Photography - The Common Passion with Porsche - Photo Tips

[John Z Goriup]

Good street shot..........in my opinion it's slightly under-exposed and the vignetting is somewhat distracting, but basically a good composition.

With syncspeedinc's permission, I made it into a b & w as requested above and in the process cropped it slightly and addressed the general darkness of the shot.

JZG

[mfitton]

Thanks for the Black & White, that is one great picture!

[Peanut]

Nice job. It looks cold or damp and I can almost feel that in this shot. I only wish the vertical lines were more correct.

[syncspeedinc]

Thanks John for the B&W treatment, I enjoy any/all of the input and comments provided here I will try and keep posting a few photos from time to time. I am, for what ever reason, drawn to underexposing photos and a higher contrast level so it is nice to see things run through an others process. If anyone is on IG, let me know, I have found so many interesting subjects and photo styles there that have been a huge inspiration, my ID on there is silver911.


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[John Z Goriup]

I only wish the vertical lines were more correct.

It's all well & good to notice that the vertical lines slightly converge at the edges of the image ( not at all objectionably in this shot by the way, in my opinion ), BUT, please bear in mind that this is a good example of street photography, which by its very definition describes an image which will almost always be the result of an opportunistic grabshot and precludes such niceties / luxuries as perspective control lenses, (since the use of one requires a tripod ) which would slow things down unacceptably. On the other hand, if the photographer were to stop to carefully compose the image and align everything in the viewfinder, i.e. where all the vertical lines in the above shot are truly vertical and parallel to each other without diverging or converging it would have meant that the subject 911 would have been placed altogether differently in the image and would most likely have required extensive cropping to produce an image which would not have resulted in an awkwardly proportioned image which probably would have looked odd and contrived.

However, I suspect that what you are most likely intimating is a third option, straightening the converging verticals in Photoshop or the latest version of Lightroom, which would be in my view the absolutely last resort to try to correct such a flaw, if you can even call this example in need of "correction". What you refer to as "correct" verticals ( converging / diverging lines, level horizontals, placement of the main subject in relation to the background, etc. are all fundamental aspects of the element of composition and should really be addressed before the shutter is fired. In fact, I'll go further and suggest that in my opinion such minor imperfections constitute a large part of the charm of effective street photography.

At the risk of being accused of unsolicited editorializing, I submit that those who fancy themselves enthusiastic and somewhat skilled photographers need to be very clear in their minds and develop a regimen of what can, and much more importantly, should or should not be enhanced, repaired, fixed, tweaked, reduced, magnified "electronically" by means of software manipulation without risking an overall downgrade in the all-important total image quality of the shot you're working on as opposed to changing the very "structure" of the shot. I submit that sometimes, a minor imperfection should be allowed to remain a part of the original image ( but don't forget to draw a lesson from the alleged mistake for the next time you encounter it ) instead of adversely affecting the image via mouse and keyboard.

JZG

[Peanut]

Great points John. I am no great talent for sure. I have tried to get some street shots and I end up seeing that I don't get as good a shot as I'd like, and often it's that I could have just stepped two steps right and gotten it a bit better. I couldn't even begin to accomplish it in Photoshop without inadvertently turning this car into a hatchback!

It's all well & good to notice that the vertical lines are slightly converging at the edges of the image ( not at all objectionably in this shot by the way, in my opinion ), BUT, please bear in mind that this is a good example of street photography, which by its very definition indicates that an image is a result of an opportunistic grabshot and precludes such niceties / luxuries as perspective control lenses, since the use of one requires a tripod, slowing things down unacceptably. On the other hand, if the photographer had stopped to carefully compose the image and align the image in the viewfinder ( i.e. where all the vertical lines in the above shot are truly vertical and parallel to each other without diverging or converging it would have meant that the subject 911 would have been placed differently in the image and would most likely have required extensive cropping resulting in a differently proportioned image which probably would have looked odd and contrived.

However, I suspect that you are most likely intimating a third option, straightening the converging verticals in Photoshop or the latest version of Lightroom, which would be in my view the absolutely last resort to try to correct such a flaw, if you can even call this example in need of "correction" since what you refer to "correct" verticals is a fundamental aspect of the element of composition that should be really addressed before the shutter is fired. In fact, I'll go further and suggest that such minor imperfections constitute a large part of the charm of effective street photography.


At the risk of being accused of unsolicited editorializing, I submit that those who fancy themselves photographers need to be very clear in their minds and carefully follow a regimen of just what can, and much more importantly, should or should not be enhanced, repaired, fixed, tweaked, reduced, magnified "electronically" via software manipulation without risking an overall downgrade in the all-important total image quality of the shot you're working on as opposed to changing the very "structure" of the shot. I submit that sometimes, a minor imperfection should be allowed to continue to remain a part of the original image ( after drawing a lesson from the alleged mistake for the next time you encounter it ) instead of adversely affecting the image via mouse and keyboard.

JZG

[setho]

I tried a bit of a tweak here as well..... The thing I found most distracting was the sign wasn't level. I don't mind the car having a slight rake....

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[John Z Goriup]

the Scene: early March '13, early Friday morning, and I find myself at the Wilhoit Open House during the LA Lit weekend. One of the reasons I'm there, cameras at hand, is to take the best shots I can for submission and hopefully inclusion in the Spring issue of the ESSES. In a protected corner of the showroom sits a damned-near perfect, white '73 911 RS, brought in for one purpose, to serve as a guide and as an example of the quality of work and authenticity of detail for another clients black RS which is being restored from the ground up by the Wilhoit organization. The seats and motor, ready for installation into the black car, sit between the white and black car. The whole display looks like a staged Diorama for a studio advertising shoot, but other cars on display and ever denser crowds limit the spots / positions where one can capture the entire scene to effectively tell the story in our newsletter.

The first shot is my best attempt at capturing this particular vignette-within-the-larger-Open-House-display, and is one of the three shots I submitted and which are featured in the ESSES to tell the story of this restoration. It's not a bad shot, certainly not great or noteworthy, exposure is OK, composition is alright I guess, even though it's cluttered, static and has no strong central theme, no fatal errors, but taken / viewed by itself and on its own merit, it fails to convincingly illustrate the above story, i.e. that here is the remarkably well-restored and correct white / red RS and here's Wilhoit's shop, attempting, quite successfully I might add, to improve on virtual perfection in their restoration of the black car.

a couple of hours later: a friend of mine, to whom photography is just a casual interest, who shoots with a Canon S-95 point-and-shoot pocket camera, sees the same scene, but hunkers down between the black car and the engine, sees there's no one obstructing his composition and snaps the shutter, then e-mailes me a copy when we got home.........as the English would say, I was just gobsmacked when I saw the shot, #2 below.

To be totally honest, I wasn't even really sure what I was looking at when I first opened his photo on my monitor, what with the distortion of the shape of the 356, the curved cinderblocks, the slightly shifted color values.........until I looked in the lower right-hand lower corner and saw just a hint of tire and rocker-panel deco trim, which immediately identified the setting.

Oh sure, it could be said that it's slightly flawed from a purely technical standpoint, the strange softness due to the image being reversed because it's after all only a reflection in the black paint, there's a little high ISO noise in the upper left corner, and it probably violates a whole lot of other rules....blah, blah, blah, but what a story it tells, and how effectively it does it..........

Lesson learned: to Hell with most of the hard and fast rules, open your eyes and more importantly, your mind, throw out all your pre-conceived notions so you can really see & recognize the unaccustomed in front of you, and be ready to take a deep breath of fresh air once in a while.

JZG

[hgarazo]

Wow. Great pics and detailed commentary by all. I have really enjoyed watching this thread grow and appreciate the input from the pros. After the improved SLR's came out with various auto settings, I have gotten lazy like many and often shoot full auto at various family events. This has given me a new motivation to experiment more (it's free - not even cost of Dektol and Ilford paper!). I definitley need to sit down with Photoshop and really learn how to recreate what I used to do in the darkroom in college.

Here's a pic a saved from a magazine a couple years ago that caught my eye, even if the Speedster is a fakeydoo:

[John Z Goriup]

Thought of this thread while walking around the Quail Motorcycle show yesterday and remembered that a few posts ago someone mentioned the use of bokeh in their photography. When I saw this beautiful, rare and exotic Ducati Desmodromico I knew I had the perfect opportunity to demonstrate the application of the out-of-focus technique.

Both shots were taken seconds apart from the same spot using the same equipment ( Canon 5D Mk II with Zeiss 100mm f 2.0 Macro Planar ), and please note that the subject is pictured virtually identically, but shot #1 was taken at f8 and shot #2 was shot wide open at f 2.0. Please note how the wide open aperture makes the main subject stand out against the blurred background, thus visually isolating the bike and emphasizing it, while lessening the influence of the background clutter on the overall image. I suggest the most effective way to accomplish this quickly with the least risk if you want to shoot successive shots of the same (or different ) subject with widely differing apertures is to set your mode dial to A or Av ( Aperture preferred, - make sure you're not in Automatic, which is also frequently marked as an A on the mode dial -- read your manual and really familiarize yourself with your specific camera ) i.e. you set the desired lens opening and the camera's on-board light-meter will automatically set the shutter speed, and then you manually change the aperture for the next shot.

This is a particularly useful technique to use when shooting portraits.

JZG