Summer is almost over, but I’m still on the roads, going around Romania, visiting places and taking pictures. So last week I’ve been to the salt mine from Turda (one of many salt mines in Romania, not the biggest and most beautiful, but still worth).

The environment and what you need in the photo bag. Mines and caves are very similar then taking pictures inside them. The light is pour and even if there are some lights placed by humans for visitors, you still need to take with you your own lights. And I really have to remember you to don’t forget the tripod (it seems like I always forget that…)
1. external lights
2. tripod
3. external powerful flash
4. remote controller (long exposures will only work with this on some cameras)

What’s here to shoot? So there mines have formations similar to the ones in the caves (formed in the same conditions by the water), but also new man made formations which you should consider photographing. (tunnels, excavations and mining gears). As for a salt mine, this is something special: people come here for treatment, football playing (this is no joke), so here it is an interesting subject for a photojournalist. As for the mines in which the mining activity still goes on, talk to the workers, they will not hesitate to let you photograph them when at work – it changes their everyday routine.

Now let me tell you a few words on the camera settings that work under this environment: it’s mostly similar to cave photography. But when there are people in action inside the mines, you should keep the shutter speed fast, increase exposure compensation and grow the ISO (light sensitivity). Some parts of the mines are huge galleries where the flash won’t work because of the distance. I could not manage to take a very decent shot under these conditions, at least not without powerful external lights placed all over the place.

One interesting tip: in one of the tunnels of the salt mine, where the walls were strongly reflecting the light, I increased the exposure (at the limit of overexposure), and obtained an effect that I call: alien spaceship. Here are some examples:



Salt mines are well know for the textures on the gallery walls. I took hundred of photos of the walls but here’s one which I find to be the most complex:

Fourth of July celebrations often end with a firework extravaganza that captivates us all with its awesome beauty. So be prepared to “ooh” and “ah” along with the crowd. And, if you’re like many of us, plan to have your camera ready to capture the “rockets red glare.”

What’s the best way to take “great” firework photos? According to Chuck DeLaney, Dean of the New York Institute of Photography (NYI), the world’s largest photography school, it’s easy if you do a couple of simple things. “Most of all you need a steady camera, a long exposure, and medium speed ISO setting,” DeLaney explains.

First, you’ll want to take a time-exposure. If you have an SLR camera, this should be no problem. Many point-and-shoot cameras have a special Fireworks setting, but if the camera you are using doesn’t, try to “fool” the camera into keeping the shutter open. Here’s how: When you see a rocket shoot skyward, press the shutter-button. The darkness of the sky should cause your camera to keep the shutter open for a time-exposure, and you can end up with a splendid picture.
What about using a single-use “cardboard” disposable camera? NYI says, forget it! These cameras usually have a fixed shutter speed, and you can’t “fool” them into doing the right thing no matter what you do.

Second, and equally important, since you are taking a time-exposure, your camera should be on a solid, unmoving base throughout the exposure. A tripod is best. If you don’t have a tripod, try bracing your camera against some solid structure – for example, a wall, a post, or a railing. They’re not as good as a tripod, but they’re better than hand-holding your camera. And hand-holding is the road to disaster – no one likes blurry fireworks photos.

Third, to add an extra-special touch to your picture, try to include something on the ground to give a sense of location to the firework display in the sky. For example, across the bottom of your frame you might show silhouettes of the crowd, or a statue (George Washington on horseback?), or the skyline of thecity. This one trick will do more to make your fireworks pictures stand out than any other single thing you can do. “There are some special do’s and don’ts that will help digital photographers get the best results,” notes DeLaney. “We
written a special article just to address those issues.”

For lots more advice on how to take “great” fireworks pictures, and some great fireworks photos, visit http://www.nyip.com/ezine/holidays/firewksintro.html or read the other photo tips on the New York Institute of Photography (NYI) Web site at http://www.nyip.com.

Reprinted with permission from the New York Institute of Photography
Photos by Lau

If you have just purchased your Nikon D80, the controls on the outside of the camera coupled with all the menus and custom settings can be … all » downright overwhelming. We give you a structure for looking at the controls as well as a repeatable ritual for taking great photos with your new camera. You spent a bundle on this camera. Let it be an extension of your hands rather than a struggle. The Nikon D80 is a powerful piece of equipment. A solid understanding of its features and controls can really unleash its potential. Once you learn how the camera’s components work together, you’ll have all the tools you need to capture the best image under all conditions.
Understanding AF Area Selections Topics include:
• Be Prepared (To Get the Shot)
• Shutter Priority
• Aperture Priority/Depth of Field
• Focus Alternatives
• Metering and Bracketing
• White Balance/Color Temperature
• ISO
• Playback Options / Image Review
• Understanding Histograms
• Exposure Compensation
• Flash Overview
• Custom Settings
• Tripods and Telephoto Lenses
• Programmable Buttons
• RAW (NEF) Files
• Composition
• My Menus
• Bracketing versus Post Processing
• Shutter Priority to Achieve the Effect You Want
• Self Timer and Delay for Rock Solid Results
Take great pictures with your Nikon D80! All you need is this training DVD and about 93 minutes, and you’ll have the knowledge and the confidence to create the images you want. The topics are arranged in chapters, so you can move at your own pace, and return later to individual subjects.

Nikon Understanding Digital Photography DVD You are ready to take your digital SLR photography beyond the automatic settings on your … all » Nikon digital SLR camera, this 45 minute Nikon School© DVD is the perfect guide. Join Bob Krist, award-winning National Geographic Traveler Photographer, on a day of shooting and instruction. Along the way, Bob will offer valuable insights on choices you can make to begin composing and shooting breathtaking photographs.

While on a variety of locations, Bob will share his vast knowledge of photography and Nikon digital SLRs to educate you on:

· Camera settings for best quality in various situations
· Lens choice for creative and practical shooting
· Utilizing the Retouch Menu for in-camera editing
· Exposure fundamentals and shooting options

During the day’s shooting, Bob takes us to familiar situations around the home and demonstrates a variety of creative photographic opportunities. Understanding Digital Photography covers the use of the Nikon Creative Lighting System, using Nikon Speedlights for portraits and small groups. Bob continues removing the mystery of overcoming photographic challenges in a variety of environments including the difficulties encountered with twilight portraits and landscapes.

This DVD offers valuable instruction to anyone interested in digital SLR photography, particularly those who have some familiarity with a digital SLR’s basic functions. For those unfamiliar with basic digital SLR operation, I recommend beginning with the Nikon School© DVD, Fast, Fun& Easy: Great Digital Pictures.

Repetition of shape and colour can add an engaging motif to your scene without making an ugly busy composition. Finding pattern and symmetry for your shot need not constrain you to photographing your grandparent’s carpets and curtains.

Spot the Patterns

Patterns of all kinds occur at all scales throughout nature, but also throughout human constructs too – and this is what I’m focusing on now.
If you live in a big city and don’t feel too attracted to street photography, then you probably think about abstract photography. By looking for patterns around your home you train you eye to see in a more abstract way.
However, note that abstract art not only includes textures and patterns, but also minimalistic lines and color spots/shapes. The keyword for a successful urban pattern photography is repetition.

Accentuate the Pattern in Your Photo

Try to zoom in close enough to the pattern so that it fills the frame and makes the repetition seem as though it’s bursting out. In some rare cases you can brake this rule to give the viewer a comparison for the patterned object.
One of the most commonly seen pattern in a city is made by the arrangement of the windows. You can photograph this scene normally (horizontal view) or in diagonal, from different angles. (examples sourse)

Stairs also create interesting shapes: different spirals, curves and lines.

Example by Yitzhak Avigur

Alex Wasilewski from Springfield, Illinois and his image ‘A Record in Stone’:

Night lights: dots from the standing reflectors and lines from the moving vehicles.

Any other objects that come together in a group in public places: like baskets in shopping malls, sits in an empty room, boxes and books on shelfs, the same product repeated in a shop, dishes, wheels and wheel patterns, bricks and so on.

Original Image

Industry (not just construction industry that I mentioned at the beginning) and agriculture (however, this goes under rural patterns) present activities which have as a result a man-made work full of patterns. Some of these are only visible from a plane or some high building.
One of the most famous picture of this kind illustrates parked cars (by Alex MacLean).

And one last note: you can also try some macro shots on electronic circuits (and any other man-made little objects) and include them as urban patterns.

Last one by arhitectural photographer Ross Langdon.
More:
Charles Webster Patterns:

During the past few days I had a walk in the park and I noticed the beginning of autumn. After a few shots capturing lonely people in the far distance on the “golden” autumn afternoon – melancholic spirit, I got connected with the ground: some leaves (left standing or prearranged) create patterns and abstactional lines, shapes and colors. A few stairs covered by leaves and empty feet stepping on them was an idea I go but could not yet do. When I found myself close to a branch, I toked a close-up of it with the rest of the forest behind. However, macro shots of leaves are more impressive is you take one in your hand and shoot it even closer, creating a deeper DOF behind it. Another interesting idea I had was to combine old rusty objects and architecture pieces with the dead leaves. Go on and try that!

The 10 Tips

By trying to make a resume of how to acieve great photos in autumn I came out with these tips:
1. Try to take photos in the early morning or late evening (however, shooting directly against the sun will only cause a mixture of overexposed and underexposed areas – you don’t want that, but if you are lucky, you might get some spectacular sun rays through a golden forest)
2. Combine colors: take together red, yellow, green, and maroon leaves
3. Look up, look down and try different angles and backgrounds (I admit I climbed a tree to get one of my ideas done)
4. Follow the rapid changes of nature day by day on a near foliage
5. Look for contrasts but also fill one frame with just one color (same leaves)
6. Set the white balance to cloudy (even fluorescent might work) to get more vibrant colors – ah and by the way, also choose the vivid option for the pictures
7. The sun might be very powerful over the yellow leaves, and, in order to obtain more vibrant well-exposed colors, slightly underexpose your shots
8. A polarizer also helps allot, if any
9. Shoot near a lake and capture the colorful reflection
10.When editing your photos, saturate in yellow and red channels and add a yellowish photo filter to warm up the scene (if the cloudy white balance didn’t done well enough)

Tags: autumn photos, leaves photos, autumn photo tips, photo tips, macro leaves

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is probably the best software for photographers. When doing a search over the Internet for finding books explaining how to use this software at it’s best, I came out with no less that 7 different books of 7 distinct writers. The previous experience thought me that I should first stop at Scott Kelby‘s and Rob Sheppard‘s published teachings. In these books I learn how to:
• Use Lightroom to streamline the process of importing, managing, developing, and presenting quantities of images
• Explore nondestructive image processing and color-managed printing
• Work with tone curve, adjust white balance, fine-tune vibrancy and saturation, and easily correct color
• Create your own presets to use again and again based on adjustments you use regularly
• Organize and manage images in the Library and set up a customized system
• Create eye-popping prints, show-stopping sideshows, and Web galleries that showcase your skills
• Make the most of Lightroom’s integration with Photoshop
It’s OK to know all that stuff the Software can do, but Scott Kelby goes behind that: he explains to which kind of photos can an effect by applied.

However, here’s the list of all the books on this matter:
1. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers
Author: Scott Kelby; Price: $26.39
2. The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book
Author: Martin Evening; Price: $26.40
3. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Workflow
Author: Tim Grey; Price: $26.39
4. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for Digital Photographers Only
Author: Rob Sheppard; Price: $23.09
5. Photoshop Lightroom Adventure
Author: Mikkel Aaland; Price: $26.39
6. Digital Photographer’s Guide to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
Author: John Beardsworth; Price: $19.77
7. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.1 for the Professional Photographers
Author: David Huss, David Plotkin; Price: $23.07

And my recommendations:

Tags: Rob Sheppard, Scott Kelby, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, Lightroom, Lightroom book, photography book, photo editing book

34 stunning images of smoke taken by Graham Jefferey made rumours around the world of photography.
To get the best possible smoke to work with, Graham uses simple incense sticks known as Joss sticks, which can be purchased from most Chinese supermarkets and in every Chinatown anywhere in the world. Alternatively, any reasonably large incense stick should do the trick.
Once you’ve got the smoke, the rest is all down to freezing the motion, and getting the lighting right. “In my opinion,” explains Graham, “the key technical factor is to adequately light the smoke so that it stands out from the background.”
“I want clean lines and shapes”, Graham explains. To do this, he shoots with a lot of light at a small aperture (and thereby a deeper depth of field). “This is very much easier to do if the smoke is allowed to rise naturally.” Once you’re taking photos, it’s worth keeping in mind that you need to keep the room well-ventilated : “as the air fills up with the fog of dissipated smoke your pictures will be robbed of light, contrast and sharpness” — never mind your health, think of the photos!
Read this excelent article at photocritic.org .

Tags: smoke, photo, photography, jefferey graham, fog, incense sticks

Abstract art is now generally understood to mean art that does not depict objects in the natural world, but instead uses colour and form in a non-representational way. Abstraction is based on sensation, intuition, feeling, and thinking.
But it’s a missconcept to believe that nature can not offer abstractions without human touch. The easiest way of understanding is by following this example:
Look at a tree in a way you usually do and your first thought will probably be the so called “lonely tree” theme for your shoot. But then look again at the details of the tree: the patterns of the leaves, the texture of the tree stamp, sometimes the shape of the roots. Once you look only at the picture of such parts of a tree, you begin to understand what an interesting network of colours and shapes you got. Eye caching, is it not?

Tags: abstract art, abstraction, nature, texture, sensation, pattern