Joe Baraban’s Digital Photography Blog

Soumyajit, who lives in India, just asked me ,”How do you decide the the correct zoom range when you have a restless subject as this one.” I’m not sure I’m understanding “zoom range”, so I’ll go on the premise that she wants to know the best composition and the best way to frame this very weird critter.

For me, the basic problem here is the lack of believability. It doesn’t feel natural, and the reason is that she says she used a black t-shirt to hide the background; therein lies the problem. Why would there be light just on the spider and not anywhere else? That is, if she was trying to make this look like he was in his natural environment.

The area right under his left legs (camera left) is very confusing and hides his legs, so I would work on making this composition more of what I refer to as a “quick read”.

If the zoom range means how big or small to make him in the frame, I would want to not only make him larger, but I would also want to make it easier for the viewer to see all of him. Perhaps showing scale as well. Right now I have no idea how big this guy really is. He could be the size of a quarter or he could be large enough to swallow the entire city of Tulsa Oklahoma…at one sitting.

One of the pearls of wisdom I often say to my students is to, “consider the scene and its outcome”. Did this photo do/say what you intended?

Visit my website at:www.joebaraban.com, and follow me on Instagram: www.instagram.com/barabanjoe. Check out my workshops at the top of this post, come shoot with me sometime.

Thanks Soumyajit for your submission, I hope this helped.

JoeB

The very first baby photo

For all you new to be parent’s or grandparents, the first baby photo is usually taken in the hospital room, and I can tell you from experience, it’s probably the worst place on earth to take a photo; regardless of the subject matter. A photo that could only be counted as time goes by as the very first..especially if said first photo was taken by a phone!!!

Here’s what’s going to happen: The room will be dark, with the only light on being above the bed the new mom is laying in.  This is going to put those well-known “Raccoon” eyes on mom, you know the ones, the ones where deep black sockets replaced the actual eyes. Except to those in the cast of The Adam’s Family, going through what mom just did might not make her look as good as she could, , and dark eye sockets won’t add too much.

So, if you want some advice, and it’s the same advice I give to my online students with the BPSOP, and in my “Stretching Your Fame of Mind” workshops I conduct around our planet, think about the light first and foremost. All it takes is a little thought and knowing how to expose properly to add visual tension and interest to take a photo that can stand the test of time and be considered worthy of sharing it with others every chance you can get…no matter how old the baby grows up to be.

In the above photo, I simply opened the curtain to let some available light into the room. I then exposed for the mother so I could blowout the window behind her…a very good thing and never let anyone tell you different. I used a real camera (not a phone with a built-in camera) and choose a narrow DOF to place the emphasis solely on the mom and baby.

Always take an alternative photo.

So my fellow photographers, what kind of first baby picture to you want to take?

Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com, and follow me on Instagram: www.instagram.com/barabanjoe. Check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog,

Come and shoot with me sometime.

JoeB

How many Elements from my Artist Palette do you see in my photograph?

For most of my forty plus career in Advertising and Corporate Photography,  I’ve been using what I call my Artist Palette. Now that I’m teaching online with the BPSOP, and conducting my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshop around the planet, I’m passing the baton to all my students.

The full description of my Artist Palette  can be found in the workshop overview on my website, but basically the Artist Palette is filled with all the Elements of Visual Design and Composition. Terms like: Negative Space, Vanishing Point, Tension, Perspective, Pattern, Texture, Shape, Line, Form, Light, and Color are either used individually or together to make the viewer become an active participant in our imagery which in turn will take our photography what I refer to as “Up a Notch”.

In this wonderful photograph Liz, a BPSOP student of mine, has learned just how important her new Artist Palette can be. The balance between the Negative and Positive space, the use of Perspective to create Layers of Interest, Tension generated by framing within a frame, creating three important triangles (Shape), Line, Pattern, Texture, Light, and Color have all melded together into a memorable photograph. When you can use this many Elements of Visual Design in one photo, it’s going to be very hard to miss.

Great shot Liz!

Visit my website at: www.joebaraban, follow me on Instagram: www.instagram.com/barabanjoe. Check out my workshop schedule and come shoot with me and work with your new Artist Palette.

JoeB

Leading the viewer up the steps.

According to the principal of Gestalt, the objective in our photography is to control what the viewer sees. We want to lead him around our composition and while doing so he’ll become an active participant. Making people work harder is not necessarily a good thing, but in photography it is. The more he works by discovering new things in our photos, the longer he’ll stick around.

That’s just what we want him to do.

One of the concepts of Gestalt is called Continuance, and in my online class with the BPSOP, and with my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshop I teach around the globe, we go into detail, both in discussion and in practice. The viewer will have an instinctive tendency to follow a path, or a river, a fence line, roads, tree line, steps, railroad tracks, etc. These compositional elements are very important as they provide a way for the viewer to travel around our frame, and if these elements leave the frame all the better. We want to give the viewer multiple ways to leave and enter our frame.

The viewer will also want to know what someone is either looking at or pointing at in our pictures, especially if they’re looking or pointing out of the frame.

When I was younger, my friend and I would go to a shopping mall and stand right in the middle of a busy area, and after a few minutes, we would point up to the ceiling. We weren’t pointing at anything, but it didn’t take long for people to stop and look up at what we were pointing at.

It was Gestalt in action only at thirteen we didn’t know it at the time. I’m not sure we knew it at twenty-one either…or for that matter thirty-five!!! Now that I get Social Security, I thought it was a good time to stop doing that!!!

🙁

Here’s a few example of Continuance in photography”

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Check out my website at www.joebaraban.com, follow me on Instagram: www.instagram.com/barabanjoe. Check out any upcoming workshops at the top of this blog, then come shoot with me sometime!!

JoeB

I like the use of a Vanishing Point in my photographs.

Knowing how to incorporate the elements of visual design into our imagery is probably the best way to take your photos “up a notch”. It’s what I’ve been doing for the past forty-two years, and have done very well by it.

Where I learned to use these elements was not studying photography, but the years in school surrounding myself with courses in painting, design,  composition, and drawing. When I crossed over to photography at the ripe old age of 21, I carried all my training into this new medium that I absolutely fell head over heels in love with, especially since it was the answer I had been looking for.

I thought why spend days, or a week, or even a month painting a picture when a photograph taken by my new camera provided me with instant gratification.  I still considered myself an artist, as I do now. I’ve just changed out my pencils and paintbrushes for a camera.

In my online class with the BPSOP, and with my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshop I conduct around the planet, One of the elements my students use from their new Digital Artist Palette is called a Vanishing Point. Briefly stated,  a  Vanishing Point is the point where parallel lines viewed in perspective appear to converge at or near the horizon.

Leading lines are those Lines that lead the viewer around your composition, making him/her an active participant in your photography…a very good thing!!!

Here are two photos taken by students of mine that were able to create not only a Vanishing Point and Leading Lines, but several other elements from their new Digital Artist Palette as well.

Yvonne, a student of mine from Utah took this wonderful photograph that uses Leading Lines to take the viewer’s eyes down the wall to the payoff at the end…the Palm tree. The parallel lines are those lines that are at the top and bottom of the wall. They are very close to being a Vanishing Point, but the lines don’t begin behind the camera.

Karen, another student of mine that was part of my workshop at the Houston Center for Photography was with me at the Polo Grounds one sunrise when she saw this great example of a Vanishing Point and incorporated it into her final composition.

As usual, all my students learn exactly where the sun is going to rise and set any day of the year, so Karen knew a week before exactly where the light would fall when it would be there, and how long she had before the light was gone.

Really nice photographs!
Visit my website at www.joebaraban.com and follow me on Instagram: www.instagram.com/barabanjoe. Come shoot with me sometime. I’ll show you how to use both a Vanishing Point and Leading lines to take your imagery “Up a notch”.

JoeB

Think then shoot

Most people know me from years of writing these posts, actually starting from 2011. I spend over fifty years as an advertising, corporate, and editorial photographer, and now I teach an online class with the BPSOP, and I conduct workshops all over the planet…the round planet I might add.

Having said that, I can tell you from my years of shooting and teaching that the more you think while composing your image, the stronger your image will be.

I’m talking about an image that can stand the test of time, an image that when you’re thumbing threw your old photos and can come across any one of them no matter if it was taken a year or five years, it’s still as it was when you first clicked the shutter.

How do you do that you ask? You do that by thinking about the way your composition will be received by the viewer. Will you be able to keep him around for at least eight seconds? Doesn’t sound that long does it? Well, take it from me that eight seconds is a long time to keep someone interested. So then how about six seconds? Still a long time to have someone admire your photo. Just check out my thinking by clicking on the link!!!

Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com, and follow me on Instagram: www.instagram.com/barabanjoe. Then why don’t you come and shoot with me some time. Check out my workshop descriptions at the top of this blog.

JoeB

A new way of looking at the ordinary.

This is my ninth post in my series I call “Did It Do It”.

In my online classes at the PPSOP, and in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around the planet, I show fellow photographers how to incorporate the elements of Visual Design and composition into their thought process, and as a result, they’re able to take their photos what  I refer to as “up a notch”. I also give them my “did it do it” list which is a set of guidelines I’ve been thinking about for the majority of my career. These are not rules, since I don’t like nor do I follow any rules that others before me have put out there to create mediocre photographers.

In this new post, I want to talk about looking at new ways to photograph ordinary ideas. During my forty-five year career as a corporate and advertising photographer, I was always asked by an Art Director (who was told by a client) to take a photo of an incredible ordinary idea. To be sure, it wasn’t ordinary to the powers that be; quite the contrary, it was ground breaking to them. To be able to live with myself, I always took it as a challenge to come up with a new way of showing the same old, same old.

I tell my students to “consider the scene and it’s outcome”. In other words take a step out of your body and right before you think that you’re ready to snap the shutter ask yourself if what you’re about to take is a photo that you would think is ordinary if someone had shown it to you. If there’s the slightest chance that it is, why take it? Why not look for a way to say the same thing, but in a new way; at least a way you haven’t seen before.

In the above photo, i was hired by the advertising agency that handled Texas Tourism. As is usually the case, they had a list of ideas (ordinary) that they once again wanted to portray in the ads they were running in local and national magazines. One of the ongoing ideas was to show a family of four enjoying the beaches on South Padre Island. It had been done so many times that even the Art Director” got nauseous at the mere thought of reliving it again.

There was no way I was going to take a photo of a mom, dad, son, and daughter enjoying the beach. I would have rather had my ‘eye’ carved out with a snow shovel. So what did I do?  I went to the nearest tourist shop and found four colorful beach chairs. I set them up as though there were the family sitting there, only there was just one at the time. The rest of the family was implied. The client loved it!!!!!

Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com and check out my 2013 workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot the un-ordinary with me sometime.

Don’t forget to send me a photo and question to: AskJoeB@gmail.com.

JoeB

Painting the lighthouse at Pemaquid Point

I had conducted my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshop at the Maine Media Workshops in Rockport, Maine. One of the locations I took my class was Pemaquid Lighthouse, and it was always a great way to introduce the class to painting with light.

Sitting in the shadow of the lighthouse at Pemaquid Point with an incredible view, my class and I enjoyed lunch provided by the workshop. I had taken them there to scout the lighthouse, and with my software called Sunpath and a hand bearing compass called a Morin 2000, I showed them how to determine where the sun was going to rise (to the exact degree) and when it would hit the horizon. By the way, it’s a hell of a lot accurate than any app you can put on your phone.

Painting the Lighthouse

The next morning we met at 3:30AM for the drive to Pemaquid. I wanted to be there an hour before sunrise to give us enough time to set up. That day dawn began at 5:05AM, with the actual sunrise coming at 5:27AM at 81 degrees. I knew we had twenty-two minutes before the sun came up to paint the lighthouse with my RedLine tactical flashlight. I had the class set up and shoot while I ran around and showed them how to paint while keeping their camera shutter open.

It was a beautiful morning, and the class really enjoyed the experience. Afterward, we had my traditional breakfast at Moody’s Diner in Waldoboro, Maine.

What fun!

JoeB

“Taxi”!!!

I recently returned from yet another of my latest workshop in New York, and it will have to go down as one of the best group of people I’ve ever had…or close to it since so many had taken at least one if not ten  previous workshops with me. The level of work was amazing and I was was proud to be a part of it. Nor only am I proud to show you their week taken during the week, but I would think you will agree that it’s pretty impressive work.

We shot at several places you’ll recognize in the slideshow: The Seaport, Memorial Gardens, the Brooklyn Bridge, Chinatown, Washing Square Park, the Village, Central Park, Calatrava Path Station, and a private hard hat tour of the shuttered hospitals on Ellis Island…not counting just walking around the city finding photo ops wherever you looked.

As I said, most of the people had taken my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshop, or had taken my online classes with the BPSOP…or both, and I would put their body of work against the majority of working professionals living through the US…and abroad.

Group photo taken after the hard hat tour on Ellis Island.

You’ll have to excuse me this time for the amount of photos I’ve selected, but it was very difficult and this is less than half of what I went through as to make it as short as possible. Just keep your finger clicking on the arrow and it will go by a lot quicker!!!!

🙂

I always try to select a photo to highlight and it was very difficult to do so. I finally settled on the one at the top that to me represents New York, albeit in a semi-strange (NY) way. It’s the one image you see happening more than any other when in the Big Apple.

Enjoy:

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Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com and follow me on Instagram: www.instagram.com/barabanjoe. Check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog.

JoeB

Game, Set, Match

Although it feels like centuries, some thirty years ago I was hired to shoot the annual report for Anderson Consulting. By all accounts, it was a great project that took me around the world shooting their clients.

One of their clients was the Social Security Department of Spain, and my assignment was to just shoot the people of their country. What a great job I thought to myself upon hearing what they wanted me to do. What more could I ask for since I love to shoot environmental portraits, and to travel around doing just that (with a complete free hand in what subject I picked to shoot) was just about as good as it got.

We based out of Madrid, and we were there during their Carnival…another story of really weird people dressing up and walking around the Plaza Mayor, Puerta Del Sol.  Besides shooting in Madrid, we also went to Toledo, and Cordoba to shoot there as well.

While in a small plaza in Toledo, I had a 300mm F/2.8 lens on a tripod and I felt as if I were a submarine captain in World War II looking through a periscope hunted enemy targets. Instead I was looking in the viewfinder, and after I had loosened all the knobs, I could freely swivel my camera around the crowds back and forth looking for subjects/targets of any height.

As I tell my online students with the BPSOP, and in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around our planet, constantly look around you, be aware of any movements and especially look behind you because that illusive ‘OMG” photo is lurking somewhere out there and just waiting to be captured.

While scanning the crowd, I saw this woman holding a fan close to her face. The first time I saw here she quickly turned away…the game was on!! I wanted her picture, and she was doing everything she could to avoid me. What I had in my favor was her extreme curiosity as to what I was doing and she couldn’t help herself to periodically look in my direction. At that point come hell or high water, and if it took me the rest of my life, I was going to get my shot.

In those days I was shooting film, and you had to focus your own camera. While her head was turned I pre-focused on her, and since I was at F/2.8, and at the minimum distance for that lens to get her sharp; I didn’t have much latitude as far as my DOF was concerned.

Since I was focused on her, I pretended to scan the rest of the people but was not actually shooting. Not knowing whether she was looking or not I looked back in her direction, and before a blink of either her or my eye, I clicked the shutter. I got her!!!!!

I smiled at her and reluctantly she gave me a half smile back as she knew at that moment that it was game, set, and match.

Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com, and follow me on Instagram: www.instagram.com/barabanjoe. Check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog as it becomes available. onderful country.

JoeB

In the last couple of years I’ve seen a trend develop concerning my fellow photographers that take my three classes with the BPSOP, and also in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around the planet.

It seems that everyone wants to have a website and actually try to generate some income from it. I’m often been asked what type of photos would need to be in it in order for people to be interested in buying their services.

My first question to anyone is what do you like taking pictures of? That’s so important, because if you don’t love your subject matter, you’ll never be happy with whatever outcome befalls you. Second question would be where do you want this new generated income to be coming from. Are you looking for people to buy prints from your site, or do you want someone to hire you to shoot original photography.

If you’re only interested in selling prints, then the subject matter should be generic in nature. In other words, color photography of land or seascapes, flowers, abstracts, or B/W editorial or photojournalism. Of course any of the areas I’ve mentioned can also be shot in B/W.

If you’re interested in being hired to shoot editorial, corporate, or advertising photography, then it’s very important to be able to shoot people. People like to see people in photos, and for an editor, art director, or graphic designer to hire you you need to be good at what’s called Lifestyle Photography.

Lifestyle was one of the areas I was best known for back in the days when I was shooting for all three of these avenues. It’s about capturing people in everyday life. Situations that are common to the people that will be looking at your pictures. Situations that they are involved in every day of their lives. Needless to say these Lifestyle photos need to be shot by portrait or people photographers and handled in an artistic manner.

Although Lifestyle photography depicts common everyday occurrences, it would also include those moments that are not seen everyday, but still include people interacting with other people or people being alone with nature. For example a lone cross country skier alone against the elements.

Think of situations that you’ve experienced or seen being experienced by others. Finding these happening in real time…real life may take you a long time to accumulate enough images to put on a site.

Or, try setting  these scenarios up and then shooting in a reportage style. In other words, set up a situation and shoot it as if it were really happening.

Here’s a few examples of what I mean:

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Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com, and follow me on Instagram: www.instagram.com/barabanjoe. Check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. come shoot with me sometime.

JoeB

The jockey picture.

In my part I post on the “Law of the Light” I talked about positioning my 57’Chevy in a position where I could get a “POP” on the front grill. By placing the car in such a way as to have the Angle of Incidence (the light falling on the grill) being the same as the Angle of Reflection (the light reflecting off the grill to the lens).. I also said that it was my favorite way to light …anything!!! Well that, next to backlight, is my favorite way to light people as well.

In my online class with the BPSOP, and in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind ” workshop I conduct around the planet, I provide my students with a diagram of a clock as I’ve provided here. If you notice, I have my subject right in the center and my camera right above the six. I tell them to imagine this clock on the ground (or behind your subject depending what is easier for you to imagine) and the person they want to photograph standing where I have the subject (in the middle of the clock).

In order to light the person so that they’re in the “Law of the light”, I want the sun, or the light source to be either around 10 o’clock or around 2 o’clock with the camera at 6 o’clock. This would be when the angle of the light source hitting the subject is the same angle as the light sources reflecting off the subject hitting the lens.

As you can see by my clock diagram, the source of the light is coming from about 2 o’clock and from behind the jockey. The angle from the ‘2’ to the subject is the same angle as the subject to the camera.

Here’s a few more examples of shooting people in the “Law of the Light” In each of these photos, imagine the clock superimposed over the photo:

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Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com, and follow me on Instagram www.instagram.com/barabanjoe. Check out my workshop schedule and come shoot in the “Law of the Light” with me.

JoeB

Mary sent me this image with a question. I like to include what fellow photographers have to say so that others that might have a similar question or photo can benefit. Here’s what Mary had to say:

“Hi,

My name is Mary Robinson and I came across your site via Lightstalking.com. I have enjoyed reading your blog and am interested in having a photo critiqued. My question is, I have always been told and read numerous times that the most important thing would be to make sure in portraits that the eyes are in focus. In this particular image I have done that, but the beak itself is not, given the settings I was using and that my angle of view was slightly above the bird how would I have avoided getting parts of the bird out of focus while others are in focus and does it matter in this particular instance as the eyes are what drew me to take the shot in the first place?”

Mary,

I looked at you camera settings and it said you were using a 70-200 zoom, and you were just about all the way out at 190mm. It also says that you were at F/7.1 at 1/160th of a second.  This could be the problem.

I realize that the distance from the end of the beak to the eyes is not very far, but it might be too great a distance to get it all sharp at F/7.1 with a 200mm lens. At 200mm, the plane of focus is not very much, which is why it’s used to separate the Figure from the Ground. In my new class with the BPSOP, and in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops we work on the six principles of Gestalt. One of them is called Figure-Ground”, and it deals with ways to separate the figure (the subject) from the ground (background). The best way is to use a long lens and shoot with a minimum aperture. This is sort of what’s happening with your photo of the hawk.

Here’s what I suggest: First of all I assume you were using a tripod, because if you were hand holding it you already started out with a sharpness problem. Ok, assuming you were on a tripod, I believe it would have taken more DOF to get him sharp from the beak to the eyes…if you were at 190mm.

It also appears that you were over to the right side of the beak, so the distance from the feathers and eye on the left was further away from the features and eye on the right on the right. That would have been enough to not get all of it sharp. Remember that you’re dealing with a long lens so you have to remember that it’s going to take more DOF to get everything you want in focus.

It’s also possible that 1/160th of a second was not fast enough to maintain sharpness. That’s not really all that fast when shooting wildlife.

I hope this helped.

Visit my website at: www.joeBaraban.com and follow me on Instagram: www.instagram.com/barabanjoe. Check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.

JoeB