Ghosts: Caught On Camera

I happened to visit a shrine a few months back and I couldn’t help but notice the beautiful tile-work and Arabic calligraphy. I sat close to the grave, waiting for the right moment, hoping to get that perfect shot, and I did, or at least that’s what I thought. Looking into the preview of my camera, I was stunned to see a ghost-like presence on the photo. Having never encountered anything remotely paranormal, I was naturally out of my wits. I had NEVER seen anything so vividly eerie, so spine-tingling in my entire existence.

Ghost caught on camera

OK! So I’m a bad liar.

Since there was no light around me and my camera was in auto mode, the shutter remained opened for a second more than I would have liked it to. It’s nothing more than a woman passing by without any regard for my artistic pursuits. Couldn’t she have spotted me and stopped for just one second?

So there you have it. A nifty little trick for you to freak out your posse. Enjoy!

 

Photo Tricks: The Magic of Desaturation

Ever seen photos with just a little splash of color while the rest of it is in grayscale? It’s a neat little trick photo-editors use to make certain elements of the image ‘pop’. I have tried using it successfully for quite some time now but the results still never fail to mesmerize me. All you do is use the ‘Select tool’ to make a clean selection of the region you want to keep, ‘Inverse’ your selection to select the area that needs to be converted to gray, and using a ‘Desaturation Mask’, bring the saturation levels all the way down. Here is a little example to show my point. Do give this a try and let me know how yours turned out!

After the treatment

 

The original shot

 

Light Painting Basics

Over the years, especially with the advancement in digital imaging, I have seen some amazing photographs using lights as paintbrushes on very high shutter speeds. This was my first formal trial (with a DSLR) and I thought the results could have been better, had my daughter not been chasing me around while I was ‘painting’ with light. Anyways, the photos below shows how easily one can coordinate his/her movements to make interesting effects. If you own a DSLR camera, you can have fun with these techniques too in just a few simple steps:

1. Get a hold of some LED or Laser lights; these seem to work best as the light emitted from these is relatively focused on one point. Having said that, I suggest you try using some other light sources, like toys, to get some really interesting outputs.
2. Set your DSLR camera to Shutter Priority mode (S mode), and choose a shutter speed; you may need to experiment a little with the speeds depending on what you are trying to paint, but generally, anything between 10″ and 30″ should do the trick. Remember: the higher the shutter speed, the more time you get to paint on one exposure.
3. Set up your camera right in front of a dark wall, and take a test shot with the room lights open to gauge the ‘canvas’ area that you’ll be getting to do the painting.
4. Turn off all the lights in your room; stand in front of a relatively dark wall, if possible, so as to eliminate any light bouncing back from it.
5. Press the shutter release button, run and take position in front of the camera.
6. Paint your heart out till you hear the shutter close again, signified by a barely audible click.

It was about 12 am when I started and I went through with it even though I could see my wife’s angry gaze piercing through me. So naturally, I wanted to write ‘I love you’ for this test to show my wife that I loved her more than I loved my camera. Then midway through the shoot, I decided it was more interesting to draw a heart and write the word ‘love’ in the center. I took these four photos in sequence at shutter speeds between 10 and 15 seconds, and the end-result was not bad at all, given that it was my first time (kind of). Enjoy!

First Attempt

Second Attempt

Third Attempt

Fourth Attempt

Here are a few other images I have done using my Nikon D7000 DSLR as well as my trusty old Cybershot DSC-W130, and they were creating using some of my daughter’s toys.

Outta Control

One of my daughter’s favorite toys – may it rest in peace (or should I say ‘pieces’?)

Cacophony

 

Fun With Lightroom’s HSL and Split Toning Features

Original Image

I have been using Adobe Lightroom for over a year now and the software never ceases to amaze me. At times, I just find myself opening random images to see how tweaking various settings affects my photo. HSL (short for Hue, Saturation and Luminosity) and Split Toning are perhaps my two most favorite tools and you will shortly see why.

In layman’s terms, think of HSL and Split Toning as something you do to recolor your images, increase the strength of some colors, and desaturate others. All I can say is that these features are a lot of fun. I don’t want to bore you with all the technical mumbo-jumbo, so even if you are an amateur wishing to digitally enhance your photos, Adobe Lightroom is the software to have. The learning curve is pretty steep (please take the literal meaning of this phrase i.e. easy to learn) so you should be up and running as soon as you install it.

Without further ado, here are a few examples. Hope they please your eyes. Enjoy!

Decreased saturation on yellow-green-orange components

Split-toning for a more dramatic effect

Desaturating everything but Aqua

Note: The image was taken at Wafi Mall, Dubai, UAE using a mere Sony Cybershot DSC-W130, which, by the way, is a great camera for beginners.

 

Trick Photography – Faux-Multiple Exposures

Ever wondered how photographers show multiple instances of people/things in a single photograph? It’s an age-old photography trick made easier with the recent advancements in digital imaging and tools like Adobe Photoshop. Here’s a primer that will get you started right away.

————

You will need:

• A tripod
• DSLR Camera (some basic digital cameras may work too)
• Adobe Photoshop (even 6.0 or 7.0 will work)
• A subject willing to be your sacrificial goat

Steps:

1. Make sure the place you are working has a constant amount of light; windows are a definite no-no, esp. in cloudy weather.
2. Mount your camera on a tripod.
3. Set your lens such that it allows you to focus manually.
4. Set the camera to manual mode; set the aperture as well as the shutter speed appropriate for the scene.
5. Take one image of the background without the subject – let’s call this image A.
6. Now, take as many images as you want of the subject in different locations (ideally with different dresses).
7. Once completed, open up a new PSD file in Adobe Photoshop.
8. As the first (base) layer, import the background image (i.e. image A).
9. Now, import all the other images.
10. Using the selection tool, cut out the different variations of the subject on the scene and delete the rest of the image area.
11. You may have to do some minor brightness/contrast adjustments on the subject but all in all, the effect should be fairly believable; your image is now ready.

Here are a few samples I did; the results could have been cleaner had I invested more time/effort into them, but I suppose I did an OK job.

Enjoy!