Water. Moving water.
Makes for some surreal images when exposed for long. Like the one below of a wispy wave crashing on a rocky beach in Maui.
Water has long been the favorite long exposure subject of lazy photographers like me. But if you care to look around a little more carefully, you will find a that a new favorite is emerging.
Wind.
The bane of landscape photographers, especially on a budget. Shivering hands, shaking lenses, trembling tripods, un-sharp pictures.
A slight wind, though, makes for some very interesting photographs. Not the wind itself, but the effect it has on bushes, leaves, trees, clouds, smoke, water. Put your camera to Aperture Priority, stop down your aperture to the maximum possible (f/99 anyone?), set it on a sturdy tripod, and shoot away. You should get at least a second of exposure time. If that ain’t happening even at the smallest aperture, slap on a filter or two – ND filters, polarizers, GNDs – bring all you can and stack them till you get a second or more.
Below are two very interesting examples – the first one is a long exposure of smoke rising out from the chimneys of a coal-based thermal power station in Britain. The second one shows the canvas-like effect of a long exposure of swaying grass with the crisp outline of the stationary car in its midst.
Try these out the next time you are out and about cursing the wind.
 http://mikespriggs.co.uk/photo_7331112.html
 http://www.darwinwiggett.com/photo.php?id=80&gallery=ephemeral
It is said that any photographer would easily barter 100mm in telephoto focal length for 10mm in wide. But for some reason, I was (like many others) more concerned about the telephoto end of the spectrum than about the wide end. That was until I ordered the Tamron 10-24mm f/3.5-5.6 wide.
Since then, all my urban photography is done using this one and only lens.
Why?
Because you can walk all the way up close and personal to your subject, take your time, frame your image, and shoot, and your subject won’t even suspect that he is being photographed, resulting in spontaneous candid photographs.
For this image of a living statue in Plaza Mayor, I could walk all the way up to where he was taking a cigarette break in the cool breeze of the Madrid evening sky, towards his left, and composed the image in context of his surroundings.
“India lives in several centuries at the same time” (Arundhuti Roy), and nowhere is this more evident than in larger cities such as Calcutta. Some parts of the “old” India still manage to provide the simple pleasures of life – like this roadside animal show which pulls characters and images from famous Bollywood movies and maps them to the animal counterparts. With interest in these roadside shows drifting towards the comforts of a plastic-pony-merry-go-round ride in an air-conditioned environment, it is becoming harder for such vendors to provide even basic up-keep for their bread-earning pets.
posted in gallery by varp
A good set of tripod legs is considered mandatory for all photographers. For Landscapers, for sure. Heard that, ignored it, scoffed it off. “My hands are as steady as a carbon-fiber Gitzo. Don’t need no stinkin’ tripod”.
Many years ago, Sunsets got ruined first. Reluctantly went and purchased the El Cheapo brand of tripod – something better than nothing right?
A few years ago, started missing out on photographs simply because I was fumbling to get the camera mounted and aligned while, for example, the fog just rolled in and killed the image. Reluctantly went and purchased another one for a few more pennies more, that included quick release style clamps, but still had supermodel-skinny-legs. Worked around the issues of camera shake by bumping up ISO (horrible, horrible grain), using the widest aperture (did someone say, un-sharp?) and shooting underexposed (pardon the extraordinary grain please).
And then came the heavier lenses. HDR multi-exposures. Bulb exposures. And the desire to get rid of the grain and shoot at ISO 100.
A few months ago at Mono Lake, the nutrition-starved legs couldn’t take it anymore. They were fluttering in the wind, while I was trying to take 20” and 30” exposures for a nice evening HDR. Hung my backpack on those legs for stability, and they bucked even more. Used my jacket to shield it from the gust (a light breeze, perhaps). Out of the 20 odd HDR exposures (3 each), only one set survived – the one you see here.
A few weeks ago, finally invested in a good Induro carbon-fiber tripod and a decently priced Manfrotto ball head. I am already regretting the “decent” priced ball head – it has been good so far, but I am worried. The image in this post was shot last evening at the Palace of Fine Arts with the weather as uncooperative as could be – drizzling, freezing and of course, windy. Shot at ISO 100 for 30 seconds. Tack sharp.
 
While browsing through my database, I came across these two photographs of the Bodie car. Both have been photographed around mid-July, and around 5 in the afternoon. Both have been presented almost unedited – only a slight level correction has been performed on both, to keep things neutral. Both are in horizontal frame format. It is uncanny to find a comparable set of images like this and ponder on the differences:
- One of them was shot almost 6 years ago, around the first time I held a digital camera; the other is more recent – a few weeks ago.
- One of them was shot with older sensor technology; one of them represents state of the art sensors.
- But most importantly, one was shot with 6 years of less self-training than the other.
Being a biased subjective photographer myself, I would of course like to think that the 6 years of experience has mattered, and has helped me get better. It is left as an exercise to the reader to guess which one is the older image, and which one is newer.
My favorite, though, is the vertical rendition of the same object taken a few weeks ago:
If there is anything to learn from this, it is that there is no substitute for self-training. Courses, books and advice can quickly get you to your plateau, after which it is a slow but exciting personal growth. It would be interesting to see if (and how) anything changes in the next 6 years.
Shining glass and towering steel. Mega malls to put MoA to shame. And prices that are in dollars, while you shell it out in Rupees. But then, if you are shopping for everyday life, or are hunting for bargains, and are willing to tolerate the heat and humidity or the pounding rain to channel your money towards the more hard-working class, there is the ubiquitous roadside stall.
(First Light @ Benton Crossing, Eastern Sierras)
There has been a recent emergence (resurgence?) of High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography, in which the photographer takes multiple exposures of the same object – each with it’s own set of limited dynamic range – but she now adds up all of the individual exposures to create something with tremendous dynamic range. A dynamic range that film or sensor alone could never capture. A dynamic range that captures the “bright” areas as well as the “dark” areas equally well, within the same image.
Bits are cheap, and taking multiple exposures has been simplified greatly by modern DSLR. Therefore, taking multiple exposures of a scene or an event is no longer an arduous or expensive proposition; sorting through the multiple exposures ,when you get back home and download the data into your hard disk, still is. Unfortunately, now the monitors and LCD displays used in our mundane lives (as well as the mighty print) cannot live up to the challenge of displaying all this range. So the photographer has to tone map the image – compress the dynamic range – smartly. With ever improving tools on the market for merging, mapping and managing these exposures into an HDR tone-mapped image, even the back-end processing is being simplified.
There is no reason why one should not multiply expose every photograph, though the final keeper might be just a single image. I am hoping that future cameras or photography management tools will somehow stack these multiple exposures together, to make their management and navigation much easier. A word of caution though:
“Not every image needs to have 10-15 stops of dynamic range. In fact, most photographs look quite nice, thank you very much, with the 5-7 stops of dynamic range that we’re used to. I fully expect to see some really silly if not downright ugly images in the months ahead, as photographers get their copies of Photoshop CS2 and start discovering what the HDR function is capable of.” – Michael Reichmann
So, with Photoshop, Photomatix, myriad Lightroom plugins, etc. – all having HDR creation and tone mapping tools, what’s the issue?
The issue is the availability of tools if you are on a Linux or BSD environment. The issue is also of budget. If you wan to do this on the cheap, there is no easy way out. But if you are willing to spend a little effort in learning these tools, they will get you results that are finely tuned – better than what the automated tools have to offer, and in the process give you an understanding of what HDR and tone mapping is really all about.
In the next post, we will talk about Qtpfsgui – now rechristened to a more pronounceable Luminance HDR – the first and most important step in creating a good tone-mapped HDR image.
posted in thoughts by varp
(Mono Lake at Dusk, 3 exposure HDR @ –2, 0 +2 EV)
Another 3 exposure HDR from Mono Lake, a little earlier in the evening than the previous post’s image. At this time, the sun was higher up (strictly speaking, though already behind the Sierras) and the contrasts were greater. Normal film or sensor would not have been able to capture the submerged branch and the rocks in the foreground. Even with a grad ND filter, this would have been difficult – not so with HDR. Unfortunately, there are some artifacts around the tufa in the center of the photograph – something that possibly could be fixed if I spent some more time with this image.
posted in thoughts by varp
(Mono Lake at Dusk, HDR out of 3 exposures, –2EV, 0, +2EV)
Golden light – dusk or dawn – the perfect time for photography. Unfortunately, this is also the time for contrasts, the time when deep dark shadows abound, and the poor dynamic range of film or digital sensor fails to capture the magic as one would hope.
For years, photographers used a filter known as a neutral graduated neutral density filter, to tame these extreme ranges. A simple tool, though extremely hard to build (well), a grad ND filter is simply a piece of square glass or resin, which is clear on one end and gradually darkens towards the opposite end. Instead of trying to sit through my explanation of what this is, one could view the excellent Wikipedia entry on this tool.
These filters are crude, cumbersome to use, error-prone, and rarely are truly “neutral”.
Fast forward to cutting-edge photography, and the emergence (resurgence?) of High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography. A photographer takes multiple exposures of the same object – each with it’s own set of limited dynamic range – but she now adds up all the individual exposures to create something with tremendous dynamic range. A dynamic range that film or sensor alone could never capture. A dynamic range that captures the “bright” areas as well as the “dark” areas equally well, within the same image.
A dynamic range, that finally, renders a graduated ND filter obsolete!
The image above was shot with a glowing sunset sky, that rendered the salt puddles lackluster, gray and dark, but I was able to extract all the detail out of this 3 exposure HDR image. Unfortunately, now the monitors and LCD displays used in our mundane lives cannot live up to the challenge of displaying all this range. So the photographer has to tone map the image – compress the dynamic range – smartly.
These tone-mapping algorithms are crude, cumbersome to apply, error-prone, and rarely are truly truthful to the vision that the eye had seen.
posted in thoughts by varp
Lining up every January, for 10 years, to purchase the set of books required for the coming school year. They would run out of some book or the other, and then the screaming, fist-waving and shouting would begin.
posted in thoughts by varp
 (Siva Temples, HDR)
There are a multitude of such Siva temple complexes scattered all over this part of Southern Calcutta. This is one such collection of 6 – lost and forgotten. Multi-exposure capture and converted to HDR, in a stunningly beautiful post-Monsoon evening sky.
posted in thoughts by varp
 D-Day Tonight.
Louvre Pyramid 
Arles Arena One of the harder, and most overlooked guidelines, in capturing a photograph is the visualization of scale. A comparison with other surrounding objects – objects that the viewer will know about – is key.
The photograph on the left shows the famed Louvre Pyramid. Without the people in the frame, it would have seemed stark, uninteresting and definitely wouldn’t provide much sense of the size of these objects. Compare that to a similar photograph on the right, devoid of any comparison, where it is hard to tell how large or small the Arles Amphitheatre arches are.
 Banks of the Hooghly 8 more days. The Tamron 10-24mm arrived today. Slow, as I have been spoiled by the 2.8s, but wide at a reasonable chunk of change. Hope to put it to good use on the trip.
 Nizam House Another 2 weeks to visit my hometown – the photographically unique city of Calcutta. It’s been 5 long years, and a whole slew of newer camera bodies and shiny fast glass. Can’t wait.
 So, I can shoot
Found this on the web at http://www.varp.net/Logos/photographer-graph-1024×858[1].png. Comic? Me not think so. Bitingly true. Anyone with any kind of camera should give this figure a close read.
 Club-goer The long stretch of fertile soil between the Bay Area and the Sierra Nevadas – a 400-mile-long stretch of Central Valley – supplies a quarter of the food America eats. Often overlooked, as folks rush in their DVD-playing, kid-screaming SUVs and minivans towards the Sierran National Parks. A small detour towards Firebaugh exposes a laid-back sleepy town with little else going on.
Parked on the other side of the road, we were taking a few images of this deserted (?) club, when we saw a man approaching from the other end of the sidewalk. Patiently waited for him to cut across the club for a more striking image.
 Carousel Eiffel Across the Quai Branly, just before the Pont d’lena, there is the oft-visited Carousel Gourmand, with this Carousel de la Tour Eiffel right next to it. Unfortunately, there was construction right beside it, which hindered me from taking a clean combined Carousel-Eiffel photograph. I had to lean as far back as my inflexible back allowed to set the horse against the sky instead of the looming Tower. A little younger and suppler, and the horse would have been quite distinct against the cloudy skies.
 Aquatint An oft-photographed icon from the British Raj, this image has been color-manipulated to mimic the aquatints of Caclutta made by British painters. If you do manage to visit the Memorial, stop by it’s galleries and admire a few of these masterpieces.
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http://mikespriggs.co.uk/photo_7331112.html
