Dark Photography School

EXIF: 200 ISO, 30 sec., f/6.7, 17mm focal length, no flash

This is the Fannie Heck house on Blount Street, in Raleigh, NC. It dates back to shortly after the Civil War. There was plenty of available street light to get a 4 or 6 second exposure with the same ISO, but bumping up to the maximum (didn’t have release cable with me at the time) non-bulb setting (30 seconds) allowed me to get the cat tails flowing in the wind while everything else sat still. Read the rest of this entry…

To make complete strangers more interesting subjects, you have to deal with a few trained reactions. What’s the first thing you do when someone is taking a picture of you? Usually you smile and look directly at the camera. If you are looking for something beyond what you’re used to seeing, you want to try and capture something other than that familiar photo.
There is nothing with smiling and looking directly at the camera. Those pictures are great for people you know. The problem is that when you are photographing complete strangers, they won’t feel at ease with you enough to let out a genuine smile. Trying to achieve this can be painful and/or embarrassing.

EXIF: ISO 1600, 1/6 sec., f/4.0, 31mm focal length, flash on

EXIF: ISO 1600, 1/6 sec., f/4.0, 17mm focal length, flash on
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EXIF: 200 ISO, 2 sec., f/4.5, 17mm focal length, no flash

Using a flash is known to freeze items in motion, whereas slow shutter speeds are known for conveying motion. You can combine the use of flash with a slower shutter speed to create unique and distinct effects. In the image shown above, the front half of the train’s engine was caught with the flash, but the rest of the train was not. It froze the engine in motion, but blurred the rest of the cars. Additionally, the street lights in the area provided a very warm color temperature.

EXIF: 1600 ISO, 1/10 sec., f/4.0, 26mm focal length, no flash

This image was taken during a moment of rain in a downtown area. It depends on the amount of available light and speed of the subject, but usually anywhere from 1/4 to 1/15 of a second will grab a person in motion, and display it in a blurred way.
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White balance is an application of color temperature to give your camera knowledge of the environment. With this information, it can take a picture that more accurately represents what the eye sees. It also enables you to creatively alter the subject of the photo. Most digital SLRs allow you to:

• select from a set of presets
• shoot an object to serve as the base white
• specify a manual color temperature in Kelvin

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