The Daily Photograph™

And it's got us all ensnared

Beauty is symmetry

And mystery and balance and dynamic flow. And when they all combine in the same place at the same time, the artist doesn’t really have much to do beyond not screwing it up.

At the edge of the night

I hope this one works on the internet

It looks real good on my slick and precise monitor, but not many have one like it. The color gradient is subtle and the clouds are only faintly lit. It looks terrific, if understated, on paper.

Amid the dying of the light

Some people won’t believe the color here

And I wouldn’t either, if I hadn’t been there, myself. This lasted long enough for me to see, swivel the camera, set the exposure and make one click. Maybe 15 seconds in all. The sky above the clouds was dusk gray, very little blue, and I am thankful I did not over-expose it too much.

Tonight is full moon. This is from last night.

I almost missed this display

Having forgotten about the full moon approaching. When I looked out the window, I erupted into furious activity. The sunset color only lasts maybe fifteen minutes before it fades to gray. f11 1/8s 250mm

It's big and brighter here than most

Partial color images are not usually my thing

I think they are too often gimmicky, but. Here, I wanted to diminish the foreground, which was full of deep greens and golds, and yet keep the framing. I desaturated, never finding the sweet spot until the foreground was all the way to black & white.

This is one of those effects that can be done with film but seldom is because it’s not easy. Digital development makes it almost too simple.

A sky so blue, a land so rich

Here’s why the exposure details are worthless

To any other photographer but the one making the exposure. The ‘exposure value’ of the clouds here is ’16′. I’m shooting an nominal ISO of 100, focused at infinity. I could be shooting at f11, f16, or f22 with my 50mm lens, depending on the shutter speed.

Which was it? Can you tell?

The most important thing a photographer can learn is the proper level of exposure. This is given by the ‘exposure value’ or absolute level of light reflected from the brightest object in the frame, exclusive of specular highlights, as from waves or chrome. This value, in conjunction with the ISO of the medium, then determines the range of shutter speed/aperture settings that will expose the medium properly.

A light meter, whether internal to the camera or hand-held, reads the EV and does the math for you. The photographer then makes subjective judgments about depth of field or the degree of motion smear, or the higher or lower tonal values desired.

The actual lens/shutter settings will therefore vary from one person to another, from one situation to another, and will be specific to the moment and situation. There are times the photographer ignores the ‘right’ EV and exposes higher or lower in order to make a good photograph. In this particular case, I followed my light meter.

Shadow and sunlight

I am endlessly fascinated

By the play of light on the earth when clouds gather for sport. This day, these clouds were lazy and floated slowly along, not mixing much one with another.

We get two or three of these every summer

Photographing Rainbows for Fun

I expect most everybody who has tried to photograph a rainbow with an ordinary camera has come away a bit disappointed. Here’s why:

Ordinary digital cameras are designed to take the light in front of it and ‘optimize’ it to fit a pre-conceived scheme. This works about 70% of the time. At other times, the picture turns flat and dull. Sunset is one of those times. Notice the over-all golden tone in this photograph. The ordinary camera will shift that toward the blue-green (the complement or ‘opposite’ color to yellow-red) to compensate for what the little computer chip inside has been told is ‘bad light.’

And, often the ordinary camera will read the light from the rainbow as brighter in comparison to the rest of the scene. The result is an underexposed frame, again removing much interest. Other times, the camera might meter the overall frame but ignore the rainbow, leaving it overexposed.

Sometimes you can fix the photograph with the editing program that comes with the camera. Photoshop Elements is especially good for this. But, you will never get good results of a sunset or a rainbow using the ‘autofix’ function. You gotta do it by hand.