HDR - Florence, Italy after the rain...

Night is the perfect time for HDR photography. The dynamic range in the scene is often too great for the camera to record in a single exposure what we can see with our eyes.. Detail can be lost in both the highlight and shadow areas, making a balanced exposure tricky! This scene was photographed in Florence after a rain, which made the cobblestone roads shimmer with light. Nik HDR Efex Pro worked beautifully to combine the images to HDR, creating a single image that reflected more of what I saw when I made the picture. With HDR, you are the artist! You can create an image that is illustrative, or photorealistic, or somewhere in between! I am very much looking forward to my Nik HDR Efex Pro webinar this Wednesday at 5pm Eastern Time (2pm Pacific). I hope you will be there! Make great pictures... ~ Deb

Broaden your photographic horizons, shoot infrared!

Your imagination is your preview of life's coming attractions. ~Albert Einstein

Infrared photography can give you a new outlet for artistic expression by allowing you to shoot traditional subjects in novel and interesting ways. A color photograph converted to black and white is quite different from a black and white infrared image. Nothing can quite compare with the surreal factor of bright white foliage, a dark sky and the uniqueness of how infrared light is reflected and absorbed by different surfaces. Infrared photography is a wonderful way to broaden your photographic horizons and expand your creativity!

Interested in learning more? Please check out my book Digital Infrared Photography published by Wiley, available at bookstores and online at Amazon. I also teach Infrared Photography at BetterPhoto.com. I'll be speaking about infrared in April at Florida's Birding and Photo Fest, and in June in Ontario for the Canadian Camera Conference. I hope to see you at one of these events!

My favorite method of black and white conversion is Nik Silver Efex Pro. It creates beautiful black and white images that are perfect for both infrared and color photography. For museum quality black and white printing, try Digital Silver Imaging. Make great pictures! ~ Deb

Venice at night... and how to make a new Twitter background...

Venice was the first places I photographed in Italy. It will always hold wonderful memories! It was right before Christmas and many restaurants and businesses had beautiful decorations and colorful lights. This little restaurant on the waterfront had pumpkin ravioli with a pumpkin and nut sauce, yes... it was delicious! Venice is a maze of walkways and waterways. The gondolas were left at the dock in favor of water taxi's because of the freezing weather, but it was still, all and all, just wonderful.

This night shot was enhanced with a layer of texture from Flypaper Textures, and the Impasto filter from Alien Skin Snap Art. I like the brushstrokes of color and texture throughout the image. I made this my Twitter background for a new and different look. Click on this link http://twitter.com/#!/debsandidge to see the background, and please join me on Twitter! Want to make a new Twitter background? Resize your image to 1600 pixels wide, 1200 pixels tall,  and save as a jpeg no larger than 800k. In Twitter, upload your image under Settings>Design>Change Background Image. That should do it, and hope to see you on Twitter! ~ Deb

PS - All coupon codes are in my sidebar (DEB0902 for everything Alien Skin).  Click on the links to visit the sites, and please feel free to use any codes for plug-ins you'd like to try!

Black and White, or Color? HDR in Downtown Orlando...

Black and white photography has a timeless appeal that can create an emotional response that's different from color. Light, shadow, pattern, texture, and tonality work beautifully together to create an expressive image independent from the connotations color. Black and white can romanticize an image, look at the wonderful work of wedding photographers! Much of the appeal for me started with film photography, and making my own prints, messy but a lot of fun! This was taken in downtown Orlando at twilight as a three shot HDR merged in HDR Efex Pro. The image was converted to black and white with Nik Silver Efex Pro which can create an elegant traditional film look. Try it and see! You can use my coupon code for a discount for everything Nik! Have fun in the digital darkroom! ~ Deb

A little romance... with Alien Skin Snap Art

What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Italy is a very romantic place!  Outdoor cafes everywhere, candles, flowers even on the coldest of days. I liked this couple walking arm in arm and couldn't resist taking their picture walking under a canopy of blue stars. The scene looked as if it could be a artistic painting rather than just a photograph. To complete the idea, I used Oil Paint in Alien Skin Snap Art which creates wonderful brushstrokes of color throughout the image. We will be covering this technique in my 4 week online course Enhancing Images and Creating Works of Art at BetterPhoto.com. There is still time to sign up and join the fun! Make great pictures. ~ Deb

Raining? Don't put your camera away just yet...

Rain can create a wonderful opportunity for dramatic photographs. In Florence recently, it rained around the clock, creating an especially beautiful effect in the evening. I love the look of reflections cast on rain soaked streets. It creates a more expressive image than a photo taken during the day. Paired with a long exposure to record taillights from passing cars, a scene can become quite magical! 

Here are couple of tips to help you with capturing a captivating night scene... You'll need a sturdy tripod, remote shutter release (or use the camera self timer feature). An inexpensive three axis bubble level helps guide you to keeping things straight, especially in the dark. If you are using a lens with vibration reduction or image stabilization, turn it off while on the tripod. If you wish to photograph streaks from the taillights of passing cars, you may need to stop down so that your exposure is several seconds or longer. Use a low ISO to prevent noisy images. Bring an umbrella, a hotel shower cap, it works great to protect the camera, and bring a flashlight too. Have fun shooting! ~ Deb

Shine on...Star Trails at Rocky Mountain National Park

Yeah, we all shine on, like the moon, and the stars and the sun. ~John Lennon

Rocky Mountain National Park is one of my favorite locations to photograph. Everything changes dramatically with the seasons, and at night, it's absolutely beautiful! This was taken a few days ago on a very clear and cold night at an overlook I like to shoot from. There were countless stars in the night sky, and I saw a few shooting stars as well. Lenticular clouds filled the sky earlier in the day that were amazing, including this one last cloud that stayed for hours. 

This image is the result of about 45 exposures  using Interval Timer Shooting with the Nikon D3 and Nikon 14-24mm lens. The images were stacked in Photoshop CS5 Extended using Image Statistics. One of my longtime favorite filters, Nik Color Efex Pro Glamour Glow added subtle softness and saturation to the image. 

Interested in night photography? Please join me in St. Augustine, Florida this April at Florida's Birding & Photo Fest. I'll be leading a couple of fun workshops on nighttime photography, and don't miss my presentations on HDR, Creative Photography, and Infrared Photography too! Hope to see you there!  ~Deb