Border collies are known as herding dogs, especially sheep. They are excellent watch dogs, love children and they are often described as the most intelligent dogs.

According to some information, a border collie had learned 1,022 words – reacting to them when spoken! Watching our inventive hooligan’s non-stop activities all day long it doesn’t surprise me… and tons of exercise and mental stimulation they definitely need, and this on an ongoing basis. It’s really a continuous dialogue – and a very endearing one as Holly has a very attentive and loving nature.

With one of her eyes being a clear blue – due to heterochromia (multi-colored eyes) – she catches everyone’s attention anyway!

Actually, Holly from Noordhoek lives in Cape Holly Road as you can see here, taken early this morning before our walk up into the Silvermine Mountains:

She will always make sure I follow and comes back to see that I’m fine – that’s just her nature:

Definitely lots of space to run – :

That’s our favorite morning run… tanking fresh air and energies before getting back to the computer and… Web Design with Passion!

Digital Portrait Photography Workshop

After the Tuesday session we will continue tonight to deal with Digital Portrait Photography.

After a quick flash-back on How to shoot Portraits, we will deal with post editing portraits in Photoshop.

The workshop will follow a step by step workflow for quick editing and then look into more detailed post editing with Photoshop.

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YorgoMan and JonnyBoy

Here some literature for reference:

Download

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Digital Portrait Photography Ycademy

A specialty in Digital Photography is Portrait Photography. After our Digital Photography Seminar in April we will deal this week with Digital Portrait Photography at our daily calls at 8 pm London Time at yorGOtalk.

One of the most interesting subjects in Photography is the human being and thee are basically two approaches of picturing people and they depend on the main question:

What’s the Story behind a Digital Portrait

In other terms: what is the result you want to achieve, the story you want to tell, the moment you want to ban. A good photographer is a great story teller. And here is the point: you can write a comedy or a drama, neutral descriptions or flattering phrases.

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Digital Portrait Photography 1

In photography it’s the same as in music: a great theme can be declined as Rap, Hip Hopp, Blues, Rock, R & B and so on.

At our calls, we will look at some options as listed below.

Portrait Photography option 1

You want to capture a face, a story engraved into a face by life. The means: work with sharper contrasts, harder light and so on to enhance the details of the expression, skin, texture. Emphasize nature.

Portrait Photography option 2

You want to provide a favorable look, a flattering picture; your goal is to become the preferred son in law of your mother in law. Work with the powder box, softening, soft light and soft shadows. Strip off a few pounds and make the skin smooth by applying the baby bum filter :-). Wedding photography is using many of the same techniques we use here, just that there you may add  even more glow and glitter.

greekface

Digital Portrait Photography 2

Portrait Photography option 3

You need a formal portrait, for example for a CV or Business related picture. The work starts with dressing up the subject and choosing the right pose. Get the best out of the subject and do only minor retouching, in any case your post editing should not exaggerate the enhancements to the point where even a mother would not recognize her son.

Portrait Photography option 4

Children and Pets. The main problem is that you need to keep them in front of your lens; the best recipe is to keep them busy instead of keeping them still for 10 minutes with a ‘Cheese’ burned into their face and a Colgate smile as if you had glued their mouth angles to their ears. Just keep them busy and … shoot.

Portraiture and Lighting

There are three main technical tools involved in the production of a good portrait.

First, the Light! Even with an average or low-end cam you can shoot for a decent result for as long as your light is right.

Second: a good Photo Editing program for your post editing tasks.

Third, a camera, whereas the two above mentioned tools will compensate for a big deal of your cam’s eventual shortfalls.

Mephisto

Digital Portrait Photography 3

The most important Elements

The most important elements are: your Subject and YOU or rather: You and your Subject and the way you perceive it, and the way you translate your perception into a portrait. A portrait is successful when people who know the subject say: this is exactly the way he or she is. Or, under option 2 if your mother in law thinks you are a great photographer or when your just married couple and their families go WOW on your shots.

In other words: you must read the subject and you must be aware of the goal you want to achieve. Based on your reading and goal you plan your Portrait and you start imagining the lighting, the angle, the pose, the camera settings and so on. It’s a mental process which leads to the actual shooting.

More at tonight’s call.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Theunis Minnie, ‘n fotograaf in die Mosselbaai omgewing, het geen bekendstelling nodig nie. Sy werke pronk al vir meer as 5 jaarin verskeie gallerye, huise en in verskeie trou albums. Tog is Theunis beter bekend vir sy unieke wyse waarop hy verskillende dele en onderwerpe wat eie aan Suid Afrika is weergee. Sy werke handel oor van Karoo Landskappe tot ou motors, geboue, windmeule en nog vele meer.

Dit is iets heeltemal uniek en boeiend. Staan jy en kyk na die fotos van Theunis Minnie se mees onlangse fotografie projek is dit kompleet asof jy weg gevoer word en ‘n wêreld betree wat net in elk van Theunis se unieke fotos bestaan.

Ongeveer 5 jaar gelede het Theunis Minnie begin om ‘n reeks fotos met soortgelyke onderwerpe in sepia formaat te bemark. Hy het onlangs besluit dit is tyd vir iets nuut en opwindend en dit is met dié, dat hy op sy besonderse unieke konsep van sy nuutste projek afgekom het, “die Reisende Stoel.”

Theunis vertel met smaak vir my die storie agter die konsep van die “Reisende Stoel”, en dit word vining duidelik dat hierdie ‘n projek is wat hom na aan die hart lê. Volgens Theunis het hy verlede jaar tydens die Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees oppad na Oudtshoorn verby ‘n plaashuis met ‘n soortgelyke sitkamerstoel voor die huis gery. Dit het dadelik sy oog gevang weens die uniekheid van die “uit sy plek staande stoel.”

Hy het besluit om verder te gaan met die konsep van die stoel en afgekom op die perfekte stoel in ‘n tweedehandse meubelwinkel in George, min het die stoel geweet wat alles vir hom voorlê.

Tot dusver was die Rooi Stoel al in die Knysna Woude, die baie bekende Cango Grotte, op die strand, tussen ‘n trop olifante asook in dele van die Klein Karoo. Theunis beplan om die land vol te toer met die stoel.

Die Reisende Stoel is n konsep wat baie mense aan die praat het in die Tuinroete. Maak seker dat jy jou eie kopieë  van hierdie gewilde fotografie projek van Theunis Minnie aanskaf.

Let your Digital Photo Camera shoot HD Video Clips

Exploring the world of Digital Photography and your Digital Photo Camera in particular, you may notice the Video Function on your Cam.

Most recent Digital Compact Cameras render good quality footage, many provide even HD quality.

basket-cover-600

Vouliagmeni Basket Ball

Check it out on YouTube: I was surprised about the quality even in full screen mode: Click HERE.

Run a Video test with your Digital Photo Camera

1. Check if your Camera is able to shoot Video

My credit card size Leica C-Lux 3 has a video function.

2. Shoot a few seconds of footage.

3. Download to your PC

My Cam renders HD in QuickTime .mov format.

4. Edit video with Windows Live Movie Maker

I have added a Cover Picture and an image at the end.

5. Upload to YouTube

Enjoy and share.

Note: While the Leica rendered a 8 MB file, Windows Live Movie Maker returned a 21 MB file and the YouTube flash .flv is a small 650 kb. YouTube HD comes in MP4 with 4.6 MB. The .3gp format for Mobile Phones is as small as 179 kb – accordingly the quality is lower.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

5 Tips to take Pictures of Cars

When you take shots of a car it’s like taking pictures of anything: if you like cars, you will probably do better. A car lover will see these details and lines, a simple photo technician will just not get a grip on. It’s a bit like focusing on Cindy Crawford’s eyes and neglecting all the other eye-tearing shapes. Which brings us right to the subject of tonight’s Ycademy call.

Look at the subject from different angles

Maserati 8CTF Indianapolis 1939

Maserati 1939 Indianapolis

Search for the design elements which make the car unique. In a time when all cars tend to look the same and where the best picture of a new Chevy looks as annoying as a Tata, we need to search for the highlights in the design. The mass produced Japanese, European and American cars are frankly no fun and there is not much to take pictures of that will knock you off the driver’s seat. The best you can do with them is to use them for further treatment and as a base for interesting trash graphics.

I have never understood why the masses have to drive such ugly cars and why the car companies reserve good design to the high end production, if at all.

So, sneak around your car, bend and stretch and find the best angles to shoot some flattering shots, sensual shots, aggressive shots, shots with a soul and a body: don’t forget, the car has also a rear, which may be as so often, the better part of the model.

Look for interesting Details

The excitement is where there is beauty, great design, interesting shapes and details. Sports Cars are still a great playground, at least on the higher end, and then of course classic cars. But on most any car you will find some detail of interest and be it just the most ugly heck spoiler on a Japanese Ferrari imitation from the 80s (remember that Honda, huh?).

Indi Maserati 1939

Create Focus with your Camera Settings

I like to shoot with priority on Aperture to work with depth of field in order to create focus; you can try as well to use macro settings for small details, namely on a small model car as featured here. It’s a matter of taking several shots and then selecting the best result. But in general, you should do better getting off the A and P modes on your Digital Camera.

The first picture above was zoomed, the two underneath work with depth of field.

Create Focus by Post-Editing

The result is better but not satisfactory: more focus can be added, first by taking better shots (you have to become a better photographer …) or by creating focus when post-editing. There is nothing wrong with post-editing, in fact, it enables you to make up for the lack of your camera’s quality (the best excuse) or for your lack of photographic knowledge (much less flattering for you and therefore not recommended …).

Now that we have established that the Nikons,Canons, Sonys and Leicas out there are not as brilliant products as marketing lead us to believe when the sales rep pulled us over the table, we breathe better and can now look for Companies which make money out of the technical failures of the Camera Manufacturers: Adobe has set industry standards in this field and their survival depends largely on the lousy camera quality (as I said, it’s the best excuse!).

The problem with Adobe, and Photoshop in particular is it’s low tech interface which requires a compass and a world map to find your way through the forest of settings nobody can learn in one lifetime (… Hinduism is a viable option). So finally here are your choices: become a Hindu Guru or learn how to take better pictures.

We cannot take better pictures, since the camera manufacturers do a lousy job. Hinduism is a difficult option for a Steak Tartar freak.

What else is there?

Luckily there are many more photography aficionados in the same case as you (and I) and they were there before us. These smart spirits have overcome the problem by creating things called Photoshop Actions and Plug-ins, Filters and Presets for Lightroom.

These guys of whom nobody knows the names, deserve highest respect and esteem, if not a legacy like the unknown soldier. These are the heroes who make our lives easier and due to whom our religious integrity is no longer threatened by Adobe and indirectly by the negligent Camera Manufacturers.

Let’s add some Creative Blur, Zoom or Pane effects to our masterpiece. A difficult job with a low end digital camera but a piece of cake for a good PS Action!

Maserati Detail

Your imagination is the limit and you will have to decide how far you want to push the tweaking; however, you should know that in fashion photography the most outrageous morphing is stretching Cindy’s legs and worse on better parts. So, don’t be ashamed to express your dream world as do the pros (the dream being most of the time the cash in the kitty called the fruit of empathy, huh.).

Indi 1939 Marerati

By the way… instead of blurring the car you could use spinning blur on the wheels while keeping the car in focus – the feel of motion.

Narrow Framing

Namely for details, frame as close as you can to obtain the highest amount of data possible; it will make your post-editing easier. If you take a pic of a car in its natural environment, make sure that the viewer’s eye is not sidetracked by the background or other distracting or dominant items:

Maserati BW

Maserati bb

I hope these 5 tips will help to get better results. I will share with those present my PS Blur Action at tonight’s Ycademy Workshop at 8 pm London Time.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Watermark and Copyright with Photoshop CS4

A small but important task for all creative minds: protect your work! Even considering that in certain countries, such as the USA, your images are automatically copyright protected when you publish them, you may want to make it “crystal” clear to everyone that you claim your rights on your work.

In Photoshop CS 4 it is easy to create a simple Action for the purpose of watermarking and to add a copyright notice to your picture. The watermark is the visible sign, while the copyright notice is attached to the file.

Transparent Watermark 1

Transparent Watermark 2

At tonight’s call we will create an Action in CS4 allowing you to add quickly your watermark and copyright notice to your images.

Join the workshop at 8 pm London time at yorGOtalk.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Media Development and Design Ycademy

Website Development has changed in recent years: while 10 years ago simple html sites with some embedded small pictures were the rule, customers ask increasingly for advanced media features, interactivity and connectivity namely with social networks.

The Path to ...

Hiod, YORGOO and Ycademy have made cutting edge technology available to a broad public and part-time site developers since 2001. We continue to develop along general trends by helping ordinary people reaching extraordinary results in an environment where by definition things become more complex and demand permanent education, be it just to allow to target marketing efforts to the ever moving target of the masses: from the PC to the Laptop, to Social Networks and to Mobile devices.

Semiomantics semantic Online Publishing Frameworks

With Semiomantics we have created a versatile WordPress based publishing platform for individuals and pros. Semiomantics scripts can handle most any content in most any format and are fully multimedia enabled; however web designers who customize the scripts need to be able to edit more demanding formats, such as multimedia requiring at least basic knowledge of flash, after effects, media encoding and such like.

Of course these tasks can be out-sourced, however as these features are in the trend, they are also the ones representing most of the added value.

Ycademy will continue to provide to Ycademy Seminar Participants scripts for personal use which can be edited without any knowledge of Flash and such like. Such scripts however are not adapted for commercial use, since they do not represent the necessary security and protection of content.

Ycademy

Ycademy remains the most cost effective access to high performance scripts and advanced technology.

... success ...

For Website Developers and Web designers Ycademy continues to offer support and step by step introduction to advanced technology.

At this point in time, we are preparing to move ahead by focusing on media related basic knowledge. This includes trainings related to programs such as Adobe Flash, After Effects, Media Encoder and more.

Over the last 3 months we have been on a very fast educational track as we needed to catch up rapidly with some missing knowledge, namely in the fields of image editing and publishing and photography.

The next step will be flash for those who are interested in being able to provide better visual effects with lower file weight. Also, Flash allows us to profit from the most recent Semiomantics developments;  Semiomantics advanced xml optimization entails high response from Search Spiders and allows for top ranking with Flash encoded sites.

I am aware that flash encoding requires the use of Adobe’s flash editor and the curriculum is therefore designed for participants who dispose of Flash Pro (at least version CS 3).

Photoshop vs. Flash

When deciding to set up our educational sessions pertaining to Photoshop, we focused already on the logical consequence: Photoshop leads to Flash.

Photoshop is a design tool developed originally for the printing industry, not the web. Photoshop is the industry standard for editing images and bitmaps, while Flash sets the standard for vector and raster graphics. In simple terms: Photoshop is for static stuff, while Flash is for animated 2 dimensional stuff. Photoshop is best for Print output, while Flash is best for Web output.

... with a vision ...

Photoshop’s image output can be easily copied and reproduced, while Flash is not easy to reproduce and is therefore more secure.

Flash has it’s own programing language called ActionScript; using ActionScript we can create applications, games, interactive content and so on. Streaming video can be easily controlled by Flash using ActionScript (see YouTube).

Flash helps to express ourselves better in the web environment, it allows for more flexibility, security and interaction. Flash leads logically to 3D and 3D animation.

Flash Ycademy

Moving on to Flash with interested participants needs some planning based on the following key factors:

1. Interest

Is there sufficient interest in a Flash Curriculum? The plan includes 2 Flash sessions per week (Tuesday and Thursday). The session will focus on Flash Basics in order to learn as quickly as possible to work with templates and to customize templates for customers’ needs.

The remaining 3 weekly sessions, (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) will focus on Marketing, Editing and Publishing using WordPress CMS, Semiomantics and improving our skills and editing by applying our knowledge of CSS, Photoshop,  Digital Photography.

The Flash Curriculum will require thorough preparation from our end and availability form participant’s side. Participants need to be properly equipped, which implies the installation of a Flash editor on the Computer.

In order to make this worth the effort, we estimate that we need at least 10 participants. Cost and arrangements will be comparable to earlier similar set-ups such as our curriculum for Office 2010 or Photoshop CS4.

... to embarke for a Journey ...

2. The Equipment

Participants must be properly equipped to profit from the sessions. We will need Flash Pro as well as Photoshop.

3. The Seminar

If we proceed with the above plan, then we will be able to hold an interesting Ycademy Seminar in May which will be interesting and open for Flash savvy participants as well as for participants who do not edit flash. The seminar will deal with Flash and xml, the latter allowing participants to build flash sites and features without editing flash, while the first will be able to embed content selectively into Flash.

In a certain way, the Seminar will be a continuation of the March Seminar where we have introduced Semiomantics Evolution. New templates will be available for different purposes, whereas some participants will edit just xml, others the fla files to come to the same visual result on the first shot applying different techniques.

Your input is needed

I would be interested to find out what you think about the above plan and get some feed-back about prevailing interest and commitment.

... as successful online editors and publishers.

Please comment here below and join tomorrow’s session where we will detail the above to give you a clear view of what we have in mind and where it will lead to.

Don’t be worried about the eventual difficulties; while we are learning Flash we will have the opportunity to profit from our existing knowledge and solidify our Photoshop, CSS, Digital Photography and xml skills. The pace will be reduced compared to the last 3 months where we have gone fast and often spent more time on a day to day bases than anticipated.

I am looking forward to your input.

Thanks!

PS: The pics have been taken yesterday and I have just pulled them through a B&W Holga Filter in Photoshop.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Fresh Fish in Vouliagmeni – Varkiza

To get away from the computer ahead of yesterday’s Ycademy online Seminar, I went for a stroll at the picturesque fishing port of Varkiza next to Vouliagmeni.

I have brought back some nice pics as well as a short clip demonstrating what we mean when we talk about fresh fish :-).

Zoom Burst on the Picture below

I have shot with a small point and shoot Leica C-Lux 3. To make it a bit more difficult for the Cam I took some distance and zoomed into the scene. The cam shoots 30 fps in HD QuickTime .mov format. I have pulled it to Windows Live Movie Maker, then to Adobe Media encoder before loading the clip to YouTube. At YouTube you can watch the clip in various formats up to 1080 p HD!

Even after YouTube compression, the result remains suprisingly good considering that the cam comes with the size of a credit card and is less thick than 1 inch.

Fresh Fish in Varkiza

While the Windows Movie has a file size of over 23 MB, the flash compression as used by YouTube reduces the size to below 1 MB, while preserving HD Quality.

See YouTube HERE.

Enjoy!

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Ycademy Digital Photography Seminar I

This week-end the Ycademy Digital Photography Seminar Volume I will take place, as usual online in our Live Meeting Conferencing.

Please find here below the Agenda.

Registered Participants are advised personally and receive by email the download links for the materials needed.

This is as usual a smashing pack of literature, software and utilities.

I am looking forward to a great and fruitful Seminar with smashing results for all participants. The advantage belongs to those who have participated in our pre-seminar calls and taken some fair advantage; however we will start with very basics for the benefit of all participants and to fill in also all those who work with recordings.

Step by step we will evolve on the path of success – together we are unbeatable!

600r43

My Good Old R4 from the 80s ...

Goals:

Learn and improve your technique using your digital camera; enhance the result editing digital photos; blow away the competition with efficient, eye-catching publishing.

Registration

Last Minute registration from HERE.

After registering, please contact Bianca as per below indicating your name, email address, phone and camera brand and type you are using.

The registration entitles to accessing the Live Seminar as well as all recordings (for 4 weeks) if you cannot attend the live sessions. Also included are all course materials. (More info if needed, contact Bianca Gubalke at bianca (at) ycademy.com.)

Schedule

Saturday and Sunday 24 -25, April 2010 from 1 pm London Time to 9 pm London Time; short breaks and a 1 hour break for lunch or dinner at 6 pm London Time.

Materials

Bring along your camera and photos you have taken in the past. The photos should be in the largest possible camera output format. Semiomantics Evolution.

Difficulty Level

The seminar addresses beginners to advanced photographers; in fact it is for ordinary people who want to achieve extraordinary results with their ordinary camera. There is no need for advanced knowledge or professional material. The seminar will step by step introduce to digital photography and cover a simple workflow from shooting to publishing. While doing so we will make some escapades into advanced editing and publishing fields.

We plan to hold a Digital Photography Ycademy II for advanced users later in the year, where we will focus on media design, media encoding, post-production and advanced publishing methods. No date has been set as per yet.

600r45

... is still attractive ...

Agenda

Introduction to Digital Photography

History and main differences between traditional and digital Photography.

Photography Basics

Terminology, definitions and basic explanations of the photographic workflow.

Digital Photography Basics

Terminology and definitions.

The Digital Camera

Features, Technology and Definitions.

How to Shoot a Digital Photo

Basic Definitions, Modes, Settings from Portrait to Flash.

600r445

... to take pictures of ...

How to shoot with Manual Settings

Definitions, Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority, ISO and White Balance.

Composition

The Elements: Light, Color, Shapes, Edges, depth of field, Position, Frame and more.

Basic Rules and Tips.

Darkroom editing (on Camera)

Settings, impact and quality.

Photo Editing with Lightroom and Photoshop

Focus on the workflow using Lightroom. How to edit a digital photography.

Post-editing with Lightroom and or Photoshop

Copyright notices, Meta tags and other picture related information, slide show with Lightroom, preparing output formats.

600r42

... I just should have taken the dust off first ...!

Publishing Digital Photos

Basic Publishing using Lightroom and PowerPoint.

Advanced Publishing with Semiomantics Evolution and Professional Slideshows.

The output format: Print, Web, Single, Slides, Video, Digital Support such as DVD or CD.

Workshops

All along the schedule we will insert workshops and discussions. Theory will be short and supported by the literature we provide to allow us to focus on the practical application of the scheduled tasks, namely editing, post editing and publishing. Therefore it is important that you bring along your photos to work on.

I wish you fun and success with Ycademy!

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Let your Zoom tell the Story

Today a simple exercise with your Zoom. The recommendation is to use only optical zoom as the digital zoom chips away loads of data and because the cropping tools in Photoshop return better results.

At tonight’s workshop we will comment the pictures below and work on our Zoom.

600shell4

Zoom 2

600shell5

Zoom 3

How about some more Lightroom Presets?

[download_box]Download some Lightroom Presets[/download_box]

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

More Lightroom Presets: The 70s

Back in fashion, the 70s have also their photographic face. If you are of my generation or older, you remember the 70s quite well. Point and Shoot photography with simple 35 mm cams became popular. Plastic lenses and cheap lens’s distortions, zoom available to anyone … photography gained a wider popularity. While film development cost was still high, the Point and Shoot cameras of the seventies guaranteed at least a clear picture.

Stabilizers were not yet available but the shutter speed was set to 1/100 or 1/125 so that most pictures came back shake-free and fairly sharp with wide depth of field.

700y

Seventies

Why use 70s Filters?

In fact, why filtering at all? At a time when most anyone can shoot a sharp picture and where Digital Cameras do “it” all, the trend to filters is increasing; maybe because most images are taken using automatic camera settings, which give to all those pictures the “same look”. That “same look” often is flat and lacking depth, soul and emotion.

Seeking the imperfection of the popular cams of the 70s can help to distinguish your pic from the industrial mass output.

[download_box]Download some 70s Presets for Lightroom[/download_box]

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Bird sanctuary websites offer online bird watchers information and insight about the bird life found in a specific bird park or area, opening times, entry fees, special events and perhaps membership possibilities etc, but what everyone is probably most interested in are pictures and images of birds, our favourite feathered friends.

If you have a garden that’s frequented by many different birds and you love to watch and photograph them, you may consider publishing your personal birding website or blog to share your thoughts, impressions, photos, perhaps sketches and whatever you want to include, with fellow birding afficinados. You may even invite other bird watchers to join you to gain a broader and even more interesting spectrum!

Your personal bird lover website could be designed in such an attractive way that it captures the interest of like-minded bird watchers from other parts of the country if not the world! The world of birds is truly without limits!

The Internet offers us such wonderful and affordable possibilities for individual expression today where we can create something that can be enjoyed for generations to come.

Why not pass on the wonder, joy and privilege of living in our magic world today?!

Portrait Editing

May be the most popular subject of photos are people, friends, family, kids. Taking pictures of people is somewhat delicate since nobody likes lousy pictures of his face. In fact, few people like pictures which look exactly what they see when looking into the mirror.

We are no professionals with all the lightning equipments and professional cameras, but like anyone, we like to take pictures of friends and family. The least we can do is to try to take the shot from the most advantageous angle. Our photo must make people look great. We also can position the subject in an advantageous light and may be in front of an attractive background. For the rest, we will need some software to post-edit the portraits in-order to produce a flattering result.

Portrait Enhancement

Tonight at the Ycademy Workshop I would like to share with you the hallucinating experience of portrait editing using an intelligent piece of software. Yes, for once it’s not Photoshop or Lightroom.

The workshop is a Bonus Session for Seminar Participants.

portrait

Portrait as shot

portrait1

Portrait enhanced

For Seminar Participants

[toggle title="Hidden Bonus :-)"][download_box]Download and Install[/download_box][/toggle]

PS: This bonus is only available today.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Related posts:How to shoot the Moon with a Point and Shoot CameraFlowers from Vouliagmeni BeachImage Editing and Post EditingYcademy Online Seminar January 2012Ycademy Online Seminar Photo Publishing with Evo for WordPress

Well, meanwhile I know most if not all of those pictures were illusions… and that we can all achieve with some good original photo material and a little bit of Photoshop! Ha!

What you see here is definitely the full moon I photographed in that night – around 11: 45 pm – and it stood like that in the pitchblack sky. No halo, no softness – like cut out.

And this was Noordhoek Beach in the very early morning where the full moon was hardly visible – now it is!I mean it was !

The fact is, I photographed the ‘real thing’ on 24 July 2010 and wrote about it HERE. And there was no manipulation involved whatsoever – it was huge, red and definitely super and extraordinary in many ways!

Shoot for Light and Color

Today I would like to suggest two exercises to train the eye and mind. Let’s shoot for Light and Color.

Exercise 1: Light

Without light, there is no photo. However, as light is out there for free and about always available, we tend to forget about it or we just don’t see it. The exercise consists in shooting 20 – 30 pictures of Light!

Don’t look for a subject, just look for light. It can be light and shadow, it can be light spots … just catch the light.

light

Light

light1

Light a

light4

Light b

light5

Light c

y21

Light 2

Load your Light Shots into a gallery at your seminar site.

Exercise 2: Color

Similar to the above, but this time with color. Don’t look for a subject, just for color and shoot 20 – 30 pictures for your color gallery.

whiteandblue600

White and Blue

sunset_astir_beach

Yellow

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Portrait Shooting

Based on Digital Photography Ycademy 9 we are able to plan our pictures depth of field. The only remaining problem is: you may have a camera which does not allow for A settings (manual Aperture priority settings).

Don’t worry, there is a way to at least partially compensate for this shortfall.

The below gallery can best be viewed HERE (opens new window).

Depth of Field in Portraiting with a low end Camera or Mobile Phone

Remember, we said that the depth of field is function of aperture and distance. Hence, we can use the distance trick which works with most any digital camera or mobile phone.

First we try to compose our picture in a way that the person is not glued to a background, such as leaning on a wall. Position the person at least 2 meters off the next background. Then frame clsosely from maximum 1.5 meters (without zooming). The result may be better if the background is even further away to fall out of the metered focal range (corresponding to infinity settings) which is at about 10-12 meters.

Now shoot your portrait: the autofocus will grab the face and apply the distance, which in it’s turn will trigger the aperture and shutter speed in function of that distance and light. By setting your camera presets on Portrait, the camera does this as well, whereas a narroc depth of field is forced.

In any case, you will end up with a sharp portrait and a more or less blurred background.

Portrait Post Editing

If you have taken your picture according to the above, then your post editing is a sunday walk. Just apply some of the great lightroom presets or photoshop actions. Some of these professional tools will lift the quality of your mediocre picture dramatically and clearly digg a huge canion between you and the competitors in your camera’s class.

Here an example: the below picture has been taken with my 4 years old $50 supermarket camera according to the above rule. Then I just pulled it through some professional filters such as stuff from from Kubota, Davis and onOne. This is a matter of just seconds :-).

Join tonight’s YcademyWorkshop for more tips and tricks.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

As today the Moon is at it’s closest to the earth for this year, I did a test run last night and brought back the following shot:

This is about as good as it could get

The above was shot with the following

F-stop:                   f/6.3

Exposure time:    1/250

ISO-speed             ISO-400

Focal-length:        49 mm

35-mm focal length:  389

Exposure Program: Aperture Priority

The idea was to figure out different settings to catch at least some of the texture of the surface of the moon.

Tonight I found a nice spot, just above Vouliagmeni’s Limanaki to catch the moon rising above the Varkiza Bay.

Click to view the bigger version for more detail.

This time I went for Shutter Priority and ISO 200 which resulted in an Exposure Time of 0,77 sec. Also I used an Exposure Bias of +0.7 step.

Of course this is not the kind of quality you could expect from a professional picture, but it shows what you can do with most any point and shoot.

The temptation to pull such pictures through Photoshop is evident and I have not resisted just for the fun.

And a cooler version, filtering out some red which we usually see when the moon rises at the sea:

Related posts: Shooting at the Moon HD Video with your Digital Photo Camera iPhone 4 Photo Camera Review 1 Vouliagmeni Kavouri Beach Flowers from Vouliagmeni Beach

The Magic of Depth of Field

At the beginning, many photographers struggle with the concept of aperture and depth of field. I remember back in the 60ies when my dad ciselled the principles into my brain. He was shooting with a good old Leica I loved for all the buttons and little wheels it featured for tons of settings.

I could not imagine what they were good for: but they looked god for sure and that was a good enough reason to fetch my interest.

By the way, have you ever noticed how “look-focused” photographers are? And the look of their camera? It’s part of the over all estethics photographers are in search of and  attached to, I guess.

Of course it is sexier to have your portrait taken in an Indiana Jones Look (or the Marlboro Man minus the smell of the sweating horse and the cow dung…) holding a big cam with a mega lens in front, than Indiana with an iPhone, huh.

Back to the depth of field. I was exercising on flowers in the garden 50 years ago and the game went as follows.

marienkaefer

Marienkaefer

Exercise 1

1. Move as close as you can (don’t use Macro to start with)  to the object you want to take a picture of and set your lens to the widest aperture (that’s the smallers f/number!). In my case it was f/2.8 at that time). If you do this with your digital camera, the cam will automatically select the appropriate shutter speed.

2. Repeat the exercise with f/5.6, f/8, f/11 and f/22.

3. You have now 5 pictures of the same flower with a background (and maybe foreground) of the surrounding flowers. However your pictures are different from each other and the difference is in the depth of field.

Conclusion: The narrower the aperture, the wider the depth of field! This is the real issue here, meaning, the smaller the opening of the lens’s diaphragm (high f/number), the longer the cam will expose the sensor(film) to the light inflow and the sharper your picture gets along the depth (z-) axes.

The wider the aperture (small f/number) the narrower the depth of field (and the faster the shutter speed) and you end up with these beautifully blurred back and or foregrounds. Your digital camera’s auto-focus, focused on the flower you want to feature, will automatically make sure that your depth of field is optimized for the flower.

flower

Flower

Exercise 2

Do the same exercise again by zooming out or moving away from the object you are taking the picture of. Shoot from a distance of about 1 meter to 1.5 meters (4-5 feet). Again you will end up with a series of pictures.

You will find: the further you move away from the flower, the wider the depth of field will get! This is the second important rule.

Put simply: if you want a sharp picture throughout the whole depth, increase the distance and use higher f/numbers. If on the other hand you wish a picture where the focused object is sharp and the background and or the foreground are blurred, then move closer and decrease the f/number (wider aperture or diaphragm of the lens is wider open, which triggers a faster shutter speed).

Conclusion 1

This exercise should help you to improve on your Macro shots and Portraits. The effect is function of depth of field: to limit the depth of field use a wider aperture (smaller f/number) and move closer; the background will be less in focus and you get the desired blur-effect.

Conclusion 2

This is probably the most important single concept which will bring you ahead of the masses. I guess 99% or more of all camera users are not aware of this concept and will continue to shoot happily their flat shots.

Conclusion 3

The best way to achieve the effect is by using your camera’s manual settings (priority on Aperture A-mode). If your cam does not allow for Aperture priority, then you still have the option to pull your picture through Lightroom of Photoshop and to manipulate the background out of focus … but why going that route if your cam can deliver a better quality original?

It’s obvious that skilled Photoshop users are absolutely capable to fake the blur effect, but believe me: if you want it well done, it takes time, loads of it and you have the bitter taste in your mouth of someone who just became aware that he re-invented the wheel. Imagine: the cam does in a fraction of a second (literally) what may cost you hours in Photoshop.

The Camera and Photoshop or Lightroom

No, I am not against Photo Editing Programs at all. Photoshop is a great tool and can do things the camera cannot do; on the other hand the camera is a great tool as well and it can do certain things better than Photoshop. So, let’s use each tool for what it is made and you cumulate the quality of the cam’s work with the quality of PS.

The best results in Photoshop are achieved with a great picture at the base: the more time you spend to make your picture great, the less time you will spend in Photoshop and the better your image data.

Try this over the week-end and come back with some nice, more or less blurred pictures! Stuff them into a new Gallery on Your Semiomantics Evolution site to share your results. I am looking forward to it.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.