Although a significant number of digital and, by implication, film camera users, swear on Neutral density gradient filters (NDGs), I prefer exposure blending in most cases, since I feel it gives the photographer a much richer tool set for technical perfection and creative outlet.

I prefer exposure blending for two reasons:

1) Mind the line: No transition lines/obviously darkened areas of the image. Although NDGs keep exposure in check, in tricky scenes, which arise surprisingly often, the NDG line (the border between coated and uncoated regions of the filter) may be obvious in the final image. This is especially so for hard stop NDGs. These lines can be very hard and time consuming, if not impossible to remove in post processing. Alternatively you would have to be very skilled, since such lines could be avoided with 2 or 3 carefully arranged NDG’s, a time consuming effort. With exposure blending one can carefully combine exposures that were taken only needs to use the proper masks (which will be a topic of future posts). I manually blend my images and avoid the HDR approach, which in my opinion is seriously lacking, especially for landscapes.

2) Chase the light: With transition lines no longer a worry, you can now follow rapidly changing light conditions from different vantage points and with varying compositions, and still end up with technically excellent images. You won’t loose out on precious seconds of beautiful light as you fidget around with filters. You only need to ensure that the highlights and shadows are captured in correctly bracketed exposures, which can easily be checked with the exposure histograms on your camera LCD. The uninitiated will be pleasantly surprised by how rapid and simple this procedure is.

The two images below illustrate particularly tricky scenes which I was able to capture within a matter of seconds allowing me to move on to the next subject/composition, and still come away with technically sound images. This would have been very difficult and lengthy, if not virtually impossible to achieve with NDGs, unless I was happy with some fat transition line through my work.

Canon 5D, Canon EF17-40 mm f/4L @ 17 mm, 1/30 s, 1/8 s and 0.5 s @ f/22, ISO 50.

The image above was taken on the frozen shores of Lake Ontario, Canada. This scene had a rather high dynamic range, from shadows within the “ice cave” to strong highlights associated with the rising sun and the bright snow. Had I used a NDG to keep the sky and shadows in check, a transition line likely would have passed through the top of the cave and/or part of the frozen lake surface. Instead I took three exposures to capture the dynamic range and then was able to blend these images with suitable masks, in a way which I felt best reflected the scene as I remembered it.

Canon 5D, Canon EF 17-40 mm f/4L @ 23 mm, f/20 @ 1/50 and 1/13 s, ISO 50.

The second image, above, is an image of High Falls on the East Side of Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada. This scene exhibited an extreme dynamic range, since it was taken in the late afternoon when the sun was still strong, and a number of areas in the image were in deep afternoon shadows. In this case the a strong NDG filter would have put parts of the trees on the top of the waterfall in deep shadow, and artificially darkened the sky, just to keep the sun in check. The transition from the lighter bottom part of the trees to the darker top part would have been particularly obvious. In this image I blended only two exposures, but had to double process one exposure and tripple process the other. Although it was a lot of work, it cetainly was worth it!

There are however cases where blending exposures may not be the best approach. When bracketing for exposure, images are taken at different points in time. This is problematic if there are areas of the image which incorporate moving objects and which need to be blended. Typical examples would be moving clouds or water; even a lake’s shimmering surface would be a case in point. For this a NDG comes out tops, since the exposure is kept in check in one single shot.

A strength of the NDG that is often overlooked, is the fact that it reduces flare in the camera. By flare I do not mean the obvious streaks or lines that are introduced, but the more subtle aspect of light bouncing around in the lens, thereby reducing contrast and sometimes seemingly changing the color temperature of the scene – light will appear a lot warmer than what it actually was. This can happen even if the sun is not included in the scene. The photographer will place the darker areas of the NDG over the brighter region of the sky and thereby will reduce the total amount of light hitting the lens, reducing flare. With exposure bracketing one needs to be particularly careful, since when one exposes for the shadows a large amount of light from the brighter part of the scene will enter the lens and thereby introduce flare, even in the shadows! One should shade the lens from the brighter part of the sky with one’s hand (flare caps as supplied by lens manufacturers are in my opinion quite useless), and then blend accordingly. If there is flare, the effect of blocking out the light can easily be seen in the view finder. The image below is an example where I used my hand to block out the sun when exposing for the shadows.

The image above is a view, taken in later afternoon, of islands surrounding the Greek Island Amorgos, which forms part of the Cyclades in the Mediterranean. This also is a blended exposure. However, when exposing for the foreground, a significant amount of light from the setting sun entered the lens and introduced flare throughout the image. This killed the contrast necessary to convey the beautiful golden glow on the foreground shrubs. By shielding the lens from the sun (this meant my hand was blocking the top part of the image) I eliminated flare, and by blending with an exposure for the sky and sun I was able to realize this image In future posts I will describe in detail how this image came about.

That’s all for this post. In the next series of posts I will give some examples of manual blending, mask generation and will introduce the reader to an extremely powerful tool, luminosity masks.

Share

I would like to start this series with an important note on the creative aspects of photography. There seems to be a widely held belief that a photograph is supposed to play a documentary role, i.e. an adequate, realistic portrayal of whatever it is that the photographer saw at the time of taking the image This likely stems from the popular conception of photography as a technical means of capturing and reproducing a real, happening scene or event. I think that is an unnecessarily narrow view.  The camera first and foremost is a tool, and therefore can be used for whatever purpose is seen fit. Whether the individual wants to use it for documentary purposes or as a means to express a unique, artistic vision or even to create the surreal, is entirely up to him/her and a matter of preference and taste.

The expectation of the documentary is particularly strong in landscape and nature photography, perhaps partly so because the viewer finds nature to be beautiful in itself, and feels that a good photograph would effectively convey that beauty, without the need for some creative vision/modification. I believe that there is no “right” or “wrong” way of performing any type of photography, including landscape and nature. What is important is that the photographer achieves in his/her mind what it is that he/she wants to express or convey. Whether the result appeals to the viewer, whoever it may be, is another question.

This having been said, my own preference lies mainly in the documentary. To me nature is spectacular in itself. A beautiful scene or moment is precious to me, it affects me deeply and I feel an urgent need to capture it, for myself so that I can marvel at it whenever and for as long as I like but also so that I can share it with those who were not there. I believe that a realistic, well composed rendition of such scenes or moments is more than sufficient for emotional and aesthetic impact. By realistic I mean something that is believable as an accurate representation of what the photographer saw. This does not imply that I take the output from my camera as is. In fact a certain amount of work, such as contrast, saturation etc. is necessary to make the rendition as realistic as possible. The camera output, of whatever file format it may be, already is a rendition of the raw sensor data via a profile defined by the camera maker. This applies equally to RAW files which seem to be misconceived as representing most truthfully what had been captured.  In addition, the photographic medium is limited, in a number of ways. One of them would be the fact that the extreme tonal ranges present in a high contrast scene, such as e.g. one with dark shadows and bright highlights, cannot be reproduced, unless they are significantly compressed, through exposure blending or the use of Neutral Density Gradient (NDG) filters. Through the compression of tonal ranges, the photograph may lack one of the essential elements of the scene that the photographer witnessed. The tonal range that the eye can see is much greater than what a photograph can reproduce (whether blended or not). The photographer, when processing his/her images, may then try to replicate that range by other means, such as saturation, contrast and/or very skillful exposure blending which renders the photograph closer to what actually was seen. The post processing work therefore can be considerable in some cases.

I summary, photography is an art form just as is painting. Whether the photographer chooses his work to be documentary or of an entirely artistic nature, is a matter of his/her taste and preferences. The photographer should not pigeon hole his/her work into what he feels the consensus on the nature of photography is. That having been said, my own preference for landscape photography gravitates towards the documentary, for reasons I have mentioned earlier.

In my next post, I will address what I feel is one of the main strengths of digital photography, exposure blending.

Share

One case in point is the Peruvian Amazon which covers almost 2/3 of the country. As the program describes, due to a huge boom in mining for resources, it is estimated that as much as half of that Amazon may be gone in 10 years, if current rates of deforestation continue. Not even official protected areas are safe. Some existing national parks have become oil blocks and other areas fall victim to gold mining. Of course this impacts directly the indigenous people who live there, destroying their habitat and their way of life. They have to fight the state and powerful corporations.One such fight is taking place in northern Peru, in the region of Cordillera del Condor, an area of great prospects for gold mining companies.

A Canadian mining company, Dorato resources, focuses on this region and proudly proclaims its interests on their homepage as well as in a video on You Tube: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDT592H4MVI[/youtube]

They have gone on a public relations exercise stating that they will mine in this area, although they have not asked or contacted the indigenous people who live there about their intentions. The Awajun to establish a natural park in this area, and not a gold mine as seems to be the case now: [dailymotion]http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcdem0_amazonia-for-sale_news[/dailymotion]

Discussions between the Peruvian government and Awajun communities on establishing a natural park had gone on for 2 years, since native people at first did not want to loose hold over their traditional territory. However they finally did agree in 2004, since the government promised that no environmentally damaging activities would be allowed in this area and that they would mange it together. In particular, it was recognized that mining would pollute head waters and Conservation International states that mining would irreversibly destroy biodiversity, especially due to the effect it would have on the head waters.

However in 2006, upon election, the new president Alan Garcia stated immediately that he wanted to develop the Amazon. He issued a series of laws and decress allowing for the privatization of indigenous land. This led to large scale protests by indigenous communities throughout Peru. In 2009 he ordered police and military to stop the protesters in the North, with very violent consequences as shown in this video . It is unsettling to see how Alan Garcia wants to portray the indigenous as the evil doers. Interestingly, Dorato has the right to 1000 km^2 of land exacly where the government had promised the national park to be! The Awajun are still fighting for their rights

In the south a similar picture is emerging, this area being of interest to oil companies, Texas’ Hunt oil corporation in particular: [vimeo]http://vimeo.com/15175965[/vimeo]

The Amarakaeri reserve, where the headwaters of two major rivers originate, and where mining thus would be particularly environmentally damaging, is of interest to Hunt. This reserve after a 10 year struggle by indigenous people to have it declared, in order to preserve their land and way of life, was supposed to be off limits to logging or any other form of development, including farming by the natives themselves. However, in 2006 things changed here too. Almost the entire reserve was leased to Hunt. The story here however is not as clear cut as in the north, since the affected communities are split between those who believe that oil exploration will improve their way of life, partly due to promises of fast cash from the company, and those who feel that it will destroy it. Hunt has already finished evaluating the area for the viability of its oil reserves. If Hunt finds this area promising, they will develop at minimum cost and thus maximum destruction, as evidenced by other Peruvian projects they have been involved in.

I love the ending quote of one of the Awajun leaders: “This development they talk about for us, is not development. For us, development is the intellectual capacity, the cognitive capacity, that indigenous people have in their own lives. Yes, we want schools where our children can go and study. We’re not against that. The government can bring these projects, but without this blackmail of, “you can have a school if you let us put in a mine. Why do they say we are dogs? In what way are we poor? We are intelligent, we have two hands and two feet to work with. We know how to care for the environment. It’s because of us you see the great forest, you breathe the pure air, you see the greatness of the Amazon. We don’t need anything else, we have it all.”

Share

In this article I would like to share with you some of my favorite photographs of this seemingly barren landscape. I hope you will feel motivated to venture out, brave the cold and enjoy the many rewards our frozen great lakes offer the intrepid photographer.

Most of these images were taken at dawn on the shores of Lake Ontario, an approximately 15 minute drive from my apartment in downtown Kingston. Fortunately in winter the sun rises relatively late and there is no need to get up at 4:30 am; on the downside, after a shoot I often find myself scrambling home to get ready for work! There is no special part of the lake I seek out; my only criterium is the ability to compose images without man made objects. There is no need for tiring hikes or long car rides; the photographer who lives close to the great lakes has a photographic playground at his (or her) feet.

Lake Ontario’s landscape differs from year to year. In the winter of 2006/2007 the surface was particularly interesting: Fragments of ice stuck through the snow covering and a low setting or rising sun would illuminate the ice with golden, glowing light, wonderful subjects to photograph. The photograph below gives one such example.

The image above shows part of a pressure ridge, jutting out of the frozen surface of Lake Ontario, illuminated by the rising sun. I was mesmerized by the sun’s reflections within the ice and tried feverishly to capture the moment. I liked the simplicity and geometry of this composition. The low perspective and wide angle distort the sense of scale. Only a few minutes later, as the light became more intense, the ice appeared to be on fire, and the juxtaposition of warm light and the frozen surroundings was particularly striking.

That same morning, as I turned around the following scene offered itself to me.

At twilight, whether dusk or dawn, the sky will take on an orange/yellow glow (which may be different depending on your geographic location), while in the opposite direction there will be a mix of blues and magentas (again dependant on geography). This worked out well in this situation.

As this photograph illustrates nicely ice fragments stick out of the snow cover throughout the lake’s surface. These glow beautifully when illuminated under the rising sun.

In the winter of 2007/2008 there were much fewer and smaller fragments, but thanks to a strong storm, and unusually thin ice, the surface ice broke into thousands of pieces. This was a photographic God sent, with the morning sun turning the Lake into what seemed to be a sea of glittering glass:

The ice eventually washed ashore, building embankments and little caves which made for some interesting compositions. The photograph below shows the sunrise from such an embankment. It was difficult to frame my intended subject properly, but after crawling around under several of these caves, I came away with an image which I found pleasing.

Well, this is it for my first post. More on this topic later!

Share

This is supposed to be a photography blog, but I thought I would share with you thoughts and concerns that occupy me every now and then.

These are in no way supposed entirely academically rigorous, although I wouldn’t mind if they happened to be so.

So please bear with me and I do hope that you might even enjoy!

Share

Well, I am back for my second post.

Since I grew up in South Africa, I feel great joy that the world cup made it there. People are overjoyed and it looks like there is a great atmosphere. I wish I could be there but I sure will be in Brazil 2014!

Anyways, in celebration, I would like to share with you some of my images of this beautiful country. Please click on the images to see them at full size – they will also be a lot sharper!

First, I would like to share with you an early morning view of Cape  Town , as taken from the drive to Signal Hill.

In this panorama you can see Table Mountain in the centre, with Lion’s Head on the right side. Lion’s Head is a great place to hike up to and enjoy sundowners while being treated to some spectacular sunsets. You will also see some hardy trail runners run up and down the mountain for an afternoon exercise! Between Lion’s Head and Cape Town, and partly obscured by clouds are the so-called “Twelve Apostles” which is a lovely mountain range that can be viewed in full glory from Lion’s  head. As you may have noticed by now, Cape Town is a pretty spectacular place!

The following image  was taken from a coastal mountain in the Cape Peninsula,  South Africa. The sun had just dipped below a cloud bank and  I loved the drama and quality of light.

The same day, and immediately following this scene I turned my attention to the coastal mountain range from where this was taken, which was being illuminated by lovely golden light as can be seen by the image below. What you are seeing in the distance is Chapman’s Peak, a popular tourist attraction, and to the foot of  Chapman’s peak lies Noordhoek, a lovely little fishing town which increasingly caters towards tourists.

Finally, here is an image of the coastal range that forms part of Tsitsikamma national park in the Cape Province. A lovely late afternoon scene with moody light. The scene here actually is quite expansive – on the horizon you can see a thin band which is actually another peninsula jutting out into the sea. Its a wonderful place to behold.

So there you go with a few images from South Africa. All of these happen to have been taken in the Cape Province.  Come visit South Africa on your next vacation!

Cheers,

Christoph

Share