Sunset with Expression and Emotion

Evia located north of Attica; it’s the second largest Greek island after Crete. The best known place in north Evia is Edipsos. The curative thermal springs have been known for thousands of years; from the old Greeks to the Romans and more recently to Sir Winston Churchill, Onassis and many other well known personalities.

Shooting Sunset Photos

Sunsets are a beautiful natural spectacle. The ever changing light conditions under the declining sun offer great photographic opportunities and challenges.

Everybody can take sunset pictures, it’s not all that difficult: just point your digital camera and shoot … the automatic settings will do the rest. If you want however take a more stunning sunset, the one that knocks even an ice-bear out of his socks, then you may consider some of the following aspects and try them out.

Light and Colors

In order to take a smashing picture, you need dust and or clouds. The red and orange colors result from micro-particles in the air. Dust can come from anywhere, pollution helps to break light, smoke, fog and so on. A second element for great effects are Clouds.

Clouds add structure, interesting light effects and in as much as I am concerned, I prefer the cloudy sky to the straight gradients resulting from a cloudless and dust-free atmosphere.

The Horizon

Look at your scenery and decide what’s more important to you: the sky of the foreground. The more beautiful your sky the more of it you want to ban on your photo. In general it’s of good advise to follow the rule of thirds.

The first image above features two horizons: one in the foreground and one in the back-ground. The foreground horizon is placed about on the lower third line, while the back-ground horizon is at the boring 50% level. The sun is on the first third line from the left.

The second photo focuses clearly on the sky. The horizon is just below the one third line from the bottom.

Applying the rule of thirds will help to focus on the essential aspects of the sunset and adds tension to the image. Of course there are always exceptions and you may find yourself in a situation where the totally balanced and centered approach will reflect tranquility and desired harmony; as usual, it will depend on the story you want to tell.

The Composition

The sunset is spectacular and usually it becomes more spectacular if it’s seen in an interesting context. The foreground is what often gives the special touch” a few palm trees, a jetty, a bridge, people or most any object which adds a scale to your picture.

For the purpose of this post I add a photo from Kavouri beach in Vouliagmeni, where the focus is on the busy foreground.

Your creativity is the limit.

It seems to be a commonly accepted rule, that foregrounds are represented as dark silhouettes, herefore your flash should be set to “off”. In some cases however it may be interesting to capture some reflections from a foreground, such as the ones you can see on the cars parked at Kavouri Beach or the small reflections from the town in the foreground of the first image from Agios above. Context matters and adds expression.

The Frame

This is part of your composition. Experiment with the frame; make it wider or narrower depending on the story you want to tell. It’s better to frame when you take the picture than to cut the image in Photoshop or any other image editor. If you use zoom, make sure to remain within the range of your optical zoom and don’t use the digital zoom to preserve a maximum of quality, data and image size.

In Agios I thought there was an interesting frame focusing on the sea, separating the island of Evia from the main land (Attica).

The image is full of harmony, smooth gradients and tints around the golden reflection of the sunset in the sea. The sky is of no importance here; it’s all a matter of light and tints in for my taste, very nice proportions.

The Exposure

This is probably the most important and also most difficult issue, namely with digital cameras. In automatic settings, digital cameras most often use matrix metering which is reflected by an average exposure and results in under-exposed photos. The issue is due to the huge extremes between highlights and shadows.

For best results, it’s recommended to use a a metering device and meter the two extremes as well as the environmental light and average in function of the priority set by your composition and the story you want to tell.

The best advise is: just experiment! There is never just one right exposure as different exposures will produce great results, however the effects are different. Again, it’s a matter of what you wish to express with your picture.

Professionals use bracketing and so may you. Most digital cameras have a bracketing function; when you shoot,the cam will take 3 pictures: one as per automatic or manually set metering, one with one F-stop higher and one with a F-stop lower. Say you take the picture at 1/60 s at f/8, the cam will take a shot at these settings, then one at 1/60s at f/5.6 and one at 1/60 s at f/11. You will then be able to select the most expressive shot.

The trouble is in the highlights. Digital cameras’ sensors are very sensitive to light. The danger consists thus in overexposure of highlights which boils down to a reduced dynamic range in the light areas of your picture (lack of gradients, texture and structure).Your digital camera may have a iHighlight function,which may remedy or different presets for the white balance.

Sunset pictures as well as night photos are interesting subjects for HDR photography: shoot multiple shots from your tripod at different settings and mash them up in Photoshop with the HDR feature. The trick may help as the extreme light zones and the extreme darks may your camera cause to think for you (and that you definitely don’t want …) and select either priority. The camera’s choice will most often result in a loss of dynamic range throughout the spectrum, namely if you are shooting with a lower end point and shoot cam.

Digital Photography Ycademy

This month’s Ycademy calls will deal with digital photography and on improving our quality as photographers and photo editors

Also we are working on Digital Photography with the purpose of building a high quality Stock Photo and Media Portfolio which will serve the needs of many a website developer as well as graphic designers in the need of new, fresh, unique and exclusive media content.

Our daily calls start at 8 pm London time (GMT +1) and they take place at our easy to use online live conferencing center.

For more info and joining Ycademy, contact Bianca Gubalke  directly from here:

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Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Summer Feasts

The summer holidays are almost over and the children start the process of going back to school and we slowly drift into autumn; the season of ‘mellow fruitfullness’ as so aptly put by John Keats.

During the summer we  tend take advantage of the longer days, the warmer weather, spending more time outdoors. One of those pleasant summer activities is eating out, al fresco, feasting on the summer fruits, ice creams, enjoying a barbeque or two, picnics or just enjoying a drink in the warm sunshine.

Wasps

Not only do humans enjoy feasting in the summer, where there is food we often tend to find annoying insects like the wasp. The more you try to get away from the wasp the more it will follow you and you could end up as an unfortunate victim with a nasty sting. Wasps aren’t aggressive by nature but do not like to be disturbed. Leaving them well alone it seems is the best remedy. Leave food around and they will congregate there.

European Wasp

Wasps just love to feast on our leftovers, watch them carefully and you will see how they tug and cut away a small chunk of food to take it elsewhere. It’s really fascinating watching these little creatures. If you have your digital camera to hand its worth giving it a shot.

European Wasp image

On just such an occassion after a summer feast I managed to capture this picture of a wasp [Vespula germanica] with my digital camera having a go at some of the leftovers on a plate.  This little creature spent quite a attacking this bit of food.  The wasp did eventually manage to cut or tear a piece of the food of and fly away with it.

Author: Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing. Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader or Subscribe by Email.

Read more..

• First Day at the Airshow
• Hollow Trees Farm on Youtube
• Digital Photography Workshop exercise
• Digital Photography – Preparing Photos
• Digital Photography
• Editing Photos Exercise
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Hollow Trees Farm Images
• Hollow Trees Farm, Suffolk

Although it was an overcast and stormy day, I spent most of it in the magnificent garden of a friend and neighbour, here in the “Cpae Floral Kingdom” , taking pictures of his masterspiece of a home and garden.

Here I captured the stunning Protea “Pink Ice” that set an incredible accent in the ocean of greens that surrounded me in his garden.

Cape Floral Kingdom

Spring is a magnificent time to visit the Cape Floral Kingdom!

The above photo of the Protea Pink Ice just went through my minimum presets in Lightroom and I added a bit of a vignette – that’s all. This is the real colour – it’s breath-takingly beautiful!

The Cape of Good Hope

In fact, the Proteacea family already attracted the attention of botanists visiting the Cape of Good Hope as far back as the 1600′s… and its ‘ancestors’ can be tracked back to Gondwanaland just 300 million years ago!

In fact, the Cape of Good Hope area is regarded as “…the richest floral Kingdom in the world”.

When I close my eyes and visualize the spectacular piece of Nature that enveloped me for many hours today, and this under dark and oppressive clouds rolling over the mountains, the explosive “Pink Ice” Protea appears immediately – a lasting impression!

What will it look in bright sunshine?

I will know soon . . . as I’ll be back there for ‘more’!

Copyright © 2010 Destinations Expo Cape Floral Kingdom is a post from: Destinations Expo

Editing Photos Exercise

Ycademy Trainings offer training in various subjects. Digital Photography and the preparation of photos for the new ‘Photo Media Stock’ site was covered during the August seminar. Following  through on this theme Fridays daily training call was concerned with  editing photos using Lightroom3. As all participants used the same submitted photo for the exercise it will interesting to compare the end results. The photo was  taken the begining of April 2010 on a bright, sunny spring day.

Edited Photos

No1. The original

No2. Edited Photo

No3. The black and white version

No4. A little bit of post-editing gives the same photo a very different feel.

Click on the images to see a larger view.

Author: Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing. Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader or Subscribe by Email.

Read more..

• Gunfleet Sands Development
• Digital Photography Portraits
• Digital Photography Workshop exercise
• Digital Photography – Preparing Photos
• Greek Church Stock Photo
• Photo Media Stock Seminar
• Digital Photography
• My Essex
• Summer Feasts
• First Day at the Airshow

Where is the Truth and what’s the Story

Editing a Photo has basically two aspects:

1. Technical editing which consists in applying calibration and recovering a maximum of data from the image.
2. Tell your story by enhancing the expression.

This post will deal only with the first aspect using a Photo ©2010 Laetitia Paris.

The Photo

Tree ©2010 Laetitia Paris Original

Tree ©2010 Laetitia Paris Original

What comes out of the camera is fundamentally good however the bright sky representing about 40% of the frame has it’s negative influence on the metering. The sky looks over exposed. The question is whether the camera sensor has captured color data which can be exploited.

Focusing on the sky

Tree ©2010 Laetitia Paris Recovered Sky

Tree ©2010 Laetitia Paris Recovered Sky

The difference may appear small here in this down-sized image, however on the full size image it is substantial. The increase of blue tones in the sky impacts on the perception of the greens.

Painting the sky

Of course Lightroom allows to intervene on selected areas; you can paint and tint your sky as you like (or use the Dark Skies Plug-in).

Tree ©2010 Laetitia Paris Painted in Sky

Tree ©2010 Laetitia Paris Painted in Sky

Working with Saturation

Tree ©2010 Laetitia Paris – desaturated

Tree ©2010 Laetitia Paris - desaturated

Lord of  The Rings

Lord of the Rings

Lord of the Rings

Firenza

Firenza

Firenza

Autumn Glow

Autumn Glow

Autumn Glow

The above exaggerated examples show how the mood and expression changes depending on how we deal with the photo in the post editing process. The important question remains: what’s the story you want to tell and how can the photo best express the essence of the story, mood or atmosphere.

We will talk about the expression at the Monday call.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Today’s Call: We edit a Photo

To make things more transparent we will edit a photo step by step during tonight’s call. In fact we will all edit the same photo. Zo has sent in a Picture, the kind you just shoot out of your window towards the neighbor’s house, which is perfect for the purpose. As you will see the photo bears all the strong and weak points a ‘normal’ photo can have.

The Photo

Photo by Zo

Photo by Zo

We will spend one hour editing this picture using Lightroom. As the case may be we will find the time to do some post editing for various purposes.

Zo Image Color

Zo Color Image

Zo Old Timer

Zo Old Timer

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Smart Editing Digital Photos

At our recent calls we have been trying to crystallize a smart way to quickly edit digital photos. This post will resume the 3 steps we are following.

1. Camera Calibration

The camera calibration serves to correct systematic deviations inherent to the type and model of the camera. If you camera returns images which are too yellow or green, this can be corrected; the same applies to other lens corrections, like sharpness or distortions as the case may be. The corrections are saved as a Calibration Preset in Lightroom.

All photos you import from your camera can be automatically filtered with this calibration preset.

Astir Beach Snorklers

Astir Beach Snorkelers on September 2, 2010

2. Photo Editing 1

This steps purpose is to recover a maximum of available data from your image. The image is brought down to a balanced close to ‘what you saw’ state whereas we try to recover data namely in the over exposed areas as well as in the shadow areas.

Most of the corrections are standard corrections by type of image (low-light, bright-light, sun-set and so on). These corrections can be saved as personal presets in Lightroom and you may then apply them to the corresponding type of calibrated image imported.

The corrections under this step do not yet tell the story or max-out the expression of the picture. They prepare the picture for best post-editing.

3. Tell the Story – Enhance the Expression

A good photo tells a story. If you shoot a landscape just before a thunderstorm, you may emphasize the the dramatic clouds with your editing tools for example. It’s about making the photo more expressive. When you shot the photo, you took it because nature was telling you a story; you ban that story in a photo and you try to express what triggered in you the emotion when looking at nature. If your picture can trigger that kind of emotion in a third person, then you have probably a good picture.

Seagull

Seagull at Astir Beach

Don’t forget: the picture works only with visuals while in nature you are also experiencing sounds, temperature, humidity, smells and so on. Your visual image must therefore compensate for the absence of these additional sensations. Visual enhancements help to trigger a maximum degree of emotion or impression without exaggerating the effects. If you overdo effects, your image loses in credibility and you shift from photography to “art”, or “illustration” or what ever people often call  their messed up production.

Also: keep in mind that editing for printing requires good density and saturation levels. The use online at 72 dpi means automatically a loss of 50% to 75% of points per inch; therefore, if you start out with a “thin” picture, it will only get thinner and flatter when publishing for the web.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

“Crowned Eagle” at Monkey Valley Resort, Noordhoek, South Africa, is certainly the most spectacular amongst the Best Accommodation Cape Town South Africa when it comes to visitors who are looking for that special, warm “Out of Africa” ambience one hardly finds anymore… as so much has become sort of the same high international ‘standard’.

Best Accommodation Cape Town South Africa

To promote “Crowned Eagle” as one of the Best Accommodation Cape Town South Africa has to offer in the UK and US, Monkey Valley Resort will market this gem of a villa – which is situated high up on the slopes of Chapman’s Peak and overlooking 8 km of pristine beach along the Atlantic Ocean – via a precious downloadable and printable brochure to their tour operators and contacts overseas – leading them to direct bookings or to their new website on Semiomantics Evolution.

As the German Tourism Industry is up, the German version of the brochure will be marketed in Germany, to reach out for some market share in the flourishing German Holiday and Travel Industry.

As many Germans and Swiss love Noordhoek and spend at least the German winter in their holiday homes down here, there may be some really positive response.

Best Accommodation Cape Town South Africa on Google

When looking at the search term ” Best Accommodation Cape Town South Africa on Google” we currently get 12,8 million returns. It’s certainly a highly competitive arena, especially when domain names contain these exact terms. However, when working on Semiomantics XO it’s never a question of getting there – it’s just a matter of how long it takes… a few minutes, a few hours or a few days? Which depends on how much we apply ourselves to the task… which depends how much we really want to focus on it.

Let’s see where we can get with a first shot – Lights Out! Action! Go!

Copyright © 2010 Destinations Expo Best Accommodation Cape Town South Africa is a post from: Destinations Expo

Astir Beach is the Best Beach in Greece

From my previous posts you guessed it: Astir Beach is my number one beach. And every day the dedicated staff and management confirm this statement… since 1960.

Basketball World Championship Live at Astir Beach

No reason to stay at home to watch the basketball World Championship at a vulgar boob tube; Astir’s mega screen with exceptional luminosity and resolution is simply the best.
SIpping your Mojito, connecting with the world through the Wi-Fi net, watching the Greek team winning and all this while doing maintenance on your sun tan … Is that what crises means in Greece?
All photos live by iPhone.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Smashing weather today again at Astir Beach in Vouliagmeni. Even an iPhone can take nice pics under these conditions.

Copyright © 2010 Destinations Expo Destination Astir Beach is a post from: Destinations Expo