[Photography] How to Find the Perfect Photography Assistant

The post How to Find the Perfect Photography Assistant appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Mat Coker.

Whether you’re a professional photographer or a passionate amateur, I insist that you need a photography assistant.

You may think that you can lug around your own gear and do a great job on your own, but no matter how good you are, a photography assistant will make you better.

It’s not just about carrying your gear around. Your photography assistant takes on the tasks that clutter your mind and smother your creativity. When your assistant carries the load of the little things, your mind has room to roam and allow creativity to flow.

Your assistant frees your working memory to be creative. While you’re spitting out ideas, they’re taking note and making sure everything happens right. Meanwhile, you’re paying attention to nothing but your subject and the creative ideas coming together in your mind. They’re your second brain and second set of hands that you wish you were born with.

The practical implications of having an assistant

If you love street photography but are too shy to approach people for portraits, you can bring a chatty friend to be your assistant. They can strike up conversations with people and then say, “can my photographer friend take your picture?”

Your assistant can document your process through candid photos of you at work as a photographer. This is perfect for your blog and other publications.

During a wedding day, they’re organizing people for photos and handing you lenses as you need them. Your mind is free to focus on creative ideas and details that normally escape you.

Even when you’re photographing a landscape they can become your model when you wish there was a person in the scene.

Together, you and your assistant are an incredible partnership.

On the other hand, an assistant can ruin your work when they become a liability.

Here is how to find the perfect assistant who won’t let you down.

While I’m taking photos, my assistant is checking my list and adding to it as we have new ideas.

The traits of a great assistant

1. Loves to learn

The first thing to look for in an assistant is somebody who is obsessed with learning. They will love working with you and soak up the entire experience. They are eager to help with everything. Somebody who loves to learn and explore, and who can’t wait to work with you through new experiences.

2. Agreeable

When you find somebody obsessed with learning, they also need to have an agreeable personality. An assistant must be willing to do whatever you ask them without objecting to your ideas. Some people simply can’t handle being a helper – insisting on being in charge. You don’t want that sort of person because you’ll always be bumping up against them in conflict.

3. Polite

Your assistant must be capable of being extremely polite. Don’t risk jeopardizing your shoot with somebody who is rude toward your clients. They should also be enthusiastic and not shy about strangers.

4. Hardworking

The perfect assistant is hardworking and willing to be on their feet. They will be willing to run around without rest all day if necessary. They must be orderly and know where everything goes, and keep everything in place and ready for you.

If you work in high pressure situations, then your assistant must be capable of embracing stress without crumbling.

Look for assistants wherever you can find them. Sometimes an older sibling can help you make the infants laugh! My actual assistant is crouched behind the seat making sure the infant doesn’t fall.

Where can you find an assistant?

Your assistant doesn’t need to be an actual photographer. This may sound crazy, but it really doesn’t matter if they understand photography as long as they can assist you in the way you need them to. In fact, a non-photographer may offer insights that a fellow photographer would overlook.

Maybe your assistant should be a painter, musician or engineer. Each one will help you overcome different challenges in their unique way.

But if you are looking for someone who is a photographer to assist you, perhaps you could begin at a photo club. Many people at photo clubs are not working professionals, but they may be incredible photographers nevertheless.

You could bring a professional photographer to assist you. If that’s the case, I suggest a photographer who is the opposite of you.

I assist a local photographer from time to time and we love working with each other because we are exact opposites. He is orderly, precise, in tune with the details, and works with strobe lighting. In contrast, I prefer chaos, haphazard camera work, tuning into the big picture and using terribly challenging ambient light. It is a thrill to bring such opposites together!

I often let kids use my camera during family photo sessions. This candid photo was captured by my assistant.

When to fire your assistant

Don’t hire an assistant unless you are strong enough to fire them some day.

Fire them if they hinder your work and won’t change their ways.

But even when you have an amazing assistant with perfect chemistry, fire them as soon as they’re ready to have their own assistant. Don’t hold them back. Push them out so that they can grow too.

In the meantime, enjoy having the perfect assistant who frees your mind to let your creativity loose.

 

Feature image by: Greg Gelsinger

The post How to Find the Perfect Photography Assistant appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Mat Coker.

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[Photography] How to Achieve Color Accuracy in your Photos

The post How to Achieve Color Accuracy in your Photos appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Karthika Gupta.

Ricardo Gomez Angel

Next to light, color accuracy is another important element in photography. Color temperature is annoying enough to deal with in terms of camera settings and editing. You spend all this time and effort on editing your photos and making sure they match your photography style. But sometimes the final product can be off if viewed on an uncalibrated screen. While having an accurately calibrated screen is ideal, there are still some things you can do to ensure that the colors are as close to the real deal as possible.

1. Photographing in raw

Completely overexposed sunset in the Grand Cayman. I love the little sailboat in the distance and tried to correct the image in post.

The sun is still overexposed and not perfect, but because I photograph in Raw 100% of the time, I could put down the exposure, highlights, contrast and my other normal editing steps. I was able to get some of the details back.

This really is key and I am a huge proponent of photographing in RAW 100% of the time. The colors can be adjusted easily on raw files in editing software like Lightroom, Photoshop, and others. But with jpegs, they’re already baked in. It is not impossible just harder to achieve the exact match.

In Raw files, all the original image data is preserved. In fact, when RAW files are opened in post-production software like Lightroom, a virtual copy is made and used. Edits are made in a non-destructive format so the original RAW file is always available for changes at a later stage. This is very useful when you want to edit images in different ways at different times in your photographic career.

Since a JPEG image is essentially a RAW image compressed in-camera, the camera’s computer makes decisions on what data to retain and which to toss out when compressing the file. JPEG files tend to have a smaller dynamic range of information that is stored and this often means less ability to preserve both highlights and shadow details in the image.

2. Use Kelvin WB mode on your camera

If photographing RAW is not something you can do, or don’t have space for on your flash drives (RAW files tend to be really huge), try photographing using Kelvin White Balance mode instead of Auto White Balance. Not all cameras may have this function, so check your camera manual to figure out the exact menu option and also how to adjust the value. Kelvin lets you adjust the white balance in camera rather than in post. In general, in your camera manual are the ranges of Kelvin values for the various lighting setups. You will have to tweak the values depending on your style and how you want the final image to look.

3. Use a good display screen/monitor

Cheaper screens have smaller color ranges, so the better your screen, the more colors that can be displayed. This is where you’ll be looking at the photos, so you don’t want your image to be limited in that way. At the very minimum, if you’re editing photos, you need a 99% sRGB screen. 100% Adobe RGB capable screens (which is generally better) are also relatively affordable now. That said, most media on the web generally uses sRGB format, so sRGB is perfectly adequate. People generally recommend editing in that color space anyway. In general, for built-in displays like laptops, most modern Mac screens have really good color accuracy and distribution.

This outdoor space was very hazy when we visited because of many forest fires in the area. That haze and overall air quality and temperature gave a very pink glow to all my images, one that I missed the first time I edited my images on my computer. But then I went back and edited to a more accurate representation of what the scene actually looked like.

4. Calibrate your monitor

Not enough people realize how big a difference calibrating your monitor makes. If your entire computer screen is shifted to be purple, when you look at your final images in a color-calibrated medium, it’s going to end up green. There are several in the market that do a good job like Datacolor Spyder 5 or X-Rite ColorMunki. At the end of the day, they all essentially have the same functionality. Plug in the color sensor, put it against your screen, run the software, and it will automatically install the color profile for you.

5. Edit in a color neutral workspace

Where you sit and work can also make a difference to how you edit. As funny as it may sound, it is true. If you have bright warm sunlight flooding your computer screen, you will likely edit cooler. The eye is automatically going to compensate for the warmth by gravitating towards cooler tones. If you have cool indoor lighting flooding your editing room, that might not work either. Believe it or not, the ideal editing environment is actually a totally dark room, so you don’t pollute any of the colors. I know I cannot edit in a dark room because starting at the screen for too long in that space gives me a headache. If you must edit somewhere with another light source, do your color calibration in that room. The Spyder and ColorMunki can both accommodate the ambient light in your environment.

The image was shot and edited in the same room with side lighting. Had I not seen this in another room and on another computer, I would have missed the uneven lighting and tonality from the left to the right side of the image, giving it a look of almost photographing with a flash, which was not my intention.

6. Use multiple devices to spot check color

If you are really doubting your color tones and edits, double check them on another device. Most people have iPhones these days, and iPhones are surprisingly well-calibrated. Unfortunately, you can’t use the calibrators on most phones, to the best of my knowledge, so just send your photos over to your phone, and you should get an idea of how most people are seeing your images.

The blueish tone in the image here would have been completely missed had I not seen the image on an iPad and an iPhone prior to sending out to a client. I prefer true to form white backgrounds when working with stock photos.

Unfortunately, most people, including myself, don’t pay too much attention to color accuracy in their photos. Most of the color matching stops at editing. Sometimes we even call it ‘photography style’ and leave it at that. But if you really want to understand color and how images can actually look versus relying on a specific style or edit, try one or all these steps. It is actually fairly simple once it clicks.

What techniques do you use for maintaining your color? Share with us in the comments below.

The post How to Achieve Color Accuracy in your Photos appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Karthika Gupta.

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[Photography] 11 Influential Portrait Photographers you Need to Know

[Photography] Explorations in Natural Light for Photography

The post Explorations in Natural Light for Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Karthika Gupta.

Can you guess one of the most important elements in photography? No, it is not gear, or subject or even location. Yes, all of those are important, but not critical. The most important element in photography is light. And light can quite literally make or break an image. It took me a long time to understand this concept. I used to always think that light can be either good or bad. Have you ever tried to photograph indoors in that horrible florescent light? Or at high noon where you place your subjects in the light, and everyone is getting really mad at you because they are squinting in the sun.

Well, let’s just say we all learn from experience. Once I understood that there really is no such thing as bad light, life as a photographer just became a little easier. Light is different and understanding all the different qualities of light is what can help you photograph at any time of day and get the results you want.

For the sake of this article, we will focus only on natural light. Natural light is one of the main sources I use for most of my photography.

There are several reasons why natural light photography is so popular:

• It is readily available and free
• It provides a range of light variations
• It is a super large light source a.k.a the sun
• It changes constantly
• It can be challenging to master and who doesn’t like a good challenge, right?

Let’s dig right in and understand all the complexes of natural light!

1. Light changes through time

The fascinating thing about natural light is that it changes constantly. Depending on the time of day, the season, or even the direction your window faces – light fluctuates minute to minute.

Just before the sun dipped into the horizon.

And 10-15 minutes after sunset when the sky just exploded with sun-pretty colors.

2. Light travels in a straight line but also has direction

Where is the light coming from? What angle is it coming from? I personally love the very one-directional, low-angle light that gives deep shadows that leads to a moody look. The best way to understand light direction is to look at a scene and see if it is coming from one plane, backlit, front lit etc.

By facing the subjects directly into the light streaming through the window, we almost can create a spotlight effect.

3. Light has intensity

How intense is the light? On a sunny day the light can be quite intense, but on a cloudy day the clouds act as a natural huge diffuser, and the light not only takes on a softer quality but also has less intensity.

4. Light has color

Is it a warmer light, such as in direct sunlight, or a cool light, such as at dusk? The color in the light affects the color and white balance of the scene and hence your photograph.

At sunset, the light is warm – exactly what I wanted for this editorial shoot.

5. Light reflects off of surfaces

This is particularly important because you have to be aware of your surroundings. This is also commonly known as a color cast in photos. Look at what’s around your scene including yourself. Your own clothing can reflect off the subject and cast unwanted color in the scene. This quality of light also allows us to try to modify light by adding a reflector to fill shadows, or a black surface to discourage any further reflections.

6. Character of light

Light can be harsh or soft or even a combination of the two which is known as dappled light. The best way to see dappled light is to stand under a tree in full sun. You will see spots of shade and sun on the ground or even on your clothes. This is dappled light. And if done right, is actually quite pretty in photos.

I love photographing food in this uneven, dappled light…the play of light, shadows, and patterns are what make this image work for me…instead of a boring white backdrop.

7. Proximity of light

This one is a little difficult to grasp because the sun is so far away. But the closer we are to the light, the more power it has. Try this out for yourself and sit closer to the window. Is the light more intense? Now move further away from the window and see if the light feels less intense?

One of my absolute favorite images of all times and almost no editing involved. Side lighting and diffused window make the dancer stand out and everything else fades away.

8. Relativity of light

This is a powerful aspect of light in that the way light hits various subjects is relative. If you have light hitting the primary object without hitting the background, the background will fade into shadows no matter if it’s white/black. You can achieve a black backdrop even with a white backdrop. Our eyes have incredible dynamic range and can see everything, but by selectively lighting objects, we can take photos that let objects fade into oblivion.

Conclusion

One of the best ways to create a mental checklist of all these properties of light is to do a small exercise. Walk around your area, be it your house or office space, look at the light in a scene and categorize it. Where is it coming from, what is the quality of light, and how can you use it? The more you look and analyze, the more you add to your light repertoire and pull it out when you need it for shoots.

The post Explorations in Natural Light for Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Karthika Gupta.

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[Photography] 5 Secret Tips to Take Sharp Photos Using Any Camera

The post 5 Secret Tips to Take Sharp Photos Using Any Camera appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kunal Malhotra.

How to take sharp photos is one of the most common issues a beginner photographer faces. In order to suggest a few important tips, I went back a few years and recalled the issues I used to come across.

Here are five tips I learned over the years to ensure I always take sharp photos using any camera.

1. Select Maximum AF Points

Every digital camera has a certain number of focus points, which are used by the camera to lock focus. By default, you can either allow the camera to use all the focus points or reduce them to a specific number such as 11, 9 or even one point.

I make sure that I am making use of all the focus points, to minimize the use of ‘focus and recompose.’ Keeping all the focus points active ensures that you get to use the entire focusing area on the sensor. Whereas, reducing the active focus points makes you focus and recompose the frame, resulting in soft focus.

2. 1-point AF

In the majority of situations, using single-point autofocus can help you nail the focus. Because if you allow the camera to lock focus as per its functionality automatically, there are chances that the focus might go off.

Assume you are taking a portrait, and in order to achieve crisp focus, you wish to focus on the eye of the subject. While using autofocus point selection, chances are, the camera might focus on the nose or the lips. The reason this happens is the camera does not know that you want to want to focus on the eye specifically.

Now by using the single-point autofocus feature, you can manually select the point where your eye is in the frame. Doing so, allows you to get the accurate focus on the eye, without any hit and trial method.

3. Back Button focus technique

There are some situations when you try to focus on a subject and the camera takes some time before you can fully press the shutter release button. Alternatively, when you want to take photos in Burst Mode the camera misses focussing on a few shots. You can eliminate these issues and achieve accurate focus by using the back button focus method.

The Back Button focus technique allows you to assign a button placed on the rear side of your camera to focus, and the shutter release button when pressed fully, captures the image.

While using this technique, you will realize that on pressing the shutter release button halfway, nothing happens. This is because another button using your thumb is now controlling the focusing.

4. Use of Shutter Priority

If you are a wildlife, action or sports photographer, there might have been instances where you were not able to freeze the motion of your subject. Moreover, if you shoot in low-lighting conditions, you might have encountered shake in your photos.

In any of the above situations, I make sure that I am using my camera on Shutter Priority mode. The basic rule that I start with is using the shutter speed 1/2x of the focal length. For example, while shooting at 50mm, I ensure that I start shooting by using 1/100 sec (1/2×50 = 1/100). In the worst situations, I reduce the shutter speed by 1-2 stops if my lens supports Image Stabilization.

Using the Shutter Priority mode ensures that your camera is using a specific shutter speed that results in no or minimum shake in the image. If you wish to freeze the motion of a moving subject, you can dial a fast shutter speed like 1/2000 sec and let the camera do the remaining math.

5. Take backup shots

The last important tip to get sharp photos would be to take a few backup shots during your shoot. Imagine if you are doing a commercial shoot and when you return to your editing desk you realize that the subject is out of focus or the image is not sharp.

Make sure that after clicking the desired photo, you take a few extra photos of the same frame. These backup photos reduce the risk and increase the possibility of getting sharp photos.

In the past 8-9 years, these five tips have helped me to nail focus in almost any situation and deliver quality work to my clients.

Do you have other tips? Do share your views in the comment below.

The post 5 Secret Tips to Take Sharp Photos Using Any Camera appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kunal Malhotra.

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[Photography] How to Add a Toy Camera Effect to Your Digital Images Using Photoshop

The post How to Add a Toy Camera Effect to Your Digital Images Using Photoshop appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Megan Kennedy.

They may look cute, but toy cameras aren’t actually toys at all. The name refers to inexpensive film cameras made predominantly of plastic and paired with a simplistic lens.

From around the 1990s, toy cameras garnered popularity for their distinctive aesthetic. Cameras like the Diana and Holga are embraced, light leaks and all, for their wonderfully unpredictable results.

With their vignetting, blurry focus and lens distortion, photographers armed with toy cameras relinquish control over the definitive outcome of the image, adding a palpable sense of serendipity to the photographic process.

Applying a toy camera effect to a digital photograph isn’t the same as using a toy camera itself, I know. But it’s a fun way to add a unique retro feel to a photograph while making use of the control that a digital camera affords.

Here’s how to add a toy camera effect to a digital photograph using Photoshop.

1. Cropping your image

Open up your image in Photoshop. Here’s my starting image.

The original image

Toy cameras work within a square format, so you’ll need to crop your photograph accordingly. Select the Crop Tool from the left toolbar. In the top toolbar, click on the dropdown menu that regulates the crop ratio. Select 1×1 (Square).

A square demonstrating the crop parameters will appear over your image. Adjust the parameters until you are happy and press enter.

2. Applying a vignette

With your layer selected in the Layers palette, go to Layer -> Duplicate Layer. A dialogue box will pop up. In the input field next to “As:” type “Layer 1” and click OK. This duplicates your current layer so you can work non-destructively.

Next, right click on Layer 1 and select Convert to Smart Object.

Select Filter -> Lens Correction and a dialog box will open. Click on the Custom tab. In the Vignette section of the Custom tab, adjust the Amount slider and the Midpoint slider until you have a nice, dark vignette (for this image I set the amount to -100 and the midpoint to +10). Repeat this step if you want a darker vignette.

Use the Lens Correction function to apply a vignette to your image

3. Adding blur

As I mentioned before, a lot of photographs taken with a toy camera are unfocused or blurry. To emulate this, make sure Layer 1 is selected and go to Filter->Blur->Gaussian Blur. In the Gaussian Blur window set the Radius from 5 to 10 pixels depending on your image and click OK.

In the Gaussian Blur window set the Radius from 5 to 10 pixels depending on your image and click OK

4. Adjusting colors

Toy cameras often lend a distinctive color-cast to photographs. In the layers panel, click on the Create a new fill or adjustment layer button and select Curves. In the Curves adjustment palette click on the RGB menu, select the red channel and create a shallow ‘S’ bend. Select the green channel and apply the same shallow ‘S’ shape. Now select the blue channel and create an inverted ‘S’.

Use the curves function to emulate the distinctive color-cast often encountered in photos taken with a toy camera

5. Creating light leaks

One fun characteristic of toy cameras are light leaks. A light leak is caused by a hole or gap in the body of the camera, allowing light to “leak” into the film chamber. This exposes the film to excess light. The result is whimsical fields of color that add character to a photograph and illustrate the photographic process.

To emulate light leaks you first need to create a new layer. Click on the Create a new layer button at the bottom of the layers panel and rename the layer “Light leaks”.

Select your brush tool and set the brush size to around 2000 and your hardness to 0%. Set the foreground color to your preferred color – usually red, yellow or blue. With the “Light leaks” layer selected, dot or streak one or two patches of color over your image.

Once you are done painting the light leaks, change the Blending Mode of the layer by clicking on the Blending Modes dropdown menu and selecting Color. You can change the opacity of the light leaks by toggling the Opacity slider on the layers panel too.

Conclusion

And there you have it. Now that you know how to add a toy camera aesthetic to your photograph, the possibilities are endless. This is a great opportunity to make use of unfocused, spotty or noisy digital images. It’s the next best thing to using a real toy camera yourself!

Here are a couple of my own creations below, post yours in the comments!

 

The post How to Add a Toy Camera Effect to Your Digital Images Using Photoshop appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Megan Kennedy.

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