Hocking Hills Ohio, a vacation in wonderland and lessons in photography
I thought I would share some of the pictures that I took while vacationing over the 4th of July weekend in the Hocking hills or SE Ohio. For those interested in learning to take better pictures, I will explain what I did with each image or perhaps why certain elements are included in the images. I you have no interest in learning to take better pictures, then just look at the pictures and tell me if you think I did okay.
Evan is on the far right. Thumbs up because this is cool. Jordan is far left with the dreads. He is our nature boy and was climbing everything and observing the cliffs as well as things as small as spider webs. Alison, Lindsey, and Grant are in the middle. They are Andy’s kids. Pam is on the far right taking a picture of the group with several cameras. Patty, my wife, is not in this picture. Pam is Patty’s sister.
Making the picture:
Throughout the day I would pull out my gray target card and snap a photo for calibration of color. These caves and deep woods are very shady and I knew that I would have to calibrate the color of the images some how. I my case I shoot in RAW format and adjust the color of the images using the gray card. For those who prefer to shoot in JPG format, you would have to calibrate for white balance before you start shooting. If you don’t learn to calibrate for color or white balance, then pictures, especially in the shade will tend toward blue or cool color. It is amazing to me how much difference color calibration makes in images. As we were walking through these caves, they seems to have a warm glow. Without the calibration I would have settled for cool damp looking photographs. Auto white balance is just not smart enough to adjust color balance accurately. I took some additional pictures of this group without Pam at the right. To me including Pam creates some interest and tells a story.
I shot everything using my 17-40 f4 wide angle zoom lens. In this image there are extremes of very dark shadow and bright sun lit areas. If I had allowed much more of the sunny part into the image it would have caused the rest of the image to underexpose. If I had focused solely in the dark areas then the brighter areas would have gone completely white. I did not want to turn up my ISO too high because it would begin to show more noise (random specs of color in the shadows of the image). As you can see from Patty walking to the right of the image the shutter speed was slow. Since I did not have a tripod one trick that I use to hand hold slow shutter speeds is to use the motor drive on my camera. Rather than clicking just one image, I shoot off 4-5 shots. Usually I find that I was pretty still on one of the images and a couple will be unacceptable because of camera shake. I have also found that when using a wide angle lens, it just seems more interesting to me to have something close and something far. I darkened the bright area to the upper left quite a bit, however I lost some detail from the extreme brightness there.
The lighting was very interesting in this part of the trail. To capture it I took several images, but each time changed something. One I shot in the landscape format (horizontal) and the others I shot in the portrait (vertical) format. I also, you can see tried some pointing down into the shadows more and some pointing more up into the light. I is amazing to see how different a small change in angle makes to these images. I did not do any brightness changes on these because this is pretty much how I remember the scene and the lighting as it was is what makes this interesting to me. So take several images when you see something, but change things around somehow as you are shooting so that you have some choices, not just five frames of the same image. Which one do YOU like best?
As you walk through these caves your eyes adjust to the shade and then to the bright spots created when the sun sneaks through the trees and creates bright patches on the sandstone and dirt. I darkened the bright areas some, but if I were to eliminate them completely then the warm glow of the caves would be lost to shadow. With extremes in lighting you have to compromise in whatever way captures the scene more truly. Having a person in the image ad perspective to communicate more of the enormous size of some of these stone formations.
This portrait of Lindsey and Grant demonstrates the rule of thirds. Although the image is not cut perfectly into thirds, you notice that the people are not dead center. Nor is the water fall behind them. A bulls eye photo would feel boring and uninteresting or static. By moving things off center there are lots of things that draw your eye to various parts of this picture and make it interesting to look at.
Well, I hope you had fun looking at some of my pictures. These are not my creative senior portraits or my portraits with horses, but they keep me working on improving my photography so that I can deal with any outdoor setting that is presented to me for my professional images. I am a believer in lifelong learning. My goal is to learn something more each day in my photography. I learn about marketing, business, creative processes, photoshop, or whatever it is that I am open to by being around others. I have found that people who are not open to learn tend not to see so much that there is to be seen and to learn about.
Peter DeMott, http://www.photosbypdemott.com
Would love to connect with you via email (peter@photosbypdemott.com) or facebook or whatever. If you are interested in hiring me for a lifestyle portrait session for senior portraits, families, kids and equines, just give me a call at 937-478-6222.
Jen and Ken Damon’s Family Portrait Session at their home in Miamisburg
We were all set to meet at the Cox Arboretum for their family portrait session when we realized that there was a garlic festival going on so it would have been a major hassle to get into the park. My wife suggested that we consider doing the session at their home in Miamisburg. Last spring they had beautiful new paver walk and patio along with landscaping done at their home.
When I arrived I checked things out and set up some chairs by their front porch. As you can see it worked out wonderfully and Jen said later that she felt even better that it was at their home. It gives it a very personal feel. This is a one-of-a-kind piece of art that they will cherish for years to come. Ken Damon is the pastor of a Baptist church in Oakwood. Jennifer is a 5th grade teacher at Mark Twain School in Miamisburg, Ohio.
The other thing I found is that the love in this very close family just shines through. Posing was easy and relaxed and everyone had a nice time, even Kyle and Joel who very seldom have their pictures taken. Still hoping to arrange for Kyle’s senior portraits. He wants to wear the crown from being elected the king of the homecoming court at Miamisburg High School. Sure we can do that for part of the session.
