Single-Serving Photo

I have a lot of new readers come through here, sometimes through Google, sometimes Stumble Upon, and it occurs to me that it could be hard to wade through the few years of content to find all the really good stuff. Not that all of my posts aren’t totally fantastic—because they are—but there are a select few that I recommend everyone read.

On the occasions that I have people ask me for casual help getting started with their new DSLR, I send them to these same articles as a “primer,” and to save me from repeating myself a lot.

So, without further ado, the most popular and essential articles in three years of Single-Serving Photo:

• Neutral Density Filters
• Mastering the Only Five Camera Settings
• Art Concepts in Photography, Part 1: Texture
• Art Concepts in Photography, Part 2: Composition
• Art Concepts in Photography, Part 3: Positive/Negative Space
• Histograms, Huh?
• Resolution is a Myth: Calculating DPI

I also decided to put this list on its own page. You can always get to it from the “Essential Reading” link along the right side, or share that page with your friends who are getting started.

I am a member of what some might call “the inner circle” over at B&H Photo. If you haven’t heard of them, B&H is only the largest photography retailer in the US—their two-story space in New York City is tens of thousands of square feet in size!

I have purchased countless thousands of dollars of equipment from them through the years, and I’ve always been completely satisfied with their prices and their service. I wouldn’t bother promoting them if I didn’t really believe in them, and you will be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t think they’re at the very top of their game.

That said, here are some current specials they’re running that might be of use to you. If you click on any of these links and then make a purchase of some kind, they’ll toss me a couple of percent, which will help me continue to give you all this fabulous information, and I will forever love you for it.

For only a little while longer, free express shipping on Canon cameras!

I’m a total “Canonista,” so if you have even the slightest inkling of a desire for a Canon DSLR, now is the time to snag one, on sale, with free shipping. The 40D, the 50D, the 5D, the 5D Mark II (maybe wait until they get that black pixel thing fixed…), the Rebel XTi, the Rebel XS, all with free express shipping.

If you were thinking about getting an entry-level Canon DSLR and the 40D seems like a good fit for you, now is the time. Get $50 off the B&H kit, which includes the EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens. Yes, I know it’s not “L” glass, but for someone getting started, 28-135mm is the kind of zoom range that will give you some serious flexibility, and it’s not one of those junky EF-S lenses that you won’t be able to use with the 5D or 5D Mark II or 1D if you ever upgrade. Not to mention image stabilization; you can’t go wrong there.

Just look at that sweet baby. Go ahead, click it. You know you want to. It’s not too late to buy yourself a little holiday gift!

On the path to creativity, it’s not only okay to stop and smell the roses, it’s encouraged.

My approach to inspiration is not to chase it; I tend to walk around in a place or idly browse others’ works until the desire to create something strikes. Still, it’s nice to have a “toolbox” of tricks to get you past those creative lulls in life. According to psychologist Jonathan Schooler (no, really, that’s his actual name), daydreaming is one possible answer.

Well, if you know you’re doing it, that is.

From Boston.com (Jonah Lehrer):

“If your mind didn’t wander, then you’d be largely shackled to whatever you are doing right now,” says Jonathan Schooler, a psychologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “But instead you can engage in mental time travel and other kinds of simulation. During a daydream, your thoughts are really unbounded.”

And who wouldn’t want to time travel? The key, though, is self-awareness of your wandering mind. The study concluded that people who were able to recognize when they were daydreaming demonstrated more of a predilection to creativity than those who were only able to identify their daydreams after they happened.

When I read this story I began thinking about my own daydreaming habits. I think I can say with certainty that I absolutely know when I’m daydreaming… Because I love it. There’s nothing like taking a little break from reality now and then!

Despite photography’s firm basis in reality—capturing real light reflecting off of real objects—it is in so many ways an escape from reality, and an art form that can benefit from your daydreams just as much as any other.

So the next time you find yourself staring off into the distance and traveling mentally through time and space, don’t pull yourself back down to Earth so quickly.

Via Lifehacker, via Boston.com

How many times have you held up one of your photographic prints in the light of day—actual, real day—and thought That’s not at all what I bargained for? Never? Well that’s good. You must be one of the lucky ones, or one of the blind ones.

Even with the best equipment that money can buy, ICC profiles, spectrophotometers, an iron-clad color management workflow, and a high-end monitor, your eyes are the ultimate judges of your work. But eyes, they don’t work alone; you can’t see anything without light, and the quality of the light will have as much an effect on what you see as the color of the print itself.

I got onto this topic after reading Michael Johnston’s overview of his Viewing Station. All these years I’ve been experimenting with lights in my studio space, let’s call it Single-Serving Photo HQ—or, as my friends call it, my bedroom—and I never once thought to write about it.

After the jump I’ll tell you how to dramatically increase your viewing conditions for about $15. (more…)

It’s not every day you come across photography that is simply arresting. Even in the realm of surrealism, so much is possible with software these days that few photographic creations make you look twice and wonder “How’d they do that?” Such was the effect that Gregory Crewdson’s work had on me when I first saw it.

His works are (from what I’ve seen, at least) untitled, which is a subject for another article. I don’t know how much post-processing goes into these images, but I know that Crewdson is known for his elaborate lighting setups, which leads me to believe there isn’t much. He’s well-known enough to have his own page on Wikipedia, a distinction reserved (by the site’s own policy) for those enjoying defensible public recognition.

The subject matter of his work is, to put it lightly, creepy. Most of his images depict figures in various stages of undress, none possessing what you might call Grecian physiques, in situations of emotional distance, consternation, shock, or macabre solitude. The pools of light and the occasional volumetric beam add such a drama and intensity to the stuff that it’s hard to look away.

I’d love to see behind-the-scenes photos of his setups, but I couldn’t uncover much. Here is a neat walkthrough of a Crewdson setup in Massachusetts, though they don’t even show the final image, which was a big disappointment for me.

There are some decent views of some of the setups he’s used here on the Aperture 190 site; you can see that he works mostly with hot lights (lights that remain on, as opposed to strobes), just as though he was shooting a movie. The boston.com article revealed that he shoots with an 8×10 view camera and apertures as small as f/45, producing what must be the most amazingly detailed and tack-sharp images. After reading that, I want to see a real Crewdson print up close and personal.

Like Crewdson? Ever seen prints in person? Comment below!