Spain- Be Afriad of the Dark.

Why are we afraid of the dark? What is about it that scares us.
Our brains, so used to the seeing everything in light, can't decipher the strange shapes the shadows create on objects. Our minds push our senses further into the dark corners, nightmares, created by the blackness after the sun sets. We crave light because it makes us feel safe- we can see. And we fear the approaching shadows.


It's also one of the most exciting times to take pictures. Not only are the images pretty cool, but the technical aspects are demanding. The challenges of working in low light are immense. You need to balance a slow enough shutter with the right aperture. If you don't balance you will either blur everything or blowout the whites. Most photographers cannot hold a camera steady enough with a shutter speed of less than 1/20th. My trick if I don't have a tripod (which is pretty much always) is to breathe. If you hold your breath, you will increase the shakes. So I breathe gently through the process.


But the results of nightime imagery can be dramatic.
San Pedor is a lively little city by the Med. During the day it is a busy with shoppers, families, cars and motorcycles- loads of coffee shops and restaurants, with an exciting energy to the city. It is one of my favorite cities on the coast because it is still very Spanish in style. It caters to vacationing Spanish families.


But the place takes on a different look at night. Last night after dinner at Alfredos I walked around the town taking pictures.
I used my 50 mm f 1.8. What a lens! Less than a $100. I highly recommend one for any Canon body owner.
I shot all these without a tripod, and set the camera to BW with a slightly higher contrast setting in the Canon 5D. I was really impressed with the results. The only editing was in Lightroom where I added some vignetting or in some cases I increased the "dark" range on the curves.


The results contrast this lovely city. Suddenly, San Pedro feels like a run down dodgy place. The shadows from the single streets lamps really added to the effect as they feathered their lights over the walls and windows.

Work Flow on Lightroom

How much do I love Lightroom ....
My work flow is much more efficient as a result of LR. While Bridge allows you to rate images, Bridge does not allow for the very powerful editing features you find in LR. These same processes are in Photoshop RAW conversion. But because they are a part of the process for LR, the work flow process is much faster. I still use Photoshop, but only for intense editing involving layers and masks.
For those who may be unsure of the whole process, here is my nifty process from start to finish
IMPORT:
I pop in the CF disk into my desktop or laptop and hit the import button. On the opening screen I tell LR where to save the images, give the images a name, and add meta info.
Once the images are loaded I want to create a backup. I CTL -A to select all and export all the images to an external drive. I will make a 3rd backup of that drive as well. RATE THE IMAGES:
I then rate images on a simple 1,2,3 scale. I base the rating on sharpness, composition, and expression of subject. I must have all three to be considered a 1. The 2s are possible in at least 2 of my categories but I will need more review time with them. The 3s are just crap. They are usually not in focus or poorly composed. These are the ones that are beyond editing.
Using this system I can rate 500 + images in about 15 minutes.
There are other methods of rating LR, but this is the simplest. Note we are still in the Library Module. At this point, I usually look back at the 3s before CTL - A and delete. I don't see any reason to keep the crappy ones. I'll then look through the 1s and rank them again. I use the SURVEY mode a lot. It allows me to look at images side by side. It makes picking out the differences between images easier. Finally I will do the 2s. This is where I decide if I am willing to save the image or not.
The rating page in Library Module.
EDITING:
The fun starts in the Develop module. I won't go into any depth on my editing process as it varies from image to image. But I typically correct exposure and WB, crop, and tweak colors first. I love using curves here. From this point, the options are considerable. My advice is to play with all the settings. Because LR is essentially non destructive, at the end of your playtime, you can hit the reset button and it all goes back to the images original state. EXPORT:
When my images are edited, it is time to export. Under FILE, the export options are very simple. You have to tell LR where you want the edited images to go. So I save to a new folder, with the original names for the files, and export. On completion, I backup the edited images to 2 separate hard drives.

Give LR a try. It is far more intuitive than Photoshop and just as powerful.

Lightroom is the greatest!

Come on- Admit it. Lightroom is one of the greatest inventions- ever! This is why I love it. I can stream line my workflow to spend less time behind the computer and more time playing.

I average 1000 pics a game. After I import them, I rate them in about 15 minutes- yup 1000 images in 15 mins. And because I shoot from the same spot, lighting conditions are the same for almost each image so the SYNCH button is a wonder. I edit one image- WB, exposure, curves, color boost or BW depending, lens correction and tweak few other areas and done. Synch does the rest. Total time 30 mins for 1000 pics. It used to take me hours in photoshop. Lightroom also has some amazing presets which also cut down on my time. There are so many cool features to it. I'll highlight some of my favs in the coming posts.
Don't ge tme wrong- I still rely on photshop for layers in headshots and other tricky specific work, but lightroom takes about most of my edits. Because it is an Adobe product- I can work easily between photoshop and lightroom. It's a perfect combo.