The Low Five is the Internet home of Atlanta-based photographer Steven Ricard. I work with both film and digital cameras. My primary cameras at the moment are a Canon Rebel T1i DSLR and a Minolta X-570 film camera, however, I have also been known to use pinholes, toy cameras, 1950s box cameras, and anything else I can get my hands on.
For information about my work or to schedule services, feel free to call me at 404.969.LOW5 (5695). Please use the Contact page to send me an email or to find additional ways that you can get in touch with me and/or find my work on the web.
Happy (belated) Worldwide Pinhole Camera Day! In celebration of the day, I was planning to make my first ever pinhole camera, but sadly, a stomach bug kept me from doing most of the things that I wanted to for more of the weekend. If you missed the date as well, this week’s recap features a list of 23 pinhole camera tutorials that you can do to make up for it. Also, check out some of the amazing photos that were entered in Adorama’s iPhone photo contest. Some of the photos are simply a sight to behold considering that they were taken and edited entirely on a cell phone.
Adorama iPhone Photo Contest – This isn’t really a Reader article like I normally post, but Adorama has announced the winners of its contest, and this something that’s definitely worth taking a look at if you’ve ever doubted that you can get great photos out of a cell phone. It’s a subject that I’m particularly interested in myself and I’m certain you’ll see some posts on it as the year goes on.
23 Pinhole Cameras That You Can Build at Home – In honor of Pinhole Camera Day, the wickedly awesome DIY Photography blog has provided links to an interesting assortment of free pinhole camera tutorials. I am ashamed to admit that I still haven’t ever attempted to create one of these, but I’ve already printed out one of the tutorials, and I’m going to make every effort to do it this week.
Quick Photo Boost – Here’s an easy little tip from Beyond Megapixels. If you’re looking for a quick and dirty way to enhance the colors of a photo, simply duplicate the layer in your image editor and apply an overlay with a half strength opacity. I’ve tried this on a couple of my images this past week, and although the difference is only slight it is noticeable. I’ve done some comparisons with folks as well, and they unanimously selected the “enhanced” photos as being better.
Become a Master of Your (Photography) Niche – I’ve written in the past on the need to find your photographic style and this post from Photopreneur goes right along those lines. If you’ve been coming to this site for any length of time, you’ve probably noticed how I’ve struggled to reach where I am now in my own development of this idea, but I think we’re finally on the right path and I look forward to building on the tips listed here.
BeetleCam Shoots African Wildlife Up Close – PetaPixel is an always dependable source for this post each week, but this is probably one of my favorite posts. The BeetleCam provides such a unique angle for viewing wildlife that we probably wouldn’t have otherwise been able to see. I would definitely recommend visiting the full BeetleCam site, as well as following them on Flickr.
Flower photography--a ton of photography opportunities right outside my front door.
Family issues kept me away for most of the week last week, so I didn’t get much of my normal reading in, and I’m still trying to play catch up on my work work. Here’s a sampling of some of the posts that I did manage to see and made note of for your viewing pleasure (and my future reference).
The Art of Flower Photography – Flower photography is easily one of my favorite photographic subjects (nodoubt, you’venoticed), primarily because I have so much of it around my own home so I don’t have to leave the house to get some colorful photos. Over at The Discerning Photographer, there’s an entire post dedicated to the art, and I highly recommend anyone interested in this subject matter to take a look at it. He’s got some gorgeous photos to go along with some excellent tips.
The Definitive List of Online Photography Magazines – More so than any other subject matter, when it comes to photography, I try to read just about everything that I can get my hands on, and I took this post from The Photo Argus like kids to candy. If you’re looking to add some new feeds to your Reader or just take a look at what others are doing in the art, check out some of the sites from this list. You won’t be disappointed.
Inexpensive Lighting Solutions – This is the type of post that I live for, and the folks at Beyond Megapixels certainly delivered the goods with this one. In this quick list, they offer an assortment of different lighting options each well below the $25 mark. This is what quality photography on the cheap is all about.
The Most Spectacular Sun View to Date – Like many people, I am both fascinated and dumbfounded by anything space related, and this high resolution photo of the Sun on Gizmodo is simply stunning. My 4 year old keeps telling me that she wants to go space, and if that happens, I will be one proud (and extremely jealous) father.
Stabilize Your Camera with Some PVC Pipe – Sometimes people come up with things that are just so simple, that it’s amazing that no one else as come along and done it already. This weight support using PVC pipe over on PetaPixel is one of those things.
I’ve been getting burned out from reading so much on technique lately, and I think this list of posts shows this somewhat since the majority of these are not about technique for a change. Of particular interest is this video of Japanese sumo wrestling taken in tilt-shift. It’s an extremely unique way of looking at the world, and probably more than any other method really shows just how small we are in the world.
How to take vacation photos – I’m not quite sure how it happened, but at some point last week I stumbled upon the Make the Photo blog and I’m certainly glad that I did. Their most recent post about vacation photos is choke full of tips that I wish I had before our last vacation last summer, and as the post points out this information is good for shooting in any location, including your own backyard.
Sumo Wrestling in Tilt-Shift and Time-Lapse – This video courtesy of PetaPixel isn’t something that I would normally check out or share, but this one was extremely interesting to watch, even though I couldn’t get the sound to work. The tilt-shifting of this just gives the entire thing an otherworldly feeling for me that goes beyond just the culture differences.
The Demise of Detroit As Seen by Six Photographers and One Painter – This post is from If It’s Hip, It’s Here, which is one of my favorite sites to follow that doesn’t normally apply to the world of photography. I’ve never been to Detroit, or anywhere in the state of Michigan for that matter, and this post shows quite a number of photos that show just how desolate and depressing parts of the city have become.
5 Tips for Parents – Same Old Location. New Inspiration – Over at the Digital Photography School comes this great post on ways to find the inspiration to take new and different photos of your children at your normal local haunts. My favorite tip here is to explore the surroundings of each location beyond what you normally might do. There are parts of our house that we rarely spend time in, so we could very easily put this into practice without going anywhere.
Still Life Photography – I had to include this one from Beyond Megapixels if for no other reason than the fact that it’s something that I’m hoping to develop my own skills and become better at doing. This particular post is more of a primer on what still life photography is than anything else, but it’s always nice to see what others are doing.
As an additional note, this morning PetaPixel provided a quick post on some free upcoming webinars that are being provided by Manfrotto. This week’s webinar will be on Thursday, April 8 from 2-3 pm and features Joe McNally, who will be discussing lighting with a single source. I highly recommend registering for this free event. For more information and to register go to www.manfrottoschoolofxcellence.com.
With the exception of the histogram primer, each of the subjects and posts listed here showed up on my reader on multiple outlets, which is certainly a testament to how useful and/or unique each of these items are. If you read only one post from this list, you’ll be doing yourself a favor for sure.
Print a Lens Hood for On-The-Cheap Sun Blocking – Lenshoods.net, this website, which was first linked by Lifehacker, provides dozens of free, printable lens hoods in PDF format for when you’re short on cash, time, and plastic, and if they don’t have the lens you’re looking for, they provide a custom hood generator so that you can create your own.
The Histogram – A Primer – Definitely on the more technical end of things when it comes to photography is the histogram, and the good folks at The Photo Argus have done a great job of providing a basic understanding of what the histogram is and what it’s used for. If you learn to read the histogram effectively, ensuring proper exposure will be a breeze every time.
How to Light Absolutely Anything – Yet another post that made the rounds last week was this excellent article over at The Discerning Photographer. Of the posts that I’ve listed here this week, this is probably the most important read for anyone looking to improve their photos.
Print a Cardboard 35mm Pinhole Camera – I’ve mentioned before that I’ve never made a pinhole camera, and part of the reason is that I’m scared it won’t work out and I’ll just get frustrated with it and won’t try again, but this project, shared by PetaPixel, just seems too easy to fail. I’ll be trying this one out tonight. Wish me luck!
I did quite a bit of reading, as well as caught up on some television, last week since the little one isn’t much of a night sleeper. This week’s list of posts features some sites that I rarely mention on TLF, but I’m glad to be able to do so now, and I hope that you’ll take the time to check out these sites as they have some great information.
How to develop your photographic style – I’ve been thinking and writing a lot about style recently and this article from The Discerning Photographer gave me even more to think about. Some of the new ideas that I took away from this were to study and read books by a master photographer in depth, as well as having at least three photographers review and honestly critique your best dozen photos.
Portraiture in Motion: How to take Striking Portraits in 15 Minutes or Less – I rarely do portraiture photography, and there’s two primary reasons for it. First, there’s a part of me that still questions my abilities to take decent photos and, although wasting my own time is one thing, wasting someone else’s time is entirely different. Secondly, I’ve felt like my home studio wasn’t quite ready for this type of photo shoot. This post from Digital Photography School has gotten me thinking differently about what is and is not possible, and how it doesn’t take an elaborate studio space to get great shots.
Finding the Right Creative Exposure – In this post from Your Photo Tips, we’re reminded that although we might have the proper settings to achieve a “correct” exposure, changing up your exposure settings could create a much more dynamic photo. If nothing else, this article reminds you to consider all of your options and how they affect your image when it comes to exposure rather than just making sure that those magic little figures all add up to balanced light exposure.
The essential photo equipment list – In a second post this week from The Discerning Photographer, we take a look inside the bag of a better photographer than myself. For myself, having two camera bodies and spending $1000-1500 on a lens of any kind are both completely out of the question, but I find it interesting to see what other people find as their minimum necessities and the reasons for it.
Vinyl Records at 1000x Magnification – I love my vinyl records. I’d love them even more if my record player was working, and didn’t need to be repaired/replaced. In the meantime, I’ll continue to look at the magnified images linked from this post from PetaPixel. If these photos don’t make you want to go out and do some macro photography, nothing else will.
