Dancing on the Edge of Shadow and Light

Cool things can happen on the edge between shadow and light.  This fan palm was at such a magical spot.  It was among some plants that were shaded from the sun by a wall.  However, the palm was a little higher than the other plants, and it alone was illuminated by backlight, causing it to glow against the shaded background.RELATED POSTS:Using Midday Sunli...

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Lastolite Brolly Grip Review: Soft Directional Light Anywhere

This is a preliminary review of the Lastolite Brolly Grip.  This unique lighting accessory allows you or an assistant to hold an umbrella, making it possible to get soft, directional light almost anywhere, without setting up. In this review, I wanted to focus on using it by myself, without an assistant or light stand.  I also wanted to have a lot of sample shots to show the real-world potential of the Brolly Grip.When there is no feasible...

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Winning a Photo Contest

Winning a photo contest both is and isn't a big deal.  It isn't a big deal in the sense that a real artist would care more about expressing his or her idea and less about the audience reaction.  On the other hand, I believe that art is a form of communication that becomes perfected when it is received by another person in a meeting of minds.I entered the shot above in a photo contest and it was one of the winning entries.  This is...

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When NOT to Use Lens Correction in Lightroom

One of my favorite Lightroom features is lens correction, which can correct vignetting, chromatic aberration and distortion.  I find this really useful because my lenses are not pro-grade and suffer from these issues.  With lens correction, my photos look like they are from more expensive lenses. :)I used to assume that I ought to apply lens correction to all my images.  However, I found out that sometimes, it's better not to use lens...

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Happy First Birthday, Sophia!

We celebrated our daughter's first birthday with an intimate lunch party for family and friends.  These are some of my favorite party photos that I've taken.Red velvet cake by Susie CakesMaty as the balloon mons...

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Photoshop Elements 10 Depth of Field Effect

I tried out Photoshop Elements 10's depth of field effect on the shot above.  It's a big improvement over the original shot:The original shot.  What's with the evil eye, lady?This is one effect that I can't pull off in Lightroom.  To create the appearance of a shallow depth of field with PSE 10, I used the guided mode to walk me through the steps.  First, I used a selection brush to identify the subject.  Next I clicked on...

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Quick Tip: Additional Camera Profiles

Here's an old tip but it's something I have to remind myself about every time I reinstall Lightroom: If you have Adobe Lightroom or Camera Raw, you can install additional camera profiles that will allow you to emulate the color modes from your camera (neutral, vivid, etc.).I learned this tip from Mitchell Kanashkevich's Understanding Post-Processing (reviewed here) but I've also seen it been mentioned by Matt Kloskowski.  Anyway, here's the link:http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=labs_cameraprofilesJust download the file...

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Nikon P300: Cheap Enthusiast Compact Camera

Choosing a digital camera is easy.  Choosing an inexpensive but good digital camera is a bit more challenging.  Each camera touts its own fancy-sounding features, some of which are just gimmicks, making it hard to pick out cameras that have the features that really matter to us photographers, at a reasonable price.I was looking for a camera that had these qualities:- low noise for a compact camera- zoom with a wide angle (28mm or wider)-...

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