Out and About in Charleston with my New Camera

Today was my first day out and about with my new camera!  Moving to such an advanced DSLR is going to be a major learning curve for me but I'm excited for the journey.  Here are my favorite images from the day.

I took this on the Battery in downtown Charleston.  The little guy was just hanging out letting me take pictures from about 5 feet away.

This is the infamous St. Philip's on Church Street.  The church is rumored to be haunted by the ghost of Susan Howard and the cemetery displays a sign that says "The only ghost at St. Philip's is the Holy Ghost."  If you're interested in the background and are ever in Charleston I recommend a ghost tour...or you can google it.

This is the fountain at Riverfront Park.  I was trying to practice using longer shutter speeds to get the silky effect of the water.  I'd say it worked out pretty well for a first attempt, especially considering I didn't have a tripod!

Caught this hungry fella when I was walking through the park on the Battery.

Gum covered utility pull... that's all I've got on this one.

Close up of wrought iron entry gates with a red door in the background at a church downtown.

Definitely my favorite picture of the day.  I took this flower and put it on a tombstone in the St. Philip's cemetery.  I think the shape of the cross worked out really well and the flower was absolutely beautiful.

Review: Light, Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting

Light--Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting is an incredibly in depth resource that will teach you the principles necessary to predict how light behaves and how to control it in your photos.  Let me say that this book is not intended for the casual reader.  It is a very detailed, textbook-like reference that will dig much deeper than 95% of the photography books you will ever run across.

The intent of the book isn't to teach you how to duplicate the photos it contains, it is to answer the "hows" and "whys" and be able to use that knowledge to produce pictures your own way.  Fil Hunter's, Steven Biver's and Paul Fuqua's claim is absolutely correct, "Light--Science & Magic does not go out of style because it was not, is not, and will never be based on style.  The book is based on the behavior of light and its principles will not change until the fundamental physics does."

So let's take a look at what you'll find in the book:

The main point of the book, in my opinion, is to teach you how light behaves when it reflects from a surface and how the material making the subject determines the appearance of that reflection.  The book doesn't necessarily teach you a lot of new information, afterall, we're used to seeing light and the way it behaves every waking minute of our lives.  This book just helps define what we see, and teaches us how to predict and control the behavior of light.

So to further simplify, the book discusses two things 1) what light does, and 2) how materials affect the behavior of light.

Regarding light, the book covers such topics as direct and diffuse transmission, absorption and reflection.  Here's a brief definition of each, so you know what I'm talking about:
Transmission - when light passes through a subject, like clear glass
Diffuse Transmission - when light hits a source like white glass or thin paper and scatters in many random, unpredictable directions
Absorption - when light is absorbed by a subject and never seen again, like black velvet
Reflection - when light strikes a subject and bounces off

Regarding materials, the book covers how light behaves on most common materials like metal, glass, paper, even human skin.  It discusses shiny and dull materials, different colors of material, etc. to teach you most of the common lighting situations you will face.

The book also has chapters dedicated to individual topics that are most often seen as difficult to shoot, like black-on-black, white-on-white, portraiture and situations with mixed lighting (like using a flash in a room with flourescent lights).

Things I Learned:
I won't even be able to begin to scratch the surface of things I learned in this space but here's a few highlights.

The Inverse Square Law - intensity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance.  Wow, that's a mouthful.  The inverse square law defines how bright a light is based upon how far away it is from what you are lighting.  The inverse square law tells you that if a light is 8 feet away from the subject and you move it to 4 feet away, the light will have 4 times the intensity, not 2 times the intensity (because it is based on the SQUARE of the distance).  Similarly, if a light is 3 feet away from a subject and you move it to 9 feet away (3x as far), the light will only have 1/9th the intensity (square of 3).

Granted, most photographers won't be standing behind their camera crunching numbers to determine how bright their lights will be, but knowing the principle is important.  For example, if you think a light needs to be twice as bright as you current setup, you can move the light closer and have a good idea of where you need to place it.

Family of Angles - determines where photographers should put their lights.  The family of angles is really easy to explain on paper, not so easy to describe in writing, but here's my best shot.  Imagine your eye is your camera lens and you're outside on your front lawn on a bright, sunny day.  Your friend has a small mirror and he uses it to shine light in your eyes from across the yard.  You can say that the sun (your light) filled the family of angles of the mirror.  So the family of angles is always describing the relationship between the camera, the subject (what you're taking a picture of) and your light source (whether it be a lamp, a flash or the sun).  If you were taking a picture of the mirror and wanted it to be fully lit, the sun would have to completely fill the family of angles.  If you were taking a picture of the mirror and you did not want it to be lit at all, the sun could be anywhere, except within the familiy of angles (at any angle where the light wouldn't be reflecting in your face).  If the sun only partially filled the family of angles your mirror would only be partially lit.  It's as simple as that (I swear).

Summary:
This book is fantastic and has certainly earned its unofficial title of being the #1 book in photographic lighting.  If you could master all of the techniques in this book there's no doubt that you'd have a long line of interested customers waiting at your door to pay you for the images you create.  It took me about a month to get through this book once and I imagine I will go through it several more times in the next few years.  I can see this book being by my side as a constant reference more than any book I've ever read.  If you're serious about the pictures you take and the way they are lit drop everything and order Light--Science and Magic now.  You won't regret it.


Ratings (out of 10):
Content - 10
Images (diagrams) - 7
Writing Style - 8
Overall - 8.5

Mountains

I took this picture from the top of the ISAF HQ bldg at KAIA and cropped it down to look like a panoramic.  The entire city of Kabul is surrounded by mountains and when the sky is clear you can get some amazing views.

Catching my Breath

Hey everyone,

I wanted to drop a quick note to let everyone know where I've been and why I haven't been able to post much recently.  I'm finally hitting the home stretch with my deployment and it's busier than ever.  I've been working 14-15 hour days for the last several weeks trying to finish as many designs as I can before my replacement gets here.  I haven't forgotten photography though.

I'm right in the middle of writing up a review on Light: Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting by Fil Hunter, Steven Biver and Paul Fuqua and hopefully I'll have it posted in the next week or so.  The book so far has been fantastic.  It's more of a textbook-like read but the information in second to none.  I'm really looking forward to finishing it and telling you all a little bit about what I've learned.

I really can't wait to get back to the States and really start studying my camera and applying all of the techniques I've learned while here.  I'll have two weeks at home for my rest and relaxation and then I'm going to head back to Chicagoland for a couple weeks.  I definitely plan on spending a couple days roaming downtown with my camera and I can't wait to get pictures uploaded!  As always, if you have anything you'd like me to discuss or have something you'd like me to review just shoot me a note.  Until next time, take care.

Sunset over the Flightline

I happened to be walking toward my truck tonight and I was absolutely taken aback by the sun.  I was also thankful for the promise I've made to myself to always have my camera with me.  My camera had a hard time focusing but it gives the picture the feel of a painting which I love.

Russian Aircraft Engines: Sense of Scale

I'm including this picture to give you a sense of how many engines were delivered.  If you can imagine, the pile is about 30 feet deep to my left and extends about 100 feet past me!  These engines were delivered to the airport because the US government was paying $30,000 a month to store them.  We asked the Afghans to turn them in for scrap metal since the engines are useless but they refused.  So, at least we found a place to store them for free.  This is probably one of the only pictures you'll ever see of me too, so enjoy :)

Russian Aircraft Engines

300 beat up Soviet-era aircraft engines were recently brought to the Air Corps compound to sit.  Most are from aircraft that no longer fly...  I was taking pictures of the whole group but decided I liked focusing on a few elements, in this case, the use of circles.

On a Forklift

I took this picture on Thanksgiving day, 2009.  My model here is a Captain from my Squadron.  I used a forklift to lift him up over the fence and give him a view of the mountains.  We had to take advantage of the opportunity that the sky was actually pretty clear... doesn't happen very often in Kabul.  You have to appreciate this kind of effort just to take a picture.

Review: Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson

In Understanding Exposure, Bryan Peterson's strategy is to teach the definitions of aperture, shutter speed, ISO and their relationship in the photographic triangle.  Bryan teaches you how to use this foundation of knowledge to make technically correct exposures.  But that isn't the point of this book, his main intent is for you to take the technical knowledge and mold and shape it into "creatively correct exposures."

ISO is not discussed very much in this book and with what I believe is good cause.  If at all possible, Bryan recommends keeping your ISO as low as possible to reduce the effects of noise.  Ignoring ISO, Bryan talks about how most photographic situations have at least six technically correct exposures.  If you were to set your camera to full program mode and meter a shot the camera would give you the "correct" aperture and shutter speed based on your ISO.  You can then go into manual mode or shutter/aperture priority and increase your shutter speed by a set number of stops and decrease your aperture by the same number of stops.  Decreasing your shutter speed and increasing your aperture works the same way.  What determines the "creatively correct" exposure is the combination of shutter speed and aperture that delivers the message you're trying to portray.  Bryan sums up his intent of the book with this quote, "It's always the first priority of every successful photographer to determine what kind of exposure opportunity he or she is facing: one that requires great depth of field or shall depth of field, or one that requires freezing the action, implying motion, or panning.  Once this has been determined, the real question isn't 'What should my exposure be?' but 'From where do I take my meter reading?'"

The second main focus of Understanding Exposure is light, which Bryan describes as icing on the cake.  He discusses all basic lighting conditions - frontlight, overcast frontlight, sidelight and backlight.  He also discussing the different available metering techniques - in camera vs. off camera, spot vs. matrix and center-weighted.

After discussing light and metering, Bryan discusses specialized techniques like panning, implying motion with zoom and making rain.  Some of these topics don't really seem to belong in the book but I'd say you can take them as an added bonus.

Understanding Exposure then ends by discussing more broad topics like filters and their uses and film vs. digital photography.  Again, I can't say that these topics necessarily belong in a book about exposure but the information is all good and very useful.

Things I learned:
18% Reflectance - Basically this means that camera light meters do not see the world in black and white, they see the world as gray.  So, long story short, if you're taking a picture of something black you need to underexpose compared to what your camera tells you is the correct exposure (so you're going from the grey the camera sees to black) and if you're taking a picture of something white you need to overexpose (to get from gray to white).  The easiest way to make sure you get it right is to buy a gray card from any photo shop.

The Sky Brothers - Bryan uses the "Sky Brothers" as a rule of thumb for dealing with outdoor situations where you might have a hard time deciding where to aim for metering.  Situations can include sunny days, backlit sunrise and sunset landscapes, city or country scenes at dusk and coastal scenes or lake reflections at sunrise or sunset.

Mr. Green Jeans - Bryan doesn't really explain why this works but claims that in situations where your scene is predominately green you should manually expose 2/3rds of a stop lower than what your camera's light meter says.

Low-light Shutter Speed Calculations - As part of the photographic triangle, aperture, shutter speed and ISO are all inversely related.  This means that increasing one requires you to decrease another to keep an equal exposure.  So if my camera tells me a correct exposure is an aperture of f/5.6 and a shutter speed of 1/250 sec I can also achieve a correct exposure by increasing my exposure to f/4 and decreasing my shutter speed to 1/500.

Where this can really come in handy is in taking a photo in very low light when you want a great depth of field (a very small aperture, say f/22).  Start by setting your aperture to its largest value, say f/2.8 and you may see that your camera tells you the correct shutter speed is 1/2 sec.  To get from f/2.8 to f/22 you need to decrease your aperture by 7 stops (f/2.8 to f/4 to f/5.6 to f/8 to f/11 to f/16 to f/22) and to keep a correct exposure you need to increase your shutter speed by the same number of stops (1/2 sec to 1 sec to 2 sec to 4 sec to 8 sec to 16 sec to 32 sec to 64 sec).  Now you can just set your camera to f/22 and a shutter speed of bulb and keep an eye on your watch.  Once the shutter hits 64 seconds you know you'll have the perfect exposure.

Summary:
In the end, I'd call this book nothing short of fantastic.  Bryan's writing style is very laid back and full of cheesy analogies but they all work.  He has several exercises throughout the book to help give you real life examples that will solidify what he is teaching.  The book is also jam packed with beautiful pictures that perfectly highlight what he is teaching.  He even has many images that show you what changes were made and how they effected the final image.

If you could only buy one book to get you started in photography, I'd recommend Understanding Exposure over anything else I've read.  And it's not just for beginners, I think every level of photographer could learn a lot from this book.

Ratings (out of 10):
Content - 9
Images - 8
Writing Style - 9
Overall - 9

If you'd like to see more of Bryan Peterson you can check out his online photography school, The Perfect Picture School of Photography here.  PPSOP offers online photography classes in just about any topic you can think of, a blog and numerous free video tutorials.

You can also find his other books on Amazon, like Understanding Shutter Speed,  Understanding Close-up Photography, Learning to See Creatively and Beyond Portraiture by clicking here.  Please note that by using the amazon links to make your purchases you help keep this page up and running :)

Kujo Hanging Around FB Thomas

Note:  I've seen a lot of traffic to this site based on this picture.  If you're looking up FB Thomas, I assume this isn't what you're looking for.  I recently posted a lot more information and pictures under Shindand Airfield Tower Complex.  Please check it out and let me know if you have any questions.   

We had a dog while I was in Shindand, Afghanistan, named Kujo.  We lived on FB (firebase) Thomas and he liked to walk around and hang out with the other dogs.  He lived in our rooms, if you could call them rooms.  What a crazy summer, 110+ every day with no air conditioning!

The Best of Charleston

I really like this picture out in front of the USS Yorktown in Charleston.  The Ravenel Bridge joins Charleston and Mt Pleasant and is in the background.  I think the green sweet grass on the right gives the picture a nice balance.

The Biltmore

Meg and I visited the Biltmore in Asheville, NC on our way back from TN.  The house was beautiful, the grounds and gardens were magnificent and the wine was awesome!  September 30, 2009 was a perfect day :)

Great Smoky Mountain National Park

Beautiful view from a lookout point at the Great Smoky Mountain National Park in Gatlinburg, TN.  Picture was taken September 29, 2009.

Midtour Mountain View

After 7 months in Afghanistan I got to take my midtour.  I came back to Charleston for 15 days with Meg and we went to an AMAZING bed and breakfast near Gatlinburg, TN.  This was our view from the house's backyard, talk about breathtaking.  It was such an amazing way to spend our first anniversary.  This picture was taken September 27, 2009.

Shindand Sunset

I took this picture on the roof from the same place I took the previous picture.  Once again, photo was taken on August 18, 2009 in Shindand.  

Shindand Bunker at Sunset

I really love this picture for its content.  I love how the beauty of the mountains and the sunset contrast the bunker on the roof.  It reminds me how even though I was surrounded by such beauty I was still at war.  There is the obvious problem with the picture that the highlights are blown out... I would have loved to have my DSLR with a graduated neutral density filter for this one!  Oh well, at least I know how I would have taken it.  This shot was taken on August 18, 2009.

Shindand Boneyard

This is nothing but a bunch of aircraft and building wreckage from when the US attacked Shindand during the assault on the Taliban.  I would have loved to get in closer for more pictures but the area is full of unexploded ordinances!  Picture was taken July 14, 2009

Shindand Office

This picture was taken in Shindand, Afghanistan, which is in western Afghanistan, near Iran.  Overall I like the different aspects of this picture - the HESCO barriers in the bottom, left corner which are used all over military bases overseas, the dilapidated building which was an office for Afghan translators and the couch on the roof where the interpreters would hang out and eat meals.  This picture was taken July 13, 2009.

Rug Salesman

I caught a sleeping rug salesman at the weekly bazaar at the KAIA ISAF compound :)  This picture was taken on May 9, 2009.  Local Afghans would come to sell things like rugs, jewelry, bootleg CDs and DVDs, etc to NATO forces.

Itsi

This picture was taken April 22, 2009.  I named this cat Itsi after the name of the contractor that built the Afghan National Army Air Corps compound at Kabul International Airport.  She lived and always hung around my office.  It's sad to see such a sweet animal surrounded by garbage and filth like the cigarette butts in the picture.