Exercis4 - Editing Digital Photographic Practice.

In my previous blog I stated that I had decided to combine exercises 2 and 4 using the workflow practice to produce a sufficient number of images for this exercise. This blog will cover that part of the workflow that begins with the downloading of the images and ends with the selection of just two images.

During the shoot of Busy St Edmunds Christmas Fayre I took a total of 122 shots - 38 during the daytime and 84 during the evening shoot. I downloaded them all directly from the camera to Adobe Bridge which is the software I use for reviewing images.

Initial sift - I discarded a total of 43 images in the initial shift:

• Overexposed   10
• Underexposed   9 
• Slow Shutter speed  7
• Poor composition  11
• Repetition  6

Overexposure occurred mainly in the evening shots particularly whilst taking a test shot. Inevitably there was a very wide range and there was a need to find a setting that captured most of the range.

Underexposure was a product of aiming for a shutter speed that made hand held shooting a reasonable hope of success whilst retaining an acceptable depth of field.

Slow shutter speed was primarily the result of test shots but also where the best shutter speed was less than needed to freeze movement.

Poor composition was where I had failed to notice unwanted elements in a picture - particularly safety barriers that seemed to be everywhere often in stacks or on looking at an image on the computer I had to ask myself what I was thinking of at the time.

Repetition is where I took more than one shot of  the same thing to get the best result.

I cannot say whether discarding 35% of the images at first shift is usual for me as I have never carried out this sort of analysis. The reasons are the usual although problems with exposure is unusually high because of the conditions under which the images were taken.

I used the star rating system available in Bridge to sort by my initial reaction to the remaining images:

• *           4
• **       31
• ***     43
• ****     1

I then went through these images to see if they warranted further work or could be discarded taking particular note of the composition of the image, its initial impact as an image and whether the focus was acceptable throughout the image. Using this process I discarded a further 26. With the remaining 53 images I opened them using Camera RAW applying the steps outlined in my blog on Exercise 1 to all of them. I then looked at those that were of similar parts of the fayre retaining those that in my opinion were the best examples. I also eliminated those that I felt were of a lower standard than the others that remained.

Throughout this process I bore in mind that ultimately I would have to select two images. In addition I could retain a larger number for showing to colleagues. For this latter exercise I retained 17 images including a small number that highlighted problems that I had encountered so that they could be a subject of discussion.

I then proceeded to select my final two images. I had decided that these would be the two that, in my opinion, represented the Fayre. 

There s a tradition at the Fayre for stallholders to dress in Victorian Costumes. I felt that these two ladies had gone that little bit further  to exemplify the spirit of the Fayre.

I chose this image because it not only provides a clue as to the time of year (the Santa's on the market stall) but also the atmosphere of the market element. 

The reduction of 122 images to just two was a considerable challenge and there was a need to concentrate on the underlying reason for the shoot. Of the final 17 shots that I processed fully possibly 10 of them would have been suitable for the final two. At the end of the day I went with my own reactions because on this occasion I was the final arbiter.

The two exercises combined I found to be challenging with Exercise 4 being the most challenging. I had to think carefully about the amount of work that I could create for myself if I decided to process all the images before the final selection. Probably on reflection I could have been more ruthless in selecting those that I fully processed as 27 demanded a significant period of time. Always underlying my later decisions was the thought that I might be missing an image that was 'lost' in the larger image.

Exercises 2 and 4 Digital Photographic Practice

I combined these two exercises using the workflow practice to plan the shoot and the editing exercise to select the shots that I had taken. I will use this blog to set out the workflow up to the point where I download the images to the computer. The following blog will recount the work from that point to the final selection of the final two.

Workflow


Objective: Photograph the Christmas Fayre in Bury St Edmunds both during daylight and evening. Images should catch the essential elements of the fayre.

Output: Selection of an unspecified number of images to be shown to fellow members of  the Phototalk Club (we had planned a club outing for the evening/nighttime shots) and compare with there images. Select final two for inclusion in Blog for Exercise 4.

Location: Bury St Edmunds town centre.

Equipment:  
          
        Lighting:  Available light. I considered both using flash attached to the camera and off camera flash. The latter was unwise as currently I use a wire connection between the camera and the flash unit and I envisioned strangling some poor innocent passer by. I discarded the first option because I felt that it would destroy the different types of light (tungsten, fluorescent and halogen) that would be in use during the evening shots. I therefore chose to use very high ISO settings on the camera being aware of the presence of noise in the images.
        
       Camera: Canon 5D Mk II. I took both lens (24 - 70mm & 70 - 300mm).

       Colour Checker: I decided against this as experience suggests that street scenes present short-lived opportunities to get a good image and there would be many changes of available lighting. The chance to take a test shot and then the desired image would be highly unlikely.

       Checks: I carried out all the checks as listed in the blog on Exercise 1. Found that a battery needed re-charging. I also ensured that I had appropriate clothing as the forecast was for very cold but dry weather.

Shoot

       Location: I found that the fayre was set up in several different locations around the town centre. Fortunately Bury St Edmunds is a very compact town and all parts are easy to get to in a relatively short period of time. However I felt that my decision to only use available lighting was justified because three of the locations were indoors, one in the cloisters of the cathedral and the remainder outdoors.

I took one or more test shots in each of the locations to establish a reasonable trade off between a good shutter speed for hand held shots and noise in the final image. The daytime shots presented few problems as the light was consistent but the shots taken during the evening produced every combination of artificial light. I had considered using a tripod or monopod so that I could use a low ISO and whatever shutter speed was required but as the vast majority of the shots would include moving people, fairground rides in motion and flashing lights the use of a low shutter speed (say below 1/125) was unlikely to work. I therefore decided not to use a tripod.

It is impossible to check the noise level using the picture on the LCD of the camera and the histogram only shows the tonal range of the image. The latter does allow a judgement as to whether the shot is under or over exposed which is useful and allows a second bite of the cherry.

The remainder of the workflow will be discussed in the following blog which will deal with the process from downloading the images to the final selection.

The workflow up to the time of shooting was useful and acted as a reminder of the things that needed to be done initially. At least I was not presented with problems during the actual shoot that could have been prevented by proper preparation. For the shoot itself I was obviously limited by the decisions I had taken earlier. I did not feel that these limitations were a nuisance although during the evening shoot two of my colleagues used monopods so it will be interesting to compare results. The decision to take photographs during the daytime allowed me to review what had been decided and whether to change anything for the evening shoot. In the end I felt that they were worth pursuing.

Whilst acknowledging the value of a workflow process during the initial planning stages I remain less convinced of its value during the actual shoot. The whole process of getting an images requires at the basic level a series of unavoidable steps that have to be followed in sequence. For serious photographers,
particularly professionals, they become second nature because they provide the foundation that allows the creative element to be successful. Following the shoot again the basics require fairly close adherence to a set sequence and only at the margins (when to add metadata for example) is there room for individual differences.

Exercise 3 - Histograms Digital Photographic Practice.

Photograph taken in average contrast conditions with a low winter sun coming from the right of the photograph.

Histogram shows a spike to the left indicating blocked shadows. Examination of the image using the Camera Raw conversion (CRc) programme shows that the affected areas are the top left and top right corners of the image. Neither are in critical areas of the image and would probably be cropped out in any finished image.

Same contrast conditions as the preceding image but exposure 1 stop higher.

Histogram shows a good distribution of pixels across the graph and there are no blocked shadows. Although not immediately evident on the histogram examination of the image using CRc reveals some blown highlights on the statue. 

Contrast conditions the same as previous two photographs but exposure 1 stop lower.

Histogram shows pixels predominantly to the left indicating that the image is underexposed. Spike on left suggests blocked shadows as would be expected given the exposure time. Again the CRc reveals that that in addition to those revealed in the first image there are some in the grassed area in front of the statue and in the flower bed near to the head. The shadow between the statue's legs is also blocked. 

The first three images were taken using automatic exposure bracketing so the lighting conditions are the same for each.

The next three images were taken in low contrast conditions (overcast day) using automatic exposure bracketing.

The first image was taken at 1/125th of a second. The histogram shows a good spread of pixels across the graph indicating a good tonal range. There are no problems with blocked shadows or blown highlights.

Exposure increased by 1 stop.

Marked shift to the right less tonal range as can be seen by comparing the two images. There is a limited amount of blown highlights.

Exposure decreased by 1 stop.

Histogram shows significant shift to the left indicating under exposure and limited tonal range. The are no highlights that extend to the right hand side of the graph. Some blocked out shadows. Examination of the image in CRc shows that these are in the water immediately under the statue.

The next three photographs were taken using off camera flash. The flash unit was fitted with a snoot to provide a concentrated area of light and was placed to the left of the statue at an angle of about 30 degrees. The images were taken separately rather than using AEB but the lighting remained constant because of the use of flash. 

The first image was taken at 1/125th of a second. The histogram is almost flat but there are both blocked shadows and blown highlights. The blocked shadows are very limited and relate to the very dark shadow  immediately under the statue. There are considerable blown highlights. All the sky at the top of the image is blown out and from head to knee on the left side of the statue.

This image was taken with the exposure increased by one stop. As can be seen there has been a shift to the right and further examination reveals that there are large areas of blown highlights particularly the statue and the sky. Would need a lot of work to improve. Would reject in camera normally.

Histogram suggests good tonal range. There are blocked shadows as can be seen from the spike on the left of the histogram but further examination shows them to be in insignificant areas. There are also some  blown highlights but could be easily rectified.

General conclusions  - Using the camera histogram offers the opportunity to make judgements of the quality of the photograph almost immediately after the shot is taken by referring to the display on the camera's LCD.  It also provides an opportunity to check the camera settings chosen to see if they need some re-setting.

However it does have limitations and care needs to be taken that images are not discarded solely because there is something 'odd' about the histogram. Personally I wait until I have transferred them to the computer and opened them in Camera RAW because the amount of information is so much greater. Furthermore you are able to try out various adjustments that may produce an acceptable or on occasions a very good image. 

The ability to combine images in Photoshop e.g. HDR software also should be taken into account before discarding images that have been taken under the same conditions of lighting.

Exercise 1 DPP Workflow - Completion

Objective
Portrait Shoot in one session.

Location
I chose to take the portrait shots of my wife in our own home. Although I considered outdoors the uncertain weather with predominantly cloudy skies meant that I could not be certain of reasonable light on the day.


Lighting
I decided to use off camera flash. In part this was because I had more control of the light but also I saw it as an opportunity to practice this method in an actual shoot.

Camera
I used a Canon 5D MkII. I started out using the 24-70mm lens which is wide angle but found that this provided too much extraneous background.  I switched to the 70-300mm lens at or around the 70mm mark and found that this gave me much more control over the initial composition. As I was using flash I set the shutter speed to 1/125 and kept an aperture value of 5.0.

Colour Checker
I used this in two images to cover the change in lighting and then totally messed it up by failing to read the instructions properly.

Checking 
I carried out the checks listed in my generic workflow (see previous blog). There are advantages in shooting at home because I could be confident that I had all necessary spares.

Shoot


Location - Home

Camera see above.
I thought I would use this shoot to try 'tethered' shooting i.e. with the camera attached directly to a laptop computer. This offers the opportunity of seeing each shot as a much larger image than is available on the LCD on camera. It worked well although there was a need to ensure that the laptop screen was at the correct angle for viewing otherwise the image appeared to be either too bright or too dark. It did however give me a great deal of information about the position of the lighting and the shadows cast on the subject.
Unfortunately I also had the camera tied to the flash unit so there was a tangle of wires that nearly ended in tragedy. If I was to pursue this type of photography in the future I would get a remote control for the flash unit.
In all I took 38 images over a period of about 1 hour.

"Back Home"


Download
There was two stages to the downloading. Images taken with the camera tethered to a computer are only stored on the computer. It was necessary therefore to download onto a memory stick and then upload onto the main computer. (I don't have Photoshop on my laptop.) For those taken with the camera untethered the download was direct to the main computer.
There is an automatic back up system on the Mac that saves to an external hard drive. For my purposes this is sufficient back up at this stage and I can see no reason for another back up system although I can appreciate why professional photographers feel this need.

As I mentioned in the paragraph about the colour checker I had failed to read the full instructions. You have to save the images containing the shot of the colour checker in DNG format. (There are other alternatives but the version I bought was for Photoshop rather than LightRoom). Annoyingly I used to follow the practice of saving all my images as DNG files but stopped shortly before I began this Course. Lesson learnt - always read the instructions and think carefully before abandoning a system that has worked successfully.

Check
Using Adobe Bridge I made an initial trawl through the resulting images deleting those with obvious problems such as over or under exposure or where the placement of the lighting was not of the best. I then went through a second time with my wife (who was the subject) and made a shortlist of 7 images that I intended to do further work on. I did not delete those that had not made the shortlist as some of them were good images but were perhaps of the same pose but different expression.

Identity
I renamed the chosen 7 and copied them to a separate folder.

Process
I did use the colour checker to set the White Balance in all the images. There were two sets - one with off camera flash and one using candles. I selected, separately, the two sets transferred them to Camera Raw and then used the colour checker chart to establish the White Balance. I then used 'synchronise' to apply this setting to all others taken with the same lighting. I then followed the steps outlined in my previous blog to achieve the desired result.
There was very little work necessary in Photoshop itself although I did apply a Gaussian Blur to soften all but the eyes and lips of the subject.

Selection
We finally decided on three images to show the results of this work:-

I did not find the workflow restrictive nor did I find that I had to change it in the light of experience. The reality is that in photography like many other actions certain things have to happen before something else happens. For example  you cannot process an image unless you have taken it first. Workflows become restrictive when they are over detailed and the photographer feels a compulsion to follow them to the letter. They should be guides that remind us of things we need to do but they should never get in the way of the creative process. I would guess that the best photographers follow the same broad path to achieve the results they want but are alive to the unforeseen opportunity that is the spark that ignites our interest.

For Exercise 2 I will be taking street shots of the local Christmas Fayre.  The equipment I take I will have to carry and the use of a tripod virtually impossible if not dangerous. Clearly I will have to make a number of decisions before I go and hope that I will be able to get the shot that will make the whole evening worthwhile. We'll see.

Digital Photographic Practice - Exercise 1

I have to admit I am something of a cynic where workflows are concerned. I have seen them used on multi-million pound building projects where the paperwork constitutes a filing cabinet full of material that seems to have little relationship to what is happening on the ground. Time lines and critical path analysis look and sound wonderful but do you really have to be told that the walls have to be built before you can put the roof on.

In the simplest terms the photographic process can be defined as:

• Decide what you want to do
• Go and do it
• Process the results
• Publish

Having got that off my chest I have created the following  workflow.

Objective

Portrait shoot. One session

Output - to Blog

Location

Choose location - Outdoors - Indoors

Equipment

Lighting

Available Light

Off Camera Flash

Studio Lighting

Camera

Canon 5D Mk II

Lens 24 - 70mm and/or 70 - 300mm

Colour Checker

X-Rite ColorChecker Passport

Computer

Mac OSX Snow Leopard with automatic back-up on external hard drive (1tb space)

Check

If other than available light check flash and/or studio lighting are working correctly and batteries do not need replacing.

Camera battery fully charged. Fully charged spare battery available.

Memory Card has sufficient space for planned shoot. Additional memory cards available.

Lens clean. Lens hoods available. Auto/Manual focus working correctly.

Computer. Ample space on hard drive and memory back up. Calibration within time schedule

Software for transfer and processing of images functional.

Shoot

Location

Having chosen location check lighting levels and finalise decision on available light or use of photographic lighting.

Decide on initial position of subject and test camera angles and lighting on subject.

Camera

Set and/or check all camera settings based on information from test.

Shoot test shots and check results using display and histogram

Carry out shoot checking results.

Back Home

Download

Download Images from Camera to Computer

Check

Using Bridge check images discarding all those with obvious technical faults or other unaccepptable results

Trawl second time awarding rating using star system

Check and discard images that are rated low

Identify

Name, number or otherwise identify all ‘keeps’ and place in separate folder(s)

Process

Using Camera RAW process individual images:

Apply Camera Profile as established by Colour Checker

If necessary check White Balance. Use temperature slider to get desired result

Use ‘Exposure’ in Camera RAW to set desired result

Add Contrast if necessary

Add Clarity and Variance

Use Adjustment Brush for local adjustments

Apply any finishing effects deemed to be necessary

Transfer image to Photoshop and finalise processing.

Save images in separate folder

Selection

Re-visit all remaining images and make final selection either several for clients approval or, if you are the sole arbiter the number you require.

Saving 

Include necessary metadata into file 

Publish

Transfer in desired forrmat to destination

The next step is to take the portrait images and see whether it works.

Final Assignment - The Art of Photography - Submission

I trawled through my own library of images seeking inspiration for this assignment. I came across a large number of images that I had taken on holiday whilst in France this September. Earlier in the year I had read a fictional book that used the pilgrims' journey from Le Puy en Velay in France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain as its factual basis.  Intrigued by this I decided to follow this path (albeit by car) in two stages - the first part in France in late 2010 and the Spanish part in early 2011. I had a vague idea of using the resulting set of images as a 'Travel' submission for my Associateship submission to the Royal Photographic Society. I had put this idea on the back burner when I decided to work for a Degree and improve my knowledge of photography. I had therefore filed the images as something I might return to in the future or as a simple reminder of a very enjoyable holiday.

On more careful reflection I realised that I had the makings of a submission for the final assignment. The journey met all the criteria of the assignment although there was a great deal of work to be done to select the images that best illustrated the story I wanted to tell. I had several attempts trying to create an interesting 'narrative'. My first one was very religious building orientated (architecture is a genre that I enjoy) and lacked variety. It was also difficult to conceptualise the images on a magazine page. I overcame this problem by creating a slide presentation using 'Keynote' on a Mac with each slide representing a page. I found this most useful.

Thought had to be given to how much narrative to include. There was a clear need to give some background information so that the images were seen in context but I felt that the important part was the reasoning behind my choice and why I had chosen the images that appeared in the final narrative.

My final choice was  a set of images that were varied, told different elements of the story but acted as a cohesive whole.

This assignment lay way outside anything that I had done before and therefore a considerable challenge. Although I had created a panel of images that had acted as a coherent whole the individual images had no direct connection one to the other. I await my tutors comments to see if I understood the purpose of the assignment. I have given myself plenty of time before assessment to submit a further effort.

New Course - Digital Photographic Practice

Received the Course materials today. After a quick glance through I am looking forward to starting it as soon as possible.

Sent my profile (updated) to my new tutor so await his response.

Final Assignment - The Art of Photography

Completed the first draft of this assignment.

Although I had a good series of linked images that met the criteria was uncertain as to how best present them. Current thinking is that I will produce a PDF document which will allow me to show how the photographs would be set out in a magazine article. However this creates smaller images the quality of which is hard to determine. Perhaps the answer is to send my tutor the usual batch of images via e-mail and support these with the PDF document.

Have to think about this so will allow the draft to 'simmer' for a while.

Rain

I took a number of 'rain' shots but chose this one because of graphic element. There was also the added attraction of the reflected autumn leaves. The image is deliberately over-sharpened to highlight the raindrops.

The difficulty in this exercise was to find an 'attractive' shot. Rain by itself is not really attractive and most scenes are only enhanced by rain if there are reflections in the pools or wet it creates on other surfaces or it creates a different type of image such as people coping with the rain or cars splashing through large puddles on the road.