Stephen: The Power of Lighting

OK, so apparently I lied five months ago when I said Half a Stop was back. But now it is, I promise. Well, at least for one post anyway.

I decided I would shoot the assignment I gave Nathan 450 days ago. The assignment was to make a series of photographs of an object that each evoke a different response to the object (or reflect a different attitude toward the object) by changing the lighting. I chose a napkin holder (with napkins) that sits my dining room table. I chose it for its simplicity (so that its fixed attributes would not over power the effect of the lighting) and light color (so its appearance would be more influenced by the lighting). It was also a convenient size.

Without further ado, here are the photographs:

As always, comments are appreciated. Eventuality I will post what I had in mind for each of the three photos, but first I would like to hear what attitudes or responses other people have toward each of them.

The Glorious Return of Half a Stop

After a long hiatus, I am pleased to announce that Half a Stop is coming back. I look forward to getting assignments again and having something to do with my cameras other than annoy my friends. It is cameras now, by the way. Over the last couple of months I have started collecting cameras through eBay. At last count, the total number was 22. Most of those are or will be functional, and I may use a few of them for assignments.

We will pick up where we left off. Nathan is going to complete the lighting assignment and provide me with a new one. We will work from the non-round-based schedule proposed a couple of posts (and many months) ago and see how it goes. I still hope to see some other photographers get involved; perhaps we will have guest photographers join us for a pseudo-round or two. Over the last several months, I have gotten to know several photographers here in Huntsville whom I would love to see stop by and contribute to Half a Stop. I am guessing that other contributors also have photographer friends who could participate as guests.

I am excited about our return, and I have high hopes for the future of Half a Stop.

Stephen: Break This Rule!

Since the rule of thirds is largely about not putting lines, edges, and primary subjects in the dead center of the photograph, and was supposed to do just that, I decided to invent and follow a rule of halves. My camera's viewfinder has guides along both center lines, so lining thing up was not difficult. Making them not look dumb was harder.

This assignment was very open-ended. I could shoot anything I wanted in any way I wanted, as long as I centered things. At first, I thought architecture would provide good subjects, but as I mentioned in my previous post, my first set didn't turn out well. This is the one surviving photo from that set, after significant editing.


If you every get a great idea for a photo that involves creating shadows and lining things up in a complicated way, I have some advice: Don't. Setting up and shooting this photo took way too much time and effort. Unless you have a dedicated studio with the right equipment (and preferably an assistant), studio work is very difficult. It would have been way easier to fake this with the GIMP, and it probably would have looked better. I know the horizontal edge is not at the half-way point, but I tried it that way and it looked dumb. The mental line between the peach (that's a peach, by the way) and its shadow is at the center, so quit your whining.


I took the next five photos yesterday evening at Big Spring Park. The birds are really tame and not at all shy, so they made better subjects than a lot of people I know. The third photo doesn't follow my rule of halves as well as I would like, but the geese were lined up like that for only an instant. I used my clipping-correction method on the fourth picture to remove a cyan tinge from the sky.






As always, comments are appreciated.

Should we ditch rounds?

Here's the deal. We all have unique, unpredictable schedules. Even when we make time to shoot, something like weather may interfere or the photos may not turn out well. Working on a tight schedule is hard, especially when you aren't getting paid for it.

For example, last week I shot some photos downtown. I felt great about them as I was shooting, but once I got them back and uploaded them to my PC, I realized they were boring and actually bad. They looked like they were taken by someone who needed to learn the rule of thirds rather than by someone who had moved beyond it. Only one of them made my final set for the assignment (which I will post shortly) and then only after extensive work in the GIMP.

All of this is to say I am thinking about getting rid of the rounds. I don't think we need to do away with due dates, but if we don't have rounds, one person's delays don't affect other participants. It will make things more complicated once we have more than two people actively participating and we rotate whom is assigning whom, but I think we can keep up with it.

Here's how I see this working. Once someone posts a set of photos, his next assigner gives him his next assignment within a day or two with a due date about two weeks from the assignment date. The time period for the assignment can vary depending on the complexity and the photographer's schedule. This will require the assigner to check Google Reader regularly so that the photographer doesn't spend a week with nothing to shoot. The assigner should also be thinking of assignments ahead of time, so that he can post one quickly. The photographer should make every effort to meet the due date, but if he cannot, it will not throw off the whole system.

I like the way rounds keep things orderly and provide labels for grouping, but I think the flexibility afforded us by doing away with them is more valuable. What does everyone (photographers and readers alike) think of this idea?

Stephen: Break This Rule!

You know the Rule of Thirds? The rule that is so helpful in nudging every beginning photographer out of the my-subject-must-be-centered nest--that's the one. Well, I want you to break that rule and show us what centering the subject can really do. If you get in a rebellious frenzy and break other rules, please explain when you post.

Even if the rules don't like being broken, I'm confident they'll enjoy being acknowledged. Being hated is better than being ignored

Daniel: Travelogue through Portraiture

In each place you visit, make a portrait of Mary Catherine that captures the spirit of that place. The representation of the place should be accomplished through the style of the photograph rather than through the objects captured in the frame. Do not just take a picture in front of the best-known landmark.

Due date: 25 October 2008 (Feel free to post as you go, but I would love to see them as a set as well.)

Nathan: The Power of Lighting

Select one object (natural or man-made) to photograph. Make a series of photographs of that object that each evoke a different response to the object (or reflect a different attitude toward the object) by changing the lighting. Perspective, setting, and processing may be changed if necessary, but the lighting should be the primary driver of the unique way the object is presented in each photograph.

Due date: 26 August 2 September 2008

Round 3

Assignment date: 21 August 2008
Due date: 26 August 2 September 2008
Evaluation date: 28 August 4 September 2008

Stephen assigns Nathan.
Nathan assigns Stephen.

In light of Daniel's continued preoccupation with wedding-related activities, I am leaving him out of this round. He may need to be on a modified schedule during his trip as well. He will likely receive both trip-long assignments and shorter (possibly location-specific) assignments.

Even More Clipping

As I was thinking about clipping, I realized there is an easy way to fix the hue of the sky in the GIMP (or Photoshop). To try it out, I used the following picture. I took this in bright sun on a Texas flight line in the early afternoon. I used fill flash to deal with the harsh shadows. This is the original, which was was not overexposed or clipped.

So why would someone use a correctly-exposed photo to illustrate a way of correcting clipping? So he would know the right answer. To do this on a photo that was originally overexposed, you can use all the same steps, you just have to play with a couple of things until they look right. To clip the colors, I moved the top point of the value curve in the curves tool from (255,255) to (191,255). Using the levels tool should give the same result. This provides the overexposed, clipped image.

I can now correct the overexposure by moving the top point of the value curve in the curves tool from (255,255) to (255,191). This step is optional, and if this was a real overexposed photo, you would have to figure out how far down to adjust it. Here it helps make the final result look more like the original. You can see that the hue of the sky is greener than it was in the original.

This is the real trick to this fix. I created a new transparent layer and used the brush tool to fill the sky with a color of the right hue (210). Only the hue matters. In a real situation, you would have to figure out what hue the sky should be, but an average of the bluest section of the sky should be close. If all of the sky is noticeably clipped, just pick a blue you like. You can color over the clouds because hue does not affect white or gray.

Next I changed the mode of the new layer from Normal to Hue. This makes everything below that layer have the hue of that layer. Clever, huh? The result does differ from the original in some important ways. The detail in the clouds is gone, and now they look flat. There is no way of fixing that, unless you want to paint them by hand. The sky looks a little different, but at least it now looks fairly natural.

What if I had not readjusted the exposure after I forced the clipping? It looks mostly the same, just brighter.

It is better not to overexpose your photos, but if you do, this might help you deal with a cyan sky. Maybe next time Nathan will think twice before he asks a question about one of my pet peeves.

Clipping, again

I used the curves tool in the GIMP to put together an animation showing the way clipping can affect the color of the sky. The important thing is the way the hue changes.

Stephen: Travelogue + Color

I didn't take pictures consistently enough throughout my trip for a real travelogue, but I took lots of photos during my two long layovers in Atlanta. I focused on people wearing clothing with interesting colors. The result is essentially street photography of people in the Atlanta airport. As far as I know, none of these people ever knew I photographed them, but I usually didn't hang around to find out. I shot many of the photos somewhat blindly from my hip.

Let me know what you think.

New Assignment for Stephen: Travelogue + Color

Potts, I want to know about your trip. Travelogue me! And do something with color. Your choice, just explain it when you post.

Due date: August 19, 2008