Tuesday morning, April 23 the crew from A-1 Builders arrived to begin work on renovating the old feed store into my new photo studio. I’d already done a lot of the demolition work to remove wall and ceiling coverings, take out a lot of the old floor, and get rid of the debris. Doing that work myself saved us a fair chunk of change, built muscles in my arms and shoulders, and made it possible for the professionals to get most of the remaining demolition work completed the first day.
With the advent of digital photography we have so much post-processing control in applications like Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, or Photoshop Elements that many of the filters we once used are no longer needed. But there are two exceptions, filters that I still carry and use in my outdoor photography. This month I’ll remind you why a polarizing filter is still important.
Most people, when they think of a polarizing filter, associate it with darkening a blue sky. That’s certainly one of the most common uses of this filter. You can compare the effect of the polarizer in this photograph of our home made on a sunny afternoon with the sun roughly 90° to the left of my camera. Without the polarizer the grass is lighter green, the sky is a pale blue, and the brightness values of the yellow paint, the grass, and the sky are similar. Continue reading →
I’m moving my studio to our home on the outskirts of Bellingham this summer. Last fall we purchased five acres at 4682 Wynn Road, just off the Slater Road I-5 exit, and moved into the house in January. My office is upstairs in the new studio building and we start renovation of the first floor into a spacious new studio this month. The new front entrance will be to the left of the big garage door you can see in the photo above.
The studio building was built in 1928 as a feed store. It was originally located on the corner of Rural Avenue and Highway 99 and was moved to its current location in the early 1960s when Interstate 5 was constructed. Continue reading →
This holiday season you can’t avoid coming across wonderful light displays that add a festive touch to our long nights. Whether it’s the lights on your own home, a favorite neighborhood you like to visit, or one of the great public garden holiday light displays, you can make great photographs of the lights. Just don’t expect to get top results with your phone camera (although it doesn’t cost you anything to experiment). Continue reading →
One of the things that sets professional photographers apart from snapshooters is that we’re always looking for the light, seeing how it plays across our subject. Modern cameras are very good at getting an acceptable exposure in almost any light, but we’ve all seen thousands of photos taken in very bad light. You can do better. Here’s one approach.
Window Light Portrait: Betty McClendon
Natalie and I were visiting her mother, Betty, not too long ago. She lives just a mile from us so we’re there often. Her home has a wonderful sun room, with windows all along the south wall and a couple of skylights so the room is bathed in light. Betty spends a lot of time sitting by the window where she can watch the birds in her garden or reach a book on the shelves beside her chair. Continue reading →
People have been taking snapshots of friends, family, and the places they visit since George Eastman first popularized photography with the first Kodak camera in 1888. In the 125 years since then a nearly uncountable number of photographs have been made. The pace of picture taking has only increased since the invention of digital photography and digital cameras becoming affordable to nearly everyone.
People upload 300 million photos every day to Facebook alone, according to a July 2012 story in USA Today. Sites like Facebook, Flickr, and Pinterest have become today’s photo albums. But will they be around in 75 years? Will our children and grandchildren be able to look back at these glimpses into our lives?
Snapshot of my dad, Byron Turner, on board ship en route to Europe, summer 1939.
My parents were both avid scrapbookers when they were in their twenties, the same age as our two boys are today. They both had cameras and they took pictures of their adventures. Continue reading →
I love gray skies. They’re a giant soft source, wrapping the world in flattering light that is nearly perfect for photography. Given that it’s still spring in western Washington, we’ve had a lot of gray skies and rain lately. The forecast has been rain, alternating with showers, a bit of drizzle, some mist, and an occasional sun break. It’s a perfect time to head outdoors with a camera.
Woodland garden under overcast sky
On one of the last days of May I paid a visit to the native plant demonstration garden on Memorial Highway a few miles west of Mount Vernon. The weather was overcast with intermittent light rain. In other words, ideal for photographing specimen plants and flowers.
So what is it that makes overcast skies so nice for photography? Continue reading →
The strongest photographs lead the viewer to concentrate their attention on the subject and minimize anything that might be distracting. One thing that’s easy to miss is the relationship of the horizon line to your subject, particularly when photographing people. You don’t want the horizon to slice through someone’s head. Continue reading →
One of my readers asked me recently, “How do I control depth of field and get a fuzzy background in my photos?” It’s a technique I use a lot to help create contrast between subject and background. This month I’m sharing the secrets to this professional tool.
First, a definition of the term. Depth of field describes the area in front of (closer to the camera) and behind the subject that appears acceptably sharp when the lens is focused on the subject. We often describe it as “shallow” when only the plane of focus is sharp, and “deep” when more elements in the photo in front of and behind the subject are sharp.
I’m a big fan of doing all the necessary preparation work to capture my vision in a single exposure, with all the elements in place in the instant the shutter is open. But sometimes that just isn’t possible and I rely on some of the digital magic that allows me to combine multiple exposures into a single finished image.
There are three main reasons I’ll create a composite image:
Subjects, particularly in a large group portrait, don’t all cooperate at the same time
The brightness range in the image is greater than my camera’s sensor can accommodate
The subject is too large, or the working space too small, to fit into one frame
The key to creating a composite digital image is planning ahead. It’s not something you can do successfully, and believably, without knowing where you’re going. I always use a tripod so as many elements as possible line up perfectly.
Unless I’m going to use High Dynamic Range (HDR) techniques to fit a wide brightness range into a single frame I make sure my exposure is that same for each frame that I’ll be blending. That almost always means manual exposure and a constant aperture. I don’t touch the zoom on my lens and I keep my lighting the same.
Let’s examine each of these three variations on blending multiple exposures. Continue reading →
![1204906 John Day River [panoramic merged] [Juniperus occidentalis]. OR 19, Kimberly, OR. © Mark Turner](/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/1204906_pan.jpg "1204906 John Day River [panoramic merged] [Juniperus occidentalis]. OR 19, Kimberly, OR. © Mark Turner")