Maiden's Love Dance, Chinatown, San Francisco

I was at the Autumn Moon Festival in Chinatown recently. They had set up a stage and were doing cultural dance performances from different tribes in China. This particular dance featured a girl dancing for her lover. I can't remember exactly what the story was, whether she was dancing because they could not be together or because she was trying to woo him or if she was already with him and was doing it for joy. The composition that I chose for this was to include the Moon Goddess on the banner in the background. The girl was flying around the stage doing various moves and I was lucky enough to capture her mid-leap with the banner in the scene. I ended up cropping out the rest of the photo to just include the girl and the Moon Goddess.

In composing my shots these days, I am always looking for not just a beautiful image or subject, but rather a story to be told. A story told in a single frame is a very hard thing to do. Normally, you would start with a foreground and a background. Determine which contains your subject. Then you try to figure out what kind of story you want to tell. Once you figure out the feel or theme or story, then you can determine how best to tell it given the objects in the scene that you include from your foreground and background. In this example, I wanted to convey to the viewer that the girl is dancing like the Moon Goddess for some purpose...mimicking her to say how beautiful she is. Another example would be a laughing and happy child, with the background being a playground area in a toy store. It becomes pretty quick to do once you develop the practice of absorbing the scene into yourself and knowing the area you are in. Photography is also about patience, so you can wait for your shot if you are prepared. Photojournalism, in a very simple explanation. Foreground-Background; without both, you basically just have a portrait.

Moon Goddess Dance, Chinatown, San Francisco, California

Just a quick note this time. I spoke before a little bit about using the longest lengths of your frame to contain your picture. This is an example of composing your shot to use that long diagonal length. Some people turn their camera diagonally to introduce diagonal lines for more drama. While that is true and works (i.e. a man standing straight will look more dramatic, and exciting if you turn the camera slightly to make him diagonal), it isn't something that should be done a lot in the same photo sequence. You end up making the viewer dizzy as they constantly have to turn their head to comprehend the picture.

In this photo, the body of the dancer is just slightly off the vertical. It still looks normal and adds a bit of stability to the picture. That's good cause everything else is slanted. Thankfully, the ribbons that she is twirling are large, bright, colorful, and takes your eyes away from the rest. I could have zoomed out and used the horizontal orientation of the frame to contain the entire photo, but that would have introduced lots of negative space. You wouldn't be able to see the detail in the dancer's costume. And much of the real estate would have been wasted space. Turning the frame diagonal let me really zoom in there and still be able to get the entirety of the ribbon.

Keep your photos clean and tight, that's my motto.

The Embarcadero, San Francisco, California

Contrast in photography is not just about differences in color or light vs dark. The definition of contrast is the dissimilarity or difference between things. To balance a photo, you should have opposing contrasts in your frame. It makes the viewer uncomfortable if your photo is unbalanced. Sometimes they won't be able to tell what is out of place, but believe me they can feel it. Of course, you might be going for that particular affect, but in this post let's just examine the photo above and try to balance it out.

The first and obvious contrast to see are the differences in height of the two men. One really tall and the other really short. Now, it might not have been enough of a contrast if I were to have cut the lower bodies and the ground around them out. Being able to see the ground and the lower portion of the ground next to them gives perspective as to how tall they really are. Then you can see that the man on the right is empirically short and the man on the left is empirically tall. Another contrast to detect is the colorful shirts that they are wearing vs the monotone of the building on the other half of the frame. You could say another contrast would be the two men and their rounder, curved shape vs the squares and rectangles of the building.

That's the thing about contrasts. They make photos interesting because of their content. Here is a list that I started with to practice on:

• Highlights vs Shadows
  
• Tall vs Short
  
• Thick vs Thin
  
• Many vs One (or None)
• Hot vs Cold
• Old vs New
• Circular vs Square

There are obviously very, very many comparisons that you can make. Once you start training your eye to see them and force those comparisons, you start to see more stories evolve in your photos.

Rule of Thirds

It occurred to me recently that I never talked about one of the most basic compositional rules of thumb. The Rule of Thirds is a guideline in composition to help with making your photos more interesting. While the concept is simple, the possibilities are great. If you imagine that your frame has a tic-tac-toe board overlaid on top of it, the lines are where you should be placing your subjects. In other words, your frame is split into 9 equal sections and important compositional elements are placed on these lines or points where the lines intersect. The points themselves are considered power points, meaning that they carry more weight than other parts of the photo.

The facing of your subject will also add to the story you are trying to tell. For instance, if you place a man running on the left third of the frame and he is facing left, then it gives the feeling that he is running away from something. If he is facing right, he is running to something. You can then place other elements on the other side of the frame to support this feeling. You are leading the viewer's eyes either to or from the other side of the frame. Similarly, a bench can be on the left side of the frame and facing to the right to be seen as inviting. If the bench was facing left, it would look more abandoned. You could also give the feeling of something heading away from you (subject back to you and is at the top third of the frame) to the feeling of something heading to you. There are many possibilities from just using the Rule of Thirds and facing.

In the photo above, I wanted to give the sense that the subject was in deep thought. The facing towards the long side of the frame gave me the feeling of being receptive of thoughts or waiting for enlightenment. The people in the background suggested she was in a cafe of sorts. But the noise did not bother her, as per her expression. But if they were actually behind her, the context of the picture changes. It would suggest that the noise did bother her and that she put her back to them so that she can think. It's still the exact same scene, just photographed differently.

Unknown Plant, San Mateo, California

Sorry, I couldn't find what kind of plant this is. But I did want to talk about bokeh. Bokeh is the Japanese word for fuzzy. In photography, we use bokeh to describe the aesthetic and qualitative measure of light distortion in the out of focus areas of the photograph. It is a rather hard thing to quantify, as it is very subjective. Generally speaking, when the light forms more circular patterns in the out of focus areas, the more pleasing it is to the eye. Bokeh is used extensively in macro and portrait photography. By controlling your depth of field very tightly, you can focus the viewer's attention to exactly what your intended subject is supposed to be.

In the picture above, my subject was the seeds and how they interconnected with each other making long chains. Because I was using a macro lens with excellent bokeh, I was able to use some of the same seed branches as the background. The further away that the seeds were from my focal plane (the relative distance to the camera from where I focused), the more fuzzy they got. Eventually, they fuzzed out so much that they became a just a color and part of the background. I didn't need a backdrop of any kind, just a really tight depth of field and putting the colors that I wanted in the background.

A simple explanation of how to control your depth of field. DOF is computed by the focal length the lens is at, the distance you are from your focal point, and how large the aperture is (ie. the smaller the number, the less DOF). Generally speaking, the longer your focal length, the less DOF you have. The farther your focal point is, the larger your DOF. The larger your aperture, the smaller your DOF. In more layman's terms, wide angle lenses have a greater depth of field because you are generally wanting everything in focus with your wide angle view. For telephoto lenses, you can get pretty good blur except that the distances you are usually focusing on are much farther. But it is really the macro lenses where this is the most useful. A combination of larger focal lengths and very close focusing distances and a very large aperture gives you a very tight DOF. Combined with the way that the manufacturer generally builds these lenses, you get really nice circular bokeh.

One Lamp, Two Mirrors

I love reflections. Reflections from wall mirrors, car side view mirrors, mirrored sunglasses, still water, windows, etc all can become miniature frames within your photo. A frame within a frame, I like to say. Reflections can give you many effects, like multiplication, division, insights, different viewpoints, reversals, and distortion. For example, in this photo there is only 1 lamp. There are two mirrors on the wall joined at the corner. With the mirrors, it gave me 3 lamps total and a line leading up to the ceiling to 4 lights. The 4th light is actually a new reflection from the light shining off the ceiling. Add to that the molding that joined at the corner mirrored and reversed in different directions to itself, but at the same time looking like it was a continuation of its partner, and you get a strange X pattern. All this from 2 mirrors.

When photographing reflections, it is important to move around a lot. Change your angle of view (horizontally, vertically, and diagonally). Change your focal length and either widen or narrow your framing. Don't try to include as many objects as you can in the reflection. Pick something you want reflected and get only that in the picture. The mind's eye will draw the rest of it out.

New Orleans Square, Disneyland, California

This guy made for a great picture. The way he dressed, his happy expression, the texture of his face, and what he was doing really came together as a dramatic photo. To get the length of the guitar in the photo plus the upper body of the subject (who was at a perpendicular angle to the guitar), I used the longest lengths of the frame. Often times, people will just use a wide angle lens and use the curvature of the lens to get more into the photo. While this works, it also distorts the image greatly. Things in the distance will appear much smaller. Objects on the edges of the frames will bend because of the curve of the lens. You lose things like straight lines. The longest lengths of the frame are the diagonal corners. So, from top left to bottom right and top right to bottom left. I lined up the guitar to be at one corner and the man's head at another corner. This also helps to create a triangle using the right side of the frame. The viewer's mind will get a sense of stability from the triangles it perceived from the man's hand to face to guitar head and from the man's head to the guitar to the right side of the frame. But the diagonal lines drawn from the man's bodyline and the guitar's bodyline create a sense of excitement.

MGM Grand Hotel, Las Vegas

This interesting, rotating art display was hanging over the circular bar in the MGM Grand Hotel. Each vertical line was straight when looked at head on. But when they rotated to 90 degrees from you, you could see that they were actually outwardly curved. The lighting of the place actually lent itself very well to putting borders at the top and bottom of the display. Keep in mind, this display was about 25' high and at least 15' off the ground.

To me, the vertical lines gave a very bold feel to the photo. Throw in the gentle curves of the display as well as the gentle curve of the upper border, and it adds beauty to the boldness. They had lights shining on the exhibit, creating shadows and interesting light patterns on the columns. Shadows and highlights add texture and depth to a photo. Pictures are a 2 dimensional media form. The way you draw depth are diagonal lines (either explicit or perceived), shadows, or blur. In this photo, there are shadows (from the lights on the exhibit) and diagonal lines (from the varying heights of the structure).

Isla Mujeres, Mexico

Isla Mujeres has some beautiful sunsets. There are several keys points that I try to follow when I photograph the sunset:

• Don't center the horizon. Either the sky has great colouring and interesting clouds, or the ground takes on interesting hues because of the waning sun changing the light reflecting off it. Whichever is more interesting, make that 2/3 of the picture.
• Vertical orientation of the photo makes it more dramatic.
• Horizontal orientation of the photo makes it more serene and stable.
• Put the sun in the extreme corners or just outside of the photo. The sun is a really hot subject and will blow out everything around. If you want the sun in the shot, use a silhouette and put the sun behind something.
• The sunset colours will continue past the sun dropping below the horizon. So many photographers leave when the sun disappears. Stick around, wait for it to get dark.
• Towards the sun is not the only direction you should look in. Turn around. Sometimes what is behind you and reflecting the sunset colours will be just as picturesque.
• Focus to infinity. The light will change incredibly fast. If you set the focus beforehand, you have one less thing to wait for. You can just bang out composition after composition with varying orientations.
• Backlit and silhouette shots are great during sunsets. Sunsets are all about colours from the sky and shapes (of the clouds, objects between you and the horizon, 'scapes on the horizon). You cannot get anything further than the sun, so use those shapes to make your photo interesting.

When I took this picture, I was thinking of the quintessential vacation picture. Sunset, ocean, beach, exactly two people, palm trees, etc. Isla Mujeres ("Island of Women") is an amazing place.

Temple of the Warriors at Chitzen Itza, Mexico

Such an impressive structure. The Temple of the Warriors at Chitzen Itza in Mexico has 200 hundred columns surrounding it. I am not sure what each represents, but they stand resolute around their temple. When I first read about this site, I wanted to capture the feeling of standing amongst the columns. To almost reach out and touch the smoothness of the stone after so many years have passed (over 1000). In the background, you can see the actual Temple of the Warriors towering above the columns.

I knew that I wanted the depth of field to contain some of the columns close to me to be in focus. I did not want the ones closest to me in focus, nor did I want to totally blur out the ones in the distance. Lining up the columns so that they created a nice, clean diagonal off into the distance was also critical. The sun, luckily enough, was in a great position to give shadows of the columns cleanly across the ground giving me some horizontal lines and a sense of stability. Lastly, combined with the vertical columns, this picture makes one of the only photos I have that contains all 3 elemental lines...the stability of horizontal, the strength of vertical, and the excitement of diagonal. Often times, a scene may take many shots of different angles to achieve the best composition. Using the 50mm prime has taught me a lot about movement and repositioning.

Morning fishing

Out at Coyote Point, I went hunting for birds to capture some interesting photos to enter into a competition. This photo did not qualify because you could not clearly see the bird and see exactly what species it was, but I love the composition of showing both fisher types in the same frame. The correlation of the bird fishing the same waters as the humans hit a chord in me showing how we can so easily co-exist with nature.

Using my 70-200mm f/4 L lens, it was so easy to get such great blur on the people fishing in the background. Birds are easily scared by the noises our cameras make, as well as anyone approaching closely to them. I wish I had a longer lens, but you make due with what you got when the opportunity arrives. Set to max focal range with the widest aperture, I was able to really crop most of the scenery out. The great benefit of using a telephoto lens is that it is able to compress the objects in the distance to make them seem closer. This let me really tighten up the image

Yellow Daisies On The Move

I have asked a lot of people how they would have oriented this picture (vertically or horizontally). Most come back saying vertically, even though that is not how the plant grew. Horizontally is actually the right orientation for the plant if you were to see the entire plant. This picture makes me feel like the plant is going or reaching somewhere. The flowers are all reaching towards the left of the frame, seeming to pull the leaves and the rest of the plant along with them. The one unopened bud facing the camera looks alien to me. Like it is about to open up to peer at what I am doing.

Using the 100mm macro lens, I was fairly close to the plant. I knew I wanted some of the flowers in focus and the rest out of focus to give more depth to the picture. Almost like the ones on the left side of the frame have moved further than the others. At such close distances, every stop on the aperture counts for a lot. I used f/6.3 for this photo. I love my macro lens. The bokeh on the background is fantastic.

New Orleans Trolley in Action

One of my favorite photos. This is a trolley running in the French Quarter area near the Mississippi River. I like how it gives the sense of watching the trolley roll by with the background blurred from motion. If a person were to be standing there looking at the trolley, their eyes would have the same effect. The trolley would be in focus as you track it and the background would just scroll by.

To achieve this effect, I set the camera to AI Servo mode to track the trolley and continually focus on it. I set the speed fairly slow for this telephoto lens (1/30). I knew that at that speed, moving the camera across the background would blur it. Being that the lens was also non-ImageStabilized, I chose that speed as the slowest at which I could keep the trolley in focus. It's more of a problem of tracking and keeping the same focus spot to keep the trolley sharp. Any slower and I would have had to track the trolley longer, and therefore increasing the risk of it becoming out of focus. Any faster and you would lose some of the background blur that gives it motion. Lastly, during cropping, I made sure to place the trolley to the right side of the frame to give the sense of movement towards the left side...reinforcing the in motion feeling.

Marin Highlands overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge

My first posting! Thought I would start with a classic photograph in my area. The Golden Gate Bridge as viewed from the Marin Highlands. In the background, we have the lovely sky line of San Francisco. The photo was taken at twilight which gave a great glow on the bridge itself. The lights of the city and bridge had just flicked on and cars driving by were turning on their headlights. I used a long exposure to make up for the low light situation which gave the added benefit of motion blurring the cars crossing the bridge.

I love this picture because you can really see the orangeness of the bridge. If you look carefully, you can also see the tower atop Twin Peaks. It gives me the sense of standing on the cliff facing the city of San Francisco. You can practically smell the salty ocean breeze blowing in from the Pacific.