Try it in Black & White

 

I was going through some photos from my last photo shoot and came across one I really liked. The only problem was that the subject wasn’t really standing out from the background. All the color tones were too similar. What did I do, you may ask, I switched it to black and white!

Granted, I did have to play around with the exposures of different colors quite a bit, along with adjusting levels and using layer masks, but I have to admit I like how it turned out.

So if you’re having trouble figuring out what to do with a photo, try it in black and white. It’s amazing what you can do with the contrasting tones.

I hope you’re all enjoying your Christmas and NYE weekends!

Click Here to See the Full Sized Photo

3 ways to make your photos brighter without using a flash

OK, I’m going to keep this short and sweet. Mostly because I’m exhausted from not getting enough sleep this week and then not being able to catch up on sleep this weekend.

I was down at a Christmas party in Richmond this weekend and one of my friends made a side comment about not being able to make her photos brighter. I figure if she was curious how to do it, then there are probably plenty of other people wondering as well.

I know it took me a while to get it figured out at first.

There are three main ways to get more light into your photos (i.e. make them brighter) without using a flash or some other outside light.

Photos for Friday: Dulles to Hotlanta

Have you ever wondered what it was like to fly most of the way down the coast at the crack of dawn? For the most part it’s not very fun because you’re up several hours before you want to be. Not only that, but you have to be functioning on top of that.

However, you’re in for a real treat when you get up above the clouds. Talk about a light show.

I had planned on sleeping on my flight to Atlanta before connecting to Tucson, but I had not idea what I was going to see out that little porthole.

Click the link below to view photos from the flight.

Gallery: DULLES TO HOTLANTA

Lights, Camera, Action!

Hi everyone.

This has been such a short week for me. Mainly it’s because I’m preparing to leave for Arizona in a day. Hopefully I’ll still be able to put up a post or two while I’m out there, though.

With that said, I figured you would get more out of me finding some relevant tutorials than you would if I were to write another post about how tired I am.

Thankfully, for both of us, I was able to find a couple of them that illustrate what I’ve been talking about in my recent posts of using off camera flash and action photography pretty well.

How to Shoot Action Photos

Action photography. It doesn’t have to be limited to sports photos. It can be of you and your friends running through a field while goofing off. It can be a photo of a train rolling through a station. It can be a photo of your dog chasing a squirrel or cat playing with a toy.

The funny thing about action photography, and photography in general really, is that it is very unnatural. Life is constantly moving and flowing. Even at rest we still have things going on around us.

Photos for Friday: Soccer in the Fall

This past weekend I had the pleasure of going out to see my sister’s soccer team make it to the semi-finals of their league’s playoffs. Unfortunately, they didn’t make it to the championship game, but they did put up quite a fight.

The game was so close that they had to go to a shoot out to determine the winner.

Click the link below to view the photos from the game.

 

Gallery: SOCCER IN THE FALL

Keep At It

Some times life can get crazy. Unfortunately, that craziness can also wear us down and keep us from doing what we really want to do.

The problem with getting worn down isn’t always that it physically keeps us from doing what we like to do, but rather that it can take your passion and make it feel like a chore.

Photos for Friday: Revisiting the Past

Every once in a while it’s always good to look back on what we’ve done. That’s definitely a lot easier to do when you have lots and lots of photos.

When trying to figure out what I was going to for this week’s installment of “Photos for Friday” I wasn’t sure what I was going to be able to come up with. Although, that’s mainly because I didn’t have any time to take new photos this week.

Lucky for you I’ve been meaning to go through the photos from my trip to Tokyo a few years ago.

Two things struck me as I was reviewing the photos: I can’t believe I went to Tokyo and I can’t believe how bad of a photographer I was back then compared to now.

It amazes me how many photos I had to throw out just to get a decent batch for this first album. Thankfully, though, I took a ton of them over the two weeks that I was there.

Click on the link below to view the gallery from the first few days of the trip. I’ll be sure to post more from the trip when I can.

Gallery: TOKYO, WHAT SEEMS LIKE FOREVER AGO

Examples of Depth of Field (DoF)

You know I wouldn’t leave you hanging. Seeing as this blog is really all about photography and everything that surrounds it, of course I had to show some examples of depth of field.

Like I said before, controlling your depth of field is really helpful for creating different looks.

Photos for Friday: A Rainy Evening

Well, Topical Storm (or is it just a depression now?) Ida is doing its best to ruin everyone’s fun these past couple of days. So I figured it would be a good occasion to dig through some photos I took several months back on a rainy evening.