The interplay between light, water and time can give extraordinary results in slow-shutter photography, a technique in which long(ish) exposures (1/15 – 1 sec) combine with various camera movements to yield magical streaks of light reflections on a surreal background. The covers and inlay photography of the four albums of my ambient and jazz guitar music project “Chromatographies” used this technique to turn familiar land and cityscapes into abstract paintings of movement, light and color.
The gallery above shows the photographs used for the four covers each followed by an (approximately) corresponding image taken with a normal shutter speed and no camera movement. Click on each picture for an enlarged image and try to guess where they were taken. Read further below for the spoilers.Read more...
It was about time for a new entry in the the series on Black & White (B&W) photography. Here, showcasing a few examples of the vast genre of Street Photography. As before, these are all monochromatic renderings of digital photography files rendered in Lightroom applying the Silver Efex Pro 2 plugin.
This is Part II of the series on Black & White (B&W) photography, here showing a few images of African wildlife taken during a trip through the Londolozi Game Reserve in South Africa, in November 2015. It is really amazing how well some images of large animals in the wild lend themselves to B&W conversions, adding drama and a sense of intimacy at the same time. As before, these are all monochromatic renderings of digital photography files rendered in Lightroom applying the Silver Efex Pro 2 plugin from the Nik collection.
Kicking off a new series on Black & White (B&W) photography. More accurately, these will be monochromatic renderings of digital photography files. When and how do we decide whether a photograph will look better in B&W? Is it possible to imagine a B&W composition before pressing the shutter? There are a milliard ways to render a color file into a monochromatic image. Contrast, balance, structure, grain texture. Darker reds? Lighter greens? Sepia for a vintage effect? In these series, we will use Canon files rendered in Lightroom. In most cases, the (now free) Silver Efex Pro 2 plugin from the Nik collection was applied. Part I of the B&W series is about People.Read more...
From top left:
EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM
EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM
EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM
EF 11-24mm f/4L USM
EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro
EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM
EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM
EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM
EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM
EF 40mm f/2.8 STM “pancake”
EOS 5D Mark III w/battery grip
EOS 7D Mark II w/battery grip
Last installment of the series on Ultra Wide Angle (UWA) lenses, dedicated to panoramic compositions, perhaps one of the most common uses of UWA lenses. As in the previous examples, “filling the frame” with foreground, middle ground and background elements remains one key aspect of a successful composition. The images below were taken with Canon’s EF-S 10-22mm UWA lens on EOS 40D and EOS 7D cameras and the EF-16-35mm on the EOS 5DIII camera.
Bahia Drake, Costa Rica
Galapagos Islands, Ecuador
Otavalo, Ecuador
McRitchie Nature Reserve, Singapore
Gardens by the Bay (under construction), Singapore
Ultra Wide Angle lenses are not for portraiture. But they can deliver excellent images documenting people and wildlife in their environment. Here a few examples using Canon’s EF-S 10-22mm, EF 24mm L f/1.4 and EF 16-35mm L f/2.8 II UWA lenses.
