Get out of your comfort zone!

I’ve said it often enough: I take great pictures of Rocks and Trees. I don’t take people pictures, I don’t do events. Well last weekend I decided to try something different. I’m glad I did, because I got my creative juices flowing.

I've started shooting more pictures of people. I'm finding it quite rewarding. During the Trillium weekend I think I shot more pictures of my fellow photographers than I did of the landscape. Certainly more than I shot of the beaver swimming across the pond, unlike some other people! This past weekend too — I decided to stretch myself and as a result I'm feeling less stale.

I was in Montreal for a memorial for my father and I decided to drive home via Ottawa. The 417 has a lot in common with the 401: total boredom. But after Ottawa it’s another story. The GPS took me up through Renfrew, then turned me along Highway 60, 132 past Calabogie and eventually 28 through Bancroft. I’d been on those roads before – they’re renowned motorcycling roads. A very enjoyable drive, even in a car – I recommend it. But that’s not what this is about.

At the last minute, approaching Ottawa, I decided to take an hour or so to visit the Byward Market. It’s an outdoor stall-type thing over several city blocks. At this time of year, I guess, it’s mostly produce and flower vendors, with a sprinkling of other tourist stuff as well. I parked, mounted my “walking-about-lens” (24-120) and set out to see what I could see. It didn’t take me 10 minutes before I changed to the 70-200 and I never switched back.

The 70-200 allows me to be a little less – OK, a LOT less intrusive. I can shoot from 20 or 25 feet away without getting in peoples' faces. Add to that the better perspective and the great isolation you get with the shallow DOF at f/2.8 and I'm reminded why this is my favourite lens.

I decided I would take people pictures. Candids, street pictures. Stuff I don’t usually do.

I’m shy. I asked the first interesting guy if I could take his picture. He was made up in whiteface and it turned out, was a sort of a street performer. He asked me for money. I said no, he grimaced and grudgingly agreed to be photographed. I took a couple of shots, and caught his ‘act’ later – he complained that ‘everyone is taking pictures but nobody is paying’. Right. DO SOMETHING, bud. He just stood there and pretended to be a statue. For this he wants payment?

I took candids of other people, but didn’t have the nerve to ask them if I could take their pictures. Again, I have to learn to do that. Here are a few candid images I took. The first one all by itself tells me I have to do this more often!

Sometimes you get lucky. Check out the expression on her face and compare it to her shirt.

These kids were checking out the menu board while waiting in line at the Beavertail concession.

Street guitarist showing a couple a riff that he was playing. To me, this picture tells a great story.

There was another street musician that I connected with. Well actually I threw a Toonie in his case and told him he was in the wrong city — he should have been in New Orleans. So he posed for me for some pictures as he played. He wasn't that good, but he did have some blues in him. The "Pink Panther" theme on the baritone sax sounded pretty good!

OK, I admit to doing a little Photoshopping on these pictures. Just because I changed my subjects didn't mean I had to change my style!

Finally I saw some great patterns in the produce for sale and took some of those shots.

Same image, a little Topaz. OK, a lot of Topaz.

But the most interesting ones were the people pictures! I still did my Photoshop and Topaz stuff but there’s a whole world out there of interesting subjects to photograph. I have to learn to be less shy, and ask permission to shoot pictures of people. The worst thing that can happen is they say “no”, right?

So I’m going to try to do this more. Expand my horizons, do stuff I haven’t done before. What about you? Are you ready to leave your comfort zone?

— 30 —

Pictures of Rocks (Not!)

It has been said that I take great pictures of rocks. And trees. In fact, when we did the Rob Stimpson workshop, I was told several times, "no pictures of rocks!" Not only by Rob, but also by the other participants!

The purpose of the exercise was to move out of your comfort zone. Definitely, I'm not comfortable taking pictures of people. So I've been working on it. Here are some examples, I hope you like them.



I took this picture of "George" at the Deep Gorge Center near Lake Placid New York where we stopped for some photos. George was having lunch and I commented how much I liked his beard, and asked if I could photograph him. I got him to stand near a window and used natural light.

The exposure was handheld at 1/25 sec (thanks, Nikon, for VR!), one stop underexposed so that I didn't blow out any of the detail. Really the only PhotoShop work I did was to blur the background (easy to say, not so easy to do: I "extracted" his image and put it on another layer), and some small hue/saturation adjustments.

I only took one image, interestingly.



Nella is a motorcyclist, she's a member of the Acme Motorcycle club. They went on a ride today and I met up with them for lunch in Coboconk. Afterwards, I took a few pictures including this one of Nella.

People think I do too much Photoshopping. Maybe, but I like it and I think I'm getting better at it. This picture only needed a little work, because Nella's skin is soft and smooth, the lighting was great, she has a great smile and I love her hair. Still, I sharpened the eyes, desaturated the whites of the eyes, fixed up a few blemishes and did some work under her eyes. I softened the skin with a blur layer although I didn't really need to. I liked the above image, Nella didn't see it, I hope she likes it. She saw the next image on the camera and said she liked it so I worked on it as well.





Vanessa is Nella's cousin. She was along for the ride (as a passenger, her first time on a bike, BTW) and I tried to get some shots of her both inside and outside the restaurant. Not that successful, until I got home and saw this one on the computer. It was taken inside the restaurant at an ISO of 1600, which made it very grainy/noisy. Also there was some kind of lighting from her left side (stage right!) that was green in colour. So I managed to colour correct that (hue/saturation adjustment layer, select "greens" instead of "master"), then I looked at a crop of the image and loved it. I worked on the whites of the eyes a little, desaturating them, and I turned up the sharpening on the eyes. I also lightened their colour a little.

Before finishing the photo, I looked at it blown up and didn't like the noise on the lips. So I selected them and applied a gaussian blur to smooth them. The same for the whites of the eyes.

Speaking of her eyes, I loved them so much that I had to do a tight crop. Like it?





One more: This is Tom, the blacksmith at Fleming College in Haliburton. He cooperated with us for our workshop, acting as a model and we experimented with various lighting solutions. I used a Gary Fong diffuser on my SB-600 flash, but set it a couple of stops down so that it would act as a fill light not overpower the image.

Wde also ran into a couple from Toronto on that weekend, who coincidentally handed one of us a point-and-shoot camera and said, "would you take our picture for us?" Sure thing, since we were working on "outdoor portraiture"! I haven't worked on those images yet, so I'll have to put them up later.

Reminder: you can see most of my work on my gallery site here, or click at right.

L8R...