Last weekend, I had the opportunity to assist in photographing a wedding in Baltimore, MD. The area around the Inner Harbor of the city is a beautiful cityscape of tall buildings, wide streets,. Moreover, there are elevated pedestrian walkways, and a functional boat harbor. Especially on weekends, the area teems with people going to restaurants, shops, and museums that line the harbor. Luckily, there was one weekday when I had the chance to explore the city without much activity in the mid-morning. The harbor had a different feel. It was more serene and people that were around, were on the way to businesses and meetings instead of social gatherings. At this time, I was inspired by the difference from every other time that I have visited. It was easier to slow down with the camera and set up frames.
From the nearby Federal Hill neighborhood, there are monuments surrounding a promontory point that overlooks the harbor. In general, this is a popular spot for portrait sessions with couples and families. Both during the day, and into evening, the views of the harbor and city are a perfect backdrop. There are nice perspectives to the skyscrapers in the distance.
Busy Sunday today! Someone on the email list informed me that I forgot to post photos from the professional formation from the last Arthur Murray DC event. So sorry! Of course, I did not mean to leave them off my blogging list. It was on there, however just waiting its turn. And here they are! These are my favorite photos from the Salsa professional dance formation. It was performed by the Gaithersburg and Silver Spring studios. The team performed the dance so smoothly – transitioning between partners, forming lines, circles, all while
Overall it is a lot to take in when photographing formation groups. Especially with the staff performing at a professional level, there is a lot to attempt to capture. Of course they have the dance figures, but they have the added element of their body position to other couples. With this in mind, I don’t think I have a good strategy for photographing this aspect. I do love having the chance to try!
When I was four years old, my mother took me to my first piano lesson. This would be the start of 16 years of formal training in music. Many good lessons learned that translate to photography. One of my first lessons that I learned after getting my hands on the keys was how loud to play. The small “p” is musical notation for softly, quietly and the small “f” is the opposite – play loudly.
These are noted when the composer wants a change from how loud you were playing just before the notation. I remember it being more difficult for me to play quietly than to pound away on the keys! The concept that was taught from very early on was dynamics. It starts very simply, teaching student to play quiet or loud, but changing how loud you play notes increases the contrast that the audience hears in their ears. It expands the dynamic range of the music making it more interesting to listen.
Photography Dynamics
In photography, contrast is always a setting that you can adjust either in camera or in software. Increasing contrast in a photo will make dark parts of the image darker, and light parts brighter. Just as in a piece of music, the increase in dynamic range will make the photo more interesting to view for the eyes. Here is an example from our trip to the McKee-Beshers sunflower fields which illustrates the concept. This photo is how the camera captured it with default settings:
This is how most camera would capture the scene as you walked out into the field. It gets all the information, but there is no ‘pop’ out of the frame. With any photo editing software on your smartphone or computer, you can push the contrast in the frame:
With just that simple change, the image is already a step above what most people will post online from their point-and-shoot cameras and cell phone cameras. It does take a little effort, but it is worth it to make your photography stand out a little from what it posted out there.
Since I had the time, I took a few bracketed exposures to make a high-dynamic range image of the sunflower field. This really increases the local contrast of each of the colors, and gives a more surreal representation of the scene. I tried to make it a little closer to how your eyes will see the scene since the human eye can see much more range of brightness than the camera. I think it came out well!
