National War College from East Potomac Park, Black and White Infrared Composite /  by Todd Henson

Black and white infrared composite image of the National War College, taken from East Potomac Park, Washington, D.C.

There are times you may not be able to capture the image you visualize in a single photograph. But you may be able to achieve your aims by combining elements of multiple photographs, known as compositing. The above black and white image of the National War College, in Washington, D.C., is an example of this.

These images were created in the spring, when the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. My brother and I were hiking around East Potomac Park, seeing what it had to offer. Near the end of the park you can see the National War College across the Washington Channel, near where the Anacostia River enters the Potomac. It was almost noon, and not very cloudy, so the light was a bit harsh. You can see from the color image how the scene looked to my eyes.

Color image of the National War College, taken from East Potomac Park, Washington, D.C.

I had an infrared filter with me (see below for details) and thought it might work well. It blocks out visible light and only allows infrared and near-infrared light to reach the sensor. Most digital camera sensors have a filter over them that blocks out most (but not all) infrared light. This means it takes a lot of time for enough light to reach the sensor to create a well-exposed image. When using the IR filter I will usually set the ISO to around 800 to make the sensor more sensitive to light and allow shorter exposure times. In this case, with the ISO set to 800 and the aperture set to f/8, the exposure time with the IR filter was 73 seconds. As you can see in the infrared image, an exposure this long removes all detail from the water. It just looks like a flat grey road. I liked the infrared effect on the trees, building, and sky, but not on the water.

Black and white infrared image of the National War College, taken from East Potomac Park, Washington, D.C.

I made sure to capture images both with and without the infrared filter. This gave me something to work with when in Lightroom and Photoshop. To process the images I converted the color image to black and white, paying attention to the water. When I had the water the way I wanted it I selected the black and white image and the infrared image and told Lightroom to open those in Photoshop as layers.

Black and white image (converted from the color image) of the National War College, taken from East Potomac Park, Washington, D.C.

Turns out I had slightly moved the tripod between creating the color image and infrared image, so they didn’t perfectly line up. I was able to correct this in Photoshop by using auto-align layers and cropping off any excess. In this way Photoshop assured both images were perfectly lined up.

The top layer was the black and white image, converted from color. This is the image with the water the way I wanted it to look. The bottom layer was the infrared image. I created a layer mask on the top layer and painted black on the mask. This revealed the layer below where I painted. At first I set the layer mask opacity to about 50%, so I was painting in 50% of what was below, meaning I had an interesting combination of the two. I used this on the entire upper portion of the image, everything except for the water. Then I bumped up the opacity to 100% for the trees and sky, allowing the infrared image to show through completely for those portions of the image. Because I never brushed anything on the water, it remains completely from the black and white image.

Click through the images below to see the bottom layer (infrared), top layer (black and white), and finally all layers with the layer mask applied (the composite).

When I was finished I saved the image, which imported it back into Lightroom, giving me four images. The first is the original color image. The second is the black and white conversion from the color image. The third is the infrared image. And the fourth is the Photoshop composite of the black and white and infrared images. I performed a couple more small tweaks to the composite in Lightroom, then called it finished.

In the final composite image, the water is from the black and white image, allowing me to show the texture of the water. The sky and trees are from the infrared image. Infrared gives a very unique glow to sources of heat, such as trees. And the building is a combination of the black and white and the infrared images.

The infrared filter I used to create these images is a Singh-Ray I-Ray 830 Infrared filter. It blocks out all visible and ultraviolet light, letting through only pure infrared light. When used with most cameras this filter will require fairly long exposure times, but it can add an interesting look to an image. I really enjoy experimenting with it, seeing how it affects the image in different environments. It’s a great creative tool.

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What Happens When Your Camera Malfunctions in the Field? /  by Todd Henson

1: Entry display of orchids at Longwood Gardens

Have you ever thought about what you would do if your camera broke down while you were on a trip? Would it spoil your trip? Or could you recover and make the most of what remained of your trip? Thankfully, I chose the latter when it happened to me.

2: Closeup of orchid display

3: Streams inside Longwood Gardens Conservatory

A few weeks ago I shared a post about the beautiful Orchid Extravaganza display each winter at Longwood Gardens. That post reminded me of an experience I had there during a different trip. Shortly after arriving at the Conservatory I had a bad experience with my DSLR, the only time I’ve had this kind of experience. I had been shooting with my relatively new wide angle lens and decided to switch to a telephoto lens. But the wide angle lens got stuck when I tried to remove it. I was unable to remove the lens, and I was also unable to fully reattach it. It was stuck partly connected. Something had malfunctioned in the mount of the camera or the lens. I worked on it for a few minutes, but couldn’t budge the lens.

4: Brick path through Conservatory at Longwood Gardens

5: Lots of greenery in hallway

My brother offered to go back to the car to try to figure something out, or for us to trade his camera back and forth so we could both shoot. But I didn’t want to take away from his enjoyment of the trip, so I told him to keep shooting with his camera. I had my phone with me and could use that for the remainder of the trip. I didn’t see any need to cut the trip short or to change any of our plans. So I packed my DSLR into the camera bag, pulled out my phone, and fired up a camera app. Some of the photos in this post were created using the DSLR before it malfunctioned, and the rest were created using my phone. Can you guess which are which? See the end of this post for the answer.

6: So many beautifully laid out walkways

I’m happy to report I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the trip. There might have been times in my life when I would have let this experience ruin the trip. But not this time. I think both my brother and I had a great time. And looking back, I’m reasonably happy with the images I created. Using the camera phone did somewhat limit the types of photos I could create. The lens on the phone was a fixed focal length, there was no switching of lenses. I lost true macro capability, and had no telephoto capability. I was very limited in my ability to create a shallow depth of field. And I couldn’t mount the phone on my large tripod.

7: Path around a central lawn display

8: View of lawn display from a path

9: Another view of a lawn display from a path

But all of these limitations create opportunities to exercise your creativity. You must be more creative to work around the limits, to still produce pleasing images. You will learn more about the strengths and weaknesses of the gear you’re using. And you’ll either find a way to make it work, or you’ll discover that even though it may be limited in some ways, it still has a large number of capabilities. And if you give it enough time and patience you’ll learn how to leverage those capabilities.

10: Colorful flower closeup

But even more importantly, when you set yourself up with technical limitations you’ll have to focus more on the creative and artistic aspects of your work. You will need to spend more time thinking about what makes a pleasing composition. You won’t have the option of simply zooming the lens to try to fill the frame. You will need to think about how to fill the frame and why. Perhaps a different angle would be better. Maybe getting down low, laying on the ground, would help create a unique image that better expresses your vision. Maybe you need to walk closer to the subject, or move a little further away.

Having limitations to work around can help teach us that creativity is in the photographer, not in the gear. I have learned a lot about these topics from David duChemin, a photographer who focuses on the artistic side of photography. He teaches about how to see, how to find something that speaks to you and might speak to your viewer, and how to translate that into a moving, impactful image. He teaches about seeing, about vision, and about turning those visions into stories to share with the world.

11: Small field of colorful flowers and foliage

Try this some time. Find some way to limit yourself. Maybe pick a specific lens and decide to only use that lens for some period of time, especially if it is a prime (fixed focal length) lens. If you only have zoom lenses then pick a focal length and put a small piece of tape on your lens to keep it from zooming. Spend the entire day using just that one focal length. Try this for more than a day if you can. Sometimes it takes time to learn to let go of what we’re used to and really start to embrace the limitations. But I do believe your creativity will benefit from repeating this exercise every so often. Try different limitations, be creative in how you limit yourself. And believe me, I’m saying all this for my own benefit as well as yours. I need to constantly remind myself to try these exercises, to try something different, to find ways to limit myself and to grow in the process.

12: A display room within the Conservatory at Longwood Gardens

Tell me if you’ve had any similar experiences, or if you’ve tried any of these exercises yourself. How did it turn out? What did you learn? Would you try it again?

 
 

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Recommended Books by David duChemin:

CreativeLive's The Art of Nature Photography with Art Wolfe /  by Todd Henson

The Art of Nature Photography with Art Wolfe. Image credit: CreativeLive

The Art of Nature Photography with Art Wolfe. Image credit: CreativeLive

Art Wolfe is one of the photographers I most look up to. Not only is he an amazingly skilled photographer and artist, but he loves teaching and sharing his work and has a great personality and skill at conveying his passion. I have been fortunate to attend one of his seminars in the past, and highly recommend you try to attend one. But if you’re not able to, the next best thing are his presentations on CreativeLive. And as an added bonus, if you purchase the CreativeLive classes you can rewatch the presentations anytime you want. I often go back to these videos when I’m looking for some inspiration.

Art’s CreativeLive class, The Art of Nature Photography, consists of 12 videos totaling almost 5 and a half hours of content. The first section is about 90 minutes and consists of 3 videos. It is a lecture Art calls An Integrated Life. He talks about his life and career and how he got to where he is now. He shares those things he finds inspirational and what has influenced his work over the years. He studied art in school, learning about the great painters throughout history, and this has greatly affected how he sees the world and creates his photographs and artwork.

He also talks about a fascinating project of his called The Human Canvas. In this project he hand paints and arranges nude figures into various poses on a hand painted background, then photographs the entire scene. It’s an interesting process and a beautiful result. This project came about as a natural progression throughout his career, from studying the great painters, to creating photographs of natural subjects, to looking for abstract and creative scenes, to now creating an entire scene where human figures blend into an abstract background forming shapes and patterns.

The next section is also about 90 minutes and consists of 3 videos. Art discusses topics centered on helping you improve your own work. He talks about the types of lenses he likes to use and why. Art quite often uses wide angle lenses, getting in really close to a subject to place it in the context of the wider landscape. He really likes his 70-200mm lens, a nice mid to telephoto range, to zoom into the more intimate details of a scene. This is a very versatile lens, also useful for some wildlife photography when you’re able to get in close or want to show the animal in its environment. And he will sometimes use other lenses and accessories when the situation warrants it.

Art discusses how to find your subject and how to work a scene. Sometimes it takes time and several photographs before you narrow in on the actual subject of the image. Keep working the scene, and be open to surprises, especially to anything that might evoke emotion in the viewer.

In the last video of this section, Art presents what he calls the Ten Deadly Sins of Composition, which is a playful way of sharing things that should often be avoided to help create stronger compositions. As with all photography rules, these are not hard and fast and can be intentionally ignored to great effect.

The next 90 minute section of The Art of Nature Photography is a critique session, where Art is presented with photographs submitted by an online audience for review. He discusses strengths of the photos and points out areas where the photographer could improve the image. In some cases he thinks the image is great as it is and presents what he thinks might be the next image to try, and other ways to look at the scene. These critiques are a great way to learn. We get to see how Art thinks, what he sees in a scene, how his eyes walk through it.

To end the class Art shares 3 episodes from his great television series, Travels to the Edge. I have the entire series (both seasons) on DVD, so these were not new to me. But if you have not seen any of the series then this class gives you 3 good episodes to see what it’s all about. In each episode Art travels to a different part of the world, learning about local cultures, customs, and wildlife, and photographing it all. It is part travelogue, part nature documentary, and part photography lesson. I love this series.

The 3 included episodes from Travels to the Edge are:

  • Japan (season 2 volume 1): Art travels to Honshu and Hokkaido islands where he sees amazing snowy scenery, with a mix of culture and nature. He visits several shrines and temples, photographing monks and festivals. He photographs some of the winter wildlife of this part of Japan, including whooper swans, red-crowned cranes, and macaques. And he photographs landscapes such as Mount Fuji at sunrise.

  • Bhutan (season 2 volume 4): Art learns about the country and buddhist culture of Bhutan and gets the opportunity to photograph architecture, people, festivals, wildlife and scenery. He visits monasteries and photographs monks in several settings. He travels to a location where he can photograph black-necked cranes. In another location he photographs a traditional archery competition, and also a dance festival with several performances.

  • South Georgia Island (season 1 volume 4): This is one of Art’s favorite locations. To get there he had to travel by boat over a wild stormy sea. Once there he was able to photograph landscapes of amazing scenery and wildlife. And South George Island is full of lots of wildlife, such as king penguins, elephant seals, nesting albatross, fur seals, and macaroni penguins. He was able to get so close to these animals he often used wide angle lenses to emphasize the animal in its environment.

Check out Art Wolfe if you’re not familiar with him. I own several of his books, the Travels to the Edge series on DVD, and several of his classes from CreativeLive (including this one). I think he has a lot to offer, especially related to seeing the artistry in nature and the world and capturing it in compelling and emotionally impactful photographs.