capturing the moment ch 1

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Capturing the

Moment

TAKING PHOTOS OF WHAT YOU REALLY SEE

Volume 1: Observe, Aim & Capture.


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Introduction

1

This book is for those who wish to lovetheir photographs more.

It is for those who enjoy photography but feel disappointed by the results they achieve.

It is notfor those who take snaps then leave them in a draw/Facebook/camera and forget about them.

It is about how to give your photos impactwhilst keeping it simple.


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I was, like most wannabe photographers, never truly content with

my photography, and continued like this for many years. The

reasons? Lack of knowledge and lack of time.

Lack of time was a very real problem, and not just for my

photography. As a veterinary surgeon for many many years, spare

time was consumed by catchingup on my sleep after endless days

and nights on duty. This 24/7 kind

of life can only be continued for so

long. Eventually I rebelled and

ended up developing a veterinary

emergency service, the first of its

kind in the UK, possibly in

Europe.That was 20 years ago. Now I am

reaping the rewards of semi-

retirement. Time for my other

favourite thing, photography

oops, my family, er.. . then

photography...

My career and training in

veterinary medicine has given mea great insight into the animal

world, and bolstered my

observational powers. I have also

studied evolution, comparative

anatomy and physiology, wildlife

etc. all of which have made me more aware with my photography.

Developing my business also led me down the road to

understanding computers, having developed programmes for our

new kind of veterinary service. This means that giant programmes

such as photoshop do not automatically fill me with fear.

I was then introduced to the world of High Dynamic Range

processing, and my interest inphotography was reinvigorated.

I am hoping that this book will

help its readers to avoid having to

enrol in a veterinary course, suffer

interminable nights on duty and

then learn everything there is to

know about computers.

This book is a short-cut.

However, if you really want to be

a vet as well, dont let me put you

off

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The 7 Golden Rulesof Photography

1.Always keep your camerawith you2. Keep taking photos of everything3. Make the most of interesting light4.

Obey the rule of thirds5. Go for simplicity when composing

your subject6. Don't be frightened by technology7.

Use your computer to findpictures within pictures

Val Newton


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Volume 1: Observe, Aim & Capture.


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There are enormousdifferences between the camera (and how it captures an image), and the picture

that you see in your head, resulting from the combination of eye and brain.

Understanding this can not only change the way that you take and process photographs, but can

fundamentally change the way you look at the world.

CHAPTER 1

5

What You See is NOT What You Get


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The Camera vs the Eye

Most people assume that we see the world around us in much the

same way that a camera does. This is absolutely not the case. Our

eyes have evolved over millions of years to a point which may

have many similarities to a camera (which, incidentally, evolved

much more quickly), but how we assimilate the data that arrives

from the eyes is completely different to that of a sensor and

associated memory in the camera.

Range of ViewLet me first try to discard one common misconception, and that is

that when we look at a scene, we see it all as one clear picture. The

truth is that the bulk of the image that you see is constructed in

your head by guesswork.

This may sound insane, but it is not, and it is easy to prove. If

indeed we did see things as a complete picture, the memory space

taken up in our brain would soon be exhausted (although this maygo some way to explain some peoples aberrant behaviours...).

When you look at something, you only clearly see the very centre

of your field of view. Your eye darts around the scene, taking in

information that your mind uses to make up the complete picture.

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WHAT YOU SEE IS NOTWHAT YOU GET


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On the other hand, perception of motion is better in our peripheral

vision, resulting in vision being better in the near dark away from

the centre of the eye.

In this way the eye can be easily fooled. We are, for example, hard-

wired to recognise faces. We can see faces in the most vague of

shapes. Thus, seeing things out of the corner of your eye can leadto you mistakenly seeing something which isnt there, thus the

birth of many ghost stories...

The camera, on the other hand, is not so easily fooled. To do that

we need Photoshop!

Some 80% of our total sensory input is through the eye. Compare

that to, say, dogs where the most important input for them is smell.

Imagine what our cameras would be like if the sensor responded

mostly to smell! On second thoughts, I dont think I will.

Our large brains process this huge volume of information, about a

third of our processing power is used. Even so, this amazing

system is surpassed by birds and most reptiles. With them, the

processing occurs in the retina itself, giving them superlatively

rapid reflexes.

Range of LightThe next problem is one of dynamic range. This is not some kind

of advertising feature, nor is it a mutant superpower. It simply

means that, when looking at a view, there is typically a range of

darkness and lightness that we can clearly see. You look at a light

area - you see all the details there. You then look at a dark area -your eye immediately adapts to see the detail there also. It takes

the eye some time to adapt to really bright and really dark areas,

but for the normal view - it is instantaneous.

The camera, on the other hand, cannot do that. Thus your typical

photo ends up with areas too bright or parts too dark. In these

areas the detail is washed out or just black. Nothing like what you

see in your head.

ColourHaving spent much of our evolutionary history in the dark, where

colour differentiation was much less important than light

sensitivity, our ancestors started to venture out in daylight. Our

retinas had to change, and change they did.

Some primates (including us) have also evolved a third colour

pigment to better see colour clues around us. We are less easily

fooled by camouflage, and we can see which are the best fruits topick - are they ripe or rotten? This allowed our ancestors an

advantage over their two-colour competitors. It allows us to see

the same colours no matter what the lighting. For example, a

lemon is yellow in daylight and artificial light, even though the

wavelength given off and sensed by the retina is completely

different!


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It also allows us to see much more vividly. Make use of this

advantage passed on to you by your ancestors!

MemoryThe final important difference is with how we remember what we

see. A cameras memory is unchanging (hopefully). Our memory is

mutable, it changes. To remember a scene, bits of memory are

accessed from all over your brain to make a whole. This is

unreliable. Witness statements from crime scenes are notoriously

unreliable. Clients memory is something to wonder at.

Picture the scene in a veterinary clinic. One pampered cat, two

doting owners. One simple question.

Me: How old is poor little Snugglepuss?

Him: Er... I dunno, A couple of years? What do you think Edith?

Her: Well, I remember going round to Aunt Doris house just after

little Harold was born, and he must be about 4 by now, so ...

Snugglepuss: Nine.

(The last bit was me looking at the cats teeth...)

So, when it comes to photographs, we have an interestingdilemma. How much do we change the photo? Is it as you

remember it? Is it as others remember it?

If you decide to make significant changes to an image (like

removing irksome Uncle George from a group photo) then you

must show no-one the original photo. Doing so makes the changes

obvious, showing the finished product; no-one should notice.

People cannot see what isnt there.

The worst thing that you can do is show your beloved wife/

daughter/girlfriend etc a photo youve taken BEFORE

photoshopping out the spots and wrinkles. Honestly, theyll have

no idea that you have doctored the photo if you dont tell them

instead, they may ask you to get rid of some spot or other that you

have missed!

Anyway, your final image should be as you saw it, (female

portraits excepting) in yourhead, with youreyes, mutated by yourmemory. If someone says it looks too real (if that were even

possible), simply tell then that it is what you saw (unless, of

course, the subject was female...)

Its fine, by the way, to increase the features (er, wrinkles) on men.

Who said that it was fair?


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LETS LOOK AT AN EXAMPLE:

This photo was taken at dawn. Ive used all the normal settings

with no post-processing.

It bears no resemblance to the picture in my head.

What I could see was a bright red coloured sky, and a dull but

detailed foreground, coloured by the dawns blush.

The outstanding feature is the sky.

To get it more real as you saw it, you would have to underexpose

the photo thus: (dont worry about how to do that for now, Ill

explain all that nerdy stuff later)

Well, the sky looks much better, but the foreground is just black -

no detail.

So we well overexpose to get some detail in the foreground:


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Crap! Weve now lost the sky!

Your eye (or, most importantly) your brain can see ALL the detail

simply by darting around the scene.

If we combine those three photos, taking the detail from each

photo then we get what I saw in my head:

It doesnt stop there. Vision normally uses two eyes, meaning a

significantly wider view than its height. In other words, a

panorama.

Here is what I really saw:


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Now this is all well and good, but say youve gone through the

laborious (and often erroneous) process of setting your camera up

for a shot of your pet rabbit, then you want to take a picture of the

buzzard swooping down to snatch it away for breakfast, and then

you want a panoramic photo as the buzzard flies away to the

distant sunset - how are you going to achieve all that? (Let alone

how are you going to tell your kids that their bunny has given ahelping hand to feeding nature?)

Well, using all these bloody settings is not (in my humble opinion)

the answer.

Look, my current favourite camera (more on this later) has 28

knobs and dials plus a menu the length of a Tolstoy novel. How

am I supposed to fiddle with all that between the cuddly rabbit bit

and the final departure scene?

Well, frankly, theres no bloody way. Im going to screw up and

end up with no proof to show my infant accusers.

Dont Panic!

There are ways and means around this problem, and that is really

what this book is about.

Although all the knobs and dials are in someway necessary to

someone, they are not all necessary for you. There are many of

them that you can safely ignore. In the section on camera settings I

will explain what I think is necessary, what is not needed, and the

bits that you might one day need but will probably have bought anew camera by then!

The one main lesson in all of this is that you should shoot photos

in RAW (nah, dont remove your underwear, Im talking about the

RAW format).


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For years I could see no point in doing this, now I truly wish I had,

if only for the reason that I could now go back and re-edit those

photos using what I have since learned. That opportunity is lost

forever...

Im not saying that using a decent DSLR camera is easy, but there

are several ways to make it very much easier.

If you shoot in RAW, the photos you get wont look that brilliant

straight from the camera, because youve instructed the camera to

leave them alone. Its you that will have to do this at a later date

when you have the time.

Importantly, if you know what you are doing, it is FUN!

Long-term effects of shooting in RAWShooting in RAW, as explained above, means that you have to find

time to concentrate on your photos not just when you take the

picture, but later on as well. This can double the fun you have with

photography. Using such methods as HDR (yep, another acronym,

this time it means High Dynamic Range) you can transform a

photo into what your brain remembered - and more. Because of all

the details these techniques bring out, you will find yourself

looking out more for these details in real life., After time, you will

start to realise that you really do see in HDR!

Another effect is on your enjoyment of holidays. For normal

mortals, holidays are to be enjoyed and then, when finished, sadly

missed. For photographers that use the techniques in this book,

coming back from holidays is not tinged with sadness, but tinged

with the anticipation of looking at all those photos and spending

time working on them! Holidays become even longer, and

memories of them even stronger.

Open You Eyes!

So, the first step in taking photos is to look around you, use the

power in your eyes given to you by three and a half billion years of

evolution, observe the detail in everything, spot the interesting

shot - then click.

Observe, Aim & Capture Simple.


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TAKE THE PHOTO

THAT YOUWANT!

We all have our own ideas of what makes a good photo. These can

vary wildly. When you start into the world of photography, the

temptation is to copy the ideas of others. This is fine, but only upto a point. Look at what others do and see what techniques they

use. Then decide what you like and try to achieve your own wish,

so that you end up with photos that YOU love, not (necessarily)

what your neighbour down the street likes.

Much of this book is there for you to follow techniques and master

them. That does not mean I am trying to produce clones of my

work. Take what I say and do, then distort it as you wish, to make

a photo that you can put up on yourwall or in yourbook.

If others like it - fine, but first and foremost, youmust love it.

If you love taking photos of animals, do so, but try to make it

unique to yourself in some way.

If you want to take photos of birds, do so, but find a way of

making your photos something other than a simple collection of

stuffed avians; make them interesting.

If you love old buildings, study their detail and individuality thencapture them on film.

If you love landscapes, photograph them, but make them

interesting.

If you love photographing animals bottoms, see a psychiatrist.

Just joking. Although you do see a serious amount of animals

bottoms on safari...

Now that we know what we want, we now have to learn how to

get it.

You need to learn where to aim, all subjects have a target to aim

for, although they are usually not as obvious as the one above...

Of course, having a camera would also help...


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