Spirals, Ratios, Cropping and Composition

From the research I've been doing into composition has sprung a world of Fibonacci spirals. The size and ratios of images is are  important considerations when framing the shot in camera. The Fibonacci spiral fits into the GoldenSection of 1:1.6, if we remove a square (equal to the length of the short short side) from the rectangle formed by this ratio we are left with a rectangle which retains the original ratio of 1:1.6

Nikon D90 with Tamron AF 90mm Macro lens at 90mm

f/18. 1/4sec. ISO250. Tripod and self timer.

Looking further I decided to work out the ratios of common film sizes and cameras.

4 x 6 in = 1 : 1.6

5 x 7 in = 1 : 1.4

8 x 10 in = 1 : 1.25

30 x 40cm = 1 : 133

A4   210 x 297mm = 1 : 41    This is also special because it folds in half and gives 2 rectangles with the same ratio.

40 x 50cm = 1 : 1.25    This maximum size of mount for our competition photography.

10 x 12in = 1 : 1.2

35mm gauge film neg  35 x 24mm = 1 : 1.45  with 8 sprocket holes per frame

Nikon D90 on Large image size (and for NEF)   4288 x 2848 pixels = 1 : 1.5

I've found it useful to use transparent overlay of the spiral over the screen as an aid to composition, usually placing the tight part of the spiral over the centre of interest. To me the 1 ; 1.6 rectangle often looks a little long, but can work well in portrait mode.

This isn't the be all and end all by any means, it's just another useful tool. It has helped my 'photographic eye' as I'm weighing up shot options and for post production work.

The tight part of the spiral is not far off a third so this must be part of the reason it works.

Final Images For Bill

Sunday 25 April
Weather forecast for our arranged afternoon trip to Calke Abbey in Derbyshire was 'unpredictable with the chance of showers', and I don't think Sue has a degree in meteorology but she seemed to be much more accurate than that. Would it be more helpful if our TV presenters said, 'And now over to the weather guess' rather than forecast.

As ever Bill Cove is a mine of accurate information and observation, drawing our attention to green wood peckers, little (microscopic?) owls and antlers. Incidentally, Bill also knows all the names of Santa's reindeers, so his love of wildlife was apparent from a very early age. His enthusiasm is contagious. It's a special moment to unlock the chained entrance gates to the 50 acre deer park and be led into the ancient pastureland, collectively we felt we were starting one of those 'money can't buy' experiences.

Waiting for the crew to turn up I took some shots around the car park area.

The smaller Fallow deer are an entirely different species and keep themselves to themselves, there is very little interaction between the two herds, Fallow are wilder and much less 'farmable'.

Calke is well known for its 'untidy' parkland. Standing dead wood is left untouched where ever possible, felled timber is left to rot all of which creates habitat for a wide range of insects which form the start of the food chain for many  other larger species. This diversity is often lost in managed timber plantations and woodland.

Red deer are much bigger beasts and are to some extent farmed, the meat being used in the restaurant and sold to local suppliers.

It is a source of constant amazement to me that they shed their antlers annually and grow a completely new set from scratch each year. The stag's antlers are a mark of its breeding potential akin to Rolex watches and Porches in the human world, although research has shown that many female deer happily prefer a nice smile and a sense of humour though.

As predicted by Sue, the rain came and the deer enjoyed our panicked unwrapping of waterproof jackets, bright red umbrellas and a rather lovely black one which Steve refused to share with me.

This lone hawthorn caught my eye when others were spotting elusive green wood peckers on distant horizons. I seem to be taken over by photography even in my sleeping hours. The sky was bright in places, the distant woods comparatively dark as was the base and trunk of the hawthorn, the foreground was also bright.  I took 3 bracketed shots and merged to give a first go at HDR after listening to the lecture given by Peter Clark at the camera club.

We are going to give Bill some of our shots in return for the guided visit. If we all chip in £2 we could buy a memory stick to upload onto and then present to him. I'm thinking he might do a return visit later in the year if we make a good job of it and I've got some other thoughts for us to discuss on Sat with regard to Rebecca's Burton Hospital idea.

I know you prefer tits

Gold Finches

The collective noun for gold finches is a 'Charm', isn't that lovely?

Hand Theme Research

The ideas for a theme on hands slowly occured to me as I walked round the Victoria and Albert Museum in the final hour or so of our photographic trip to London. The first hall I entered was full of marvellous sculptures and I could have quite happily spent a day in that one place.
I find freehand drawing impossible, so the thought of sculpture totally intrigues. Cartoons are usually drawn showing people with 3 fingers, because there just isn't the space to show 4 and a thumb.

Hands seem to be able to make or break a photographic portrait and often the easiest option is to not include them and have one less thing to worry about. From looking at the great photographers, Karsh, Tom Ang and Jane Bown in particular, I'm starting to get more of an understanding of how to improve although my hit rate is still very low.

Jane Bown images

Hopefully, the Gary Player quote "The more I practise, the luckier I get" is starting to work for me.

Karen

Home Studio. Nikon D90 VR 18-105, 58mm, ISO 200, 1/125 sec

Calke on Sunday

I've just confirmed with Bill Cove our trip for Sunday (Spaces now full)
We have planned to meet in the car park near the entrance gates to the deer park at 2.00pm.
Please tell the gateman that you are meeting Bill Cove, Head Warden for an arranged photo trip and you should be able get in without paying, fingers crossed.
We are going whatever the weather so suitable clothing and footwear recommended.
See you all on Sat if anyone needs directions and to plan for a walk after.

Burton Photo Soc. 22 March 2010

Thursday evening comes round again and last night's talk was delivered by David Osbourne FRPS EFIAP, a professional wildlife photographer.


His web site is well worth a look.
 
Well, we can judge a photographer by how uncomfortable the seats feel and whether our neighbour falls asleep and I only started to feel numb bummed after the first 2 hours. I think Eric stayed awake most of the time although, or perhaps because of, after a swimming pool mix up he confided that he was "Going Commando."

He's very interested in flying things and has an aviation background, David not Eric. The stunning pictures of large birds in flight were amazing, particularly one shot against the sun in which the bone structure of the wing was silhouetted in an almost Xray like way.
He pays particular attention to composition and background, many of his pictures are taken in portrait with the birds' wings spanning the diagonals. As expected they were pin sharp, spot on depth of field and exposure, the printed pictures must be stunning and the projector probably did not do them justice.
He showed us pictures from the Canadian Rockies landscape, aviation with many pictures showing old aircraft from museum collections, he likes moving water, wildlife from the Falklands, lovely plants in particular rare orchids, some shots of Californian buildings and wildlife.

Home Studio Anne and Paul

Theme 1. My Family and Other Animals

Using the college studio lights as previously described. I took care to place the cables out of direct lines of transit and let the lights cool after the session. The home studio has reasonable daylight and I screened off the the windows to avoid direct sunlight and reflections. Modelling lights not used to avoid unnecessary heat.
Neither my big sister or huge brother in law have photosensitivity issues, they were asked to wear white Tshirts, light foundation and lip gloss. Before they arrived, I'd set up the lights initially to work with a widish aperture of f/16, as the 2 sets of eyes were likely to be in different planes, using my Sekonic light meter.
First shots are at f/16, 1/125 sec, ISO 200. Using a Velbon Delta tripod and my usual Nikon D90 and 18-105 Nikkor VR lens. The last few pictures are taken with my new Tamron 90mm Macro lens just to see how it would handle portrait photography. As previous, I'm using a hot shoe adapter and cable to fire the first flash, the second is triggered by the flash of the first.
I'd seen a great portrait shot in the window of a photo studio on the way to college in Stapenhill, with 2 sitters to the far right of the shot.

The Law of Diminishing Returns as applied to Photography.

Unsuprisingly, with portrait photography the more targets you introduce the less chance you have of hitting them, so shooting 2 subjects is more than twice as difficult as 1, shadows are difficult to avoid and getting all 4 eyes open at the same time is tricky, facial expressions rely on the wide variety of variables and are only synchronised by luck. Fortunately, our family are incredibly good looking (and patient) and I should be able to drag some of these into intense Photoshop editing (!)

Cattery Web Site Photography off topic

Borrowing the Studio Lights

Could whoever has got the studio lights at the moment bring them back on Saturday please?

With Thanks to Scott Kelby

Scott Kelby is reputedly the number 1 best selling author of computer books since 2004 as well as editor and publisher of Photoshop User magasine, he's an award winning author of more than 40 books. I've had Digital Photography books 1 and 2 for quite a while and bought book 3 along with the CS4 Book.

Me and the cat like to read a book in bed before we go to sleep and initially I found his chatty style and humour quite irritating. The cat generally prefers historical romances.

I wanted to use my new Nikon SB 600 Speedlight off camera and had trawled both the Nikon D90 and Speedlight instructions manuals but hadn't cracked it. I was hoping Vol 3 would help, which it did by telling me the details were in Vol 2 which I'd skipped before because I didn't have a flash!

So with Scott's help I set up the Speedlight to wireless on Channel 1. Then I set up the camera for the pop up flash to Commander mode so instead of firing the flash it sends a small light pulse to the off camera flash unit which triggers it. You control the brightness of the flash from the same menu.

Having seen Steve's low key pictures and helped in his studio session I wanted to try something similar with my lab Saffy. Getting past the technical difficulties is just the start of photographing a black, shiney moving target in darkness. The flash is mounted on a Konig light stand with a moveable bracket adapter for the flash and diffuser umbrella set to around 60 degrees to the left of the camera at varying distances from the subject.

Using my Nikon D90 and VR Nikkor 18-105 I set a manual exposure of f/8, 1/60sec, ISO 100. I found using auto focus on the eyes worked best, in this low light the camera fires its own focusing beam but this does not contribute towards the final exposure. I took around 12 shots before my subject closed her eyes and lay down.

The best shot makes a great screen saver.



I had to shoot in landscape for best auto focus points, hand held.
This is the version I've put into this week's Burton Photographic Society Competition. It's probably one of the pictures I've learnt most from.

This picture was entered into the internal competition at Burton Photographic Society and was judged 18 out of 20. It went into about the last 6 of 60, critique was that the catch light was too large and an umbrella, he liked to sharp focus eyes and saliva detail on whiskers.

Steve Aves talks about Jane Bown

You may think it strange that a studio lighting man like me admires someone like Jane Bown who only uses available light, but in a way that’s my style too. Those people who have been to my lighting seminars will know that I try to use the very bare minimum of lights in the studio to imitate natural light, shooting low key with just one light being a particular favourite of mine. So the work of Jane Bown has always been a joy to me, the way that she uses natural light and marvellous cropping to create such impact in her work.

Jane Bown was born in 1925 and grew up in Dorset and after wartime service with the Wrens, joined Guildford School of art. In 1949 she was commissioned by the observer to photograph Bertrand Russell and has been with them since then. Since 1949 she has photographed everyone from pop stars and the queen, actors and politicians and has published several books including The Gentle Eye 1980, Women of Consequence in 1986 and Faces in 2000, she was awarded the MBE in 1985 and CBE in 1995. All her images show a great understanding of her subjects and she has that unique ability to capture them in a very natural way. So why have so few people ever heard of this marvellous photographer?

Steve Aves on Jane Bown from the Warehouse Express Web Site

This week I have mainly been.......

Nikon D90 lens VR 18-105 focal length 105
f 5.6 1/160sec hand held so ISO 400 with natural light.
Will try again using ISO100, tripod, switching off VR and using remote trigger....honest I will

....recovering from the weekend and more interestingly selling my unused/scrap gold. So, thanks to old boyfriends, I'm in a bit of a quandary.
I was desperate to get some studio lights. My brother is coming over from Australia in July with his family and I'll see my new baby nephew for the first time. I'm just loving portrait stuff............and then I'm getting sucked into a Fibonacci spiral and life doesn't seem to be worthwhile without a macro lens which is probably gonna cost more than my first car (double in fact!)
You see I just didn't have these problems before I met you lot

Above with tripod,remote and no VR 100ISO

New Quay Beach Shoot 10.4.2010

On the best day of the year so far with our newer, decorative, energy efficient model with reasonable installation costs and very little noise.

Calke Abbey Deer Park Trip 25 April 2010

By Kind Invitation of Bill Cove Head Warden

As promised I've been over to Calke, and made arrangements for us to go into the deer enclosure at Calke. Numbers are strictly limited to group members only.

The plan is to meet in the main car park, near the house and entrance to the deer park, and Bill will escort us from there at 2.00pm.

We can organise cars as usual. We will not need to pay admission as Bill will notify the gateman. I can lead a further walk afterwards round the main parkland if required afterwards.

The deal is we give Bill some good pictures in return in a format he can use, so probably .jpg.

RSVP by comment.

Query Course Dates?

Without harping on about what the course lacks, it would be nice to know the dates of the remaining 'lessons' and completion deadline for image submission.
Also the format of the 20 completed images? Ten for each theme right? I've seen some of other folks from last year's 'location', but do they all need to be A3 (at £3 each)
Counting back, I think Sat 27 March was week 8 of this 16 week course? So are we half way?
Does anyone have a clue?

Tom Ang

Tom Ang describes photography as 'resembling a building site' for a few years whilst major manufacturers clung to the wreckage of the old ways of photography refusing to embrace the dawn of the digital age. He is a much travelled and published photographer, author and teacher. He has worked as a technical editor, editor and picture editor on many magasines. His own photography in both digital and film format has been widely exhibited, also contributing to What Digital Camera and The British Journal of Photography.

Ang won the Thomas cook Travel Book Award for his photography of the Marco Polo Expedition. He was Senior Lecturer in Photographic Practice at the University of Westminster, London.

Tom Ang's Web Site Gallery

In 1963 he was to be found at Battersea Grammer School studying the clarinet. Going on to study medicine at Nottingham in 1970 he became disenchanted with the mechanical interventions of drugs and surgery and bought his first camera, a double-stroke Leica M3 with collapsible 50mm Summicron plus a Leicameter MR, which he could ill afford.



This picture of a chestnut sapling in light was one of his earliest and taken with a borrowed Pentax KM and Kodachrome 64 in the weeks before his finals.

His book Digital Photography Masterclass is a 'one -on-one guide to every aspect of digital photography' with advanced photographic and image-manipulation techniques. It also includes tutorials and recommended must see masters and 'In Conversation' interviews with current photographers. I've learnt a lot and enjoyed this book.

I ordered his book Tao of Photography and don't really know what I expected but was particularly interested in the chapter he devoted to working with hands. Well, two different books from the same author and both equally readable. First published in 2000, Tao of Photography gives a guide to working within the Taoist principles of Balance and Awareness.



Translated literally as 'the way', Taoism refers to a system of beliefs and philosophies that have influenced Eastern Asia for more than two millennia, and have had a notable influence on the western world since the 19th century. It is the ancient Chinese guide to living in harmony with the universe. Taoism is often portrayed by the symbol 'Yin and Yang' which visually depicts the intertwined duality of all things in nature.



Ang contrasts the 'digital forces of brute technology' with the 'cozy values of the touchy feely craft-based skills of the traditional darkroom' and suggests the 'way' is a balance of both. There is no definite correct path, but Tao treats photography as a unified process, so exposure cannot be considered without reference to development. Yang is black, male, strong, and balanced by Yin, white, female, delicate.

The closeness of the women's' heads and concentrated concerned expressions give a feeling of the delicacy and care involved using a safety pin to remove a thorn in the young girl's finger.

Canon EOS-1n with 80-200mm lens

f/5.6 at 1/60sec ISO 100 film

From Tao of Photography

Canon EOS-1n with 70-200mm lens

f/3.5 at 1/125sec ISO 100 film

Light and depth of field concentrate our vision to the head of the carved fish and lead through to the sculptor's precise grip. We can see efficiency of motion that only comes with time and practise in gifted hands.