Shutter Sisters

Let’s Beckon Some Lovely

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Some lovely feet of those Beckoning the Lovely in Chicago

I had the privilege yesterday of attending the Chicago event for Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s The Beckoning of Lovely tour.  It was an hour of pure loveliness for sure.  If you’ve never seen the video that launched this unique project, please do so now.  I promise that it’s better than a double scoop of [insert favorite flavor here] ice cream on a hot summer day.

Ever since I heard about this project, I thought to myself how applicable the phrase “Beckoning of Lovely” is to what many of us do as photographers.  I see it all the time in our Flickr group pool.  From shared ordinary moments to marking the passage of time to simple daily routines, we capture in our images the beauty that is inherent all around us, the beauty that we call forth and share with others through our photographs.  It’s one of the things I find most satisfying about being a photographer.

What beauty have you been calling forth lately?  Please share with us your images of some beckoned lovely.

sunday school: because the night belongs to us

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Way back in the very tail end of my 20s, I found myself single again, living alone for the very first time in a tiny attic apartment in the heart of my city.  That’s when I fell in love with the night and spent countless hours walking the city by streelight and capturing what I saw with my little Nikon Coolpix.  Back then, I knew nothing about white balance or aperture.  I just knew to hold really still and that sometimes my photos would come out a bit blurry and kinda orange, but what the hey;  I still loved it.

To this day, night photography remains a nostalgia-soaked event that I try to do every chance I get.  There are several variables that come into play that you don’t get during daylight–moving points of light, streetlight flare, blur, deep indigo blue skies, strangers who seem even more mysterious in the night than during the day.

If you’d like to try a little night photography like the one I photographed above, here is a play by play of what I did to get the shot:

1. I set my ISO to 200.  The lower the ISO, the less noise you’ll get.  In Aperture Priority, I set the the camera to f/4.5.  The narrower the aperture, the longer the shutter speed you’ll need for proper exposure.  Since I wanted the people to be relatively in focus, I set the aperture narrow enough to make the streetlights flare, but wide enough for the shutter speed to be a reasonable 1/3 of a second.

2. I placed the camera on a stable surface.  I happened to find a ledge that was built into the wall of the building I was next to, and I set the camera on that.

3. Looking through the viewfinder (or Live View or LCD screen), I framed the shot the way I wanted it.  I knew I wanted streetlight flare, so I tried to get some streetlights in the shot, and I knew I wanted the the girl in one half of the shot, and the guy in the other.

4. I also wanted to capture the streaking blur of passing vehicles, so I waited until two cars were passing in opposit directions at the corner, and I clicked.

5. In post-processing, I played with the white balance and various color saturation to get the look I wanted.

So are there any other night owl shutterbugs out there?  I’d love to see what you capture in the night.

Sunday School: Streetwise

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A while back, Irene shared an excellent post on street photography, one of my favorite genres.  With the weather warming up, I’ve been itching to take my camera to the streets more often, and that got me thinking about what I actually do to get my best shots when I’m shooting around town.  I don’t consider myself a formulaic or methodical shooter, but I’ve come up with some tips that may be helpful if you’ve never tried this type of photography or are looking for suggestions on taking street shots.

1) Go sloooooow. There is a treasure trove of images on just about every street in every town and city, but you may have to go really slow to see them. And sometimes by slow, I mean literally standing still. Occasionally, I just stop in one place and stare and wait for the image to appear before me. You can laugh at me if you like, but I swear that places have stories to tell, and if you stay put in one spot long enough, that location you happen to be standing in may trust you just enough to reveal a few tidbits in the form of images.

2) I personally prefer to shoot on a cloudy day or during the first couple hours of morning or the last couple hours before the sun sets. It really makes a difference to not have to deal with harsh mid-day sun.  In fact, I prefer shooting with ambient street lights to shooting in bright sun.

3) Look at things that aren’t at eye level. Look up, look down, squat, get up high, whatever it takes to give you a perspective that you normally wouldn’t get.  Merely bringing your camera down to chest or waist level makes a big difference in the view sometimes. I often shoot street scenes from the ground or with the camera held against my tummy.  This type of “shooting from the hip” (shooting without looking through the viewfinder or at the LiveView LCD Screen) takes a bit of practice but is one of the most useful skills to hone.

4) Try to find curious juxtapositions of images.  For example, something really goofy next to something really austere, or something that just looks totally out of place.  You very well may get some interesting photos that way.

5) Peoplewatch. When I see someone or a group of people that I want to photograph, I often keep my eye pressed against my viewfinder with my camera aimed at them.  I like to wait for a bit, make sure I have the image framed the way I want, and when the moment seems right, I click. Either that or I shoot from the hip. You can also ask permission to take a picture first, but then you may have to wait a long time for the subject to forget you’re there and start acting more naturally.  I prefer to shoot when people are not camera aware, but that is a personal perference.

6) Peek inside windows of storefronts. I use a lenshood so that I can literally put my lens against the pane of glass and shoot. You can get some interesting shots that include the interior of what’s behind the window but also what’s reflected from the outside.

7) Search for images that evoke an emotion or memory. I think the one word that describes how I shoot is NOSTALGIC. When I capture an image, it’s often because what I see reminds me of a specific memory or stirs something in me. Those are the images I know I’ll treasure for years to come.

These are just a few suggestions that may or may not work for you since shooting styles are pretty personal.  Do you have any tips you’d like to share on taking streetwise photos?  Please don’t hold back, and show us some of your favorite street shots.  And as always, you can look through our Fllickr pool for plenty of inspiration.

Searching for Hope–Raw and Real

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Around this time every year, something in my brain flicks a switch.  Just like the bud of a newly forming leaf is triggered by enrivonmental and genetic cues, these same signals and accompanying consequences–the emergence from winter darkness, spring rains, blossoms shooting up overnight, the cheerful chatter and melodies of songbirds–rouse in my subconscious an homage to and remembrance of one of the most significant experiences of my life.

Seven years ago, almost to the day, I received news that my father was dying of inoperable pancreatic cancer.  One month later, the day after his 64th birthday, he was gone.  During those short final weeks of my dad’s life, I developed an intimate relationship with my then-new digital camera.  Perhaps it was the shock of imminent loss that opened my eyes in a new way and motivated me to search for the hope I so desperately needed wherever I went. 

It was during this time that I developed a deep and abiding love for wandering the streets of my city, camera in hand.  Much of what caught my eye back then wouldn’t be considered beautiful in the conventional sense of the word.  In fact, I found myself often drawn to the weathered, beat-up and forgotten images that most people would rush by without a second thought (or even a first).  Maybe it was because I was feeling somewhat weathered and beat-up and forgotten myself that I was trying to comfort my soon-to-be-crushed inner daddy’s girl by gathering up these overlooked mementos and treasuring them, savoring the moment in which I found them.  It was as if I needed to know that I could find light in the midst of darkness and decay and even death, because if I could, then I would be able to find hope no matter how dreary the circumstances.

I find it quite timely that now, when my thoughts and emotions are conjuring up the memories and feelings from that month of watching my father succumb to cancer, our Shutter Sisters have embarked on this voyage to Picture Hope.  I am thrilled because I know the power of images to stir our hearts and minds and to plant hope in the midst of dispair.  I think Stacey Monk said it quite eloquently in her comment, “Hope is the most beautiful direction in which a lens can be pointed.”

Will you share with us today your images of the weathered, beat-up and forgotten that nevertheless convey to you a hope and beauty that’s raw and real?  It would mean ever so much to me…

sunday school: backup plan

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I recently had a bit of a mishap in which I almost lost all my files from a wedding I had just shot.  I won’t go into details, but suffice it to say that (after I recovered from nearly fainting) I finally began thinking seriously about developing a backup plan for my files.  Yeah, you’d think I’d have one of those after the tens of thousands of photos I’ve taken over the years.

I realize that this is not a sexy or inspirational topic, but it’s one we must talk about, Sisters, to save you from potential future heartache.  Please: LEARN from my mistakes.  You just NEVER know when you’ll need that backup plan.

Here are a few options when it comes to backing up your data:

  • Once a week, burn a DVD or CDs of all the new files for that week.  Make sure you label the disc after you’ve burned it.  If you take more than 5 GBs of photos every week (not hard to do with the mega-megapixel cameras these days), this may be a bit time-consuming.  Plus, discs can get scratched and damaged over time.  Kind of defeats the whole backup purpose.
  • Use a remote online backup service such as Mozy or Carbonite.  Both of those companies offer unlimited online backup for $4-$5/month.  Not a bad deal if you have lightning fast upload speeds, which I don’t with my DSL service.
  • Buy a fairly large external hard drive (pictured in the photo above is the 500GB My Passport Essential).  [And by large, I don’t mean the actual physical size; I’m talking about the hard drive capacity.  That 500GB hard drive pictured above really is the size of a passport and could fit in my back pocket with ease.] Do a full backup initially, and then do a weekly backup of changes and new files.  There are a variety of software options to automatatically schedule backups so that you don’t have to depend on your own memory.  Many external hard drives come with such a software, but do your research first to make sure it’s one that will work for you.
  • Buy TWO fairly large external hard drives, and create TWO identical backups.  Hard drives crash–it’s a fact of life–and external hard drives get dropped in bath tubs  (oops, did I just admit to that?), so having two backups is not as far fetched an idea as you may think.  This especially applies if you are using an external hard drive to free up space on your main internal hard drive.
  • Do a combination of any of the above if you REALLY want to be on the safe side.

Also, for those of you using Lightroom, when you get that message every once in awhile asking if you want to backup your catalog?  Don’t ignore it.  And make sure that you’re backing up that catalog to a drive other than your internal hard drive, just in case it crashes. 

I know that performing a backup of your files seems so boring compared to actually shooting photos and playing around with them in Lightroom or Photoshop, but with all the beautiful photos I’m seeing you all shoot, it would be a shame for any one of those to get lost.

And while we’re on the subject of taking care of photo type business, we’ve got 2 lucky (and super-talented) winners to announce today.  Congrats to Sunmamma (be still my heart) and Anah Na Uhr (beauty through tears) for winning both a Diana camera and a copy of Katherine Center’s book Everyone is Beautiful.  Our OWP Flickr group for “beautiful” is…welll…BEEEEEEAUTIFUL!  Keep up the gorgeous clicks, Sisters!

Oh, and please feel free to share with us your own backup plans and/or a link to an image you definitely DON’T want to lose.

Looking In

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When you live in a big city like Chicago, you tend to go as fast as you can from point A to point B, without paying much attention to what’s in between, especially during the cold and blustery winter months.  Drivers with their car windows rolled up, cyclists with helmets steadied against the wind, and pedestrians disguised in hats and scarves with their collars turned up–they’re all moving as fast as they can, and you really can’t blame them in the Windy City. 

I, on the other hand, even after 30 years in the city, prefer to slowly meander, with my camera in hand.  I’ve got weeks of illnesses under my belt this winter to prove it.  One of my favorite things to do is looking in the windows of the storefronts and businesses that line Chicago’s many busy streets.  You’d be surprised at the treasure trove of images waiting for you behind those foggy/frosty panes of glass, as well as the images reflecting back at you.

If you ever find yourself at a loss for photos, try taking a little saunter down any street in a business district or a city, and I’m sure you’ll find a plethora of images you’ll want to take home with you, if not in your tote bag then in your camera.  Here are some examples in our Flickr pool for inspiration.

Please share with us today your photos of Looking In, or any other image captured during a leisurely stroll between Point A and Point B (and Point C and Point D and etc…).

Friday’s Featured Resource: Adobe Lightroom Develop Presets

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For most of my shutterbugging days, I’ve been quite resistant to using photo editing software, and I was quite happy, thank you, with what I could do in Picasa.  When my sister-in-law asked me to shoot her wedding, however, I thought such an event deserved something with a little more finesse (not to mention the power to salvage at least some of my mistakes).  Lured by Adobe Lightroom’s 30 day free trial, I decided to give it a try.  I figured I’d use it for the free month to edit the photos from the wedding and then go back to using Picasa.  Little did I know how deeply and hopelessly I would fall in love with Lightroom.

There are so many great features in Lightroom, but today I want to share my latest preoccupation with Lightroom: develop presets.  Presets are similar to “actions” in Photoshop in that you can save a series of effects and settings in a file that you can apply to other photos with a single click.  Presets can be as simple as adding just a little boost to your exposure and contrast, or they can be more creative, changing anything and everything from tone curves to color hue/saturation/luminance to vignetting to sharpening to noise reduction to split toning to camera calibration for color and on and on and on.

Since the one word I chose for the month of February is “EXPERIMENT,” I’ve been doing just that with my photos in Lightroom and creating presets to share with all of you. The photo above shows the original photo that I started with in the upper left hand corner, and the other fifteen thumbnails are of the presets I made applied to the photo. To see larger photos, click here for the gallery (which was created in Lightroom, by the way).  You can download a zip file of the presets here and find instructions for installing them here.  I’m not a pro by any means, but I thought I might share the fun and inspire some of you to try your hand at creating your own presets or to just experiment in Lightroom.  I’ve actually learned a lot about how Lightroom works by examining the changes applied by other people’s presets.  Plus, you can tweak any changes applied by a preset to suit your own fancy and get as creative as you’d like.

There are also numerous free presets on various websites, such as Presets Heaven, Lightroom Killer Tips, or on Flickr’s Presetting Lightroom group. I found some really practical presets on the onOne Software site, which also has some helpful video tutorials.

Please note that presets are generally best applied to RAW (digital negative) files. You can use them on JPEGs, but all the effects will be exaggerated since they were meant for uncompressed data files. You can still get the gist of the preset and modify things like exposure or brightness to make them work on JPEG files.

If you’ve never used Lightroom and are curious, you can try it free for 30 days.  But I have to warn you…once you’ve tried it, you may never be able to go back to life without it.

If any of you are using presets or have created your own, please share with us your favorite images that show off what the presets can do.  I know I’ve seen some cool examples in our Flickr group pool.  Or, if you have tips on using presets or have a favorite collection of presets we can check out, please do share.

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Special thanks to my Shutter Sisters Superha, Mika and Laura (of Dolcepics) for their feedback on my presets in preparation for this post!

Upping the Ante

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Photo taken with my new Lensbaby Composer

We all have our irrational fears and insecurities that hold us back from taking the next step in our respective life journies.  When it comes to photography, I admit that I have many fears.  One big one is that I’ll wake up one morning and find that I’m unable to “see” photos through my camera, that I’ve lost my intuitive approach to capturing the image I’m after.  Another fear is that I will totally mess up a photoshoot, or that people won’t like the photos I share, or that every image I take will just start looking the same.

While the year is still newly fresh and dreamily hopeful, I’d like to face some of these fears.  Instead of playing it safe, I’m choosing to up the ante.  I want to challenge myself to learn new things, even if it means I may have to read a book or manual or two, or that I’ll have to finally overcome my life-long avoidance of familiarizing myself with the basic laws of physics.  I plan on taking more shooting assignments.  I’m going to figure out how to find my sweet spot on my new Lensbaby.  I want to capture lensflare that I actually like.  I’ll try to shoot with a visionary purpose at least some of the time, instead of the haphazard, aimless route I normally depend on.

I don’t know if all this is too much to hope for, but I’ll be darned if I don’t at least TRY.

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AAH%20button%20180.jpgSpeaking of new challenges and to-do’s, we at Shutter Sisters are excited to launch our newest feature: The One Word Project.  Many of you have already shared  what your One Word will be for this month.  If you haven’t already and would like to join in, see complete details here.  The word-of-the-month for February is yours to choose, and you can submit your One Word inspired photos to the Shutter Sisters Flickr group for your chance to be selected as the daily OWP featured photographer.  February’s OWP is graciously being sponsored by LENSBABY, so one lucky participant will win a Lensbaby Composer at the end of the month!

If you’ve already begun participating in the One Word Project, please share something you’ve captured so far.  Or share with us an image in which you succeeded in upping the ante by doing something new or challenging.

A Thousand (Whispered) Words

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Let’s be honest, people.  There’s a plethora of technically and aesthetically UNideal things about this photo.  For starters, no one’s in clear focus.  The angle’s a bit off kilter.  The black blob of a window frame is taking up a good quarter third of the shot.  The steam on the window is making Cadence’s dress look all smudgy.  And that blurry hand is partially obscuring my friend Heather, the should’ve-been primary subject.  Overall, it looks like I accidentally clicked the shutter while tripping up the steps to my friend Mikey’s porch.  For all I know, that may be exactly what happened.

Someone whose heartstrings are not attached to the people and moment captured in this photo may have very easily deleted the shot without a second thought.  For me, however, it was an instant favorite.  It’s got magic crackling, the slice-of-life quality, that softer side.  You see, this one image conjures up for me a treasure trove of little personal tidbits and intimate moments that only I and my friends from that night are privy to.  For example, I know that there are adorable toadstools on the front of Cadenc’s seemingly smudged dress, which I had found hiding forgotten and forlorn in the back of her closet that very evening.  Heather is entertaining all the guests doing goofy tricks on a big silver exercise ball.  The steam on the windows was made partly by the warmth in our hearts and partly from the indescribably delicious Ghanaian stew our host Mikey had made. That blurry hand belongs to my beloved and easily enthused friend Johnny, who was probably cheering on his much loved Heather.  Friendships spanning multiple states and continents, backyard chickens and bicycles, first kisses and percussive jam sessions–the stories are all there, in the hushed whispers of faded colors, soft light, subtle lines and dark shadows.  It doesn’t bother me at all that I may be the only one who can hear them.

Mistakes, milestones or pure magic, share with us your images that whisper a thousand words–even if it’s in your ears alone.  And in honor of National Delurking Day which was this past Monday, if you’ve never commented or shared an image of yours with us before, I invite you to jump in and join the party.  We’d be delighted if you’d say hello and perhaps share a link to an image that speaks to you.

We’d also like to mention that we will be honoring the big changes that America will be making this Tuesday. We will be participating in a special inaugural photo and post project that was brought to our attention by Alice at Peapods. We encourage you to join us. One photo – 44 words. Sounds great to us!

Carpe Diem

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Since I am primarily a documentary photographer, my subjects do not come to me of their own volition; I usually have to go out and discover them for myself.  For a person like me who is painfully shy, that means I often experience quite a bit of anxiety whenever I pull out my camera in public.  Sometimes, I get all self-conscious when I’m merely shooting the facade of a building and not even trying to shoot strangers. 

This happened to me a couple days ago when I was walking by an old dive bar/music venue that my husband and I had gone to when we were dating.  I took a few photos of the front of the building and was trying to get some shots through the window of the midday patrons sitting at the bar, when suddenly the door swung open, and an employee came out to have a smoke.  I immediately walked a few steps away, turned my back and pretended to be deeply engrossed in going through the photos on my camera.  I couldn’t have been more obvious about trying to hide my photographic desires, but what happened next was still quite unexpected.

“Do you want to come in and take some photos of the inside?” asked the guy as he finished his smoke break.  I looked up from my camera, feeling my cheeks burn red, and answered, “Really??”

“Sure, c’mon in!”

Initially, my social anxiety almost won out, and I was about to decline.  I quickly realized, however, that I was being offered an unusual opportunity, and I shyly followed the man into the bar.  What I saw inside bathed in the glow of the wintry midafternoon light took my breath away.  From the dingy worn-out floors to the vibrant colors of the murals and decor, this was clearly not the nocturnal interior cloaked in the dimness of the too few incandescent lights that I had been familiar with.  Boy, was I glad I decided to seize the day instead of walking away.

What I realized from this experience was that I was more willing to shoot freely when someone else gave me permission to do so.  Well, what if what I really need is to give myself permission to keep my camera out in the open?  What would happen if the next time I’m in a public place where the irresistable images are just waiting for me to take them home, I gave myself permission to be not so fearful?  What if I simply took my camera out and started shooting?  What if I chose to seize the day EVERY day?  I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t regret it.

I know {erin darcy photogrpahy}, {robin accidentally} and jeroldssis would agree.  How about you?  Please share with us your links to images that you seized from your day.