Webshots Blog

Photo walks, a popular activity among photo-sharing communities, let us all be a part of something no matter where we are in the world. By taking a walk this weekend and sharing the pictures with us, you’re contributing to a global mural of life.

So put on your walking shoes, grab your camera and go for a walk. You’ll be surprised at the photographic opportunities that present themselves. We’d love to see all of your photos as you can submit as many as you like!

Please tag your photos with Weekend Photo Walk 40 and then post your links in the comment section. Your entries won’t be judged—this is just for the fun of it!

Since the inception of the creative challenge, we have never held a challenge which required using a specific subject. This week, we thought we would ask you to utilize all the tips and tricks that you’ve learned in the past and challenge yourself to capture the most creative image of one subject: A bell pepper. It’s cheap, it has character and is common to find worldwide.

Edward Weston photographed the bell pepper a number of times. He wrote in his Daybooks, “It is classic, completely satisfying – a pepper – but more than a pepper: abstract, in that it is completely outside subject matter.” With his own unique vision and with many tries, he was able to finally capture a satisfying image of a pepper that was unique from anyone else’s pepper.

This week, we challenge you to be inspired by Weston and create a pepper that is truly all your own.

Below are some different examples of four bell pepper images that Kevin and Penny created using clamp lights, diffusion material and a lightbox.

The basic rules:

You may:

Use only one bell pepper within your composition. It may be yellow, green or red. However, as you are allowed to submit three entries, you may use a different color pepper per entry if you so choose.

The pepper may be photographed in any style you wish. Including, macro, wide angle, or zoom.

Use color, black and white, sepia, collage, selective color, make a mosaic…whatever you choose.

The pepper may be cut, left whole, photographed near, far…any angle you desire.

The background may be plain, textured, indoors, outdoors, in water, wherever you think your pepper looks best.

We would encourage you to explore creative lighting to make your pepper look as unique as possible. Including, but not limited to artificial lights, natural light, reflectors, flash…it’s up to you. If you need some inspiration, check out our blog entry about lighting techniques.

Use digital or film, traditional or untraditional photographic methods of creating your piece.

You may use filters (on-camera or digital) if you wish.

You may not:

Use more than one bell pepper in one shot.

It may sound redundant, but to be clear, do not use anything other a bell pepper. Do not use other peppers such as chili peppers, black pepper or a banana pepper.

Do not photograph your pepper with another subject. For example, no photos of kitty snuggling with your pepper.

OFFICIAL ENTRY RULES
To officially enter the Creative Challenge, you must tag your three submissions with creative-challenge-pepper. You can then view them and everyone else’s submissions on the DISPLAY PAGE (it updates about every hour). To find out more about this, read the Using Tags on Creative Challenges post.

Submission Guidelines
1. Our editors look for sharp, clear horizontal images that are at a minimum resolution of 800×600 (submissions can have larger resolutions than this). Currently, vertical images cannot fit in the homepage template. Therefore, we cannot publish vertical or narrow panoramic images.

2. Images with added text or images, including watermarks, logos, copyright symbols, graphic borders, frames and time stamps, will not be considered. Collages, however, are acceptable.

3. Please do not submit pictures that have already been featured on the homepage.

4. The Creative Challenge runs from 12:01 a.m. on August 27 to 3:00 p.m. on September 2 (all times EST).

5. 3 pictures per member tagged exactly (including hyphens) with: creative-challenge-pepper

*Note:Images that don’t meet the exact guidelines can be submitted and viewed for everyone to enjoy, but please understand that we cannot publish images that don’t meet minimum guidelines on the homepage. Also, now that you’re tagging your entries, you don’t need to post links in the comments section anymore.

NEXT WEEK’S THEME: Alphabet in Nature In the states, it’s back-to-school time. Use your creative eye to find the letters of the alphabet in your enviroment. Does the curl of a branch look like an “S” or does the building on your block look like an “A”? If you have children in your life, it could be a fantastic opportunity to include and educate them while they open your eyes to a world of ABC’s.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Next week’s challenge: “Alphabet in Nature” will be limited to the English alphabet, but not be limited specifically to only organic objects found in nature. Yes, buildings and manmade objects are also eligible, but physical signage will not be. In other words, no close ups of letters printed on other objects. More detailed information will be posted next week after the pepper winners have been announced.)

There is something about Black & White photography that seems to take everyone back to the essence of what it is like to truly be a photographer. Using only shapes and tones to give an image a emotional impact, takes a true photographer’s understanding of light and shadow. Check out all the remarkable images in this week’s Creative Challenge: Digital Black & White below:

#1. We felt this image by member bfryxell used contrasting elements very wisely to achieve balance within the composition. The tree in the foreground serves two purposes, one to show the sparseness of the landscape while the shape cuts into the rock like a fissure. The lower left corner of the image helps draw the eye around the frame to the dark sky opposite of the frame. The shape of the rising moon compliments the similar shape of the hole within the rock. Overall, the photographer made a wise choice with using black and white to help us focus on the finer details as the natural colors of the rock and sky which would have competed for attention. Congrats to member bfryxell—we’ll feature you’re photo on the homepage tomorrow!

#2. This image from member stanpacz is a great example of how black and white photos can really be broken down to just shapes and still have a very strong composition. We loved how high contrast was used to create this wonderful photograph of a weathered windmill. Nice job!

#3.We felt this photo from member chrisrod100 was an excellent example of how the use of black and white can beautifully highlight the subtle tones and textures of a subject. While a color image would have worked, we believe that black and white strengthens the image by adding a bit of historical flavor to the image.

Thanks to everyone who entered the Challenge and shared their photos with us, we really enjoyed viewing all the entries and hope you had fun as well. To see all the entries in the Creative Challenge: Digital Black & White, visit the DISPLAY PAGE.

Have you ever felt that achieving creative lighting was only attainable by investing in expensive lighting equipment? Well, there’s no reason to break the bank to get decent lighting in your photographs, and we’ll show you how!

Let’s take a lesson from photographic history: Lighting in early photographs was fairly simple yet it produced some of the most iconic images we think of. A perfect example of this is Edward Weston’s “Pepper” taken in 1930. Believe it or not, you can create similar spectacular images using a few simple tools, techniques and tips.

Tools: Inexpensive Lighting
For some inexpensive lighting, try a multi-purpose clamp light. On average, clamp lights cost about $7—a far cry from the hundreds or thousands you could spend on professional lighting equipment.

Clamp lights are useful in any home photography studio because you can clamp them to almost anything and position them however you like with no need for a light stand.

Changing the position of the light is a great way to experiment with the angles, seeing which ones achieve the most desirable look on your subject. To make your subject look more three-dimensional, simply create dramatic shadows that accentuate the different textures and shapes of it.

Techniques: Diffusion and Colored Gels
One of the easiest creative lighting techniques is diffusion, which spreads out the light to create a beautiful effect. To achieve this effect, use a thin, white fabric, such as rip-stop nylon or tissue paper, and cover the lighting (or your camera’s flash) that’s falling on your subject thereby softening it.

Never leave fabric draped directly on or near hot light bulbs as it is a fire hazard. To be safe, never leave lights on for extended periods of time and never leave your set up unattended. Just allow sufficient space between your material and the light source and you should be fine.

You can also use colored gels in front of your light to cast a rainbow of colors, creating an interesting effect in your photograph.

Tips: On-Camera Flash
An on-camera flash may be utilized to enhance lighting as well, but there are pros and cons to consider. The biggest challenge with an on-camera flash is that the lighting typically doesn’t appear natural.

For creative lighting, I would recommend that you avoid pointing the flash directly at your subject or attaching the flash directly on the camera’s hot shoe. This will generally create a very large hot spot that’s too bright and can appear almost all white in the final image.

To modify the flash, you can diffuse the light by adding a small diffusion box that can be mounted to most on-camera flash units. Luckily, flash diffusers are pretty inexpensive, and the plastic ones are very durable in my experience.

Another valuable accessory for executing creative lighting with your flash is a TTL cable. This cable enables you to dismount your on-camera flash and position it off to the side, above or below the subject, while still letting you fire automatically.

To create a softer look, you can also indirectly reflect the flash’s light. Just tilt the flash upward and attach a white card to the back of the flash with Velcro, tape or a rubber band.

Now It’s Your Turn: Get Creative!
Being creative with lighting will enhance your photographs immensely. I encourage you to try different lighting techniques, add and subtract light, and modify the light direction to learn what works best for you and your subject.

For this week’s Creative Challenge: Peppers, we’re doing an homage to Edward Weston’s “Pepper”, so use these tools, techniques and tips to create your creative-lighting masterpiece!

Photo walks, a popular activity among photo-sharing communities, let us all be a part of something no matter where we are in the world. By taking a walk this weekend and sharing the pictures with us, you’re contributing to a global mural of life.

So put on your walking shoes, grab your camera and go for a walk. You’ll be surprised at the photographic opportunities that present themselves. We’d love to see all of your photos as you can submit as many as you like!

Please tag your photos with Weekend Photo Walk 39 and then post your links in the comment section. Your entries won’t be judged—this is just for the fun of it!

We’re always working hard to protect our members from copyright violations. We recently disabled the ability to right click on a photo and save it to your hard drive because some people were abusing this functionality by re-uploading other members’ images as their own. Your images can now only be right clicked and saved by you and the people you’ve chosen as your friends on Webshots. Meanwhile, everyone else will still be able to download and save your public images to the Webshots Desktop application to use for their screensavers and wallpaper.

Additionally, the “full size” view now shows the image you’ve uploaded in a larger size, but we also store your original size on the back end so that you can create great photo books and gifts in our store with no loss of image quality!

We realize that sometimes you may want to see the image larger than it appears on the photo page but that the full size may be larger than your monitor. For that reason, we’re still developing solutions to allow you to view an image at various sizes. Rest assured, we are working hard to make this site the best it can be for our members.

The elimination of color highlights the forms and contrast within your photograph and as a result, seems to emphasize a deeper emotional connection to the subject matter. If you haven’t already read Kier Selinsky’s Pro Tip on shooting digital Black & White, check it out for some great tips for this week’s challenge. Get in touch with basic black & white and send in your strongest images!

OFFICIAL ENTRY RULES
To officially enter the Creative Challenge, you must tag your three submissions with creative-challenge-digitalbw. You can then view them and everyone else’s submissions on the DISPLAY PAGE (it updates about every hour). To find out more about this, read the Using Tags on Creative Challenges post.

Submission Guidelines
1. Our editors look for sharp, clear horizontal images that are at a minimum resolution of 800×600 (submissions can have larger resolutions than this). Currently, vertical images cannot fit in the homepage template. Therefore, we cannot publish vertical or narrow panoramic images.

2. Images with added text or images, including watermarks, logos, copyright symbols, graphic borders, frames and time stamps, will not be considered. Collages, however, are acceptable.

3. Please do not submit pictures that have already been featured on the homepage.

4. The Creative Challenge runs from 12:01 a.m. on August 20 to 3:00 p.m. on August 25 (all times EST).

5. 3 pictures per member tagged exactly (including hyphens) with: creative-challenge-digitalbw

*Note:Images that don’t meet the exact guidelines can be submitted and viewed for everyone to enjoy, but please understand that we cannot publish images that don’t meet minimum guidelines on the homepage. Also, now that you’re tagging your entries, you don’t need to post links in the comments section anymore.

NEXT WEEK’S THEME: Peppers Next week we’re mixing it up a little bit and asking you to shoot specifically for the challenge. Kevin has a great post coming next week on lighting techniques to help you create the best Edward Weston inspired peppers! So grab a pepper, check out the pro tip and get shooting!

With all the action that has been happening during the 2008 Olympics, it was the perfect opportunity to test your abilities with photographing sports action moments. Capturing the raw energy of an athlete in competition is not an easy feat. It was truly a race for the finish with this week’s Creative Challenge: Action Sports.

#1. We felt this image by member mainemike was a perfect example of how utilizing a very difficult pan technique and a close vantage point can enhance the high energy of the race. Congrats to member mainemike—we’ll feature you’re photo on the homepage tomorrow!

#2. This freestyle motocross image from member sigfusson captured the peak moment of these two riders performing death a defying trick. This is a perfect example of taking advantage of a split second opportunity at the trick’s climax while keeping the image compositionally interesting. Nice job!

#3.We felt this photo from member sk8photoMAX truly nailed the heated emotions of this rollerblading competition. With the tack sharp focus and tight framing, just look at the faces of these fierce competitors showing the energy they are putting forth in hopes of finishing first. Well done!

Thanks to everyone who entered the Challenge and shared their photos with us, we really enjoyed viewing all the entries and hope you had fun as well. For those who weren’t selected, we did select quite a few entries as future featured sports channel photos of the day. To see all the entries in the Creative Challenge: sports, visit the DISPLAY PAGE.

When digital came on the scene years ago, it provided photographers with a quick and easy way to capture all sorts of moments in our lives. There was one drawback though – how to do black and white? Digital cameras usually have a black and white mode, but the results are often times somewhat dull. And up until a couple years ago, black and white digital printing quality was very poor compared to traditional film based black and white prints. Basically, old inkjet technology could not reproduce the black depth that silver halide prints could offer and also metamerism was a factor. The alternative was to get machine prints, which didn’t have the black depth either. Current high end inkjet technology has overcome these issues and most printing companies offer a “true black and white” that helps compensate.

Since these hurdles have been overcome, this article is here to help you get some great black and white from your digital camera.

When to Shoot Black & White
When to make a photo in black & white is perhaps the most difficult part of this process. There is no definitive ruling on the matter, but what I can tell you is why some people, including me, like black & white. Many photographers are drawn to black & white because of the medium’s tendency to reduce a photo down to the emotion. There are some subjects where we feel that color will distract from the message of the photo. But perhaps most importantly don’t worry, you are shooting digital, you can always take the photo in color and make the decision for black and white later.

Color
Color, surprisingly, is one of the most important elements in black and white photography. Color is important in terms of visualizing how something will look in the finished photo. For example, if you put a green filter on your camera, or use photo software to increase the green channel, then grass will turn a lighter shade of gray. Or, if you were to use a red filter on your camera or decrease blue in photo software, then your sky would turn dark gray or even black. But before you run out and buy filters or modify photos, read on and I’ll explain how this all comes together.