Martin Prihoda, a Vancouver based photographer is holding a show at Whip Gallery and Restaurant
at 209 east 6th @ main street. I encourage everyone to visit this show. It rarely happens that a photographer with unique vision is given an opportunity to present himself.

You can visit Martin’s website at: www.martinprihoda.com

Enjoy!

I have started working on some new fine art nude concepts. I am trying to experiment with digital so I can implement them later on the medium format film.

From the famous Da Vinci the master painter to Ansel Adams the master photographer, they all were blessed by a unique talent of effectively visualizing stories or feelings. It rarely comes an artist with true vision who enjoys the same blessing and can portrait a simple but an effective imagery

Barry without a doubt is one of them. Simplicity is the true essence of Barry’s fine art nude photos.

In his photos the shadows and curves are so naturally and beautifully aligned that makes it difficult to not to stare at them without loosing the sense of time.

A good photographer or visionary is the one who can see beauty in everything regardless of the norms and standards. Barry managed to accomplish that by seeing well and seeing good.

Please take some time and visit his flickr page where has some great works displayed.

Barry G. Oliver

I personally like his hands set. You can view a slide show if his hand set at here

I have met many people with extreme passion for photography. I live in Vancouver (Canada), and photographers here are from various backgrounds and different cultures. I was honored to have worked with and learned from many of them. But one managed to overwhelm me with his knowledge about photography and a great dedication to his work and photos. “cucaracha del sol“

It rarely happens that photographers want to teach you every techniques they know, guide you and literary help you with every step of the way to the point you can call one of your works a photo.

But there are some unfortunate circumstances that cause such people to change how they are contributing to the world of photography. I am not sure why some photographers need to steal others work in order to be recognized. Maybe it is lack of confidence, maybe it is lack of patience to get to where you need to get, or maybe it is the nature of people. Whatever the reason could be, it is damaging to the world of art.

My friend and mentor “cucaracha del sol” used to have lots of jaw-dropping photos in his flickr portfolio. But many people stole his photos and used them and in some instances published them as their own.

Although it shows how talented this person is that his photos are being subject of theft by other well-known and established photographers, but also causes a great deal of damage to his passion to share with the world his knowledge and his photos.

It is not hard to learn photography with unlimited resources out there in internet. So let’s learn photography instead of using other’s work. Let’s respect art and the artist.

I am sure we can learn from them.

You have heard it, in fact you have heard it many times that photography is about how you see, imagine and envision your photo. But many of us as photographers fail in that area or get it right by chance. Before traveling to Paris, I assumed by reading books and looking at images you can get inspired but now I feel being in the locations where arts and artists were appreciated and created is giving you more than inspiration. It gives you ideas.

Art and history goes hand in hand with each other so for photographers to be successful, they needs to study a lot of history, not only history of art but history in general. They also need to learn about the cultures and people of different areas.

How individuals see art in Europe is different from how we see art in North America is different from how people see art in Middle-East and Asia. That has to do with culture and history of that area. It does not end with reading and learning history, you have to understand the events happened which influenced our today’s life.

As a photographer, you have to re-live a part of history to come up with fine-tuned ideas. I do not mean that you have to repeat and recapture that history, otherwise you are creating a redundant and repeated art. Try to find things that people missed.

Imagine, someone like Marie Antoinette or Queen of england. Although they are public figures, they had and have private life too. And part of the private life deals with their personal insecurities about their body shape, even their breasts shape and size. Can you portrait that insecurity in a photo without insulting their character?

I would like to introduce to you some photographers with great ideas:

Zingna Zhang from Singapore

Ciprian Strugariu from romania

Tom McFarlane from US

Miguel Pappan from Germany

Camil Tulcan from Romania

by Jim Austin

Oscar Rejlander’s (1813 -1875) studio was unusual; shaped like a cone, the camera would be in the narrow part, the sitters at the opposite end. The camera was in shadow so that the sitters were less aware of it. He estimated his exposure by bringing his cat into the studio; if the cat’s eyes were like slits, he would use a fairly short exposure. If they were a little more open than usual, he would give extra exposure. If the pupils were totally dilated he would admit defeat, put the lens cap on the lens and go out for a walk!” ~ Robert Leggat, 1999

Cats, much to their delight, no longer must endure conscription for use as light meters. Instead of cat’s eyes, we use other tools to expand the usable range of light. HDR photography is one of these important new tools, as it lets us preserve exquisite fine detail in a scene. We explore the appeal of black and white HDR here, with regard to personal and visual awareness.

While the first two parts of this article looked at color HDR, this article investigates key qualities behind interesting black and white HDR work, with suggestions for a B/W workflow. First, we consider why HDR imaging techniques leave the feline method in the dark.

Why black and white HDR?

Think of each black, grey and white picture tone as a separate instrument in an orchestra. Filling out the tones is like adding extra players to the ensemble. Just as your musical experience in listening to the Boston Pops is different than hearing a quartet, so does a wider range of black and white tones in a photograph allow for a greater reach of emotional expression.

B/W HDR also solves an old problem. When photographing everyday scenes, brilliant whites and deep blacks can result in washed-out highlights on the one hand, and blocked-up shadows on the other.

HDR bracketing and multiple exposure, help manage this lack of tone control. In Photos 1a and 1b here, compare the HDR multiple exposure at left with one single exposure at right. Shadow details are excellent in the HDR image and the daylight outdoors is not washed out because of the greater highlight detail captured during the HDR process. By the way, there was a cat in the bar but it was too dark inside to see its pupils.

1a. “The Bull, Key West” A six exposure HDR image with 1-stop bracketing, and Tone Mapping in Photomatix Pro 2.4. Highlights show much better detail

1b. A Single Exposure taken in the middle of the bracketed series. There is loss of both highlight and shadow detail.

What Makes Black and White HDR interesting?

Tonal Range, Visual Elements, Photographer’s Personal Qualities

The alchemy of B/W HDR is to make the unseen visible. One of the implied, unseen elements in photography is the movement of time. In the B/W HDR composition above, revered names of people who were killed in the Holocaust seem to recede without a fixed vanishing point, and so to go on indefinitely, conveying a sense of the infinite.

For “Holocaust Memorial,” I made three exposures. Combining these frames in an HDR software program called Photomatix Pro 2.4© brought out these carved names in a deeply-shaded corner of the memorial. Using Photomatix© helped expand the range of tones in this image; this enlarged tonal range made the image more graphic and austere. The deeply detailed blacks gave the photograph a solidity and sense of presence. Together, the tones and their presence add to the graphic appearance of B/W HDR in general. The perception that abstract and graphic qualities are expressed by the tones of the picture is not a new one to the photographic arts. It was explored by master photographers like Edward Weston, whose prints had subtle and well-defined transitions from light to dark. B/W HDR draws on this tradition; what makes it of interest now is the way a larger tonal range once again enlivens the abstract and graphic beauty of black and white.

2. “Holocaust Memorial”: 3 exposures combined in Photomatix 2.4 © by Jim Austin.

Visual Elements: Composition and Symbolism

Two more key ingredients for successful black and white HDR are the visual elements and the personal elements. Visual elements of interesting B/W HDR include composition, shape, and symbolism. To use these ingredients in ways that work for your imagery, it may help to ask: “What attracts me to this scene — is it the color, or is this a good picture regardless of whether it is in color or black and white?” If you can identify the design elements in your scene before you photograph in B/W HDR, you are on your way to creating a more powerful composition.

Where visual elements of design support a photograph, they expand its symbolic components, and this goes for B/W HDR pictures as well. For instance, a photograph can act as an analogy. The brilliant photography critic Susan Sontag pointed this out: “what makes something interesting is that it can be seen to be like, or analogous to, something else.” For example, at first glimpse, the fins above the bumper of a Chevrolet Bel Air (Image 3) reminded me of a large modern building. Later on, I titled the image because it also reminded me of the hit song by Don McLean, “American Pie” with his famous line “drove my Chevy to the levy but the levy was dry.” As the image evolved I had other associations, with more symbolism, which enhanced its interest.

3. “Chevy Above the Levy” © by Jim Austin

Visual Elements: Tones in Time are Symbolic

When they are well-crafted, the tones in a B/W HDR are captivating. This is partly due to what the tones represent. Subtle changes from dark to light tones can act as metaphors for the passage of time. In a representative way, time’s passage can also be evoked by black and white tones within an image. Think of the sun’s shadow and where it falls on a sundial, for instance. Remember how long shadows are as the sun sets. Think about white clouds as they race across the sky above you.

Two main personal elements within a photographer’s thought process make for interesting HDR imagery.

First, learning to see in black and white is an essential exercise for the photographer’s imagination. Master photographers practice taking mental pictures of color scenes to imagine how the scene will look later when it is printed in black and white.

Second, photographers need to understand how innovative B/W HDR truly is. Black and white HDR is fundamentally different than color, not simply the result when color is removed; it is a novel process to the extent that it alters the visual language. B/W HDR adds to the emotional expressive quality of a photograph. It has a graphic sense that color images do not possess. It offers a superb way to explore landscapes and portraits that we would usually pass by because of their high contrast.

Why not use Color HDR ?

Because color makes us respond emotionally to it, color in a photograph can distract us from the heart of an image, just like a special musical effect can overwhelm the melody of a song. Without color, however, all the dark tones support and direct our attention to the emotions in a picture. B/W HDR allows tones to show character. For portrait photography, B/W HDR frees a photographer to create portraits that center on the individual.

Workflow for B/W HDR

We’ve seen several advantages to B/W HDR. Now let’s turn to the process itself. My workflow is:

1. Set up my camera menu to take 3-9 pictures, using RAW files, in color, and bracket by changing the shutter speed

2. Archive the original RAW files

3. Import the images into Photomatix Pro, version 2.4

4. Create a 32 bit color image file

5. Tone Map in Photomatix

6. Save the image as a 32 bit color .tif file to hard drive

7. Convert to 16 bits and Photoshop Enhance

8. Open in Photoshop (CS 2 or newer)

9. Convert to 16 bits, convert to black and white using Photoshop’s channel mixer adjustment layer.

The Workflow Process:

Using a digital camera, capture the image in color, in RAW file format. Your first decision depends on having a tripod. If you do not have a tripod, hand hold the camera, and take 3 bracketed exposures. To do this, use a Manual camera setting. Remember, you will keep the same aperture and bracket with shutter speeds.

You can also use auto bracketing; most cameras only allow 3 shots in this mode. So, take 3 exposures: at -2 below the camera meter; at 0 or at the exposure as metered by the camera; and at +2 over the camera metered exposure. Keep your camera aperture constant to prevent the depth of focus changing between shots. Use a a tripod and cable release if you can, as you can take up to 9 -11 frames without camera movement for those scenes that have a huge contrast range.

Once you have a series of frames, save the images and open your HDR software. You can convert to black and white in Photoshop, or use the HDR software tools in Photomatix, FDR tools, Artizen HDR or Adobe Photoshop CS3. If you choose, you can use the HDR program to convert to B/W by using the saturation control set to pure black and white but by keeping the HDR as color, the flexibility of Photoshop’s channel mixer and camera raw yields better results.

One advantage of using a tripod in your workflow is that a tripod and camera release will make you slow down, and take more time to consider your composition, light and framing. This concentration will improve your images. Whatever your personal choices in software and tone mapping, try not to let the technology overwhelm your picture taking. Be true to the context and to your own vision for your photograph.

Summary: Vision for Future B/W HDR

To create interesting B/W HDR, then, photographers must be alert to wondrous contrasts that are present everywhere, and be excited to photograph these scenes. Making images with high dynamic range tools lets you appreciate detail that was always there, but you were not aware of it. With practice, the black and white HDR process helps us see shading and tonal detail in scenes that we would not have photographed before, thinking these scenes unremarkable.

The culture of B/W HDR imaging offers a modern and fresh venture for todays photographers. They can take portraits with character. They get an expanded awareness of fine shadow and highlight detail as they create photographs in places where the contrast is too great for other methods. B/W HDR even extends time-honored graphic and symbolic traditions of black and white film photography. Finally, the beauty of B/W HDR will grow with the vision of future imaginative photographers, as they work with this creative tool to expand their seeing.

About The Author

Jim Austin M.A., A.C.E., has written extensively on digital photography. He was a commercial photographer in Denver, taught digital imaging for Metro State College of Denver, and has shown work in galleries for 3 decades. He teaches Photoshop at the online campus of www.apogeephoto.com and his recent work is at http://www.flickr.com/jimagesdigital/sets

I finally found a bit of time and created small gallery of my recent fine art nude collection.

Click on more if you want to see the photos in larger format

After looking at David Burdeny’s photos, I became fascinated with long exposure photography. Some people just have creative ideas and the can implement it. Those are the ones that take the art of photography to the next level. David is for sure a talented photographer and a famous artist. But there are many who are completely unknown but as good as David. One would be a photographer who calls himself m_i_n_o_r from Spain. His imagery is superb and his composition is flawless. His style is somewhat similar to David’s but still unique.

The challenge to take such photos according to David is the time of the day and the location. The rest is the equipment you use. He recommends using Black and White ISO-50 film for taking such photos. Obviously adding filters would change the results dramatically. Using neutral density filters would effect the outcome the most. But red and orange filter can contribute a lot specially when you want to expose longer.

You can take a look at the rest of m_i_n_o_r photos by clicking here.

I received an email from a photographer friend, Martin Prihoda, about new series he started called “Yoga meets Fight Club”. I was amazed and blown away by his new work. I met him about six or seventh months ago over a coffee. We discussed how he uses light and how he works with models. At the time he was really excited about his new yoga photos. When I looked at his work I knew he would be one of the few who will make it as a photographer. His style reminds me of master photographers such as Michael Grecco, Drew Gardner, and Adrian Myers but his work is as unique as theirs.

Combination of unique ideas and masterful lighting resulted in creation of “Yoga Meets Fight Club” you can see Martin’s other works at http://www.martinprihoda.com/

After writing an entry called “Nude Photography” in this blog, which describes the basic rules of nude photography, I decided to challenge myself with available light, texture and an inexperienced model. And I wanted to do that all in of course black and white. This time I wanted to get away from a regular studio, strobes, stands, and softboxes. So I chose Ironworks in Vancouver.

I started looking at many nude photos and I realized majority of them lack motion. There is always beautiful girl in a photo with great lighting and shadows, but not much motion. The motion gives the photo another dimension. In that dimension viewers can imagine and build their own story about the photo however they feel and connect with that photo. Also motion in plain studio would limit the viewer’s choice to only the beauty and the skills of both photographer and model.

The lighting is the main challenge in nude photography with available light. You have to work fast so you do not loose the light and it’s direction specially in the winter. You also cannot move the source of light so you have to work with your model to get the lighting the way you visualized it. Another challenge is for the model to adapt her movements to the direction of light.

Tools of the trade:

These sort of photos can be categorized as fine art. In that case you want them to be as authenticate and as true as they can get. My suggestion is to use film camera. The film grains makes the photo much more interesting and true. When it comes to choosing film and since it is a low light scenario your best bet would be either an ISO 400 or ISO 1600 film. My films of the choice are Ilform HP5 ISO 400, Kodak TMAX 400, and Fuji Neopan 1600. When working with films, if you have enough available light that you can shoot at F4 at the speed of 1/125, try to under expose the photo by 1 f-stop. That gives you a bit darker image a bit moodier image. You can apply some filters to achieve different effects. Try to study and learn the use of filters before applying them to your photos. I found these two articles very helpful:

“Using coloured filters with black & white film” and

“Photo Filters for Black and White Photography”

I personally use Nikon F3. It is not an expensive camera to buy and it has all the features I need to complete my project. The light meter is extremely accurate and the body is a solid one. As for digital I use Nikon D200, you can use any camera you want but make sure whatever you capture can be properly converted to the black and white.

The photos you see in this blog are all captured with Nikon D200 and Nikkor 12-24mm which is an ultra-wide lens. This lens makes your photo even moodier.