Patterns

Two things recently came together: I need to raise my exercise (as most Americans do), and I want to improve my ability to see. I like going for walks, so I am taking my camera with me and applying a theme to the walk.

Today’s theme was patterns. First I had to figure out what is a pattern? I decided that a pattern is three or more repetitions of a theme. I decided that three was the minimum; you might have an argument that two is sufficient. I also think that the “theme” part is important—A pattern does not need an identical repetition, as long as the theme is clear.

I also decided that I did not want to futz with the camera, so I simply set it on P so I could focus on the pattern and not the exposure. All I did was ensure that I captured the pattern in the camera. And, I was pleasantly surprised that the camera did a reasonably good job.

In looking at the photos and doing web image searches, I think that a pattern by itself is less interesting, but can give the impression that something repeats forever. When something breaks the pattern, that draws the eye, and this makes the image more interesting to me.

Here are a few of today’s patterns. Are they clear to you? What do you think about the place where the pattern breaks? What would you do differently?

The plant does not place the areolas at exactly regular locations. Does this help or hinder?

I purposely placed the wires diagonally. I think that a hawk on the upper arm would complete the picture, but alas, none were around to assist me.

I find an interesting tension between the two holes. Does it work for you, or do you think one hole is better?

Also, the insulators have their own patterns

Editing

I recently shot sexy photos of a friend, both to increase my experience as well as to provide a favor to her. When done, I showed some other photos to her that I was in the process of editing. I also asked if she wanted a dump of camera photos now or to wait for the editing to be done. Having seen the difference between the camera version and the edited version, she chose to wait. She also pointed out that she, as well as many other women would focus on the bad photos and not even see the good ones we captured. Speaking of which, we did get several great photos of her.

Here are a pair of photos (of a different friend) showing the camera version and the edited version:

This is the image straight from the camera

This is what the image looked like when I was done editing.

I adjusted the white balance and exposure, I removed a few skin blemishes, and I removed a couple of minor wrinkles. Note that my camera is recording in RAW mode, so I have a lot of data to work with to produce a good photo. And, I’m expressing a bias here, but it never hurts when the subject is a beautiful young woman.

So, one (of many) lessons I learned from this photo shoot was that I need to edit photos and not just give them out, in spite of doing my best to get it right in the camera in the first place.

Photographing scientists and science in action in the field

One of the three foci of my photography is science in action. Scientists need good photos to convince other scientists that their research is well-done and that the topis is one worthy of study. A well-done photo can make a point much more succinctly than amny words of text (something about 1000 words? . Scientists also need photos to convince the public that a scientific site is worth preservation as well as the cost of the study.

As a photographer, I get several benefits:

1. These photos are often technically challenging. Figuring out how to capture an image that accomplishes both my and the scientist’s goals is a fun challenge and I often learn a lot in the process. The result is that I become a better photographer.
2. Sometimes the scientist’s work gets picked up by the media. I therefore gain exposure and sometimes income from having the scientist mention my name to the media.
3. In working with the scientists, my view of the world is enriched. I get to spend time looking at something that I might have previously overlooked, and find wonder in it.
4. Science photography has taken me to many strange places in the world, such as a cave in Mexico with deadly gasses (hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, and others) and a cave in Australia with low oxygen levels. However, not all science trips are to dangerous places. I have taken science photos in the Azores, Hawaii, Australia, and other places.

An example of how my photos have been used is to illustrate the article Extreme Culture by Josie Glausiusz, in Nature, vol. 447, 21 June, 2007.

A researcher swabbing a cave wall for a microbiology project

To convince Bacillus to go into spore form, it is put in a bath of hot water.

In addition, scientists use photos for posters and talks, both to the public as well as to other scientists at meetings. Scientific granting organizations such as the National Science Foundation require that the scientists do communication of their results to the public. For example, this image was used to illustrate the idea that microbes can help produce cave formations. Note the (probably microbial) filament in the water drop.

This image was used in a scientific paper to support the idea that microbes could be involved in cave formation creation.

Scientists at universities need to recruit new students and otherwise “advertise” their lab’s accomplishments. They, reporters, or sometimes I produce media for the general public, such as magazine articles. They use your photos for illustrations and possibly even the magazine cover. My most recent magazine cover was for the scientific Journal Astrobiology.

To conclude this blog entry, taking science and science in action photos has been a good partnership for both the scientists and me. They get good photos to use to illustrate the science. I learn more about photography by solving challenging problems and get to go to interesting places throughout the world to take the photos. If you are a photographer and live near a place where research is done (universities are a great place), you might consider partnering with a scientist. If you are a scientist, you might consider talking to some photographers. In the future, I will write additional material for photographers and scientists about how to do a better job at the photography.

I would like to acknowledge my wife, Diana Northup, who is the scientist I most often work with. It is through her that I have met many of the other scientists I work with.

Web Definitions of “Sexy”

Earlier, I wrote some of my ideas about what is “sexy”. Today, I am looking at what other people think it means.

A definition I read said that sexy means “Arousing desire” and “Anticipation of sexual activity”. Both of these make me think about burlesque performers. Good ones do a great job of arousing desire and teasing about possible sexual activity that might result, even though (unless the performance is a private one for their partner), nothing will happen. She and the audience both know this, but the sexiness is still there.

A great photo site that tries to answer the question is What is Sexy. It is a collection of photos that the web site owner thinks are sexy. I agree with most of his/her selections. I also note that:

• The subject is nearly always looking into the camera, at least indirectly. This provides more data for my hypothesis that sexiness requires a connection between the subject and viewer.
• Most subjects are mostly clothed (the site does have a work filter engaged by default). This observation fuels my belief (pointed out first by my wife) that hints are sexier than showing everything. The “tease” is important.
• Smiling helps, although it is not absolutely required.
• For me, smoking spoils any sexiness..

One thing I note about this web site is that all of the women are thin. I strongly believe that weight is not a determining factor of sexiness.

Here at WordPress, Anton Therapy noted that just using the term “sexy” in her blog posts has increased readership; check it out here. It is a humorous look at society, and worth a read, especially for some of the unusual search terms people have used (“sexy executions”?). All of the photos she posted are of thin women with large boobs, which I think unfairly reinforces the stereotype of what kind of body you must have in order to be sexy. The only one that I think is really sexy is the first one, the one looking into the camera. The others are just pictures of beautiful women.

Dante Feenix (is that a real name?) wrote a blog entry, What is sexy? Because young people don’t seem to know…. He noted that when you dress up to go to a party, you are giving your definition of “sexy”. While I do not think that this occurs all the time (you are attached and going to a party with friends?), I am sure it is true sometimes. He also notes that an attitude of “I’m so much more than you see” is part of being sexy.

At RU Sexy?, they claim that sexiness has three factors image (in particular, self image), confidence, and attitude. They have a “test” you can take to see how sexy you are. How accurate or predictive the test is, I’m not sure.

So, what have you run across that defines “sexy”?

Later additions:
No real definitions, but Gino has good pictures illustrating sexiness.

What is “Sexy”?

Candace in a Purple Shirt

One type of photo that I particularly like is what I call, “Sexy Photos”. This style is similar to boudoir photos, but not necessarily taken in the bedroom (boudoir is French for bedroom). While I am sure that similar observations apply to male subjects, all of my experience is with women.

In going through the photos I have taken so far (not all are publicly available), I have come up with the following observations:

• Sexy has no age limits. I have met older women who are far sexier than some beautiful models.
• Sexy has no required body type. I have seen larger women who are sexier than women who are smaller and more classically “beautiful”. Some (but not all) of the women who classify themselves as “big, beautiful women (BBW)” are in this category.
• Of particular note, big boobs are not a requirement for being sexy. And, a boob job often makes women lo less sexy.

What this really means is that sexy is a state of mind. If you believe you are sexy, you are.

Roots and Boots

For photos, I have noticed a few other things:

• When the subject looks into the camera, it makes a big difference. This is not absolutely required (for example, see the photo to the right), but this is true of most of the photos I think are sexy.
• Sexy is not the same as nude. Many (but not all) nude images are not sexy. Think about artistic nudes. For that matter, very little pornography is really “sexy”.
• Sexy is not the same as “erotic”. Erotic normally has more sex and less fun as the emphasis. I bet this point is one for debate, because I suspect not everybody agrees with my distinction between the two. Let’s discuss it through the comments.
• Often there is a tease component to the image, saying, “I won’t show it to you right now, but maybe later.” Contemporary burlesque dancers specialize in this tease part. Many of them are very sexy, and not all are thin.
• There is often flirting with the camera (and hence, the viewer of the resulting image). I ran across a great book by Violet Blue about flirting, and much of the advice applies to still images as well as being sexy for your special someone.
• Sexy is fun. The model and photographer should be enjoying the photo session; this shows in the resulting images.
• Comfort is essential for sexiness. This means both physically as well as mentally comfortable.

Again, it seems to come down to the mental state of the person in the photo. When she believes she is sexy, she is.

If you are interested in having sexy photos taken, check out my sexy photo web gallery and then contact me. I travel a lot, so you do not need to be in Albuquerque.

This topic is one I will be continuing to research, and I am sure that I will have additional blog posts on the topic. Let me know what you think the definition of “sexy” is.

Black and White Backdrops

Recently I shot Candace Nirvana. This was a chance to try out my new backdrops, fixing problems with my earlier backdrops. The backdrops were commercial ones, purchased from the Backdrop Outlet. I tried both black and white ones.

Both worked far better than the muslin I had tried earlier. I could get the black one to go completely black, and the white to be completely burned out. These were good improvements.

Candace in front of a black backdrop

The black backdrop really makes your eye go to the lighter parts of the image. In the example here, this is her skin. In general, when an image contains a face, your eyes naturally seek out the eyes. With a black backdrop, this effect seems to be enhanced.

I did have to ensure that I had a hair light from above and behind to make sure that her hair was separated from the backdrop. Dark hair on a light-skinned model makes for more of challenge due to the contrast. Add to this the need to not lose the hair in the background, and the lighting is not trivial.

For this image, there are four lights: The primary lights are a “softbox” created by placing a diffuser in front of a flash that is left and forward of her, and an umbrella forward, right, and above her. The secondary lights are two hair lights above and behind her on the left and right. Each light that is added is one more that has to be balanced with all the others, so the complexity is higher than I would have liked. Also, in spite of all of the lights and softeners, I still had harder shadows than I would have liked. For example, look at her hair shadows on the right side of her face (her right).

Another point I learned was that I really need to be able to mount lights on the crossbar of the backdrop holder. Then, I could have used a single light with a grid as a hair light.

Candace in front of a white backdrop

I also worked with my white backdrop. If I lit it, I could burn it out, creating a solid white background, which makes darker hair easy to work with. However, I was getting a lot of reflected light from the backdrop onto her skin, which was a different challenge. I could have moved her forward, but the backdrop only came so far (I should have invested in the larger one…). For photos like this one, it would have been an acceptable solution, because I was not showing her feet.

A white shirt and a white backdrop makes for a challenge when trying to avoid burning out the shirt while doing just that with the backdrop.

Lighting the backdrop with fewer reflections onto the model would have been easier with barn doors or something similar on the backdrop lights.

One final issue was wrinkles. Both the black and the white backdrops had wrinkles in them from being folded. They did show up in the pictures, which makes more work for me since I want a smooth background. Both of the images on this page had visible wrinkles that I took out. Next time, I’ll try dampening them and putting them in a cool dryer to see if that helps. I guess I could break out a iron as well. Anybody have other ideas?

Soft Light

Soft light comes from a diffuse source. The classic example is an overcast day, where the light comes from everywhere and there are few, if any shadows. Other examples of soft light include studio softboxes, diffusers, and reflected light from a large surface (e.g., a ceiling). All of these need to be near the subject, otherwise they begin to act more like hard light…move an umbrella reflector away from the subject and the light becomes harder.

Shadows on an object lit with soft light have a less-defined edge, and they are not as dark. Because it does not highlight blemishes, scars, and wrinkles, soft light tends to be more flattering for people. For this reason, portraits normally use soft light, as do some glamor shots.

Here are some of my favorite soft-light shots illustrating this type of lighting.

The light on his face is bounced from the rock he is looking at, creating a light soruce that is effectively as large as the lit area of the rock.

The primary light source is a large diffuser to the right that the flash unit is lighting up.. Effectively, the size of the light source is about three by two feet . You can see that the shadows have plenty of detail in them.

This is the second in a series of blog entries about hard and soft lighting. The previous entry is Hard Light.

Hard Light

I am not the first to write about the distinction between hard and soft light. However, I recently prepared (and gave) a talk for the 2011 National Speleological Society (NSS) convention, and I learned a bit in doing the preparation for the talk. The results for this will be spread across a few blog entries to keep each one tight and on a specific topic. As I finish them, I will link them all together.

First, definitions. Hard light is light that has sharp edges to the shadows. It comes from a small light source or a large one far from the subject. Most speedlite/speedlight flash units are relatively small light sources. The sun is large, but it is far away, so it also is a hard light source, especially near noon.

Hard light is good for showing textures and fine details. This is great for photos like geological features, but few people want every last blemish and wrinkle highlighted in the photo unless it is to show character as in this example.

Note the texture, sharp shadow lines , and deep shadows in this high-contrast image.

Young people, such as this lovely young woman, can also take hard light because they have great skin.

Her skin is good enough that the hard light is not a problem; she has no blemishes or wrinkles.

Shadows in hard light tend to be dark with few details. The high contrast can create a moody image that can be dramatic. Film noir movies are classic examples of this type of lighting.

You can also soften hard light by using a second (and possibly more) light source. If you have no modification devices that soften the light, this approach alone might be sufficient. Position the extra light(s) so they fill the deep shadows. I normally set the second light to be about a stop darker than the primary light, but the exact ratio depends on the situation.

The primary light is a hard light to the upper left. A second light to the right fills in most of the shadows with a lower light level.

To summarize this blog entry, hard light comes from a small light source and produces high-contrast images with dark, well-defined shadows. Sometimes, it is exactly what you need to set the mood of an image.

The importance of getting it right in the camera

I have been in India the last several weeks on non-photography business. When I did get out to take photos, I was yet again shown the importance of spending more time when taking the image to save much more post-processing time later. Here are a pair of images (you can click on them to see a larger version):

The image I took

The image I should have taken

The one on the left is the one I took. I was so focused on the woman’s face that I missed the very distracting motorcycle parked behind her. And, I had the camera set at a higher aperture to give reasonable depth-of-field, making the problem worse. The second image is what I wish I had taken. I’m not completely happy with my post-processing of the motorcycle out, so before I would really use the image, I’d need to re-do it. Overall, the result is spending much more time than it would have taken to stop, think about the picture I wanted to capture, and then getting it right in the camera. To get it right would have taken maybe five minutes. To post-process reasonably well will require an hour or few. Multiply this by several such photos, and these photos are a real time sink to make any use of.

So, the lesson is a repeat of what has been said several times before by several other photographers: Create an image, do not take a picture. The difference is the difference between a snapshot and a good photograph.

Simple studio

Until very recently, all of my photography has been on location. This means that have never really used a studio. As an experiment, I built a simple studio in my living room to experiment. Parts were a success, and parts need additional work. Here’s a sample photo, only lightly edited, from that experiment.

An example of using a simple studio setup

What worked
The backdrop stand I made from two pieces of half-inch conduit set in Quickrete in buckets. I used another piece of conduit for the cross piece, and a pair of connected conduit hangers to hold the crosspiece. If there’s sufficient demand, I’ll take pictures of all of the pieces. I held the backdrop on the crosspiece with simple 1-inch clamps. The whole set of materials cost under $30 (I forget how much) at a local hardware store. If I was doing it again, I’d get slightly larger buckets for improved stability, but what I have worked OK.

What did not work
At the hardware store, I purchased a 9×12 ft muslin drop cloth. I had thought it was a great idea because it was heavy (I had read about people’s problems with some muslin being too thin). This certainly had no problems with transparency. However, like most (all?) muslin, it really wrinkles. I was hoping the depth-of-field and/or overexposing it would take care of the wrinkles. Not always.

There were two reasons that the wrinkles were problems. I had a dedicated backdrop light, but it was not quite good enough for the job. I needed it to produce better diffused light, but all my light-softening devices were in use for the model(s). Yet one more thing on the to-buy list (plus more light shaping options). In some cases, I was able to over-expose the muslin, and the problems went away. However, because of problem number two, not quite enough distance between the model(s) and the backdrop, there were many times when the light reflecting back from the backdrop was a problem and it had to be toned down. In 20-20 hindsight, I could have lowered the crosspiece to gain more room in front, especially when I was shooting just the shorter model. However, the real solution is to get different material for the backdrop. A quick Google search led me to multiple companies who sell backdrops that do not wrinkle, and they are not too expensive (around $100-150).

Next photo shoot, I will think about whether or not having a backdrop with me would be useful or not. It is yet more stuff for me (or my assistant) to carry, and the bucket with concrete is not too portable. Yes, I know about light stands and crosspieces. I have one light stand, but I tend to use it for holding a light, diffuser, or reflector. I use tripods (I own several of varying sizes) for holding other lights. Plus, I have a voice-activated carbon-based bipod that holds lights and can even adjust them as needed.