Beyond Megapixels » personal

Pet Photography 101

Tiffany Joyce — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 07:00:26 +0000

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.

Thoughts on Family Photos

Tiffany Joyce — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 07:00:29 +0000

I don’t think we tend to take pictures with the thought in mind that people in future generations will be looking at them. We figure we’ll always be around to clarify the photos – who is in them, where they were taken, when they were taken, what the occasion was that prompted the shot. Or, we assume that the photo only has meaning to ourselves, so there is no need to jot a note on the back of the print, or throw in some keywords or a description to our on-line photos.

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!!!!

Photo Project for Young Families

Steve Russell — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 07:00:52 +0000

This article falls within the “I wish I had done that” category. After my children were grown and off to college or on their own, a woman I knew showed me a photo album that really made me wish I had done the same thing with my family. The reason I didn’t was I never thought of it and no one ever suggested the idea. I wanted to share the concept so that others might decide to do the same thing.

We all take family snapshots/photos and most of them get stuffed in a box and forgotten until we run across the box while cleaning out our closet or some other place that attracts stuff we’re not using. The result of rediscovering the box is usually an hour or two of sitting in the middle of the floor rummaging through old photographs. Sometimes the organized mother will put the photos in an album but the album frequently enjoys the same fate as the loose photos. In today’s digital age, the family photos, organized or not, usually find their way to a CD or DVD and put in a cabinet or on a shelf and again forgetten for long periods of time.

The album I was shown that day was a series of pictures of the woman and her parents. An uninteresting approach to all but the immediate family, at least on the surface. But as I turned the pages of the album I realized that it was far more than just a bunch of family photos. A single photo taken by itself was unremarkable — a mother and father with their daughter standing in front of their house, but because of what they did and how they did it the album had a flavor of family and social history.

What made the photos and the album special was that each photo had been taken on the daughter’s birthday, one for each year. Looking through the album I could watch the infant become a toddler, then a pre-schooler, then a grade-schooler, a teenager and a young adult. I could see the landscaping in the front of the house mature, the house change colors when they repainted, the new house when they moved. The woman was born in the early 60′s so she grew up during some very interesting “fashion” times. The changing appearance of her parents told much of the story - hairstyles, a period when her father had sideburns and a bushy moustache, the clothes changing from very conservative in the early to 60′s to nothing short of outrageous in the late 60′s and early 70′s and then back to a level of normalcy by the 80′s all talked to the changes through time.

Fortunately, the woman knew the value of the treasure she possessed and continued the tradition with her children. Unfortunately, I’ve lost contact with the woman and have no pictures from her to include with the article. However, imagine being able to look back through your life on the same day of each year. Many of us would have at least one photo like this one.

And, in a different year, maybe one like this.

It doesn’t have to be professional level photography – the chronicle is what’s important. This photo was taken when my oldest son was 6 months old. While we took hundreds of photos over the years, I don’t think we ever took one just like this and we never did anything like this on the same day every year.

While it isn’t important that the photos be taken on a birthday, I encourage you to consider creating a family treasure of this sort in addition to your other photography pursuits. And, although the title refers to young families, even if you’re not in that category, there’s nothing wrong with starting today and following the same protocol.

Photo Credits:
1970′s Family Picture by Thrift Store Addict on Creative Commons
Family Formal by patrick_q on Creative Commons
Germany by Steve Russell

Ode to My Canon Digital Rebel XTi

Tiffany Joyce — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 07:00:51 +0000

Regular readers will recall my recent entry about unboxing my new Canon 7D, and how very excited I was to finally obtain this camera body that I’ve been coveting for so long. Since that article, I have been happily snapping away, familiarizing myself with the new camera’s functions and learning about all of its quirks and capabilities.

Last weekend I was organizing my Lowepro in preparation for a photo shoot at a client’s house. I removed all of the gear unnecessary for the assignment, and as I was popping the batteries out of the XTi and placing it on the shelf in my bedroom closet, I was struck with what I can only describe as sadness. My XTi had been my near-constant companion for going on four years, and here I was “shelving” it as a back-up camera body that was no longer a necessary fixture in my day-to-day existence.

It was like I was saying goodbye to my best friend from high school, promising that we would stay in touch after graduation but knowing that we would eventually, gradually, fade out of one another’s lives.

The Canon Digital Rebel XTi was my very first digital SLR camera. On it, I learned every skill that I can now call my own. On it, I moved from automated settings to the dreaded, scary “M”. I learned about light, and composition, and exposure. I learned about depth of field. I took thousands upon thousands of photographs, and gradually began to see improvement in their quality.

Oh, how we traveled, me and my XTi. To Maine, several times. To Oregon. To Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. To Indianapolis. Dozens of trips to Northern Arizona. To the zoo, the arboretum, the botanical garden, numerous state parks. I took photos of falcons and buffalo, waterfalls and roses. Through its lens I admired vast mountain vistas, and the minute pistols of a flower. It brought the craters of the moon close enough to admire in detail. I protected it from the salt spray of the Atlantic ocean; together we went walking through the crisp towering aspens of Colorado.

It enabled me to acquire my first paying client. It helped encourage donations for worthy causes. It captured priceless family memories. In very short order it equipped me with the confidence to go forth and pursue my passion, and grabbing it on my way out the door became a habit as automatic to me as breathing. After years of faithful service, and after teaching me everything it had in itself to teach, it now rests in dignified retirement. Ever ready to play second string to my Canon 7D and back me up whenever the situation requires it.

As a beginner’s DSLR, it was outstanding. I will always recommend this camera to anyone just starting out in digital SLR photography. It has the exact combination of ease-of-use and intermediate functionality that is perfect for learning. It was perfect for me. It may be outgrown, but it will be ever appreciated and it will never be forgotten.

Every photo in this entry, and over 10,000 more not shown, were taken by me, with my ever-faithful Canon Digital Rebel XTi.

Unboxing – One of Life’s Great Joys

Tiffany Joyce — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:00:57 +0000

Let me ask you, as one photographer to another… are there many things better in life than unboxing a brand new camera? Not many, I think!

A serendipitous sequence of events lead to the ability to buy my Canon EOS 7D with 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM kit lens – which I have greatly coveted since its debut last year – several months ahead of schedule. I pulled the trigger on it on Monday evening, and it was in my hands on Wednesday. Oh joy, oh happiness, oh how lovely it is to live in the age of Amazon and UPS.

Of course, I took photos of each stage of the unboxing. For you, my gentle readers! (Click on each for a larger version.)

What I am looking forward to the most:
- Eight frames per second
- ISO up to 6400
- 19 point auto-focus
- On-the-fly switching between RAW and JPEG
- 63 zone dual-layer light metering
- HD video

What I am looking forward to the least:
- Reading the 250 page manual.

Rest assured, once I gain familiarity with this new camera, you’ll all be getting a detailed review. Plus, I received a couple of other toys in this shipment that I’m eager to share with you all, in upcoming entries!

Photo credits (all): Tiffany Joyce

How Have You Grown?

Tiffany Joyce — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 07:00:42 +0000

One of the things that I appreciate the most about my Flickr photostream is the growth that I can see emerging in my photographic abilities. I’ve maintained a Flickr membership since February of 2006, and have had an on-line presence since 2000. Throughout, I have taken thousands upon thousands of photographs, and have had several different kinds of cameras. Occasionally I like to browse back through my archives and reminisce.

It’s all about growth.

I used to feel it necessary to “touch up” nearly every picture that I took. Everything needed to be sharper, bolder, vignetted or actioned. I had crooked horizons, over-contrasted adjustments, and a whole heck of a lot of “no-no’s”. For instance, oh, look at this poor shot of Cannon Beach in Oregon, taken in 2007:

The humanity! Crooked horizon, contrasted to the point of being surreal, complete disregard for the rule of thirds… it makes me laugh, now.

I never shot in RAW, and sometimes shot in low-quality JPEG just so I could fit more pictures on my memory card. I had more faith in my Photoshop skills (negligible though they were, see above) than I had in my photography skills. I would address photo-taking with an eye toward fixing it later, rather than getting it right the first time.

I can say with complete honesty that I have grown a great deal. It has been five years since I started taking photography very seriously, with an eye toward making it my profession. With every day that passes, with every click of the shutter, I am more firmly based in my knowledge of photography principles and methods. Now, more often than not, the pictures that I share are straight out of the camera (like the very first shot at the beginning of this entry, and the one directly above – two new favorites of mine). I see fewer mistakes, and great improvements in my composition.

My one-year anniversary for writing for Beyond Megapixels is on the 18th of this month. In this year alone, I have grown in great leaps and bounds, and have gone further in my photography expertise than I ever thought I would. This just proves my personal theory that you learn so much more when you teach others. Thank you all so much for providing me with the opportunity.

How have you grown as a photographer? What improvements have you seen emerge over time as you practice your skills and continue to learn? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

Photo credits (for better or worse): Tiffany Joyce.

Maine Photo Highlights

Tiffany Joyce — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:12:07 +0000

Hello friends! I am back from our ten day vacation in Maine, with over a thousand pictures now safely loaded onto my hard drive, and a million memories to look back upon when homesickness hits me. As evidenced by the shot above, we cannot go back without taking the obligatory shot of the Portland Head Light – I must have a million of them by now. I know many people have little interest in viewing someone else’s vacation pictures, but I figure this specific audience would appreciate them more than most. The fact that I was blessed with a couple of truly great rental lenses from Pro Photo Rental (an EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS telephoto, and an EF 16-35 f/2.8L II wide angle, reviews forthcoming) really helped me to capture the authentic nature of the surroundings in which we found ourselves. It’s going to be tough to send those puppies back, later on today.

Speaking of lenses, I think I’ve found the perfect combination for vacation photography. A standard use lens, such as my 17-55 f/2.8; a telephoto lens, and a wide angle lens. These three lenses seem to strike the right balance of photographic flexibility, without packing on too much gear to be conveniently lugged about. Also, word to the wise – if you’re traveling for an extended period of time, it is great to have the ability to back up photo files while on vacation. I had my laptop with me and transferred RAW files from camera to computer daily. With wireless connectivity and accommodating hotels, I was also able to back up edited JPEG files to Flickr. That I was able to ensure the safety of these captured memories went a long way toward securing my peace of mind.

So! Without further ado, here are a handful of shots that delighted me the most. I hope you enjoy them!

This is the four-masted schooner, the “Margaret Todd”, which calls the town of Bar Harbor home. Next trip, I vow to take a cruise on her. This shot was taken with my 17-55mm f/2.8 lens.

This is the Pemaquid Point Lighthouse, located in the town of Bristol. It was a steely gray day, and the tide was coming in quite dramatically. We observed an intrepid photographer clambering among the rocks, who barely escaped the encroaching waves as they crashed ever closer to his perch. His wife was yelling at him furiously from her seat higher up. I sympathized with him – I, too, would risk a dunking to get a good shot. I don’t think I’d risk my camera as much as he did, though. This shot was taken with the wide-angle EF 16-35 f/2.8L II, which performed quite well, I think, in the portrait position.

This family of osprey have made their home on a tower that was specially built for them, by the owner of the Taste of Maine Restaurant in the town of Woolwich. My husband and I sat on their patio and had dinner while observing the birds, and this shot was taken with the EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS telephoto lens, enhanced with a 2x converter.

I will probably regale you all with more pictures, especially in demonstration of the performance of the individual lenses I used. It’s hard not to let my love of the state of Maine effect my writing! If you’re curious about any of the places I’ve visited, I would be happy to answer any questions you may have. Shoot me an e-mail or leave a comment.

Location Photography – Maine

Tiffany Joyce — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 07:00:28 +0000

If all goes as planned, while you are reading this I am currently winging my way from Arizona to Maine for a ten-day vacation. I am taking advantage of the technology available to me to write and schedule my articles to post while I am away, so you all should see no interruption of service here at Beyond Megapixels.

I am originally from Maine, and my visits back home always offer a constant opportunity for exercising my passion for photography. Just off the top of my head, here are some of the activities we will be delighting in:

- Attending the Yarmouth Clam Festival.
- Sailing on Casco Bay, with a lobster bake on one of the islands.
- Hiking in Acadia National Park.
- Enjoying Old Orchard Beach.
- Strolling around the Old Port, and Freeport.
- Exploring Route One from Portland to Bar Harbor, and hopefully stopping in Rockland to eat at Conte’s.
- The obligatory visits to J’s Oyster and The Lobster Shack at Two Lights.
- The ubiquitous visit to the Portland Head Light.

I will be sharing some of my photographs with you all when I get back, but in the meantime here are a few favorite shots from past visits. If any of you have ever been to Maine, or New England, please feel free to share some of your favorite destinations, memories, and photographs in the comments!

As for me, well, I shall have a lobster dinner and think of you all!

Photo credits (all): Tiffany Joyce.

Photograph the Minutiae

Tiffany Joyce — Fri, 07 May 2010 15:38:10 +0000

(A picture of my kitchen, in a momentary state of cleanliness.)

When we take photographs, we tend to stick to the significant events that happen in our lives. Vacations, holidays, graduations, birthdays, and other occurrences that will stand out in our memories in years to come. We take pictures of the places we’ve traveled to, the sights that we’ve marveled at, and made static those moments in time that are meaningful to us.

But what about our, normal, routine life that we live through each and every day? How will we remember those days? We continue to change and grow, in ways that seem almost nonexistant when looked upon day by day, but those changes add up over time. We just don’t notice them until we look back.

(“My” spot in the living room, from which I do most of my writing.)

I came to realize a, well, gap in the photographs of my life. Sure, I have vacation pictures galore, but I have very few photos of the house that I grew up in, and no pictures of the village I called home. I have few photos of the place I live in right now. No pictures of my very first car, or the bikes my husband and I bought last summer. The kids, now that they’ve grown and moved out, appear less and less in pictures. I don’t have a photograph of any of the places I’ve ever been employed.

What I’m getting at is this: don’t forget to photograph the minutiae of your life – the details that you think right now are boring or inconsequential, but that you may look upon later with a rush of recollection and nostalgia. What does your home look like now, how is it decorated, how is the furniture arranged, what color are the walls? What does the yard look like now? What are you driving? Which bedspread are you using? How do YOU look? What is your hairstyle like? What kind of clothing are you favoring? Where do you work? What is on your desk, on your walls?

(My favorite mug, my favorite breakfast.)

What does your neighborhood look like right now? The corner? The town you live in? What do you see on your daily route to work, or to the grocery store, or to the post office?

This weekend, I offer you a challenge. Take pictures of the silly little details of your life. Take a photo while you’re sitting at your kitchen table eating breakfast. Sit in your favorite spot in the living room and take a picture of your viewpoint. Head out into your back yard or front yard, and take a picture of your house. Walk around your neighborhood and photograph what you see every day. Take a self portrait wearing your favorite pair of jeans or even your comfy pajamas.

It is important to record what your life is like now, so that you can appreciate the changes that have occurred when you look back upon them years from now.

We’d love to see your contributions! Feel free to share them in the comments, or on Beyond Megapixels’ Flickr Group. Sherry wrote a great post about photographing your home, check it out for some tips! Happy Friday!

Photo credits (all): Tiffany Joyce.

Annoying people with your photography habit

Tiffany Joyce — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 16:20:06 +0000

I’ve learned over the years that there’s sometimes a fine line between enjoying your love of photography and just flat out annoying the pants off of the people around you. Depending on who those people are, different things may either make them curious about what you’re doing, make them think you’re crazy, or make them want to physically remove your camera from your hands. Here are some of mine, see if any of them sound familiar to you.

1. Lying on the ground in public to take a picture. My daughter is only seven but I actually saw her roll her eyes and heard her sigh when we were walking one day because I spotted a snail in the grass beside the sidewalk and needed to capture it with my camera. The thing is, a snail is very small and taking a shot from above doesn’t give much detail so naturally I laid down on the sidewalk, flat on my stomach, and fired off several shots. By the time she’s a teenager my daughter will likely refuse to go anywhere with me unless I leave my camera at home, but getting down on the ground is the only way to get a really nice perspective sometimes.

2. Using the flash at inopportune times. One night years ago my husband and I were driving in a friend’s car on our way back from an evening out. It was roughly 11 at night and obviously dark. We were driving across a bridge and I wanted to capture the lights of the Montreal skyline as we approached. It was unfortunate that it was only my second day using the point and shoot that I had at that time and hadn’t yet learned how to shoot without the flash in auto. I was sure that I had turned the flash off but, well, no. A flash firing in the dark is very bright, especially when it bounces off the windshield and into the driver’s eyes. Suffice it to say that I strongly urge you to avoid firing your flash in a moving vehicle at night. The good news is we didn’t end up driving into the guardrail or another car. Whew.

3. Taking photos of food. While he would never outright complain or tell me to stop, my husband is frequently mildly annoyed in an amused sort of way by my tendency to photograph the vast majority of my meals. I don’t know why I am compelled to do it, I just am. Maybe it’s because combining my love of photography with my love of food just makes it a natural thing to do, I don’t know. I do recommend it though; food photography is trickier than you might expect and requires a lot of practice (see some great food photography tips here). A great way to practice is to do it at home with your own food under different lighting situations and at different angles so you can see what works.

4. Documenting every moment. I didn’t always feel the need to whip out my camera every second of the day but since having kids my camera is never far away and it’s rare that there’s a day where I don’t take a picture at least once. This can drive people crazy if they’re not used to it, especially if they’re not into photography themselves. When we have birthday parties there are always a couple of people who tend to run in the other direction when I inevitably pull my camera out. My motto is pretty much this: If you are one of those people who loves to document the important moments in your life, don’t let other people make you feel like you should stop; however please do respect others and don’t force your photography on them if they’re not photo fans!

5. Carrying a camera everywhere I go. He’s generally very accepting of my passion, but sometimes my husband will ask me, “do you REALLY need to bring your camera with you?!” I understand, because really, I shouldn’t technically need to bring my camera bag on a trip to the grocery store or to the post office. However, my defense is that you never know when you might see something that really catches your eye. Almost every time I have left my camera at home I’ve seen at least one thing that I wish I could photograph – such as yesterday when I picked my daughter up from a friend’s house only to end up meeting five 4-day-old kittens that the family had. I sure wished I had grabbed my camera on the way out!

I don’t always use it when I bring it along but I’m really happy that I had it on me the day that I spotted this opportunity. The umbrella might have still been there the next day, but the fog was long gone and the effect wouldn’t have been the same if I hadn’t captured it immediately. (It does bear noting that this was taken before I had really learned about composition and I would have approached it differently if I had known more back them.)

All in all, my annoying habits aren’t all that annoying for the most part I don’t think. What are your annoying habits when you’ve got a camera in hand?

All photos: Sherry Osborne