You have probably heard the old phrase “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em”. It can actually be pretty good advice for some situations. Sometimes it is better to abandon your preconceived assumptions and respond to the actual conditions.
Previsualization
Many famous artists, from Ansel Adams onward, preach that we should previsualize the end result before we shoot. One accepted meaning of it is that the photographer can see the final print before the image has been captured. In other words, based on his experience, the photographer knows what end result he will be able to achieve before pressing the shutter release.
Mr. Adams, ever the teacher, broke it down into 4 steps:
Need or desire for the picture. Why are you taking it?
Discovery. Recognize the essential composition that can be made.
Visualization, the process of anticipating what the result will look like.
Execution. Doing everything right to make it happen. This is image capture through post processing.
I would not go on record as disagreeing with Ansel Adams, but I think there are a few assumptions wrapped up in this that we can look at. The advice may not be a universal truth.
For one thing, if you are a commercial photographer contracted to get a certain image for a client, yes, planning and previsualization is important. Also, if it is a “one in a lifetime” situation where you know the opportunity will never repeat for you, be very diligent and make sure you get the shot you want when you have the chance.
But another angle I don’t think I have heard talked about is personality. Some people are naturally planners. They work best when they are following a carefully thought out script. They need a high degree of structure in their environment. Other people don’t work that way.
Generational changes
And consider the differences in technology and capability of editing now compared to Mr. Adam’s day. You can see that we tend to favor a different style of capturing images.
For Mr. Adams, making an image was slow and expensive and fairly difficult. A lot of heavy gear had to be set up. Looking at the upside down color image on the ground glass of his view camera and trying to visualize the resulting black & white print took a lot of skill and experience. And the 8×10 film sheets were expensive and he could only carry a limited number with him in the field. So yes, previsualization was necessary in that generation.
Now, though, digital imaging is “free”. And we have great sensors and real-time histogram displays. Most of us can immediately see a fair representation of the captured image on our camera screen. We know what we captured.
Since the images are basically free and quick to do, we can “work a scene”, shooting and looking at the captured images while we hone in on the result we want. We should seldom have any question of whether of not we captured the image correctly. The larger question is, did we get what what we want. It is not uncommon to shoot several or even dozens of images to finalize the result we want.
Trying to force it
Now I will readily admit that I am much more in the “no planning” side. I enjoy spontaneity.
Something I see at times that makes me sad is photographers who go out with a rigid expectation of what they will accept. Many of them tend to battle against conditions they cannot overcome and go away disappointed. Maybe even feeling like a failure.
In deference to the planners, I love this quote from a great planner:
“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”
Thinking through the situation and trying to anticipate what may happen can give great insight on what we may decide to do. However, once the battle starts, e.g. we are in the field to make the image, nothing is likely to go as planned.
Adapt
When we discover that our plans are falling apart, we can double down and try to force it to work, or we can adapt and reevaluate what we can do.
One aspect of creativity is to be flexible, to adapt to the situation and make the best of it. Make the best of the situation. Perhaps you got to the great scene and it is raining or snowing. Not what you planned. Use it. Get what you can. The result may be even better than what you planned.
One of the principles of improvisation artists is that each step is “yes, and…”. That carries the momentum forward to the next step. Whenever you say “no”, it blocks the flow and makes it hard to go forward. So don’t block your flow. Respond to whatever situation you encounter and creatively figure out how to use it.
Let it flow
As artists, we are trying to creatively interpret the world around us. I find an ideal to enable this is to get into a flow state. This seems to be a peak of creativity and energy and concentration. This lets us work with the situation rather than fight it.
Previsualization can give us an idea of what we want to achieve. We might even make the image as planned. But never overlook the opportunity to make a more compelling and engaging image.
Maybe we do not get the image we anticipated. Often we get a better one. But even if it is a disappointment, as long as we did the best possible in the situation, we should be happy. I have said before that it is better to be lucky than good. But this is not luck. It is creatively adapting to circumstances.
Today’s image
This is a “bored at an airport” image. While waiting for a flight I wanted to capture scenes of airport operations. But I was frustrated by the reflections I could not eliminate. They were interfering with the image I had in mind to create.
But on some thought, I discovered that maybe the reflections were integral to the scene. People waiting patient and trusting while a huge amount of complex logistics of running an airport went on just outside. Outside of their interest and curiosity. They just wait like cattle until their flight is called.
This was definitely a “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” situation. I think the resulting image is better than what I originally set out to make. What do you think?
My last article sang the praises of HDR processing. I don’t want to over sell it. Today I will try to balance it by showing we typically do not need to use HDR.
The good
My previous article attempted to show when and why to use HDR. There is a time and place for it. In general, if a histogram shows more than about 7 stops of needed information then I would consider HDR, if the subject and situation allows it.
The example I used was a scene with the sun visible in the frame but where I also wanted to preserve the deepest shadows. Back in the film days we had to use a split neutral density filter over the lens to try to compress the dynamic range in these situations. Whenever you would have reached for the split ND filter is the time to consider if you can use HDR instead.
The bad
But HDR has some problems and limitations. There is the dreaded “HDR look” that most people want to avoid. In addition, there are problems with subject movement and extra processing steps to do.
When HDR first became available, people tended to go crazy with it. It was almost a symbol of showing off the new technique. The HDR look was over compressed with flat tonality and lack of true whites or blacks. Sure, I could shoot that scene with a 20 stop range and make a print. Too bad it looks weird. It became almost a cliche. Many “serious” photographers shunned it as looking artificial. It got a bad reputation.
But the problem was how people used it, not the technique itself. Almost any technique can be over used to create unappealing images.
There is also the problem I mentioned with subject movement. To create a good HDR image there must be very high correlation between the pixels of each exposure bracket. That is, there can’t be significant movement.
And there is the extra processing. This is not too big of a problem anymore. We can quickly do HDR processing from within Lightroom or Photoshop or your software of choice. It is probably easier now to do it than it was to adjust a split neutral density filter and figure out the exposure.
Why we don’t usually need it
Trust your sensor and the processing software on your computer. Modern high-end camera sensors are amazing. They record the greatest dynamic range of information that has ever been possible in photography. I’m sure it will only get better with new generations of equipment.
My camera records a far greater range of information than it is possible to print. Prints are my gold standard. They are the expected outcome of my work. A surprising fact to many is that, although it is hard to compare because the physics are totally different, the effective dynamic range of print media is around 6 to 8 stops. So making any print has some aspects of dealing with HDR data, since the captured data is probably much greater than the final print.
OK, so I am shooting a high contrast scene. I am careful to allow a little space on each end of the histogram, so say I am dealing with about 12 stops of range. The reality is that, for most needs, this can be used to make a great print.
But that 12 stops of data has darks that are down dangerously close to an unacceptable level of noise. And the brights are dangerously close to clipping. Is that imperfection OK?
How to process extreme ranges
This is not a tutorial on photographic processing. You can find too many of them on the web. I will just give some suggestions. In Lightroom (Classic – the only version I think is worth using) just the 6 controls in the Tones section of the Basic panel can do wonders. And I seldom use Contrast, so there are really 5 most important ones.
Use Whites and Blacks to set the overall white and black points as desired. Then I often use Exposure to balance the overall tonal range. Finally I use Highlights and Shadows to fine tune the tones.
These simple adjustments, along with some tweaks in the Presence section, can do amazing things to “rescue” most images. These are probably an 80% fix for most situations.
Of course, when I select an image to print, I will spend a lot more time working on it. A lot of work will be done with curves and masking and doing fine adjustments. Sometimes I will send it to Photoshop for very detailed tasks that cannot be done in Lightroom. Editing an image can take many hours. Most of us are pretty obsessive about our work.
My point here, though, is that most single captures have enough data to make a great print or other final image. Sometimes we just have to work with it a little.
Maybe you don’t want it
The look of your final image is an artistic decision. It is not dictated by the “reality” of the original scene. You or I as the artist decide the look we want. What we decide is “right”, at least for us.
So I may not want to create a perfectly balanced image that retains all the tones and data of the histogram. I may want to crush the blacks to make a moody, low key image. I may want to over brighten the image to make an ethereal scene. It is not written anywhere that the final print must look exactly and faithfully like the original scene.
This is where artistic intent comes in.
It is not numbers
I want to end with the point that we are creating an image, not manipulating numbers. Well, we are manipulating numbers, but that is not what counts. What counts is the look and expressiveness and quality of the finished product.
Photography is the most technical art, but do not be dictated to by the technology. Do not let someone say you can’t do something because the numbers are wrong. All that counts is the final art you create. Emotional response trumps technical excellence. How does it look to you?
Example
The image today is a full histogram spread. Single capture. I think this kind of thing comes out OK. What do you think?
HDR, which stands for High Dynamic Range, is a bad word to some photographers. I think they have been overly influenced by some bad early use of it. It can be an excellent tool for certain kinds of images.
Dynamic range
First, though, what is dynamic range? Dynamic range is a measure of the span between the lowest level signal that can be used and the highest level. In most electronic systems the high end is limited by the point where the signal starts to clip or distort. The low end is limited by the point where an unacceptable amount of noise intrudes. For photography it is that range from the darkest value that is usable to the brightest value that doesn’t clip to pure featureless white.
Modern digital sensors are far better than ones in early digital cameras. High end sensors now are rated at between 13 and 15 stops of dynamic range. That is incredible. Early sensors had maybe 5-6 stops.
But like many things, the numbers are misleading. It is not that the camera makers lie, just that they do not quantify what they really mean. So my sensor may technically have 14 stops of range, but I cannot really use all of that with no cost.
There is this problem called noise. It is worse at the dark range of exposure. We call what we do “digital photography”, but the reality is that a significant portion of it is based on analog signals. The information coming from the sensor is analog and it has to be amplified and digitized before it is actually digital data. Electronics, even the wonderful systems available now, have a certain level of noise in analog circuits. It is not a design fault, it is basic physics that cannot be entirely eliminated.
So when we capture an image that has a wide range of brightness values, it needs to be processed a lot in order to make a good print or even a good image for social media. A lot of this processing involves boosting the dark values to a more usable level.
But, the darkest values are close to the noise level of the electronics. So boosting them also boosts the noise. You have seen this when you brighten an image a lot and notice it looks very grainy and even blocky.
HDR
Enter HDR as a technique for mitigating the problem. HDR software takes several exposures, usually referred to as an exposure bracket, and combines them into a single image with a compressed dynamic range. Typically 3 exposures are used: one overexposed to make sure shadow data is good, one at the correct nominal exposure, and one underexposed to get all the highlight data.
In combining this data, the software can select highest quality exposure value for each pixel. It uses sophisticated algorithms to “compress” the dynamic range. That is, it makes the brightest areas less bright and the darkest areas less dark. I could not explain the exact algorithms used.
Abuse
This sounds great. What is the problem?
There is actually little problem with HDR as a concept. The problem is, when it first became popular, it was often abused by many practitioners who applied it in a heavy-handed way. Images with the dreaded “HDR look” were obvious and often scorned. The HDR look is an over compressed image with few real highlights and few real shadows. Everything has a bland sameness to the tonal range.
The look rightly was looked down on by “serious” photographers. It tarnished the technique as a whole. That is unfortunate, because HDR is great for some things.
When to use it
HDR can create images that could not otherwise be made and it doesn’t have to be obvious. If a scene has extremely high contrast then HDR is often the only means to get the results we want.
Way back in the olden days we had to use graduated neutral density filters in front of the lens to darken the brightest areas, usually the sky. This would pull the dynamic range down to a reasonable range to capture in one exposure. It was the “analog” equivalent of HDR. Of course, this involved adjusting the exposure to try to anticipate the final capture range. It was tricky, but it was the only way to do it.
Now with HDR, no one I know uses split neutral density filters except the remaining film photographers. Except in one case.
Movement
HDR has one Achilles Heal – subject movement. An action scene is very difficult for the HDR software to build a good result.
If only some small parts are moving, like grass or leaves shifting with the wind, the HDR software may use “ghosting” algorithms to try to work around the movement. If you are trying to photograph a high contrast action scene, like a car race, good luck. You probably will not be able to apply HDR because there is not enough correlation between the different exposures.
Today’s image
This is an HDR image. Trying to create an image with the direct sun in it and at the same time preserve the deep shadows in the mountains wasn’t going to work in one exposure. The HDR software was able to pull it all together.
I don’t think this looks like the bad old “HDR look”. What do you think?
I often write about carrying a camera all the time and even using it as a tool to get into a flow state for photography. I just did the opposite. I went off on a 3 day trip with no camera. Well, my phone, but I didn’t use it.
Why take a camera
I have said that having a camera with me gives me license to think photographically. It is true. This technique often helps be get off dead center and get moving.
Most of the time, the feel of a familiar camera in my hand and the click of the shutter propels me into a creative zone. I start seeing possibilities I was overlooking before. After the first frame or 2 things start to flow.
I wrote a couple of weeks ago about side trips and excursions. One example I used was taking my wife to the airport then wandering in the eastern Colorado plains. What i didn’t say was that I drove for a couple of hours without “seeing” anything to shoot. Finally I basically forced myself to get out the camera and shoot a couple of frames. After that I “found” over 300 images by the time I got back that evening. About 1 per mile that I drove. Some were quite good. Many more are ones I’m glad I shot, just for the experimental value if nothing else.
On the other hand, I sometimes, but rarely, deliberately leave the camera at home. I mentioned the trip I took last week where I did not take the camera.
There seemed to be a need to back off some. This is unusual for me, but I sometimes get so far behind in my processing that I feel like I am just shooting blindly and loosing touch with my work. And getting un-creative and un-inspired. So I decided to slow down producing images and work more on assimilating what I have already done.
I have slowed down shooting for a couple of weeks, but I haven’t completely stopped. Given that, though, when this short trip came up, I reluctantly talked myself into altogether abstaining by not even taking my camera. It is the first time I have done that for a long time.
OK, it was frustrating at times, but not as bad as I thought it would be. Granted, this was a fast family trip and I knew the weather would be bad. Those things helped. But before it would not have dissuaded me.
In a strange sense, it was kind of liberating to not feel any pressure to take pictures. It did not stop me from practicing composing images in my mind. But since it was impossible to shoot them, it as all just a fun creative exercise.
Recharge
I’m pretty good about having accurate intuition about what I need to do for my physical and mental health. I think I realized I was getting a little burnt out and needed to back off some. This exercising of depriving myself of the opportunity to shoot was actually kind of refreshing.. It was a recharge.
Just the 3 day event was healthy and useful but not enough. I plan to stay slowed down for a few more weeks. It will let me decompress and get back in touch with my current work and what directions I am going. Some of the time can be used to re-evaluate and do some soul searching. And to catch up with culling and filing and processing.
If you are doing intense physical training it is critical to plan in rest days. Otherwise your body breaks down and you do more harm than good. Likewise if you are doing intense mental activities like studying for finals, you have to take breaks to let your brain catch up and process information.
I think it is the same thing with art. We love doing our art. We want to do it. But we need to realize our body and mind need to rest sometimes.
Go off and do something unrelated. Take walks without a camera. Read a book. Write letters – remember paper and pens? Start a journal. These are good for your mind and your creativity. It recharges us and prepares us for the next intense push.
I consider my experiment of leaving my camera at home on that last trip to be a success. Sometimes it is more productive to not do anything.
The image
The image today is one of the ones I shot on that day I described when I took the excursion in eastern Colorado. I like doing portraits of weathered old houses like this. It was probably abandoned during the Dust Bowl days. Nothing but clouds to the horizon.
I didn’t show any pictures from the trip where I didn’t take a camera, because, well, I didn’t take any. 🙂
Photography makes it easy to visualize the world differently. By using various lenses and changing our position we can get closer to or further from the subject and we can change the composition dramatically. A technique I like to use sometimes is to eliminate scale to give a fresh view of a subject.
Not intimate landscapes
Intimate landscapes are popular and common. This is simply getting in close to a section of a landscape. It allows us to call attention to shapes and colors and relationships that would be lost in the immensity of a wide landscape scene. It is a classic technique and I use it a lot. I love it.
But this is not what i am talking about today. Most often in an intimate landscape, it is clear that the scene is a segment of a landscape or nature view. We get in closer to isolate the part we want to call attention to, but we keep the context of the overall landscape. If I make a close view of a rapidly flowing stream, it is clear that the context is a cascade in the mountains.
Aerial Photography
It is popular to make abstract aerial landscape shots. They can be beautiful and compelling. The shapes are organic and pleasing yet the scene is somewhat abstract because we can’t place what it is. Some well known photographers like Peter Eastway and Tony Hewitt are known for this technique.
Drone photography is also increasingly popular and available to more photographers because it is a lot cheaper. Drone photography is typically done at a few hundred feet elevation, as opposed to conventional aerial photography that is typically up to a few thousand feet.
The common characteristic of these is that the views are looking down, usually straight down, to a relatively flat plane. Scale references are usually missing, so the viewer is left to imagine the size of what is being seen. That is part of the fun of viewing them.
Macro
Jumping much further down the scale, another technique to eliminate scale is macro photography. This usually refers to images that are life size or closer. A life size shot is termed 1to1. This signifies that the image is the same size on the sensor as it was in real life. For a full frame sensor that means shooting a scene that is 24mmx36mm. That is getting close. Macro photographers routinely get much closer than this.
This type of shooting tends to get very technology-heavy. There are special optical techniques with extension tubes and bellows and reversing lenses to give the required magnification. Special tripod fittings are used for focusing, because the whole camera system has to be moved to focus. No auto focus here.
Lighting is another consideration that gets difficult. Macro photographers use multiple flash setups with bounces or ring lights or even light tubes to direct the lighting to the very small area being shot and eliminate glare.
On top of that, macro shots have extremely small depth of field. It is more and more common to use focus stacking techniques to record many, sometimes hundreds, of “slices” at different focal points. Special softwar combines it all to produce a final result. I have a friend who designed and built a robot system to automate macro and micro photography with steps of microns.
I am not saying these things as a negative against macro photography, I am just trying to place it in context of what I am discussing. Macro images are often great and intriguing because they show a realm we do not see with our eye. But I don’t have the patience to do it seriously. I prefer a more spontaneous style.
Pseudo-aerial
The particular kind of scale elimination I am talking about today I call pseudo-aerial. I haven’t seen the term anywhere. As far as I know, I coined it.
I do not lay out the big bucks to book a plane or a helicopter for a shoot. And I have not gotten a drone yet. I already said I don’t have the patience to do serious macro work. So I figured out a way to do my own brand of simulated scale-less images that mimic aerial photography.
I find small scenes with interesting shape or texture or color and with few if any clues for size and typically shoot straight down from a standing position, basically about 2-3 ft above the scene. The results are my own brand of abstract aerial photography that I call pseudo-aerial. It is sort of the macro version of aerial photography.
One advantage over true aerial photography is that subjects I shoot are often static. I can spend more time composing and moving freely, compared to being in an airplane. And I can spend longer on a scene, maybe waiting for the light to become “right”. Of course, the subject does not actually have to be horizontal, as long as I can get perpendicular to it.
Challenges
There are some challenges, but they are pretty minor. Making sure my feet or the tripod feet are not in the frame is something to always check for. Likewise, being careful not to let my shadow intrude in the scene.
I often shoot these without a tripod. Without a tripod there is the balancing act of leaning out far enough to be perpendicular to the plane of the image and get my feet out of the frame and not fall over while making sure the shutter speed is fast enough to stop and motion. Yes, I have been off balance. Embarrassing but not yet damaging.
A bigger challenge is to visualize a small scene as if it were an aerial shot. Making sure there are no clues of scale, like grass or twigs or leaves to de-mystify it. Imagining the final image printed to check the impact and interest. Dare I say “pre-visualizing” it?
Example
I will make it concrete with an example. The image presented today is one of these pseudo-aerials. It reminds me of an angry sea breaking on the beach, changing color over the sand and diminishing the violence.
In “reality”I shot it at my local car wash. The camera is upside down on the center console of my car, pointed up through the sunroof. In that position I had to use the camera’s app on my phone to view and control it and take pictures. Very little was done to the actual image data except to color it to match the effect as I visualize it.
A lot of experimenting (and luck) was needed to get the timing of the water and soap and brush movement to get an effect I liked. Plan to throw a lot away. But when it works, it can create a unique and interesting scene.
After describing my pseudo-aerials as shots looking down at a small static scene, I turned it upside down to show an example shooting up at my sunroof at a dynamic scene. I wanted to emphasize that the original orientation and details don’t matter. What matters is if the final result will be accepted as an abstract aerial shot. To me this does.
I like pushing the boundaries of the medium. This technique to eliminate scale seems to me to be a rich area for exploration. I intend to pursue it a lot more.
