Tutorial - Exposure compensation - Frigiliana, Costa del Sol, Spain

I think that these Mediterranean whitewashed villages present great opportunities for photographer. The blue sky compliments the white wall perfectly and the buildings and alleyways form a maze of lines and shapes creating interesting perspectives. I took a couple of pictures from this viewpoint, one of them with exposure compensation where the aperture was opened up by about 1 f stop. This of course is the opposite of what what you might think, but what happens is that the light is so bright that the camera is fooled into making the image a little darker than normal. The same thing happens with bright sunshine on snow or on a white sandy beach. So this can be compensated for by either opening the aperture up by 1 f stop, or by using the exposure compensation control, or by activating the bracketing feature on the camera, which then takes about three images: on standard and one opened up and one closed down by one f stop. Alternatively, a dark photo may be rescued by using Photoshop and going into Image/Auto Contrast or by using Images/Curves.

Mediterranean lamp

I just love these Mediterranean lamps and so I isolated this one using my zoom lens so that it is picked out against the white walls of the surrounding buildings. A simple composition yet it has a minimalist attractiveness about it.

Coffee time

Here is another vacation photo just captured on the spur of the moment. Part of the skill of photography is learning to 'see' or frame a group of elements out of a wider panoramic view. I thought that this had all the elements that I wanted: the blue sky, the sea in the background, together with the formality of the white balustrade and table and parasol contrasted with the relaxed couple sitting on the chairs. An evocative image of Mediterranean sun. This photo has been cropped slightly to increase the focus on the subject and I guess if I really wanted to improve this picture, then I would pixel clone the sea over the person watching from the other side of the balustrade at the bottom right of the picture.

Valetta boat

Valetta boat, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Opportunistic shot of this man on his boat in Valetta harbour, Malta. The unbrella on the boat gives this shot that little extra bit of character.

Valetta Harbour, Malta

Valetta Harbour, Malta, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Late afternoon shot of Valetta from the harbour. I love this shot. It was an opportunistic one taken while on a boat trip around the harbour, but for me, it has just come together. The light is fantastic, which when combined with these buildings, gives an almost renaissance painting feel to the image. It was taken about four o'clock in the afternoon in mid September, as the sun was lower in the sky. This means that the light is 'warmer', because more red light gets through whereas the the harsher, U.V. light, which can be picked up as giving a cold, blue cast to the picture, does not penetrate the atmosphere so much as it does at midday. Because the light is less harsh, shadows are softer. becasue the sun is lower in the sky, there is more texture and character highlighted on the buildings.

malta boat sunrise

malta boat sunset, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Early morning boat ride. A contre-jour or into the light image. The automatic exposure based on the camera light meter reading was used for this shot. Care has to be taken that points of interest, in this case the boat, do not go too far into the shadow or dark areas of the picture. This sort of image depends upon strong shapes.

Malta hotel sunbeds

Malta hotel sunbeds, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Early morning shot of hotel sunbeds. It was the symmetry and colour that caught my eye here on an early morning walk around the hotel grounds. Notice again that the focal point, the point where the sunbeds disappear into the distance, makes use of the principle and proportion of thirds. It is also important when taking this sort of shot to get it as 'square' as possible, that is, to make sure that verticals are truly vertical and that the horizon does not 'slope' at an angle.

Malta hotel sunbeds 2

malta hotel sunbeds 2, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Contre-Jour shot of hotel sunbeds. I love into-the-light or contre-jour images. I guess they have a similarity to the minimalist images eleswhere on this blog. Contre-jour images tend, like minimalist shots, to be simple and uncluttered, but whereas in minimalist shots, use might be made of bold colour, in contre-jour shots, use is made of bold shapes, which are usually silhouettes. It can be quite useful to obscure the sun in these kinds of images, as I have here by hiding it behind a flagpole. Nothing else was done with this image, it was taken using the camera meter reading as it was.

Malta

malta, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Hotel balcony in Malta. Another of my favourite style of minimalist pictures. Here again I am using the principle of thirds to divide up the shot. What I like about this picture is it's near abstract geometric quality and the balance of colour with the blue sky being balanced out by the blue in the wall and the colour of the clouds being also balanced by the ivory colour of the wall. I also like the way the straight lines of the wall are counterpointed by the curves of the globe light (the main focal point) and the bowl. The only after-treatment to this shot was a little cleaning up in Photoshop using pixel cloning to remove the odd blemish on the wall and floor, and an increase of colour saturation in Image/Adjust/Hue-Saturation.