19. February 2010 by Friedhelm.

I photographed the Mission in San Luis Obispo. This image of the columns takes you eye on a journey. The lines lead you eye to the square on the upper right side. Think about the lines in your photograph. The may be implied or real, regular or irregular. Consider how they impact your photograph. Harald Mante in his book “The Photograph” gives a great introduction into the usage of lines.

Enjoy and photograph!

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18. February 2010 by Friedhelm.

I shot this image at Avila Beach. In the window you see the reflection of the pier which caught my eye while I was standing in the parking lot of the beach. The light was perfect at the “Golden Hour” and still I was debating with myself if I should either radically edit this image in post production or delete it altogether. The reason is twofold: First, I like a clear subject in an image. In this image my eyes are wandering around. The cropped the number sign off at least a little bit but as always letters and numbers draw attention. In addition the palm tree is blocking partially the view and there are two small shadow points in the lower left. These spots fight for your attention and it seems to me that they draw away from the reflection. Second: To contradict this pulling away energy, I cropped the window frame as tight as possible. This creates a feeling of being cramped. Still, I like the image. Camera setting: focal length 370mm, f16, 1/250sec., ISO 100.

Enjoy and happy photographing!

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17. February 2010 by Friedhelm.

I photographed this image at the beach south of San Luis Obispo right after sunset. I love the graduated change from the blue tones in the front to the warm red tones in the background. Camera setting: f11, 1/15 sec., ISO 100

Enjoy and happy image making!

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16. February 2010 by Friedhelm.

Yesterday some friends and members of the Chowchilla Photo Club (http://chowchillaphotoclub.wordpress.com) went up to Yosemite to photograph horsetail fall. The condition was pretty much ideal. There was a lot of precipitation in January and it was a cloud free day, however according to the calendar the best day to photograph the Fall is Friday (02-19-2010). In order to get the “fire” effect I had to use neutral density filters and some post production work in Photoshop. I will try to get up Friday again and I hope for an even more spectacular image.

Enjoy your day and don’t forget to take your camera with you. A photo op can turn up at any place, any time!

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15. February 2010 by Friedhelm.

While I was photographing at Avila Beach I discovered the tennis ball in the water. The ball created an opportunity for an interesting composition. This image has two focal points, the ball and the boulder. Both focal points fight for your attention and your eyes constantly wander from one to the other. Interestingly both take up about the same space in the image while in real life the boulder is a lot larger. The effect is created by using a wide angle lens close to the ball (Sometimes people refer to it as the “dog nose” effect).

Camera setting: 15mm focal lengths, f16, 1/100sec., ISO 100.

Enjoy and have a great creative week!

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14. February 2010 by Friedhelm.

We spent the last two days at the California Coast and I had a great time photographing around 130 miles of coastline. I made this image at Avila Beach, south of San Luis Obispo. Camera setting: 24mm focal length, f16, 1/40sec., ISO 100

Enjoy!

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13. February 2010 by David.

Here are a couple of photographs I took in a recent trip to downtown Merced. For a small town there is actually a lot of activity going on. The wind was blowing slightly so some of the tips on the palm tree are slightly blurred.  I just liked the contrasts, lines and lighting of the staircase and wall.

Keep clicking

Dave

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11. February 2010 by David.

This is another photograph I took on my trip to the State Capital a couple of weeks ago. Lately I seem to be drawn to lights and architecture. The Capital building is very ornate and a marvel in many ways. If you ever have the opportunity why not spend some time and discover it for yourself.

F11, at .8 sec., 21mm, ISO 200

Keep clicking

Dave

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11. February 2010 by Friedhelm.

I love to photograph portraits showing faces and at least one hand. The hand is for me as important as the face to describe the essence of a person.

Enjoy and go out and study faces and hands. Most important , have a positive attitude and respect for other people and your portraits will improve drastically!

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10. February 2010 by Friedhelm.

It can be a challenge to combine several different light sources in one image. There are four different light sources in this images. There is the strong warm light in the front, the candle light in the window, the lamps in the restaurant and the cold neon light in the back. In this image the cold neon and the warm lights form a nice contrast and make this image work.

Enjoy and “think before you shoot” (quote from one of my favorite photographers, Martin Munkacsi).

Posted in Compositions, Cityscape | Print | No Comments »