Pro Techniques

Are you someone who appreciates the richtones, colors and textures of 19th and 20th century alternative photo processes? With onOne Software’s Perfect B&W (www.ononesoftware.com), you can imbue your own images with these classic looks, and you won’t have to spend days in the darkroom to do it. Options include Platinum and Palladium, the warm beige tones and mottled surface of Calotype, the blue hues of Cyanotype, the buff tones of an Albumen print, the velvety reds of a warm Carbon print, even the look of a Tintype and many more.

When it comes to subjects that combine color and light in creative and interesting ways, few things are as eye-catching or as fun to encounter as an artfully designed neon sign. If I’m out driving on a summer’s night and see a particularly interesting bit of neon, it’s hard not to pull the car over just to admire the sign maker’s skill and take a few pictures to add to my collection.

When Yiming Hu was a freshman in college he rented a camera and fell in love with photography. After he moved from China to the United States he was drawn to landscape and travel photography and learned advanced photo techniques from books, magazines, the Internet, and lots of experience. Today he works as a computer engineering professor at the University of Cincinnati doing research, and as a second career he shoots landscapes and travel subjects in many locations to satisfy his photo appetite. I spoke with him recently about his work.

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. What this refers to is the digital sensor’s ability (or lack of ability) to render good detail in both the highlights and the shadows in a photograph. Our eye/brain combination is extremely sophisticated, and as we look at a contrasty scene (such as a landscape in noon sunlight) the detail in the shadows and in the bright sunny areas is quite clear to us. A photograph will not look the same as we see it.

I could hear the predawn call to prayer broadcast from minarets across the city as I climbed the stairs to my hotel’s rooftop. From there I enjoyed a magnificent view of the ancient city of Istanbul. Immediately below me, roughly facing north, was Sultanahmet Square, the city’s historic center, flanked by the Blue Mosque to the left and the Hagia Sophia to the right. Behind and to my right I could see the Sea of Marmara and Asia, while in the distance to the northeast I could see the Strait of Bosphorus. As I stood alone on the rooftop in this city of 14 million people, admiring the view all around, it occurred to me I should get out my camera and take some pictures.

Everyone is insecure about getting the correct exposure. We have good reason to be insecure because too often we’ve experienced over- and underexposures when we didn’t expect it, and that leaves a lasting impression that exposure technique is a mysterious and elusive thing.