Photography Tips

Nikon D700 & Nikon SB-900 Speedlight DSLR Photography Lesson St. Petersburg

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Barbie relaxing during our 6th DSLR Photography Lesson with her Nikon D300 at the New Dali MuseumBarbie returned from her many travels for our sixth DSLR Photography Lesson this morning at the New Dali Museum in downtown St. Petersburg.  As you can see from the photo above, she makes herself very comfortable while doing photography.  We were not on a beach but under a large tree behind the museum that has a pathway made up of of broken shells.  

We kept the flash on the camera for today's lesson, but still produced creatively lit portraits (unfortunately I had to be the model!).  I really like using the Dali Museum location for photography work, and of course photographing the museum itself, especially at twilight, can produce dynamic results (see here).

I had Barbie really concentrate on thinking which settings to use before pushing the shutter as we shot in various lighting and background situations.  As a photographer, as you move to the next location you should already be thinking of what kind of shot you want to make, which in turn dictates which settings you will need.  If you change light between locations and keep the same settings, well, the results will of course be very overexposed or underexposed.  Even though it's all digital, I do not like to waste shots.  Plus, if the shot is too bad it gives me no reference to use to hopefully perfectly dial in my settings by the second shot.  

Lessons with Barbie are always fun and before she travels again we need to finish our remaining two lessons!

Photography Tip -- photograph your friends

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Nothing like a candid photograph of your best friends - Nikon D300 with Tamron 17-50mm @ f/2.8 ISO 1250 1/60th ambient lightI had not seen Rick (on left) in over ten years.  Terry (on right) is once again only about a city and a half away, though for most of the past ten years I was on the other side of the Pacific from him.  So this August marked a mini-reunion a long time coming.  Terry is by far my oldest friend, since the 7th grade.  I have known Rick since the 10th grade.  Few things are more valuable than childhood friends.  

PHOTOGRAPHY TIP:  photograph your friends acting how you remember them

On our one evening mini-reunion I met Rick's family for the first time, then just Terry, Rick and I went out and tossed the frisbee in a park in downtown St. Petersburg before ultimately ending up in a Denny's.  Back in our day (1990-1992), we used to frequent Perkins and became known for leaving messages spelled with silverware & $2 dollar tips.  The tip was better this time and there was not enough silverware on the table left for any message.  

I had my DSLR with me of course and used an assortment of lenses while we were seated.  It turned out my wide angle lens produced my favorite image of the night.  I have this photograph residing on my desk printed and mounted right now.  I believe it to be the first photograph of all three of us together since we took a group portrait together our senior year in high school, along with two other friends.  Shocking isn't it?  Now in the digital photography world I am sure the average high school student will graduate with thousands of photos of themselves with their friends.  

Still, I am happy just to have the above photo and our high school group shot (residing on a shelf behind me right now).  This way, my memory will never fade of my best friends. 

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    • Nikon D300s DSLR Photography Lesson St. Petersburg Florida with Ron

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    Ron with his Nikon D300s & Nikkor 28-300mm VR lens under a banyan tree in downtown St. PetersburgOn the first somewhat chilly morning of the year I met new DSLR Photography Lesson student Ron at my usual spot in downtown St. Petersburg.  Ron has two Nikons, the D300s and the D90, as well as a bag full of all Nikkor lenses (what Nikon brands its lenses).  He shot with film cameras before and knew what photography terms like aperture, ISO, bracketing, etc meant, so in our lesson I showed him how to apply and use them in the DSLR world.

    Ron had been shooting in aperture priority mode which is fine.  However, he never changed his aperture so I can only guess all his shots were at the largest aperture for whichever lens he was using at the time.  I started the lesson with giving him an in-depth tour of the menus and buttons on his D300s since I am extremely familiar with it from shooting with a D300 for years.  

    Throughout the lesson I got to learn about what an interesting life Ron has lived.  He currently runs a super successful home pet sitting & walking business that he said has him (and his wife) working every day of the week!  If you need a pet sitter contact me and I will pass your info on to Ron.

    We concluded the lesson with a photo critique of all the dog photos Ron takes of his pet sitting clients as well as his other photography interests.  I was impressed with his mural and graffiti photo collection focusing on the central St. Petersburg area.  I look forwad to seeing Ron again soon for our next lesson.  

    Photography Tip -- photograph green before Autumn colors arrive

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    Shoot green in Autumn - Tokyo, Japan - Nikon D80 Nikkor 50mm @ f/1.8 ISO 400 1/100thWhile I was still living in Japan, a random photo of green leaves and bokeh (view here) happened to garner the most attention of any photo I had taken to that date.  I think it had more to do with the title than the shot itself.  I called the photo, "Last Green Leaves Before Autumn."  Tokyo has four distinct seasons so green leaves do not last year round like they mostly do here in Florida.  So my thinking for this photography tip was to go against the grain and recommend shooting green one last time before autumn foliage takes over the photography world.

    PHOTOGRAPHY TIP -- photograph the last green leaves of Autumn

     

    Show us the last green in your neighborhood with a link to your photo in the comments below.  Does anyone live where this already no green left?? 

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    • Photography Tip -- travel (or live) abroad

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    Scenes from my 2-week trip in Cambodia July-August 2001, the greatest time of my life; Clockwise from upper left - Me with some children who live on a lake, sunrise over Angkor Wat, a Ta Prohm silk cotton tree before it was made famous by the Tomb Raider movie, yours truly surveying the jungle from Angkor WatI cannot state strongly enough how important I think it is to travel abroad, even better, to live abroad.  In July of 2001 I crossed the western Cambodia border from Thailand in the bed of a small truck.  This was my first time to visit Southeast Asia and the first time to really use my new digital camera, an Olympus 2040 EZ (2.1 megapixels).  This was still the very beginning of digital cameras, very, very few people had one.  I cite this event as my true birth into photography.  

    Therefore, my photography tip is a simple one:  travel abroad for as long as possible

    By long, I mean at least one month (four weeks).  If you have not yet gotten into photography as much as you would like, there is nothing like traveling abroad to be the catalyst to do it.  If you are already a frequent photographer, having a whole new world of subject matter will boost your creative output like nothing else can.

    You might just end up having the greatest experience of your life, and having the photographs to remember it years later.  

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    --I have never yet written extensively about my time in Cambodia, but creating a long photo story from my archives and journals is always on my mind. 

    Dali Museum DSLR Photography Lesson with Pam & her Canon 60D

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    Pam with her Canon 60D at the New Dali Museum during our 8th & final DSLR Photography LessonIn the two full years I have been teaching 1-on-1 private DSLR Photography Lessons here in the St. Petersburg area, Pam is now my most tenured student as last evening she took her eighth total lesson.  We went to my new favorite location for having a lesson, the new Salvador Dali Museum at the southern edge of the downtown St. Petersburg waterfront.  The museum offers the opportunity for architecture, macro and portrait photography, as well as night time tripod shots.  

    Over the course of our 16 hours of photography lesson time together Pam has learned well how to shoot in manual mode and to take control over exposure to produce a shot as she wants be it in daylight, twilight or full on night.  This is the most important skill one needs to be able to continually improve as a photographer, and to be able to start to teach oneself how to shoot better.  Therefore, I am confident Pam will be able to from this point on improve her skills on her own each time she goes out shooting.  

    Thanks Pam and I look forward to seeing your work in the future!

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    Photography Tip - search your archives for photos you make like now

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    Abandoned train car in Tampa, Florida - Nikon D300 with Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D @ f/2.8 ISO 200 1/2500thI have been going through my photography archives from the past three years looking for images to update my various portfolios with.  While looking for specific types of photos, I also found random photos that I had never edited, never given any attention to before, that for some reason now catch my eye (see above train photo).  This gave me the idea for . . . 

    Photography Tip -- go through your photo archives to find hidden gems & to see how your photography tastes have changed

     

    Not only may you find that what you think is an interesting photograph has changed, but if you have greatly improved your digital photo editing skills like I have over the past few years, you may find that you can save a photo that previously was left for the scrapheap.  

    Go through your archives this week and see if you find a forgotten photo that you now really like or even love.  Post a link to it in the comments below! 

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