Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I. Texture and Fall Color Found Shot Study - 15 slides Copyright © Kenji Tachibana

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Texture and Fall Color: Image capture process K odak Moment: I found a wonderful story (subject) on the gray wet sidewalk. Follow my shooting process using my seeing, feeling, thinking, and intuition which flow together to result in making judgments about the original and the final image. My usual instinct is to shoot found objects ‘as they are’. Although, in this case, I moved the subject to gain aesthetic and practical advantages.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Texture and Fall Color: Increase your options P ractical and aesthetic advantages: I’m in good physical shape but I am a senior. So, shooting something on the ground is not as easy as it use to be. Also getting it off the ground makes it easier to separate the subject from the background using selective focus. I also gain lighting and staging flexibility plus design opportunities.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Texture and Fall Color: Decision making D esign: Line, movement, and color The pavement was a dingy dirty gray. Putting the leaf on the railing created a color contrast opportunity. It also created a chance to blur-out the background using selective focus. Much more design stuff (diagonal line & movement) is going on. What do you notice?

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Texture and Fall Color: Fully processed (not camera original) D iagonal Lines: I decided to shoot a simple profile of the subject and to add visual complexity by turning the leaf clockwise. And to balance that with a counter clockwise angle of the line created by the railing. I positioned the leaf on the railing at a diagonal and choose a camera viewpoint to create an interesting negative space between the subject and the blurred background.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Texture and Fall Color: Do your homework B e Prepared: Make sure that your camera setting are exactly what you want before leaving home. Look up anything that you’re unsure of in the camera manual or online at dpreview.com or Google. Also make sure the battery is fully charged and that the lens is perfectly clean using a micro fiber tissue. Carry your camera so that it is protected but easy to access.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Texture and Fall Color: Capture it G et the Shot: If you did your homework properly, you will be ready to capture that Kodak Moment. And you will be able to do so quickly so that the story is not lost. Life happens and it doesn’t wait for you to figure out your camera at the last minute. Getting a quick shot doesn’t mean ‘rushing the process’. The capture process must be done with awareness and care. And remember to squeeze the 2-stage shutter button.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Texture and Fall Color: You’re only half done P layback: Critical review The capture process is not done until it’s critically reviewed in the Playback Mode on your digital camera. Set the camera to Playback to check: 1.Exposure – learn to use your naked eyes to determine if the image is light, dark, or just right. Get built-in help by viewing the exposure graph, Histogram. Reading the exposure graph will also take practice. 2.Focus – use the magnifier (set to maximum) to inspect the sharpness on the subject and especially the focal point. Press the ‘T’ on the zoom switch until the magnifier is at the maximum point (8 to 16x range).

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Texture and Fall Color: Do it all P layback: Last but not the least 3.Color - use the assignment recommended Skylight light source with the camera WB set to Auto. This method is almost foolproof but it will takes practice to get it right. You will have to learn to recognize Skylight and the desirable environmental conditions to turn the soft light into a side light on your subject. There are many different kinds and types of light sources from hard to soft and warm to cool. Keep it simple for yourself by sticking with Sklylight. Using other light sources or multiple light sources can make color correction difficult to nightmare impossible.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Texture and Fall Color: Back to the example shoot A fter : Shoot for variations After you get that perfect shot, take more time to improve the composition and to enrich the story idea by any means possible. I had already decided that texture was the primary story. And the color is the secondary story. So my variations shots were limited to making minor changes to the horizon line rotation and camera angle. The camera position was also changed from showing a simple profile to showing a more complex ¾ view of the subject. Original capture Variation shot 1 Variation shot 2

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Texture and Fall Color: More to do at home L ab Work: Image processing Photoshop processing is done at home or the school Computer Lab. These images have already been image processed with the three (3) image adjustments (steps 2, 3, & 4). Step 1, ‘cropFrame’ has not been done yet…

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Texture and Fall Color: A side: Crop in the camera ‘Filling the frame’ is a very important to an image maker. And no matter the physical size or the megapixel count of the sensor chip, it’s far from being enough. In that ‘not enough’ environment, maximizing on the limited resource (sensor chip) will require you to ‘frame’ ecologically. That means to use the maximum amount of pixel to draw your subject by filling the frame up to 85% with the subject.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Texture and Fall Color: More to do at home L ab Work: Step 1 only The black ‘L’ shape is the fine-tune cropping, which is the top Photoshop image file Layer named ‘cropFrame’. This demonstration was not done as a Photoshop lab work example. Otherwise, the cropFrame would have been applied first.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I. Fall Texture

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Texture and Fall Color: Process example S ummary: Keep it simple I started out with a ‘direct experience’ great texture shot idea. That got amplified with a color contrast secondary story. I further enhanced the image with a very sharp foreground and a blurred yard background. Design ideas about line, rotation, movement, and negative space were added to the story about texture and color to further flesh out the simple story. My story telling goal is for you to visually experience the texture and color without involving the right side of your brain.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I x End