Portrait Session

I am a part of the Kansas City Photography Meetup Group (KCPMG). Today was the second lighting session arranged by the group. Studio 132 in Kansas City, MO was kind and generous to let the group use their studio and equipment as well as show us a short video on a lighting technique. How much educational it was I can't express. One of the challenging aspects of the group session is to get enough time and opportunity to get photos. However, I am slowly enjoying and learning at these sessions. Please enjoy the results..

Straight Out Of Camera (SOOC) And PostProcessing

One day I was having a discussion with one of my non-photog friends and he asked me "So how do you call it photography when you do post processing? Isn't it graphics design?" That made me think about this concept. I knew they were different and what I was doing was still photography but I did not know how to explain him. I had followed blogs of some well known photographers and not a single one had a photo, which I could point and say there is 0% of post processing on this one.

Finally, I asked for some expert input on DPS forums where members were kind enough to break it down and make it easier to understand. To cut long story short, since the dawn of photography there is always some amount of post processing done. In film times the post processing was done in development labs and in digital times, basic post processing is done inside the camera. In addition, lot of times it is hard to capture exactly what you imagined and little bit of post processing is not at all bad. What kills a photograph is the cloning or distorting or morphing the original subject, which to me is not photography. Again it's my own opinion, you may differ if you like. If you are only adjusting the brightness/contrast, saturation, sharpness, cropping, etc. than it is still photography with a twist ;).

Since I have expressed my thoughts let me demonstrate what I meant. The photo below is of Indian God, Ganesha, which was displayed at Nelson Atkins Museum. The lighting was very dim and without a tripod it was close to impossible to take a clear, sharp photo. Museum allows to carry cameras during regular days but without the tripod. Tripods are only allowed with special permission on Thurdays and Fridays after 6PM.

As you can see in this photo, which is straight out of the camera (SOOC), the color temperature is very warm and

that is because of Auto WhiteBalance (WB). I am still learning, struggling to set WB manually. My eyes are not trained yet to judge what WB is good for what scenario. Setting the WB at Tungsten might have helped a little bit. I did not want to use on-camera flash since that would have flattened the photo and not bring out the beauty in the carvin

gs. I purposely left the shadow on top left corner which was from the door frame in order to leave some room for cropping later.

Now see this photo and you will notice the difference. I reduced the color temperature and since this was a carving, personally, I prefer a bit of monotonic look, though I still left some coloring in there. I enhanced the shadows and illuminated them to show some level of details by doing some tone mapping. Tone mapping process that is also part of creating High Dynamic Range images add some noise. I removed some noise and increased the sharpness.

Growth

Summer is finally here and I'm crawling out of my cocoon to lay my hands on my camera and start clicking. As my photography was dormant, our little boy, our boxer, Bruno was growing bigger and stronger every day. I thought our bunny Alfie was a difficult one to get pictures of, but Bruno defied that belief.

However, good thing is I've taught him certain commands, which he obeys most of the times and allows me to freeze him for few seconds. Yes, just few seconds :). The other two photos do have some blemishes where there is some shadow, leash, and a bit flat because I used built-in flash. Since I used the flash in TTL mode I was able to get less washout of his white marks and more texture of his coat with some definition of his muscular structure.

Additionally, I was in double minds whether to crop off the crate section in the pic or leave it. After looking at these pictures few times I thought to leave it there just too add little detail of his environment.

For the most part few challenges I faced while capturing Bruno's postures were patience to wait for him to sit and lay in a certain way that defined his personality, his flashy white marks which sometimes would get washed out because of flash, working in small area and trying to eliminate most of the stuff around him was hard.

To say the least, it was fun to photograph him in his few-seconds steady state. Although, I want to get to a point where I can capture him off-leash and in action.. So... while I'm building some more patience, you all please enjoy some more pics of Bruno.. ciao..

Indoor photo ideas

November was another slow month as there were just too many things going on around me as well as that drive to click photos was a bit on the slower side.. There is always something around you, indoors, inside your apartment or house to capture... Most of them are ordinary day to day things.. and its on me as a photographer to bring out that creative spirit inside me to bring out and see outside the box..

Well, it's easy said than done.  Not that I did anything outside the box in the above 2 photos of gravel and rings, but I tried to use some artificial backgrounds and do something different... play with lighting and composition.. after taking some several pics I finally found 2 of them that turned out interesting enough... Gravels provided some vibrant colors and I used the glass vase to give some flow to them. Background with lines and colors was complementing the gravel arrangement in a contrasting way, imo.

On the other hand, rings give a soothing, calm and serene feeling to the picture while vertical lines with colorful background lead your eyes to the rings. I never looked at our rings for so long and so often ;)

Folks, please keep visiting my blog and I promise December won't be boring.. :)

It just keeps growing...

I can see the winter approaching like the army of darkness in Lord of the Rings. I just hate winter sooo much. Additionally it will limit me to indoor photography, which might limit my options a lot. It will be a challenge for next 6 months to find creative ways to keep the shutter clicking. At least I can learn some more patience ;) that way. 

When I first started out about 3-4 months back I seriously thought I would be confined to kit lens for quite some time and bought this camera bag, which was large enough for my D40 and a charger. Now my gear has grown and on the verge of outgrowing my bag. I added a 50mm F1.8 E series lens, +1,+2, & +3 macro filters, 1 UV filter, 1 polarizer filter, 1 ML-L3 remote, and hood. My camera bag, Lowepro AW #2, is filling up fast and there is no room for anything more. 

It's time to get a bit creative with packing any new gear :)..

Keep yourselves warm.

Chao!!

New look for blog... an accident....

Firstly.. don't panic. It's me.. same old.. :)) You will notice the blog layout and template has changed. Don't blame me entirely :).. I was trying to make some changes and for some reason it looked the template I was originally using was modified by the creator. I was no longer able to move my heading and not knowing how to edit the blog's html I was not able to revert back to original. Result? I had to go for a new template. I am not sure if this will be temporary or permanent, but for now this is the best choice I had from the available material.

Please tolerate me as you always have.

Thanks for your patience and keep visiting.

Enjoy

Buildings.. old and new.. timeless

Cityscapes, buildings.. old or modern, create some kind of intriguing feeling about them. Looking at the old buildings makes you wonder the artistry and capability of those times. Some have beautiful vintage feel to them when you observe the materials use, any carvings on them, and how they have stood the test of time in difficult conditions.

On the other hand, modern architecture brings out the latest methods and equipments that make us wonder are we in 21st century or 51st. Don't ask me how I imagine things to be in far far future.. :) you might not want to go there..

I captured these 2 buildings when I was at the Plaza Art Fair this year in Kansas City, MO. The first one is a "Time Building" and the vintage style clock on it made me to give it a timeless look. As I mentioned in my "Texture" post, whether artificial or real, it creates a

great effect. I decided to give this one a tried and tested old style texture. This is the first time I tried using a texture for a photo and as everyone says it does change the look. I am happy the way it turned out.

While the second one is exactly the opposite. Since it was a gorgeous day with cool weather and the sun shining at it best, the sky was rich blue. It is a challenge to capture the blue sky in your photos. I am still learning it and haven't figured that out, but when you do get it, whether it be luck or your technique, it is beautiful. I tried to give it a different angle and stay away from the usual bottom-

up perspective. Instead, I tried to shoot it from a distance and create a perspective. Apart from the rich color, I loved the composition and perspective.