Review of "Chasing the Light" by Ibarionex Perello...

One of the fun things about writing this blog is publishers send me books all the time to review, some get reviewed and some don't.



I have been a big fan of Ibarionex Perello for some time, his was one of the first photography podcasts I listened to when I plunged into photography, so I was excited when the UPS truck rolled up and left his book "Chasing the Light: Improving Your Photography with Available Light" on my doorstep.



Excited but nervous to, because what if i didn't like the book of a person/photographer I admired and respected.



It only took the acknowledgement and dedication of his book, you know that part of the very beginning that most people skip right over, to increase my admiration of Mr. Perello. I think that's the part of the book that an author puts more of themselves in than anywhere else and it reveals a glimpse of who they are and what they hold near and dear. So I was far less concerned about what followed because I knew it would be the best a good man had to offer and you just can't ask for more than that.





I can sum up the review pretty simply "Chasing the Light" is a great read. It is the best source for understanding natural light I have read. Period.



Two of the hardest things to do is shoot in harsh mid day sun because, well, it's harsh mid day sun, and "street" photography because things move and change so quickly that you don't have much time to press the shutter button before the opportunity is gone forever.



The two hundred and fifty pages of this book will give you the information to do both very, very well.



There is a bunch to love about this book, including the fact that every time you turn the page there are pictures, lots of pictures, at least one but sometimes as many as three. Each image demonstrates the point Ibarionex is trying to teach us with his words. There are the camera settings and mechanics that went into capturing the image including the thought process (the how and why he took this shot). So you read AND see everything that went into it. To make the learning experience complete Ibarionex includes the why as well.



Just because you can take a good picture doesn't mean you can teach the process to another how, Ibarionex. Throughout the book it feels he is talking to you (not at or down to you) in a way that is easy to understand and follow.



One of the points he strives to get across is the importance of getting things right in camera, because shooting is way more fun than "fiddling around in Photoshop".



And I love when I read a book and learn new things, like the rule of thumb that minimum shutter speed is 1 over the focal length (so minimum shutter speed for a 100mm lens is 1/100, 200mm lens is 1/200, etc.).



There is a cool self assignment in chapter 4 (which is about color), Ibarionex looks at color as an important ingredient in a recipe, so to help develop your eye for color the assignment is to shoot single colors... only red, only yellow, or only blue... a great idea for developing how color impacts an image.



Ibarionex covers color temps and white balance in great detail as well, did you know that open shade has a bluish color cast? Or that setting your cameras white balance preset to "sunny" (instead of auto) will give you richer and more vibrant colors during the "golden hour"?



I could ramble on and on about the great information covered in this book, but you can check it out yourself by reading a full chapter. Find out for yourself just how good a teacher Ibarionex is and how good this book is by following this link... you can read all of chapter 4 online or download it to your computer.



But wait, there's more, you can watch his podcast on metering choices when shooting a scene. The series of podcasts this cam from can be found here.



There are so many things covered in this book that I haven't even touched on, but let me close by saying that if you want to know and understand how natural light impacts photography there is no better book than "Chasing the Light".

HEATHER & DUANE GET MARRIED!!

Here it is!! Heather & Duane's big day at Fairmont Le Chateau Montebello thanks to Derrick Rice of Union Eleven. A big thank you also goes out to All Seasons Weddings, Groovy Linen, and the amazing Paul Chacra Entertainment. Not only did they provide the duo for the ceremony and cocktail hour but the band 1945 rocked the reception. Outstanding! Needless to say, the dance floor was packed the entire evening. Even between courses! In my next life I will be hunting Paul Chacra down to play at my wedding. Enjoy the images (One of Viva's faves is the framed picture that was on display of Duane proposing to Heather. He got down on one knee at the Kentucky Derby. LOVE that it was captured on film!) and congratulations to Heather & Duane on what was a fabulous wedding day!

Reader images from our Scott Kelby tutorial...

A couple weeks back we had the pleasure of posting the long exposure tutorial video Scott Kelby filmed for us and today we are sharing a couple samples sent to us from our readers.



The first is from Jonathan Brown and the image he shot (and shared) is from the Lantern Festival in Nara Japan.





The second shot is closer to home (for me at least) and is from Mark Hensley. Mark shot this at Fort Popham here in Phippsburg, Maine.





Clicking on either image will open it larger and in a new window for better viewing.



Be sure to checkout Scotts long exposure tutorial and if you give it a try we would love to see the results, you can post them to our Flickr group or email them directly to us. If you do email an image (please) try to keep in the 200k range.

Check out these images from a WPT reader...

The above image, "Little Lady Bug", is from one of our readers (and Flickr group member) Matthew Mendenhall.



I love this shot, how it was setup, the composition, and the processing... so basically, everything about it.



Matt was kind enough to share the details behind how this image came to be, how it was shot and how it was processed.



"I started out photographing some wildflowers in my front yard that I planted earlier in the year, there were some large sunflowers growing among my wildflowers and thought that the bright yellow sunflower would look great on a black background.



I went out and cut one of the sunflowers to photograph and as I was opening the front door I noticed a ladybug crawling up the screen door, so I scooped the ladybug onto my hand and brought it inside with the sunflower.



With the flower in a small glass I put the ladybug on to the flower and hoped it wouldn't fly away. I used a piece of black fabric under the glass holding the sunflower and then raised it up for the background as well. I used this setup so that if I changed angles from a side shot to a top shot the background would remain black.



In an effort to hide from my 2 young daughters who really wanted to hold the ladybug she frantically crawled around the sunflower and ended up hiding on the bottom of the flower. I turned on the television to "distract" the girls and when I came back the flower had drooped over, showing the back of the flower and putting the ladybug in the perfect spot to be photographed.



The shot was taken with a Nikon D300s and a Tamron 90mm macro lens on a tripod. It was lit with a Nikon SB-600 flash with a umiQuest softbox attached to it. The flash was fired in TTL mode and it was handheld to the upper right of the frame.



I shot in Aperture Priority mode at F25 and 1/60 of a second at an ISO 200.



The lady bug was selectively sharpened using a brush in Lightroom, it was then imported it into Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0 where I used the vignette blur effect. I adjusted the center point, size, transition amount and the opacity. I knew that I didn't have much at the top of the photo for the blur to effect so I moved the center point so it would take the outer aspect of the flower petals out of focus. I then saved the photo back to Lightroom and gave it a small amount of vignette and some noise removal.



So to say the least, much of this photo was luck! But as they say, being in the right place at the right time is part of getting great shots. In the end I had another fun shot and my girls had some fun with the Ladybug before it flew off. I hope you can get some creative ideas from this picture and workflow."



I also took the liberty of grabbing this shot from Matt titled "Good Boy", which has a very simple setup. It was shot with a Nikon D300s, an SB-600 inside a Westcott 28" Apollo Softbox, and fired via TTL. It's another outstanding shot using my favorite softbox, the Apollo 28" (you can read more about how much I like it including a video review here and here).

A BIG thank you to Mathew for sharing part of his photography world with us, please be sure to check out his website and Flickr stream.

(clicking on either image will open it larger and in a new window)

The rain and macro photography...

The last couple days we have been getting some much needed rain, and one of my favorite things to do is to take my Nikon 60mm f/2.8G AF-S Micro out as soon as the water stops falling and grab a few shots.



I like to get real close, have the depth of field real shallow, and here are the results.



(click on any image to view larger in a new window)

Free and waaaaaay better than good...

There are a bazillion choices when it comes to image editing software and many are free and surprisingly some of those free options do a better job than some of those programs that you shell out your hard earned money for.

One of those that is free and outstanding is Photoscape.

It does just about anything you can imagine when it comes to image editing, you can create an animated GIF, do batch processing, and so much more. Their fake tilt shift feature is pretty cool.


Photoscape is powerful and full featured editing option that you can download for free right here.

Below is a two minute video that demonstrates just how powerful the clone stamp is, watch the part where they use the tool to change the title of a book in a library.

They have put together a large number of tutorial videos that you can watch, simply follow this link.

HEATHER & DUANE - SNEAK PEEK!!

Heather & Duane were married at one of Viva's favourite venues, Fairmont Le Chateau Montebello in Montebello Quebec. Not only do we love coordinating at LCM, we love working with Derrick Rice so this wedding was a real treat as we got to do both.



Derrick recently joined forces with Ottawa wedding photographer Andrew Geddes and together they created Union Eleven. Derrick and Andrew can be found in their new location at 619 Bank Street in the Glebe, right next door to The Flour Shoppe. Drop in to say hello and stay tunned for more stellar images of Heather & Duane's fabulous day!!