Author Archive: ken

There seems to be a disturbing trend in some photographer’s websites. They are using images shot by other photographers and representing them as their own. I’m not sure what the explanation for this is, but the best I can tell is that they are trying to mislead potential customers into hiring them.

I feel bad for the customers that hire a photographer expecting a certain level of technical, professional, and artistic skill and are disappointed by the results. I’m sure that they had no idea that some of the photos they liked on the website, were created by someone else.

I suppose the Internet is a double edge sword. While it makes it easy to find information and businesses, it also makes it easy to steal other people’s work. So if you are photographer who made the decision to use someone else’s work and call it your own, cut it out. When you do this, it makes us all look bad.

Well that’s it for this week. I’ll get off my soap box now.

Thanks for reading and be sure to check out the photos in my galleries. I shot them all myself. 🙂

-Ken.

OK, I got an email from someone just getting into photography. She asked how long it takes for someone to master photography. I had to give that some thought and the conclusion I reached is that few people ever “master” photography. The reason being that it is a dynamic medium and is ever changing. Technology is transforming photography at a greater rate of change than ever before.

Some people lament the days of film and the perception of stability in the medium. However, there’s alway been change. There were better and better quality films and processing. Camera bodies got better. Lenses got faster and zoom’s image quality improved. New darkroom techniques were invented and creative processing methods were developed. So change has always been there. It just moves faster now.

Part of the reason for it’s speed of change is the speed of communications and the Internet. It used to be that a photographer saw another photographer’s work only when he looked at a magazine, went to an art gallery, or saw it in a book. Now you can view millions of photos online. This leads to imitation and the creation of new techniques, both in camera and in post processing.

It’s an exciting time to be a photographer. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up with the technology and how it impacts your ability to create, but it guaranties that there will always be something new to learn.

Back to the question: Can someone master photography? My short answer is no. If someone works hard they can become very good at it, but if someone thinks they have mastered the medium, I believe that they have hit a plateau on their learning curve and just don’t know it or their ego is getting in the way. There’s always going to be more to learn and that’s the way I like it. 🙂

Anyway, that’s my $.02’s worth.

Also, be sure to check out my gallery pages:

Commercial Work
Personal Projects
Music Photography (live and studio)
Portraits

Thanks for reading.

-Ken

Lately I’ve been working on a project that required stopping the action of an object hitting a liquid. It all happens so fast that’s it’s difficult to capture without the object or the water blurring. Another issue is timing. Without using electronic timing equipment, it’s difficult to synchronize the object striking the liquid and tripping the shutter.

Anyway, here are a couple examples:

I ended up shooting dozens of images and it was difficult to decide which to post. Most all of them were pretty striking.

Anyway, thanks for reading and to see more of my personal projects click here.

-Ken

OK, for the past few years people have been working with high dynamic range (HDR) post processing. After posting a couple of HDR images on Facebook (you can find it here.) I’ve had people ask exactly what is HDR. They can see the images look different than a traditional image, but can’t put their finger on it.

To properly explain it, we need to briefly talk about Dynamic Range. Dynamic range relates to how film or a digital sensor sees the bright and dark elements in a scene. Let’s look at the image below.

Lab Coat - standard digital image

The image above is a standard digital image. In a photo in which there are bright highlights (the white lab coat) and dark areas (the bottom third of the image) we can see that, if we want to see detail in the shadow areas, the white lab coat would get completely blown out.

To get around this we could add lighting to fill in the shadows. But an interesting alternative is use HDR. HDR is achieved not by shooting one photo, but by shooting several at different shutter speeds. You cannot use different apertures, because it will cause issues with your depth of field. Then you composite the images together with your editing software, revealing just of the parts of each photo in which there is level of detail you want.

Labcoat - processed for HDR

In the photo above, notice the increase it shadow detail over the first image. It makes a huge difference. The technique works best in very contrasty situations where the dynamic range of the camera is tested.

Experiment with HDR, it creates some interesting looks. Also, remember to use a tripod so all the images line up.

Thanks for reading!

-Ken.

Sometimes people are surprised that, as a commercial photographer, I also shoot portraits (including high school seniors). It’s as if someone that shoots advertising photos doesn’t shoot people. Personally, I enjoy shooting photos of people regardless whether it’s lifestyle, products, or portraits.

I believe the more diverse your experience is, the stronger skills you develop. So, by shooting a lot of different stuff in different situations, I’ve learned how to adapt and how to deal with the unexpected. Challenges are what keep my job fun. 🙂

Anyway, back to the topic. It’s getting to be senior photo season and I’m looking forward to meeting this year’s crop of high school seniors. In the past I’ve been approached with some fun ideas for some unique shoots. I’m looking forward to see what this years seniors come up with.

That’s it for today. Thanks for reading!

-Ken.

OK, well not really. A friend called me last week and was asking what kind of DSLR he should buy his son for a high school digital photography class. His son is very serious about wanting to get into photography, so a good starter DSLR is a good choice.

I’ve always been a Canon fan. I bought my first Canon SLR when I was 13 years old and before that I shot with my father’s Canon rangefinder (which I still have). So I have a bias towards Canons. But that’s just my preference.

Coincidentally a friend dropped by the studio last week also. She is a Nikon shooter and happened to have her camera with her which led to compare a few of the differences between Canons and Nikons. Now we didn’t compare resolution, image quality, or any tech specs. We just looked at layout and handling.

I was surprised at how differently the camera were laid out. In very general terms, her Nikon was laid out so your left hand is more involved in the camera operations. My Canon was designed for less left hand involvement. For instance on my 5D MkIII, my left hand’s role is to support the the body with the palm of my hand while my index finger and thumb operated the zoom or focus rings. My right hand controlled aperture, shutterspeed, ISO, frame rate, shutter, and most other functions.

The Nikon seemed to divide up the controls between the right and left hand.

These are general statements and I’m sure different Nikon model’s controls are quite different. But I guess my point is that there is a lot more than tech specs to consider when buying your first DLSR and committing to a brand. The ergonomics and handling matter.

I like Canon’s layout better, but that is just my preference and you may like something different. My suggestion is look for a camera that meets your technical/price points in different brands then physically handle each camera to see which layout you like best.

Anyway that’s about the least scientific comparison between Canons and Nikon on the Internet. 🙂

Thanks for reading.

-Ken

I was talking to my neighbor last week who recently bought a new DSLR, a Canon 60D. He is very new to photography and he was asking at what point does he need to use a tripod. Believe it or not that is kinda a complex question. Since we can now change our ISO it muddy’s things up a bit.

When shooting film you have a fixed ISO. So you can guestimate when you need a tripod by looking at the focal length of the lens. For instance, if you were shooting with a fixed focal length 50mm lens, you need to shoot at 1/50 of second or more. This is a rule of thumb and you can certainly shoot at 1/30 if you are pretty steady. So if you are shooting at 135mm you should be shooting at least 1/125.

But now we adjust the ISO so the question becomes what is your tolerance for sensor noise versus blur from camera movement? This is where trial error comes into place as you get to know your camera. There is no right answer.

Oh, and as an afterthought, a tripod and a monopod are always good investments. And always get the best you can afford. They will last you a lifetime.

Thanks for reading and check out the additions to my portrait and commercial sections of my website.

-Ken

Recently I saw some posts on an online photography forum where some people were discussing lighting. In the discussion terms were being thrown around and incident and reflected light were being misused. I thought that I should clarify the definition of these terms and discuss why they are important in this latest blog update.

First of all, what is the difference between “Incident” and “Reflected” light? It’s really pretty simple. Incident light is the light that comes from the light source and strikes your subject. Reflected light is the light that bounces from your subject to your camera. Yep. It’s just that simple.

Now why is that important? Well, there are several reasons. For this posting, we’ll talk about one, relating to physics. The Law of Reflection. This law says that the angle of incidence equal the angle of reflection. Again, why is that important? When you are shooting photos of stuff that’s shiny you need to control reflections and hot spots/dark spots. By using this law you can figure out where to place white cards/flags/lights.

When you are shooting a highly reflective object, look at the the angle between the camera and the plane of the surface. Let’s say it’s 30 degrees. What ever is 30 degrees in the other direction is reflected in the object. To test this, just look in a mirror. The angle you are looking into the mirror is the same angle of the object you are looking at.

By keeping this in mind, you can photograph shiny stuff more effectively.

Once again, thanks for reading!!

-Ken

By now everyone has heard about the the awful photos of America’s Olympic Athletes. If not, here are two links to news stories:

Story 1

Story 2

While I don’t normally judge other photographer’s work, I have to acknowledge that these photos are pretty bad. Now here’s the deal, the photographer says he wasn’t prepared for the shoot because he was told he’d be photographing a press conference and didn’t bring the appropriate lighting gear. He had to borrow gear from another photographer. I guess that’s an excuse.

Who I really blame is the agency that hired him. First of all they failed to communicate to photographer the nature of the shoot. Next, they then released the photos without retouching/editing them. I could see no reason why they would not bury these photos. Not that the photos are totally hopeless, With some basic retouching (filling in gaps in the background, fixing tears in the paper background, and some dodging and burning) the photos could be made acceptable.

There has been some talk that the release of the photos was politically motivated (the agency was a French company) with the goal of making America look bad. I don’t know if that’s true, but what reason would they have for releasing such poor photographs of these elite athletes?

Anyway, that’s my take on the situation.

Thanks for reading!!

-Ken

Today, while burning DVDs for a couple of clients, I was wandering around on a few social media sites. I came upon a discussion in a group about what makes you a “photographer”. The people participating where very arrogant and obviously didn’t understand the meaning of the word. One person argued you had to make your living thru photography and another said that as long as you earn and money from your photography that you can call yourself a photographer.

First of all, obviously these guys are knuckleheads. Next, I think they were trying lump everyone into the category of “Professional Photographer”. I discussed my feelings about that a few years ago in my blog. If your interested it should be still on here, though I don’t remember when I wrote it. You’ll have search for it if you really care.

A photographer, in my book, is someone that creates photos with a camera. That’s it. There’s no other qualifications.

However, being a photographer doesn’t mean you are talented, skilled, or in any way good at it.

At one time if you said you were photographer, it was implied that you had some skill. Why? Because there was a time when you had to understand film speed, parallax, lens aperture, shutter speeds and how to use a light meter. If you didn’t have a working knowledge of these things, you couldn’t take a photo, pure and simple. With the invention of smarter and smarter cameras, it got easier for everyone to take photos. Now almost everyone can take a photo that is somewhat in focus and of the correct exposure.

Maybe we need a new word to denote someone who is skilled with camera? Any ideas?

If you have thoughts on the matter, email me or find me on Facebook.

Thanks for reading and be sure to wander my website.

-Ken