How To Use Your Flash- Off Camera
written by: Peter TelloneAs a photographer you know that great photos depend on great light. We also know that great light is either found or created. For portrait photographers the problem is that their subjects may not be available at a day or time that great light can be found, so it must be created. You can do this by using Off Camera Flash or as it is commonly known, OCF. You could use the flash on your camera but that generally doesn’t lead to pleasing results. You aren’t able to create the beautiful shadows that are part of great light that way. Read more »
Reenacting the Civil War
written by: Bob SchwabikDuring the early battles of the Civil War (known in Virginia sometimes as The War of Northern Aggression) people would pack a lunch and travel by carriage to view the battles. Throughout the U.S., but primarily in the Mid-Atlantic states, you can still pack a lunch, get in your (horseless) carriage and bring your cameras to reenactments of Civil War Battles. In Virginia, several of the reenacted battles occur on the original battlefields and are accessible for both viewing and photography. One of the better photo-ops is in the Shenandoah Valley. It is the Battle of New Market staged on Read more »
Digital Negatives for Large Format Printing
written by: David SaffirI’ll always remember my first experiences in the darkroom, watching my prints come up, feeling like something magical was afoot. In recent years, I’ve frequently wished that there was an effective way to use my digital images in the darkroom, and make prints on fiber-based paper that has that special silver-based depth and luminosity. Hewlett Packard Company has developed updated technology* that makes it possible to create a “digital negative” using a digital file or film scan. That digital negative can be used in a traditional darkroom to make prints of any reasonable size. HP calls this the Large Format Read more »
written by: Steve AnchellMany digital imagers have found that the program they use the most is no longer Adobe Photoshop but Lightroom, or its Mac dedicated counterpart, Aperture. Color correction, cropping, spotting and printing tools can all be found in these two easy-to-learn and use programs. Even so, they do have their limitations. Simply put, if you need to add special effects to a photo, such as Liquify to apply a digital tummy tuck, then Photoshop is your tool. But most everything else can be done in Lightroom or Aperture. Built into both of these programs, especially Lightroom, is the ability to use Read more »
written by: John ReuterWith Polaroid’s integral and peel apart films now becoming a distant memory, many photographers lament losing the creative potential that instant films provided. They can take heart, for not only is the Impossible Project making integral films to fit the beloved folding SX-70 and 600 cameras, but Fuji Film continues to make their own integral offering (Instax) and continues to provide two beautiful instant peel apart films. For those new to instant films (and it is funny to even have to acknowledge that) the difference between integral and peel apart may need some brief explanation. Peel apart is the original Read more »
written by: Kevin A. PepperThe skill of panning photography is going to take every ounce of patience you have. Almost every person I have talked to about this type of photography has told me that it wasn’t until they saw that “one cool photo” that they had that “AHA!” moment. I was 13 when I stumbled upon this. Yes, stumbled−sometimes ignorance is bliss−and as a 13-year-old trying to freeze images with high shutter speeds, my lack of knowledge produced an image that gave me some ideas. Back then our family had a miniature poodle named Brandy. He was a bolt of white lightning when Read more »
written by: Tom PersingerHow do you proceed if you enjoy creating photographs with your phone-camera, but are bored with inkjet output? While you’d like to try a historic process, you don’t want to sacrifice full color for monochrome. Luckily, more photographic possibilities are now available than at any other time in history. With over 150 years worth of various techniques to explore, it’s a wonderful time to be a photographer. A few months ago, I introduced the Hipstanotype, a fun combination of the digital and handmade, which merges the Hipstamatic photo app with the 19th Century cyanotype process. Here we will explore the Read more »
written by: David VestalI must start with results or it will take too long to get there, as it did in my darkroom. Here’s most of what I’ve learned about Ilford/Harman’s new Multigrade Art 300 black and white paper. It is a whole new kind of printing paper, technically inbetween conventional fiber-base and RC papers. It comes up quickly in the developer and the prints wash more quickly than what Ilford now calls “baryta FB,” but not so quickly as RC papers. Conventional FB processing, although with luck it works, is no way to handle this paper. I had to learn an approach Read more »
written by: Alan RossPart I (Nov/Dec, 2010) introduced an inexpensive, low-tech technique for hands-free dodging and burning of an image by using pencil or markers on mylar masks placed above the negative in a traditional darkroom. Part II (March/April, 2011) introduced the use of Photoshop or Elements to create masks on inkjet transparency film to make hands-free graduated-burns of skies and other areas. Part III expands on the use of the computer in the traditional darkroom for making prints with multiple contrasts on variable-contrast paper. All three articles explain how to make a variety of masks to achieve controlled results while printing conventional Read more »
written by: David H. WellsHistograms and digital imaging…hearing those words puts most photographers to sleep, which is too bad. With a little attention and practice, any photographer can understand and use histograms to give us the best exposure possible for digital image files. A histogram is a graphical representation of the distribution of data, commonly used in the world of statistics. It is, according to Wikipedia, one of the basic tools of quality control. In photography, it serves the same purpose, with the horizontal axis telling us how the tones of our images from solid black to solid white are distributed. The vertical axis Read more »
