family in the coming week to let the kids be kids.

The first thing I did when I arrived was head over to the Photography/Fine Arts Building to look at the work that was submitted for the photo contest. I talked briefly about that and my winning submission here, so I won’t rehash it again, I’ll just state that the photos I saw were stunning and everybody should be proud of how talented the photogs in the Charleston area are!

It was still quite bright out when I started the walk, and I wanted to try something a little different. I wanted to try and capture motion and make high-key photos that were dramatic. This meant shooting in manual mode and slowing up the shutter speeds to completely blow out the sky while still rendering the main subject with vivid color by also using a normal aperture. I think this one best demonstrated my vision for this technique.

Here’s another shot of a different ride using the same technique:

The cloud coverage at the time I got there was like 90%, and the sunset was blocked out by clouds, which was a bummer. I kept shooting this Ferris wheel when I started to see a hint of pink in the sides of the clouds. I looked behind me an there it was – the clouds broke in a small area which was only truly visible (or should I say shootable) on the other side of the fairgrounds. I ran over to the side of the fairgrounds – I had already picked out the shot I wanted for the sunset pic earlier. I set up the tripod in the chosen location and composed my shot. Now I had to wait for the perfect storm of both the carousel and the Ferris wheel to be moving at the same time. Bingo – they both started to spin, but wait… two guys are in the middle of the shot!

I didn’t want to be rude, so I waited them out. By the time they departed (which was only about a minute or two), so did most of the sunset’s colors, and the carousel was stopping! That’s OK though, because the sky was still a striking color and I was able to capture this frame.

I wanted to also capture the food and vendors, because they are a huge part of the fair experience. As I was shooting a shot of some corn-dogs, the vendor offered to pose with one – I asked her to hold one out in front of her because I wanted to focus on her hands and the corn-dog. Little did I know she was going to pull out the most phallic thing I’ve ever seen put on a stick and deep fried. When I showed her the photo, we both started cracking up. I explained to her that at least her face was out of focus enough that her mother would never be able to identify her!

At one point I stopped to talk to this nice gentleman, and he started off with the one subject you should never bring up with a stranger – politics. The problem is that I couldn’t tell what side of the fence he hated more – He started complaining about Obama, and then went after Bush in the same breath! You gotta love carnies – they are the true anarchists of society. He told me he served in ‘Nam, which makes him more of a man than I could ever be, so I gotta give him some respect.

I popped over to the Lakefront Stage to catch a few songs from Phil Vassar, who is a pop country artist. I usually like my country in the alt variety, but I can appreciate any live musician – and his band was good. I snapped this shot of him singing to the crowd with the band in the background.

Now that the night had fallen, it was time to pull out the tripod and get some cool motion shots of the rides and lights.

I never realized how cool the Ferris wheels’ light patterns could be when caught with the right amount of shutter speed (or lack thereof).

Sometimes stacking multiple rides on top of each other for a shot will make for an interesting composition:

The lake in the middle of the fairgrounds makes for some great reflective shots of the fair’s skyline.

I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time for the fireworks display. Unfortunately the amount of smoke they produced was quite impressive and it was filling the sky around me which gave the shots a foggy effect to them. I think this image plays off the situation pretty well.

I ended the evening grabbing a fried treat from the instant death booth. I asked the girl at the window if she would smile for a picture, because it might be the last one I ever take after she served me the fried s’mores that she recommended (which was woth the clogged arteries, BTW).

All-in-all I found it very therapeutic to walk through the fair without any major agenda – just to be wide-eyed and open to possible photographs that may present themselves was a lot of fun, and the time slipped away from me. Before I knew it, it was time to head home, and I hadn’t even explored the exhibitions, the rodeo, or the petting zoo! I hope you enjoy the photos I made, because I truly enjoyed making them. I have a bunch more so feel free to check out all of the shots I took here.

Art Is Hard

A couple of weeks ago my daughter picked out a cupcake costume at the costume shop. Unfortunately, it was way too small and they were sold out of the larger sizes. No problem, we thought – we’ll just find it online. Little did we know that this particular costume is a new item and is very hot this year. We couldn’t find it anywhere (with the exception of eBay where people are selling it for about 3x the list price). So, knowing that my daughter had her heart set on this costume, my wife became determined to make one even better than the store-bought version she couldn’t have.

She started out by Googling cupcake costumes looking for ideas. The results she found were less than desirable to say the least. She decided to go to the local hardware store and browse around with the hopes that a light bulb might go off in her head and a solution would come to her. She came home that night with a couple of pieces of PVC tubing, spray paint, and some poster board. Pretty soon she had constructed what looked like an upside-down pink lampshade. I took two dog leashes and made a pair of suspenders out of them and we had the cup portion of the cupcake.

The really tough part was figuring out the icing top. After a few days of going back and forth, my wife decided to use poly-fill at the icing. Unfortunately, there was no easy way to attach it. We thought about getting a giant over-sized shirt and gluing the fill onto it, but it would have looked more like a mess than a scrumptious treat. Then I had an idea to mimic our favorite cupcake shop in Charleston, appropriately called “Cupcake”, who uses really thick icing in a giant swirl to top off their cupcakes. We could use quilt batting and sew it into a tube stuffed with the poly-fill and twist it around my daughters body, just like a cupcake from Cupcake!

After another trip to the store to get some hot glue sticks, yarn, and a giant sewing needle to assemble the icing so that it would stay put, my wife managed to make what looked like a giant pastry! We glued little colored pom-poms to the icing to look like sprinkles, and then my daughter made one big pom-pom into a cherry that she glued to a headband as the finishing touch to her pink wig. This is the final result:

She got to show it off for her Girl Scout troop this evening at their Halloween party and she won the prize for cutest costume! Surprisingly, the costume is still in tact for next weekend. My wife should be proud of what she made for my daughter, because it is so much better than what had inspired it in the first place. It took a lot of hard work and determination, a few curse words, and a couple or bloody fingers. The same is true in any artistic endeavor – if you don’t go out there and do something, even if you know it will be really hard, nothing will ever happen for you, which is even harder to deal with in the long run.

Pro or Amateur?

Tonight, the family came with me to drop off my prints for the 2010 Coastal Carolina Fair photography contest. As I was filling out the entry forms, the inevitable question came up that I didn’t want to answer. “Are you a pro or amateur photographer?” Oh boy, that’s a tricky question. Last year it was easy for me to check the amateur box, but this year I feel I’ve grown a lot (especially since I completed my 365 project). If you go by the definition of amateur, I fall right in to that title. As I write this, photography doesn’t support my family, my other career does. I love photography – it’s what keeps me sane as far as being an outlet for creativity. But in my mind that doesn’t make me a professional, because it’s technically not my profession for now.

So, it sounds easy, right? I’m still an amateur by definition of my true profession, so I can check off the amateur box. Unfortunately, there was this clause on the entry form under Division 1, which is the pro division, “This division is open to professional photographers (those who work full or part time in photography) and accomplished amateur entrants who are capable of competing at the Division 1 level”. Ugg. Why the hell did they say that? Division 3 is for students, and it doesn’t have a clause that says amateurs who read a lot of books and photog blogs can compete in the student division, so why allow amateurs in the pro division? I’m not complaining because I think its wrong, I’m complaining because I don’t want to have make that decision! If it’s cut-and-dry, then cool – I don’t have to think about it. Now I have to stress about it, which is silly, I know.

I asked my wife and she said without a doubt “Division 1”. Then she looked at the work of some of the other amateur photogs in line and said, “whoah, they’re really good”. OK, well that makes things difficult all over again. I finally decided to man up and make my own decision. It was not something I should worry about, but here I am venting about it on the web for all to see. In the name of honesty, I’m sharing my insecurities about my own skill and vision.

Speaking of skill and vision, in case you didn’t know, I’m doing a photowalk at this very fair on its opening night, which is Thursday, October 28th. I’ll be trolling around the photography/fine arts building at around 5:30PM so we can get a little pre-sunset action before the big light show in the sky. You can get all of the details right here. It should be a lot of fun, so I hope you can find the time. I found out that the local photography club is also having a photowalk on Saturday, Oct. 30th, so if you can’t make Thursday, you can be sure that a lot of local photogs will be there on Saturday to keep you company.

In conclusion, my wife thinks I ultimately made the wrong decision. Unfortunately for me, she’s usually right. Next year, I know which box I’ll be checking for sure 😉

2010 Coastal Carolina Fair Photowalk

***Update #2 10/28/2010***
The weather looks good and the clouds right now are awesome – I’m leaving for the fair momentarily. See you there!

**Update 10/28/2010**
If the forecast is actually correct, today is going to be a messy day, but if you look at the time we’ll be photowalking, the storm should be moving out, which usually mean spectacular cloud formations for the sunset! As of now, we are still on!

*Update*
I’ve been informed by a friend that the local photography meetup group is having a photowalk on Saturday, October 30th. The details for that walk are here.

–Who: Anybody with a camera and the will to use it
–What: A Photowalk at the 2010 Coastal Carolina Fair
–When: Thursday, October 28th 2010 at 5:30PM and if there is bad weather, the rain-date will be Friday, October 29th 2010 (check this site for confirmation)
–Where: We will meet at The Photography/Fine Arts building at Exchange Park, 9850 Highway 78, Ladson SC
–Why: Because sunsets at the fair are awesome, as well as motion capture shots of the rides, the colorful backdrop of concession booths, rodeo action shots, cute animals, flowers, musicians, etc. and whoever makes my favorite photo will win a 1 year Flickr Pro Account!

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What is a photowalk you ask? A photowalk is made up of a group of people who go to a location and take photographs. It’s mostly photography enthusiasts who like to get the chance to learn from each other or just enjoy the company of other photographers. Anybody is welcome, and there is no need to worry about your skill level, what kind of camera you have, or anything like that. Nobody has to see your pictures if you don’t want to share them!

Here are the details for the contest: Photos must be submitted to the 2010 Coastal Carolina Fair Photowalk Flickr Group to be eligible for the contest. If you don’t use Flickr already, you can sign up for a free account and then just join the group to add photos to it. You can submit up to five photos. I will pick one photo from the group that I like the most (it must be taken on the the night of the photowalk, so make sure your Exif data reflects that – film users will just have to be honest) on Monday, November 1st. You can change your submissions at any time prior to the end of the contest, but when Monday rolls around, the group will be locked. The winner will get a 1 year Flickr Pro Account courtesy of JWNPhoto.com!

You can shoot in any style you like, and you can use any technique you like as well. HDR, split-tones, and creative filters are all fine by me. It doesn’t mean that it will make the best photo though, so keep that in mind! I’m looking for my favorite shot – not the most technically correct shot, so it will be quite subjective to whatever makes me think, “Wow, that’s really cool/good/cute/amazing/different!” I won’t know ’till I see it.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments.

Diptychs, Dragons, & Doggies

Sometimes it takes more than one photo to illustrate your idea. Sure, a great photo will tell a whole story or be composed like an opus, but sometimes you can convey a more powerful message by showing showing two separate images together. The trick to making a successful story-telling diptych is to make sure that each photo stands alone as a strong photo. When combined, they should serve to enhance each other to either tell a more complete story, exude a more compelling emotion, or just drive a point home.

Above, in the photo no the right, I liked the play of the dog and the toy – it looks as if the toy is whispering sweet nothings into the dog’s ear. Unfortunately, you can’t tell just what the toy is even though in what little you see of it it takes on life-like characteristics. With the addition of the photo on the left, you see more of the toy as it lies lifeless on the couch like a toy the kids left behind. The toy, by the way, is a Dronky from the Shrek movies, which is a half-donkey and half-dragon. The message of the shot is about relationships. While the photo on the right could convey a similar message, when it’s combined with the lonely toy shot it uses the thematic contrast of the two to drive home the idea of happiness in companionship.

Below is another diptych I made. The theme of this shot is loneliness. The two shots are different but the same – an empty stool in an ice cream shop and my daughter sitting alone at the counter of the same shop waiting for someone (in reality she was waiting for the waitress to refill her drink).

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