Michael Hazzard Photography: October 2010

4th Annual Emerging Pro Competition

Win $10,000 through Canon's 4th Annual Emerging Pro Photo Competition. Categories include Fashion, Fine Arts, Photojournalism, Sports & Beauty. To find out more info Click Here

Exposing For RAW? Are you exposing correctly?

Shooting raw has many benefits over anything else. Is it really what you see, really what you get? That is the question at hand. There are special considerations to take into account if you're shooting RAW and you want to be sure that you're getting a proper exposure. Digital cameras record data in a linear fashion. The human visual system responds to stimuli in a nonlinear fashion. Example: You enter a pitch-black room and turn on a 100-watt light; you see a fixed amount of light intensity, as would a digital camera. You then turn on a second 100-watt light, thus doubling the light output. Because humans have a built-in nonlinear visual system, the room doesn't appear twice as bright. Because of the linear behavior of a digital camera's image sensor, how-ever, the camera would record the scene as twice as bright.
Read more here

Megapixels And ISO: Have We Reached The Limit?

You’ve heard the assertions before: The “megapixel wars” are over. We’re operating in the land of diminishing returns. It’s all evolution and no revolution. We’ve reached a plateau. Truth be told, I began preparing to write this article on the assumption I’d be explaining exactly why image sensors are indeed reaching a limit and why we’ll need to start looking elsewhere for improvements in digital cameras. But along the way, I was more than a little surprised at what I discovered, and now I’m convinced there’s still a lot of room for improvement with the image sensors that are the cornerstone of digital photography.
Read more here

GTC Holiday Portraits!

GTC Photo is holding our annual Holiday Portraits Fundraiser. Have your Holiday Portraits taken by talented photographers. We are one of the only places in town where you can include your pet in the picture. We will be raising funds for our 2011 Portfolio!!!

Please come out and SUPPORT!

Location:
Gwinnett Technical College
5150 Sugarloaf Pkwy, Bldg 100 Rm 201
Lawrenceville, Ga 30045

Photographer zooms in on Beijing's waste

In October 2008, photojournalist Wang Jiuliang began to visit nearly all the major landfill sites around Beijing. His thousands of photos documenting the mounting waste problem in China's capital won him the gold award for outstanding artist of the year at the 2009 Lianzhou international photography festival

Women Photographers using Self-Portraits as a means of Artistic Expression

Numerous artists have done self-portraits over the course of their careers and in the past thirty years, a variety of photographers have used self-portraiture as a means of artistic expression. These photographers chose to photograph themselves to comment on the human condition in contemporary society. One such example is the work of Cindy Sherman, who uses ritual and drama coupled with photography to create unparalleled images. READ MORE

Muted Faces

Photographer Martinus Borne, has a exhibit about dogs being left in cars. He wanted to convey the mood from he found in the dogs faces as if it was a child left in the car. He found a very sad, down and anger mood amongst the companions... Read More

Tilt Shift Photography...you may find interesting or not...

Tilt-shift photography refers to the use of camera movements on small- and medium-format cameras; it usually requires the use of special lenses.“Tilt-shift” actually encompasses two different types of movements: rotation of the lens relative to the image plane, called tilt, and movement of the lens parallel to the image plane, called shift. Tilt is used to control the orientation of the plane of focus (PoF), and hence the part of an image that appears sharp; it makes use of the Scheimpflug principle. Shift is used to change the line of sight while avoiding the convergence of parallel lines, as when photographing tall buildings.Another, less cost-intensive technique called “tilt-shift miniature faking” is a process in which a photograph of a life-sized location or object is manipulated so that it looks like a photograph of a miniature-scale model. Click here for Tilt Shift Tutorial

BERNARD BERTRAND One of my favorite photographers...

There is not much info out there on Bernard, maybe because his work speaks for itself check him http://www.bernardbertrand.com/

Switching over to Wordpress!

Don't know why but will find out in Mr. Jones class soon...
WordPress is the very customizable and developer friendly. You can make just about any website you have in mind with it; blog, portfolio, gallery, e-store, etc.
WordPress is much more than just a blogging platform. If you still see it that way, you will change your point of view after seeing these great sites using WordPress as a CMS.

Al Coe EPK

Couple of weeks ago I was asked by an artist on the rise "AL COE" to do his music EPK. An electronic press kit (EPK) is a press kit equivalent in electronic form. An EPK usually takes the form of a website or e-mail, though they are also known to exist in CD and DVD form. I was asked to produce his EPK in one day. With the knowledge I had from multimedia class I was able to shoot a video and cut it and make a 2 min presentation!

True Life: Escort Story Photo Essay

Atlantans Celebrate Photography " A Boy From Little 5"

Well I found the cover photo for Creative Loafing, a great capture of what ATL is... Atlanta has a rich culture in music and fashion, this photo conveys that to me.

"A Boy From Little 5," 2010
I thought it was interesting how he probably was no older than 10 or 11 and he is wearing this stylish outfit that made him look like a little hip-hop artist. He kind of reminded me of Kid Cudi. When I asked if I could take some pictures of him he started doing all these poses: He gave me the peace sign, he did a salute kind of thing, he leaned back and crossed his arms, and he posed like he was holding a gun, holding it sideways like some gangster. I just thought it was funny how there was this little kid who looked and posed just like any rapper you might see on TV or something. It just shows how much celebrities influence kids and all people really.
— Jack Chapel, 17, Atlanta

Impact of social media on the photography industry...

With billions of photos taken every month, photography is no more considered an art. Rather, it has simply become a way to share our lives and communicate with those around us: something that conversations did in the past. And all the pervasive ways social media is touching peoples’ lives is altering consumer behavior and developing new imaging habits today. Thus, the future of photography for photographers is not what it used to be. The future is changing, and it is for you to figure out, what more you can do with photos, what unique services you can offer. Indeed, what more can you offer?
Collaboration will be the way of the future. Social media platforms facilitate connection and collaboration with individuals and groups across the world to offer innovative photographic services. An example: PhotoTownship . Shortly PhotoTownship will provide a unique opportunity for mass customization and collaboration of photo products/services online. It will allow individuals to do more with photos beyond the format of printed paper. Twitter is a real time communication platform that can keep your audience/clients up-to-date on everything. People are starting to see the broader possibilities of photos and various things they can do with them. There’s a whole shift of perception happening. This is just the beginning of a whole new world, and the sooner we embrace it, the better it is for the entire photographic community.

How to setup lighting to achieve a SPLIT

One of the great things about this setup is that you really only need one light to create a high quality, dramatic portrait. Position this key light to one side of your subject so that it’s exactly 90 degrees to one side. Take a look at the diagram below to see where to position the key light. You can put a light modifier on this light if you want to, but this technique works equally well with a soft or a hard light source. With the modeling light on or by taking a few frames, make sure that the line between light and dark runs directly down the center of your model’s face, right down the tip of the nose. The model should be looking directly at the camera. And that’s it, you’ve created a split lit portrait!
You may decide now to spice up the shot with a hair light. Go right ahead, position one one the same side as the key light but closer to the background. This will create some separation between the model and the background.

Low Key Studio Shoot with Claire

Today in class was interesting! I chose to do low key because I wanted to play around with rembrandt and split lighting technique. I set up the lighting with a large soft box from the right side. From the top I had a hair line light to separate the subject from the back ground. I was looking to achieve a close-up portrait to really show the technique of split. Split which is where the light is directly half on the face in ratio to shadows. Below is on example of what I shot straight from the camera....

Crematory Protest in Lilburn, GA- Feature hopefully!

Today I went on a search for a feature shot. Just so happened that I was watching the news in the early morning and caught a snippet of what was to come at the protest. So I came across a kid that just was subject of my camera. He walks off into the crowd of protester and holds a upside down sign stating" No Creamatory" ....well I thought that would make a great feature for photojournalism class.

Shooting Video with Canon 5D Mark II and 7D | Redrock Micro Accessories ...

Learning how to start shooting video...by having stabilization tools to help with camera shake, REDROCK has a couple tools too help you out....

Just a couple kid portraits...Thanks Isa lol

Isa got very restless after waiting to shoot in the studio for 2hrs to shoot, but hopefully I can work my magic and get atleast one good photo...

Photojournalism shots: Soccer at SilverBack Stadium

Here is a shot I captured during a game at Atlanta Silverback Stadium. This was my first time not shooting with my standard lens 18mm-135mm, This time I opted out to shoot with fellow classmate Jeremy Bartons 70-200mm lens. This lens allowed me to get really close to the action because it is a long lens and the aperture is quick!

Digital Photo - A Sharper Image | DPmag.com

How to get images full of crisp details without overdoing it...

A common misunderstanding about image sharpening is that it can save a blurry or out-of-focus image. It can’t. Sharpening tools can do a lot to enhance your pictures, but don’t try to use it to fix an out-of-focus original.

That said, all images shot digitally, regardless of how well you capture them, usually require some sharpening to match what the lens saw. This is because as light passes through the lens to the sensor and data is converted from analog to digital, some softening occurs. If you’re shooting in JPEG format, sharpening can take place in the camera’s internal-processing software, but additional global and selective sharpening is usually needed, too. If you shoot RAW files, you’ll definitely need to do some sharpening in postprocessing.

What Sharpening Does
Sharpening increases the contrast between light and dark pixels at the edges of objects in your image. In sharp photos, the transition from light to dark happens quickly, over a small area. In soft images,the transition is blurred across a larger area. So by enhancing the difference in tone at the edges of objects in a scene, the image appears sharper.

Keep in mind that you don’t have to sharpen the entire image uniformly. In fact, it’s often better to make this adjustment selectively.

Get Selective
The most practical way to sharpen is simply by adjusting the sharply focused parts of a photo and leaving the rest alone. Depending on the scene, each image requires a different degree of sharpening.

For example, a landscape with fine details will handle more sharpening than a portrait where you want to keep skin tones smooth. So sharpening selectively is often the way to go. If your image has areas that are out of focus, overall sharpening can cause problems because it affects tonal details, and blurry areas tend to look best when left unaltered.

A popular sharpening tool is Unsharp Mask in Photoshop because it allows a great degree of control. It’s found in the Filter menu (Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask). This tool has three sliders. Amount is the top slider, which determines the intensity of the effect and ranges from 1% to 500%. Image resolution influences this setting, with higher-resolution cameras allowing for values as high as 200% or more.
The middle slider, Radius, controls the width of the edge sharpening and ranges from 0.1 to 250 pixels. Typically, the Radius is small, ranging from 0.3 to 2.0 pixels. If you see a halo effect around the edges of objects, the Radius is too big. Larger image files can handle higher Radius settings better than smaller files.

Finally, the Threshold slider determines the pixels to be sharpened based on the difference in brightness between neighboring pixels. For example, a Threshold of 3 affects all pixels that have tonal values that differ by a value of 3 or more, on a scale from 0 to 255. So, if adjacent pixels have tonal values of 100 and 102, they’re not affected by sharpening.

For fine details, a higher Amount and lower Threshold work best, while portraits and areas with smooth tones work better with a lower Amount and a higher Threshold.

Each image requires a different degree of sharpening, but here are some guiding points: With portraits, start off with an Amount of 100, a Radius of 1.0 and a Threshold of 6. For buildings or landscapes, try an Amount of 150, a Radius of 1.5 and a Threshold of 3. If there’s a lot of noise in an image, try going up to a Threshold of 10 or 12. Remember, experimentation is key.

Another tool within Photoshop is the Smart Sharpen filter, which allows you to set the sharpening algorithm or control the amount of sharpening that occurs in shadow and highlight areas. One of three sharpening algorithms can be used: Remove Gaussian Blur, Lens Blur or Motion Blur. One drawback to this tool is that it doesn’t have a Threshold setting so it can overemphasize noise.

For Aperture users, the Sharpen and Edge Sharpen tools are good to know. Sharpen has two sliders for setting intensity and pixel radius, and Edge Sharpen has three sliders for setting intensity, edges and falloff. Intensity controls the amount of sharpening. The Edges slider lets you set the number of pixels that qualify as edges to be sharpened, and the Falloff slider produces a more or less pronounced effect.
An easy and more intuitive sharpening control is Nik Software’s Sharpener Pro 3.0. The plug-in provides a straightforward interface that sharpens images based on resolution, image and print size, as well as the expected viewing distance between the subject and the final photograph. U Point-powered Control Points allow you to make precise and selective adjustments to sharpness and detail without having to create layer masks.

Avoid Too Much
If you see halos in your image, you’ve gone too far. Halos are those bright edges that look unnatural. You’ve also sharpened too much if you see a loss in tonal range or the image simply looks too harsh. If you’re conservative in the amount of sharpening you use, you won’t have that negative “digital” look that too much sharpening produces.

Why It’s The Final Step
Usually, it’s best to sharpen last, after you’ve finished making all other adjustments—color correction, saturation, distortion corrections and more. These adjustments can affect the overall contrast of the image and the apparent sharpness. Another reason to sharpen last is that the amount of sharpening you need depends on your ultimate use and output size. Images that you plan to use on the web typically will need less sharpening than those you plan to print.

Ultimately, your eye is the best judge of how much sharpening to apply. If it looks unnatural, you’ve gone too far. Keep a copy of your original file so you can always go back and adjust sharpening for different uses and sizes.