by adecosmo

Circling Back

Picture Info: ISO 100, 36mm, f/20, 20 Second

Week 43 (5/26/2014 -6/1/2014): Uptown Hoboken

Picture taken on 5/30/2014 at 9:49 PM

Photograph description:

Hoboken is a great place to live if you enjoy running. Hoboken has countless running routes to choose from, most of which are accompanied by an amazing view. Since moving to Hoboken over a year ago I’ve mapped out a few of my own running routes. Each route presents a different physical challenge along with the constant mental challenge of fighting the urge to stop and take pictures every few steps. Out of all the routes I run, my favorite is what I refer to as my “uptown route.” My uptown route starts at Maxwell Park and hugs the water line all the way into Weehawken. Eventually I circle back to Hoboken the same way I came, with my finish line being the path featured in this picture. The reason this route is my favorite is because typically there aren’t many other joggers to get in my way and of course having this view as my finish line is a nice perk.

I run a few times per week so I’ve seen this view countless times and countless times I’ve said to myself that would make for a great picture. Not only is this a beautiful site, it also reminds me to always finish what I start. Each time I get to this point of my run I’m usually tired and ready to stop, but instead of slowing down I usually kick up the intensity for this last straight away. Typically I wait until some other runner makes it about halfway then I chase them down and try to finish ahead of them. I believe that the more you train yourself to push through hard situations, the more it becomes second nature and the stronger you’ll be both physically and mentally. This is the code that I live by and this picture reminds me to practice this each and every day. Always finish and always finish strong!

Photography concepts:

One of the reasons this view always draws me in is because of the natural “Leading Lines” composition. The lights and trees that line the path converge and take your eyes straight towards the Empire State Building. Year round this is a powerful view but the conditions never seemed right for me to get a good picture. Additionally the street lights always presented glare issues that took away from the picture. Recently I figured out the right camera settings and editing techniques to eliminate the glare issues so I finally decided to give this picture a shot.

The camera setting that has helped the most with photographing strong light sources (e.g. the sun, street lights, ect.) has been a small aperture. The smaller the aperture the less bleeding light and the cleaner it looks. For night photography f/18 and above is a great aperture to use. If you’re using this small of an aperture at night it’s more than likely that you’ll be hitting some slow shutter speeds so don’t forget your tripod.

When it came time to edit this picture there were two adjustments that were key. First, to bring out the detail in the Empire State Building I dropped the highlights of the area surrounding the building. I’ve found that dropping the highlights of buildings at night makes them look very crisp. The second adjustment was to lower the saturation all colors in the image except green. What this did was eliminate any of the lens glare that showed up as random colors, and it made the leading lines composition of the trees even more of a focal point. As a result the not only does the composition of the image take you down the path but the isolation of the green color also acts as a guide for your eyes too.

The last aspect of this picture that helped enhance the composition was the size of the Empire State Building. If you’re a Hoboken local and you’ve taken this picture before chances are the Empire State Building was much smaller than in this picture. Why is that? It’s because of my focal length 36mm x 1.5 = 54mm. Most phones shoot at around 30mm and since focal length essentially equates to zoom so when I use ~54mm the building is larger. The thing that’s interesting about zoom is if you stand further back your foreground will be scaled regular, but whatever is in the background (e.g. the Empire State Building) will appear larger than usual. You see this technique a lot when people photograph the moon and get that insanely large moon backdrop. Although I shot with a greater zoom then people do with phones, my image resembles how this path looks like to the naked eye. Had I stood further back and zoomed in with 80mm+ the Empire State Building would have looked massive. I’m limited to the 35mm range for this blog but I encourage you to try zoomed focal lengths to scale up your backdrop subjects. Experiment with your camera’s settings and new focal lengths, it’s the only way you’ll learn!

05.25.14

by adecosmo

A Year Down the Road

Picture Info: ISO 100, 36mm, f/22, 5.0 seconds

Week 42 (5/19/2014 -5/25/2014): “The Farm” PA

Picture taken on 5/25/2014 at 9:00PM

Photography Description:

Progress, it’s something that is noticeable but not always easy to measure. Some progress is tangible while other progress is more metaphysical. When it comes to metaphysical progress, the question is how can you measure the progress of something that doesn’t have a scale of measure. Take for example a picture, how can you scale a picture’s quality? Is a picture measured by the number of “likes”, the price tag someone can sell it for, or is it the satisfaction the photographer get’s after taking it? The concept of measuring my own progress in the world of photography is one that I’ve been dwelling on recently. I feel like I’m getting better, but how can I truly measure my progress?

This past week presented the perfect opportunity for me to try and measure my progress in the world of photography. For me, one of the key metrics in progress is difference over time. In terms of photography this means you need to take the same picture or shoot the same subject at two intervals of time. How does this relate to last week? Well last week marked the one year anniversary of purchasing my camera. I couldn’t think of a better way to gauge my progress than comparing pictures I took in the first week of owning my camera, to ones I took one year later.

During the week I went out and tried to recreate some of my first attempted “night photography” pictures. After successfully recreating one of the pictures I took on the first night of owning my camera, the progress was pretty clear. However, after looking at my recreation I realized one nuance in my recreation idea. I couldn’t limit myself to taking the “exact” picture, I needed to place myself at the same location but then shoot freely choosing whatever composition I liked. Since composition is such a large component of photography, it seemed silly to force myself into recomposing images that might have been better from another perspective.

On Friday, I set out for my traditional Memorial Day weekend trip to “The Farm,” which is my friend Bob’s PA house. While in route I was excited knowing “The Farm’s” rural landscape would act as the perfect testing ground for my progress.

Recreation of a shot from 2013

Without getting into the technical aspect of my progress (I’ll cover that in the next section), let me just say WOW, I saw a whole new side to the Farm. It’s worth noting that I’ve been going to the Farm for 11 years, so something new totally blew my mind! Take this week’s picture for example. Never before have I thought to walk down this road during sunset. It wasn’t until this year that it dawned on me, this road, sunset and mountain background would make for the perfect leading line composition. The new perspectives didn’t stop at this road. The entire weekend I was shown how photography has unlocked a whole new world for me visually. That’s progress, and although it’s not entirely measurable it’s certainly noticeable to me and hopefully everyone else. Seeing the progress that I’ve made in a year makes me excited to think about where I’ll be another year down the road. Only time will tell…

The last night’s sunset

Photography Concepts:

There are three major differences between the way I shoot now, versus how I shot a year ago. First and probably the most important is the picture format that I shoot in. Last year I had no clue about RAW vs. JPEG, so I shot in JPEG to give myself more pictures per SD card. Had I shot this week’s picture in JPEG, I never would have been able to edit it the way I did. This week’s picture was shot in Nikon’s RAW “.NEF” format. While shooting, I purposely underexposed my image by a few stops knowing that it would better retain the detail in the sky, and I would be able to recover the lost detail in the foreground. Simply put, last year I was unaware of the RAW power of shooting in .NEF…pun intended.

The second major difference between last year and now, is that I now mainly shoot in manual mode instead of aperture priority. Manual mode is what enabled me to under expose my image to my desired level. I made the jump to shooting more in manual a few weeks ago and I can tell you it’s been paying off in almost every one of my pictures. Not only do I have more control, but I’m getting quicker at determining what settings are best for specific lighting or subject scenarios. Using this picture as an example, I instantly knew I wanted almost everything in focus so I shot at f/22. Initially I didn’t have my tripod when I show this picture. Last year I might have opened my aperture to f/2.8 so I could shoot with a fast enough shutter. This year I knew f/2.8 wouldn’t let me capture the image I wanted, so I ran back to the house grabbed my tripod and tapped into the power of f/22’s large plane of focus.

Last but definitely not least is what I touched on in the previous section, composition. Before taking the trip to the Farm this year I reviewed some of my pictures to see how I shot things. What I noticed was that I wasn’t composing my pictures to take advantage of the full scene. This year I focused more on lining things up or positioning myself at a location that gave me the best angle. As often as you can, while out shooting mentally take a step back and think to yourself where is the best angle? On top of that don’t fall in love with one location, move around! Last year I was one of the biggest offenders of getting concrete shoes. I picked a spot and took countless pictures. This year I took 5-10 pictures ranging in aperture from a location, then moved to the next spot. When you get home the last thing you want to see is 200 of the same picture. Variety is good so don’t forget to move.

That about wraps up my review of the differences between this year and last year. There were other things that I noticed, such as how I edit now, but it’s far too much to fit into one post. As I get closer to the end of this blog you can expect more then and now comparisons. Until then, I’m gone for now…

Leading Lines Pt2

05.22.14

by adecosmo

Instameet

Picture Info: ISO 100, 36mm, f/9.0, 1/80sec

Week 41 (5/12/2014 -5/18/2014): Madison Square Park, NYC

Picture taken on 5/18/2014 at 5:30PM

Photograph description:

Anyone that knows me would probably tell you that I’m an Instagram addict. I share a picture typically 1-2 times a day, and I’m constantly in pursuit of my next post. The reason I enjoy Instagram is mainly because it’s very simple, take a picture, share a picture, like a picture, and yet there is a depth to it. If something is going on in the world, chances are you can find basically a live feed to it on Instagram. Think of Instagram as your square portal to everything and anything happening around the world. You’re never more than a hashtag search away from getting a glimpse into anything from having tea in London, to a wild safari ride in Africa. The possibilities of what you can find are endless.

This past weekend Instagram tapped into the power of hashtags by using them to unify coordinated events around the world. The overall event was officially referred to as “WorldWide Instameet 9” and had the official hashtag of #WWIM9. The concept was simple, each city or region had an organizer that picked a time and location to meet. After meeting up everyone did exactly what brought them together, take and share pictures via Instagram. Each local “instameet” had their own hashtag in addition to the official worldwide one. This concept enabled people to search pictures at the worldwide level, or by the specific location.

A few days before WWIM9 a post about it popped in my Instagram feed. One of the more popular New York City instagrammers posted up the event details and pointed everyone in the direction of the organizers feed. Of course after stumbling upon this, it immediately peaked my interest. I’ve been meaning to check out one of these “instameets” but always seem to be busy on the day it’s held. Luckily, this time around I was finally free to participate.

I could probably write a 10 page post detailing the entire event, but where is the fun in that? Don’t just read about my instameet, go to one yourself! I promise you won’t be disappointed, unless your camera dies. My friend Becky may have put it best, there is so much creative energy flying around it’s hard not to get inspired.

Photography concepts:

This week I’m going to change it up. Instead of breaking down my picture I’m going to talk about some of the new photography concepts I was introduced to this past weekend. There was far more than just DSLR’s being used amongst the many participants. There were three different styles/equipment that really caught my attention. First, and probably the most captivating was how one instagrammer (@huper_X) used a drone/gopro combo to capture amazing aerial footage. I didn’t get a chance to talk to the photographer, so I’m not sure about the exact drone he used, but below is link to something that looked identical to his drone. Bottom line, this drone captured footage that looked like it came from a helicopter. It was truly amazing to witness this thing on display.

The second new style/equipment of photography that I was introduced to was a 360 camera called the “Theta” by Ricoh. This compact device was used by @tsaebadliw (Will) to capture one of my favorite pictures from the day (below). Will set up the camera, then had everyone gather around to capture an amazing 360 degree view of the group. Usually, a 360 camera is used in real estate for virtual tours, but as Will and the “Theta’s” creators display on their site, it’s great for getting creative as well.

360 PhotoSphere by: @tsaebadliw (instagram) _wildabeast1 (twitter)

The third and most relevant piece of equipment to my style of photography that I learned about was Olloclips. Olloclips are lenses for your iPhone/iPad that mimic the capabilities of a DSLR. Olloclips has telephoto, macro, and wide angle lenses. The idea of enhancing my iPhone’s picture capabilities was very appealing since it’s impossible to carry my DSLR everywhere. Taking great pictures with your phone doesn’t require an Olloclip, but it would certainly help.

Check out below for links to all of the new toys I learned about, along with some links to the instagram blog for the WWIM9 event. I’ll get back to breaking down my pictures next week, enjoy your memorial day weekend!

Links:

Phantom 2 Vision Drone:

http://www.dji.com/

“Theta” 360 Camera by Ricoh

https://theta360.com/en/

OlloClip:

http://www.olloclip.com/

Instagram’s blog post on WWIM9

http://blog.instagram.com/post/82909503229/wwim9-announcement

Video shot by @huper_X at Madison Square park via an aerial drone.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kirill Slysh (@huper_x)

05.15.14

by adecosmo

Molly & Me

Picture Info: ISO 100, 34mm, f/2.8, 1/640 sec

Week 40 (5/5/2014 -5/11/2014): Home

Picture taken on 5/11/2014 at 5:52 PM

Picture description:

The story of “Molly & Me” started a few years ago. One day my parents surprised me and my family by coming home with a beautiful, lovable and a little skittish puppy. My parents rescued the puppy from a shelter and her uneasy disposition was attributed to abuse from her mom. We decided on the name Molly and for her and my family it was love at first sight. In fact upon arriving at my house she immediately curled up in a ball on my brothers lap. It’s safe to say from that day forward she stole all of our hearts.

In the weeks following our adoption of Molly she spent most nights restlessly moving around and unable to relax. She only seemed to relax when someone was close to her or she was on someone’s lap. Eventually it was decided that she would sleep downstairs (My room was in the basement at the time) in my room. For the first couple of nights I tried to have her sleep in a crate but she just cried and shivered. Eventually I folded and had her sleep next to my bed on the floor. She would toss and turn until I would rest my hand on her head, allowing her to finally relax and go to sleep. This became the new norm for weeks until I let her try out my futon. After letting her take a nap with me on the futon she realized the advantages of not sleeping on the floor. From that day forward she slept on the futon but still needed me to give her a little pat on the head before going to sleep. As the weeks turned to months me and my new roommate grew very close. When I took a nap, Molly took a nap, when I watched TV, Molly watched TV, when I ate, Molly ate. We were two peas in a pod.

Fast forward to the present day, I’ve been moved out for over a year and we’re still close. Whenever I visit my parents she gives me the warmest greeting and immediately tries to get me to go outside to play. Our outdoor time is probably what Molly misses the most about me. I’m one of the few that can handle how rough she gets outside, and yet can tame her with one stern finger point. No matter the weather everytime I go home I make it a point to get outside and play rough with her for at least a few minutes. While visiting home this past weekend for Mother’s day I so happen to have my camera to capture some nice moments while we were outside playing.

Photography concepts:

This week wasn’t my first time photographing an animal, but even with having previous experience it still wasn’t easy. Molly was a tricky subject to photograph because she is camera shy. Most of the times that I tried to take a picture, Molly turned her head (as seen in this picture). Another difficulty was Molly (like most animals) couldn’t sit still, so getting her to pause long enough to compose a good shot was hard. The key advantage I had with Molly versus other animals I’ve photographed, was that I had a trick up my sleeve…treats! Yes I bribed Molly with a couple of well timed treats to get her lined up and to stay where I wanted. For this picture I threw a treat in the grass then as I tried to take the picture, her head turning habit did the rest. I used her habit to my advantage by staging her in a way so that she was looking back at the door and almost back towards the sunlight. For the most part things worked out exactly as planned, and the one thing that didn’t actually turned out to be a benefit.

Molly rushing towards the camera

The thing that didn’t go as planned was where my focus point landed. Since molly was moving around so much I was using my 39 point autofocus point feature. By using autofocus point my camera analyzed the photo and selected what it thought I was aiming at. I would say it selected the majority of the time, but in this picture it picked up on the grass. Since I was using a wide aperture (f/2.8), Molly ended up being blurred while a small area of the grass was in sharp focus. When I was sorting through my pictures, I noticed that I had two very similar pictures, one with the grass in focus, and one with Molly. I felt like the picture which focused on the grass was a much more unique and interesting picture, and so I chose it for this week’s photograph.

Alternate version

05.08.14

by adecosmo

Bloomfield in Bloom

Picture info: ISO 250, 36mm, f/11, 1/80sec

Week 39 (4/28/2014 -5/4/2014): 10th & Bloomfield, Hoboken

Picture taken on 5/3/2014 at 9:13 AM

Photograph description

Last week I mentioned that one of the biggest challenges for my Hoboken streets project would be to taking pictures that don’t in some way involve the sun . Naturally I’m drawn towards taking pictures that utilize some kind of light source to create contrast. In order to keep improving my photography, it’s important that I constantly challenge myself to go outside of my comfort zone. It’s as the saying goes, “variety is the spice of life”

This week’s picture was taken while I was on my Saturday morning bagel run…for those of you that don’t know, I’m a bagel addict. Moving on though. It was still early enough that the sun wasn’t high in the sky but it was still filling the day with plenty of natural light. Although my usual Hoboken bagel spot is on Washington street, I decided to walk down Bloomfield instead so I could photograph the cherry blossoms that line the street. It only seemed fitting that bloomfield would be filled with so many blooming trees. Early into my trip I came across an apartment building that had a pinkish tint which acted as the perfect backdrop for the cherry blossom. I shuffled around for a few minutes trying to find the best angle to fit everything in frame at ~35mm. Eventually I found the spot and the here you have it!

Photography concepts:

One of the advantages of taking pictures with even light is that it’s easier to set your exposure for the entire scene. When you include a bright light source in your picture (e.g. the sun) you have to worry about some or all of the image getting blown out (overexposed) or underexposed. I usually worry more about overexposing the image because it’s harder to recover overexposed areas, than underexposed areas. Since this week’s picture had no harsh light source setting my exposure was a breeze!

The hardest part of shooting this picture was capturing what I considered to be the good part of the scene at ~35mm. The reason I’m saying approximately (~) is because I’ve been shooting more and more with my 17-50mm Sigma lens. Yes 35mm is within the range of my lens, but for some reason the lens never seems to settle on 35mm exactly. Any picture I take at 35mm usually reads as 34mm or 36mm when I review the image. I’m not sure why this happens, but it’s not really a big deal.

If there is one thing I learned this week it’s evenly lit pictures are relatively easy to shoot, if you can find interesting ones. The last part of that statement is the key, “if you can find interesting ones.” My usual move in the absence of contrasting light is to find a unique angle or move in close and use a wide aperture to tap into a depth of field element. I did neither this week and that again plays into my desire to shoot more variety. Variety should be everyone’s goal. Flip through the pictures on your computer, facebook or instagram and I bet you’ll see a trend. Hopefully the trend isn’t selfies, but even if it is, this week try to shoot something new. Find something you don’t usually photograph and get to it!

05.01.14

by adecosmo

Beaming

Picture info: ISO 250, 36mm, f/14, 1/100 second

Week 38 (4/21/2014 -4/27/2014): 9th & Park, Hoboken

Picture taken on 4/22/2014 at 6:40 PM

Photograph description:

If you have ever scrolled through my instagram gallery, you probably noticed that I enjoy taking pictures featuring the sun. When posting to Instagram, the sun is a little bit of a photo hack. What do I mean by photo hack? It’s been my experience that people tend to give more likes to pictures that have nice contrast, especially when that contrast is created from the sun’s beaming light. Featuring the sun might be a bit of a cheat, but there still is an art to it. I’ll give some tips on how I feature the sun with my phone and camera in the next section.

This week’s picture was shot while I was out hunting down material for my “Hoboken Streets” project. The biggest challenge of the project will be to find unique ways to photograph the “streets,” without featuring the sun in each picture. On top of avoiding too many sun shots I’m also going to avoid taking any of the pictures along the waterfront. Yes the waterfront is still in Hoboken, but I’d like this project to feature more of the interior sections of Hoboken. If you have any suggestions for locations shoot me an email. This project is all about exploring the streets so the more unique the better!

Photography Concepts:

The main thing you have to think about when you’re taking pictures directly into the sun is setting the right exposure. When you’re shooting the sun with your phone your exposure is typically locked to wherever your focus point is. My recommendation is to set your pictures exposure on a darker area. When you select a darker area your phone’s sensor will adjust the exposure to make the dark area evenly exposed. With the darker area exposed properly the sun should be overexposed and appear to be very bright. If you want to apply some kind of HDR setting to your picture in post, then meter the pictures exposure by focusing on the sun. This will make your image look very dark but the HDR will bring back most of the detail. I recommend going with the first exposure setup, overexposing the sun makes it look better.

Setting your exposure is obviously different with a DSLR and is done by making adjustments to your ISO, Shutter speed and aperture. When shooting the sun with a DSLR your ISO should be as low as it can go, which is typically 100. Choose your aperture based on how you want the sun to look in the picture. If you use an aperture of f/22 the sun will look almost like a star with very sharply pointed flares. The wider the aperture the softer the flares will become. This week’s picture was shot at f/14 which is a good middle ground. My beams (flares) have nice lines that fade into the picture smoothly.

Selecting your shutterspeed is easy if you’re in aperture priority, because the camera will do it for you. If you’re shooting in manual, like I did for this picture, then you should start with a quick shutter and work your way down until your image is exposed to your liking. The reason you should start with a quick shutter is so you don’t burn out your sensor with the sun. I can only imagine the damage that would be done to your sensor with a 30 second sun exposure….ouch.

Two more quick tips. One when you’re lining everything up, try to put the sun on either the left or right thirds intersection line. This not only follows the rule of thirds, it also will make for better sun beams shooting through your picture. My second tip is to find something like a tree, flower or cloth material that you can backlight with the sun. Backlighting things that let some light through give your picture some nice texture. If you backlight something that lets no light through, as in people, walls or buildings you’re left with a nice silhouette. The choice is up to you, get creative and more importantly have fun!