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 07/28/2005 09:48:09 AM · #1
DPC Mentorship – Rules of the Road

Group: Macro Photography
Mentor: Tristalisk
Students: Zippy, Spurrs, Digital Quixote, Falc, Kekiinani

NON-MEMBERS PLEASE READ, TOO:

1. If you are not an active member of this mentorship group, please feel free to follow this thread. It is not intended to be exclusionary - we hope everyone can learn from it.

2. If you are not an active member of this group but have a question or comment, please send it directly to the moderator by Private Message. The moderator will either answer you directly or post your comment and their response to the thread. Thank you for understanding that we are trying to keep these groups small and on-topic. If this experiment takes off, we plan to start more groups to try to accommodate as many people as we can.

3. Mentors are volunteers with jobs and/or families. They're human too, and may make mistakes on occasion. If you feel the burning need to criticize them, point out a mistake, or point out your own infinately greater knowledge in they subject they are teaching, please do so in a PM to the mentor, not in this thread.

4. Have fun learning!

P.S. To see updated group information, see my profile.
 07/28/2005 10:12:25 AM · #2
Macro Photography Mentorship Program

Out line
Mentor: Troy Hayward AKA (Tristalisk)
Members: Zippy, Spurs, Digital Quixote, Rex, Kekiinani, Live4him330, Jacko, Jaimeson, Rikkii, Travis99, Jinjit.

There are many books, articles and publications that deal with the technical aspect of photography. While important, technical proficiency does not guarantee good photographs. In the beginning of this mentorship program, I would like to focus on the creative aspect of photography – the aesthetic value. While no one can teach you how to see, there are ways of enhancing one’s vision. Composition and lighting are used to communicate feelings and ideas within a photograph. Seeing is the essence of photography, this Mentorship will first examine the components, which make a successful photograph and their interaction.

Part 1 Learning to see
A: Composition
B: Subject placement
C: Foreground and background
D: Lines
E: Internal framing
F: Lighting
G: Color & Contrast

Part 2 The Tools
A: Cameras
B: Doing it with a 50mm normal lens
C: Close up lenses
D: Macro Lenses

Part 3 The settings
A: Exposure
B: Lighting
C: Focus
D: Beyond 1:1

Part 4 BUGS!!!!!
A: Philosophy
B: Camera equipment
C: Diopters
D: Reversing a lens
E: Camera settings
F: Lighting and Flash
G: Tripod or Not?
H: How to get close
I: The Digital Darkroom

Part 5 Technical Mumbo Jumbo
A: Calculating exposure compensations
B: Other such boring stuff (entire part will be typed in monotone to bore the readers)

Part 6 Affordable Macro

Part 7 Shooting Small Animals

Part 8 Metal, Glass, and other shiny things.

I will begin the course when all 5 seats have been spoken for and you guys are ready. I will only be available between 7:00am and 3:00 Central standard time. I do except e-mails and will answer them as quickly as possible. It would be best for me if the student for this class also had a valid e-mail to use during this class. We will be working with photos with a larger file size than DPC generally allows. Would the students chosen for the class please contact me to verify your interest in the class.texttexttexttexttexttexttext

Message edited by author 2005-08-01 07:56:44.
 07/28/2005 11:35:14 AM · #3
If you did not make it in time for the first course feel free to epress you interest to do so on this forum. This will be a fast paced and active course. I figure in a little over a month. We I will be ready for the second batch. I will add anyone interested to the waiting list now. This should increase the chances of getting on board for the nest one. If some of the seats should become available before or during the first lesson I will consider filling them before going further.
 07/29/2005 09:30:02 AM · #4
Welcome to the first part of the Macro mentorship program. I will be trying to go through this in a classroom type atmosphere. This should allow us to cover a great deal of information effectively and quickly. We will spend as much time as needed on each of the areas in the outline I posted earlier.
I have gone through each of your portfolios and have decided that this would be the best place to start the class. We will start with basic principals of art then quickly move to the macro. Some of the students are rather new to photography, while other such as Jacko may already be familiar with most of the stuff I will be trying to cover. I still think that remembering the basics will be beneficial to everyone regardless of experience. So lets start with lesson 1.

Lesson 1: Learning to see

While important, technical proficiency does not guarantee good photographs. In the first lesson, I we will be focusing on the creative aspects of photography. We will discuss composition, lines, Framing and other aspects of the sort that pertain to art in general. What is pleasing to the eye? When looking at to similar paintings why does one feel more energetic than the other one. I feel that understanding this is important in creating a high impact piece of art.

Composition:

Composition essentially means subject placement. Many times people look at a very simple photograph and they like it, but they really don’t know why. Most often, the reason is good composition. So, what makes a good composition? Simply stated, it’s placing the subject matter within a frame in such a way as to keep the viewer’s eye occupied. The eye needs to focus the main subject matter. The rest of the components within the frame should compliment and lead the eye to the main subject. Too many items, arranged incoherently, will make it difficult to focus on the essence of the photograph.

Let’s take a look at the components that make up good composition.

Subject placement:

Placing the subject matter off-center can be one of the simplest and best things you can do to add a dynamic sense to your photograph. The question is where to place it if not in the center. Rule of thirds to the rescue. If you take a frame, which is your photograph, and divide it by thirds horizontally and by thirds vertically, you will get a grid. Placing the subject matter where the vertical and horizontal lines intersect is most effective. That doesn’t mean that your entire subject should fit on a single spot. What it means is that the center of focus should reside on or around the intersecting line.

Foreground and background

It’s not enough to capture the decisive moment of an insect eating its young or the blooming of the flower. Attention must be paid to the background, the foreground as well as the subject matter. Be sure that the background does not distract the viewer from the main subject, while the foreground leads the eye towards it.

For the first assignment: I would like for each of you to post a photo that has poor composition. You do not need to shoot a photo just for this excercise but you can if you would like.
07/29/2005 11:41:00 AM · #5
07/29/2005 12:13:39 PM · #6
07/29/2005 12:58:40 PM · #7
After a few more of the members post there photos we will exchange them with one another. Then we will modify the composition, backgroung or foreground to compare the two together. This will be a good excersizr to show the importaince of good composition.

P.S. My grammar, typing, and spelling are awfull. So I hope all of you can tollerate it for a while.

Message edited by author 2005-07-29 13:13:18.
 07/29/2005 02:09:11 PM · #8

07/29/2005 02:34:51 PM · #9


Message edited by author 2005-07-29 14:36:17.
 07/29/2005 02:41:16 PM · #10
Ok we will hold out for a couple more people to join in. Then I will divy out the phtotos for the weekend. I don't have access to the net on weekends so I will only be able to work with all of you monday-friday.
07/29/2005 03:43:43 PM · #11
Ok your mission for the weekend will be to take one of the four shots posted with poor composition. (not your own). Crop, blur the back ground, clone in some exra area to meet the rule of thirds. Add some grass. Whatever it takes to give the shot a better composition. Based off of what we have covered so far. I will take on of them and participate in this myself. It doesnt have to look great, the clone work can be chopy, cut and past if you like, pay no heed to how well it is done. Just ballnce the shorts and fix the composition. everyone should post there work by monday. We will then discuss how well the techniques worked and why or why not. Best of luck and I hope all of you have a wonderfull weekend.
07/29/2005 03:51:57 PM · #12
So sorry that I missed your deadline. I am here in Hawaii and we are 5 hours earlier then you.. Oh well... will post the photo and see how it goes. Have a terrific weekend. Aloha, Renee
 07/29/2005 06:19:34 PM · #13
Here is my atempt.

Travis
 07/29/2005 08:05:00 PM · #14

Cropped & blurred the background.


Rotated, cropped, liquify (to add to blank corner)



Message edited by author 2005-07-31 19:36:17.
 07/29/2005 09:02:44 PM · #15
Here's mine it's straight out of the camera.
I really did know what to give you all so I just picked one.


Message edited by author 2005-07-29 21:03:28.
 07/29/2005 11:49:15 PM · #16
Sorry guys! Just returned from a business trip. Here's my image, I hope it's not too late.

07/30/2005 08:22:48 AM · #17

A little clone stamp, blur background.
Removed twigs from foreground.

Clone Stamp, Blur.

Message edited by author 2005-07-30 08:31:53.
 07/31/2005 06:22:07 PM · #18

Removed 2nd butterfly. Cloned background above first butterfly. Rotated. Deleted shadow in butterfly's wings. Cropped. Blurred and darked background a bit. Hmm ...

Message edited by author 2005-07-31 18:36:25.
 08/01/2005 12:44:57 AM · #19
Originally posted by rikki11:
Sorry guys! Just returned from a business trip. Here's my image, I hope it's not too late.



08/01/2005 12:50:51 AM · #20
Hope you dont mind the change.. :)
 08/01/2005 08:02:45 AM · #21
There is some pretty impressive work here so far. It will take the better part of the day but I will try to leave a few comments on the forum or photos regarding the editing work. Hopefully by the end of the day I will be caught up and ready to work with all of you some more.
08/01/2005 09:48:38 AM · #22
Ok I have went through and left some comments on the edited photos. All of you did a great job. Thanks to all of you who donated the shots for us to use in this exercise. I will be online for the better part of the day for question and comment. I will wait until tomorrow to pst the next section unless some of you would prefere I posted it sooner.
08/01/2005 11:45:09 AM · #23
Edited this photo, sorry for the late submittal...


08/01/2005 01:57:13 PM · #24
If I missed commenting on any one edit please let me know. I'm doing this from work so i'm liable to get side tracked.
 08/01/2005 03:25:01 PM · #25
Hi there everybody... I'm the new gal in class
Here are my suggestions for re-editing:

and
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