Portrait Photo Shoot, Egypt

I have been traveling a bit lately, one of my travels took me to explore Petra in Jordan. It was amazing and definitively worth a visit if you have not been yet. I will show you some images from that trip a bit later not today. 
I have also taken quite a few event photographs of golf presentations but none that are very interesting to publish here so I will spare you that.

Today I will show you a few images from my portrait shoot I did yesterday with a family. We did an afternoon photo shoot at the resort which means that it is more calm and tranquil around us than if we had done it a bit earlier also the light has a very pleasing effect for portraits in the afternoon. The calmness of course suited us very well since a child's attention is very easily distracted if there are a lot of things going on around them. We had a few on lookers at times but we managed great even with that.
Even though we were outside and there was plenty of available light at least in the beginning of our shoot the sun did drop behind the Sinai Mountains quite quickly in the end. But as I was saying we had plenty of natural light but I still used a flash to get those nice catch lights in the eyes. I had the flash positioned straight up and used only the little white plastic card to direct the light towards the person I was photographing. When you are photographing outdoors make sure that you position your subject on the edge of the shade if possible also make sure that you do not get any dappled light in their faces, from tree leaves etc. Dapples in the face or hair can easily ruin any portrait so try to stay away from it unless you are trying to do something creative and work it in. But in general for portraits stay away from dapples in your objects faces the images will turn out a lot better and you will be able to sell your client more prints which is probably what you are after -Sales!

Filing system, Sensor Loupe & Champagne on the Beach in Egypt.

I have this week started a new filing system with my images that I hope will prove to be a good and long lasting system. Cross your fingers please! For a photographer the number one thing is to have a good filing system where you easily can search and find your images quickly your income can depend on it. Since if you can’t deliver quickly I bet there is another photographer out there that can. So you can loose potential income if you do not have a good one. Now I am of course assuming that you already can take great photographs ;-)

Creative people in general are not people with order around them with paperwork etc. chaos seam to be more the norm and that is why it is so important with a good filing system and a Back UP System! Where maybe the latter is maybe the most important part in the soft copy era we live in.

Which reminds me I have to buy more external storage space! I'll have to put it on my purchase list together with some Dust Aid. I only have one strip left and they are so very good. So will have to stock up while I can. I do not know if they sell them here at all in Egypt so have to get some when I travel in a few weeks.

 I am also thinking of maybe getting a Visible Dust Loupe any of you that are using one and can tell me if you like it? Think it might be the thing I need to be able to see the dust specs easier on the sensor so that I easier can take them off. I just did a quick google search and found another brand Ohnar Loupe that also does the same thing it is slightly cheaper though. Wonder if it is just as good?

"Isn't it strange? We spend 

hundreds, maybe thousands, on a camera lens to achieve the ultimate sarpness. Then, when it comes to assessing the results, we're quite likely to use a £10 loupe with a plastic lens. The loupe is probably the most overlooked accessory in the photographer's armoury.
A loupe is a lens. You wouldn't expect much from a camera lens with just one or two elements, nor should you expect much from a similarly constructed loupe.
Achieving decent resolving power requires several elements or groups of elements, just as it does in a camera lens. And this costs money." http://www.kauserinternational.com/4xzoomloupereview.htm

I read this in a magazine and I believe its very true. I know I was thinking the same thing wow a loupe is expensive when I found out the prices of them..

Champagne Brunch on the beach!

This image is from yesterdays morning photo shoot. I was up early again taking pictures the sun was right off to my right side giving the champagne glasses a nice sparkle in them. I had to keep on swirling the glasses though to keep the Champagne bubbling  LOL. After the shoot I was lucky enough to get to drink what was in the glasses!!! Unfortunately it was only 7 Up with extra lemon so it was actually quite sweet and probably full of sand in them, it was quite windy even it doesn't look it on the images.

Sinai Mountain Range

This morning I put on my trekking boots and headed for the Sinai Mountains.

The start of the trek was quite steep then it eased out for a while and for the last bit it was a bit scary steep again going up went ok partly maybe to my new walking style that I adapted. I had my photo gear in a backpack so I was therefore slightly back-heavy so for the really steep parts I started walking more like an Orangutan (nothing against them) with my hands forward almost touching the ground so that I would not involuntarily fall backwards but forwards in case I was about to fall at all. I was more scared though walking down the steep hill with the slippery rocks, my new Orangutan walk was not of any help then more the opposite it would have made my trip down a lot quicker that is for sure and I am not sure in what shape I would arrive to the bottom at.

The Sinai Mountain Range does not consist of solid rock it consists in part of red granite and volcanic rock, so very porous. Which can make the walk a bit slippery in places so you always need to be careful of where you put our feet.

On my way up I of course stopped several times to take photographs. My goal with the trek was to get some nice images of the Taba Heights Golf Course from a high vantage point and not for the exercise itself that I got for free. The day was very nice for such a trek because the sun was hidden a bit behind a thin layer of clouds so it made the walk more bearable and not too hot and also helped with the images of course since harsh sun light very rarely help an image. I have attached a few of the images I took from this morning.

Beduin Camp.

I walked all the way up to the top!

Hyatt Regency Taba Heights.

Diving images

I went diving with a friend of mine last week and I took some underwater images while I was down there and I must take my hat of to all underwater photographers because it is not as easy as it looks to take a photograph underwater. As photographers you are taught to hold your breath at the time of pressing your shutter to eliminate camera shake and that does not help you underwater then exhale is a better option for you. Because when you hold your breath underwater you will slowly start to float up and then you get away from your camera vantage point that you had decided was best for the shot. So needless to say I will keep taking my photographs above water where I can move elements in and out of the  scene  be it things or people. Try telling a fish to stay still!

I have posted a few of my efforts here for you to view just for fun. But I can assure you underwater photography is nothing I will try to pursue anytime soon. I need to get a few more dives in me…

Get your photography to the next level through Photography Forums

A friend of mine asked me the other day to help her critique her photography she would really want to take her photography forward to a higher level. It got me thinking that the same way helped me when I started out and that maybe some of my fellow followers might be interested in the same.

To have someone else take a close look and critique your photographs is one of the best ways for you as a photographer to excel. Yes, it can also be a bit daunting in the beginning to have someone else look at your pictures. But you need to keep in mind that everything is someone else’s opinion and there rarely is anything right and wrong. Even if you are not adhering to the rules of thirds in your photographs it does not mean its wrong if you do it deliberately. You should always be aware of when you are breaking photography rules, when you do it on purpose to give that little extra to your photograph its ok. Remember to take the critique constructively as I am sure it is meant. Also if you are trying to help another photographer you have to always give a reason why you think this and that not only say I don’t like it its no good since that will never help any photographer to get better. You might think that oh well I am not good enough to give critique and I must stay that is wrong you do learn a lot when you are critiquing someone else’s photographs since you will have to really look and think of what did the photographer try to do here etc. So join a photo forum and also try to give advice to others as well and not only try go get advice.

If you do not have a photographer that you can ask to critique your photographs I can recommend being part of a Photography Forum. There you can post your photographs and have other photographers or photo enthusiasts give their thoughts about your picture.

I started with this Photo forum, http://www.uae-photo.com/ since they were part of the community where I lived at the time. We had monthly meetings where we met to discuss photography. Many brought with them their own printed photographs that we could give our feed back on. I also organized Photo Walk Tours where we all met early morning and went to a pre-organized place and took loads of photographs. Then we all usually had breakfast together and chatted about our photography. http://www.uae-photo.com/

Later that day you could start to see the other photographers pictures appear on the forum from the morning shoot we had together.

I am now part of a few different photo websites where I check in on from time to time. If you are a bit scared in the beginning to post your photographs to a forum you shouldn’t be. Everyone needs to start somewhere, and you can always be part of one more or less anonymously since you can choose your own user name that will be displayed next to your photographs.

There are also several photography workshops with hands on training and on-line workshops that can be beneficial for you as well. When you are in a class or workshop you will meet likeminded people that can be helpful after the class you can meet up and chat about similar difficulties that you might face.

There are also many photo workshops abroad that you can try. I have myself been on the PTO (http://www.pto-uk.com). Photo Training Overseas I thought it was very well organized and helpful. Most of the people attending was professional photographers some abiding amateurs as well looking into taking the next step of their photography and photography business. It was great to meet and be with fellow photographers for a whole week.

I have pasted in a few photography forums that you can have a look at and see which one that might fit your category/nish of photography.

Of course you can always type in a search in Google and you will very likely come up with a few photo forums that will be beneficial for you. I personally like the idea of having a photo community that is close by where I live so that I have the possibility to meet the fellow photographers but that is not always feasible of course depending on where you live. So take a look and see what will work for you.

Photo Forums

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/

http://www.photolinks.com/Photography_Newsgroups_Forums.html

http://photo.net/community/

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/

http://www.openphotographyforums.com/

http://forums.popphoto.com/

http://www.clubsnap.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=39

http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/

http://www.thephotoforum.com/

http://www.naturephotographers.net/imagecritique/bbs.cgi?a=va&ns=1

http://www.naturephotographers.net/rf.html

http://www.naturescapes.net/docs/

http://www.birdforum.net/

http://www.freephotogallery.info/photo_forums_and_chats/

http://www.usphotoforums.com/forum/index.php

http://ilovephotography.com/forums/

http://www.big-boards.com/highlight/1423/

http://www.phototakers.com/forum/

http://birdphotoph.proboards.com/index.cgi

http://www.outdoorphotographer.com/forums/

http://www.travellerspoint.com/forum.cfm?thread=786

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=38

http://www.macrophotography.org/modules.php?name=Forums

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/board/45

http://www.outdooreyes.com/forum/index.php

http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/forums/wildlife-photography/369-macro-photography.html

http://www.sportsshooter.com/

http://www.worldphotographyforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=7

http://forum.digitalcamerareview.com/showthread.php?t=754

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/

The Season is Changing from Summer to Winter.

The season is changing from summer to winter here in the Sinai, that means that right now we have more cloud formations than we usually have during the year.

I have taken advantage of this opportunity to photograph the sky, with the different formation the clouds are taking, cumulous, cirrus clouds etc.

I will now file these sky photographs that I have taken under Sky_clouds. So that I can use them later on when I have a photograph with a boring looking sky where a sky with clouds would take the photograph to a different level of just being an ok picture to become a great one.

Remember when you are adding a sky you need to make sure that the light conditions and its direction fits in with your picture otherwise it will look fake and that is not the look we are after.

You can apply this idea to different elements of your pictures some pictures look better if you for instance add a moon, it could be full moon or a crescent etc. So you can also go and build a library with different moon shapes. If you choose a crescent remember to apply the moon the right way up depending on where the photograph is taken. Since the moon crescent looks different if you are here in Egypt compared to England etc. Since I grew up in Sweden to me the crescent moon here in Egypt looks like it is upside down.

They key with adding elements to your photographs is that they always need to look natural/real and seamless.

When making your own library of photographs that you need to use later you need to have a fool proof filing system. Something that works for you and is simple. Don’t try to make things more complicated than they have to be is something I always try to live by. Since these are photographs that I will be using over and over again I will save them as a TIFF file instead of a JPG file, to make sure that over time the photographs still have all their pixels intact. Every time you open a JPG file it looses quality.

This morning I played a bit with motion blur. You can be quite creative with it. The problem I have with this picture of the car is that it does not have a driver so either it is a very futuristic BMW that can drive itself or its just a picture that is unrealistic, I would have to opt for the second choice unfortunately but it proves my point above that when you are changing a photograph make sure you think of all the elements, you want the finished photograph to look realistic otherwise you will only annoy the viewer.

If you need help with your Photoshop skills I can recommend a magazine that comes out every month in the UK called Digital Photo. Every issue also comes with a CD with video lessons of how to use different Photoshop skills and other photo tricks. It is very useful they also always have a gear tests that can make interesting reading, if you are looking for something new to add to your photo arsenal.