Posted on

Live Show Recap: Natural Framing

Happy Friday! This week we’re looking at your “natural framing” photos and we were really amazed at the submissions we got. Usually our more artistic topics narrow down the submissions, but you all really showed up! It was a great show.

So if you somehow haven’t heard about or seen it yet, our first 4 episodes of our new travel photography show, Wanderlust, are up now! And we’re taking video submissions to choose who we go visit next. So submit a 30 second clip telling us about yourself and your little area of the world to sdp.io/travel.

Next week we’ll have Roxy Rodriguez on the show to review your fashion photography! I’m really excited for that one.

Sandy the dog (and Chelsea) got on the cover of a magazine! Our friend Erkki is a great dog photographer who got his shot picked up.

Some photo news at the top of the show:

Ok, let’s get into your photos! I’ll link to all our picks and 5 stars below:

  • great black and white
  • Chelsea talks about buttering up a baby
  • guys on a cliff “hey you, look better!”
  • “a baby in its natural habitat”

Over to me for your questions:

  • what does Tony think of hydrogen for an alternative fuel for cars? Seems very complicated.
  • a video series or book on the business of photography? They’re conflicted about it.
  • buy our shirts! sdp.io/tshirt Who wore it better? Also, get t-shirts made by jmackstudios.com

Now to chit-chat, the part of the show where you say mean things and we laugh at you even though our souls are deeply wounded.

  • Chelsea’s
  • crumbling infrastructure
  • Tony is Brian Moser from Dexter? Or Jamie Foxx
  • more is less? That’s not a thing.
  • “what a load of waffle” “why does science have to infect art with it’s dogma?” That sentence is for sure not a thing. In fact, it’s antithetical.

Back to your photos:

  • bride
  • “I believe this is a boat
  • “that’s Matthew McConaughey”

Time to look at a portfolio! Friend of the show Louis Chan. “You know, you’re kissing up a little bit and I do not hate it.” Stunning portfolio, think about adding your time lapse to the background, also get rid of the menu that links to your Flickr, just link it somewhere else with your social media accounts.

More questions from you:

  • Tony and Chelsea got scared of how many viewers we had
  • special requirements for Wanderlust hosts? You need to be familiar with the area you’re showing us. It could only be a few days. Running water is a requirement. Justin used the outhouses a lot. “I’ve never seen it.” Preferably not a screamy person.

Back to photos:

  • look at this cute chinstrap penguin, Chelsea undid Tony’s crop
  • look how gorgeous this gets after the exposure is brought up
  • beautiful light frame
  • “this is a human baby” “yes, and it’s in some sort of confine, some sort of prison”
  • oh hey, it me. You can see my husband in a bathtub here.

Now back to me for some questions:

  • Chelsea has oddly specific fears
  • what do you do in your downtime? Play trombone? Chelsea plays guitar and piano and sings karaoke online. Tony plays video games, they got a VR setup, they fly drones.
  • would you give up auto focus or raw format if you had to choose? Raw for both of them.
  • Tony as a bond villain. Which Bond would you kill? Daniel Craig for Chelsea, all of them for Tony.

Back to photos:

  • interacting with art
  • sunny window
  • “cherry blossoms? Overrated. Sad.” Nice dig, Chels.
  • lonely house
  • we speed through for a while at the end here
  • happy harvest, six stars!
  • texture

Tony and Chelsea talk over each other, then over to me for your last few questions:

  • what to do for photography projects in the winter? Everything’s grey. Grab a go bag and travel. Try new projects indoors like still lifes and product photography, self portraits. Try astrophotography.
  • Tony just called Star Trek fans “trekkers”
  • pros and cons of putting work on social media? Cons are that it’s a time suck, people could steal your work, you probably won’t get money from it. But it’s good for feedback and networking.

They gave some picks while they were answering that question, I’ll note them here:

This was a great show! The work shown was really impressive, Chelsea was super punchy, it was fun all around.

Also a touching moment for our friend Jerry Johnson who passed away this week. He was with us since the beginning and was a wonderful man and an impressive photographer, especially with such a huge physical disability. 

Join us next week for fashion with Roxy Rodriguez.

Posted on

Beginner Photography: Natural Framing

Phew, this project was a lot harder than I expected. So natural framing is shooting through an object or structure to frame your subject. I had an idea of where I wanted to shoot, and one day to wrangle my family to get outside and do it. The whole day was clear and blue, but I wanted to wait until right before sunset to go out and shoot. So, naturally, it suddenly got very cloudy and my plans were dashed, but we went out anyway. We went hiking to a spot I knew had a cave I could shoot out of, and then to a spot with rows of overpasses covered in graffiti.

Most of these shots wound up noisy and I missed focus most of the time. While I like these shots because my family is in them, they certainly aren’t my best.

I use an Olympus E-M10 with a Lumix 14-42mm f/3.5-f/5.6, which has proven to be pretty terrible in low-light. I shot, as usual, in aperture priority with auto-ISO.

Here’s what I came up with:

 1/80th, f/3.5, ISO 250

 

1/60th, f/3.5, ISO 640 

 

1/13th, f/3.9, ISO 1600

 

 1/80th, f/3.5, ISO 500

 

I chose to go black and white with all of these shots because the framing was the most important element. I edited following the “top tip” of course:

It was particularly difficult to adjust the exposure on these shots since I was shooting from a dark place into a bright place or vice-versa. I used an adjustment brush to edit the bright areas separate from the darker areas. If you haven’t gotten it already, our Lightroom book is super helpful for all of these editing tips.

So did any of these work for you? What ideas have you come up with for natural framing? I’m excited to see everyone’s attempts this week!