Thistle

Thistle
Originally uploaded by Michael Slear

I suppose if I were to specialize I would pick aerial photography. The palette of the land before you at any altitude is unlimited and diverse. Put a golf course in the viewfinder and I’ll assure you of something like this. #14 at Blackmoor or Thistle #8 they both have just about everything, water, traps, framing, flowing fairway and undulating rough, and golfers for scale. For aerials a fast shutter speed is needed to reduce vibration of the plane, or chopper, focus is on infinity. Don’t forget to insulate your body from the frame of the plane and keep the lens out of the slip stream.

Lauderdale Bay

Lauderdale Bay
Originally uploaded by Michael Slear

Photography is often improvisation, utilizing your tools or what's available around you. A recent shoot returned me to my favorite subject....architecture! Original career path was architecture so I have a love of design and function. Early work here at Brandon was for the local builders and architects and the hotels gave me lots of practice. Every building has its best time of day to be photographed, and if its lit at night by the designer, then all the better. Easy pickins and with minor tweaking, a building, like a face can be enhanced to look its best. Here a portable light thru the back of the guard shack to light the glass block and at this time of year a window of only 10 minutes at twilight to balance the ambient and available, along with car headlights to accent the shrubs and gate, should make the client a happy camper.

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Depth of Field (DOF) can be confusing but simply put, its the area of focus that is rendered sharply. These 2 images have the same focus point....the foreground flower. The only difference is the f stop used, (remember the hole in the lens) or iris in your eye? For the first image, a large f stop was used-- f4 and only the point of focus is sharp, and the background is soft. The 2nd image had a much smaller fstop –f22, and the entire image is sharp. So not only does the fstop control the amount of exposure it can also be used to control depth of field, and emphasize an element of a photo. Of course when changing f stops you must correspondingly change the shutter speed to create an equivalent exposure.

Swan

Swan
Originally uploaded by Michael Slear

Gotta love wildlife....Hard to beat a swan, they are so graceful....but can be mean as a snake, so don’t get to close. This composition uses the basics foreground, middle ground and background. A slight breath on the lens gave the aura. This technique was taught me by Alectron Dorfman, in the early years at Brandon Advertising. You can see Alectrons terrific work at http://www.studioalectron.com