Joe Baraban’s Digital Photography Blog

Lots of elements from the ‘Artist Palette’ are in this image.

In my online class with the BPSOP, and in my “Stretching Your Frame of mind” workshops I conduct around the planet, I teach my fellow photographers how to incorporate the Elements of Visual Design and composition into your photography. While Line, Texture, Pattern, Form, Shapes, Balance and Color are the basic elements, we also work on Negative Space, Vanishing Point, Perspective, Rhythm, and Visual Tension.  All of these are found on the ‘Artist Palette’ the students walk away with after the four week course.

I like to present my online classes work to show how their new ‘Artist Palette’ has taken their imagery to new heights…Up a notch” is what I always refer to it as. As you enjoy the slideshow, you’ll see all these elements in each of the photos and as you’re drawn to these images, you’ll begin to understand why they’re as strong as they are.

Enjoy the show:

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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

Standing just inside the building.

I always try to be at a location either very early or very late in the day so the light is softer and warmer, and the shadows are longer…The Golden Hour. That’s not always possible especially when you’re somewhere that’s just a small part of the overall shoot. You just have to weigh all your options, then decide what’s the most important location to be at during the best light; providing the most photo ops possible in a short amount of time.

While working on a project for a company that raises crayfish in Louisiana, I was given a shot list that had to be covered in the three shoot days that was budgeted. As always, I sit down with the client and designer ahead of time in a pre-production meeting and talk about their wish list. What’s the most important photo? What will be on the cover? To me, it doesn’t matter as I will spend the same amount of energy for a photo that will be small and one that will be a full page.

In my forty plus year career, I think that the expression I disliked the most is when someone would say to me, “It’s not that important of a shot, so don’t spend too much time on it”…Really? I shouldn’t care what it looks like?

I digress!!!

Since we shot all day, there were times when the sun was high in the sky, rendering everything hot, harsh, and lots of contrast. The above photo was shot during that time of day. So what do you do, especially when you’re taking a portrait of some local workers and you don’t want “Raccoon eyes”? You know those eyes that have deep shadows from the sun being almost overhead?

You place them just out of the sun, where the light is just missing their face and the reflections coming off the ground help bounce light evenly on all their faces.

Works like a charm, and it’s what we often talk about in my online classes with the BPSOP, and in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around the planet.

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

JoeB

I’ve always been a fan of the Beetles every since they walked off that plane landing in the good old USA in 1964. That was sixty-four years ago, so I’m not sure how many of you out there saw it happening in real time like I did!!!

Let me digress,

I’ve been writing a blog since 2011 and a post has come out every six days since then!!

Getting my ideas for these posts come in all flavors: in my sleep when I wake up and write the idea down, watching a movie or TV show, eating my meals when I envision them while swirling around my Campbell’s Chicken Noodle soup, or spelling them in my alphabet cereal, or while listening to music in my car. This particular posts came to me while listening to Paul McCartney sing, “Let it Be“.

I teach an online classes with the BPSOP, and I also conduct my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops all over the (perfectly round) planet.

When walking around with one of the photographers during one of my workshops I’m always noticing that they will tend to raise their camera off their chest or hung over their shoulder, bring it up to their eye, and in one innocuous movement click the shutter…and as a result, over-process the hell out of it later while sitting in front of a computer.

I will tell them to not worry about the first shot being the one, you know the one that will go on the wall, a.k.a., wall hanger. I’m not saying that the first one couldn’t be ‘the one’, what I’m saying is that Vegas wouldn’t take those odds. That said, there is one exception, and that is if you’re street shooting and you have that one in a hundred, or thousand, or million chance of getting it, but that’s better than no chance; as in the submitted photo above.

Case in point, I was walking down one of the narrow streets in Shanghai, China and out of my left eye, my right eye in the viewfinder looking straight ahead, I saw this scary somewhat sinister looking man, his gaze fixed on what I was doing, the thought quickly racing through my mind that I could disappear without a trace in a country of over one a half billion people.

I had a 17-20mm lens on and was aiming the camera down the street panning the crowd for a shot, so he didn’t realize that he was my subject. In the proverbial blink of an eye I took the shot, and in the next blink of the (same) eye he had moved out of the light lost in a sea of Chinese.

Except for that, my chances of one of those ‘OMG’ shots lies somewhere in the second, third, fourth, or even fifth adjustment or variation.

So, my fellow photographers, what happens is that you take that first go at it (British talk) and then kill it with over-processing to make it appear as if you had spend time on it. In my respectful opinion it never works. I have seen photos that look like they just came out of a Disney Movie…and then there’s always AI to really f**ck it up.

Take your time, smell the roses and as Bob Marley once said, “Some people feel the rain while others just get wet.”

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, or follow me on FB. Come shoot with me sometime.

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