Digital Photography Tutorials » Documentary Photos

Pictures from my Trip to Germany – Hamburg

lau — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:01:40 +0000

It’s a very common thing to find street performers and carnivals in every big city in Germany if you happen to be in the market place during the weekend.
This is, for photographers, a great opportunity to capture spontaneous emotions of people, take advantage of the free show and the clothing.
Please comment about the feelings that these photographs have on you. Do you feel the music? Do you hear the drums? If you do, then it means that the shot is a succesfull one: your eye went from the happy faces of the players to their instruments and back, without any other distractions from the background.

Winter Photography Photos With Music

biteus — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 09:20:04 +0000

I’ve made a short video with my winter photos from a park nearby . Enjoy!

Pictures from my Trip to Germany – Hannover

lau — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:28:19 +0000

Every weekend I took the train with my friends and we went visiting a near town.

First week we went to Hannover. Here I was amazed about the differences between new and old architecture. The colorful old town-hall next to a full glass building.

Here are some photos from both new and old Hannover. More photos later.

Pictures from my Trip to Germany – Bad Salzdetfurth

lau — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:36:54 +0000

Hello dear readers.

My new Job brought me for more than a month in Germany. Here I used every free hour to take pictures that would feed my memories later, but I also took pictures that I want you to see and enjoy the places I visited.

First of all, I spent my nights at Hotel Kronprinz in Bad Salzdetfurt (it’s a small village near Hannover, in Niedersachsen).

Here are some pictures of this friendly village.

Rural Photography Documentary

lau — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 20:52:02 +0000

To promote rural tourism, in Romania, many photographers go from village to village to take pictures of local habits and activities, local activities and clothes, objects, houses.
During the late summer of 2008, I choose to go in a wonderful village in the Apuseni Mountains on a specific day: the first day of the “Love Festival”, on the “Chiken Mountain Pick”.
I wanted to keep distance from people in order to capture instants of their live, not well prepared portraits. In order to do so, I used a tele-ob.: Tamron 70-300 mm.
Here I show you an old man playing a local musical instrument.

This is an instant portrait of on old lady covering her eyes from the burning sun.

Children are dancing on local music.

Since it was the “love festival”, here’s a portrait of the girl who won the contest for “perfect marriage country girl”.

Here is how the houses looked like in the old times in this area of my Country.

On the same topic, I have some older photos to illustrate the Romanian traditions.

How to Photograph a Circus Show

lau — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 21:53:41 +0000

In a Circus Show there are many factors different from any other kind of photography type. For example, the white balance does not matter too much, and you should also not worry about having too much noise: sure you will since the lighting environment is poor and the use of flash will only ruin the magic of the show.

The magic of the show is mostly based on motion and secondly on clothes. As a result, try to capture motion blur in your picture, but remember: slow shutter speed is not needed: fast motion in poor light is easy blurred at relatively fast shutter speeds. Try to capture the most expressive moments. In a show, the performers will always stop in a fixed position critical for the show, moment when they expect clapping. Be ready to shoot at this point of time.

I made these photos during the Aquatic Circus (from Italy) performance in my birth town. The main point of interest (for children more of all) were the aquatic animals. The gear I used is a Nikon D40x with Tamron 70-300mm lens. Tripod is not necessary.

The most important thing to remember when photographing a circus show is TO BE FAST. Prepare and test your gear before in such way that you will not have to change the lens or settings too often. There will be short breaks between different parts of the show, time to make some changes if needed.

Circus bring acrobats that move their body forming curves that look great in photography. Here is such a series. The difference of colors between the images is given by the lights used in the show.

Final note: remember these tips for concert photography too.

Taking Pictures Within a Car

lau — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 16:46:06 +0000

During the Photo-Tour I encountered nice places and scenes that I wanted to photograph but could not get out of the car because the road and traffic did not allowed me to stop the car. Also, sometimes, pictures taken from a car can be more creative, more interesting than a normal snapshot of the landscape. Here is what I mean:
1. TIP: By shooting from inside the car, frame your picture with the car elements: mirror, or, the lateral window. However, don’t focus on these element: they represent just the frame, not the point of interest. The point of interest is the environment outside the car.

2. TIP: The picture from inside the car is interesting when motion blur is present. Not hard to do that: there are two key factors that you should know when hunting for the right moment to get the most spectacular blur:
FIRST: near objects get more of the motion blur

SECOND: the greater the speed, the stronger the motion blur

3. TIP: Considering the speed of the car, and the fact that inside the car there is less light than outside, you should set your camera on shutter speed priority – fast shutter speed. The kind of motion blur you want is not the one caused by your camera shake (which is an up-down movement), but the one caused by the moving car (which is horizontal).

4. TIP: Some animals tend to approach the car. Prepare something to eat and ask someone inside the car to hand it over the window, then catch with your camera the moment when the animal sticks the head into the car. Funny, isn’t it?

5. TIP: If the car is stopped but there is no need to get off in order to shoot something you like, then maybe you should not think about framing the picture with car elements: just open the window and take a normal shot. Without the motion-blur or middle of the road situations, it does not make much sens to fill the picture with unnecessary elements. However, the next pictures are some exceptions.

6. TIP: Watch out for the reflection and dust! The reflection of your body or other elements in the care window, and the dust on the window, can be avoided if you just open the window. Depending on the Sun’s position, you may not get any reflections thou the glass. Here’s an example of the situation when you can not open the front window of the car, so the is some dust…

Also, there are some situations when the reflection in the car’s lateral mirror can be interesting.

10 GB of Photogrpahs in 10 Days – Biggest Photo Tour of PhotoAxe

lau — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 21:23:04 +0000

You may be wondering where have I been this month since I disappeared for over 20 days. In the first 2 weeks I have been busy making big changes in my life, but then, I toked a 10 days photo tour in the center and south part of my country, Romania. I was lucky to have every single day with fog in the morning and warm sun after that, no rain at all.
The perfect weather and the perfect season for great photography.
The result were 10 GB of pictures which I am preparing to show you. The main theme – the dominating subject – was “ruins, castles and fortresses”. Second, there were museums and churches.
Also, there are some new tutorials on the way, so keep in touch!
Here’s a map of the route (blue) I’ve been on, and a list of the places I photographed.

Targoviste,
Curtea de Arges,
Cozia,
Calimanesti-Caciulata,
Transfagasan,
Vidraru,
Balea,
Valea Oltului,
Tarnaveni,
Ocna Sibiului,
Sibiu,
Avrig,
Bazna,
Deva,
Hunedoara,
Sarmisegetuza Ulpia traiana,
Sarmisegetuza Regia,
CosteÅŸti – CetÄƒÅ£uie,
Fagaras,
Rasnov,
Bucuresti

Since the amount of great pictures is high, I opened a photo gallery and a group on flickr. Old photos and new ones can be watched here. Weekly PhotoCritique will continue with the help of photoaxe group: post your picture in the club and all members will comment. After a week or so, photos will be selected and a resume will be posted on www.photoaxe.com.

Documentary on War Photography

lau — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 07:47:53 +0000

This video shows photography during and after World War II that was not yet seen.
But is only a small part of an historical documentary about photography. You can find out more about “The Genius of Photography” on the BBC website.

Follow the story of photography in BBC Four’s six-part series ‘The Genius of Photography’. See some of the most famous photographs ever taken and find out more about what made them so very special.

Tutorial: Photography Trip into The Mines

lau — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 11:29:40 +0000

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: