Perspective: Up high, Down low

Paratroopers with the U.S. Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (Airborne) task force participate in activities commemorating the 67th Anniversary of Operation Overlord— the D-Day landings, while in Normandy, France on June 2, 2011.  (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

   Dear visitor of my blog, two days, two posts with more than one photo; lucky you. 

   So, this first photo at first glance may look like just a normal stand up and take a photo of the paratrooper doing stuff. Well, I'm here to let you know, it's not.

You might say, "Lies."

   No truth; check out the photo below. You can clearly see the soldiers are hanging from some contraption off the ground. More so the soldier up top, yeah he's pulling himself up so he's even higher.

For those of you unfamiliar with airborne operations: He's simulating pulling down on his "risers" [those things that are connected to the parachute] to "pull a slip"  which helps you control which way you're going while falling with style; at least a little bit of control anyway these aren't cool Hollywood/Skydiving parachutes, these are made to get you to the ground as quickly as possible without, hopefully, breaking the Soldier]

So, again, like yesterday it's about getting up high; or at least getting to eye level.

   In order to get into the harness the soldiers climb up a movable metal staircase, hook up, and then the stairs are pulled away. So what did I do? Yep, as soon as they moved the stair case I away I was on it.

Needless to say I got the funny looks. But really that's just something you have to get used to when you're looking for unique perspectives; you should ALWAYS be looking for unique perspectives.

Composition may be King; but Perspective is the Queen.

Holiday Perspective

Soldiers from the 341st PSYOP Co. from San Antonio, Texas visit the Fischer House at Lackland Air Force base to delivery toys and talk with children  about their jobs during Operation Toy Drop. This is the first year Operation Toy Drop will help children throughout the nation. To learn more visit www.optoydrop.net. (U.S. army photo by Staff Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

   If you haven't noticed it's December and that can only mean one thing! No, not Christmas. Toy Drop.

"Huh? What's Toy Drop?"

   Only the coolest thing the Army does all year; thousands of paratroopers donate thousands of toys for deserving kids. I'll refrain from comparing it to other toy collection drives; but needless to say this is pretty awesome.

"So, how do they drop the toys? And uh, why are we talking about this? This is a photography blog?"

   Well they don't drop the toys, they drop themselves, paratroopers with parachutes jump out of C-130's after donating toys. And we're talking about this because today's picture is about Toy Drop. [Assuming you read the caption...I'll wait...still waiting...oh hey there, welcome back]

   Now that I've gotten that plug out of the way, lets talk about this photo and how that has to do with perspective.

   Okay, clear subject(s) The kid and maybe the Soldier. What you probably don't know is the kid is sitting in the turret of a Humvee; the soldier down below is helping out. You don't get this shot from the ground, you can't. You have to get up high. So yes, I had to climb up on top of this Humvee to shoot the photograph. Yes, everyone thought I was crazy. I like the shot, hopefully you do too. But more to the point, I want you to start experimenting with your own perspective.

   As for the photograph itself; well the turret partially frames our subject(s) who are in points of interest. You could argue the eyes have leading lines. But really that's about it regarding this shot.

So, here's a bonus shot! Hey guess what, I had to climb up on top of a bench to get this shot. You guessed it, everyone looked at me like I was crazy.
 

One of thousands of toys donated by paratroopers for children during Operation Toy Drop 13 at at Fort Bragg, N.C.on December 9, 2010 (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres

 
   So one more thing to say about Toy drop; just because you don't live by Fort Bragg or jump out of airplanes for a living doesn't mean you can't be a part of toy drop. You can visit your local community, ...well anything really..., churches, shelters, orphanages [yes orphanages still exist] all get requests for toys during the Christmas season, you can help out and give a gift to a random child. I know I will.

   If this post inspires you to do anything, hopefully it's to give a gift to a child you've never met before, just like our Soldiers at Fort Bragg have been doing for the past 16 years.

Making your own perspective

Exhibit A: Ignore the, "this photographer is so weird," expression.  Critique, a little too much head room.

It may not be readily apparent but this is pretty high up [see the obstacles in the lower left? yeah, those aren't for small children] the fact that it's high up is perspective enough right? Maybe.

The above photograph wasn't shot at eye level, heck it wasn't even shot level. But it was shot uniquely.

Here is a more standard photo where I shot it eye level. Don't get me wrong, eye level is great, if you're shooting kids eye level can be wonderful; but you're going to have to get down to their eye level not your own.

Okay so lets compare and contrast. [Ideally I would have shot the same subject in the same location for this to be a really good teaching example. But, sometimes we work with what we got.]

They both are shot from a tower, a fairly unique perspective in and of itself. They both have subjects in points of interest. And they both have British soldiers in them; aka a clear subject. So, really what's the major difference? Well subjectivity of course.

I recently was in a photo group that slammed a fellow photographer for using a dutch angle on a mundane photo. I personally didn't see a problem with it. why not at least try to make the mundane interesting or unique? Tilting your camera is one way. Getting up high or down on your belly is another. Maybe jumping up on a top of a truck or climbing a ladder will change your whole perspective of the scene.

There is simply no reason not to change your point of view. You should change it often.

Perspective

A flower iced over after a rare ice storm in Fayetteville, North Carolina January 11, 2011. P.S. Friends don't let friends shoot dead center.

   I like this photo. But I hate how I composed it. At least my subject is clear. Someone, who is not named me, could argue it's framed; the ice kind of frames up the flower. But luckily for me this post isn't about composition  [wait, every post is about composition] this post isn't going to focus on composition [there I like that better] it's about perspective.

It always amazes me how rarely I see a people with camera's bend their knees.

   What probably doesn't readily jump out at you at first glace, maybe second glace, is that this little flower is on the ground. About 68 inches [that's a guesstimate] below where my eyes normally sit. I had to get all the way down on the ice for this shot.

   A brief note about color temperature; notice how a part of the ice just behind the flower  is white and the ice in the foreground is blue? Yeah, that's because the flower was in the shade and I didn't use a flash. This resulted in two light sources at two different color temperatures. Had I used a flash to overpower the shade the foreground ice would have been white as well. Of course, the blue ice in the WAY back still would have been blue. but really all that means is that i needed two flashes!

I find that the photos that capture me the most are ones that aren't taken from the height of 5 to 7 feet.

   What do I mean by that? Well quite simply the photos most people take while standing up don't show the world from a unique perspective but rather an ordinary perspective. Of course there are many great photos to be had from an ordinary perspective, but the ones that really capture, more often than not come from unique perspectives. 

   Luckily for us, unique perspectives aren't that hard to find. Climb a ladder, jump up on a truck, bend your knees, heck you can even lay down with your camera. You don't need to lean out of a Blackhawk [But it doesn't hurt to be someplace unique] for a unique perspective.

G.I. Joe: Real American Hero

WWII Veteran, Sgt. Maj. Raymond Sylvester, stands with Paratroopers from the U.S. Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command at the American cemetery in Normandy, France on June 6, 2011. These Paratroopers are members of Task Force Normandy, which is a multinational force of U.S., U.K., French, and German Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen in a combined effort to remember and celebrate the 67th Anniversary of the D-Day operations. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

I just want to thank all the men and women who have made sacrifices for our great nation; because of them I have been given the greatest gift of all: Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It's all about the choices you make

Soldiers from the U.S. Army Civil Affairs & Psychological Operations Command (Airborne) prepare to conduct an night jump from Camp Mackall, N.C., on July 19, 2011 (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

   Did you know that at night time it's dark? Crazy right? Also, you should know that I did desaturate this image a little to help with the noise.

   Taking photographs is all about making choices. What equipment to use, where to shoot from, how long should I wait for something to happen. Do I know what's going to happen?

   In this photo I knew what was going to happen and I was aware of my surroundings.  

   I shot this with at  f/1.8 @ 1/13th of a second and 3200 ISO  from a tripod. There isn't a whole lot of blur because there wasn't a whole lot of moving going on. Well, minus the propeller on the left, but I was looking for that motion blur.

   So why did I choose those settings? Well  I went with an ISO of 3200 because that was highest my camera would go without introducing an unacceptable amount of noise. The lower settings on the other hand just wouldn't give me enough light without a huge aperture.

   I knew the CASA is built in such a way that having more than one person on the ramp at the same time is dangerous; I knew those paratroopers would be standing around not moving very much as they loaded the aircraft one by one. But they would still be moving, so I couldn't go too slow or I'd have a blurry mess but I didn't have to go very fast either.

   Because I knew the limitations of my flash [just a few feet] I knew using one wasn't an option; it was just too far and the area too large an area to light everything up properly without a ridiculous amount of lighting. 

   I could have gotten closer but then I would have needed a a wider angle lens. Problem, because I didn't have a f/1.8 wide angle lens I would have needed an even longer shutter speed and/or upped my ISO.

When it's dark I need to get the shutter speed right, when it's bright outside I need to get my aperture right, then again when it involves motion shutter again is key, do I want blur or do I want to freeze something?

   Photography is all about decision making. I like to make my decisions as soon as I get to an area. Sometimes I make bad choices and have reconsider my plan of attack. Do I mount the Flash? What's the lowest ISO I can  get? What two lenses am I going to have on my cameras [yes, I like to shoot with two cameras] Should I be shooting in shutter priority, Aperture Priority, or do I need to worry about manual settings?

I dislike manual settings, I like to let my camera do the math, I worry about the composition.

   Did I just blow your mind? A photographer who hates manual shooting? Camera's are pretty smart nowadays, they get exposure right a lot of the time. When I used an underwater disposable camera to take photos I was at the complete mercy of the camera and the exposure came out just fine. When I do use manual settings I set it and forget it. At least until lighting conditions change.

   Yes, sometimes I am forced to use manual mode because my camera isn't as smart as me, but 99% of the time it knows what to do. A camera however, cannot compose.

   And that is why when I look at a photo the first thing I look at is composition. The second, third, fourth and fifth things I look at? Also, composition. 

I make my technical choices up front so that when my eye is in the viewfinder the only choices I'm making are about my subject.

ISO and you

Paratroopers from the 301st TPC conducted nighttime Airborne Operations leaving from San Diego, California and landing on Edwards Air Force Base on January 21, 2011. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

   Believe it or not, there was a time when I disliked flash. "Why use flash? I'll just turn up my ISO!" "No one likes flash in their eyes," "It's more 'tactical' to use flash," "The flash seems to have a mind of its own," and a plethora of other excuses to not use flash.

   So, for those of you non-converted, what to do? I like ISO. No, I love ISO. [I love flash more...] Sensors get better every other month it seems and after playing with a NIKON D3s a couple years ago in pitch black conditions at 102,000 I was impressed. Yes, at 102,000 the noise is ridiculous, but that fact that I could shoot 1/60 at all and get something in those conditions blew my mind.

   But this wasn't shot with a D3S, it was shot with a t2i (an old canon entry level dslr) with an ISO1600 f/3.5 (not a very wide aperture) at 1/60th. You'll notice it's pretty noisy at 1600, but it gets the job done. It was sunset so I wanted to keep the oranges and I didn't have a gel with me to match the light of my flash with the light of the sunset.

   At least the higher ISO got the job done at dusk; good luck getting anything without a flash, tripod, or a much wider aperture after the sun goes down without cranking out your ISO way up. A tripod would have been nice to have, but even then I probably wouldn't have been able to capture this blur free even with a tripod, these soldiers where moving pretty quickly. A 1.8 lens would have been great to have here as well, which I did in fact have, but it wasn't the angle I wanted.

   My lens was as wide as it would go, and my shutter speed was as slow as I could hold it without blur. Which really left me with just one option, kick up the ISO.

   "If you love ISO much why is it your last option?"

  Because it saves the day. You can't always have the gear you want, but being able to quickly and easily make sacrifices in quality for improving your lighting is better than nothing. In the above case I wanted to use a wide angle lens, which only opened up to 3.5. I had a 50 mm lens that opened up to 1.8, but it wasn't the angle I wanted. I was able to keep the lens I wanted and still got the shot because I upped my ISO.

A few words about noise

   In the Halycon days of film increasing your ISO meant putting in a new roll of film and in exchange you got some fairly pleasing grain. Grain was a by product of the increased sensitivity. Nowadays uppping your ISO is as easy as a couple presses of a button, but the by product of increasing digital sensitivity is noise.

   It's like when you're listening to a low quality audio file and you turn your stereo to max volume; sure it's loud, but it's not very clear, that's noise. You're turning the volume on your camera with low quality light and the end result is a noisy photo. The colors are a little off sometimes, and you'll have a rouge pixels that are green, yellow, or red instead of blue.

Flash motion photography

Pfc. Amber Nolan, 450th Civil Affairs Bn., rucks across Fort Meade, Md. during the 352nd best warrior competition on April 2, 2012. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

   Wow, it's been a busy couple of weeks for me personally. But it's time to get back on the photo bus. So lets get back to it shall we.

   I know, I know I've been extolling the virtues of flash for what seems like forever; I'll get off my flash horse after this post. I promise. [No, that's probably a lie, but I'll give it a rest for a bit!]

 

Points of interest. Check. Yellow road line leading to subject, check.
Orange/white line leading to subject, check. But those eyes, they just keep pulling me off the frame...sigh. 

   I'm not going to lie, I like this photo. It's not technically correct either, I mean, just look at those eyes pulling me off the frame. Yuck. Okay fine, clear subject, leading lines, subject is in points of interest. The exposure awesome. It's technically pretty good. Just not flawless.

   When I shot this however my concern was getting the patch included in the shot. As a public affairs soldier I was always looking to brand my images. I could go on an on about all the good stuff my unit does on a daily basis around the world, but we certainly don't have very much name brand recognition, at least not yet anyway. But lets get back to this shot.

   Unfortunately a side effect of using flash to get blur is, well, you get blur where the flash doesn't shine.

   [Bad pun. I know. I'm pretty sure you're here FOR the puns tho... right?]

   So the patch itself is a little blurrier than i would have liked it, and her eyes aren't looking over her shoulder, but that's uncontrolled action for you. Having a second flash to specifically light her her patch would have done the trick; [at least in my head it does, using just theory] as it stands there wasn't enough umph to get the black portions of the patch clear.

   

   Luckily her eyes and face are crisp and clean. The flash helped the colors [what little colors that are] on the subject really pop. And most importantly I captured motion.

   Yes, flash freezes motion [surprisingly I haven't done a post about how to use flash to freeze motion...don't worry I'll talk about some other subjects before I go back to flash] but with careful management of your shutter speed you can use it to mix and match both movement and the lack thereof. 

   What we're seeing here is 1/30 of a second [at f/22] which isn't a very long period at all, but it's twice as long as 1/60th of a second [What I normally shoot for blur free objects which are standing still] and it's glacially slow when compared to most sports shots which are shot in the high hundreds and even thousands. 

   So really, 1/30th of a second is a heck of a long time.

   Just not at night.

   In regards to light, specifically the light bouncing off our subject, the blur part you see around her is where she was at the beginning of the 1/30th [lets just call this the first half of the 1/30th of a second] and the crisp parts of here is where my flash went off, and captured her [lets call this the second half.]

   I used the "rear shutter" on my camera to ensure my flash went off at the end. This gives it some forward/upward motion. You'll have to open up your manual to find out how to make your camera use the flash on the rear shutter. If I had used the flash normally it would have given the effect of backward motion as the flash would have fired during the first half and then blur collecting during the second half; so the blur would have been in front of the crispy parts and not behind the crispy parts.

Which by the way is what happened with her sleeve. While her body was moving towards the camera her arm was going away from the camera, so the blurry part happens in the first half and the stop motion happens in the second half, causing blur in front.

Bounce Flash

Connie Almueti proudly displays her plaque and medal which inducts her into the Civil Affairs Hall of Fame at Fort Bragg, N.C., Sept. 25, 2012. Almueti has served seven commanding generals over 42 years as a Department of the Army civilian, and has been a critical contact for countless commanders in the field. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

   In case you haven't been following along, I've kind of been gushing about Flash. I talked about flashing in the morning, Flashing  in the evening, and Flashing at Supertime.

[This is a reference to the  song"Sugartime" which I honestly have no idea how I know about this song, possibly I heard it in an ad? Moving on...]

   Needless to say, I'm a big fan of flash. In fact, a friend of mine said the other day,

"Appreciate natural light, but bring your own just in case."

   Okay, enough gushing. So lets talk about this photo. Connie was inducted to the Civil Affairs Hall of Fame, hence the medal and the plaque, and I was tasked with writing the story.

   Unfortunately administrative work doesn't exactly lend itself to very memorable photography, and really the big story was that she was becoming a member of the Civil Affairs Hall of Fame, a first for any woman. So I said to myself,

"Damn the torpedo's lets pose a photograph!" 

   This was also the second attempt, the results of the first weren't really up to snuff. Yes, I have had plenty of bad days photographing, luckily I was able to go back and try again.

I wanted soft light because it's just more flattering. My favorite method of getting soft light is to bounce it off the ceiling. I aim my flash straight up, crank it up to 11 and let it rip. The light actually bounces off the ceiling and cascades downwards like fairy dust.

You'll notice this isn't quite the exact same picture, I can't

find the one I posted. Regardless, it's pretty awesome, in my

opinion to have anything of mine hanging in the pentagon.

Note: High ceilings laugh at your attempts to bounce flash, many flash units just don't have the umph to launch light beams 10 feet up and 10 feet back down. Also some ceilings will absorb the light.

   The only real problem was that the glass on her plaque was the right height to just catch to tip of my flash. That's a big no no because it breaks the fourth wall. I didn't have access to any sort of off camera flash, not even a bracket, so I just had to work with what I had. I strongly considered removing in in post, but decided against it because editing anything in post is frowned upon in Army photographs, more so than posing. As such, it sits there mocking me.

Turns out, this photo is hanging on a wall in the Pentagon. The small photo shows it hanging out with some other photos. As far as I know it's the only photo of mien hanging in the Pentagon, which to be honest is probably more so because of the content (Connie is a pretty big deal) and no so much the awesomeness of the photo. Regardless, I think it's pretty cool.

If your interested in learning more about Connie you can read about the story I wrote here: http://www.dvidshub.net/news/95899/general-aid#.Ul4bWFA3v8k

Things I need: More Flash

Soldiers from the U.S Army Civil Affairs & Psychological Operations Soldiers prepare to hook up a load to a UH-0 Blackhawk during Pathfinder School at Fort Bragg N.C. on March 27, 2013. These soldiers where able to earn their Pathfinder Badge, thanks to the National Guard Warrior Training Center Mobile Training Team.

   In my dream world I'd have a big flat bed truck with a couple of spot lights and filters at my beck and call ready to provide fill light everywhere I went. Unfortunately for me, I don't have access to something like that. So, sometimes I have to use the power of Photoshop to add light.

Yes, adding light in post does in fact tear me apart inside.

   In this photo I did in fact use my flash. I channeled my inner Captain Kirk and screamed for more power, to which my flash responded, "I'm giving all she's got!"

   You can see that the flash was able to highlight the dust flying at me, but it kind of made it look like snow. It was also able to add a little bit of light to the cargo and the backs of the Soldiers. It also added a little bit of pop to those yellow strands. I would have liked this better if I had more power, because it would have brightened everything up. As it stands it's a shade dark in my opinion.

Step 1: ID Subjects Step 2: Wait for something cool 

Step 3: Press Shutter Button. Step 4: Blog about it.

   You can see that we had cloud cover, so the light was already diffused, there wasn't too much in the way of harsh shadows I really needed to fill.

   Also, the underbelly of the helicopter was dark; and even after some touch up in post is still is darker than I would have liked. But without that flat bed with spotlights there wasn't a whole lot I could have done about that. (I probably don't need a flat bed, a few well placed strobes connected via wireless would do the job as well, but that's a whole other discussion.)

   So how exactly did I find myself in this situation? Well I got a phone call from my Captain,

   "Do you want to go out and take photos tomorrow afternoon? I'm swamped, " she said.

   "Of?" I asked, knowing I didn't have much of a choice.

   "Oh, a bunch of our Soldiers are becoming Pathfinders and their going to be hooking up heavy loads to helicopters hovering over their heads?" She replied

   "Yes. Yes I do."

   I showed up expecting a wait; and wait I did. The students where learning how to communicate with the helicopter pilots and where practicing dropping supplies. Which looked cool, but it's hard to show a soldier on the ground and a helicopter a few hundred feet up in the air dropping supplies, visually it's hard to capture without a huge lens.

Note: A telephoto lens condenses space, so if you want to make it look like two things are closer than they actually are, use a telephoto lens and it'll look like they are much closer than they are.

The red arrow is where I wanted to be, on my back, with a 

super duper wide angle lens. I wanted the tips of the rotor,

the cargo and the soldier hooking up. If anyone gets this shot

after reading this and wins an award for it,  I fully expect a 

thank you card.

   Regardless, I stuck around waiting for this shot. Okay, I actually was thinking of a different shot, using a super wide lens from underneath the belly of the beast, but we didn't have a super wide. But I persisted.

   Luckily for me, this event happened about 10 times, giving me ample time to see what was happening, think about different angles, and fail a few times.

   The first time I stood back and just watched. I could see the wind from the rotors just whipping all sorts of dirt in the air. I knew from previous experiences it wasn't going to be fun. But I can't say I was entirely prepared to be just a few feet from the rotor wash.

   Lets just say, unless you're under the belly, it's not a fun time. I went out each and every time, experimenting with different angles and positions aka the 30-30 rule. I really wanted the faces of the soldiers and their unit patch because a big part of public affairs is showing off your "brand." But I realized getting everything in one shot probably wasn't going to happen. I decided the most compelling thing about this event was a 10,000 pound metal monster bearing down on a few soldiers.

So I got behind these soldiers, put them in my points of interest and just waited for the helicopter to get in my frame.

At the end of the day I can say I got a shot I liked. It wasn't the shot I wanted; I still would like to go back and try again, but I'm happy with it.

Interested in reading more about my adventures with flash? Check out: Felix and the technicolor dream coat, 

Flash, Huh, what is good for? Absolutely Everything, and Flashing at Night

Felix and the technicolor dream coat

Staff. Sgt. Israel Pou with the 402nd Civil Affairs Battalion checks his map in the dark during the Night Land Navigation portion of the Best Warrior Competition at NAS Pensacola on March 23, 2011. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

I can't for the life of me find the original of this image and the metadata has been stripped out of the copy I do have. Conspiracy? You be the judge.

   Regardless, this photo I like. No, it's not perfect but the colors I love. I know I just talked about how night time is a great time to use flash. And it is. But lets say you don't have a flash, what do you do then? Well, be lucky!

   Okay, well that's not entirely true. In this instance you can see my subject had a few sources of light, a fairly bright light from a near by parking lot, a yellow/orange light from a nearby building, and his big red flashlight.

Note 1: His red light is a great example of how light accumulates on a sensor/film.

His flashlight produces only red light, not white, or yellow or orange, just red.

   Why so many colors? Because as the light accumulates on your sensor or film it will eventually turn white. There is more light in the center of his beam and less light as you go outwards. So here, the colors represent brightness as well as color temperature.

Note 2: Do you see the purples and the blues? You can almost see where the light from the parking lamp (which produces cool blue light) mixes with the red light, making purple. Neat huh? I thought so.

Note 3: Do you see some yellow tint around to top part of the photo, top part of the solider and some of the grass area? That light came from a nearby building

Okay, so now that we know how we got all those neat colors lets talk about some technical aspects about this photograph. 

   I used a tripod to keep camera shake on my end out of the equation. However, as we discussed yesterday, if the subject moves we would get blur. I had to stay around the building/parking lot because as my major source of light (I didn't have a flash with me) I simply wasn't able to get any photos outside of that area that weren't nearly black.

   I wish I could tell you exactly how long I had the shutter open, but unfortunately I can't tell you how long this exposure lasted. I would guess it was longer than 1/2 second, you can see some motion were his head was moving but you'll notice it ends up just looking like a blur/smudge.

   I also wish I could tell you what my ISO was at, but it was probably over 400. How can I tell? Well even the sharp parts of this photo aren't very sharp, if you zoom way in you'll see noise [off color pixels]

Note 3: With film as you increase your ISO you increase your grain. Grain in film is like adding texture, which is different from noise which are digital aberrations. In digital  as you increase your ISO you'll produce noise, random colors appearing as tiny pixels. More noise, more random colored pixels.

Grain is kind of like having a sore throat. Noise is like losing your voice.

Example: My voice is raspy and has texture, its certainly not normal, but it's not terrible and some people might prefer it [that's another topic] Noise is like losing your voice. Every so often I squeak or go silent, there just isn't any consistency to it, that's similar noise.

So, back to this photo, I like it. It's not technically perfect but I enjoy the colors. Do I wish it was sharper? Yes. Do I wish I would have used Flash? Yes. But that is why we take pictures and look at them with a critical eye, to see how we can improve our technique.

Flashing at Night. Bonus: 30-30 rule

Spc. Sarah M. Wiita, 490th Civil Affairs Bn., plots her points in the dark during the night land navigation portion of the 350th Civil Affairs Command best warrior competition at Camp Bullis, Texas on March 25, 2012. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

Yesterday I said, "Flash is good. I promise." To which a co-worker of mine said, "It's not good for night land navigation." To which I say poppycock!

   Okay, I really do get his point. The problem with flash at night is that it can certainly temporarily blind you. But without it, getting an image of a moving object at night is hard. It's more luck and than anything else. Without flash you're hoping your subject won't move too much. If your subject moves too much your subject will be blurry and seem out of focus. You're also hoping you can stand still long enough without moving so that you don't cause unnecessary blur to your image.

The night time, is the right time, to use flash. 

   In the above photo we have a few things going on. First off, this soldier is mapping her route on a map with a pencil and a protractor. She is able to see thanks to her headlamp, because it's dark.

   I also want you to notice the orange light on her back/head, that is from a dim street lamp. The reason it's bright like that is because this was a fairly long exposure, (1.3 seconds according to my metadata) that means I capture 1.3 seconds of her moving and light bouncing off her. We talked a little about long exposures and it's effects on light during a post about leading lines. You can consider this a bit of continuation of that topic.

   In case you don't want to go back and read up, what's happening here is that I'm opening my shutter for 1.3 seconds, collecting light, it's not a lot because it's dark, and you can tell because most of my image is rather dark. I used rear shutter, which means at the last fraction of a second my flash went off and "froze" the action.

   You'll notice her head lamp is a little blurry and the general feeling is that we capture motion. You can tell she's doing something, even if you're not sure exactly what it is.

Also note that I didn't use my flash at full power.

   My intent was to add just enough to highlight my subject and not to overpower the other lights. I used an external flash unit, but even your built in pop-up flash probably has a setting which lets you either have it super bright, which I would use during day light with the sun in front of me, or less bright which I would use at night. Because I turned down the umph of the flash and because this soldier was using a bright head lamp anyway, and she was wearing a hat, I didn't blind her.

How did I know how much light to use? Well it's all about experimentation. You need to go out and play with your flash at various power levels at various times of day. The more you practice the more you'll understand when you need a lot of light and when you need just a touch.

"Felix, you could have used a Tripod!"

I could have and that would have eliminated any movement on my part from making the image blurry. But I had the shutter open for 1.3 seconds. The exposure time would have been longer if I didn't use flash. You can see how much she moved in the image. Unless you're controlling the action and telling your subject not to move, after 1.3 seconds you will get a blurry image.  

So how about the composition?

   I included the points of interest so you could think about it yourself, did I use any of the rules we've been talking about? You're welcome to leave a comment or two about what you think.

So why did I include three pictures if I wasn't going to talk about each one of them? Simple.

I want to talk about shooting in a sequence. 

   Now, if your familiar with video you probably just said, "Wait, sequence shooting is for video not photo."

   Yes, this is a video term, but I think it works for photographers as well.

   Sometimes we see something and it doesn't quite turn out how we thought it would. The key isn't to just walk away and see, "ugh, I can't take a good photo," the key is to move and take another photo until you get it right.

In video there is a rule called the 30-30 rule. 

   Which means you move around your subject at least 30 degrees from where you started and you also increase or decrease your subject size by 30 percent.

   This isn't the best example of a 30-30 sequence, especially not for video [in fact I broke a video rule but I won't bore you with more video rules.] However, you'll notice I took a photo, moved my body and took another photo. Same subject, same action, different point of view.

   Next time you go out shooting, remember 30-30. Keep the same subject and move around your subject, make your subject a bigger or smaller portion of your frame and take another photo. Take five or six more. Go crazy. But change it up every time. Doing things like that will help you improve your eye.

Flash, Huh, what is it good for? Absolutely everything!

A Soldier from the Fort Carson band plays his tuba during the 440th Civil Affairs Battalion unit stand-up at Fort Carson, Colo. on September 15, 2012. The 440th has spent the last year filling it’s ranks with both new and Veteran civil affairs Soldiers and is now an officially commissioned unit lead by Lt. Col. Damone Garner and Command Sgt. Maj. Aaron Miller. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

Oh boy, look at all that dead space on the right. Luckily for me this post isn't about composition, it's about flash. Okay that's a lie, we'll talk about composition too. Why? Because it's the only thing that really matters. [Yes, that is a completely subjective observation] But first, flash.

Most people use flash when it's dark, which is fine, but have you thought about using it during the day?

"Felix, why would you use flash during the day? It's already bright outside?"

   Because of shadows. Do you see how my subject in the photo above is nice and bright? Do you see how the rest of the band is not? The flash is filling in the shadow caused by the sun that is right in front of me [The sun is in the top left; who am I kidding you didn't miss the sun.]

"So what? So the subject is a little dark, no biggie, flash scares me."

   Okay, we'll lets say I didn't use the flash. The camera would have probably tried to expose for the tuba player; [we haven't talked about exposure, but essentially it's when the subject can be seen and isn't too dark or too bright] in this photo he is correctly exposed. The camera would have accomplished this by allowing more light to hit our sensor. The tuba player would have looked the same as he does now. "So what's the big deal dude?

This is the big deal: more light on the sensor would have made the sky white. You would lose the clouds and that pretty blue sky, maybe even the grass. If you want detail, if you want your colors to pop, you need to know how to put the light where you want it, and you need to be able to know how to balance it out.

   I'll get to exposure, apertures, shutter speed and all that technical stuff in other posts, but for now, You should know that flash can and should be used during the day. Yes, even your little pop-up flash on your camera will work. But you must, must, must experiment with it in various situations. Light does a lot of different things depending on the size of the space and yes even the time of day.

Note 1: If you're using flash during the middle of the day, like I did, it's going to have to be a really powerful flash or you're going to have to be standing really close; you will probably have to zoom out / use a wider angle / and/or step closer depending on how bright it is and how dark your shadows are. The further away your flash is from the subject the less impact it will have. I suggest experimenting with stationary objects first. You may find getting close to people uncomfortable so using an inanimate object too learn is fine. Again, you need to learn the limits of your flash. If you're shooting mostly in automatic mode you'll want to know what your camera will do at certain distances.

Taking notes about what your camera and flash settings are while you shoot is always good idea.

Note 2: If you're using your camera's pop-up flash or a flash which mounts into your camera's hot shoe, certain lenses will cast a shadow when used in conjunction with a flash when at the wider angles [10mm-25mm or so, rough guesstimate, again, experiment with your equipment] aka zoomed out. That's because the lens is blocking the light from the top of your camera.

Note 3: Your phone's flash probably isn't going to match the power of sun if the sun is behind your subject, [like the image below] no matter how close you are.

   So how about this photo? Do we have a clear subject? Yes. Is the subject in at least one point of interest? Yes. Do we have leading lines? Maybe, you could argue his eyes lead to his music sheet and the tuba is one big line leading you to the sun. The colors are nice and the subject is interesting.

   What's bad? Well all that dead space on the right for one. It makes the left side of the frame super heavy. You could delete that whole right side of the image and message of the image would still be the same.  

   The empty space on the right isn't the same as negative space because because it's distracting.

   Had there been soldiers all around him, then it would have balanced a little better. It would have blended in. But as it stands, in my opinion, this area of the photo sticks out like a sore thumb. It also causes him to be dead center for really no reason.

Note 4: Dead center is when you put your subject in the very center of your photograph without using leading lines, framing, the rule of thirds, or balance.

   

   Friends don't let friends shoot images dead center. Would it have killed me to put his head in a point of interest? No, not at all. I would have lost some of that dead space for sure; which would have been good. I could have also bent my knees a little too to give it a slightly different perspective.

Partial Framing.

A box of Christmas ornaments is partially framed by the box itself. Photo by Felix R. Fimbres

I know, You've missed your regular dosage of my blabbing on and on about a random photograph. I was a little busy, but I should be back to my regular posting! Well at least until I run out of photographs to talk about anyway. Also, I'm still waiting for a brave soul to submit a photograph...

So, in any instance I can think of off the top of my head a frame is probably going to be completely surrounding your subject(s) like this window frame, or this parachute; but you don't need to have the entire frame in your photograph.

I this example we have some Christmas ornaments framed up by the box where the spend most of year.

In my opinion, the snowman sticks out, followed by the rocking horse. why? well probably because they are in focus and each have a point of interest.

Could this photo have balance? sure, the box covers about half the frame and so do the ornaments.

But again, it's just a box of ornaments. This photo probably isn't going to win an award be displayed in the New York Metropolitan Museum of  Art, but that's okay because it at least I know some thought went into it's composition.

Simple. Framing.

Citizens of St. Mere-Eglise admire the view of hundreds of paratroopers from the U.S. Army Civil Affairs & Psychological Operations Command (Airborne) who have descended up on the small town in Normandy to commemorate the 67th anniversary of Operation Overlord, D-Day, on June 6, 2010. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

   Let me just say right off the bat, I do like this picture. I do not like this picture with green eggs or ham. I simply do not like this photo.

   But, it's a good example of framing. So, I'm going with it. I know yesterday we had a parachute, well not everyone has a parachute; but pretty much everyone has a window. Or a door. Maybe a door that acts as window? Who knows; lets get back to the subject.

The ONE person in a point of interest is looking off the frame. Not good. 

One of the shutters is well positioned in two points of interest this is good.

Two people are looking across the frame, this is also good. But overall I feel

this photo is just a miss. I guess it's apropos that this photo is missing a 

certain Je ne sais quio. [Did I just get two french words in one sentence about

 a photo I took in Normandy? Win.]

   I'm hoping after you noticed those big huge window shutters after you saw those three people. Odds are you didn't, those shutters are pretty dominating.

   Regarding those people, two of them are looking across the frame, this is good, one is looking off the frame. That killed me.

The chandelier also distracts me.

   But the frame. My goodness the frame is beautiful.

   Set against a great patterned backdrop, the shutters are huge and well balanced against each other. The frame is just begging to be filled by a subject; or maybe a lot of people trying to poke their heads out and catching a glimpse. But sometimes this is just what we get.

   So what went wrong? I think what went wrong is my lust to to get as many rules as possible in each and every single shot I take. Sometimes it's better to focus on just one.

   But as I look at this shot, it reminds me of the parachute photo from yesterday.

The frame is just so dominating that it's hard to get anything else to compete with it. 

      Sure I could have put those two shutters in those four points of interest, had balance, and framing. The people would have added to it. Because they would have been dead center the leading lines of their eyes would have been okay looking off the frame. Not great, but better then the one lady looking off the frame.

   Lessons learned. Framing, is not my forte. Frames, like leading lines can be found anywhere, but be careful, if you find an amazing frame[or an amazing leading line for that matter], maybe the frame itself [or the line in this case] should be your subject.

Balancing Framing.

Framing is the last major rule I'll be talking about. When you think framing you probably think of an object which surrounds a photo. In photography it's a very similar concept, except the object is surrounding the subject.

Yes, the parachute can be a subject, and yes the lines of the parachute can

lead out towards the outer ring of the parachute. Does one of the lines lead

to a paratrooper? Sure, but I argue in this photo he's not the center of

interest, the parachute is, and the frame is the sky.

In the photo above an object [the parachute] is surrounding a subject [the paratrooper], this is essentially framing.

   But what if I told you our subject was the parachute and the frame was the sky?

 [Insert the Keanu Reeves "Whoa" here]

Here I've cropped and rotated our original photo to have the soldier in a

center of interest.

   I personally like that idea better. The paratrooper is now an after thought. The real question here is, which of the following did you think first? "Wow nice parachute, oh and look at the soldier!" or "Look at that soldier, wow he's surrounded by a parachute!"

   Is he still framed? Sure, but in my opinion if you accept the sky is the frame and the parachute is the subject, this photo works at lot better in my opinion as an example of framing. Also, as is customary, it ties in with last weeks rule of balance

You can see the Subject is clearly in at least one point of interest. We also

have leading lines. But for me, this not only cheating, but it's also just not

as good as the original. Let me emphasize, "for me," because it's all subjective.

   But what if we wanted the paratrooper as our subject? How could we make that our primary focus?

   Well, lets try it out, on our left is a crop. To me, this is a bad crop. Why? Because I've completely changed my center of interest. Practice how you play. If you stop worrying about what you're seeing the view finder because,

"Oh, I'll just crop it later,"

you're already on the bad habit path. Having bad habits very rarely leads to having good results.

   Back to the photo. Our subject is, in my opinion, clearly the paratrooper. But he's a little dark. And as we've already discussed, light is what draws our eyes.


   So lets look at the basics. Is our subject in a point of interest? Yes. Is he/she in Two points? No, but at least we got one. Rule of Thirds, Check. Do we have framing? Sure, the parachute frames our paratrooper well. Do we leading lines to our subject? Sure.

Ultimate question, is this CROP better than our PHOTO? I don't know. It's all subjective after all. If you where to ask me, no simply because I know it's a crop. But I honestly really like the balance of the original. Also, in the crop I really dislike that our soldier still isn't really that clear.

Balancing Act: Light v. Dark

There I was walking on a side walk and I saw this shadow. Instead of just taking any old photo I too the time to compose it. Is this going to win me an award? No. But it's certainly better than had I not taken any time to compose it. 

   It's Sunday, that means this weeks theme, balance is officially over. We talked about asymmetrical balance, finding balance, twisting balance, and almost balance.

   I found the photo above while walking along a sidewalk. I pulled out my cell phone and took the shot. It's not super fancy, it is after all just grass. But I took my time and composed it. It is, in my opinion, and pretty good photo considering it's not a particularly amazing subject. You can't always shoot pictures of things most people will never see at unique perspectives.

   I'm sure you've found yourself walking around and your eye caught something really amazing. So you pulled out your phone and pressed the button. Later you looked at it, found it unimpressive and thought, "Ugh, I'm not a good photographer," or "If only I had a really good camera."

Shadows of the grass are in my points of interest. check. This is about 50%

light 50% shade, so that's pretty well balanced. It's full of lines, I don't know

if I would consider them leading lines per say.

   Maybe the problem was that you just didn't think about what exactly you wanted to take a photo of.  Your subject, after all, is the most important consideration. With your subject in mind pick a rule and compose your photo.

Asymmetrical balance is still in fact balance, but I feel we lost our true

subject, the blades of grass, not just the shadow itself.

   So, lets take a look at this shot. what's my subject?

It's not just the shadow, it's the single blades of grass.

   It was important for me to make sure I didn't have just a big blob of shadow filling up my frame, I needed those single blades to stand out. You'll notice in the shot on the right, which was a quick crop, that my shot just isn't the same. I have shadow in my points of interest, but it's not as balanced. And in my opinion my true subject, the blades of grass, are lost.

Yes, this is just a shadow, but regardless of what you're taking a photo of, it's not excuse to not use composition.

Teetering. Almost Balanced.

Sgt. Salvador Rodriguez braces himself as a UH-60 Blackhawk prepares to land less than 20 yards away from him on Camp Liberty, Iraq on June 23, 2009. The leaflets will be dispersed over specific locations in Baghdad in order to capture a known insurgent. Rodriquez is the administrative non commissioned officer for the 315th Tactical Psychological Operations Company from Upland, Calif. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

   So far this week, we had asymmetrical balance, symmetrical balance with tiny subjects, and balance with a twist. Today we're trying to balance two disparately sized objects.

   So the thing about helicopters is that when they land on a dirt and rock helipad, dirt and rocks fly everywhere.

Helicopter in a point of interest. check. soldier in two points of interest. 

check. Leading line? Maybe. Balanced? Pretty close.

   Obviously you want to turn away like the soldier in the photo and probably close your eyes. I didn't do either because I wanted to get this shot. Luckily I had a decent sized camera in front of my face, and eye protection so I didn't really get anything in my eyes.

   Next problem, when helicopters land all the force they're generating to stay aloft is pushing you away from it. So I had to brace myself. Part of the reason this angle is a little low is that I my feet were pretty far apart of each other trying to get as solid of a base as possible. Luckily I'm not a small guy, so I had 230 pounds anchoring me too.

   I aimed my camera at my subject knowing he probably wasn't going to move too much and just waited for the helicopter to get in a point of interest. Timing is huge in a situation like this, and knowing what is about to happen is key, but luck is always helpful.

   Between leaning forward and my mass I was able to avoid getting thrown backwards.

   If you're a lighter person, I would recommend getting as low as possible so your center of gravity is low. You could lay down or try to find something to lean back against.

   So, is this balance? It's pretty close. Our soldier is a little bigger than the helicopter, so the balance could have been better, but it's not quite asymmetrical balance either.