I Hate Flash...

Why? It scares me, it defies me to control it, demands manual control for best results. And mostly, it beats me… so much so that I bought this book, this flash, this camera, and finally, this lens to wrestle back control at the darker points of the my photographic adventure.

If I am honest with myself, I don’t know how to use it correctly, and have the photographic evidence to prove it! This post from Photocritic.Org might just put me on the path to flash redemption, and cure me of my past sins..

It can cast harsh shadows, especially when you forget to remove the lens hood!

It can wash EVERYTHING out. And off course, there is Red Eye!

It can reflect in glasses, windows… even been known to sparkle of the odd shiny nose or forehead.

And if you are using it, so is everybody else. Flash attack from all angles!

Occasionally…

Just occasionally…

It can work out all right

The eccentric Duke Special now features as a new gallery on JonathanBourke.Com. This is a repost of an earlier Flickr based Gallery as I slowly migrate my portfolio content to my own website. In this gallery, I try to capture the eccentricity, the motion, and the colour of Dukes’ performance at Dolans that night. Some of the images could be perceived as being blurred… but for me this accurately reflects the feeling of the gig.

Back when I originally posted this I said:

Duke Special wowed the midweek crowds at Dolans Warehouse in Limerick on Tuesday 9th of December. This time he had his band with him, and the percussionist, “Temperance Society”, entranced people with clattering, banging, shaking, twisting, roaring, scraping, and more. He was brilliant. It was a poignant night for Mary and I, as it will be our last concert in Dolans for some time…

In some ways, “Temperance Society” stole the show, using everything from pots and pans, assorted sticks and whatnot to create an eclectic sound. From Wikipedia:

He is most often accompanied by percussionist “Temperance Society” Chip Bailey, who plays cheese graters and egg whisks, a Stumpf fiddle and a Shirdi drone box, as well as the more typical drums and cymbals.

One Lens Every Photographer Should Own; a Fast 50!

Digital Photography School (DPS) suggests Three Lenses Every Photographer Should Own. Great article. Except…

Where is the fast lens? The fast 50? Nifty 50?

I know the article mentions a 50mm F2.8 as a macro lens, but what I am referring too is a F1.8 or better. I own the Canon EF 50mm F1.4, and it is my pride an joy. It makes nearly any setting look great.

• Dark venue; bring out the fast F1.4
• Cluttered backgroud; got to love the bokeh* of F1.4
• Travelling light; yep, the F1.4
• Stuck in a rut; the F1.4 again!

While it has it’s detractors, the Canon 50mm F1.4 is my go too lens for most of my concert and portrait photography. Here are some of my favorites:

The fast 50 can be an unforgiving beast though, it is possible to focus on the tip of a mans nose and have his eyes blurred. I remain to this day unsatisfied by this next shot of the artist Duke Special, lit only by the match, yet just the slightest touch out of focus:

A fast 50mm used to be sold as standard with all SLR’s in the past, as it was representative of the natural breath of vision. Nowadays photography this maxim from Robert Capa is rarely considered:

If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.

Cheap, slow consumer zoom lenses fill this slot, depriving new SLR owners of a truly challenging and rewarding photography experience.

Do yourself a favor… buy Canons cheapest lens, the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8, and open up a world of possibilities.

* Bokeh, from Wikipedia:

…is the blur, or the aesthetic quality of the blur, in out-of-focus areas of an image, or “the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light.” Differences in lens aberrations and aperture shape cause some lens designs to blur the image in a way that is pleasing to the eye, while others produce blurring that is unpleasant or distracting— “good” or “bad” bokeh, respectively. Bokeh occurs for parts of the scene that lie outside the depth of field. Photographers sometimes deliberately use a shallow focus technique to create images with prominent out-of-focus regions… The term comes from the Japanese word boke (暈け or ボケ), which means “blur” or “haze”, or boke-aji (ボケ味), the “blur quality”. The Japanese term boke is also used in the sense of a mental haze or senility.

20 Years of Adobe Photoshop - But is it Still Relevant for Photographers?

Webdesigner Depot website has a great overview of 20 Years of Adobe Photoshop. While I have Adobe Photoshop CS4; I find myself using it less and less, and I wonder whether it will remain as relevant to Photographers in particular in the future. The touch up tools now available in  Adobe Lightroom / Apple Aperture and the like could very well render Photoshop to the realm of super specialized tool for Graphic Artists and Web Designers.

That said, it really has been a phenomenon; so much so that it is often used as a verb:

That image looks photoshopped!

A result of that is that in popular culture it now stands for all that is wrong with magazine images of skinny models. It is accused of being complicated, difficult to learn and use, and extremely expensive. So much so that it must be one of the most pirated pieces of software on the internet.

Still amazing software though…

Jack L @ Dolans Warehouse in Limerick

In the continuing voyage of discovery that is sorting my photo collection comes another gallery. This time it is Jack L performing at Dolans Warehouse in Limerick on various dates in 2008.

Jack Lukeman (or Jack L) is pretty much unique amongst the artists I have seen perform… he can hold a venue on the power of his voice alone. I must have seen him perform 10 times now; he certainly ranks as one of my favorites. Check out his music at www.jacklukeman.com.

Windows 7 Logon Screen - Your Photos Here?

When you have a love of photography, you want to see your best images as much as possible. For those, like me, who spend most of their working day in front of a PC or Laptop you can always set your wallpaper to display your favorite image. With Microsoft Windows 7, you can even configure that image to automatically change frequently, or use images from an internet feed.

While this is a big improvement over Vista & XP, there are still some tweaks and adjustments which in my opinion should be built in, and could be done without complicating the overall user experience, such as the Windows Logon Screen, and in the case were you have dual monitors. Thankfully, others have stepped in to fill this gap…

Windows Logon Screen

As seen in the image above, I have set my logon screen to use one of my favorite images using Tweaks.Com Logon Screen Changer.

Tweaks.Com Logon Screen Changer

So simple, but for better looking images, ensure that you crop them to the same aspect ratio of your screen, say 1920 x 1080. Otherwise, the image will look distorted when the screen is locked.

Dual Monitor Support

Two main requirements here:

• Different images on each screen
• Stretch one image across both screens

DisplayFusion from Binary Fortress achieves both of these with ease, and much more besides. It’s a free download with a “Pro” option.

Display Fusion - Dual Monitor Support

Desktop Collage

Sometimes when one photo is not enough, a collage is a great alternative. Google Picasa, which I have mentioned previously, makes the creation of collages very easy. You can see an example of that in the Display Fusion image above.

Why Is Your Laptop Screen Blue?

A little note about the white balance of the photo of my laptop at the top of this post. The image is balanced using an Expodisc for the prevailing light, but the image on the screen of the laptop is still extremely blue. Why is this? The secret is in the top left… I am using a Pantone Huey with Room Light Correction enabled. It is altering the profile, and hence the white balance of the screen for the prevailing light as well. The two white balance corrections together… well, it doesn’t look great! Here is what I see normally:

Will The Real White Balance Please Stand Up?

So Many Photos...

Ok, I am a geek. I love good software, and I am always chasing the next “Big Thing”. In photography, the “Big Thing” over the last few years has been Digital Asset Management software. With the announcement from Apple of Aperture 3, and the impending arrival of Adobe Lightroom 3, I felt its about time that I updated my previous post on software for Photographers. So below I outline my views on some of the leading contenders, including Google Picasa, Apple iPhoto, and Adobe Photoshop Elements. In part 2, I will cover the more professional orientated offerings (at least in price) such as Apple Aperture, Adobe Lightroom, and some more exotic candidates.

What Is Digital Asset Management?

Before we jump into the overviews, it’s probably not a bad idea to outline very very briefly what we mean by Digital Asset Management. From Wikipedia:

Digital asset management (DAM) consists of management tasks and decisions surrounding the ingestion, annotation, cataloguing, storage, retrieval and distribution of digital assets. Digital photographs, animations, videos and music are samples of media asset management (a sub-category of DAM). Digital asset management systems includes computer software and/or hardware systems that aid in the process of digital asset management.

With the advent of Digital Cameras, (and now the emergence of Digital cameras shooting video), the number of original photo’s, edits, scans, etc. cluttering up our computers has exploded. Digital Asset Management processes and software products attempt to help us catalog, edit, rearrange, prune, locate and otherwise manage the thousands and thousands of digital photos and videos scattered around our hard disks. For a more indepth examination of Digital Asset Management, I can highly recommend The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers by Peter Krogh.

Initially, DAM software products restricted themselves to simply tracking the location of image files, and perhaps arranging them in virtual collections and albums. Now they offer so much more, and the line between them and Gorilla sized image editing packages such as Adobe Photoshop is blurring more and more. Even Scott Kelby, author of many many photoshop books, admits that he now spends 85% of his time in Adobe Lightroom! The two main criteria I used to select the following products were:

1. Software performs typical DAM tasks such as cataloging, rating, tagging, creation of virtual collections
2. Software performs some level of global image adjustment, such as exposure, white balance, or other tonal adjustments

Windows Live Photo Gallery

Microsoft Windows Live Photo Gallery

Many people are quiet happy to use the build in image previewing and tagging capabilities of Windows Vista or Windows 7. For those who want a bit more, Microsoft offers Windows Live Photo Gallery as a free download as part of the Windows Live suite. It brings enhanced photo browsing using the capture date embedded in the image, and people tagging. You can make some basic global adjustments to images such as sharpness, though these tend to be automatic with little tuning capability. Uploads to Flickr and Windows Live is supported natively, and Facebook using a plugin.

An interesting feature is support for Windows Live Sync which allows you to sync photo collections between computers.

Pro:

• Free
• Probably the easiest to use above directories of images
• If you are familar with Windows Vista or 7, you will be comfortable here

Con:

• RAW image support is limited to that provided by the underlying operating system
• No support for virtual collections, except by tags
• Limited searching
• Limited control over image adjustment

Details:

• Link: http://windowslive.com/Desktop/PhotoGallery
• Cost: Free
• Platforms: Windows
• Target: Entry level photographers with compact digital cameras who want a simple to use, yet familiar looking tool to manage their photos.

iPhoto

Apple iPhoto

I must admit that I have never used this iPhoto from Apple in anger, apart from playing with it in the Sydney Apple Store. It is part of the iLife suite of creative products which normally comes preinstalled with any new Mac, and at a cost for those who wish to upgrade. iPhoto is targeted at the compact digital camera wielding home user who just wants to tweak jpeg photos. Some of its organisation tools are strong though,and include the ability to create various types of albums, and use tools such as the automatic face detection, and location tagging using GPS support. Like most applications designed by Apple, the interface looks wonderful, especially the full screen view.

Pro:

• Simple to use
• Upload to Flickr, Facebook, and MobileMe
• Create Slideshows, Photo Books, and other Print Creations

Con:

• Mac only
• RAW image support is limited to that provided by the underlying operating system
• Limited control over image adjustment

Details:

• Link: http://www.apple.com/ilife/iphoto/
• Cost: US$62.95
• Platforms: Mac OSX
• Target: Entry level photographers with compact digital cameras
• Buy: iLife ‘09 (includes iPhoto)

Picasa

Google Picasa

Picasa from Google has in my impression got nearly everything that someone who loves photos would want. Sure, you don’t have individual pixel editing al a Photoshop, or the fine grained RAW controls present in most of the pro level products outlined below, but it sure is fun! It now has RAW support, virtual albums, can sync automatically up to Google Picasa Web Albums, face taging, geo location, and the wonderful collage tool, for creating collages such as the one at the very toop of this post (great for desktop wallpapers!). And it is available for all the major platforms. It doesn’t natively support Flickr or Facebook to my knowledge, but it is still my go to program for anyone who needs photo management on a budget.

Pro:

• Free
• Available on most platforms
• Very quick
• Great fun

Con:

• Sometimes the interface can be a little cluttered and confusing, in that there are so many toggle switches, sliders, big buttons all over the screen.
• Do not let it index your entire hard disk – unless you want to wade through all sorts of cached image files for internet browsers, and other rubbish
• Limited control over image adjustment
• RAW support while good, is not a match for PRO products

Details:

• Link: http://picasa.google.com/
• Cost: Free
• Platforms: Windows, Mac OSX, Linux
• Target: Entry level, but some aspects are useful and fun for all photographers

Adobe Photoshop Elements

Adobe Photoshop Elements

I was a long time Photoshop Elements user, initially for the cheap entry point into the pixel manipulating madness of photoshop. But you end up spending most of your time in the Elements Organiser… sorting, renaming, tagging, etc. that the powerful image editing tools tend to get overlooked. It packs a lot of power into a reasonable cheap package, including Adobe Camera RAW and support for hundreds of professional digital SLR’s. It does have it’s limitations though. When I was using it, it didn’t support layers, non destructive editing, advanced renaming, or automation using Photoshop Actions. It was winning an expensive set of Photoshop Actions that finally made me jump for Lightroom and Photoshop itself.

Pro:

• Very powerful image editing tools, 95% of what Photoshop offers for a fraction of the price
• Great organisational features, that were only matched with Adobe Lightroom appeared
• Superb RAW support through Adobe Camera RAW

Con:

• Seemed like there was a new version every year, with some useful features, but a lot of filler
• Enough of the tools from Photoshop to tempt you, before tripping you up with some gotchya

Details:

• Link: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopelwin/
• Cost: US$74.99 (Windows), US$85.49 (Mac OSX)
• Platforms: Windows, Mac OSX
• Buy: Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 (Windows), Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 (Mac OSX)
• Target: Advanced Amateur, should be included with every DSLR

Be Careful With The Delete Button

Would you believe that I had deleted this photo?

Nope…  Well, I had; didn’t like it in colour, so it was trashed.  Only I made a mistake. I only removed it from my Adobe Lightroom catalog rather than from disk, so I was more than surprised when it popped back when I sync’d folders.

A little tidy up with spot removal, some localised sharpening, and the Glow 10 preset from onOne Software (free download, by the way), and I am left with this.

Feel like I won the lotto… of course this little boy makes me feel like that every day. See more in this gallery.

Mundy in Profile @ Dolans Warehouse in Limerick

I know that I posted this gallery previously, but I am taking the liberty of reposting it as it is now the first collection within my Gallery on JonathanBourke.Com. Please feel free to check it out!

Apart from loving the music, and Dolans Warehouse for that matter, I love concert photography. It is by far and away one of the most challenging genres within photography. One second you are dealing with extremely low light levels, and the next, you are blinded by light. And all the time, the artist is jumping around stage like someone possessed. Compact cameras will not cut it in this environment. They are just too slow.

Digital SLRs with standard lenses might manage one or two lucky shots. Image Stabilised lenses are not going to help either… you might be able to hand hold the lens in the low light, but the rapid movement on stage will still be a blur.

High ISO’s and Fast Lenses are your friends. Most of my concert shots are taken with a Canon EOS 20D at ISO 1600, and a Canon 50mm F1.4. Even then, I am happy if I have 10 shots out of a hundred which are acceptable. My settings are pretty much:

• Aperature Priority, set to something like F2.8 max, sometimes right down to F1.4
• ISO set to 1600, 800 if I can get away with it
• Focus mode set to AI Servo… i.e. will attempt to track moving objects
• Centre Focus point selected
• Metering normally set to Evaluative, but I sometimes use Partial
• Drive mode set to continuous

And here is the kicker, White Balance set to Auto. this is an issue which is often discussed in relation to concert photography; i.e. how do you get accurate colours with all those crazy lights? My response to this is “Who cares?” In my mind, the crazy colours add to the drama and excitement of the event. I would never want to subdue them…

Mundy, introducing a little feedback!

The sun emerging from a storm in the Maldives

So I am finally relaunching the website. It has taken some time, but I believe that I now have the bits and pieces in place to meet my needs for the future. For those who are interested in these things, I will update my previous post on this topic at a later date. In particular I wanted my website to:

• showcase my photography – check out the new “Gallery” section which will grow over time to include images from my Travel, Concert, Sport, and Landscape collections
• facilitate sales of my images – you can now do this by clicking the “Buy Print” links over each image in the “Gallery”
• provide a forum to discuss photography, camera gear, techniques, and my struggles with all of these – see my “Blog”
• let people find out about me, and get in touch – my “About Me” and “Contact” page

And I wanted this all to look in some way professional!

For those who have called around before, you will notice that I have migrated my domain to a “.Com”. The main reason for this is that I now live in Australia, and rather than get an Australian domain to augment my existing “.ie”, it would be simpler to just use the one truly global domain name, despite the fact that “.Com” was never intended to fulfill this role.

I have migrated most of the old content, and implemented a redirect from my old site, but please get in touch if you find anything which needs correcting.