The Quiet Picture

When you start photographing, your normal approach is to stand up and take the picture. It doesn’t matter what the subject is - you always stand up. If the subject is very low (say, a frog), you kneel down close enough to focus on the frog but you still take the picture from above. Unfortunately, this angle is the one that rarely works. You shouldn’t photograph children from the above, but you should kneel down to their level. You shouldn’t photograph dogs from above, but you should kneel down to their level. You shouldn’t photograph small flowers from above (well, it depends…), but you should lie down to their level.This was another hard lesson for me. I used to do a lot of photographing in zoos, but have you notice how very often you are looking down on the animals in zoos? If you have to look down, then you also have to photograph down. Sadly, this just doesn’t work. If you want to take a picture of that cute little prairie dog but do it from above, all you’ve achieved is to portray your superiority to the animal by showing that you are higher than it. It may sound a bit odd, but think about it. Any psychologist will tell you why your boss wants to sit in a higher chair than you - it’s a power trip. Same principle applies in photography, even it is not your intention to show it in your picture.

Just compare these two images - they are taken in the same zoo, in front of the same enclosure. One of them is looking down, and the other one is looking up. There’s a big difference!

There are some aspects of photography that are almost pure science. Luckily you don’t have to be able to do the math in order to take the picture - you just have to learn to understand the principle behind it. Depth of field (DOF) is one of these. DOF is the area in your image which appears to be in sharp focus - everything between yourself and the focus area is blurry (or out of focus, OOF) and everything behind the focus area is blurry.Online DOF and hyperfocal distance calculators and in-depth explanations:
- DOFmaster (DOF and hyperfocal distance)
- Nikonians (DOF and hyperfocal distance)
- Bob Atkins (DOF)

Personally, I like shallow DOF - this is often called for selective focus. The sharp area of the image is so small that you have to be very careful where you place it, otherwise you will give the impression that the whole image is blurry.

There are three things that affect the DOF - focal length, aperture and distance to subject. If we forget for a moment that all three things work together, we can say this:

• longer focal length = less DOF
• bigger aperture = less DOF
• closer to subject = less DOF

Don’t forget that when we talk about a bigger aperture, the actual number indicating the aperture is smaller. Aperture - of F-stop - is the size of the lens opening. The bigger the opening (=bigger aperture, smaller F-stop number), the more light gets to the film or sensor. This, by the way, is directly related to the shutter speed: bigger aperture, faster shutter. Smaller aperture, longer shutter. They always move in equal opposites - if the aperture is stopped down by 1, then the shutter speed is increased by 1 stop. In case you’ve ever wondered what the numbers inprinted to your lens are, they indicate the focal length (prime, or zoom range) and the maximum aperture. For example, the 70-200mm F4 lens has a zoom range from 70 to 200mm and the maximum aperture I can use with the lens is 4 at any focal length. The 17-85mm F4-5.6 zoom has a maximum aperture of F4 at the wideangle end, and F5.6 at the long end. The 100mm F2.8 macro lens is a prime lens with a largest aperture of F2.8 - perfect for those selective focus close-ups!

Often when people talk about composition, sooner or later the phrase “rule of thirds” will enter the discussion. This is the golden mean of art - everything of importance in your image should be placed in a third. It’s easiest to explain this with an example:
The image is divided in 9 equal parts. The key points are where the lines cross so you should compose your image along these lines. In the above image, the horizon is in the lower third and the tree is in the lower left corner. The clouds fill upp the upper third of the image and they appear to radiate to the lower right corner filling the otherwise empty space, creating a balanced image.

Then there are the famous exceptions. Sometimes it’s better to compose centrally, instead of following the thirds. But as always - please learn the rule first, then start exploring how to break it!

Here’s the gist of it: Trees grow straight up, and horizons are always level. All you have to do is to match your photo with this reality. But, it is amazingly difficult at first. I remember it - I used to have tilted horizons and I honestly didn’t notice it until someone pointed it out to me. I started paying attention and after a while it becomes automatic - you always check for a tilt at the post processing stage. What I’m saying is that I am still not always able to take a picture which is perfectly level, not even when I use my tiny bubble level attached to the hot shoe. But as long as you can spot the tilt afterwards, and fix it, everything’s fine.
In the above example, there are two ways to spot the tilt. For the first, the shoreline is leaning to the left (white line). For the second, the reflection of the trees do not match with the actual trees (red line). There is less than 1 degree of rotation, but it is very obvious. After a quick rotation clockwise:

Then there are the cases where the image seems to tilt, but is in fact straight. I hate those. For example, you’re shooting a lake scenery, but you’re not at a straight angle to the opposing shore. The result is a shoreline that appears to tilt, although everything else in the image is straight. I normally trash these images - it is enough for me that the image gives an impression of tilting, it really doesn’t make any difference to me that it doesn’t.

I think the best thing to do is to make a habit on checking for a tilt in every image. After a while, you will notice even a slight tilt without using rulers and then you’ll be wondering, like I do, how you ever managed to miss a tilt!

There are plenty of photo guides, instructions, tutorials etc on the Internet. I thought I would add mine. In the coming weeks, I will write my thoughts about some basics of photography, maybe some beginners will find something of use in them. If you already are a better photographer, please send some advice my way. Short from changing everything. Thanks.Anyway, anything I will say someone else has already said better so you might want to read these instead of anything of mine:

- Beginning photography tips
- Silverlight Photography Tutorials
- Photography Composition Articles
- Kodak’s Taking Great Pictures
- Digital Nature Photography Tips and Articles

The list goes on and on and on… Google is your best friend!

Just paid a visit to a Finnish photo forum. Have to investigate it further… but I just got so excited on reading their forum guidelines (quick translation mine):- this has been your hobby for a while and you have gotten over the first rush of owning a new camera
- you want to develop in your hobby
- you want to have feedback
- you understand that a numerical evaluation represents opinion
- you understand your style and subjects will not appeal to everyone

It’s the fourth point that bugs me. It’s the same on fotosidan.se actually, you can set points to photos, but you can select to turn off this option when you post an image. I have never liked that. I always turn it off for my posts and I have never given points to anyone. I believe in verbal communication instead. A number does not equal valuable feedback in my mind. If I don’t like the image at all, I just skip it. If I like it, the least I can do is to say so.

But otherwise, I genuinely think that fotosidan would benefit from similar guidelines. If not for all forums, then at least for the Image Critique forum. It’s unbelievable what crap gets posted in the critique forum - and that’s not an opinion, it’s the absolute truth!

Anyway, I have get back to browsing the Finnish forum. The Swedes are too nice, and the Finns are… well, brutally honest!

For those of you who arrived to this blog from a direct link, I have updated my homepage minnak.net. Welcome for a visit!

The winter is slowly melting away…I went to the kiosk to get the snowmobile trail map. Not for riding snowmobiles obviously, but to have a look at where the trails are and plan for some skiing trips later in the winter.

When I walked back home, it felt like there was spring in the air. The sun was shining, the snow was wet, and there were blue skies almost everywhere. Not your typical December day. I should feel depressed about the vanishing snow, but when I looked around, I saw the low sun paint the scenery with golden light. Suddenly the bare trees didn’t look so ugly anymore.

And then there were snowmobiles. You could hear the engine roar everywhere, including the forest behind my house. So far this winter there hasn’t been much snow in the forest and now that it’s warm, the little there was is mostly gone.

Before I moved to Los, I assumed that snowmobile riding depends on the prevailing snow conditions. Now I know better. It depends on the calendar date.

This was the last cold day before a warm front would hit us, so I made sure I got some winter pictures in before the snow would be gone (again). I drove to Hamra National Park, it’s only 30 km from Los and it’s also the smallest national park in Sweden. The long trail around the park is less than 3 km, I did the short one this time and had the honour of being the first visitor this season.As the day got older, the temperatures started rising already, but there was a lot of variation - in the valleys it was still as cold as -9 degrees centigrade while the higher places only had -2. Gotta enjoy it while it lasts.

* * *

Do you sometimes get an impression that I’m laughing at all the beginner photographers? Well, yes and no - I don’t laugh at the photographers per se, I mean everyone has to start from somewhere and I was sure none the better at first myself. But what does cause me endless frustration (or amusement, if you wish) is that people publicly show their first images - honestly, I’ve seen images with description “this is the first image I have taken”. What can you tell those people? They know absolutely nothing about the craft of photography, so how can you say anything constructive because they won’t understand it anyway? The only good advice is, read photography books, read photography magazines, read what other people write about other people’s photographs… Learn the basics, and then when you understand what we mean by rule of thirds, depth of field and exposure, start asking for feedback. And if you don’t want to learn, then for heaven’s sake keep your pictures well out of the public eye!Anyway, if you still think that I’m being condescending or sardonic, you’ll be happy to hear that it’s payback time. I bought skis on Wednesday and I’ve forgotten everything I have ever learned about cross-country so I probably look nothing short of hilarious when I do my rounds on the ski track. Just as well I haven’t come across anyone else yet. Skiing (we’re talking cross-country here) is obligatory at school. I hated the gym class and I hated skiing. When we were through with it, I swore that I will never touch another pair of skis as long as I live. Well, now I’m older and wiser and I have realised that my old gym teacher was right - skiing really is good for me. There are two reasons I wanted to take up the sport again. The first and biggest is that it will enable me to get around in the winter scenery. Yes, I already got the snow shoes… but I realised that if I use the snow mobile trails, I can move around faster and with less effort than with the snow shoes. But having said that, skiing is also good for the condition and I am permanently on the verge of being out of shape.

Now I’m looking forward to some winter trips to the mountains. The snowshoe hike I did last March in Sånfjället was awesome but the skis will allow me to make longer trips. Here’s hoping to good weather!

One thing that often comes to mind when viewing beginners’ landscape photographs is that they chose the wrong time to take the picture. It takes a while to learn what difference light makes and depending on the subject, there is a number of other factors playing in. Say for example, if you want to show how beautiful a lake is, you don’t shoot it in cloudy and windy weather when waves break the surface and everything is dull grey. Well, I wouldn’t, anyway. If you have your subjects within easy reach, the problem is also easily solved - you just wait until the conditions are right and then take a picture. However, when you are on a holiday and you only have a small window when to photograph, it gets tricky - you rarely get the images you wanted to take and instead have to work around the obstacles (bland skies, wind, dull light etc). Sometimes you just simply have to give up because the image just isn’t there for the taking right then.The next question is, is it only the conditions that can prevent a beautiful image to be created? My theory is that a good photographer can take a good image of anything given some time to wait for the right circumstances. But there is one subject I have come across that has seriously challenged that. It is entirely possible that there are places where you’ll never be able to take a kick-ass image, quite irrespective of the weather conditions. One such place is Njupeskär, the highest waterfall in Sweden. As the highest one in the country, I would somehow expect Njupeskär to be magnificent enough to make a good image. Of course nature doesn’t have any respect for my photographic aspirations, all I’m saying is that if you just think about the waterfall and nothing else around it, it is a great one and definitely a worthy subject. But in the real world you can’t isolate the waterfall from its location and this is where the photographic problems begin.

Let’s look at the geography. The falls formed as the water carved its way through rock and now the waterfall is situated at the end of a narrow ravine. So unless the sun shines directly into the ravine, the contrast the light and shadows create is extreme. But you rarely get sunshine in the ravine, because it’s facing north. I made an estimate that there would be sunlight on the falls very early in the morning during midsummer, when the sun shines from a slightly northernly direction. The theory was confirmed correct when I found a web page that included an image taken during this rare event - apparently, the sun shines at the falls 2 hours after sunrise during two weeks around midsummer and the light lasts for about half an hour. There’s your window…! But would this sunlight make the kick-ass image I’m after? There are other things to consider. With the sun at your back and the waterfall and the ravine’s edge above you, there is no way you can avoid including sky in your image if you want to photograph the entire falls. Unfortunately, the sky opposite a sunrise during midsummer isn’t very flattering, so you’d have to contend with a washed out blue sky above your blazing falls. Not kicking ass I’m afraid.

Above left you can see the an image from the first time I was at Njupeskär. It was noon and I got a proper blue sky on top, but the top of the falls is blown out while the rest of the water and the ravine walls are in deep shade. In order to come over this, you can zoom in tighter and eliminate the highlights - it’s just that you’ll end up eliminating much of the falls themselves, as well. But I want the whole waterfall, because the height is the point here!

So forget about sunlight. I like waterfalls during overcast conditions anyway, this eliminates those pesky contrast problems. However, if the washed out blue sky is a downer, a blown out white cloud cover is a definite turn-off. So we’re back at leaving things out from our composion and that’s exactly what we don’t want here.

When you use a wide angle lens for a landscape, you need to build up the image carefully. You need a foreground - the water can’t fall out of the edge of your image, so to speak. On the right you can see an image from the second time I was at the falls. It looks a bit dark but it’s owing to a poor scan… I’m just presenting it for the cropped view and the foreground. But, this image is taken from the platform. There are probably thousands of photo albums that include a very similar image. Been there, seen it, done that… now I want something special, a viewpoint that not everyone has seen.

If you want a natural image without the hand of man like I do, then you have to work around the wooden platform that crosses the creek and then follows it up to the foot of the falls (you can see it in the first image above). Let’s not forget that we’re in a National Park where it’s forbidden to step outside the marked trail… but since we are theoritically chasing a theoritical kick-ass image, we can theoritically locate ourselves anywhere in the ravine!

So let’s cross over the creek then and photograph opposite to the platform so that the creek can be used for the foreground. You’ll find yourself balancing on the sharp and slippery rocks while trying to find a viewpoint where the creek makes a sufficiently interesting foreground and the wooden platform is hidden. Good luck.

And this is where I am right now… I think I have covered just about all the problems Njupeskär presents to an ambitious photographer, so it’s time I get back to my original question. Is there a kick-ass image waiting at Njupeskär, or is it time to face the facts and settle for less?

Personally, I’m leaning towards the mediocre. I don’t have many kick-ass pictures in my album to start with, so I don’t stand much of a chance with a challenging subject like Njupeskär. My best offer so far is on the left, where the fog was the solution to the open space on top - although you still have a vast white expanse, it fades out nicely instead of contrasting with the edge of the ravine. But my foreground is too close to the camera and the wide angle distorts the size, and the big waterfall is almost hidden behind the tree which in its turn hides the platform.

I reckon I’ll visit Njupeskär some early morning during midsummer and then give up!

During my latest trip to Njupeskär I was in the company of other photogs. One of them succeeded in finding a new angle and the resulting image was the best I have seen so far - and I reckon, among the best there are to be had, period! One question remains - what can I do?