© 2012 Wazari Wazir | Mother and Son | 50mm | f/1.8 | ISO 200 | 1/250

“Bokeh” has evolved somewhat from its original meaning. Bokeh is now commonly used to refer to blurred lights or shapes within an image, where as, the term more accurately describes the aesthetic quality of the out-of-focus area of a photograph. Therefore, it is possible to have ‘good’ or ‘bad’ bokeh, (although that is purely subjective), but in essence, it’s all about the area of an image that falls outside the depth-of-field.

© 2012 Craft and Vision | eBook | Forget Mugshots, 10 Steps to Better Portraits by David duChemin

Forget Mugshots, 10 Steps To Better Portraits is for every photographer who’s ever wanted to make stronger photographs of people. Written by David duChemin, a photographer whose living and calling for the last 6 years has been creating compelling portraits and people photographs for clients all over the globe, if he could tell you only 10 things to immediately improve your images, these 10 steps or concepts would be at the very top of the list.

This 35-spread PDF eBook discusses the value of waiting for that great moment (and how to make sure you don’t miss it), how a true smile differs from a fake one, and other solid insights that are guaranteed to give you tangible ideas to make the most of your next portrait shoot. Combining these steps with Portrait Profiles and Creative Exercises, Forget Mugshots will help you photograph real people in the real world, leveraging the techniques and best practices that have made David’s portraits known around the world. | Craft and Vision

This is the latest eBook from Craft and Vision written by David duChemin, but please keep in mind that this eBook will never guarantee you to take a better portrait if you don’t have one of the most important skill in portraiture photography which is relational skill. So if you consider yourself as a shy person, then maybe portrait photography is not for you and this eBook is not for you. Yes the most important skills in portrait photography is relational skill, unless you take some kind of a candid picture of a person on the street like street photography, then you really don’t need to interact with your subject, otherwise it is not called candid photography but to those of you who wanted to take a better, stronger portrait, then you might found some of the information in this eBook to be helpful.

Among the steps that you will learn from this eBook is how to play with the light, how to control the background and how to use the right lens among others, there are 10 steps to better portraits in this eBook, but still the most important skills is relational skill, you need to communicate well with the person you photograph, don’t rush, take some time to interact with your subject, wait for the right moment. No matter how good you are with your camera skills, you still need to learn how to communicate well with your subject, put them at ease before you begin to take your first shot.

This is eBook is also great introduction to those who just found an interest in portrait photography, hopefully it will shed some light about portrait photography. If you feel unease to talk to a stranger to take their photograph, maybe you can use some informations in this eBook to photograph your family members and once you become more comfortable taking portrait of your family members, friends and later on when you have a chance to travel abroad, you will be much more comfortable taking picture of a stranger and take them better because you have all the necessary recipe for great portrait photography.

*Forget Mugshots, 10 Steps to Better Portrait now available at  Craft and Vision

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Fine Art Portrait Photography | A Portrait of My Son

“Photography is a craft. Anyone can learn a craft with normal intelligence and application. To take it beyond the craft is something else. That’s when magic comes in. And I don’t know that there’s any explanation for that.”

- Elliot Erwitt -

It’s been a hectic week for me from last Friday during my Photography and Photoshop Workshops with Spylens Studio held in Kota Kinbalu Sabah. I really need along break but still I like to play around with editing, something that I really like to do whenever I’ve a lot of free time which is editing portrait in black and white and add some texture to the photograph.

I didn’t have much to write here, but please do come back for more…

Tk

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Senior Muslimah Portraiture

This photograph were taken during Spylens Studio photography workshop held in Lok Kawi outskirts of Kota Kianablu Sabah. It was taken purely with just natural light, without reflector. I’m not doing any senior photography business but if I’ve free times and if I get an invitation from my photography friends, I will join them for fun.

I like to get a close up shot of the person I’m photographing, just like a portrait of My son, I like to get really close and I’m not interested to get cheeky smiling face on my photograph. I like my subject to relax, maybe a bit serious look.

I’ve discuss in my previous blog post, how you can achieve this look, this tone in ACR or Adobe Camera Raw and from the ACR just continue the editing in Photoshop. I just add a little bit of “Grain” here under Photoshop Filter Menu, you can find Texture and choose  Grain. Before I add the grain, I just fine tune the tone to get the result that I want.

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Photoshop Killer Tips | The Grain Factor | How to Add Grain

Some of you might want to try “Noise”, nothing wrong with that but what I do to get the above result is by using “Grain”. This post is not really about Photoshop tips but about a senior portrait but I think maybe some of you like to know a little bit about my post processing. This is just the tips of the iceberg, you can figure it out what is the next step that needs to be taken.

For those of you who just starting out to get involved in Portraiture, just don’t be afraid to get really close to your subject and please do take different expression, not just a smiling face. A good portrait shot will bring out the character or the personality of the person being photograph. There you go, some tips about portrait and just a glimpse of my post processing, to find out more, just attend my Photography and Photoshop Editing Workshops if they are available. Actually I do conduct One to One Photoshop editing class for those who are seriously interested.

Related Post : Great Work From Jeffrey K. Edwards With Similar Technique

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Adobe Bridge

Some people have asked me, how they can open JPG file in ACR or Adobe Camera RAW, some of you maybe don’t know that, you can open JPG file and edit it in ACR or Adobe Camera RAW. Actually it was very simple and straight process, you really don’t need to shoot in RAW to open your file in ACR but RAW have more data compared to JPG file but if you just wanted some basic editing control, opening the file in ACR will be good enough.

Adobe Photoshop comes with Adobe Bridge, it was not to be purchase separately, if you have Photoshop, the for sure you have bridge, in this tutorial I use Adobe Bridge in Photoshop CS3. If you haven’t use Adobe Bridge but never try to use it, just look for “Br” square icon, just like Photoshop icon but with Br alphabet. Just click that one and you will get something like the above menu or interface.

Bridge can be use for filing system, to add keywords and metadata to your picture in volume or in batch processing.  Once you get this interface, just select any picture that you want to open in ACR and then go to File > Open in Camera Raw and it will be open in ACR. But let me tell you something here, if you use “pirate” software, sometimes Bridge does not shows up or you will have trouble with it or simply you might not be able to open your picture in ACR. Just let’s try, maybe you are lucky.

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Adobe Camera Raw ACR

Once your picture open up in ACR, just edit the picture like what you normally do with RAW file, but like what I’ve mention earlier, Jpg file have less data compared to RAW file but you still can use ACR to edit your picture. Sometime I do edit Jpg file in RAW, back to back because I need certain control in ACR that I can easily use compared to in Photoshop.

Just simple and quick tutorial about how you can open your Jpg picture in ACR and edit with Adobe Camera Raw. If you need to learn more about RAW editing, then you might wanted to check out one of my Photoshop eBook HERE

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | My Son Having Fun at Kinokuniya Book Store | Suria KLCC

My favorite lens for portrait photography is 50mm but when I need to include an environment for the subject I photograph, I will use wide angle lens but in this case, about the picture of my son above, I use Ultra Wide Angle Lens which is 10-20mm. The subject will look small in the frame but when we talk about environmental portraiture, it is more than just about the subject, it is about their surroundings also, where they lived, their work space, and their favorite place in a single frame.

Environmental portrait is best taken with wide angle lens, it is not about Bokeh, it is not about isolating the subject from the environment, it is about the environment and the subject where people can relate to, like in this picture above, even if I didn’t write any caption, viewers will know that this photograph were taken inside a book store, it is not taken in the library because you can see the reflections from the books there wrapping in plastics. They don’t wrap a books in a library, the only things that people didn’t know is the exact location of this book store. I took this shot at my favorite place in Kinokuniya Book Store located at Suria KLCC shopping complex which is situated inside Malaysia famous landmark, Petronas Twin Tower Kuala Lumpur City Centre.

Taking a picture of a child can be fun and challenging at the same time, they can never sit stills, always moving around, running here and there and the best thing that we can do to get this picture is to use Wide Angle Lens so that you can captured them even if they moved, they are still in the frames because there is a lot of rooms inside “wide angle point of view”. If I decided to use 50mm here and suddenly my son start running away, my frame will be “empty”.

This place or area is not so bright, I use HIGH ISO here because sometime my son will run or jump unexpectedly, I want to be always ready, so I use ISO 5000 for this shot and set the shutter speed to 1/160 at Aperture f4.5 with lens set at 10mm. Why I use HIGH ISO? It is because I need to use Hight Shutter speed, why I need to use High Shutter Speed? Because like I wrote before, sometimes my son will run or jump unexpectedly, I can use Low ISO like ISO 800 or 1000 and use shutter speed 1/60 0r 1/80 but if suddenly my son jump or run away, I will get  blurry picture at that speed. Actually before I took this shot, I have take a picture of my son jumping here, so I’ve locked the shutter speed and the ISO.

In this situation, I don’t mind about the grain factor because what is most important for me is getting the moment. It is good sometimes to take a picture of our subject or our family especially our very own child in their environment, in their favorite place. The environment engaged the viewers more about the subject. So the next time whenever you go out with your family don’t forget to bring along your wide angle lens, you can shoot discreetly, meaning that you can shoot “from the hip” without ever need to raise the camera to your eyes to take picture, especially here in the book store where we are not allowed to take a photographs here. Maybe they allowed it in your place but not here. So there you go my little secrets how I can get so much pictures of my son having fun at the book store, having wide angle lens made my job easier, the wider the better.

© 2011 Mitchell Kanashkevich | Captivating Color | A Guide to Dramatic Color Photography

“Knowledgeable Use of Color is the Most Powerful Way to Grab the Viewer’s Attention.”

- Mitchell Kanashkevich -

Captivating Color is a new eBook from Mitchell Kanashkevich, an award winning travel photographer, I’ve been following his blog for quite sometimes and really inspired by his picture and not to mention his travel story especially when it involved portrait photography. He has made few eBook before this but I really like his latest eBook here which focus on color photography, how we can use it to our advantage.

Understanding how colors can have an impact in our photograph is really helpful, some colors can  evoke and emotional feelings, sadness, emptiness, joy or sorrow. Some colors are much more stronger than the other. Colors have weight and we can use certain colors to add to the composition of our photograph, where we can draw viewers attention to the subject that matters.

Among other things that you will learn from Mitchell Kanashkevich ebook is this :

• Understand how color affects visual weight and influences attention.
• Use color hierarchy to tell stories and convey mood.
• Combine subjects and colors to intensify emotion.
• Learn how light and color work together, and how you can use them to their greatest effect.
• Optimize color temperature and balance using professional post-processing techniques.
• Manipulate the shoot—and your images—for maximum visual impact.

I highly recommended this eBook to those of you who would like to learn more about color photography and how they can help you to tell stories with your picture effectively. You can get this 48 pages eBook written by award winning travel photographer Mitchell Kanashkevich from HERE

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Child Photography | HaiQal With Book

Actually this is not the Photograph that I have in mind, my idea is to to photograph my son holding the book and show it to me. Bu he seems to be more interested with the chocolate than the book, maybe because that book is not for him, does not interest him at all because there is not many pictures in it, just words and more words. I just bough that book from Kinokuniya Bookstore in Kuala Lumpur. The title of the book is Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson.

If I get the shot that I want, I will tell about the book that I just bough but since I don’t get the shot that I want, I will tell a story about this picture a bit. Not really about this particular picture but more about the difficulty for me as a father to take a photograph of my own son. Some of you may think that it was very easy for me to get my son on the camera, the truth is, it becoming more and more difficult or tough. I have to try all kind of tactics to get my son on camera, I’ve to try all kind of funny ad crazy things in order to attract his attention. Most of the time I failed but nevertheless I never failed to captured his picture, his personality or character as a child through the lens and I think that is what matter the most, not just  happy smiling looking kids.

Since I like to take a photograph of my son with a natural light, I don’t have much time fooling around, making jokes because it’s getting dark. It’s almost 07:00 P.M when I took this photograph. Sometime we don’t always get what we intent to make or captured. As a photographer we should have a high level of patience and be persistent with our photographic endeavor. Portrait photography is all about human, it’s about communication, be it with the person that we know or someone which is a total stranger. No matter how tough it is to photograph my son, I will always make the time to photographed him. More often than not, sometimes we get a great photograph in a difficult circumstances of “tough situations”.

Looking back at this photograph, I think this picture will look great or maybe “fun” to look at if I give my son a small book, and make him pretend to read it, hold it a little bit higher, so that I can still see the picture on the book below, talking about “Juxtaposition”. I’ll keep that in mind later…

*Juxtaposition involves comparing two or more elements within a photograph, bringing out either the similarity or dissimilarity between them. Juxtaposition also can involve contrasting elements. In such cases, we will see elements that are strikingly, and often incongruously, different. We can compare and contrast elements by placing them side-by -side, above or below each other, or layer them in the foreground, middleground and background. | Phil Douglis

© 2010 Wazari Wazir | Portrait | Muted Colors

Some people like to call it muted colors, some people like to call it less color, fade color. Anyway basically it is about less colors, less saturate, subtle colors. Soft or pale color without too much contrast. Whatever you like to called it, it is about less color, almost monochromatic but yet still maintain some colors. So how do we get that color. How to achieve this kind of colors?

Actually there are many ways to achieve this kind of look, I’ve try few ways in Photoshop to get this kind of effect. You can do it by reducing the saturation or just lower the contrast of certain colors. Anyway, I don’t want to write a long boring post here, I just want to make it quick, straight to the point, how I get this kind of color.

First I will do my editing as usual, adjust the brightness and contrast, just some basic and simple editing in Photoshop. After I finish with first step, I duplicate the same picture. So now we have two layers of the same picture, same color picture. Next step is, I turn or convert my top layer picture into Black and White, you can either use Black and White layer adjustment or just simple desaturate the top layer. Just make sure top layer is in Black and White. You can make it into Sepia tone if you want to, it is good to experiment.

Now you have two layers, on top is Black and White or Sepia picture and at the bottom layer is original color picture. Next step is to reduce the opacity of the top layer, the Black and White or Sepia one, just drag the opacity slider to the left, you can reduce up to 50% or more or less, actually you can see the result immediately, when you like the color, just stop and flatten the image. Very easy very fast and if you want a different look, you can play with the tone, with different tone color.

Like I said, there are many ways to get his type of color. I’ve tried many ways but I like this way the most, very easy and very fast. Everyone have their own style and it is good to know more than one style of editing. It will definitely give you an advantage. Have fun trying. One thing that we need always to keep in mind is that, we must start with a good picture to begin with and your editing will become easier.

Related Post : Playing With Photoshop Tone | The Tone Does Make a Difference

© 2009 Wazari Wazir | Portrait Photography

Usually I don’t do this kind of editing, montage or super imposed photography, I used to like it when I was starting up learning about Photoshop, I like to experiment with new things, it is learning process, I like to do cut and paste in photoshop, taking one picture and put it on top of another, make full used of layers in the Photoshop but after awhile, I get bored and that’s why I just do single editing, I mean, I don’t do super imposed anymore, I just do an enhancement for one single photographed and not making multiple photograph in a single art work like the picture above.

After a long post before this about “How to Choose a DSLR Camera”, I just want to make a quick post here. It is good to learn new skills even though you don’t used that skills most of the time but you know how to do it and when the times or the need arise you know how to do it, and know how to do it well. Photoshop is a powerful software but just like a camera, it is just a tools or in this case a software. The tools or software still needs you to use it, still needs your ideas, creativity and your vision in order to make something out of it. They can’t produce something on it’s own.

My point here is, keeps on improving your skills, keeps on improving your knowledge buy new books, attend workshops, spent more time harnessing your skills with what you already have instead of whining with something that you don’t have or can’t afford to have. Technology keeps on changing, new software keeps coming in, new camera keeps coming up but without a new set of skills or knowledge, our work or output will always be the same, new technology does makes our jobs easier, maybe a little bit faster but that’s it, the creativity still comes from within.

The software or the the camera is just an extension of ourselves to materialize our vision, to make things happen, so our vision can be seen but it is good to always have new vision, new perspective and new ideas, become more creative with what we already have instead of busy wasting time thinking of upgrading new set of equipment but forget to upgrade our skills. Why don’t we keeps ourselves busy thinking about new ideas? Thinking about how we can make full use of what we already have? Always try to push the boundary, do not wasting too much times comparing our work with other people, be unique, be yourself. In the end why do we wanted to be somebody when we can be ourselves. Have the Courage to be Ourselves.