Hue...

OK, all you readers out there, this is third and final installment on color photography. The subject is Hue and together with Saturation and Brightness, it makes up the way that Photoshop "sees" your color photos. That is why these three channels, as they are called, are so important. Hue is the characteristic that is most closely recognized as "color". You might call is the shade of color you are working with. Hue is represented usually on a color wheel with 360 degrees. We all know the color wheel from grade school but this wheel has millions of colors on it! The color wheel shows clearly the relationship between complementary colors. In the image above, I have shifted the Hue clockwise (right) from standard (left). In the image below I have shifted the Hue a different amount counterclockwise. These clearly show why Hue = "color" in simple terms.
Next time I will have excellent images to post from Peru!

Saturation...

OK, next thing to know about color is a quality called saturation. Saturation can be thought of as how much the color is diluted with white. If I took yellow paint and mixed in white (or black) paint, then I would get less and less vibrant yellows. How much saturation is "natural" is a matter of individual eyesight. Usually, we tend to like photographs with at least some colors more saturated than in reality. Saturation is used to greatest effect in marketing where strong bright colors will draw attention long enough for a slogan to be read. In the photo above no explanation is necessary, from left to right saturation goes from high to zero.

Brightness...

Brightness
Copyright 2009 Matt Mortensen

OK, so that last post got me thinking, maybe not everyone understands what I mean by "pure" yellow. Furthermore, many of my friends don't know what that histogram on their digital camera means. It is not necessary to know these things to get good pictures, but you will get more consistent results if you do. I am going to start with 'brightness' or as it is sometimes called, 'value'. Brightness is what your histogram is telling you about and in an 8-bit JPEG image it can have values between 0 and 255. In the image above, the brightness varies from 0 on the left to 255 on the right. I removed all color to avoid distraction. Why that little histogram on your camera is so important is because any pixels that fall outside 0-255 have no information and thus you have not captured the full scene. Not to worry, brightness is the easiest value to change in photography by adjusting exposure time. As long as the scene you are photographing does not have really high contrast (more on this later), you should be able to get those pixels away from either end. One more thing...what we normally consider a "good" picture has areas of both pure black and pure white somewhere in the scene. If you get a histogram that does not stretch to the edges it is normally good to stretch the contrast later on the computer. Good luck!

Color and Culture....

This is one of my favorite pictures because it shows two aspects of color photography I find most appealing. The first is presenting intense colors as the actual subject of the photograph with the people acting as secondary subjects. The main subject in this image is the yellow purse. This is actually pure yellow which is the brightest color for human eyes. It is not seen on any large scale in nature but frequently on a small scale like daisy petals. The hue of the of the woman's sari on the right gives a nice balance to the saturated yellow purse. The second aspect is foreign culture and it goes hand in hand with the first because many cultures have a more intimate relationship with color than Americans. It is not uncommon for everyone in more rural cultures to know exactly what plant makes the dye for each color in their wardrobe. The concept of tacky or gaudy does not exist when the color of your attire immediately conveys a large amount of hard work or wealth in order to have such vibrant colors!

Wide-angle Perspective...

Island Retreat

Copyright 2009 Matt Mortensen

Wide-angle photography is by far my favorite; I would even say fish-eye shots are very attractive to me. Some very high-paid wedding photographers agree and many others disagree. It is all a matter of personal taste and it is better to match what the client wants, not what you want. Here's the skinny: Wide-angle lenses draw the viewer into the image and you can "feel" that the photographer was interacting with the subject. Portraits done in this way feel much more intimate when we look at them. Wide-angle also has the ability to show much of the surroundings of, say, a workplace. This provides context. In contrast, a telephoto lens (anything over 80 mm or so) has a compressed perspective, a sort of flattening effect. Viewing images taken with a telephoto lens also, for some people, give the feeling of intruding or spying from a long distance. I enjoy greatly interacting with people from all over the world and being part of their life for the moment so I like the perspective of wide-angle. The memory of interacting with such a unique character is my ultimate purpose and nothing captures it better than my 12-24 mm!

Local Heroes Watch - Angel

Give Blood

Copyright 2009 Matt Mortensen

How fitting that we kick off the Local Heroes Watch series with a wonderful woman named Angel! Angel and her fellow phlebotomists at the Red Cross blood donation center in Bloomington, MN save lives every day with their hard work. I have donated blood under the care of many people over the years but Angel was the best. I think she must have learned to be so caring AND strong in Chicago where she grew up. Angel's husband, a chemist at 3M, dragged her to the frozen tundra of Minnesota where they now have three children. Their oldest daughter will be graduating high school this spring at the amazing age of 16! She will be attending whichever Ivory League school is lucky enough to have her in the Fall. Angel shared her parenting philosophy with me--- Anybody can get A's if they work hard enough. Start with the kids early and get them used to studying hard. If they try their very best and get a B, that is just great-BUT NO slacker B's are allowed.---It is clearly working well for them. Congratulations, Angel, and thank you so much for doing the good that you do at home and at work!!

Please, if you have time, stop by your local blood donation center and save a life. Visit the Red Cross website to find a donation center near you. Who knows, you may be lucky enough to have an Angel helping you!

New Series on Dr. Matt's

I think that too often we are not able to see the good work that people are doing around us because our egos get in the way. Many people are so caught up in the hustle and bustle that they don't give compliments and thanks to the people they encounter each day. To make matters worse, the news each day is filled with people who swindle, embezzle and just plain bamboozle others for their own selfish benefit. Here at Dr. Matt's we know there are good people around every corner who never get on the news. So we have launched a new mission to seek out these do-gooders and drag them in front of our cameras and share their compelling stories with our readers. We are calling it Local Heros Watch and each new post will profile someone we feel you should know about. If you live in the greater Twin Cities Area and would like to nominate someone with a heart of gold, email us with your name and phone number and a summary of your local hero's deeds. Check back often, we're sure there will be a lot to read...

Before I take the decorations down...

Christmas Captured

Copyright 2009 Matt Mortensen

The decorations are still up so what the heck! One more Christmas image to post before I let the holiday season go until next year. This photograph is of a festive snowglobe that belongs to my mother. It has been in the family a really long time and I think this composition doe a great job preserving the keepsake for eternity. The lighting is what really sets this image apart. The setup is two lights, one constant light from above and another wireless flash from the rear and set back a distance to fill the whole galss sphere evenly. After image capture I adjusted the hue of the flash lit regions to remove some blue and sharpened up the tree a little in Photoshop. Enjoy!

New year, fresh outlook...

Josefkirche

Copyright 2009 Mat Mortensen

At the start of the new year I like to look back through old photos and reflect on how much has changed. Not only can I see where my skills have improved but I can also find a few gems during the process! The above image is an HDR which I would not have had the ability to create one year ago. I took the source .jpg images in Aachen with the hope that I would eventually get around to combining them. Voila!! The lower two images are images I made on one of my daily strolls through the "pedestrian zone" of Aachen.

Aachen Dusk

Copyright 2009 Mat Mortensen

I can see the aspects of composition in them know that I was not conscious of before. I have read so much about composition and design in the past 3 months that it allows me to make better photos but also see why previous images are compelling.

Afternoon Coffee

Copyright 2009 Mat Mortensen

There is no end to the creative outlet that is digital photography!! I expect to be making similar posts here for another 40 years!!

Happy New Year, feliz ano nuevo, und frohes Neues Jahr!

Copyright 2009 Ralph Husmann

Welcome 2009! It has been almost one full year for Dr. Matt's Blog and what a ride it has been. I want to say happy new year to all my friends across the globe. I hope this year is better than all the rest for each of you! I could not think of a better way to kick off the new year at Dr. Matt's than by posting some photos by my good friend Dutch photographer Ralph Husmann. On his frist visit to Berlin he really captured the feeling of the city with some compelling compositions.

Copyright 2009 Ralph Husmann

The image above is of course the Brandenburger Tor at night. Wow! I wish my visit to the gate would lasted until night; I would have loved to use my tripod and get some images for HDR manipulation! The bottom photograph is of a landmark that is maybe less familiar to most Americans. At least until recently, that is...Now people may recognize it as the backdrop for President-Elect Barack Obama's speech in front of a crowd of 200,000 people. This structure is Berlin's famous Siegessäule (Victory Column).

Copyright 2009 Ralph Husmann

The column was built to commemorate 19th Century Prussian military victories and originally stood in front of the Reichstag. Hitler and the Nazis moved the Siegessäule to the Tiergarten where it stands to the present day.