Projecting Your Vision

Greetings, volks. Welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place! Lovely weather, beautiful skies, and an abundance of time give rise for photo opportunities and exercises here.

We’re blessed in the Hohenfels area with such a variety of things to cater to all our interests, at least photographically. Many volks find the castles and historic locations to be the ticket for them, others love the country scenes, and still other volks love seeing the cities. We’re located where you can find something to interest you and fuel your creative fire.

Today we’re going to try to throw some fuel on your fire by revisiting the subject of projects. As we discussed in a previous post, projects can get you thinking and lead to some creative ideas and photos. We’re going to do a short post about getting a project going as an exercise this week.

The first step to completing your project is getting together some ideas thinking through an outline. It’s important to have a theme, something that will tie each image to the other images, and to the project as a whole. Some ideas for projects in the Hohenfels area are shooting only trees, shooting playgrounds, a series of stream shots, or even the local Rathauses. Once you have a general theme, narrow it down some. For instance, if you choose to shoot trees, limit yourself to small trees or something to narrow your scope to less than just “trees.”

Decide on what tools you want to use. Decide on what items you’ll be using in your photography, and put together a kit to bring along. Make sure you have the right tool for the job! If you decide to shoot bugs for instance, don’t use a 24mm wide-angle lens, unless your theme is little specks of bugs in a big scene. Planning now can save you some missed shots later.

Also, think of some limitations on your tools. Perhaps shooting without a flash or using only a prime lens. By adding some creative limitations, you boost your creativity by working with what you have. A very important limitation is limiting the edits you can perform in software. Limit yourself to adjusting levels, curves, brightness, contrast, and saturation. Include these limitations in your visualization, or you may be disappointed with your results. Most photo contests you’re likely to enter limit editing to those listed above. For the purposes of this article, we’re going to use those limitations to help us get the most of the tools we have.

Once all the above have been decided, it’s time to make of list of places where we can the shots to work our project. Know where you’re going, research the places and lighting. You should visit a couple times at different times of day. Know the lighting and knowing how we make the most of it gives you the ability to make your image inspire others.

With everything in place, it’s time to get out and start shooting. Add some variety within your theme by shooting black and white, shooting some color, and low light shots. Keeping to your theme will bring everything together.

Projects can be created for the weekend, for vacation, or even for special days and times. One of my friends, Jen, recently did a series of lighthouses. Her shots were great, and although they have edits like vignettes applied, show how beautiful the structures, and more importantly the locations, are. These things are a marvel for anyone who’s ever seen one, and Jen crafted some wonderful images that fit that to a t! Check out her blog, Jennifer O on our links page, you’ll definitely enjoy her work!

I’ll leave you with a couple shots from one of my on-going projects, featuring crosses and small chapels in our Hohenfels Area.


EI80, f/8, 1/60 Developed N-20% to control tonal range and contrast.
Crosses and Crenelations. Shot on film, exposed to bring the range near bright white on the walls and crenelations of the wall and developed to bring that back to a tone that holds detail. Even though that area is pushing white, the tonal range and detail are available.


ISO 125, f/8, 1/30
Castle and Cross. By shooting the sky at about m+1/3, then decreasing exposure by about 1/2 stop and applying an inverted s-curve to the image, the clouds, cross, and castle all add an element to the image, and create a decent balance.

I hope this inspires everyone to undertake a project of their own. A project can take on a life of its own, and can add some inspiration to your time behind the camera. It doesn't have to take all your photo time, but you may end up giving it a more than fair amount! Take care and enjoy the rest of the week!

Is there anything you’d like to see here? Do you have a question? Let us know what project you're working on! Share your thoughts here or at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too! Don't forget, we're on Google+, too!

On the Range...

Greetings, volks. Welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place! Today’s weather turned out to be quite nice. There is a wide variety of things and places to shoot in our little part of Germany. Clouds and fields are just coming around to being incredibly photogenic.

Today we’re going to take a quick look at contrast and exposure. When we refer to contrast, we’re generally speaking about the range of values within an image or scene. From the brightest areas to the darkest is our range, and the contrast ratios can be quite high for a full range scene to rather low for a lower contrast image, such as a portrait.

As a general rule, higher contrast images tend to be more dramatic, while lower contrast images run toward the softer side. That’s the reason we call lower contrast “softer.” An image’s sharpness is also dependant upon contrast. When you decrease contrast, you can quickly decrease sharpness if your not careful.

Contrast can be varied by exposure. When an image runs toward high key, it loses contrast due the lower values being absent. The inverse is true in low-key images, though to a lesser extent. By adding shadow and decreasing brightness or overall exposure, contrast can apparently be increased. Decreasing exposure by 1/3 stop can be just the trick. The same can be said for color contrast, which is the range of tones in a single color within your image.

Drama can be added through darkening, and tranquility, or stillness, through lightening. Local contrast can be adjusted within a narrow range of tones, improving appearance, detail, and bringing interest to an area within the image. By using levels for general contrast adjustments, and curves for local effects, an interesting image can be created.

Combined with visualizing the desired outcome, or range of outcomes, limitless possibilities exist within each image. By exposing your brightest areas for M+2 and your darkest for M-3, a visual feast can be created from one shot, if done right. Visualize the effect of several adjustments and contrast ranges, and then set the shot so that each one can be accomplished using limited adjustments.

I hope this gives you something to think about and play with. Throw in some work with this week’s exercise, and you’ll be sure to get something that fills with that pride of accomplishment that comes from a shot well made.

Take care and enjoy the rest of the week!

Is there anything you’d like to see here? Do you have a question? Share your thoughts here or at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too! Don't forget, we're on Google+, too!

Tips, Tricks, and Exercises

Greetings, volks. Welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place! Here in Hohenfels, the weekend lived up to its promise. The weather and atmosphere made for some great shots. I hope everyone made a couple new favorites for their portfolios.

Today is a short post featuring a couple tips.

Tip 1- Try to get out right after the rain. Colors sing because the scene before you is fresh washed and saturations are usually pushed up. The air usually loses some of the haze seen along the horizon, and even over greater distances. Having a clean scene and air make the image look more as you envisioned it. Not to mention the receding storm leaves some awesome cloud formations to add interest to almost any image.

Tip 2- When shooting early in the morning or around sunset, remember the blue hour. You can see some beautiful additions to your image when lit with a softer, bluer light. Think architecture at twilight and you’ll know what I mean.

Tip 3- Move around. Take the shot that you thought was the winner, and then move around for a different view. Try to change perspective and use some DOF effects in different positions. Set up and take the shot you came to get, but make sure you explore the area and the light. You may find the lighting from slightly below and to the left of the subject creates a feeling unlike your first shot. Don’t limit yourself to the shot everyone takes; unleash yourself on the shot you want to make!

This week’s exercise is to shoot one location, one subject. Make multiple images of the same subject from different angles, distances, and with different lighting. Give yourself bonus points if you do it in the early evening, morning, or after the rain. Top off those points by combining all 3 tips into a small series of shots!

Here’s hoping you have a great week and capture a treasure worth sharing!

Is there anything you’d like to see here? Do you have a question? Share your thoughts here or at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too! Don't forget, we're on Google+, too!

Necessary Tools

Greetings, volks. Welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place! The weekend, upon us, should lead to some exciting photo opportunities in and around the Hohenfels area.

I often talk about using accessories. A flash and some light modifiers can be essential tools in our kits. Today we’re going to talk about tools and not having them.

The first thing to know is that you don’t need it all. You don’t need a flash or lighting kit, you don’t need the wide fixed focal length lens, and you don’t need fancy intervalometers. In fact, you only really need your camera and your lens. Actually, you need 2 more things, your vision, and your knowledge.

Your vision is more than how you see things. It consists of how you see things and how you choose to express those things. It also consists of being able to visualize the intended final image and the steps to make it happen. Visualization allows us to plan and compose our image being we even approach our camera. It allows us to create a roadmap of our image’s creation and gives us the ability to follow through on our expression of the scene. One long time technique to aid in visualizing an image is to take an old 35mm slide frame and view your potential scene through the opening. You’ll see new ways to frame and compose an image. You can use a piece of black matting with a 1.5 to 1 ratio rectangle cut out. That opening can be 6x9, 10x15, or 4x6. The 1.5 to 1 is what 35mm film and today’s digital cameras use. This isn’t a tool in creating your image, but it is a tool in crafting your vision. Try it out, and let me know how it works for you. There are many nuances to vision and visualization that we’re not touching on in this post, so don’t think that’s all there is to it.

Our knowledge refers to our ability to use our camera for our purposes and art rather than letting the camera use us for its work. It’s knowing how to evoke a response to a scene and how to compose that scene for aesthetic rather that literal rendering. It involves knowing how our camera operates and how exposure works. Learning the exposure triangle and where along the range of values a brightness falls will be a giant step in mastering your vision. Knowing how and when to use DOF effects for impact and contrast to increase drama, knowing that a cloud should be exposed at about 2 stops over meter, maybe 3 if the your vision feels the need, is a key knowledge. So is knowing that long evening shadows cast by the low lying sun journeying home need to be at 2-3 stops below meter to capture the full range of detail.

Combining vision and knowledge can be a frustrating journey. It can also be incredibly rewarding. The key is to open yourself to learning and seeing every day. Once you feel your vision, you’ll start noticing things you never saw, and trying to figure out the best way to make your vision real. You’ll also notice that it isn’t about the gear, it’s about your image and art.

Do I still think of my tools as necessities? Of course I do. I love a portrait with shaped, directional light. I love getting a tiny bit of bounce into a shadow area. Using an umbrella to soften your light is a tried and true way to improve many photographs, not just portraits. Can I visualize an image without thinking about my tools? Of course I can. When I’m shooting large landscapes, a flash won’t help, neither will a reflector. The key is thinking the shot through before making it.

Enjoy the weekend, everyone. I hope you spend it capturing the moments that express your vision best!

Is there anything you’d like to see here? Do you have a question? Share your thoughts here or at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too! Don't forget, we're on Google+, too!

A Tip for Composition

Greetings, volks. Welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place! I hope everyone is doing well.

Here’s a little compositional tip, straight from Clyde Butcher- Close 1 eye when you approach the camera. Because an image is 2 dimensional and we see in 3 dimensions, you can get the feel of your composition before taking the shot. 3D sight requires both eyes open, you see this when you switch between your left eye open to your right eye open. It gives us depth perception. It really works, try it.

Speaking of composition, adding depth to your image by using shadows and the perception of light falloff with increasing distance can make for some great mood in your photos. It can lead the eye to your intended subject when shaped, and increase the 3D feeling when light falls off. Things will seem to pop right off the page. Of course, DOF and sharpness play a role in this, too.

With careful subject placement and light effects, you can create some real drama, or make a powerful scene seem serene. Crafting light and depth are a big part of giving your image life!

Here’s hoping the rest of the week brings you some great shots!

Is there anything you’d like to see here? Do you have a question? Share your thoughts here or at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too! Don't forget, we're on Google+, too!