Noise is Not Evil–More Examples

In my last post “Noise is Not Evil” I made the case that noise can be used as an important artistic element of your photography and is not the evil scourge many seem to believe.  My view is in contrast to those in the photography world who appear to be obsessed with the idea that we should only accept what the best of today’s digital cameras are capable of.  In other words, new versions of cameras are increasingly capable of shooting high ISO, low light, and low noise photographs – this group of people believe because we can effectively eliminate noise in many circumstances , we should accept nothing less.  “They” are the people who believe noise is evil.

I don’t intend on pressing my case here, but thought to provide a few more examples of noisy photographs that work.

Today’s shots include a bike on the streets of Abu Dhabi, the Pentagon from the air, a man waiting at JFK, and finally, the beaches in Aqaba Jordan.

Have fun and go make some great photography.

Craig

Improving Your Photography Through a Committed Relationship

So you want to improve your photography?  Here is a tip; your photography will improve through a committed relationship!  The relationship I am talking about is not a relationship with your wife, husband, boyfriend or girlfriend, but a relationship with your camera, and more specifically with a particular lens.

Many of us have a camera and several lenses.  There is a good chance that our lens kit includes more zoom lenses than prime lens (fixed focal length like a 50mm).  Continuing with the metaphor of a relationship with another person, zoom lenses can offer a good relationship, but there is some focal length in the range of that zoom that feels as though it is dealing with a cheating partner.  In other words, if you are shooting with a 24-105mm lens, 85mm feels cheated as you zip around between the very attractive 24mm and the cozy 105mm.  In the mean time, you have not fully realized all the benefits of a close and enduring relationship with 85mm.

My recommendation is to stop cheating…at least for a while.  Snapping on a prime lens, and leaving it there, is the best way to keep yourself from cheating and develop a committed relationship.  The idea is to stick to one lens (and one focal length) until you have mastered it.  By sticking to a single lens and focal length, and experimenting with it at the extremes of it’s capability, you will more quickly advance your skills.

While any prime lens will yield the same advances, I recommend a 50mm.  A 50mm lens is about the closest representation of what you actually see and makes critiquing your work a simpler task.  If you don’t have a 50mm lens, go get one.  For Canon shooters, this is about as cheap as it gets.  A new 50mm f1.8 II goes for under $100 and can be found used for as low as $50.  And by the way, this is a super sharp lens, is not imposing to your subjects (particularly if they are the eating, breathing, sleeping type).
During your period of monogamy, don’t take the 50mm off your camera even though the temptation may seem unbearable.  You will benefit from your committed relationship.
The photographs featured in this post are some street photography from Abu Dhabi, UAE.  All were taken with the Canon 50mm f1.8 II mounted to a Canon 5D.  The second shot, of the gardeners, was the most fun.  As I walked along the Corniche in Abu Dhabi, they were sitting on a bench relaxing and telling stories.  I asked if I could take a photograph, and they became very excited.  Sometimes just asking is all it takes.  They were very pleased to see themselves on the display screen of my camera.  The photograph also adds to the story I have been telling regarding immigrant labor in the UAE.  Click on the tags at the right to see more.
Have fun, and go make some great photography.
Craig

Toning Back on Tone Mapping – An HDR Example

When I first started in the very cool and relatively new approach to photography, High Dynamic Range (HDR), like any new toy, I played with the extremes.  The best way to find the range of usefulness for any new technology or technique is to push it to the limits.  Pushing HDR to the limits results in some very surrealistic results.  If you click on the HDR label in the right column, you are sure to find some of my “over cooked” HDR photography.  In the fullness and richness of time, I have come to appreciate HDR photography more when greater restraint is used during post processing.

The purpose of this post is to examine HDR photography when applied in a restrained manner along with a several approaches to post processing.  The photography shown here features a flower garden along the Abu Dhabi Corniche and all begins with the first photograph; the completely unprocessed photograph is posted first (with all it’s warts such as dust spots).  This shot is the middle exposure in a three shot bracket.  What you do not see is the exposure made at two stops over exposure and the third at two stops under exposed…use your imagination.

The second shot is a routine adjustment in Lightroom with exposure, spot correction, saturation, contrast, noise and sharpness adjustments.  Still nothing to write home about.  In the third version, the three photographs were processed in Photomatix Pro using tone compression.  In my opinion, a dramatic improvement.  The colors are deeper, the shadows contain more detail, the sky is more dramatic, and the flowers take a more prominent role in the composition.  Meanwhile, the photograph has not transgressed the border to hyper realistic.  The photograph following was processed similarly, except the tone mapping function of Photomatix Pro was used – a more aggressive yet restrained approach.

In this shot, we see a nice improvement in the sky, but I am not happy with the treatment of the flower garden.  The leaves have turned more yellow, the balance of the shot is skewed a bit, and we are beginning to head toward the hyper realistic.  This version was processed using the “details enhancement” tools in Photomatix Pro.
The final version of this photograph was processed with more aggressive application of the tools in the details enhancement mode.  This type of processing is where many people run aground having veered dramatically into the hyper real.

By comparison to some work many people (and I) have done in pushing the limits of HDR, this version is not horrible.  However, if you compare this to the third version in this series, I think you will agree that the former is a more believable and possibly appealing representation of the scene.
Understand that I am not summarily criticizing aggressive post processing of HDR photography.  There are good artistic reasons to apply these techniques.  My simple recommendation is to understand the full range of potential outcomes, and choose the method that best suits your intentions.  Experiment, and don’t let the toys available to you derail your art unintentionally.
Have fun, and go make some great photography.
Craig

More of the “Unfamiliar Abu Dhabi”

Over the last year or so, I have posted several entries on the theme of “Unfamiliar Abu Dhabi.”  The objective of this project is to capture those views of life in Abu Dhabi you might not otherwise see in the tourism and investment marketing material.  While the beautiful buildings, desert, and more traditional shots you would normally find can be striking, daily life in Abu Dhabi is equally interesting to me.  Here are a few photographs adding to the collection of the Unfamiliar Abu Dhabi.

To see other posts on this subject see:
The Unfamiliar Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi Dhows
Mosques in the Unfamiliar Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi Side Streets at Night


Have fun and go make some great photography!
Craig

Triangles in Photography – Abu Dhabi Corniche

Triangles have a firm position in photography with respect to composition, and leading the eye through the photograph.  For example, the first photograph uses the triangles formed by the pavilion in the middle to draw the eye from the sunset (mid right 1/3) up through the sky, back to the Abu Dhabi skyline, then back to the man strolling along the Corniche on the right.  There are also overlaying triangles formed by the guy wires supporting the mast.  Finally, although inverted, another prominent triangle is formed by the sun, the highlight in the cloud above and just to the left of the mast, with the third leg formed by the subtle cloud lines in the upper right quadrant of the photograph.


The triangle formed by the batsman, bowler and fielder, all with their attention on the ball, add both focus and tension in the form of anticipation to this photograph.  This triangle is mimicked by the pattern of bricks in the walk – shallow triangles that almost imperceptibly reinforce the relationship between batter, bowler, and fielder.


In the final photograph, the Abu Dhabi Corniche underpass, forms a set of four triangles born from the X of the vanishing lines in the walls floor and ceiling of the under pass.  In this case the eye tends to begin with the base of the triangle (nearest the view) and draw the eye through to the center of the photograph.

There are a number of ways triangles are used in composition to add interest, tension, focus, and guide the viewers eye.  I will be sure to return with more examples.
Have fun, and go make some great photography.
Craig

Abandoned Bicycles in Abandoned Tarif, Abu Dhabi

In January, I wrote about my photo expedition to Tarif, Abu Dhabi on New Year’s day 2010.  The post “Abandoned Buildings in Tarif, Abu Dhabi” talks about the location and some of the photographs I made.  This entry is a companion to the first entry and narrows the subject to a couple of abandoned bicycles in one of the buildings.

One of the things I like about these shots is the fun of trying to get a unique look at something relatively simple.  The challenge is to find the right angle, the right light, the right depth of field and the composition that takes something from uninteresting to noteworthy or intriguing.

You should note that I did not stage the bikes or wheels.  I did not move anything, but rather shot exactly what I found.  Fortunately, whoever left them, did a fine job of leaving things in interesting positions with good lighting in mind!

As I mentioned in the first post featuring Tarif, I took over 600 shots that day.  In other words, you are likely to see some more from Tarif.
Have fun and go make some great photography.
Craig

Street Cricket in Abu Dhabi

Pretty much any evening you can walk along the parks of the Abu Dhabi Corniche and find impromptu cricket games much like you would find pickup basketball games at any park in the U.S.  However, this post is not about cricket; I am completely ill equipped to discuss or explain this impenetrable sport that can take up to five days to determine a victor.

In response to a number of requests, this post is about post processing.  I don’t intend this as a lesson in processing, just a general explanation of how I came to the final photograph and what thought process led to that conclusion.
The processing of this photo can be summarized as removing distractions to bring focus to the essence of the moment.
First, I cropped the image to remove distracting elements such as the lamp posts.  Next, I converted to black and white.  Because the shot was taken into the light, the colors are not strong and ultimately only serve to distract from the subject.  The balance of the adjustments included minor exposure correction, a curves adjustment for contrast, and a minor amount of sharpening.  All of the adjustments were done in Lightroom.
Have fun and go make some great photography.
Craig

Abandoned Buildings in Tarif, Abu Dhabi

This post features photography from an abandoned group of buildings in Tarif in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.  Tarif lies along the UAE coastal highway 11 approximately 100km West of Abu Dhabi and about one third of the way from Abu Dhabi to the border with Saudi Arabia.

I do not know for certain the history of this site.  However, I can give you a reasonably good guess based on my observations.  The buildings appear to have had an initial purpose, experienced re-use for a second purpose, and finally met its demise.

My guess is that the buildings were first used as some form of military installation.  Among other clues, the original guard gate and some of the physical security components remain.  Proximity to other newer related facilities provides additional clues.

It appears that when the military left the site, it was then used as a worker camp for immigrant laborers working on any one of the many construction projects in the immediate area, or in the Emirate.

While most of the buildings are in shambles and clearly have not been inhabited for a number of years, some appear to have been used as recently as the last few years.

So now we press on with a discussion of the photography.  Shooting and processing these photographs was a real challenge for me.  My normal approach to photography is much a matter of trying to find the extraordinary in the ordinary.  In other words, by looking for unique light, an interesting angle, or an uncommon perspective it is possible to make something appear unusual and appealing although it is fundamentally ordinary.

I say this was a challenge because when making photography in what amounts to an abandoned village, everything that passes in front of your lens is far from the ordinary.  Not having a clear strategy for how to approach this, I simply proceeded with what felt natural…shoot a lot!

If you have not guessed the subject of the previous photograph, it is a car.  This small format does not help, but even at full size, your only clues are a shock poking out here, a seat belt hanging out there, and the remains of a passenger seat impossibly compressed.

I have two people I would like to thank for this wonderful day of shooting (over 600 photographs).  Adam Backer is a regular reader of the blog and graciously invited me to join him for a trip to Tarif.  Adam is a talented photographer, and I encourage you to visit his site; Adam Backer Photography.  Also along on the trip was Mohammed Hasif.  Mohammed is new to photography and is progressing rapidly.  It was a pleasure spending the day with both of them.
As you might have guessed, after a day that included over 600 shutter clicks, these photographs represent but a small part of the entire day.  I will share a few more shots in second entry to be posted soon.  Stay tuned!
Have fun and go make some great photography!
Craig

Turn at the Abu Dhabi Equestrian Club

This photograph comes from a turn on the race track at Abu Dhabi Equestrian Club.  It is a beautiful facility and it was a beautiful evening.
The photograph was constructed from a three shot HDR taken with a Canon G10.  I was attending an event at the club and had the G10 in my pocket.  This was a shot of opportunity…you gotta take advantage of the gifts presented to you!
Have fun and go make some great photography.
Craig

Finally a Win!

In October I posted an entry about The Best Camera.  The post focused on the iPhone application called “The Best Camera” and my budding obsession with iPhone photography.

As a refresher, the basics of The Best Camera are:

1. Take a photograph with the iPhone
2. Process the photograph using The Best Camera app (although many people seem to be straying and using any number of apps for editing).
3. Use the app’s interface to submit the photo to The Best Camera website (and post it to twitter, facebook, and/or save the edited photo to your iPhone library).
4. Hope the other users of The Best Camera like your work and view/vote for your photography.  Photographs with the most votes (apparently the number of views takes care of tie breaking) are selected as hourly, daily and monthly “best photos.”

The very cool, and sometimes frustrating thing about the process of voting and selecting the best photos is that it is completely democratized….either you get votes and views from your peers, or not.  This is very cool because your success in this head-to-head full contact photography battle is completely dependent on how your peers assess your photography.

The frustrating aspects include:  a) I don’t always agree with my peers (ha…big surprise), b) every time you submit a photograph, it is like entering a new contest (for that hour) with a bunch of very talented cohorts, c) success is a relative issue…my best shot may have been submitted during the same hour as someone else’s totally rocking shot (oh well, better luck next time).

So here are a few words about the shots featured in this post.  The first photograph was my one and only hourly winner.  The rest are not…including those featured in my previous entry - The Best Camera.

Arguably, my shot that was selected as the best in that hour is not the best iPhone photograph I have produced.  That is Ok.  The fun comes in the challenge of making good photography with a very limited piece of gear.  I will keep trying.  If nothing else, it is entertaining.



Have fun and go make some great photography!
Craig

Weekend Adventures in Abu Dhabi – Camel Races, Traditional Dance, and Balloons

I just completed an absolutely wonderful weekend in Abu Dhabi.  For the first time, my wife traveled to Abu Dhabi with me which made the experiences sweeter and more memorable.  I spent the weekend with close friends which makes the shared experiences more special.  And of course, the photography opportunities were unbeatable.

This entry will be light on commentary.  My intent is to quickly post a few photographs from this past weekend with a promise return to these events and give them the attention they deserve. 

There were three principal photographic events this weekend:  1) the Camel Races in Al Wathba (the firest set of photographs.  Al Wathba is located about mid way between the city of Abu Dhabi and Al Ain), 2) Traditional dance from the UAE, 3) and a sunrise balloon ride over the desert in Nahel (in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi near Al Ain).

Enjoy the photography.  I promise to share more along with the stories behind the photography.  I will also return to the series of minimalist photography entries soon.
Traditional Dance:




The Balloon Ride:






I hope you enjoyed these photographs from our weekend desert extravaganza in the United Arab Emirates.  We had a terrific time, and as you can tell from the photography, the experience was completely unforgettable. 
At this rate of praise, I should be looking for a job with the tourism authority in the UAE!  I keep hinting about companies or organizations showing me a little love for honestly speaking well of them, but to date, nada.  Fortunately, I don’t expect it, this is all done for the love of it!
Have fun and, and go make some great photography!
Craig