Hi!

Jaymes here, and I have several exciting items to share with you today, including:

• National Photography Month deal - Photography Lighting Cheat Sheets
• The dPS bi-weekly challenge
• Three photographers to check out (for inspiration)
• More photo critiques

Also, in case you missed it, I wanted to share our new article on the best monitors for photo editing, written by the very talented Simon Ringsmuth! 

If you don’t already have a monitor that works well for photo editing, then I encourage you to give the article a read. In my experience, it’s easy to underestimate the importance of a good monitor - and then, when you finally upgrade, the difference is astonishing! 

Get the Photography Lighting Cheat Sheets at 80% Off

From mastering the dance of shadows and highlights to experimenting with creative effects, these cheat sheets are your key to elevating every shot. For a limited time, dive into the art and science of lighting with these comprehensive cheat sheets for 80% off the regular price! 

The dPS bi-weekly photo challenge: L (the letter)

From Sime:

You’re lucky! I nearly went with SPRING just to be ironic (It’s Winter in 29 days here in Melbourne) but no no, this week(s) we take the “L” – A photo of an L, a photo with a main theme that says L or starts with L or sounds like sheer L… see what I did there?

L is for…. Landscape and Light and… whatever else you can come up with! Most creative will be featured on our social media!

Make sure you include the hashtags #dPSWeeklyChallenge and #dPSTheLetterL in your post, on our weekly challenge page or over on social media. You can tag us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter!

Three photographers for inspiration

It’s been a few weeks since I shared the work of photographers, so I thought I’d send a few names for you to check out:

First, we have Rebecca Norris Webb, a poet and photographer whose images are beautiful, meditative, personal, and frequently surprising; I’d recommend starting with her Brooklyn: The City Within portfolio, which features photos taken around her home. Another great portfolio is My Dakota, a more intimate take on a common photographic subject.

Second, we have Alex Webb (husband of Rebecca Norris Webb); Alex is a photojournalist whose virtuosic compositions and stunning use of light have inspired legions of street shooters. The Suffering of Light contains an overview of images captured throughout Alex Webb’s long career and does a nice job of showcasing his signature style.

Finally, I’d like to share the work of Ernst Haas, a prolific photographer whose work spans a variety of genres, including street photography, abstract photography, photojournalism, and portraiture. Haas’s early interest in color photography made waves back in the 1950s, and you can view some of his classic color images here. In the last few years, his color work has been reexamined, resulting in the discovery of more exploratory color photos, like this set of color photos captured around America. 

Two more photo critiques

We had some great critique submissions this week - thanks so much to everyone who sent in images! And for those of you who would like to see your images critiqued in a future newsletter, feel free to hit Reply to this message and send along a file or two! 

Just make sure you mention that the images are indeed for critique in the email body or subject line, and please make sure the files are JPEGs and at least 1000 pixels on the long end!

(By the way, if you do send images for critique, feel free to share your camera settings as well as any specific questions you have about the photos. I’ll do my best to address those items when critiquing the files!)

First, we have a beautiful flower photo from Paulette D:

What I like:

• First of all, Paulette, those colors are outstanding - you’ve done a great job of maintaining a simple color palette (green, orange, and pink/purple) that gives the image a sense of harmony. I’m guessing this was photographed in the late afternoon, and the warmer light also helps to unify the colors/scene…I just love how that warm light looks as it falls on the out-of-focus flowers and greenery in the background!
• You’ve also done a nice job isolating the main coneflower from the background. Your choice to get in close and use a wider aperture - while also selecting a subject that has some physical separation from the elements behind it - all resulted in that wonderful background blur.
• I like your choice of angle, too; by photographing from straight on, rather than above or below, you’ve given the image a far more intimate feel.

Items to improve:

• When capturing frame-filling flower shots - or any type of close-up photo! - you have to be very careful about your point of focus because it’s so easy to end up with slightly out-of-focus elements. Here, it looks like your lens is focusing slightly past the front portion of the flower, and because the depth of field is so thin, the florets and front-facing petals are slightly soft. One approach would be to narrow the aperture further in order to deepen the depth of field. However, I love the shallow depth of field effect that you’ve created, so I’d encourage you to try adjusting your point of focus so it’s set slightly forward (perhaps around the top-middle of the nearest petal, which might ensure that most of the front of the flower is sharp). When doing shallow depth of field flower photography, it’s often a good idea to take a lot of shots and vary your point of focus; what generally works for me is to manually set the plane of focus in the approximately right area, then physically move the camera forward and backward while taking a few photos.  
• I love that background, and like I said above, I think you’ve isolated the flower beautifully. But I’m still noticing a few better-defined areas that pull the eye away from the flower, like the petals on the very left edge, the florets in the bottom right corner, and the two out-of-focus coneflowers behind your main subject. I don’t think that any of these are a huge deal, but I’d be tempted to crop away the distractions along the edges; I’d also consider moving slightly to one side or getting in even tighter to avoid those two coneflowers behind your subject. (Another option would be to move your lens slightly higher so those background coneflowers occupy more space. Sitting at the edge of the frame, they feel like unwanted distractions, but by letting them “mirror” the main subject, they’ll create a visual rhythm that adds to the shot.)
• One more thought: I’m noticing that the main coneflower is looking a little rough, especially along those front petals. That’s not always a bad thing, but in general, I encourage folks to seek out flowers in near-pristine condition (or to adjust their framing to hide dirt and scratches). When flowers have blemishes, I tend to think it takes away from the overall harmony of the photo - the exception is when the blemishes add to the shot (e.g., in a moody photo of a dying flower). I can understand if you disagree with me here, though - after all, you captured the flower as it is, authentically - I just offer that up as food for thought!

Second, we have a lovely blue-hour landscape from Alan C, who notes that the settings are “ISO 64, 130 mm (Tamron 70 - 200 F2.8) f10 for 60 seconds on a tripod, remote release.”

 What I like:

• Alan, I’m a sucker for long-exposure seascapes, in part because of how peaceful they feel. In your photo, I love all that calming empty space throughout the middle of the frame, broken occasionally by those dark rocks…I also love how smooth the horizon feels. 
• The blue-hour light is wonderful. That 45 minutes or so just after the sun sets is an amazing time to do landscape photography, and you’ve used it well - as a result, the scene has a lovely sense of subdued atmosphere.
• That house on the right-hand side lends a really nice contrast and sense of scale to the scene. It also allows the viewer to place themselves within the colder, more barren environment, like an island of warmth in the darkness!
• Very nice job keeping a 60-second exposure so sharp, especially with a telephoto lens! 

Items to improve:

• While I love the more minimalistic, space-filled approach here, to my eye, the house and trees on the right side don’t feel sufficiently counterbalanced by the negative space on the left side. I’d consider cropping off the left so that the foreground rocks move toward the edge of the frame and help balance out the composition. Alternatively, if you were photographing this again and wanted to keep the emptiness on the left, you could perhaps zoom out further to include more space on the left, or even do a panorama; that way, the house and trees would occupy less of the overall composition, and the shot would feel more balanced. 
• I think you could make the composition even more powerful by positioning the nearest rocks closer to the bottom of the frame (or by cropping up from the bottom). There’s a lot of unbroken space there, and by excluding it, I think it would give the shot a tighter feel.   
• Another compositional thought: The right edge of the frame cuts off a tree and comes a little close to the house; I’d love to have just a tad more space there!
• It could be worth playing with the colors a little in post-processing. I like the cool blue look, but I’d consider warming the image up just slightly, or perhaps desaturating the shot, to make the colors slightly less intense. 

Thanks again to everyone who sent in photos, and that’s it for today! But remember, if you’d like to have your photos critiqued, don’t be shy, send them along!

Talk to you next Saturday,

Jaymes Dempsey (and the rest of the dPS team)