Learning photography – Page 4

Review: Sean Tucker: The meaning in the making

To make a long story short: this is a super interesting book, and it comes highly recommended.

If you expect to have a book that talks about photography in terms of which aperture to shoot at or how to frame your images just right, then you will be disappointed. The scope is much broader as the sub-title suggests: The why and the how behind our human need to create.

Sean Tucker: The meaning in the making. — My cat kept me company during the read. 320 pages in paperback format.

You may – like me – know Sean Tucker as a photographer and a YouTuber and follow him on both channels. But I did not know that he had been a musician and and waited tables to make ends meet financially. And it reminded me that he had also been a priest (and no, I did not run for the hills…).

On the homepage Sean writes that “This book contains personal stories interwoven with the psychological, philosophical and spiritual practices which help me stay a mentally healthy, inspired and motivated ‘maker of things.'” – that is in essence the content of this book. And it is relevant for anyone being creative of some sort.

The book impressed me in several ways and to illustrate, let me give some examples:

Envy. Envy is not something we often talk about. It is a forbidden feeling almost and one that most try to supress. But Sean instead moves forward and analyses the feeling and how to deal with it constructively. This part of the book I found refreshing and brave, because he uses himself and his own story as the example and not some “holding it in arm’s length and talking about it academically”-way.

Feedback and critics. I find it hard to ask for feedback, or I simply forget to do it. And even more seldom do I actually work with the feedback. Sean early in his life thought about this and apparently decided to use the feedback as an integral part of his way living and working, and that calls for respect. And he also early identified mentors and was early in life very clear about why he wanted mentors and how to make the best of them. Sean also gives several examples of feedback that was harsh or brutal at the time, but he managed to turn it into something constructive and useful every time.

Success. I must admit that to some extent I believe in the american dream. Maybe not in the way a true American would, but that hard work and a bit of talent or luck can take you a long way and almost is a guarantee for success. Sean punctures this belief effectively using van Gogh as example, but also from his life as musician. I am still processing that part of the book and it bites me. I know from my NLP training that we do not see the world as it is, but rather a model of the world and that we take in information that fits our model of the world mainly, and leave the rest be. Seans words about success does not fit my model of the world, and as such it to me is a mental blow. And as unpleasant as mental punches to the kidneys are short term, as beneficial they can be longer term. Sean also talks about the world being broken and this is another part of the book that challenges my belief system, so I’ve been plenty challenged reading the book!

The small stories. Without going too much into details because I think you should enjoy the story yourself, I will give this quote: “This artistic train wreck would win no awards, but it was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen”. That little story really moved me.

I could go on. But I won’t, because I think you should read the book if you have any interest in creativity, self development or philosophy. Or how you can grow as an artist.

I bought the book here in Denmark from a local online store. It can also be downloaded in an electronic version. And I believe you can even read a larger sample from the book. So there are no excuses – start here.

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Sean Tucker: The meaning in the making

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Review: Outdoor Photography monthly magazine

Before Covid hit us all and we could travel freely, my dear wife bought me a copy of the magazine Outdoor Photography in a UK airport somewhere. This was back in 2019 and the copy was issue 249 with a great article by Lee Acaster: His guide to black and white photography. I have read that article at least 20 times, and thanked my wife that she introduced me to Outdoor Photography equally many times.

Outdoor Photography magazine

Ever since colleagues gave me a copy of the Landscape Photographer of the year, I have been convinced that British landscape and outdoor photographers are amongst the best in the world. Carrying a Danish passport and having no relationship to UK other than a holiday now and then, I think I can say that this assessment comes with some level of objectivity! And the Outdoor Photography magazine has continued to confirm that my assessment is not half bad.

The table of content for the magazine has been pretty stable over the years:

Features and opinion
Learning zone
Location guide
Nature zone
Gear zone
Regulars (newsroom and books)
Your op (e.g. publishing readers work)

My favourite part is the Features and opinion, because you here get close to some of the really good photographers and their work. And there are lots of examples of images they have produced and the inspiration I have got from reading these articles and seeing their work is monumental.

Coming from little Denmark, the sheer amount of talented photographers that UK has is simply astonishing, but of course it has to do with the population of UK being 10-15 times Denmark. But even when factoring this in, I still think the UK on a global scale is in the top league, without having done any scientific assessment. Part of the answer probably also lies in the competition being so much more fierce in UK as you simply have to be good to make it, otherwise you will just disappear in the crowd of reasonably good photographers.

I have now subscribed to the magazine, and as such a copy wrapped in plastic arrives in my physical mailbox on a monthly basis. It is not cheap but I find that the value and the pleasure of seeing these great images and articles by far exceeds the costs. Of course, should my economy get worse than it already is, this would be one of the first items in my budget to cancel, but as long as I can afford it, this is little photography luxury that I really enjoy. And it is one of the very few items hitting my physical mailbox that I enjoy (although when the competition is bills and dunning letters, it is of course easy to shine in compare!).

So bottom line: if you are interested in outdoor photography (landscape, nature, adventure, wildlife), then this magazine comes will my highest recommendations.

What are depth of field indicators on a lens?

Not all lenses have a depth of field indicator! It seems like it is a thing of the past, so you need a good old lens to find a DOF indicator! And that is not necessarily a good think, as it can be very useful!

The Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 — My beloved 70-200 mm lens has a distance scale, but no DOF indicator.

On older manual focus lenses there is a distance scale where a – typically – white marker shows what distance your are focusing at. The scale is often very detailed for close distances, and as you increase the distance the jumps get bigger and bigger: 5 meters, 7 meters, 10 meters, 20 and infinity. So it is like a hockey stick – when you get to the far end, things happen very fast!

In addition to the distance scale, you also select the aperture on an older lens by turning an aperture ring. Each of the f-stop values are color coded – if you see the image below, the f/16 value has a pink (?) color coding.

Depth of field indicators for two different apertures.

Now here’s the trick: On both sides of the white marker that shows the focus distance, there is a pair of colored markers that shows the near and the far end of the DOF. In the example above to the left at f/16, you can see the two pink arrows showing the DOF markers and in the example to the right it is green arrows doing the same for f/8. The image above is from the video that I have linked to below, in case you are interested in more details about manual focus.

As you can see on the colored pairs, the blue markes give a much wider DOF than the green markers, which is not a surprise as the blue corresponds color wise to f/22 whereas the green corresponds to f/8.

The DOF scale can be super useful to determine the circle on confusion, i.e. the range in which the image appears to be sharp. This for example enables you as a landscape photographer to put the focal plane so that the far end of the DOF just touches infinity on the distance scale, and hence you make the best use of the DOF at a given aperture. It can also be a group portrait where you want to select an aperture so that everyone in the image will appear to be sharp, and not just the front row!

Video link

What is luminance in photography?

You probably know the word lumen if you have been interested in the brightness of the light in a lightbulb or a flashlight. For my bicycle lights, I always study how many lumen they generate, as I want to be as visible as possible in the traffic. So the more lumen, the brighter the light is.

The luminance of the colors in an image is perhaps best illustrated using the sliders from Lightroom:

As you can see, the more luminance a given color has in the examples above, the more bright it appears to be.

The above sliders are “tweaks” you can make to the luminance in Lightroom, but in addition to this each color has an inherent level of luminance value. So blue is less bright than say yellow, just to pick two colors that luminance wise are at the opposite end of the scale. This is probably also why blue and yellow work well together as contrast colors – I often notice this when I see the Swedish flag.

Example with brightness changed in post processing. Before left, after right.

In the example above I have reduced the brightness of green and increased it for red, and as you can see it gives a very different expression. Had I reduced the exposure in Lightroom, the brightness of all colors would have been changed at the same time – here I can work with the brightness of each color and how bright they are individually.

What is monochromatic colors?

Single

You probably think of monochrome as black and white and the shades of grey in between, i.e. that monochrome is the same as a black and white image. This is how it is often used, but monochrome means that only one color or hue is present in the image.

“Chromaticism” is the greek word for color. So monochromatic underlines that only one color is present. You can of course have different versions of that color by having different tints (adding white) and shades (adding grey/black) to the pure color (hue).

I think of monochrome and monochromatic as being one and the same, but this is not entirely correct. However, for practical purposes working as a photographer, I think this assumption works just fine.

Not a monochromatic image — In real life the colors here looked amazing, but it does not really come across in the image.

You can work to achieve monochromatic images by using colored filters or post processing the image or a bit of both. Personally, I use Lightroom to tweak my images to a monochromatic look.

Using one single hue across the board in this image — Pulling a few sliders in Lightroom, it is possible to change the image to be (almost) monochromatic.

The reason for using a monochromatic color scheme is to simplify the image and take out some distractions. If you have a scene where there are many different colors, reducing the variety of colors down to monochromatic can help the viewer to see more of the structures and textures in the image, and help the scene appear more calm.

What is foreground attraction in photography?

3 dimensions

Pictures are by nature 2 dimensional, trying to capture a 3 dimensional world. Thinking in foreground, midground and background (or distance) when you compose your image, can help bring the illusion to life that the image has a third dimension. So putting something in the foreground to give a bit of edge or contrast relative to the subject (typically found in the midground) can help make your image appear more 3D like.

Foreground attraction in photography — The moss and straws in the foreground serves as foreground attraction here. Some prefer the foreground to be tack sharp and have leading lines pulling the viewer into the scene – here it is more used as a way of framing.

Another role of the foreground can be to help bring the viewer closer to the scene.If you shoot a portrait of a person and the edge of the picture depicts a door, or if you shoot your subject through some vegetation, where the viewer almost feels like they are hiding somewhere and studying the subject.

The point is not to put something in the foreground each and every time. When shooting silhouette photography for example, the whole point is to play with the picture being 2-dimensional! But you can use it as one of many tools in your toolbox, exactly when you see the need to make your D2 images appear more 3D-ish!

What are complementary colors in photography?

Opposites attract

When put next to each other, complementary colors gives the biggest contrast and – for reasons beyond me – are an appealing combination to the human eye. You can use this knowledge if you work in a studio where the combination of the color of the models clothing and the color of the backdrop can be matched as complementary colors. Or you can use it in post to say do split toning to the highlights and lows using two complementary colors to do so.

The color wheel here as a screen shot from Lightroom.

Complementary colors sit exactly opposite each other in the color wheel, so if you follow the edge of the color wheel through all 360 degrees, you will find all the possible combinations. However, many of these are gradual changes from one color to another, so a more “black and white” presentation of the complementary colors could be:

Red and green
Yellow and violet
Orange and blue

Some photographers like Finn Beales are able to color grade their entire image portfolios in a consistent way and clearly using their knowledge of color science in general and complementary colors in particular. If you can follow this lead, it could be a way for you to develop a portfolio of images that stands out from the crowd and enables you to brand your work so it is easy to recognize.

What is split toning in photography?

High and low

Split toning is simply to apply different colors to the highlights and lows in the image. You are changing the original colors based on the intensity of the light. Subject to the colors chosen, the emotional response to an image pre and post split toning can be very different.

split toning not applied — The original image without split toning.

I see many photographers using split toning to get a distinct look to their images so the color profile is consistent throughout their portfolio. I am no master here and my colors are all over the place, but when reading the book by Finn, I could clearly see how strong a tool color grading in general and split toning in particular is. So if you have the energy and the discipline, split toning is a great tool for making your images distinct and different than most of what you find on say Instagram.

split toning applied to highs and lows — Red-orange applied to the highlights. Blues added to the lows. Notice how especially the branch over the waster pops out much more in this version.

I apply split toning when working in Lightroom, and Lightroom even allows you to add 3 levels of toning: high, mids and lows. But in the example above I have just used highs and lows. The colors used are blue for the lows and a red-orange one for the highs.

It is not a coincidence that I have used orange and blue. These two colors sit opposite each other on the color wheel and are thus complementary colors. Complementary colors create the biggest contrast, and as you probably know, contrast draws attention. In addition, complementary colors apparently are pleasing to the eye – I have no idea why, but judging from my own experience it sounds about right.

What is color saturation in photography?

Intensity

I think the best way to describe color saturation is that a completely desaturated image is a black and white image! So the intensity of the color is the saturation. And a color that is completely desaturated is just a shade of grey.

The more grey you add to a color, the less saturated it is. (This is probably not technically correct, but I find it to be a good pragmatic way to think of it).

The saturation slider in Lightroom, here in the middle. Notice the value all to the left (grey).

The saturation of a color in real life is a given, but you can tweak the saturation of a color in post processing. The above I have cut from the post processing tool Lightroom, where the slider in the middle – in this example – allows you to take the intensity of the red color from grey (all the way to the left) to a very intense red (all the way to the right).

As colors speaks to and invoke our emotions, desaturating an image can make it more subtle and calm. So if you want the structures and textures to play a bigger role in your image, taking the saturation down can change the balance in what elements in your picture that dominates.

You can also use saturation to change the balance between different colors, so if you have a red field of flowers on a green bed of branches and leaves, you may want to desaturate the green color a bit to give room for the red flowers shine (relatively) more.

Category: Learning photography

Review: Sean Tucker: The meaning in the making

Shopping link

Video link

Related reading

Review: Outdoor Photography monthly magazine

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What are depth of field indicators on a lens?

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Video link

What is luminance in photography?

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What is hue in photography?

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What is monochromatic colors?

Single

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What is foreground attraction in photography?

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What are complementary colors in photography?

Opposites attract

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What is split toning in photography?

High and low

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What is color saturation in photography?

Intensity

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