Hello everybody, this is Ty Schwartz with Snap Lens Photography and Educational
Services.
We are driving the back roads of Texas.
We're just on the outskirts of Kaleen, Texas.
And I'm trying to think of a way to describe what I'm going to go about doing
today.
And one of the things that I love about being a photographer is I don't have to
pigeonhole myself into one certain genre in photography.
What I do like is when I have an idea, I can kind of vet the idea.
So today, our topic of subject is we're going to do some landscape photography.
We're going to shoot probably vertical.
We're going to probably shoot some HDR, drag the shutter a little bit so I can get
some silky smooth water.
I'm going to do some freezing of the shutter speed or speed up the shutter
speed so I get frozen.
I might, I haven't decided if I'm gonna take a flash and introduce a portrait.
It seems like a lot of work because we're gonna end up hiking about a mile and a
half into where the waterfall's at.
We're gonna be at Grand Bend, I'm sorry, not Grand Bend, it's Colorado Bend State
Park.
It's a beautiful state park here in the state of Texas.
And I thought this would be something really interesting to go and talk about
and show video -wise for.
YouTube and also our educational services.
I thought this would be a great course to talk about how we came up with the idea
and how we created the image, how we edited the image, and how we get it set up
for printing it out and hanging it on a wall.
So today's going to be just basically landscaping day.
I think tomorrow or maybe Friday, I think Friday we're playing golf.
So I might not be doing photographs on Friday, but I'm thinking about...
tomorrow doing a portrait session and one of the things that I'm going to like about
this portrait session is it's going to be completely different from other things
that I've done.
It's not a high school senior portrait.
It's kind of a young adult tween, sixth grader, and another little girl who's in
second grade, eight years old.
Well, we're going to have a little bit of fun because in Texas right now, the blue
bonnets are blooming like crazy and there's tons of beautiful wildflowers that
I'm seeing all over the place.
So my idea kind of is to create an image with these beautiful flowers.
But at the same time, I'm going to introduce a clear umbrella.
I got some ball pit balls and I'm going to use the ball pit balls as raindrops.
And then from there, I'm going to try to freeze the balls and also drag the shutter
so I get some type of movement on the balls.
I haven't figured out all the details on that yet, but I think it's a good idea and
I think we're going to have a little bit of fun with it.
Plus, we have ball pit balls that we can throw at each other later on.
Okay, so as I was talking about, so just in two days, I'm doing portraits, I'm
doing landscape, and...
One of the things that I do like about the way I create images is when I travel, I'll
do travel photography, purposely set up for stock photography that I can upload to
stock photography.
I do love focusing on fine artsy high school senior portraits.
I think that's a very interesting because with high school seniors, you have such
uniqueness and variety of personality types.
And one of the things I've always...
disliked about high school senior portraits is the fact that it was Virginia
Beach and one of the things that I've always disliked about just doing generic
photography is just following somebody around, having them smile, take their
picture.
That's a lot of work and to me there's not a lot of thought process into it.
So I like to take studio lights.
I like to add elements of texture and shape and design.
and I want to create and plan out a portrait image.
I just don't want to, oh, let's go take a picture and then walk outside and take a
picture.
Now, of course, we can do that.
As a photojournalist, I did it for years.
Hey, I need you to go over here.
We need to tell a story.
We need to create these images.
And that's not a problem, but that's not studio lights.
That's working as a photojournalist.
And by working as a photojournalist, we're looking at the elements and the purity and
the environment.
And then we're moving to the sun.
We're selecting lenses to work with the lighting situation, also the angles of
what we're shooting at.
So for this shoot that's coming up out at the waterfall, I don't know exactly what
I'm going to need.
So I brought a 70 to 200 zoom lens.
I brought my portrait lens.
I always bring my portrait lens lately because I have been photographing and
creating portrait landscape items.
And I'm thinking that maybe today I'll use that just for a little bit of fun And then
I also brought out the 24 to 70 millimeter Now when I do shoot landscapes I tend to
shoot them vertically and When I do shoot them vertically I will shoot an
underexposure by one overexposure by one I'll shoot a perfectly good exposure, and
then I'll create an HDR, but I don't really
create like a heavy heavy handed HDR it's more of I want to get a lot of details
into the shadows and I want to capture the highlights so by underexposing I'm
grabbing the highlights.
Well today is an extremely clear day in Texas it's very bright so we're going to
get a lot of glowing from the ground and I'm going to end up doing probably a five
to seven.
exposure exchange.
So I'll go almost two stops under, two stops over, one stop over, one stop under,
and then perfectly exposed.
That way I get as much highlights and shadows as I can, but it also depends on
which situation is that I get there to the location.
But yeah, so really everything is light dependent.
I have my light meter with me, so I'm going to take a couple light meter
readings.
I'm going to adjust.
ambient lighting.
One of the things that is disappointing about today is there's no clouds.
Did you notice there's no clouds?
There's no clouds.
So we're going to get some if we if we photograph and include the sky we're going
to have to think about maybe adding clouds later on in the image.
And I think at one point I am going to talk about using the generative fill.
Adobe Photoshop because I think the gender fill is a great tool if it's used
correctly and used the correct terminology and terms, but I also have photographs of
Clouds that I can always add into it when you do have a deep blue sky like this it's
really easy to add clouds and make a match nicely because there's not a lot of Heavy
contrast or what we call haloing around the clouds that you would get
that's that's kind of my thought process there - but I just wanted to talk
generally you know what kinds of photography I liked and - thought
processes as I'm getting ready to go out for a photo shoot what I'm thinking about
- some of the things I'm thinking about case we talk about my lenses so I have the
eighty millimeter at the twenty four to seventy I have the seventy dot two hundred
millimeter - I think if I would have went with a - seventeen to thirty five.
think I would have.
Basically carry too many lenses I always carry too many lenses to begin with.
I've stopped shooting with the super wide lens on landscapes - after listening to a
great photographer - on landscape photography - Dennis Hammond.
He talked about how he photographed a lot of things using these two hundred -
seventy to two hundred millimeter lens - so I started shooting a little bit more
like that.
over the last couple of years because I do like shooting vertical.
I do a 20 % overlap and by doing that 20 % overlap it allows me to adjust and create
that solid, beautiful, landscaped image.
I set it up for perspective and I'm not worried about too much when it comes to
that.
Now I don't do more than two or three left or right.
So I'll do one in the center, one to the right, one to the left.
Anything more than that, I think it becomes too skewed.
But especially when you're shooting horizontal, sorry, vertical.
So there's that, when it comes to that.
Now, I will sometimes move with my feet, but I try to stay within the same
perspective and not do too much with the changes.
So that's, I think, is an interesting concept right there.
The other thing that I did today is I brought a heavy tripod.
I need to get a travel tripod that's way lighter.
I think I'm going to end up going carbon fiber so I don't break my back on a
regular basis carrying this thing around.
I have been pretty dedicated to the brand names of the equipment that I've used.
So I'll probably stick with that.
I don't know exactly what I'm going to do on that yet.
So...
Between the camera, I'm going to use a Nikon D850.
Basically just kind of light meter read, take some photographs, talk about depth of
field, we're going to do some rack focusing.
I want to create some things that are at the foreground.
I want to create some movement on the waterfalls.
I'll be able to talk about the exposure triangle a little bit, which I think is a
very interesting topic, exposure triangle.
in general.
Okay, so that's going to be it for this idea and thought on this podcast.
Definitely if you're interested and you like what you're here, please leave a
comment.
Go to SnapLens .com or you can go to SnapLens .blog.
Check us out, like us.
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If you'd like to learn about something, I would love to share my ideas and thoughts
behind some things that I've learned in photography over the last 40 years.
All right, have a great day.
My name is Ty Swartz, and I want to thank you for listening.