Readers Challenge addendum: Interiors plus

By Clifford Oto | Published: October 28, 2013 | Leave a comment

When considering subjects for the current Readers Photo Challenge assignment: Architecture it’s only natural to think of buildings, specifically the exteriors, as the subject of your photos. But you don’t have to limit yourself to the outsides of buildings. In fact you don’t have to limit yourself to buildings at all.

Interior architectural photos are just as valid as exterior ones. If you take a look at Architectural Digest magazine many if not most of the photos they use are of interiors. The insides of a structure can be just as interesting as the exterior if not more so.

Shooting interiors can come with a whole set of challenges different from the outer trappings of a building. First and foremost is that in general there is less light. The first inclination is to supplement the existing light but using an on-camera flash will give the room a cave-like appearance. Unless you want the room to look like Osama Bin Laden’s hideout then avoid using a flash placed on top of camera. There are photographers who specialize in shooting interiors and use sophisticated lighting set ups. They can spend hours getting the lighting just so, But the skill and equipment they employ are far beyond the casual photographer and even some experienced ones. It’s probably the easiest to use the light available in the room as best you can. Overcast days are the best times to shoot. They allow light into the room through the windows without being blasted out.

Unless you’re shooting an empty room much of an interior’s personality comes from its trappings, the furniture, fixtures and drapery. Think about the best angles to include them and how to take advantage of the light to best show them off.

To get room and its furnishings all in focus, you probably want to use a small aperture (around f/8 to f/11) for the greatest depth of field. This combined with the inherently less light of an indoors shot will lead to a slow shutter speed. You might want to consider using a tripod to control camera shake for the sharpest photos.

In addition to the interior and exterior of buildings there are other architectural photos that don’t involve buildings at all.

Bridges, monuments, fountains or stadiums can also be considered for such pictures. Also outdoor stairs, streetlights and the like can be useful details in a photo as well.

So there’s just under a week left in the challenge (the deadline is Sunday, Nov. 3). Keep a fresh eye out for unusual or picturesque buildings or structures. Try to emphasis on what makes them stand out and present them in a new and creative light.

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Here are the rules:
1. Entries can be emailed to coto@recordnet.com. Type in “Buildings” in the subject line.

2. Include your name (first and last), hometown, and the kind of camera/lens you used. If you can, tell us what shutter speed you used. If the building/structure has a name please include it as well as where it is located.

3. Photos have to be shot between Oct. 21 and Nov. 3.

4. The subject must be of a building or structure (houses, buildings, bridges, etc).

5. If there is a recognizable person in the photo please include the name (first and last) of your subject, their relationship to you (relative, friend or stranger off the street), their ages (if they are juveniles) and where the photo was taken.

6. Please feel free to include any interesting anecdotes or stories on how you took the picture.

7. The deadline for submission is Sunday, Nov. 3. The top examples will be published on Monday, Nov. 11 with an online gallery of all the photos on the same day.

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Random photo #17: Enlightenment

By Clifford Oto | Published: October 23, 2013 | Leave a comment

I haven’t done a “random photo” in a while so here’s one that’s long overdue. They say that the road to enlightenment is a long and arduous one. No it isn’t. It can be found on a small hill at the west end of March Lane in Stockton.

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Readers Photo Challenge: Architecture

By Clifford Oto | Published: October 21, 2013 | Leave a comment

Architectural photos are a staple of most vacation and travel photography. The essence of a city or town can be, at least in part, captured in its buildings and structures.

This month’s Readers Photo Challenge assignment is: Architecture. Architectural photography is more than just walking up to a house and snapping a picture. To get a really good and interesting photo takes as much thought, skill and effort as a fine portrait or landscape.

In general when trying to photograph an entire building, a wide angle lens is preferred. Using any longer lens one has to get back too far and then things such as signal lights, power lines/poles, trees and other buildings may get in the way. The problem with a wide angle is that when you’re down near the bottom of a tall building and point the lens up the normally parallel lines of the sides will converge at a vanishing point in the sky (in extreme cases it can give the building a pyramid-like look). In other words the distortion caused by the lens and your proximity to the building will make the walls on the side look like they’re leaning in towards each other. It can give an otherwise ordinary looking building a dynamic look, but if you’re looking for more a representative reproduction of the building then it may not be for you. You can correct the distortion in Photoshop (which takes the software (which is expensive) and the skill to use it or you can use what’s called a tilt-shift lens, which allows you to move the front element of the lens independently of the rear and lets you to correct the distortion in-camera but it too is very expensive for the average amateur photographer. The easiest way to resolve the problem is to simply put some distance between you and the building. The further you get away from the building the lesser the effects of the distortion will become. If you can also gain some altitude, say from another building across the street, that can help too.

A telephoto lens still can be useful in architectural photography, just not to get the whole building. Long lenses are great for getting details of a building. Look for an interesting detail or aspect of the building in question and try to isolate it to get a shot just of it.

The best lighting is like the best light for any other kind of photography. Try for the golden hour (around sunrise and sunset) or the blue hour (just before sunrise and after sunset) for the best results. And don’t forget about night shots. Whether lit from exterior floodlights or illuminated from within, a building can take on a whole new look at night.

Think about your foregrounds. You can use trees, light poles and even other buildings in the foreground to create a frame to isolate the building or leading lines to drawn the viewer’s eye to your subject.

In larger cities there is a mix of buildings of different styles and different eras. You can compare and contrast between old and new.

You don’t even have to take a picture of a building directly. You can take a photo of a reflection off of car windows, rain puddles or even other buildings.

Take time and think about your shot. So don’t just rely on the beauty of the building on its own. Think about the time of day and light. Walk around the building to get a look at all the different angles. Maybe a detail of select portion of the building is more interesting than and overall shot. Try to do more than just a straight representation of building. The best Architectural photos put all these things together to go beyond the glass, brick and metal to capture the character of a building.

Here are the rules:
1. Entries can be emailed to coto@recordnet.com. Type in “Buildings” in the subject line.

2. Include your name (first and last), hometown, and the kind of camera/lens you used. If you can, tell us what shutter speed you used. If the building/structure has a name please include it as well as where it is located.

3. The subject must be of a building or structure (houses, buildings, bridges, etc).

4. If there is a recognizable person in the photo please include the name (first and last) of your subject, their relationship to you (relative, friend or stranger off the street), their ages (if they are juveniles) and where the photo was taken.

5. Please feel free to include any interesting anecdotes or stories on how you took the picture.

7. The deadline for submission is Sunday, Nov. 3. The top examples will be published on Monday, Nov. 11 with an online gallery of all the photos on the same day (Photos have to be shot between Oct. 21 and Nov. 3).

Posted in Architecture, Column, Readers Photo Challenge | Tagged | Leave a comment

Seconding the motion

By Clifford Oto | Published: October 14, 2013 | Leave a comment

The subject of this month’s Readers Photo Challenge assignment was “Motion.” Motion can be a tricky thing in photos. Often people will think their pictures are out of focus but in reality they’re blurry because of the movement of the subjects and the use of too slow of a shutter speed. The results are similar in that the pictures turn out fuzzy but the causes are different. 19 people sent in a total of 72 photos and most either conquered motion or actually used the blurriness it to their advantage.

Though I expected to see a lot of photos of sporting events due to their inherent capacity for action, the subjects were diverse and varied. Along with sports there were photos of animals, ocean waves and even Hawaiian dancers. Here are some of the top moments of motion and movement that readers captured.

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A hummingbird’s wings can beat an average of around 50 times a second. To the human eye they can look like a nearly invisible blur. To stop their movement one has to use a very fast shutter speed. That’s what Jose Ramirez of Stockton did. With a telephoto lens on his Canon Rebel T3i, Ramirez set the shutter speed on his camera to 1/1600th of second to freeze the bird’s motion as if it was an avian statue.

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Instead of using a fast shutter speed to catch a tiny slice of time David Kasinger of Galt used a long exposure to compress a full 8 seconds into one shot. Kasinger set up his camera on a tripod near the tracks (but also at a safe distance) at the Kost Road railroad crossing in Galt and waited for a train to pass. He then used an 8-second exposure as the train neared. He set his flash to its rear-curtain synchronization, which fired the unit off near the end of the shot. The resulting photo not only captured the long, laser-straight streaks of the trains light as well as the train’s logo, numbers and reflective tape in a haunting ghost-like image.

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Timing is crucial in action photos. Pressing the button a fraction of a second too soon or too late can result in missing the peak moment. Mary Paulsen of Valley Springs was on vacation in Hawaii when she took this photo of a wave breaking on the shore during sunrise at Lydgate Beach Park in Kapa’a Kauai. With her Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50 set in “sports” mode (which set the shutter speed at 1/800th of a second), she timed it just right to freeze the splash of a wave crashing over the rocks as it passed in front of the rising sun.

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Sydney Spurgeon of Stockton used a Nikon D90 set a high shutter speed to capture the action of skateboarder L.J. Nessen, 18, as he caches some air at the skate park in Anderson Park in Stockton. The low angle of the photo makes it look like Nessen is suspended in mid-air above the trees.

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The technique of panning is using a relatively slow shutter speed while following the subject with it centered in the frame, with the camera. Rick Wilmot of Lodi took a panning shot of a friend’s romping dog while on a visit to Klamath Falls, Oregon. At shutter sped of 1/160th of a second, “Buddy” is relatively sharp (his extremities – legs and tail, are blurred from motion). The background, though still recognizable, is blurred from the movement of the camera. This forces the eye to focus on what’s the sharpest thing in the photo – the dog.

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Mark Sublett of Tracy went one better with his panning shot by photographing an even faster subject with an even slower shutter speed. Sublett shot a photo of Midget race car driver Scott Pierovich of Alamo speeding down the backstretch at the Petaluma Speedway. The race car can speed around the track at an excess of 80 miles an hour or more. Sublett’s aperture setting was f/22, which meant lots of depth of field (what’s in focus from front to rear) But by using a slow shutter speed (1/60th of a second) and panning with the car the background became nothing more than blurry streaks, By keeping the car at the center of the frame while moving the camera it remained sharp and recognizable. You can even make out the decals on the side of the vehicle.

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As always there is a photo gallery of all the photos submitted at: http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Site=SR&Date=20131014&Category=A_INTERACT&ArtNo=101409999&Ref=PH&Presentation=desktop.

Thanks to everyone for their submissions and please stay tune for a new Readers Photo Challenge assignment next Monday.

Posted in Column, Readers Photo Challenge | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Relative motion

By Clifford Oto | Published: October 11, 2013 | Leave a comment

Capturing motion is different depending on where subject is and how it’s moving relative to the camera.

If a runner is moving from one side of the frame to the other (left to right or right to left), he/she will look like they’re going faster than if they’re coming towards or away from the camera (back to front, front to back) even if the actual speed of the runner is the same in both cases. So it is easier to stop the motion of an object moving straight on or away from the camera. If it’s moving from side to side at the same speed, you’ll have to use a faster shutter speed to stop the action.

Also, any moving object will appear faster the closer to the camera it is. A jet airliner flying at a couple hundred miles per hour thousands of feet high in the sky can look like it’s moving at a snail’s pace but a bicyclist moving at about 20 mph at 10 feet away will look like it’s zipping past at a much faster speed than the plane.

In this photo the of Members of the Astrapi Keravnos Greek dance group are performing traditional dances at the Greek Food Festival at St. Basil’s Church in Stockton. The circular nature of the dance passed about half of group closer to the camera than the others. At 1/30th of the second the closer dancers show significant signs of motion blur. But the dancers that are further away, though still slightly blurred, are much sharper despite the fact that they were moving at about the same speed.

Posted in Sports, Techniques, Tips | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Eye of the Tiger

By Clifford Oto | Published: October 9, 2013 | Leave a comment

When I got to the youth boxing matches at Yaqui Lopez’s Fat City Gym in downtown Stockton, sitting around the ring were officials wearing white polo shirts with a “USA Boxing” logo on them. I sat down with them, not paying much attention to them, and waited for the fights to start. As I waited, a coach brought one of his young fighters up to an official sitting next to me. He told the youngster: “Do you know who this is? He’s a three-time world champion.” The official then began to autograph the wrappings on the kid’s hands, and I took a closer look at him. I recognized him as Tony “The Tiger” Lopez who fought and indeed won three world championships as a super featherweight and lightweight in the 1980s and 1990s.

The Sacramento native has gotten engaged in youth boxing after the U.S. Olympic boxing team failed to win a single medal at the 2012 London Olympics.

Lopez was pretty well-known in the Central Valley, and though I’m not a big boxing fan, even I had heard of him. He was known for his toughness, tenacity and never-say-die attitude. After the few fights were done, Lopez then entered the ring as a referee, and I wondered how that would work out for the young boxers in the ring. Would he let them keep on fighting in a “Rocky”-esque fashion no matter how bloodied and battered they were?

Lopez refereed a bout between Angel Manriquez, 14, with the Fat City Boxing Club and Kristian Guevarra, 15, with the Caballero Boxing Club out of Sacramento. Early in the third round Manriquez got into a bit of trouble, and Lopez quickly gave him a standing-eight count. When the count was done Lopez bade the two boxers to continue fighting. Manriquez, though steady on his feet and moving fairly well, wasn’t defending himself. Lopez stepped in. He directed Guevarra to a neutral corner and began talking with Manriquez, looking him in the eyes. From my layman’s vantage point, I probably would have said that the fighter could continue, but after several seconds of evaluating Manriquez, Lopez raised his hands and called off the fight.

It’s good to have that heart and drive to win no matter what, as Lopez had, but at this stage of the game the welfare of the youths is a greater concern. You want them to learn the sweet science of boxing and also live to fight another day.

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A matter of style

By Clifford Oto | Published: October 7, 2013 | Leave a comment

So you’ve mastered the fundamentals of photography. The principles of shutter speed, aperture and ISO are ingrained in your brain. You’ve developed an eye for composition and understand the essentials of light and lighting. You’re comfortable and skilled with using your equipment and got your timing down. Perhaps you want to step up your skills to the next level or maybe even become a professional. So what’s next? You have to develop your own style.

Style is an amorphous and elusive thing. It’s like that old saying: “I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like.” Unfortunately creating your own style isn’t something you can learn from a book, Web site or smartphone app. It takes a lot of introspection (though not self-centeredness), You need to be able to honestly assess your own capabilities both technically and artistically. From there it’s up to you to take those skills and insight and mold them into a style of your own. The paths to “style” are many and diverse it’s up to you to pick the one that’s best suited for you and how long the journey will be. For some it can happen relatively “overnight” for others it may take a lifetime.

When I was a photo student one of my assignments wasn’t to take a picture at all. It was to clip out several photos from different sources (newspapers, magazines, etc.) and write a little something about why I liked or didn’t like them. I though it was kind of a lame assignment because I wanted to be out taking pictures not writing about someone else’s work. But afterwards I understood the value of the exercise. By carefully analyzing the pictures, from composition to lighting to subject matter, I could figure out how they were taken. By seeing what I liked or disliked about them it could help me to develop a sense of style.

One of my favorite pictures by my late photo instructor Andy Delucia’s hung on the wall of his office. It was of two Sacramento Police officers and they were using a gas can to fill up their patrol car that had run out of fuel. It was shot from the back the officers’ heads down, their faces unseen. It was a strong, clean and simple image but with humor given by its out of the ordinary subject matter. It made me chuckle and I thought to myself: “I wish I took that picture.”

Years later, even after I had become a working photographer that photo stayed with me. I would keep my eyes out for the same shot to imitate it for my own. A few times while listening to the police scanner I would hear of a police vehicle that had run out of gas or had a flat tire but I always arrived on the scene too late and they were gone.

But after several years it dawned on me that the picture was Delucia’s shot not mine. No matter how much I liked the photo, I shouldn’t be trying to replicate it. It would be a copy of something that someone had already done and probably a pale one at that. No, what I needed to do was analyze what attracted me to the photo and try to use its spirit to make photos that had my own signature.

I thought about it and what drew me to the photo was its serendipitous and humorous nature. And that’s what I needed to be looking for not an exact recreation of someone else’s photo. I gave up on finding a doppleganger to Delucia’s shot and looked for different situations that tickled my fancy in a similar manner but without being the same exact photo.

Over the years there have been numerous examples: A teen playing the guitar while skateboarding, a clown hitchhiking on the freeway, a man walking 6 pitbulls at the same time and more. I began building a repertoire of my own images. I combined these with an esthetic sensibility of finding beauty in the everyday world to come up with a sense of style that’s my own, but I’m always looking for ways to evolve and improve my work. The process of developing your style is an ongoing thing and one should never consider oneself as being “done.”

So as a novice photographer you should study the masters and others whose work you admire. But if you want to seriously pursue the art of photography or even become a professional, there’ll be a point where you have to venture out from those examples and seek out your own style to stand out from everyone else.

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery but to grow and reach the next level of photography you have to find a voice of your own to make your pictures sing.

Posted in Column, Inspiriation, Photography, Techniques, Tips | Tagged | Leave a comment

Days of September

By Clifford Oto | Published: October 2, 2013 | Leave a comment

“We know that in September, we will wander through the warm winds of summer’s wreckage. – Henry Rollins

Fall is here and already we’re feeling milder temperatures. Summer’s heat is starting to become a memory and leaves are starting to turn to their autumn colors. Prep football is in full swing with another couple of months to go if you include the post season. Here are 10 favorite outtakes from September.

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9/1/2013:

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9/6/2013:

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9/13/2013:

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9/14/2013:

 

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9/15/2013:

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9/19/2013:

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9/27/13:

Posted in Month in review, Outtakes | Tagged | Leave a comment

Challenge reminder

By Clifford Oto | Published: September 30, 2013 | Leave a comment

Just a reminder that there are 7 days left in the latest Readers Photo Challenge: Motion. Sporting events are great subjects for action but you can choose anything that moves, from running children to prancing pets, to cars zipping down the street.

1. Entries can be emailed to coto@recordnet.com. Type in “Motion” in the subject line.

2. Include your name (first and last), hometown, and the kind of camera/lens you used. If you can, tell us what shutter speed you used.

3. The subject is up to you but it must be in motion.

4. If your photo is of a person please include the name (first and last) of your subject, their relationship to you (relative, friend or stranger off the street), their ages (if they are juveniles) and where the photo was taken.

5. Please feel free to include any interesting anecdotes or stories on how you took the picture.

7. The deadline for submission is Sunday, Oct. 6. The top examples will be published on Monday, Oct. 14 with an online gallery of all the photos on the same day (Photos have to be shot between Sept. 23and Oct. 6).

Posted in Readers Photo Challenge, Sports | Tagged | Leave a comment

Back-button focusing

By Clifford Oto | Published: September 26, 2013 | Leave a comment

In action/motion photos sometimes it can be difficult to maintain focus on a moving subject. Things such as other people, cars or animals moving through the frame may throw off the focus. If you’re panning, then stationary objects such as trees or poles may also cause the lens to “hunt and peck.”

Sure, if you’re practiced at manually focusing the lens it’s not a problem, but autofocusing lenses have been around for decades and very few photographers nowadays remember how to do it by hand. Most sports photographers alleviate this by doing what’s known as “back-button AF” (autofocus).

In most cameras’ default settings, the shutter button does both the autofocusing and the taking of the picture. However, in many cameras there is a button on the back near where one’s right thumb rests that can be used to focus the camera. It can be selected to be dedicated for that purpose while leaving the shutter button free to fire the camera only.

It helps a lot when shooting something that’s in motion and/or when the subject is off-center. You can either focus then quickly recompose the shot or pick another focus point in the camera.

It takes a little practice to get used to it, but once you get the hang of it, it can be a very useful technique for getting those missed action shots. Check with your camera’s manual and menu settings and give it a try.

Posted in Equipment, Techniques | Tagged , | Leave a comment

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    Clifford Oto

    Clifford Oto, an award-winning photographer, has been with The Record since 1984. Through the changes from black and white to digital photography, he’s kept his focus on covering the events, people and life of San Joaquin county. This blog deals ... Read Full
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