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I learned of an Irvine, California company called scanmyphotos.com while reading an article called  “Your Photos, Off the Shelf at Last,” by  David Pogue in the August 13th edition of The New York Times.  This company sounds too good to be true – but apparently they are and it is.  I suspect if others react to what this company offers as I did, the company is going to be flooded with work.

Here’s what they offer:  Scanning 1,000 photos, burning them to a DVD, and charing you $50 for it!  Is that the deal of the year?  The decade?   There are requirements — things like the images need to be between 3×3 to 11×14, bundled together in like sizes, cannot scan from a photo album, and so on.   They also scan slides, negatives, VHS to DVD (ooh … that comes in handy).

Is it just me?  Or are you now adding another item to the “to do” list

On Saturday, Rich and I went to the Lakota Wolf Preserve in upstate New Jersey.  They offer serious photographers the opportunity to walk within two sets of wire fences.  There are panels  cut through the interior fence allowing photographers to get an unobstructed view of the wolves.  However, the fee for the privilege is several hundred dollars.  While I’m all for the money going to the preserve to help care for the wolves while giving the ability to take some nice photos (and maybe one day I will), there were other factors that swayed us away for the higher price tag:   We simply wanted a couple decent  photos to remember the experience, and there was only one camera between us.  Thus, we took the far less expensive $15 tour that kept us on the outside of the two fences.  It didn’t take long for me to realize that it meant photographing through two sets of fences.  After some experimenting with settings and watching the angle of the light, I was able to take some photos that look as though there was no fence, or, at worse, a pale shadow of the fence.

When my husband saw the pictures, he asked “How did you do that?”

I also received some email asking how I was able to blur out the background of the butterfly pictures.  The very short answer to both questions:  Watching the light and adjusting the aperture.   Watching the light simply means seeing where the angle the light is coming from, its intensity, and how it may affect the subject of the photograph.  Some photographic terms for defining how that light interacts with your camera are:

Aperture:  It defines the diameter of the lens opening and how much light comes into the camera.  The size of the aperture is defined by the f-stop.  The “f”  stands for fraction of a focal length.  Focal length is also referred to as depth of field.
Shutter Speed: how long the light is allowed into the camera.
ISO (or ASA) defines how sensitive the sensor (or film) is to light.

How you use the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO is a sea-sawing balancing act to get the end result that you desire.  Luckily, when using a digital camera, you can immediately see your results and make changes as required.

Shutter speed makes sense:  The longer the camera shutter is open, the more light that hits the sensor (or film). If you’ve used film, you probably remember buying 100 ASA film, 400 ASA film, and even faster films.  Most people generally used 100 because it gave very good results in most lighting situations.  While not exactly, ISO is like the digital equivalent of ASA.  Generally the camera defaults to 100, and sometimes people increase this number as the lighting decreases.  Like with film, the higher the number, the greater the risk of having a grainy image.  Both shutter speed and ISO are relatively clear.  It’s f-stops, however, that can get tricky.

If you’ve used a 35mm camera , you probably remember the series of numbers on the lens. Those numbers are the f-stops — for example,  f/2 to f/32.  There is a mathematical explanation between the progression of f-stops.  Each successive f-stop allows in half of the incoming light.  In other words, the f/4 setting allows in half of the light as the f/2.8 setting.  The f/2.8 setting uses half of the light as the f/2 setting.  The term “stopping down” means allowing in half of the light. You don’t need to know this math unless you want to.  What is helpful to understand, however, is the following:

The smaller the f-stop (F2), the larger the aperture and also the wider the stream of light coming into the camera.  The larger that aperture, the less the overall image is in focus and the smaller the depth of field.  A  small f-stop is ideal for photographing a butterfly.  It keeps the focus on the butterfly and blurs out everything else.  A smaller f-stop can work nicely when photographing a person.

• Small f-stop = large aperture or wide light beam = smaller focus area
  (small depth of field)

The higher the f-stop (F22), the smaller the aperture, meaning the more narrow the stream of light that comes into the camera.  The small the aperture, the more in focus, and greater the depth of field.  A high f-stop is ideal for photographing a landscape.

• High f-stop= smaller aperture or less wide light beam = greater focus of wide area
  (large depth of field)

It seems counter intuitive, as it would seem that the larger number would indicate the more light coming in.  But, not so.  Think of quilting needles — the higher the quilting needle size, the smaller the eye of the needle.  With f-stops, the higher the number the more depth of field because of the smaller aperture opening.

I really do get dyslexic with this stuff, and when I’m shooting I often think: small f-stop, small focus; high f-stop, wide focus.

This image has a medium high f-stop.  The higher f-stop means more of the image is in focus.  This is why the fence, especially around the area of the wolf’s head, is in focus. However, you can also see how the depth of field is graduating from somewhat out of focus to in focus.

This is taken from the same location, but this time I widened the aperture, meaning I used  a smaller f-stop which results in the focus being on the subject itself.  This means that the fence in front of the wolf is a bit blurred, and the area behind the wolf is a bit blurred.  Neither is very blurred because the wolf was relatively close to the fence.  Even so, I like this image better than the one above it.  Editing away the fence in this image would be far easier than in the image above it.

Here’s another example.  In this case, the fence is still visible, but not as distracting as it would otherwise be had I used a higher f-stop and the focus is still on the wolf.

Many cameras come with pre-programmed settings such as a close-up, a landscape setting, a person in the foreground and focus in the background, and so on.  In those cases, the camera is controlling the aperture and shutter speed for you (based on the ISO setting you’re using).  If you have aperture priority, that means you can set the f-stop and let the camera figure out the faster shutter speed it can use.  Shutter priority means you define how fast you want the shutter speed and it balances out the aperture.  Understanding these principals allows you to know when you may want to override your camera’s programmed settings.

In this example, the focus is on the head of the wolf and the nearby greenery.

Here’s another way to think of aperture and f-stops.   Think of a large circle, that circle can represent an f/2 aperture.  Then think of a series of progressively smaller circles, all within the large circle.  Each of the  progressively smaller circles have a progressively higher f-stop number and each smaller circle lets in less light.   It’s the large circle that is the constant.  The aperture can close smaller, but it can never open larger than the largest aperture of the lens.   And this is a prime reason why a “fast” 200mm lens can cost far more money than a much “slower” 200mm lens.  The wider aperture can allow in more light, meaning you can use it in a low light situation, but it can always be stopped down to let in less light.  However, a lens with a small aperture to begin with can only allow in so much light at its widest setting.  Thus, in the same lighting situation, one lens could require a tripod or flash, while another may allow in enough light so that neither a tripod or flash is needed.  But, again, it’s all a balancing act between aperture, shutter speed, ISO, available light, and even your subject (is it moving like in a sporting event or stable like in a landscape).

Here are a few more images using a smaller f-stop.

In this image, the fence is hardly visible at all.

While the fence is a bit visible in certain areas, it also looks like sunlight reflecting off of something like tree leaves.

When I was fooling with settings and looking at the results (I was using a digital camera), I realized that the placement of the wolf’s eyes affected the quality of the image.  When possible, I tried lining up the eyes within the space between the wire of the fences.  Otherwise, the eyes appeared less in focus because the wire of the fence was blurred in front of the eye.

None of these images are incredible (although I am partial to a couple of them),  and they are a bit “soft” because of having a blurred fence in front of the subject, but they all are better than they would have been if the fence was prominent.

So, to answer the question of how I photographed the wolves and the butterflies: I used a fairly decent lens with its lowest  f-stop,  I watched the angle of the light, and I focused on the eyes of the wolf or the head of the butterfly.

At the Photoshop World pre-conference, I took a half day class with Stephen Johnson, author of Stephen Johnson on Digital Photography. His bio is quite impressive, which you can read more about here. I was (and continue to be) so humbled by the beauty of his photographs.

The class was on Photographic Exhibition and basically was about
the techniques and practices relating to exhibiting photographs. I took the class, however, to also relate it to quilt exhibition. I am including some of his information here, as it may be of interest to quilt makers who are considering or who are exhibiting their work.

The issue of the “Giclee” (zhee-klay) came up. The term basically means “to squirt” as in squirt out ink, as in what happens when using an inkjet printer. It evolved as a way to distinguish early inkjet Iris proof prints from fine art inkjet prints. it was also a way to avoid using terms such as “digital” and “computer” because of the negative connotation associated with them in the artworld. More recently Giclee is associated with a print using fine art paper and archival inks. Today, however, Johnson noted that the term is overused to the point that it no longer has any meaning. Anyone with an inkjet printer using archival ink can say the print is a Giclee. Also, the words digital and computer no longer have a negative association in the art work. Stephen’s opinion (as well as many of the professional photographers in the class) is to avoid using the Giclee term because it’s not taken seriously by most professionals. If this is so remains to be seen, as I continue to see people using the term associated with their prints. However, I suspect that for individuals doing short runs of their work using an inkjet printers, use of the term will fade.

For printers, however, using the term is another matter. The Giclee Printers Association has a nine-point standard and official logo for its member prints. One standard is “The artisan producing (or supervising the production of the work) has been certified as a Master Printer by the G.P.A.” Interesting stuff.

Also, if you’re interested to learn more about digital printing, see this book: Nash Editions: Fine Art Printing on the Digital Frontier, by Garrett White.
It includes many essays, photos, and a huge amount of information centering around what is considered the world’s premier fine-art digital printmaking studio, Nash Editions, which Graham Nash (yes, of Crosy, Stills, Nash and Young) co-founded with R. Mac Holbert. The book includes, “more than 100 illustrations include Nash Editions artwork, photos of artists in the studio, images of the machines used in digital printing, and illustrations of the proofing process.”

Stephen recommends a labeling system on the back of all work which at least includes name, title, year, printer, inkset. He includes this information, along with copyright information, on the back of his prints. He uses two stamps, with archival ink, with the base info in print and he then completes the specifics using a pencil. The information is again printed on a 6” label (a neutral pH label applied using polyvinyl accetate (PVC) glue – which you can get from Light Impressions), and also includes his address, the type of paper the image is printed on, and care information, which goes on the back of the frame insert and the back of the frame itself.

I noted that he didn’t note model machine or whether it was K3s Ultrachomes and such. I also noticed when going through the exhibited photos in the show that the labeling system for each print was very similar. No where did I see the term “Giclee.” Currently I am not selling prints of my quilts. However, if I do, I will use the labeling system such as he suggests.

Additionally, he had some excellent advice for framing and matting. He took us through the entire process, and used all archival materials. Not once did the print ever touch anything not archival. In other words, no glues or tape or anything of the sort was used with it. Instead, archival photo corners, the mat sandwich being held with linen tape and so on.

Also of interest was how adament he was on everything being of the absolute highest quality as possible. No dust, no fingerprints, if a hair is discovered after framing, to take it apart and remove it, and so on. He made it very clear that if you don’t take your work seriously, no one else will. In that regard, he said “Spend the money for a professional website. It is the first thing people will generally learn of you and your work. Don’t skimp, and get a site that you can maintain yourself.” For obvious reasons, I smiled at those comments!

A short list of some of his recommendations:

• Label your work.
• Have a professionally-created website that you can maintain yourself.
• When exhibiting your work, be absolutely sure of who is responsible for what. In other words, who is handling shipping fees, insurance, what is the commission fee, when is it paid, how are you notified of a sale, and so on.
• Discuss gallery lighting and consider bringing you own lighting if the lighting conditions are not optimal. He recommends 4700KLighting from Solux:
• When framing, use archival materials, including linen tape for constructing the matt, and photo corners rather than any type of glue or tape (these will buckle with time).

This is just an overview of some of the highlights of the class. If you have the opportunity to take a class from him, do so. In addition to the class on photographic exhibition, he does several classes on digital photography. Additional information about exhibition is included in his book noted above, and he’ll have a new book out this summer.