Vivian Maier was recently discovered posthumously. The Chicago nanny took over 100,000 photographs and some say she may rank among the top street photographers of the 20th century.
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Correspondence – Nocturne – LI
Correspondence XXXXVI – Nocturne
Correspondence XXXV – Nocturne
This is a selection of my top 12 images of all time. This selection doesn’t reflect sales, publication, or activities on the web. It simply reflects my opinion. Click on the titles to find out more about each image.
Geography
Antarctica, California, Iceland, South America, Utah.
Process
I practiced my typical 80% composite and 20% straight. Can you tell which is which? I hope it’s not obvious and that during this guessing game you begin to look more closely at looking.
Concepts
Light reveals and interacts with surfaces, which both reveal and conceal, sometimes doing both simultaneously. What the viewer sees depends as much on the context (physical location and moment in time) as his or her mental state (education, emotion, intent, awareness).
Magnificent Moment
The time I spent exploring the Great Salt Lake in Utah, several years before these images were completed, was a particularly intense time emotionally for me, some of I hope is reflected in these images and some of which I hope remains personal. The magnificent moment was inside.
View more of my Annual Top 12 Selections here.
Richard Harrington reviews Photoshop CS5’s new features.
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Learn more in my fine art digital printing workshops.
Many people find it easier to see composition in black and white. If you’re one of them, try setting our camera’s preview to black and white. When you do this, seeing line, shape, form, and relative light and dark relationships may become easier. Doing this will also help you get a better sense of how an image will look in black and white. Remember though, the saturated hues in your image can be converted to black and white as either light or dark, so the relative tonal distribution of your image is quite fluid – and seeing the hues in the image (whether with your naked eye or on the camera’s LCD) will inform you how fluid you can expect it to be, where it will be fluid and where it won’t.
Setting your camera’s preview to black and white will only affect the JPEGs your camera creates; your Raw files will still be in full color.
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Here are some commonly asked questions that, once answered, will demystify setting camera file format.
"Should I set my camera to JPEG, Raw, or JPEG and Raw?"
If you want to create files with the highest quality, set your camera to create Raw files. Raw files contain the widest color gamut, highest big depth, have flexible white point, can have highlight and shadow detail recovered, can be reprocessed infinitely, and are free of compression artifacts. Raw files are larger and require post-processing before presentation. They take up more room and they take longer to use.
If you want files to create files to share immediately without (or with minimal) post-processing, set you camera to create JPEG files. JPEGs are excellent for transmission, posting to the web, and print on demand. (Remember, the highest quality JPEGs are the ones created by post-processing Raw files, not the ones created by your camera.)
If you want both Raw and JPEG, set your camera to create both.
A camera creates a Raw file every time it makes an exposure. Setting a camera to create a JPEG file requires it to make a conversion to JPEG, which it does with incredible speed. If a camera is set to JPEG, it will replace the Raw file. If a camera is set to Raw, only a Raw file will be created. If a camera is set to Raw + JPEG it will create a JPEG copy in addition to the Raw file.
Here are five commonly asked questions that, once answered, will demystify camera color spaces.
“Why do my digital camera files have an sRGB profile?”sRGB is the default color space for most digital cameras today. Most camera interfaces will allow you to change this default. Interfaces and options will vary. The widest gamut default color space most digital cameras support is Adobe RGB (1998). The profile for the camera’s default color space is attached to JPEG files but not to Raw files.
“Is Adobe RGB (1998) the widest gamut I can get with my camera?”
No. The camera sensor is capable of quite a lot more. To access color spaces with a wider gamut than Adobe RGB (1998) you typically need to shoot in a Raw file format. This also allows you to acquire a high bit file – 16-bit instead of 8-bit.
“Where do Raw files get their profiles?”
Raw files don’t have profiles until they are converted into a standard editing space, either with the manufacturer’s software or another Raw file converter like Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom. Most Raw converters offer a choice of editing spaces including sRGB, ColorMatch, Adobe RGB (1998), or ProPhoto RGB.
“Which color space do you recommend using?”
Use ProPhoto RGB for digital output. It’s the only editing space that can encompass the full gamut of both your camera and your inkjet printer. Use ProPhoto RGB for master files. Make all output specific derivatives from them.
Use sRGB for the web. If a browser isn’t color management compliant, colors won’t be distorted as much as wider gamut color spaces. Use sRGB for derivative files.
“How do I set color space on a digital camera?”
Camera interfaces and terminology vary widely. On the Canon 1Ds Mark II, you can toggle between sRGB and Adobe RGB (1998) by pressing the Menu button and going to the Recording menu (the first icon, a camera), then dialing down to Color matrix and continuing within that to Set up.
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Review Histograms After Exposure
One big advantage of shooting digitally is the ability to view a histogram in the LCD screen on the back of your camera body. A histogram is a graph of the relative distribution of the data in your image from shadows on the left to highlights on the right. You can use a histogram to evaluate not only the tonal distribution but also the quality of your exposures. By viewing the histogram immediately after exposure, you can determine if you need to make additional exposures at alternate settings to get better exposures. Simply program your camera to display a histogram immediately after exposure. You'll find this immediate feedback will result in much higher success rates.
Kiran Bir Sethi shows how her groundbreaking Riverside School in India teaches kids life’s most valuable lesson: “I can.” Watch her students take local issues into their own hands, lead other young people, even educate their parents and start national movements.
Find more of my favorite TED videos here.