HDR - The Engulfing Boulder

Working with HDR (Hygh Dynamic Range) gives me a lot of pleasure because, far from being a ritual, is different from the previous one.

This picture taken in Brazil, in the city of Niterói, is a combination of three exposures at -1.0 EV, 0 EV and +1.0 EV. The remaining information is f/3.5, focal length 18.0 mm and ISO 200.

First, I submitted the pictures to Photoshop CS5 to provide the initial adjustments like the clarity, the vibrance  and a bit of fill light as the pictures were slightly dark.

I didn't apply any lens correction at this stage to avoid misalignment of the images but I made sure that no traces of noise would be left there as it accumulates after the HDR processing thus giving that "brittle" result which then requires heavy noise reduction anyway. In particular, thanks to the low ISO setting that I used, the occasional noise was easily removed, if some present at all.

After saving them in the TIFF format at 16 bits, I toned mapping in Photomatix to combine the three images looking specifically for the settings that did not leave behind white halos.

Finally, I submitted the HDR to Photoshop to apply the lens correction, to adjust the alignment of the building, to correct as much as I could the color of the greens and to remove some speckles here and there.

The result pleased me because it dramatically depicts the attempt of the boulder to kind of engulf the house.

By the way, this house seemed to be abandoned even though there were some boats around it. I even tried to go in to check some extra photography possibilities but it was locked and apparently part of the accessing stairs was moved away from its original position.

I hope you enjoyed it!

Bottom line, is the house being engulfed by the boulder
or is the boulder just there to support the house?

Now, looking carefully at the image, I can see that I could have applied some more drama to the boulder by selectively applying a non-destructive layer of burning here and there. Ok, deal! I will do it later.

Large Windows

Still on the the HDR thema (please, take a look at my previous post about this subject matter), I worked on this photograph taken in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in one of its large sections.

This is a single shot taken with an already deceased Nikon D-5000, focal length 24mmm, f5.0, ISO 400 at 1/100s.

Firstly, I used Photoshop to align the image, correct the white balance and other minor adjustments, remove small distractions and remove noise with Topaz Denoise.

Subsequently, I applied Photomatix over it and finally a worked again with Photoshop to five its final touch. Here is the result.

The huge windows of the Met.

A HDR Tale in New York or... Beam Me Up, Scotty!

I visited a couple of times New York and, the more I do it, the more I find it amazing. There is something there that attracts, not only me, but millions of mes to its architecture, way of living, vibrant life, the colors... My closest explanation to what I feel about New York is the atmosphere or maybe the magnetism that only our inner selves are capable of understanding.

Being what it is, I always try to take zillions of pictures from as many aspects I find attractive (as though something there would not be appealing to a photographer!...). Once, we were walking near the Central Park (my wife and I), when we saw a building with the doors wide open that seemed to be inviting for some exploration and some pictures. Carefully, we looked around and climbed to the fourth floor where I saw the inner part of building built in such a way that it lets the internal windows to breath a bit. It was a confusion of small windows, wires and air conditioners. I thought it would be a nice place of a HDR (more about it later) and I managed to hold my camera steady enough through the cracks of the hall window. There are the pictures I took there before we saw somebody coming along and politely asking, without making an effort to hide suspicion, what were we doing there. Anyway, here are the three pictures that I took:

The "right"exposure, that is, the one I set as the correct one (normal exposure).

The same scene taken one f-stop below (underexposed).

The third picture with one f-stop above (overexposed).

At first, I did not pay much attention to that blue area in the bottom center of the pictures as I thought it would be a lack of white balance correction. Without further ado, I ran this set through Photomatix and look what I got after working it a bit in Photoshop CS5:

The blue are like a cold beam flowing from top to bottom.

Isn't it impressive? It seems that there is a blue beam flowing from top to bottom (or the opposite, if you want this way). I would credit this blue effect to the incorrect white balance but I tried to do it in one of the original pictures and the effect was still there with less intensity, but still clearly there.

Bottom line, where is this effect coming from? What Photomatix only did was to intensify it. All I can say is that it is rather peculiar! If anyone knows how to explain it, please, by all means I will gladly hear it.

Since I was with my hands on it, I played a bit more and I got these two variations. I don't know whether they are pleasant or not.

A dark vision with the beam intensified.

Oh! I was forgetting... There is something missing in this picture. If you didn't realize it so far, it is Captain Kirk that was just beamed up by Scotty!

Where to Go From Here

If you are interested in more details about what I talked about, here are some tips on where to start getting acquainted with HDR:

. HDR in brief words, it stands for High Dynamic Range which is a set of procedures capable of presenting a broader range of luminance between the darkest and brightest areas in a picture. Although discovered and investigated around 160 years ago, it was only with digital imaging that its full capabilities could have been explored. Basically, it relies on the fact that human eyes can capture luminances between 10 and 14 f-stops whereas normal cameras can only capture around 5 f-stops. This means that if a scene is captured for the highlights, the medium and low luminances will have reduced presence; if captured for the low luminances, the high and medium will also suffer. By taking a series of pictures in succession of exactly the same scene, typically 3, one for the highlights, one correctly and the last one for the shadows and then later combining these pictures, the resulting image will have richer details and much higher tonal ranges. The HDR technique can be perfected by taking 5, 7 or more pictures, each one 0.5 or 1 f-stop apart from the other. If you look for the keyword HDR on the Web, you are going to find thousands of examples and many good articles about it;

. Photomatix is one of the leading pieces of software that is used to combine the above described exposures to produce HDR images. You can download a trial version and get additional information about HDR here.

Almost Dark - A Lesson In Black and White

Interesting how our point of view can change from the scene we are looking at, the picture we take from that scene and its final processing stage.

This happened to me when I was strolling around with my wife at the end of the day on a park near a frozen river. At some point, I noticed the Sun being filtered by the naked trees and projecting nice long shadows, prone to a couple photographs. Not much longer, I had taken around fifteen pictures of this subject, both portrait and landscape, varying the exposure time, the angle... because I wanted to play with the subject at home by choosing the best shot.

According to my understanding, the best one straight from the camera (I just added my logo, in case you didn't notice it) is this one:

I was strolling around with my wife when I saw the Sun permeating through the trees. The long shadows seemed to be a continuation of the trees in a somewhat bizarre way. 

I worked this picture a bit by giving it just enough sharpening (very little, indeed), by enhancing the colors, specially the blue in the sky and that orange tang produced by the Sunset. The blue shadows were intensified and didn't look very pretty even after reducing its effect. I intentionally left it darker than normal so that everything would match with the shadows that is, the overall light would just be a long shadow. The result seemed to be good so far. Take a look at it:

It didn't take me longer than ten minutes to tweak it just enough to give it that extra punch. Compare this one with the original.

I decide to go a step ahead and play with the blacks and whites by fiddling the colors (doesn't it sound strange to fiddle with colors in a black and white picture? See the explanation later) until I got this one three minutes later:

Now, this scene has character and is very bold. 

Now, it has character and conveys a strong message. The Sun setting became a single and faded blob of light constrained by the dark sky. The trees and their long shadows completely dominate the scene and gives some chills in our spines. In essence, I was pleased with it!

There are a couple of lessons learned here, starting with the fact that I always shoot RAW no matter what (don't beat me, I know that there are exceptions specially when you want to ship your photos immediately for further processing elsewhere). By shooting RAW, it gives me a lot of room to play with everything because, bottom line, a RAW picture is a picture left "as is" from the camera without any treatment like white balance, sharpening, etc. You do what you want to do, in the amount you consider the best.

The second lesson and perhaps the most important one here is that I never, ever, ever, ever shoot directly in black and white even in RAW for the same reason I don't shoot JPEG. Contrary to the common belief, a black and white picture is not just a combination of blacks, whites and the various shades of grey.

Well - hmmm - yes! The after the fact image is indeed that.

But, reality is rarely a combination of blacks and whites but rather a combination of colors that can render to a combination of blacks and whites. If you place reds, greens and blues side by side and transform them into black and white, they will show up as shades of grey and you are no longer going to be able to tell which grey belongs to each color. This darker grey here was a red or it was a very intense green before?

This is exactly the reason why I never shoot in black and white because the camera will take the decision for me when converting the original color image coming from the sensor to the output black and white image. The camera never knows what are my intentions nor what are the possibilities of fiddling with the various tones of reds, greens, blues, etc. This is a task that belongs to the artist within every single photographer.

Therefore, I shoot in RAW and color and then I play the sliders corresponding with the colors so that relationship between the various shades of grey gives me a pleasant after the fact black and white image. If I want, I could also produce many different black and white pictures from the same original depending on my mood, the light of the day (yes, the light coming from your window can alter the way you see your picture in your monitor) and many other factors.

A final argument is that if I choose to ignore the blacks and whites, I can always use the original colors.

Or, maybe, both!

When It Is Good, You See It!

There are pictures and pictures, once said a poet.

Actually, I don't ever remember reading anywhere this saying from any poet as, I think, pictures (used as photographs) perhaps do not make a nice subject for poetry.

Nevertheless, we have to admit that there some pictures that stand out over other pictures and which differentiate them from others. They can be seen from the distance like a diamond that shines in a different way from regular glass.

It is like a genius in the middle of normal people. A genius may have the same look as everybody else but the minute you talk to them or you see them in action, you immediately recognize that something different is going on. Or, along the lines with poetry, there is someone out there that, once we see him or her, we feel immediately attracted to this person, even in the middle of the crowd, and that person becomes our love or our friend.

The same happens to pictures: among many pictures there is that one that shines and attracts. There is something in it that stands out and makes it different.

This happened to me after a day of shooting in Panama City: among hundreds of pictures, this one just jumped in front of me.

It shows some of the modern buildings that are part of the modern Panama City, including the very distinctive "D" shaped Donald Trump building.

The rocks in foreground are not normally visible as the low tides usually don't go that low but I was fortunate to be there at that time.

I could have chosen this one here instead specially because of little shiny spot on top of one of the buildings, but I felt that first one would bring more impact.

Yours to choose it!

It is not about your camera but about you!

Quite often when I show my pictures to somebody, I get a "Oh! What a nice picture! You must have a good camera!". Every time I hear this, I would like to take this fellow to a restaurant and order what I consider to be a nice plate, a specialty of this restaurant. After enjoying it (the plate, not the restaurant...), I would take this fellow with me to the kitchen and let him/her effusively congratulate the... pots used to cook the food!

Excuse me? The pots? What about the cook himself/herself that combined the raw ingredients into pots, then applied some amount of experience to handle the stove to cook the food? What about the passion of the cook for cooking? And that touch of art to finally arrange the food on the plate?

It is obvious that the pots, the oven, the ingredients and the environment, all contribute but they do not do anything unless someone goes there and applies some sort of procedure to transform the raw materials into the final delicacy.

The same applies to Photography. The gear, the scene, the technique, they are all there waiting for someone to apply a little magic to materialize a nice picture. Needless to say that the magician is yourself!

You and only you is the vehicle for this transformation.

In shorter, one might to take these factors into account that contribute to taking better pictures:

. the equipment: let by a good camera, tripods, lenses, filters and a long array of gear indeed helps but I have seen (and taken) very nice shots with a Kodak Easyshare with 3 megapixels and seen (and taken) horrendous pictures with very good DSLRs. There is a significant co-relation between a good camera and a better picture quality but that is all;

. the rules: there is a established set of rules applied to Photography like the rule of thirds, the white balance, the perspective, the light, etc, all help you  that may help to produce better pictures although rules do exist to be broken. Get yourself acquainted with them and check when they can be applied (or not);

. the passion: there are two types of photographers: the one that occasionally presses the shutter of the camera and the one that studies the best angle, wakes up early to take advantage of the light, compares his/her own pictures with others looking for improvements... In essence, the latter has passion and put whatever effort it takes to take the nicest shot;

. the art: every single photograph should be considered a piece of art just like a sculpture, a song, a painting, a book, a delicious plate... to name a few pieces of art. It is indeed much easier to take a picture than writing a book, for instance; however, good photographers select only one stunning pictures among hundreds. If it would be as easy to produce a nice picture as to press the shutter of the camera, everybody would be a National Geographic photographer, would have pictures published and exposed in galleries, etc;

. the preparation: good photographers do not go on a photography mission expecting to bring back tons of nice pictures without actually envisioning what to accomplish in the mission. By mission, I understand any "operation" that requires taking pictures like going to a specific place, a specific event, etc. In other words, there is a purpose in taking the pictures even if you are just going to a near by river because, depending on the weather and the time of the day, the results can be totally different from expected;

. the luck: sometimes, it just happens that lightning struck motivating you to take that picture that becomes the one above all. Luck explains it and luck does happen once in a while. But, do not count on luck on a daily basis unless you are one of those guys that get everything fallen at your feet (in which case, probably, you would not be a photographer anyway...);

. the time: there is a time for everything, including Photography. There are Golden Hours (at Sunrise and at Sunset), there is Noon and there is the right time for the people as well (for instance, a wedding ceremony requires you to take the pictures during the ceremony itself and not before or after). Also, take your time to take a picture; check the light, the ambiance, your ideas and then press the shutter;

. the place: although there are places that greatly contribute to a nice picture, a great photographer is capable of finding the right angle almost anywhere in the world. A friend of mine, a great photographer, sometimes used this trick at the end of his Photography classes: he would ask all participants to take the cameras and spend 10 minutes locked in the bathroom to get as many pictures as possible, provided they would be accepted by others. That is, you might take 100 pictures in 10 minutes but if they would not be accepted by your peers, they would not count. It is amazing how some photographers use their creativity in a such small space to produce something really good;

. the post-processing: one in a thousand pictures I take presents the situation where I say to myself: "What I can I do here? It is so perfect that if I would change it, it would not do any good to it". Every single picture needs tweaking, from the white balance, alignment, contrast, cropping, sharpening, etc, all need some degree of touching. Depending on the seriousness of your passion for Photography, the post-processing could range from a simple tweaks with Picasa until the heavy profissionalism provided by Photoshop;


. the YOU: without taking thousands and thousands and thousands of pictures of all kinds, automatic, manual, night, day, landscapes, portraits... all sorts of pictures using different types of cameras, we cannot be considered be good photographers, unless you are a little genius that take a camera from your friend, take a single shot and everybody instantly recognize you as the new guru in Photography. Fat chance!

Praise yourself about your pictures and let me know what you think about it!

Changing the Point of View

Have you already noticed how some animals that are notorious hunters chase their preys? As soon as they detect them, they froze their eyes on them and slowly and silently move towards the preys until their close enough to jump on them and... bon apetit!

 As photographers, we tend to do the same. The moment we see something interesting, we get our cameras ready, froze our eyes on our target and snap some pictures. If we know our cameras well enough, we can even get them ready to action without even looking at them.

That's exactly what happened to me when I saw these clothespins against the Sun. That would make a nice picture:

The different colors made translucent by the sunlight coming from behind, altogether against the dark background created a nice contrast.

I shot a couple of pictures but the results were not as interesting as the scene I had in front of me.

Then, it occurred to me to change my point of view: instead of seeing the clothespins from behind the source of light, why not seeing them from the opposite side, that is, from the their faces being illuminated?

Take a look at the result:

The objects are the same, the scene is the same, the background is the same... But the picture is not the same!

Now, it has even more contrast and the colors are more vibrant.

All I did was to change my point of view. In other words, I did not behave like a hunter strictly focused on the prey but I analyzed the situation trying to get the most from the same circumstance.

In many other situations, by changing a bit my position, I could get a better picture. Sometimes, all I needed was to bend gently forward, take a single step to the right or to the left. It's amazing how you can reveal or hide this or that detail by slightly changing your position when taking a picture.

Something Is Wrong With My Picture - Part I

I understand that there are so many reasons why a picture could go wrong because of the many variables involved in taking a picture like light, composition, camera settings, etc. With point and shoot cameras, to take a picture it is as easy as point and... shoot, which makes the massive production of "wrong" pictures a piece of cake.

Among the factors that contribute to mistakes is the tilting where an image is either "falling" to the left or "falling" to the right. It is very easy to make this mistake and there are several theories that explain it but I would say that we are generally concentrated on the subject and we forget the background. The direction of the tilt varies but it seems to tilt more to the left because we grip the camera with the left hand and control it with the right hand, the latter being lighter and delicate.

The end result of a tilted picture is that it transmits a sensation that something is "wrong" and unpleasant.

Let's open a parenthesis here: sometimes, pictures are taken diagonally with the purpose of seeing things from a different perspective. I am not talking about these "tilted" ones because they are in fact diagonal.

Therefore, a picture is considered tilted when the inclination of the horizon line in the picture (imaginary or present) lies between the actual horizon line and those diagonal pictures (that is, the pictures intentionally taken tilted). The objective here, then, it is to correct the tilted pictures or the "wrong" ones.

Let's consider the example below.

Fig 1 - A fisherman in Etretat, France.

Overall, it seems to be a good picture. There is a story to be told there where the center of attention, the fisherman, is having fun in the late afternoon and the whole place is beautiful in its nature.

Nevertheless, he seems to be struggling not only with the fishing rod but also with the fact that he is "falling" to the left. Also, the viewer has the impression that the piece of white rock in the background will fall on his head any minute.

Therefore, this picture sends a message of struggle and pain although taken in a beautiful place simply because it is tilted. Given that our natural reaction is to seek "protection" against pain, we tend to ignore it and go for the next picture.

To start the fix, you have to find an obvious or logical line in the scene that you know is leveled up like the horizon line, the surface of water against the horizon, any kind of frames like doors, windows, edges of buildings, etc. In particular with buildings, you must be careful because they might distorted or be shown in perspective in relationship to the borders of the picture due to the angle that the picture was taken. Use them only as the last resort.

Fig. 2 - On the way to make it straight.

Sometimes, although you feel that the picture is not right, there are no obvious references to guide you in situations like grass and bushes or a forest. In this cases, you just have to guess and interact with the software until you feel that the picture is straight.

In the photo above, the obvious reference is the water line and the next step is to straighten it up to the it becomes something like the Figure 2 where there was around two degrees rotation to the right. The black area displays this.

After the rotation, you just need to crop in the dotted lines to produce the final image as shown in Figure 3.

If this photo would have been taken in such a way that water line would not be visible, another alternative to find its right alignment would be to imagine a vertical line that goes through in the middle of the fisherman's head all way down to the middle of his legs. Although not perfect, in this case it seems that he is quite straight and this approach will work quite well.


This procedure is quite simple but there is a better and even simpler alternative to it: to take the right picture in first place for two main reasons:

1) There will be no need to spend time fixing the picture;

2) Depending the amount to be fixed (namely, the rotation applied), significant portions of the picture will be cropped out which might render it unusable.

Fig. 3 - Now, the fisherman is spending all his energy to do his real job: fish!

The rules to take the right pictures are also very simple and only require a little practice. Instead of pointing and shooting, pointing and shooting, just point to your scene, observe how the scene is being displayed in your display or viewfinder, notice the horizon or feel it whenever it is not there and then - very gently - shoot. You are going to notice much better results coming out from your camera.

A trick to assist you in doing the proper alignment is to set a grid that some cameras have available. This grid usually divides the screen in 3 by 3 rectangles and provide a good reference.

Where do you go from here? Basically, you need some tilted pictures and a software to correct them. Regarding the pictures, I am sure that you must have plenty of them just like everybody has (including myself).

As per the software, the piece of choice par excellence is Photoshop, quite sophisticated and expensive too.

You can download for free GIMP which tries to mimic Photoshop.

Another excellent program to start with and use free of charge is IrfanView with lots of other picture operations.

A good alternative is Picasa, also for free, that performs other operations needed for photographers .

Finally, if you have Windows and you installed Microsoft Office, you must have available the Microsoft Office Picture Manager which is a very simple tool to start with.

The White Balance Case

Some years ago, I was a very happy owner of a Canon SX10IS and taking pictures of almost anything I could find in front of me because this camera was a small wonder (by then, at least for me). It was not that small that I could carry in my pocket, but I still could take it everywhere almost unnoticed.

Talking about silence, I muted all the sounds it produced like clicks and clacks and, because of its LCD that could flipped, I was able to take pictures in any places where pictures were not allowed. Pretending to be carrying the camera on my lap, I would twist its LCD to my convenience, take a brief look at the scene there  and then - click - without a sound! This is something that I cannot do with my DSLR now because the mirror always makes that clack-clack music that anyone around 10 meters can hear, specially if you are indoors.

Just a clarification: I am not a spy nor I have the habit of infiltrating myself in secret places just to document in pictures what the world is doing under the covers! Rather, there are situations where you need to be as discrete as possible so that your subject continues acting normally or you don't want to disrupt the moment like when you are in a concert (provided they allow you to take pictures, see my post about Japan), a mass or a funeral, you name it.

Point made, let's continue.

I am going to talk about white balance and how it changed my photography life, if such a technical detail would be able to accomplish such a feat! Therefore, let me just go a bit down to details and at least say - in lame words - what is white balance if you are interested and/or you don't know it. Otherwise, feel free to skip the next few paragraphs.


In digital cameras, right after you press the shutter button and before you see the resulting picture in your camera screen, lots of things happen with the light that came in through the lenses, hit the sensor, which produced gazillions of tiny electric impulses, all of them processed by a small computer that produced the image, which is finally written to your memory card, while being displayed on your screen.

Roughly comparing, the lenses are your eyes, the sensor is the retina, which produces electric signals to your computer - sorry, to your brain - which converts these signals into a sensation that you would describe as an image and finally keeps it somewhere as part of your personality and experience in life.

Although similar, let's not talk about how complex or simple a human vision system is in relationship to the camera's; instead, let's just say that both the brain and the camera's processor take the signals and transform them into the best images possible by using "past experiences". Before you jump in disgust, let me explain what is the meaning of past experiences.

Our brain has years and years of experience on how to render an image: it knows exactly what is the meaning of a crooked image, a distorted line, the interpretation of colors under various environments, among other abilities. One of these is to tell us that snow is white and represent it as a white sensation even though together with the snow there is the Sun, shadows, trees and other objects to make the scene very complex.

The processor of our camera, on the other hand, also has years and years of research and its engineers made all the best to feed the processor with tricks to produce a nice image. But, this is not enough and, in many situations, the resulting images are just a composite of the average signals produced by the sensor which makes, for instance, the white of the snow to become blueish. Basically, a camera does not know that snow is white and confuses everything.

That's why cameras have those Scene Modes where we tell the camera that we are photographing snow and not the sky.

In essence, by choosing the Snow Scene, we forced the camera to "balance the white" to produce white snow. In the same way, there are many other settings like the yellows produced by some lights, the intense cast produced by the Sun, etc.

Another point made, let's continue once more.

At that time (that is, some years ago), white balance was just a synonym for Tungsten, Sun, Clouds, etc, which I liked to play to see the results in my pictures. Look at this one taken in Rio de Janeiro from the back of a narrow, crammed, popular and delicious restaurant in Santa Tereza. Since this restaurant was formerly a regular single level house, I had to go through its kitchen to be able to reach the balcony in the back. I conveniently placed my camera at the edge and clicked:

Santa Tereza in Rio de Janeiro, a beautiful place with houses of all types, delicious restaurants and pleasant view from Rio.

Being a point and shoot camera, the SX10IS only produced JPG format pictures and, consequently, the white balance is defined at the moment of the click; you can correct it to some extent later in post-processing, but most of the light and color richness is lost when the JPG file is written to the memory card. This is one of the reasons why I now regularly take RAW pictures but this is a subject for a later discussion.

Anyway, the picture above most probably froze a tungsten setting for the white balance as a result of one of my experiments. The other pictures of the same subject with different settings I discarded. If you pay attention, you are going to notice that there were no such thing as green nor blue lights at that place and it later became clear to me that I was either a genius by being able to capture such an image or I did something very wrong that coincidentally produced something interesting. That raised me a flag that there were more things in Photography that I was ignoring.

I haven't fully recovered from this "The White Balance Incident" when I took this other picture at the Rideau River, almost needless to say that it was at the sunset:

Rideau River, Manotick, Ontario, Canada.

Wow! I was amazed by the result! And all I did was to set the camera on the tripod, fiddle with the white balance, point and shoot. That was it! At that pace, I could be a great photographer!

Well, not so fast, buddy! It was too good to be true and I decided to learn some things about Photography. Bottom line, in both cases I just pressed a button. Not much more than that. Ah! I forgot to tell a secret: I always used the camera's auto mode. Yes, Sir! In capitals: Auto Mode!

Something was wrong and I found it out very soon when I seriously started getting the technicalities of a great picture. I was focusing my success on two pictures and I conveniently forgot thousands of others that were full candidates to be thrown in the garbage bin.

The end of this chapter is that I knew nothing about Photography and that these pictures were just good  accidents. Like any accidents, they don't happen when we want; they present themselves unexpectedly and we need to be prepared for them in order to take the most of the situation. For instance, these two moments above will never repeat themselves again maybe in my lifetime. I was fortunate to be there and I know that there are other different moments in different places where I could take profit as well. But, these ones, most probably, never again!

Let's see one example. I took this picture in Prague (I don't know the name of this church).

This is the original image. The orangy/yellowy tones of the walls almost obliterate the presence of other source of lights. 

After the white balance correction, the blue and green source of lights  are very clear, specially at the top of the church, at its entrance and on the building at the left. Also, the blue sky is very clearly seen.

It makes a big difference before and after applying a simple white balance correction as the right colors of the scene start to show up. In particular, it is amazing to see the deep blue sky as opposed to the black background from the original picture.

My suggestion to you, reader, if you are seriously interested in Photography and you are learning like I am learning, is to read and practice a lot. Items like white balance, light, color, aperture, depth of field, exposure time, ISO, file formats and much more are the bare minimum to give a solid background to start to understand how a great picture can be taken.

It was in one of these readings that I stumble over the RAW format, its advantages and disadvantages. Next time, I will tell you how I managed to take RAW pictures with my Canon SX10IS. I am sorry? Did I hear you saying that you took RAW pictures with this point and shoot camera? You gotta be kidding!...

For more and far detailed information about white balance, please refer to these places:

A very technical discussion for geeks:
Cambridge in Colour

Another great article less technical:
Ron Bigelow

A Branch Story

Were all branches created equal?

Actually, I am not talking about branches that are thick or the ones that are long or even the ones that are as curvy as a snake slithering on the sand.

I am talking about the purpose of a branch on a tree growing by spreading its branches and from the branches there are other branches that finally branch again into leaves. Ultimately, the leaves, together with the roots, are the collectors of the life that keeps the tree alive. And the branches are the complex carriers of this life.

Slowly, the branches grow old, their leaves fade and fall. But, life moves on with the tree with the new branches and leaves.

Interesting to observe how this cycle goes on and on specially when we freeze this action in a picture. We can see there young branches, dead ones, leaves of all kinds... The trick is to observe them closely. But, how, if our lives run much faster then the growth of a single leaf, let alone a branch or even a tree?

A tree can be right in front of our window and yet we only notice its growth when we finally realize: "Hey! Look how tall is this tree! It was this small three years ago!"

A tree is a microcosm in itself. We can admire the whole, the shape, the colors. Branches are others microcosms within that microcosm with again their shapes, disposition on the tree... We could continue with the leaves, then with fibers and so on.

As a photographer, I tend to observe things around me whenever I am driving or walking. Even a few steps that I take from my car on the parking lot to the office of one of my clients is a rich opportunity for different shots. I look at the sky, the clouds, the disposition of the trees on the road, the passers by, the way the Sun hits objects.

For instance, when I arrive at the client, the Sun is in front of me and the shapes, the colors and the shades are completely different from the time I would leave the client in the afternoon even though the Sun is still in front of me. But, not only because the morning sunlight is different from  the afternoon sunlight and occasionally the sunset as well, but also because in the afternoon I am walking in the opposite direction which makes me see the same objects as in the morning from a different angle and perspective.

That morning, although I always crossed the same section of the road to reach the client's office, maybe because it was late and the Sun was hitting in a different angle, I noticed this small enclave of bushes and, there, the branch that started this whole conversation. When I spotted it, I immediately sensed that everything seemed perfect for the right picture! But, I had no camera that day... When would it be the next time that the light conditions would be the same or better?

I know, I know... A good photographer always carries a camera, no matter what, because the perfect opportunity rarely shows again if you miss it. Just like the lightning does not strike the same place twice. Or, at least, they say it. If you don't want to carry your bulky regular camera, have a smaller one like a good point and shoot to profit from these situations. Bottom line, it is much better to have on hand 100% of a picture that is 80% alright in quality than a 0% of a picture that is 100% perfect! Right?

Anyway, next time I took my camera but the light conditions were not good. And so, the next time. Fifteen days later, always carrying my camera, I finally took my picture... which resulted in a whole world of disappointment after working it three minutes in Photoshop:

The background was distracting and did not completely emphasize the branches. And, worse, my beloved branches, the reason of this whole digression here seemed flat, without life, almost colorless. That is it! Colorless! Black and white!

Just to recapitulate, I opened my picture in Camera Raw (I always take pictures in RAW format) and performed the initial tweaking by correcting the white balance, correcting the lens distortion, touching a bit the blacks and, finally, the usual clarity and vibrance. I didn't touch much the saturation colors because I noticed it would be almost of no help. However, I experimented the Convert to Grayscale option and sensed that something good might come out of it. As a matter of suggestion, never convert to gray scale there because the corresponding adjustment layer is by far more powerful.

After opening the image in Photoshop, I immediately started with the Black and White adjustment layer and played with the settings. First, the Auto setting, which was just passable. But, the Infrared setting exploded the picture! I adjusted the colors here and there and I got the result I wanted.

The final steps were to apply the Levels adjustment layer to get that punch, the Curves adjustment layer to boost a bit the contrast and a High Pass to sharpen the picture just enough.

Look at the result!

Now, I can see the branches almost graciously dancing with plenty of life, so much that a friend of mine even saw a voluptuous intercourse going on!

I have to admit: these branches are different from any other branches!

Japan

To me, above all, Japan represents a mystique combination of elements as simple as geishas, the pink peach flowers, the Fuji, the buddhist temples, the very peculiar way Japanese act and think, its tradition...


It's an idealized, romantic and dreamy way of thinking of Japan and I am deliberately ignoring its technological and advancements side.


I have never been there (one day I will do it) and, perhaps, these concepts might change. Until then, let me also appreciate its music that I recently had the opportunity to enjoy during a concert with traditional Japanese instruments.


There it was the delicate koto that my absolute musical ignorance would describe as a versatile harpa played, comme il faut, by a geisha.

Interesting is that the player can change the sound produced by the koto by simply moving the holders of the strings back and forth just like they would be sliders in a computer program.

Then, the mesmerizing taikos, with their vigorous sound resembling war beats.

On the Photography side, aside from the few pictures above, I managed to get a few spectators angry with me and my camera as it was so noisy as compared to the delicate sound of the koto and even disturbing when the rumbling taikos were in action. The result was an ashamed photographer and a camera back in its case. 


But, I guess, you can get a bit of the whole idea.