Long Exposures

I've loved long exposure photography for a long time... but I've never been able to do it because I didn't have a remote shutter, and when you're doing long exposures without one, you get shake from just pushing the shutter button.  After work I stopped at the dam in Tecumseh to take a few pictures. 

The bugs were out in full force, as were the fishermen.  One guy (who is hidden by the tree in this shot) came over to talk to me while I was taking a picture.  He didn't realize I was in the middle of taking a picture (30 second exposure) and kept walking in front of my camera.  Then he asked, "what speed is this camera?".  I have no idea what that means.  I'm kinda thinking it meant that he doesn't know much about photography, and he thought that was a relevant question.  Or maybe he meant shutter speed.  Or ISO.

The two best things I've learned about photography this year are: 1.) Keep the ISO low.  I used to shoot at ISO 400 constantly.  It let me use faster shutter speeds in low light, so I liked it.  Not realizing how much it affected my images, I just left it there.  Now that I'm always almost at ISO 100, my shots are all much more sharp and noise free.  2.) Shoot RAW.  I always shot jpg because it allowed me to store many more images on my CF card, and I could use just about any software for editing.  RAW is so awesome, though.  Yes, it cuts down on my storage significantly, but it's worth it.  If my exposure isn't perfect, I have a lot of wiggle room when I'm post processing.  I can under expose a photograph by quite a bit, and fix it in Lightroom.

The two tend to go hand in hand.  I can lower my exposure when in lower light, which keeps my shutter speed faster while keeping ISO down.  Then I can process in Lightroom, pulling the exposure back up.  I know a lot of people say you get too much noise when you do this, but I think it's just fine.  I also tend to expose for the sky on landscape shots, and then in post processing I'll apply a graduated filter on the land, with a higher exposure.

Like this: 



In the unedited picture the sky looks pretty much the same, but the barn and land is really dark with almost no detail showing.
Tecumseh Dam, a photo by corinne.schwarz on Flickr.

(film)

Pink (film), a photo by corinne.schwarz on Flickr.

In the past, I'd just skip by anyones "film" album on Flickr.

I put film users in two catergories: 1. Old and resistant to change 2. hipsters who were trying to show off.

Now I went and did it.

Well, since I am now old (33) and have some hipster tendencies, I guess I was right all along.

Film really is fun.

For the most part, you do have to know what you're doing with a camera. The digitals with the zooms and auto focus are pretty easy to use.

If you "know" what you're doing, it's nice to be able to check the LCD and make sure you got the shot right. If you don't know what you're doing, it's easy to take 1.5 million pictures until you get it right.

The camera I used was my dads old Sears SLR. (similar to this camera). It has two fixed focus lenses (50mm and 125mm). Everything is manual, including focus.

Which means I had to actually MOVE MY BODY to frame stuff up right. No more aiming from afar and zooming in until I got what I wanted.

Obviously, if you're limited to 24 shots, you tend to be a bit more careful with what you capture. I'm usually pretty good about not taking a lot of "junk" shots (I hate getting home and having to sort through them), but film does take it to another level.

Not to mention, I had to google instructions for loading and unloading film... last time I had done it was 7 years ago, and my memory isn't that great.

Anyway, I had all the images put on a cd (5 bucks at CVS.) I am happy to say that only 2 of the 24 images were stupid (one was the wall, because I was messing with settings on the camera, and accidentally hit the shutter button, and the other is a swirl of blues and whites, so that could be just about anything).

I struggled for a few minutes when it came to post processing. I thought maybe I'd just leave them SOOC, but when I realized that a TINY contrast adjustment made a hell of a difference, I went with that.

You can see them on my flickr. Film.

before and after

before and after, a photo by corinne.schwarz on Flickr.

I've always liked seeing how photographers use their editing software. Sure, some pictures are great SOOC (straight out of the camera), but most need a little adjusting.

I've picked a few of my own images and put together a before & after display.

I'm doin' it

Negative Space, a photo by corinne.schwarz on Flickr.

Hello, blog. Long time no see.

I've finally decided to go ahead and get going on the whole "being a photographer" thing.

Ever since I stopped working in a studio, I've struggled to keep the momentum going on my own.

But now it's starting to come together. I've made the client viewing experience easier by using www.pictage.com . Their default price list seems pretty high, but they insist that it's set for "premium results" or something like that. The prices are adjustable, and I've found myself adjusting lower and lower and lower... which I know is a bad trend, but whatever.

I've set up my facebook: Corinne.Schwarz Photography. The only problem I have with this is the whole "self promotion" thing. I don't want to be one of those Amway type people who shove their business down your throat until you start to avoid them... but I do want people to "like" that page.

I recently photographed Heathers family. They were all beautiful and easy to photograph. That would be the first session I edited in a way that I liked, instead of worrying if they would like it. I mean, yeah, I wanted them to like the pictures... but second guessing myself and worrying about everything wasn't helping, so I quit doing that.

I just reminded myself that anyone who hires me hires me based on the images I've shown them. If they like what I like (which they must if they've hired me), then they will like what I come up with.

Here we go!

Smoky Mountains

Center of the Universe, a photo by corinne.schwarz on Flickr.

We went down to Pigeon Forge, TN last week. We stayed in a cabin for a few days. My son had a ball with the bumper boats and other touristy things in town, and I enjoyed going through the National Forest.

Usually I can see something, know what I want to capture with my camera, and get it. It wasn't like that when I was in the mountains. It was so beautiful and the scale was so grand, that nothing I did could accurately capture the wonder of the nature that was before me.

The next valley was always more beautiful than the last, each mountain was so much more grand than the one before.

At one point I had pulled over on the side of the road to take a picture of a mountain. I thought, "It's going to be so easy to get a great shot, since it's so incredibly beautiful". But, like I mentioned earlier, it wasn't as easy as I expected.

The place where I stopped was at the foot of the mountain. Two huge peaks towered above me. I had to turn my head to the side to take it all in... such a huge expanse of beauty.

And the best picture I got didn't even do it half the justice it deserved.



I was excited to find a wonderful waterfall just off the road. I've always liked the water shots with long exposures, which make the water look soft. I've only done it a few times, and this waterfall was a great opportunity to give it another go.

I had to use my tripod, of course. I hate using my tripod, but that's neither here nor there. I used my wide angle lens, which i don't have an ND filter for, but since it was getting a little late in the day, and I was in the forest, I figured it was still 'do able'.

The shots are "alright". Maybe if I had taken them a year ago, I would have been super proud, but at this point, they were kinda... blah.

There's just too much going on, too many rocks and not enough fall. Yet another glorious example of nature that was impossible for me to catch with my camera. The falls were actually very spectacular. The gentle slope downward was amazing, and the green moss was beautiful. But I couldn't do it justice.



Well, time to plan another trip to the Smokies!

Pop

Pop Culture 2, a photo by corinne.schwarz on Flickr.

I've been having a hard time taking pictures. It's the weather, I think. I've already taken 1.5 million pictures of snow, grey stuff, bare branches, blah blah blah... I am so tired of it.

And of course, my kid wont let me take pictures of him very often.

And I think we've exhausted all of the museums and other indoor venues.

As soon as spring gets here, I can take more of the cliche pink flowers, blue sky, soft tones pictures. People like them.

Pay Me

Touch it, a photo by corinne.schwarz on Flickr.

I was offered a job writting a blog. That would be a cool job, if it paid more than $8 per 600 words. So, instead, I'll just continue to write my own blog for...

free

I'd like people to buy my pictures. Lots of them (maybe like... 10) are being used elsewhere on the web, mostly on blogs and things like that. Surprisingly, they aren't even on sites like youarenotaphotographer.com!

Apparently, the only way to make money with photograhpy is to shoot portraits, but that is not as fun as shooting macros of cacti. So, unless I find a cactus with a fat pocketbook and a dire need for some portraits, I'm SOL.

I've learned about photography in a lot of ways... trial and error, books, online instruction, that one job, that other job, blah blah blah, but mostly through Flickr.com.

You can go through pictures all day, seeing stuff from amazing photographers, and then if you click on a link, you can see the settings they used. A few times I've sent messages to other flickr members, asking random things, and they have, without exception, been happy to help.

Which is awesome.

My son is four, and when he looks at my pictures he says stuff like, "Which lens did you use for this?". That's maybe the coolest thing, ever. If only he would let me take more pictures of him... and pay me for them.