Some of you may have heard of the term, but if you’re not into photography there’s a good chance you don’t know exactly what high dynamic range (HDR) photos are. Simply put, the goal of the HDR technique is to expand the dynamic range (difference between the light and dark areas) of the image so that it’s closer to what the human eye sees. Camera sensors, although constantly being improved upon, still can’t match the range between detail in light and dark areas as well as your eyeballs. If a scene has something in direct sunlight and something else in deep shadow, you’re going to lose detail in one or both areas when you rely on just one exposure.

To solve that problem, the premise of HDR is simple: take several exposures of the same scene, one for the darkest areas, one for the lightest areas, and one or more in between, and then combine them in post-processing so that all areas of the final image have detail and are not blocked out (shadows) or blown out (highlights).
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It’s been a month since I started my photo-a-day project, known around the web as Project 365. So far it’s proving to be a great challenge and a great learning experience. I’ve built a lightbox, learned how to use (in the most basic way) an off-camera flash, and spent more time rigging shots than I would have ever thought possible. If one thing has been proven, it’s that I still have a lot to learn.

Trying new things and learning to see the world differently is a big part of what Project 365 is about. It’s certainly succeeded for me on the former; as I mentioned, one big new part of my skill set is now off-camera flash. I only have one so far, and no significant rigging to speak of, but even with my relatively simple setup I have learned a lot about how to perform certain types of shots that I never would have understood before. For example, On the Rocks demonstrates two of my favorite properties of using off-camera flash: a blacked-out background and frozen motion (without the harshness of on-camera flash). This is really, really basic stuff in the realm of lighting, but it’s valuable to know.
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Photo 1 of 365: Emergency

I’m embarking on a new photographic adventure: Project 365, a self-imposed assignment in which I will take at least one photo a day for an entire year.

The concept dates back several years, and I first heard about it last year, but it seems to really be picking up steam lately. By taking a photo every day, you’re forcing yourself to think creatively and think about composition and think about lighting — no matter where you are or what you’re doing. It has the added bonus of documenting your life over the year — you’ll be able to look back and see at least one clue as to what you did on any particular day. Everyone I’ve read about or talked to that has gotten involved in this has said how wonderful it was in developing their photographic skills.

Which makes perfect sense, really. Think about the things you normally identify yourself as really good at. I’m really good at playing piano; I’ve played for 20 years and while I don’t play every day anymore, I did play every day for nearly 12 of those years. I’m pretty good at designing web sites; I can’t say I design a new one every day, but every time I *do* design one I get better.
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I’m coming up on one year of my foray into “real” photography (that is, putting some effort into my shots rather than just random point-and-shoot), and I wanted to share an experience I had that demonstrated the importance of spending quality time post-processing your photos. One of my pictures that got little attention at first started getting a lot more looks, comments, group invites, and awards once I knew what I was doing in post and spent some time tweaking it.

Until relatively recently, I hadn’t really done much post-processing work — I’d pull the shots off my memory card, maybe do a little tweaking to the exposure if I had under- or over-exposed, maybe crop a little, but that was about it. But as I’ve spent more time trying to learn about photography, both from the pros and from some talented friends, I realized in addition to developing “the eye” in the field, I needed to be developing my skills back at my desk, long after the shot. I have plenty of experience designing user interfaces for web sites, but little with enhancing photographs. Once I started putting some effort into post, some of my shots really started to pop much more than they used to. One great example of this is my mossy ravine photograph.
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Now that I’ve gotten into photography a little bit, I tend to pay more attention to how other people use their cameras. There’s two things that I repeatedly see which drive me up the wall: pointless use of flash, and that dang beeping noise.

Let’s start with the beeping. On most cameras, this will occur either when the camera focuses or when you release the shutter — or both. In my opinion, this feature is pretty unnecessary for most people, because there are visual confirmations for both of these actions (and I do hope you’re looking at your camera when you use it!). The cacophony of beeps is just plain annoying when you’ve got several people all trying to focus and snap pictures all at the same time. It’s downright rude when you’re in a quiet setting — like some sort of performance, gallery, etc. People seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that their camera is making loud, rude noises while someone is performing a solo or whatever. There is a simple on-off setting for this…please, consider turning it off.

The second item of photography etiquette on today’s agenda is the use of flash. Most people buy their point-and-shoot cameras and then never take it off the Auto Flash function. This works fine for many situations, but cameras are still kind of stupid about when to use flash. I remember watching diving at the Beijing Olympics a couple months ago, for example, and the Water Cube announcers repeatedly asked spectators not to use flash. Yet, every single time someone went off the diving board, hundreds of flash bulbs popped from the stands.
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How many times have you seen something that had the potential to be a really great picture, but there were just too many people in the way? More times than I can remember, personally. As it turns out, there’s a way to get that shot.

I came across this really cool Photoshop tip the other day while listening to the TWiP (This Week in Photography) podcast. One of the podcast regulars, Fred Johnson, put a little screencast up on his site about how to remove people (or any other non-stationary object) from a photograph. Well, technically, a series of photographs. Basically, take several shots of a scene with the camera in the same location (obviously a tripod would be best, but Photoshop can align the images if necessary), load them into a single layer, and then use Photoshop’s Layer > Smart Objects > Stack Mode > Median. This analyzes the image set and removes the delta pixels, leaving you with a people-less picture. Very cool technique, and something I’m sure a lot of people will find useful.

Screencast: Removing crowds with Photoshop

Stephen Wiltshire has become known as the Human Camera for his astonishing ability to draw complex scenes completely from memory after only seeing the subject once. The autistic Brit drew a perfect aerial view of London at age 11, after only one helicopter ride, and it was accurate down to the number of windows on the buildings! In this amazing video, Stephen is taken on a helicopter ride over Rome — a city he has never seen — and then given three days to draw a five-meter (16 feet 5 inches) panoramic mural of the city using nothing but a pencil. You must watch this video to see how accurate and detailed it is — it makes you reevaluate what the human brain is capable of.

Thank you Ron for sending this my way.