PHOTOGRAPHER’S JOURNEY.com

I love great photojournalism. And I love it even more when I find it being done in off-the-beaten-path places like Springfield, Illinois. Not that there’s anything wrong with Springfield, but it isn’t known as a bastion of photojournalism. Or perhaps it should be.

Kristen Schmid is a freelance journalist there who’s work I really like. She photographs weddings and shoots portraits as many photographers do, but it’s her editorial work that I love. Her images tell stories. And sometimes, like in the picture above, they just make you want to know what someone is thinking.

I’ve written before about the power in telling a story with your pictures. It’s not the only way to make a great photograph - but it’s a very good way. Henri Cartier-Bresson, the co-founder of Magnum Photos, was a master at this, capturing what he called “the decisive moment” in a picture. And I think Schmid has done some of that here quite effectively.

So how do you tell stories visually? Here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. That “decisive moment,” as Cartier-Bresson put it, is critical. And these days with digital cameras and SLRs capable of rapid-fire shutter release, it is easier than ever. Not easy - but easier than ever. Shoot like crazy when something is happening, and sort it out later at the computer. Yeah, I know that’s not the way Cartier-Bresson did it, and I know it feels a little like shot-bracketing. But if you want to capture the moment at the precise point when it makes the most sense to a viewer, then take advantage of the technology in your camera.

2. When shooting a big scene where some sort of activity is unfolding, always keep a close eye on the peripherals. Sometimes - often, I’d say - the best photographs are happening just on the edges of the main activity. A mother, crying at her daughter’s wedding, for example. And these pictures can often work well if you incorporate them into the broader scene. In other words, shoot the main activity wide, but include the peripheral action in the framing. Continue Reading »



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There are many great ways to remove color from your images in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Not the least of which is the fantastic grayscale conversion process. But I want to show you one of my favorite methods for muting colors in a scene.

Obviously, this is just one technique and it doesn’t work for every image.

To begin with, I’ve found the most effective images for this technique are shot under cloud cover, and have at least some amount of red - and preferably a rusty red - in the scene somewhere. These are not essential elements, but images with those two things going for them almost always work.

For my example here, however, neither of those two things are present. This simple photograph was shot in late afternoon under fairly contrasty light at a cemetery behind one of the oldest churches in Virginia.

And here is the image I ended up with. Click on the thumbnail for a larger view. How did I get there?

It’s a fairly simple process.

First, I shoot in RAW format. This allows me to make these changes in a nondestructive manner prior to image output.

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I am pleased to announce that for those of you inclined toward browsing the Web on a tiny cell phone screen or Blackberry, you can now access the Photographer’s Journey blog in a mobile-friendly format.

Of course, by doing such a thing you’d be depriving yourself of the magical and life-changing full experience that is this site. It could trigger a plague of locusts. Or maybe a really really big flood. But hey, I work to please. So the new Photographer’s Journey mobile (same bat time, same bat channel) will do its best to provide you with the next-best-thing to being here.

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UPDATE: Just to be clear, I don’t believe the photo below is from McHowat’s Indonesian travels. Indeed, a good deal of his images were shot outside Indonesia. But I thought this image was a particularly nice example of his work. Visit his site to see some of the Indonesia images.

One of my favorite things to do - aside from grabbing my digital camera gear and heading off to some place I’ve never been - is researching and looking at the work of new, lesser-known amateur photographers. I am constantly amazed by the images some people consistently producer, even by so-called “amateurs.” They take their cameras out and pointed their lenses, and they capture a bit of how they see the world with every click of the shutter. In essence, I sometimes feel the photographs we take say as much about us as they do about the people or subject in them.

Because I enjoy the varied work of other photographers so much, I often turn to Flickr, as I’m sure many of you do. There’s a great variety of material there. And some of it is definitely worth a look, like the work of Richard McHowat.

McHowat uses the Flickr alias turboman2002. A Scottsman, he has lived in Indonesia for years and he picked up his camera as a way to document his life. His website contains a number of snapshots of he and friends posing, but it’s the rest of his photography that caught my eye.

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I have a confession to make. When it comes to photography, my personal style is pretty much a product of the moment. There isn’t a lot of consistency there. Sometimes I look to shoot explosive, colorful scenes with crazy intersecting lines. Sometimes I like to shoot portraits. Sometimes, as in the image here, I favor muted tones that I can further mute with software.

Does that variety make me a good photographer? Or an aimless one? Do I do myself a disservice by not sticking with one style and approach over another?

A few weeks back I posted a poll on this web site and I’ve been negligent in reporting the results until now. I asked a simple question: “Do you generally plan your photos?” The results were quite striking. 66% of those of you who responded said “No,” you do not plan your photographs. 24% said “A little” and just 9% of you said “Yes.” I think that tells us a lot and may have some bearing on the question of style.

I’ve read before that to be really successful as a photographer, one must develop and cultivate a personal style. The thinking is that everyone’s eye is unique, and if you can carve out that little place of uniqueness with your own lens, then your images are more easily remembered. Then if you’re really good, fate plays an odd game with your style by allowing other photographers to copy it. Yes, imitation is a form of flattery.

Frankly, the argument that photographers do well to cultivate their own personal style makes a lot of sense to me. But it’s wrong. Well, not wrong - but incomplete.

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Want to explore new web templates for Lightroom? Check out a new web site where you can do just that.

One of the fantastic features of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, as many of you no doubt know, is its web template feature. With just a few mouse clicks, I can gather and select a group of photos for my online gallery, choose a template, upload… and voila! I have an online gallery.

Well, for any of you familiar with this great piece of software you also probably know about the “presets” you can download from sites like Inside Lightroom. Have you ever wondered, like me, whether you could similarly download web templates? You can!

I’ve discovered a web site I want to share with you called Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Galleries. It’s a relatively new site, having launched just in April, so content is extremely limited at this point. But the concept is great. Essentially this will be a place where you can download a variety of alternate web template themes that work perfectly well in Lightroom. Installation is very simple if you pay close attention to the instructions provided (it’s really just a few steps, but your gallery template will appear in the right column of Lightroom under “Gallery” rather than the left column with the rest of the templates - no big deal as far as I’m concerned).

You can also do a great deal of customization of the template if you wish and there are instructions posted.

Just as an example, I’ve uploaded one of the themes to showcase a few pictures from my own gallery. I pretty much just slapped it up there and haven’t done any tweaking to it, but you get the idea.

I think this has the potential to be a really great web site and I hope to see it continue to develop. Once again, it just demonstrates the tremendous power and flexibility of Lightroom.

Now… if we could just get that version 1.1… SOON!

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