Fans of our Facebook Page heard the news that there would be no Beyond Megapixels article last Friday because my husband and I were in the process of rescuing a dog from our County animal shelter. While I don’t intend to turn this site into a forum for Public Service Announcements, I would encourage everyone who is considering a new pet to adopt from their local shelter, Humane Society, or animal rescue group. Our little girl Bailey was considered “unadoptable” because she was so frightened of the shelter environment that she didn’t display the usual friendly, tail-wagging socialization they consider imperative during their evaluation. So, she was put on the list to be euthanized. Due to the wonderful efforts of Arizona’s New Hope and the Friends of Arizona’s Shelter Animals, Bailey was given a second chance and is now a permanent member of our household.

She seems pretty happy, wouldn’t you agree?

And our Miniature Pinscher, Gadget, is ecstatic to have a new friend!

While I was in our back yard trying to take pictures of the dogs, I thought the subject would make a good article. I’m talking about my dogs here, but the principles can be applied to any pets.

Use a long lens. Like any other portrait, the subject tends to look better when shot from a distance with a telephoto lens. Plus, I found it was a little hard to photograph these characters since they were usually stuck to my side. So, I used my telephoto lens and tossed a ball out into the yard to get them at a distance from me. If you don’t happen to be in a place where you can let your dogs run free, have someone hold the leash for you and walk a distance away. Compose so that only the animal is in the frame.

Use continuous shooting mode for action shots. My dogs NEVER stand (or sit) still. In order to get one shot out of twenty that I considered to be “good”, I kept my camera on continuous shooting mode.

Use continuous auto-focus mode too. For dogs that are REALLY on the go, use the AI Servo auto-focus mode (Canon) or Continuous Servo AF (Nikon). Your camera’s auto-focus will continue to adjust for the moving subject, making your chances greater for a focused shot.

Keep a damp cloth handy. After throwing the ball a few times, it got to be rather slobbery. I didn’t want to handle my camera with slobbery hands, so I kept a damp cloth handy to wipe my hands on.

Catch them at their goofy moments. Yawning, scratching an itch, doing that little bow-wiggle thing they do when they want to play. Not every photo needs to be a head shot for the Westminster Kennel Club.

Get in close. Again, just like portraits of people, you don’t have to get the whole dog in the frame. Focus in on noses, eyes, ears, paws.

Shoot at their level. Get down on the ground and photograph your pet at their eye level. This was hard for me to accomplish since every time I knelt down and aimed my camera, they came charging toward me. So, try this one after they’ve been racing around for a while and are ready to sit still for a bit.

Sometimes the bad shots are actually good shots. Some shots that are composed a bit off or are a bit blurry are actually great shots for portraying action (chaos!) and mood. So take a closer look at the shots that you may ordinarily discard.

We would absolutely LOVE to see photos that you have taken of your pets!! Please share them with us on our Facebook Page.

All photos copyright Tiffany Joyce.

Related posts:

1. 5 Simple Tips for Pet Photography
2. Photography 101 – Exposure Bracketing
3. Macro Photography 101

The debate on whether to import and post-process files as RAW or as DNG (Digital Negative) is almost as heated – and opinionated – as whether to shoot with Canon or Nikon. The long and short of it is, “it depends,” and “it’s up to you.” There is no “right” answer.

RAW files are digitally unprocessed image files that come straight from your camera. They have no adjustments or alterations made to them so that when you load them into your post-processing software, you have the utmost of flexibility in altering things like exposure, white balance, and the like. The RAW “recipe” varies between camera manufacturers, which means that the file formats are not universal between software brands and versions. For example, when I upgraded from my Canon Rebel XTi to my Canon 7D I also had to upgrade from Photoshop CS3 to CS5, because CS3 didn’t support the 7D’s RAW files.

The DNG file type is very similar to a RAW file in that it is an unprocessed image file that can be manipulated and altered. It is an image standard developed by Adobe and is intended to be a type of “generic” RAW file that is universally compatible regardless of the camera brand. Upon import, the RAW files that your camera took are converted into the DNG file format (so, the RAW files are still on your camera’s memory card until you format it). More software programs can read DNG file formats than proprietary RAW file formats. For instance, if my files had been imported in the DNG format instead of RAW, Photoshop CS3 would have been able to read the files from my 7D.

Many photographers choose to convert their RAW files to DNG upon import for the following reasons:

- DNG files are smaller than RAW files (by around 15%). This is because “unrecognized metadata” (such as focus points and picture control settings) is stripped from the file.
- Any changes and adjustments made to the file are written to the DNG file itself, rather than appending a “sidecar” .xmp file which contains all of the changes.
- Photographers anticipate that the DNG file format will be supported farther into the future, minimizing the risk of obsolescence and incompatibility with future programs.

Many photographers choose to use RAW for the following reasons:

- RAW files open, import, save, and edit more quickly because there is no need to convert to another file format during the process.
- RAW files contain more metadata specific to the camera and the shot itself, which is important to many photographers.
- DNG files are not compatible with some brand-specific imaging products and solutions.

It is important to note that there is no difference in image quality between a DNG and a RAW file.

Personally, I have worked with both. I tend to stick with the RAW file format because I like lots of metadata, and it’s easier for me to go back to original RAW files when I want to try multiple editing techniques on a single image. There are many schools of thought on whether to stick with RAW or import to DNG. I found a handful of articles that you might find to be helpful in making your own decision.

Helpful Resources:

- To DNG or not to DNG at Lightroom Killer Tips
- RAW vs DNG – A Practical Overview of the Differences, a video by SLR Lounge
- A primer on the Digital Negative file format by Adobe.
- Understanding Digital Raw Capture by Adobe.

Do you have an opinion on whether to use RAW or DNG? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments or on our Facebook Page.

Related posts:

1. Editing in Camera Raw
2. The Power of RAW!
3. Establishing a Post-Processing Routine

I was standing at the top of a mountain when I took this picture (click to enlarge). The wind was blowing, my hands were freezing (even in Arizona, it’s cold at an elevation of 7600 feet in January), it was about 4:30 in the afternoon, and I was completely blown away by this LIGHT.

This extremely tricky light.

I’m standing in the shadow cast by the peak of the mountain. The sky is overcast. Beams of light are hitting the landscape from mid-frame all the way to the horizon. There are reflections on the water (that’s Roosevelt Lake there, by the way). All the time my eyes are soaking it all in, my brain is thinking, “Now how the heck is my camera going to translate THIS?”

Pretty darn well, actually, with a little know-how applied by yours truly.

My Canon 7D locks in the exposure when I press the shutter half-way. If I achieve the exposure I want but need to recompose (which often times will change the exposure), I simply press the * button on the back of the camera, and compose away. The exposure remains locked for multiple shots if I hold down the * button while pressing the shutter (which is handy for panoramas when you don’t want obvious changes in exposure from frame to frame).

In the case of this photo, I wanted to meter for the sunlight hitting the landscape. Generally, Evaluative Metering works just fine but I wanted to make sure I nailed the exposure (it was hard to tell if I was capturing it just right on the image preview). In this case I used Center Weighted Average, as the brightest point I wanted to expose for was at the center of the frame. Then just to make REALLY sure, I bracketed the shots at -1 stop, 0, and +1 stop. This shot just happened to turn out just fine with no exposure compensation. But, you know, it’s always good to be sure.

I did a bit of color and contrast correction (darn haze) and sharpening in Lightroom, and this was the result! Taken with a Canon 17-55 f/2.8 IS at f/16, ISO 400, 1/125th.

Has there been a shot recently that you REALLY wanted to get right, and took extra steps to ensure that you did so? We’d love to hear about it, and see your results! Please share with us in the comments or on our Facebook Page.

Photo copyright Tiffany Joyce.

Related posts:

1. Balancing Ambient Light with a Speedlite
2. Painting with light!
3. Photography 101 – Exposure Bracketing

Sometimes it’s easy to focus so much on the subject that you forget to visually survey the background and decide if you want it to be part of the photo. Below are some of the things I’ve seen in photos or experienced myself that diminish the quality of the photo.

Household clutter – I’ve seen photos where there were dirty clothes on the floor, dirty dishes on the kitchen counter and other day-to-day household clutter. If you’re shooting indoors, make sure the area you’re shooting in is neat and clean. Otherwise, when someone else looks at the photo the first thing they’ll see is the clutter, not the subject.

Background too busy – Whether indoors or outdoors, when shooting a subject in front of a busy background, the viewer’s eye is drawn away from the subject to all the objects, colors or activities in the background. Over the years, I’ve seen photos where it was even difficult to tell what the subject was. Okay, over the years I’ve taken some of those photos.

Background is too dramatic – It is possible to have a background that is so dramatic that the viewer wonders why there’s a person in the way when the photographer was actually photographing the person and not the background. There are places in Seattle, WA that afford some spectacular views of Mt. Rainier on a clear day. There’s a little park on the top of Queen Anne hill in Seattle where on a clear day I used to sit and watch Mt. Rainer as the sunset turned the snow covered mountain from white, to pink to purple. Breathtaking.

One day I arrived there to watch the mountain at sunset and observed someone with a camera photographing a bride, dressed in her gown, and using Mt. Rainier as a backdrop. I think I understand what the photographer was trying to do, but I would be willing to bet that a few years later if the bride was showing the photos to some friends or family members that weren’t from the Seattle area, the first comment they might make is, “Wow! What an awesome mountain. Where is it?”

Unexpected people or things in the background of the photo – A few years back I was photographing a fully restored 1929 Duesenberg J automobile. I also had two people in period dress that were going to pose with the car. I had these great creative thoughts about the photos and how I was going to finish them in sepia and make the resulting photos look old and worn. I painstakingly selected the spot and angle to make sure there wasn’t anything modern in the background. I probably took 20-25 photos. I was really excited until I saw the results. Across the sky in all of the photos were two jet contrails. In today’s digital age with Photoshop this is fairly easy to correct. With the film I was using, not so much.

When you’re photographing outside the studio keep these things in mind:

• Study the background before you start shooting. Make sure there’s nothing in the background that you don’t want. Avoid surprises after the shoot.

• Select a background that enhances the photo not detract from it.

• In the studio I can move the lights around to get the lighting I want. If you’re shooting outdoors you can’t move the sun around. This means that you may have to move the subject after you thought you were set to shoot so you can get the lighting you need or want. When you do this make sure you start over with the background.

• Remember that if the sky is in the shot, it’s part of the background.

• Once you’ve selected the location where you’re satisfied with the background and have started shooting, look at your background from time to time to make sure nothing has changed.

If you keep these tips in mind when shooting you’ll produce more and better photographs and fewer snapshots.

By now you may be wondering where are the photos that are usually included with the articles on Beyond Megapixels. There are two reasons there are none with this article.

1. I’ve taken a number of photos over the years that violate everything in this article. Where do you think I got all the ideas? However, when I do screw up a photo this way I delete it. There’s no reason to keep it around although I could have used some of them here.

2. While I could find a lot of photos on Flick to illustrate the points I was trying to make, I won’t use someone else’s photo to show what not to do.

One last tip, don’t get so anxious about the background that you miss the photo you wanted to take.

Related posts:

1. Studio Backdrops/Backgrounds
2. First Time Studio Session
3. Build a Home Photo Studio for Under $800

When you look at most professional portraits you might think that the photographer had a really nice studio in a room of their home or even a really nice space in an office building or a retail building. The truth is that most photographers have their studios in old warehouses, garages of their home or other roomy spaces that are unfinished. In fact, all the photographs in this article, except the last one, were taken in my garage. Using an open, unfinished, uncluttered space provides the photographer with the greatest amount of flexibility in the setting up of backdrops, props and lights. This really isn’t any different from the sound stages in Hollywood and elsewhere where movies, TV programs and commercials are shot. The beauty isn’t in the surroundings of a studio; it’s the ability to shoot in a controlled environment where the photographer has almost complete creative freedom.

Other than camera, lenses and lights, probably the most important item is the backdrop/background. With outdoor shooting, the backdrop is going to be much more varied, but other than selecting the location and time of day, the photographer has little or no control over the background. With indoor shooting, particularly studio shooting the photographer is in charge and can select the background. Most photographers most of the time will employ a backdrop for portraiture photography. This begs the question of what backdrops should a photographer have if he or she wants to build a portrait studio?

Before I start, I know this is one of those subjects where there isn’t any right answer. What works for one photographer may or may not work for another photographer. So much of the choice of backdrops depends on the likes and dislikes of the photographer, what they want to do with their portrait photography and their subjects or clients. Because of this, I’m not going to make a list of the ten backdrops every photographer absolutely has to have. What I will do in this article is to tell you what works for me and why.

I really like high-key portraiture. The stark-white background and nothing going on in the image but the model creates a challenge for photographer in getting the lighting correct and making sure the background is white. There are two was to achieve this as demonstrated by the next two images.

In this image I’m using a white vinyl backdrop that is 10 feet wide and 20 feet long. I can raise the backdrop high enough to give me ample room above the subject and still have enough backdrop to bring it forward to cover the floor where the model is standing in the event I want a full length photograph. Even though the back ground is white, it’s still necessary to put light on it when shooting to ensure that the white background is white. Without putting light on the background (I use one of my strobes) the background will look grey in the photo. If I want a grey background I don’t put any light on it. Essentially, I have a 2-in-1 background.

The backdrop I used in this photo will always be white. In this setup I used a strobe light with a 53″ octa-box pointing directly at the back of the model. It’s a lot of fun trying to get all the lights at the correct power, but once it’s set up the way you want it, you’ll have a white background in every shot.

As much as I love high-key photography, not everyone likes it and that includes clients. And, frankly, not everyone looks good with a white background. It’s important to have a neutral backdrop as well. They come in all different colors shapes and sizes. My preference is a canvas backdrop with earth tone colors. These are available hand painted, very expensive, and computer painted, not quite as expensive. The backdrop in the image below is computer painted, canvass and 10′ X 20′. It has the added advantage of having 4 different backdrop looks. I can connect either end on either side to the supports and get a somewhat different look with each one.

Canvas backdrops aren’t cheap. A canvas, computer painted backdrop from the supplier/manufacturer I purchase from can cost around $800 plus shipping. You have to sell a lot of portraits to break even on a backdrop that expensive. Fortunately, I was able to buy the backdrop you seen in the photo above, used, from another photographer. One recommendation I would make is that if you’re looking to buy something, photography related, especially something that doesn’t break or wear out, look for used equipment from other photographers. Photographers get tired of used the same backdrop all the time or a particular backdrop no longer fits with the kind of photography that want to do.

Sometimes the best background for a photo is black. A black background is dramatic. It can convey a mood that no other background can. Black backdrops, like white and other solid color backdrops aren’t overly expensive. However, it’s not necessary to buy a black backdrop. The image above was taken at a ballroom dancing competition in a very large hotel ballroom using a Canon Speedlite 580EX II Flash. There was no backdrop other than chairs and people. You can achieve a black background by adjusting the lighting. How to do that is another article.

Backdrops come in a wide variety of colors, patterns and materials. The variety seems almost endless and there’s no way I can cover all of them here. I will say that muslin backdrops are lightweight, easy to handle and inexpensive. I don’t care for them because they wrinkle and/or crease easily and it’s difficult to get them to hang flat and straight. You can get paper backdrops on a large roll. They are quick and easy to change from one backdrop to another. If you’re shooting a lot, tearing 20′ of paper off the roll every time you have a shoot can become expensive. But whatever works best for you is the best backdrop for you.

Photo Credits: All photos by Steve Russell

Related posts:

1. Backgrounds and Backdrops Outside The Studio
2. Studio Session -Technical Aspects
3. My Dream Photo Studio

However, that capability to take photos in low light costs us in the way of increased noise.

Noise is that “grain” you see, which when magnified appears as tiny speckles of white and tiny colored specks that don’t correspond to the color of the subject. It is caused by a variety of things, but not to put too fine a technical point on it, it basically has to do with how the components of the camera’s sensor handle electronic signals at high ISO settings. The higher the ISO, the higher the appearance of noise. The larger the camera’s sensor, the better quality the photographs taken at a high ISO will be – so, a photo taken with a crop sensor camera at ISO 6400 will have more noise than a photo taken with a full frame sensor at ISO 6400. In addition, each camera model and each camera brand handle noise differently. Lots of folks like to play around with noise and grain as an added artistic element to their photographs.

With all of that said, there are ways to reduce the noise in your photographs, regardless of how high your ISO or which camera you use. Just keep in mind that the more noise you reduce, the “softer” the appearance of the photograph.

Here is a photo that I took with my Canon EOS 7D, ISO 12,800. Ordinarily, ISO settings are only available up to 6,400, but I activated the ISO expansion option on my camera. This shot is straight out of the camera (click to enlarge):

As you can see, it’s pretty grainy. And actually, zoomed out the grain is fairly aesthetically pleasing, given the subject. When I zoom in using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3, the amount of noise is very apparent (click to enlarge):

In the Develop module of Lightroom, you may have noticed the “Detail” panel:

In the “Noise Reduction” area, slide the “Luminance” slider to the right until all of the white speckles disappear. I had to drag it all the way over to 51 (click to enlarge):

Now, notice the purple-ish speckles and streaks in the spoke on the lower left? That’s an indication of color noise, and to remove it we just slide the “Color” slider over to the right until it disappears, as well (click to enlarge):

Here is the photo with the noise levels reduced (click to enlarge):

Removing noise also has the added benefit of reducing the file size. The original is 16.6 MB, and the file with the noise reduced is 10.5 MB. This application of noise reduction works in a similar fashion in Photoshop, Aperture, and other post-processing software.

Photos by Tiffany Joyce.

Related posts:

1. A Splash of Color in Lightroom
2. My Lightroom Workflow
3. Image Stabilization and Vibration Reduction Explained

This subject has been on my mind for the past several weeks. My husband and I had to make a last-minute trip to Wyoming – his father passed away in December, and he did not leave a will or any indication of his wishes. There are a LOT of details to be taken care of, when someone passes away. Especially if they haven’t made arrangements first. So, in tandem with the grief that we felt at my father-in-law’s passing, there was also the stress of being completely unsure of how to proceed.

As we were organizing my father-in-law’s belongings, we came across a lot of loose photographs. Some were tucked in books, others were stashed in envelopes. Very few of them had any description whatsoever about the people, places, and things in the photos. We were left wondering who these people were that meant something to this man, that he would take or receive their photos.

Then we came across some photographs that were quite old – my father-in-law was born in the 1930′s, and photos of his childhood were tucked here and there throughout his belongings. There were friends and family members, vacations and homes, that we just couldn’t identify. Even with the input of my husband’s VAST collection of cousins, we were unable to determine any specifics for many of the images.

It made us sad, that the last person on Earth who knew who the people were in these photos had passed away without leaving their stories behind for us to enjoy. I experienced a very similar concern last spring when I visited my Uncle in Maine. As the eldest surviving relative on my mother’s side of the family, I MADE him sit down at the kitchen table with me, for several days in a row. We’d look at one photo after another, and I would scan merrily away type furiously as he told me the stories behind the photos. Even though he knew most of them, he didn’t know all of them, and so the mystery endures.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to KNOW those stories. And it will be important to your loved ones in the future when they come across the photos that YOU’VE taken. So please, take the time to write a quick note on the back of your prints. Keyword and describe your on-line photos. Add information to metadata. Give future generations the gift of your experiences.

Photo (click to enlarge): A wheel from one of the wagons that my husband’s descendants traveled in to their homestead in Wyoming in the 1800′s. Now THAT is a story I wouldn’t have wanted to miss!!!!

Related posts:

1. Short Tips and Thoughts
2. Oh No! Someone Used One of My Photos
3. Four Ways to Save Your Photos

View from Bird Bridge

Greg Stephens is a nature photographer I have mentioned before and who submitted a guest article about nature photography and one of his favorite spots for photographing birds and other animals – Paynes Prairie in north-central Florida. On December 30, a photographer friend of mine, Rick Marshall, and I travelled to Paynes Prairie at Greg’s invitation. In addition to the three of us there were three other nature photographers and we all lined up side-by-side along Bird Bridge to capture images of all the birds. Unfortunately, there weren’t very many birds to see or photograph except for three Bald Eagles way over there across the lake, a Phoebe that wanted to stay at the very top of a tree so the only shot you could get was against the bright sky, a cormorant, a couple of herons and egrets and a few assorted warblers that stayed mostly deep in the brush and refused to be still and pose for us. As a result we didn’t get a lot of good photos. However, because of the dearth of birds, we spent most of our time talking about photography, wild life and life in general. We had a great time. There are times when I want to go out alone but there’s a lot to be learned and to experience when a group of photographers get together. If you haven’t had this experience I recommend you give it a try.

The ongoing debate about what color space to shoot in and whether to shoot in RAW or JPEG came up that morning at Paynes Prairie and the answer I gave was so erudite I shocked myself. This seems to be one of those subjects that everyone has a strong opinion about like deep dish or New York style pizzas. Kidding aside, I’m aware that if I send an image file to a color lab for printing or if I want to post an image on line and want it to look right I need to make sure the file is a jpeg file and that the color space is sRGB. So the obvious question is why not shoot in jpeg and sRGB all the time? If I shoot in RAW I’m capturing all the information the camera is capable of capturing. If I shoot in ProPhotoRGB, which I do, I’m capturing all the color information the camera is capable of capturing. If I save the file, I’ll always have all that information. I can always reduce the amount of information by converting to jpeg and sRGB but if I shoot in jpeg and sRGB I can never increase the information. Do I ever really need all that information? Who knows, but if I do I have it. If I don’t capture it, I can never recover it.

Image with color space set at ProPhotoRGB

Image with color space changed to sRGB

Frequently I hear people complaining that their images never look the same when they print them as they look on their monitor. There are two things that can cause that problem. One, your printer isn’t calibrated. See my article on printer calibration. Two, the image is in Adobe RGB (RGB) or ProPhotoRGB instead of sRGB (see the two images above). Check your color space settings.

Last Tuesday I posted an article about decorating your home using your own photographs. A reader, Renan Le Caro, posted the following comment:

“Nice idea, but I’m afraid it would feel a little narcissist for a beginner like me.”

Upon reading the comment my immediate thought was, NO! NO! Being a beginner doesn’t mean you can’t take good or even great photographs. It does mean that you probably won’t take good photos as often as someone who’s much more experienced, but you can still take good photos. Isn’t showing off your photography why we do this? If you were a painter and you painted something you really liked, wouldn’t you hang it on your wall or try to sell it? Besides, hanging your work on the wall in your home is a somewhat subtle expression. That is until someone asks where you got the photo and you go into a 30 minute dissertation about it.

While I’m on the subject of last Tuesday’s article, a co-worker brought in a bunch of photos that she wanted to use as decorative art work in her home. The problem is that she had taken a couple of the photographs with the camera too close to the subject and the subject was cropped. When taking photos, especially as a set and especially when you’re photographing similar subjects on different days and you want to display them as a set or group, always give yourself a little room. You can always crop the photos to the image you want if you left some room in the photo but if you crop it in the camera you can’t recover the part of the image that was never photographed.

Lastly, on the subject of comments and questions, Tiffany and I both greatly appreciate the comments and the time you took to make it at the end of our articles and always look forward to reading them. We welcome those comments even when you are expressing a different opinion or disagreeing with us. However, comments that are abusive or written in a manner that is impolite and unprofessional will be deleted. Further, comments that are made solely to “advertise” a product or vendor will also be deleted. We welcome advertising, but only when the advertiser is paying for the space.

All Photos by Steve Russell

Related posts:

1. Tips for Action Photography
2. Ten Tips for Photographing Birds
3. Thoughts on Family Photos

I thought it would be fun to start the New Year discussing what to do with all the photos we’ve accumulated over the years. While most of us probably put some of our images on a web site like Flickr, Smugmug or 500px, that’s not the only thing we can do with our photos. Most photographers like to hang their work on the walls of their home. We like looking at our work and we really like it when a guest in our home makes very favorable comments about our photos.

Instead of merely hanging some of your favorite photos on the wall here and there, what if you want to use them to decorate your home? This may be a subtle difference but it’s still a difference. The overall look of the room and not the individual images is the focal point of what you’re doing. Unless you’re a trained and experienced decorator this can be a difficult and somewhat daunting undertaking because it’s your home and they’re your photographs. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when approaching a project of this nature.

Decide on the Layout – How many photos do you want? Where do you want them? How do you want to arrange them? The answers to these and other questions are greatly dependent on the space you’re decorating. If it’s a foyer or hallway with a long, blank wall you will probably want a different layout than you would if it was for limited wall space above furniture. In the foyer or hallway you may want a number of photos of the same size arranged horizontally along the wall.

Select a Theme – If decorating is the objective, then it’s much better to use the same theme for all the photos instead of a hodge-podge of your work. It could be based on where you live, a hobby or something you would really like seeing on the walls of your home every day. For example, if you live in a large city you may want to use street photographs. If you live in a coastal area you might select photos of pleasure boats, commercial fishing vessels or beach scenes. If you live in an area that has distinctive flora and/or fauna you might follow a theme based on that. Tiffany lives in Arizona so she might want to use photos of cactus, especially saguaro cactus. A pilot might want to feature aircraft in flight.

Framing and Matting – For something like this, all the frames and mats should be identical. Yes, the framed images should include mats and the size and color of the mats is just as important and having the mats. The safest approach is either white mats or black mats. However, the next consideration is just as important in selecting the mats as is the aesthetic appeal of the mats.

Size of Frames, Mats and Images – If you have a wall that is 10 feet high and 15 feet long without windows or other adornments, using 8×10 inch images and 12×14 inch frames (2 inch mats) isn’t going to be nearly as dramatic as using larger images and frames. On a wall of this size, I would use images that were at least 11×14 and 3 inch mats. That means that the frames are going to be a minimum of 17×20 and probably larger. On the other hand, if the space is relatively small and you want to use more than one image in the space, the best image size might be 8×10. While it’s not an approach that I’m crazy about, the use of images that are relatively small (maybe 6×6) with a very wide mat can be very dramatic at times.

Orientation – In most applications when using multiple images, they should all have the same orientation; portrait, square or landscape. If the photographs are the focal point, as opposed to decorating your home, like a Photo Wall, a mixture of portrait, landscape and square can be made to work. Another consideration is the shape of the space. If you’re trying to decorate a space that is wide but not very high, in most instances a landscape orientation will work better than a portrait orientation and the converse is true as well.

Black & White or Color – Depending on the subject of the photos, printing them in black & white might provide more impact and be more artistic. That said, you should be very careful in selecting your theme if you want to use black & white. Using photos of flowers that are printed in black & white doesn’t work nearly as well as if they were in color. However, if you’re using street scenes for your theme, black & white may be preferred over color. While the theme you want may dictate the choice between color or black & white, if the decision between color or black & white is more important, then that decision will strongly influence the choice of theme.

Complementary Color Palate – Start with the photos. If you’re using color images, the colors should be complementary. You wouldn’t want to use a photo with bright deeply saturated colors next to a photograph where the colors are pastel and ephemeral or of a snow-covered scene. You can make an exception where your theme is the four seasons but to make that work it should be the same scene photographed from the same spot at different times of the year. For example, envision an idyllic scene of a barn-red covered bridge with a back drop of deciduous and coniferous trees located someplace like Vermont. Setting up your camera on a tri-pod in the exact same spot with the same focal length lens during each of the four seasons could produce a very dramatic display. As I indicated above, the mats and frames should all be identical but don’t forget that the color of the mats has to complement both the photos and the wall color. If the walls are white or beige you’ll have more freedom selecting the frames and mats, but if the walls are a bold color you’ll need to consider that when selecting the mat color.

Go Take the Photographs – If you put a lot of time into all the above, you might want to consider grabbing you gear and go out to capture a group of images that will fit all the decisions you’ve made in the steps above.

This is a project I have for 2012 that I didn’t include in my Goals article. We have the perfect spot in our new home in Texas and already have a good idea of the desired layout. However, selecting a theme is definitely a work in progress as we’re about 180 degrees apart right now. Wish me luck.

Photo Credits:
New Decorating by rossbelmont on Flickr Creative Commons
Photo Wall by ameotoko on Flickr Creative Commons

Related posts:

1. Displaying Photographs in Your Home
2. Build a Home Photo Studio for Under $800
3. Your Weekend Photography Project – Your Neighborhood

The art of capturing a person’s portrait without including their face is gaining popularity in lifestyle photography. I see it quite often in family portraiture and wedding photography as well. It’s a fun way to include aspects of your subject’s personality that isn’t immediately apparent in their smile.

This New Year’s weekend, I encourage you all to use creative use of cropping, depth of field, silhouette, framing, and composition to capture compelling portraits of the people in your life, without including their faces. When done well, you’ll always be able to recognize who the portrait is of, even years down the road when you’ve forgotten all about this weekend project!

Please share your contributions on our Facebook Page or Flickr Group!

On behalf of Steve and I, we wish you all a happy and healthy New Year! All the best for 2012!

Photo credits (in order of appearance):

- “Self Portrait” by Zach Dischner on Flickr Creative Commons.
- “First Self Portrait” by Shirley Buxton on Flickr Creative Commons.
- “Self Portrait” by Mitch Huang on Flickr Creative Commons.
- “Maureen’s Feet” by Hiral Henna on Flickr Creative Commons.
- “Point at the Door” by Aimanness Photography on Flickr Creative Commons.

Related posts:

1. Your Weekend Photography Project – Manual and SOOC
2. Your Weekend Photography Project – Your Neighborhood
3. Your Weekend Photography Project