Kirsty and Drew : The long and short of March 17

On March 17, Marianne and I had the privilege of photographing Kirsty and Drew’s wedding. The weather forecast was all doom and gloom earlier in the week but we were  happy to see the heavy rains fall a few days early. This meant that  Saturday was a beautiful day for celebrations. Blue sky days aren’t ideal for wedding photography due to harsh lighting but that certainly did not put a dampener on what was a fabulous day. Once again, we were overhwhelmed with the friendliness and geniality shown to us; something which always helps us photograph the day. The ceremony was held at Horseshoe Bay in Port Elliot while the reception shifted to the Blues Restaurant just outside of Middleton.

With this post, I thought I’d show some of the advantages and luxuries of having two photographers on the day. First of all, during bride and groom preparation, there is no rush for us to head to each venue sequentially. Rather, we have enough gear to split up the shoot between us simultaneously. To date, I have carried the 7D with 10-20mm sigma , 16-35mm F2.8 and the 70-200 F2.8 lens. This gives me the capability to go ultra wide, or ultra long if I need to for detail shots. I end up using the 16-35mm on the crop sensor for most of the shoot. Marianne has photographed the bride with the 5dmkII and 24-70mm F2.8 lens. She rarely deviates from this but has the 135mm F2 lens in her bag if required.

Preparation details photographed independently

Once we are at the ceremony, I usually focus on details with the 7D + 70-200mm lens while Marianne stays wide to capture the whole scene and traditional portraits with the same setup as for the bridal preparation. Usually, I arrive at the scene with the groomsmen which gives me some time to try a panorama. To date, I have not found it possible to do a panorama including the bride and groom as there are inevitably people standing in the way beyond our control.

Soldier's Memorial Gardens : Port Elliot

Sand ceremony in context and detail

Rings in context and in detail

After the ceremony was over, we took a short drive to the clifftops around Horseshoe Bay where there were great opportunities for both short (wide) and long lens images. These gave different perspectives of the same scene.

Long lens shot atop the cliffs

Wide angle from atop the jetty

Long lens image taken from 100m back of the same scene above

Wide angle image of the tracks

Long lens image of the same tracks

We always appreciate quality time for location shoots and we felt that we had plenty of time for Kirsty and Drew compared to many other weddings we have photographed. Once the location shoot was over, we headed to the Blues restaurant in Middleton whose food we had the pleasure of tasting thanks to our hosts

Wide angle shot of the beachouse accommodation

Long lens shot of the same scene above

Wide angle coverage of the bridal waltz

Longer lens coverage of the same scene

Shortly after the bridal waltz, Marianne and I headed back home to Adelaide where once again, Charlotte had proven to be very ‘baby-sittable’. We had a great time photographing the day and are preparing for our next wedding before a four week break, another wedding, then off to New Zealand!! Congratulations again Kirsty and Drew and thanks for your hospitality throughout the day

That was the long.......

....and the short of March 17

Until next time! (ps. some 5dmkIII shots from the next wedding too

-D

A Weekend Escapade

Our last weekend away taught us a few more things about travelling and photography with a young child. We drove down to Robe and the beautiful Limestone Coast of South Australia. 3.5 hours in the car with an infant is a gamble and at some stage, they will NOT like the journey! Despite trying to remain outwardly calm, their crying will eventually affect you. Stopping the tears can sometimes only be managed by aborting any efforts to take photographs. If you persist and have your mind on two things at once, you may end up paying a price, such as breaking camera equipment like our 82mm circular polarising filter!

Above: an exposure blended image. Below: the result of a smashed polariser

The point of view of a baby is somewhat different to an adult photographer. We love sunsets and sunrises, they love to sleep during those times. We look at the grand scene, they love to focus on one detail such as the texture of a sand on a beach. Charlotte was engrossed with the water movement underneath the jetty where most of us would not have paid it a passing thought! Not to mention some very cute shadow dancing she was doing.

The little things are a wonderful source of joy!

She also loves the sound of wave motion as I found out from her coo-ing sounds while taking this panorama.

Standing in the water with Charlotte

Babies can be infatuated with one thing one day, and then treat it as his/her worst enemy the next! Charlotte seemed to love playing with sand while in Kangaroo Island but we couldn’t put her within 10 cm of the sand at Long Beach! (it was cool sand too!)

"Get me away from the sand!!"

Charlotte loves to pull on daddy’s hair. Even when there isn’t much of it left after a #3 shave! This shot was one of a series taken with Charlotte on my back pulling away as though I was a horse.

Obelisk and grass

The look of concentration is an odd one when taking the arm’s length self portrait – so I tried smiling this time!

Don't concentrate so hard!

Mornings are her best time of the day. After coming home from a dawn shoot, she seems to love the appearance of daddy through the door! Meanwhile, I was ruing the smashed polariser as these shots of the reef could have done with one to reduce water and rock glare.

More post processing was required in the absence of a CPL

Charlotte loves being in the backpack – but only while moving. Every time I so much as thought about setting up for a shot, there would be complaints from behind. Set up tripod, walk 5 steps. Put camera on tripod, walk 5 steps, Compose, walk 5 steps. Take picture, walk 5 steps. Rinse and repeat! At least I managed this panorama with this routine!

I recommend usually staying still for shooting panoramas, but not always possible with baby on back.

Mummy gets much more adventurous without having to worry about Charlotte. Here she is showing the very Chinese combination of squatting + [insert activity here] ; in this case, photography. She also got quite adventurous in finding some locals in search of crayfish and abalone at Beachport.

The squat & wait game!

There are conditions which bar Charlotte coming along. Getting to these locations required scrambling down sharp rocks and any slip could have resulted in injury. My own injury I can deal with – but no point taking unnecessary risks with the baby!

Climbing down those rocks was not a 'baby friendly' activity

Unfortunately landscape shooting will be coming to a halt for the month of March while we photograph weddings on 3 consecutive weekends. We will however be taking Charlotte on a three week journey through New Zealand in Late April. A trip we are very much looking forward to Until next time!

-D

An Imperfect Match

The subject of this tutorial is the photoshop function ‘Match Colour’. It has many uses and the one I’ll describe in this post can potentially save time when processing different versions of very similar looking images. I find I use this technique to process wedding photographs when they are part of a sequence  shot in rapid succession with the same framing. Alternatively, when shooting seascapes, I’ll often take multiple shots of the same exposure and composition but with varying degrees of wave movement. ‘Match Colour’ helps to keep the colour of images as close to each other as possible if (and its a big if) you then continue with the rest of your workflow to fine tune its initial results.

The following example is based on 2 images I took with similar composition at Port Willunga Jetty. I chose this example to show what the function can and can’t do. The images look similar but not identical in colour. However, the corrections I needed to make after using ‘Match Colour’ initially were less intense and arduous than if I had started from scratch.

Original image on right, 'Matched' image on left

The image on the right was the image that I processed first as the better of the two compositions though I’m not entirely happy with it since the image was taken from the water at night with a significant tilt which needed to be corrected in post processing. The image on the left was a  quick post processed version following the use of ‘Match Colour’ as a first step. The image below is how it looked straight from lightroom :

Lightroom export : adjustments for clarity and contrast were made

These are the following steps in CS5 I took in order to fast track post processing:

1. Open both the new file you have chosen to edit, and the original file you have already edited.

2. Duplicate the background layer of the new file (so that you can mask in or out any of the effects ‘Match Colour’ will produce)

3. Select the entire image in both files separately (Ctrl-A) and return to the file you are working on.

4. Go to Image>Adjustments>Match Colour as below

4. In the bottom dropdown menu, select the source as the edited reference image

5. Click OK and the observe the result.

In this example, the colours achieved were closer but not quite what was achieved with the original edit. I suspect that part of the reason is that the composition was not identical which highlights a limitation of this tool (for this purpose anyway). Like many tools available in photoshop, it shouldn’t replace fundamentals of post processing but when used for the appropriate reasons and images, it can be a potential time saver! I hope you find a use for this function or if not, or at the very least you now know a little about what this function can do.

-D

A Weekend Timeline

In mid January, Marianne, Charlotte and I took the opportunity to have a long weekend away and travelled to Kangaroo Island with Keith & Amy who were visiting from Hong Kong. We had never met, but thanks to email and various social media we were able to arrange this weekend successfully and have made new friends. It was our first trip away with Charlotte anywhere and at 4 and a half months, we knew that it would provide us with a few challenges. Kangaroo Island itself is a large island and far too expansive to cover in a single long weekend and so, as usual, this trip was a teaser for a future trip! Here’s a timeline of how we went about the weekend.

Saturday:

6am : Rise and shine and the packing commenced. During the week, we had charged our batteries, cleaned out the tripods and filters and made sure our CF cards were emptied. Packing for Charlotte was a completely different experience and we were paranoid that we had missed something!

830am: Departure for Noarlunga Colonnades shopping centre where we would meet Keith and Amy, fresh off an overnight flight. Our intention was to find them internet access for their Australian trip and do a little shopping. Incidentally, technology seems to have leaped ahead of all of us as we could not figure out why we couldn’t lock their rental Mitsubishi Outlander. It turns out that it locks itself after walking more than 10m away from the car! After some shopping at Woolworths , we left shortly after 1030am.

12pm : Arrival at the Sealink ferry terminal. It seemed that many people had also decided to take the weekend off as we were packed like sardines down below in the car hold! I had driven down the highway on autopilot as it was a road I was very familiar with but unfortunately, the winding road and jetlag took their toll on Keith and Amy who were feeling a little queasy on the choppy waters during the ferry ride. Marianne was also feeling a little unwell and needed some open air but suprisingly Charlotte stood tough with daddy watching the horizon go up and down, up and down……

Sealink Hold

2pm: After reaching terra firma with still quivering stomachs , noone was particularly keen for lunch so we drove on to our first stop : Pennington Bay. This location would have been an absolutely fantastic location for sunset or sunrise but since we were staying at the opposite end of the island, we had to make do with midday conditions. I nearly managed to drown the 5dmkII after getting careless while heading back to the car. A big wave caught me from behind and ended up soaking me thoroughly and part of the unprotected camera.

Keith atop the jagged rocks of Pennington Bay

Pennington Bay

330pm:  Our appetites returned and we stopped over at Bella’s Pizzeria for a fantastic family sized pizza. To our surprise, we found that the owner was David Mitchell! Someone who’s work I’ve been following on deviant art and a guest at a wedding we had photographed the year previously. If you’re ever on Kangaroo island and after a tasty pizza , Bella’s is the place to be! We stocked up on some fresh food before heading off to our accommodation.

Charlotte urging us on from Kingscote!

5pm: Little Sahara sand dunes. Once again, this was another location which would have been stunning at either end of the day because of the lighting and the lack of sand-boarders in the area. Charlotte by this stage was starting to turn up the grumpiness and Marianne had to stay with her in the car to stop the ‘cry of death’ from happening. Photographically, I didn’t feel as though I did the place any justice and will definitely be back in the future some time! ps. Charlotte loves playing with sand between her toes but loves having it blown off even more!

Dune patterns at Little Sahara

6:30pm: Arrival at Western KI caravan park: A beautiful location just outside of Flinders Chase National Park. We couldn’t ask for a more peaceful location to base ourselves. After a quick snack and setting up the room for Charlotte, Keith Amy and I took the drive to Cape Du Couedic lighthouse. Unfortunately, as the spectacular light all occurred  as we were driving to the cape and dispersed the moment we parked our cars and set up our tripods to photograph the scene.

Lightouse by fading light

9pm: Marianne had fried us all up our usual travel meal of rice, spam, egg and veges. It was a long day , especially for Keith and Amy. After some brief talks about post processing and what we planned to do the next morning, bed time could not have come soon enough.

Sunday

5am : Another early rise and shine ready for a dawn shoot at the remarkable rocks. The cloud cover was quite thick but we were determined to make the most of the weekend! Photographing iconic places always seems so much more peaceful and relaxed at strange hours of the day when the usual tourists crowds are yet to arrive. That particular morning, we experienced quite a few different lighting conditions even in the two hours we were there.

Different lighting over Remarkable Rocks

Keith, Amy & I atop the rocks

9am: Jet lag and the early morning shoot seemed to have finally taken their toll on Keith and Amy who ended up sleeping for the remainder of the morning. Marianne and I took the opportunity to keep Charlotte company and amuse her in her new settings. It was the first time that we had slept with her in the same room and we know now how parents who sleep in the same room as their child probably don’t get much sleep. Every little rustle and momentary wakening she experienced managed to wake us up too!

1pm: We finally made it out for the day and settled for a picnic lunch at Vivonne Bay on a gorgeous but windy day. Marianne had been looking after Charlotte until now so it was my turn to look after her with her on my back! We found to our great relief that Charlotte really likes our baby back pack and managed to fall asleep despite me sometimes bending over and the wind blowing quite strongly at times. The green waters of the bay were extraordinary and we appreciated every moment of it.

Vivonne Bay on a blue sky day

Charlotte asleep on my back

3pm: Next stop was Seal Bay. I tried my best to amuse a tiring and increasingly grumpy Charlotte with some degree of success but there’s nothing like Mummy sometimes. After some close encounters with sea lions on the beach, we headed back to our accommodation for a little less rushed dinner. Charlotte meanwhile, even started to get grouchy while the car was in motion. It seems that her ‘witching hour’ of grumpiness coincided with sunset which was not good for a photographic trip!

This sea lion had a captive audience

Sea lions having a 'debate' on the beach

730pm: Nonetheless, we headed to Admiral’s Arch for sunset. I stayed around the carpark and lighthouse as the wind heading toward the arch would probably have been too much for Charlotte. It was one of those clear and beautiful sunsets that were appreciated better by experience rather than photographs.

Admiral's Arch at sunset

Cape Du Couedic from Admiral's Arch

Charlotte bundled up against the elements on my back

930pm: The night skies were clear and starlit before moonrise. Keith and Amy, who rarely see stars in Hong Kong stayed up taking a few pictures of the stars around our cabins but Marianne, Charlotte and I decided that a little sleep was just as important. I had planned to get up early for dawn the next day anyway and the mental alarm clock would no doubt keep me waking every half an hour convinced that I had missed dawn.

3am: After some caffeine and a little indecision due to intermittent fog passing over the area, Keith and I headed out for some star trail images. By this stage, the moon was lighting the foggy terrain and the temperature had dropped to a very unseasonal 8 degrees. We settled on an open stretch of road on the South Coast road where for the next 2 hours, we were completely uninterrupted. During this time, we drove the car up and down the road without headlights in one direction (and driving extremely slowly) to try for a composition with light trails on the road and star trails in the sky. When first light started to show, we decided to try Hanson Bay for our dawn shoot.

Star and light trails

530am: We were greeted by dense fog and a transformer box overhead precariously discharging sparks as our only light source as we headed down to the beach. In the gloom, I noticed that there was a lagoon inland from the shore with alot of mist in the area. It certainly looked as good an option as the bay itself , so we headed there first. We found a bunch of kayaks all tied up except for one. It made for a good photographic subject so we put it to use and waited for light. During this time , parts of the mist were rising and the sky developed a band of cloud , and so, trusting some instincts, I left the mirror-like lagoon to focus on the sunrise itself from the dunes of the beach. Either way, the morning turned out to be spectacular but I’m glad I managed to find the dune patterns with the head of the Bay in the background to give the images a locational relevance. This is something I’ve been trying to achieve with images. I don’t feel as though I have achieved  much photographically if all I’ve done is taken a generic seascape image ; sure I’ll remember where it was taken, but to another viewer it won’t give that sense of ‘oh I’ve been there and I never saw it like that!’ which is the intention of most my work. It was a great way to wrap up the trip and in our euphoria and sleepy haze, it was only on our return to the caravan park ( to a sleepy Marianne) that we discovered we had left the door to our cabin ajar!

Predawn gloom and the mist over Hanson Bay's lagoon

Dunes in the pre-dawn lighting at Hanson Bay

Golden Dawn over Hanson Bay

930am: Time for farewells! It was a pleasure to have met Keith and Amy and we were not only relieved that they didn’t turn out to be axe-weilding mass murderers , but instead, we ‘ve made good friends with people in yet another corner of this wide world. They were both very fatigued from the flight and itinerary but would stay another day on the island before moving on to Queensland and Port Lincoln. Meanwhile, Marianne , Charlotte and I headed back to Adelaide via the Island Beehive for some delicious honey, and final taste of David’s pizzas in Kingscote. Our next weekend is based in Robe where we’ll be trying to sneak a couple of dawns and dusks of the limestone coast! Following that, we may be absent for an extended period with a real rush to the end of the wedding season : three in March, one in April and then, a three week trip to New Zealand!

Port Elliot, the site of one of our upcoming weddings

Until next time!

-D

Highlights : A Quick Fix!

2012 is upon us and I thought it was time for another quick post-processing tutorial ! Marianne and I are considering the possiblity of running either landscape workshops in the near future or running post-processing sessions. If we were to do the latter, we would have to have some sort of course material and think about how we would present it in an understandable manner. Hence, I’ve been trying to put into writing some aspects of our post-processing which has been developed through looking at many other people’s techniques before consolidating them into our own.

This entry describes how to ‘correct’ highlights very quickly and selectively. It requires only a very basic understanding of layer masks and blend modes. It is not a fix for badly taken images with half of the histogram bunched up on the far right hand side indicating that very little is recoverable. In fact, the example image today had no clipped highlights to begin with but I wanted to darken some areas of the image selectively without having to dance around artistically with a brush on a layer mask. If you want a term for it, it is a very basic ‘luminosity’ mask.

The starting image is shown below. It has already gone through most of the steps in post processing in my standard workflow which you can see here http://wp.me/prucx-e9

Before the mask is applied

The layers used to touch up the work are shown in the next image. I have turned off the eye dropper for the ‘multiply’ mode so that its effect is not visible yet. The ‘multiply’ mode is a blend mode which effectively darkens the image. If you imagine holding up one slide and looking at it through a light source, the effect is a simulation of holding up another exact copy of that slide in front of the light source ; light which gets through is diminished, hence the image appears darker. If you are applying this technique from scratch, simply duplicate the background layer and change the blend mode to ‘multiply’.

Focus on the Multiply layer for today

Next, switch to the ‘channels’ tab and you will see that by default, RGB and each individual R, G and B channels are all selected. Don’t change this. Press Ctrl-left click on the RGB (top) channel and you will see a selection appear on the image. The selection is what is ‘common’ to all of the channels and hence tends to be areas of highlight  or brightness (in rough terms).

In the Channels tab, Ctrl Left Click the RGB layer.

"Marching Ants" indicates your selection : the bright areas of the image

Next, switch back to the ‘layers’ tab (1) and you will see the marching ants persist on the image. Click on the eye dropper on the multiply layer (2) so that you can see the effect of the layer. The image should all of a sudden look unacceptably dark. Next, click on the layer mask button (3) and presto! The selected areas of brightness are the only parts affected by the multiply effect meaning that you have effectively dampened the bright areas of the image.I don’t usually let the computer do all my thinking for me and I end up modifying the mask a little. For instance, I did want some brightness retained on the glowing parts of the rock and waves and so I masked them out from the selection but it is the basic principle that’s important.

Follow the numbered steps

The image with brightness dampened

I have shown just one application of this simple tool but here are some other areas you might want to use this technique:

1. Wedding photography : we find it great for recovering highlights in the bride’s dress!

2. Exposure blending manually : applying this to the bright areas of the brightest exposure and inverting the mask will allow you to blend two images in a single step

3. Shadow recovery: A little more abstract, but try changing the blend mode to screen and inverting the mask (Ctrl-I) and you might see some interesting effects with shadows!

After a few tweaks for web presentation , this is the final image of the Westman Islands in Iceland with a lonely bird included. Say, don’t they look similar to the rocks of Port Elliot here in South Australia???

Westman Islands , Iceland

Port Elliot, South Australia

Happy New Year and happy post processing all!

-D