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Compositions Using the Golden Mean
Summary:
Master still-life photographer Eberhard Schuy is here with a new series addressing photographic elements. Elements of form, lines of composition, bright and dark, sharp and un-sharp. Here, the first in the series is a look at the Golden Mean. We get to examine the historic significance as the earliest mathematicians addressed this aesthetic principle as a geometric proof.
Eberhard Schuy then encourages us to trust our innate sense of composition. This "good feeling" will almost always result in the practical application of this compositional guideline used in both art as well as architecture. Not to be satisfied with one demonstration, Mr Schuy takes it one step further and also explains how the Golden Mean is the basis for another compositional guideline: the Golden Triangle.
Finally, a hands-on tip for Lightroom users. The user is directed to an on-board function that lets you overlay
adjustable masks that apply both, the Golden Mean and the Golden Triangle to your photos for evaluation purposes. Be sure to see the other related films in this series. You'll certainly learn a lot.
Umberto Stefanelli
Summary:
In this FotoTV interview Fine Art photographer Umberto Stefanelli discusses his career and also shares some techniques from a project of his. an homage of the late Pope John Paul II and youth around the world.
Stefanelli began his career as a photographer in London and New York. In New York he tried doing fashion photography for a while but the market in New York was so tough that he could not sustain himself as an artist so he went looking for a job. The job he ended up finding was at an art gallery as a curator’s assistant. It was at this point in Stefanelli’s life when he realized his passion for fine art photography. At the gallery his first exhibition was a retrospective of some of the great photographers, including Ansel Adams and soon after Stefanelli called himself a fine art photographer.
Stefanelli describes fine art photography as emotions and passion, “either you have it or you don't”. He further says it does not matter what medium the photo was created, film or digital, but the photo has to have a quality of likeability.
Stefanelli goes on to talk about his project, an homage to the late Pope John Paul II, "not to religion" as he points out, but an a homage to the Pope and all the youths that he touched when he traveled around the world. Stefanelli also shares stories about his move to Japan, which was difficult at first.
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Gerd Ludwig II
Summary:
Create a Movie Scene
Summary:
In this video Kate Breuer shows, how to create a cinematic effect, that makes your pictures look like they were taken out of a movie.
She adds a hue/saturation adjustment layer to create the brown-golden color typical for movies and to add some contrast and satuartion.
In the next step, she adds some black bars at the top and bottom to make the viewer think of 16:9 movies at television.
Finally, she draws in some back lighting by painting with a white, smooth brush on a new layer.
Learn how to make your own images look like cinematic art!
Lucien Clergue - Interview
Summary:
Lucien Clergue is the grand seigneur of the French photographic world. Elegant, white haired, sporting a trimmed white beard and rimless glasses, he belongs to the crème de la crème of the cultural establishment there. But this was not always so. As a young photographer wanting to follow his own star he bravely refused offers to work for Paris newspapers and even for Vogue in New York. Later he had to crop the heads off his photographs of nudes to avoid going to prison in the draconian censorship of the 1950’s.
Born 1934 in Arles in the south of France, Julien did photography because there was not enough money for him to go to the to Paris School of Music to continue the music studies that he had begun. Beginning with a Roleiflex he took good pictures, but to make ends meet he worked as well in a factory until he was 27.
Gradually he became well known, meeting and being helped by Picasso at the age of 19. Picasso introduced him to Jean Cocteau, who also helped by writing articles about Clergues’s photographs. Influential friends indeed!
Inspired by the great American photographer Edward Weston, Lucien began taking photographs of nudes, and of sand and seascapes. But differently, with a typically Mediterranean eye, making photographs in magical places, like Point Lobos in Carmel, California.
Clergue says that his work has had three main components: death, life, and the four elements. At first he photographed cemeteries of dead animals!
Nudes, as symbols of life, came after the death pictures. This was because because his friends were so shaken by the images of death that they stopped visiting him. “So”, he summarises with a wink, “I took pictures of nudes to keep my friends”.
H was 22 when he started making photographs of nudes in the sea. They were an immediate success. He illustrated some of Paul Eluard’s poems with them, but the censors were not amused: It was forbidden to show a woman’s sex if her head was also in the picture. So he cut off the heads to avoid going to prison!
Bulls and bullfights are also constant themes in Clergue’s photography. In fact he claims that since he was 22 there hasn’t been a year when he didn’t photograph a nude and a bullfight. The bull fighting images are, as he says, intimate. But this could also be a consequence of being shortsighted: He had to get close to take the pictures!
In a photography festival that he and others initiated (“Rencontres de la Photographie”) he included an international competition for the best book of photographs of the year. In this way he was able to collect thousands of books that now grace the library of the School of Photography in Arles. Not a bad idea…
Julien Clergue is a member of the Académie de Beaux-Arts de L’Institut de France. And he cannot hide his pride in being the first of two members to be elected to Section VIII – Photographie. The other being Yan Arthus-Bertrand.
The academy contributes some of its members to help run the Casa Velasquez, an art school in Madrid which now has photography students. Looking after these is now one of Clergue’s main activities and, he says, a great responsibility.
A central and revealing statement on his work emerges when asked about travelling. “It is not important to me. I photograph what is offered and try to bring my own world and background into it. My world is in me - I carry it around!”
See also the FotoTV Video of Lucien Clergue making nude photographs on the beach.
From the East to the West 2
Summary:
In the second part of his photographic journey across America, photographer Robert Leslie discusses his work and his latest project, the photographic documentation of North America and how he experienced the state of nation during the first few weeks following President Obama's inauguration.
Armed with his camera, Leslie's goal was to show images that reflected the social, environmental, and economical change in America during a time that some observers liken to that of the great depression. Sticking to small rural roads and highways, Leslie did not visit any of the big major cities. Instead he searched for the nuances that made the small towns unique.
There have probably been millions of people who have had that dream at least once in their life about of driving across and in this interview Leslie focuses on his experiences across the Great West, California in particular. One interesting highlight was the California Historic Route 66. The stretch of Route 66 passes through California extending from the Colorado River, to the Pacific Ocean at Santa Monica, with some of the most scenic routes traveling through California's deserts, mountains, metropolitan areas and beach communities.
Surely it is impossible to get any real impression of a city by just driving through and staying overnight, but Leslie easily manages to document some of America's most non-commercial locations across the Midwest in a very intimate and meaningful way. Leslie's images reveal the problems facing Americans, the contrast between a land of superficial beauty and weak government social systems and the unfortunate results of a nation living on credit.
How to Shoot Northern Lights
Summary:
Lucky for us geologist and physicist Hinrich Bäsemann is here to not only explain the occurrence of the phenomenal light show referred to as the Northern Lights but also to explain how to photograph them as well.
After a scientific explanation regarding the "what" of the lights and the "when" they are visible, he lays out what conditions are "most likely" to result in an occurrence. It isn't always a given you know! He gives tips on sources for weather, and sun activity to try and insure that your trip up north is worthwhile.
His great respect for nature and the honor he feels to be be working in this very unique part of the world are obvious in his enthusiastic descriptions of the landscape and his own long-year experience in trying to capture this wide spectral phenomenon.
A detailed description of the necessary equipment complete with tips on how to dress; how to acclimatise your equipment; how to handle memory chip cards, and how to apply your newly honed skills to gain further amazing images.It's good to have a Great Northern Guide to the lights! Enjoy!
From the East to the West 1
Summary:
In this FotoTV interview with photographer Robert Leslie, he discusses his work and his latest project, the photographic documentation of North America from Florida to Los Angeles and how he experienced the state of nation during the first few weeks following President Obama's inauguration.
Armed with his camera, Leslie set out on a journey of about 7,000 km, starting his trip in Miami at the site of President Obama's inauguration. Leslie's goal was to show images that reflected the social, environmental, and economical change in America during a time that some observers liken to that of the great depression.
Sticking to small rural roads and highways, Leslie did not visit any of the big major cities. Instead he searched for the nuances that made the small towns unique. He visited the immediate areas surrounding the infamous hurricane Katrina and BP oil spill on the gulf coast. It was there that he realized that much had not been done in these small towns to bring them back to their original state. Simply because of unemployment, lack of funds and support from social and governmental agencies. His work goes on to document many dilapidated and abandoned structures, land parcels and estates. In some instances Leslie was able to talk to the original owners only to find out they did not have any more money to keep up their properties, thus forcing them to live in relative primitive situations with only the bare necessities to survive.
In Crawford, Texas, the hometown of former US President Bush, Leslie shot a slew of images, mostly of signs, banners and billboards of resolute thanks and support to George W. Bush. One peculiar, if not disturbing image is of a shooting range with a pro-weapons billboard that is visible to children as they passed twice daily on a school bus.
Leslie's images reveal the problems facing Americans, the contrast between a land of superficial beauty and weak government social systems and the unfortunate results of a nation living on credit.
Expose to the Right
Summary:
Hans Peter Schaub has been a photographer for many years, as well as a working editor for Nature Foto Magazin. Today, Schaub is back to share more insider tips and techniques with FotoTV viewers on his favorite subject, nature photography.
One main focal point of today's interview and demonstration is digital photography and how to correctly use the camera’s histogram to decisively control the exposure. This is done by viewing the histogram which represents the tonal value of the photo being taken and it also gives very clear information about the exposure of the image overall.
Schaub details the necessary steps to ensure proper use of the histogram function. Generally, as Schaub points out "One could assume, with enough experience and sensible presumptions, a digital camera is well capable of representing 6 aperture increments between the brightest and the darkest spots on the histogram."
As a rule Schaub keeps the histogram in view so that he may adjust the ridges or mountainous regions of the histogram, therefore ensuring correct exposure, essential when scaling an image either up or down. Most noticeable however, is scaling a smaller image up to result in a larger image. The loss of quality is greatly visible.
Schaub further goes on to demonstrate different situations how to correct or modify the histogram so the results are exactly what were intended. The histogram or the judging of the histogram has achieved special significance in the photography world for what has now been coined, 'Expose to the right.'
Theo Bosboom
Summary:
Theo Bosboom is a nature photographer from the Netherlands. His career in photography started in 2003 after a photo trip to southern Africa and Namibia. Deeply impressed by the wildlife and the wonderful landscapes there, and on looking at his pictures back home, he realized just what a powerful medium photography could be.
So he joined a local nature photography club in Nijmegen and was inspired by the work done there. He saw that it was possible to make great pictures not only in faraway places but also right on his own doorstep around Arnhem.
Theo’s main focus is on landscapes. But unlike most landscape photographers he makes great use of the telephoto lens. He uses it to pick out details and structures that then have strong graphic impact verging on the abstract.
At the other extreme Theo does a lot of macro-photography. "Here the great thing is", he says, "that it can be done anytime, any place and under any weather".
A major project over the last few years has been photographing in Iceland. On visiting there in 2006 he saw that it was "a dream for photographers" but that many people had of course already taken great photographs there. To find something new he decided to go back several times a year, often in winter, avoiding the tourists in spring and summer, and to explore away from the beaten track.
Thanks to the Gulf Stream Iceland has a relatively mild climate. So to Theo's surprise it was raining when he first arrived in winter and the vegetation was green. But luckily after a few days it began to snow and "it turned the landscape into a magical place". For example the Jökulsárlón Glacier is "very special in winter: It looks different every day".
Working in Iceland is hard because the weather can change very quickly. Blizzards and sudden ice on the roads can make travelling risky. Four-wheel drive is a must.
Early in 2010 Theo witnessed and photographed the eruption of the volcano Eyjafjallajokull that, with its dust and ash cloud, disrupted air traffic in most of Europe.
Iceland is a great place for bird photography. There are a many breeding species, some of them, like the photogenic puffin, very interesting. The harlequin duck, for example, cannot be found anywhere else in Europe. And one can get surprisingly close to the birds because they are not so shy as in more populated areas.
Theo gives advice in this video to potential visitors to Iceland. If you are planning a photo trip you will need at least ten day to right round the island. If you have less time take a closer look at just one area. And if you only have a weekend or so stay in the southeast near Reykjavik, in the so-called 'Golden Triangle'. It includes the Goðafoss waterfall, and other great but less well-known waterfall and it is one of the few areas in Iceland where there are trees. Driving further east there is good chance of spotting reindeer. The coastline is in some places quite spectacular and one should also visit some geothermal hot spots to get a feeling for the power that formed the earth.
Theo's website at www.theobosboom.com has a lot of his great Iceland images and Theo generously makes an offer to help you if you are planning a visit there. Just send him an email.