Turning up the Awesome.

by Joe

You can use any camera to take this shot. All you need is a lot of light, a timer on the camera and a sense of knowing when your camera takes the picture.

1) I set the camera on the ground or on a small tripod (I have a gorillapod)
2) I set the timer on the camera to be audible
3) I pre-focus my camera to the tip of my shoes, then set the camera to manual focus mode so it doesn’t change. I also don’t change the location of where I stand.
4) I take practice shots of jumping at the right moment when the camera takes the picture (this is mastered over time!)
5) It’s best to use a prime lens on your DSLR (if you have one) so you can use the widest aperture to achieve selective focus (I use f/1.4 to 1.8)
6) You need 1/640s shutter speed if you’re not using flash. If there’s lots of light it’s not a problem. IF you are inside a room, you may have to use flash, or crank up the ISO.

What inspired me? Well, I used to take a lot of these photos when I did my 365 Days project. I do it when I’m particularly very happy and since it was my birthday, I thought it was time to do it again.

Exposure: 1/4000
Aperture: f/1.4
ISO: 200

Doesn’t that bokeh look fabulous!?

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by Joe

This place is located by Lake Biwa (the biggest lake in Japan), it is a kind of theme park whose motif is the scene of the village landscape of Netherlands. I was lucky enough to visit this fantastic place just when the tulips were in full bloom and on such a sunny day.
I took this by GR Digital, the point and shoot camera. One of the great points of this compact camera is the expression of lucidness of the blue sky. I think GRD succeeds to render the subtle blue in this photo.
This composition is so natural for me. Trying to capture the whole shape of the windmill and tulips, I set the camera on the ground and cast up. Accordingly, this photo gets the effect of “how ants see the world”.
And I did post processing via Adobe Lightroom. I modified color temperture a bit and lifted chroma saturation up in a way. No cropping. During the post processing, I just paid attention to keep the image that I had felt when I took, the smell of the ground, the warmth of the air, the ray of the sun shining on the flowers, etc.

This is such a great shot! Composition is fantastic, perspective is incredible, and the colors. WOW! The contrast of the blue sky against the pink tulips. Not to mention the magnificent structure and the forced perspective which makes the tulips look just as grand and massive as the windmill.

Here are some specs on the image:
Shutter: 1/1250
Aperture: f/3.2
ISO: 64

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by Damian

The Bacon Lettuce Photo team here has been working hard the past few weeks to bring you a better blog. We’re so grateful for all of the responses to our survey,  photos posted at the Bacon Lettuce Photo Flickr group, and feedback we’ve received via e-mail.  We’re dedicated to improving your reading experience, and nothing helps us do that more than hearing from you.

We would like to thank Bethany McGarry from McBeths Photography for allowing us to use her awesome photo of the Polaroid House at our new blog header. Bethany was featured at the 04/03/2009 Today’s Bacon. We hope you enjoy our new blog layout.

Mahalo for your support! We look forward to helping you fall in love with your photos again.

- The Bacon Lettuce Photo Team

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by Joe

I was inspired to do this piece because of a recent Art History lecture I had on Andy Warhol. Although most of his work isn’t done by himself, he was the first artist to really embrace ‘Hollywood plastic’, and question society itself. He loved the fakeness in Hollywood and loved the celebrity image and used it to send a message to people about the kind of masks people wear. So I was really inspired to create something about society, and how its never ending on how much they can criticize you and make you want to change everything about you. The technical aspect of the photo is this: AB800 with large softbox at 1/4 power to camera left. The editing is fairly simple, just some curves and color adjustments in Photoshop.

The soft lighting in this photo is what initially caught my eye. As Katie stated it was produced by using a softbox.

You can check out more Katie’s work on her flickr photo stream and her myspace.

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by Joe

I took the picture for my A-level exam, I had been working on legs and hiding the face in the project, this was the first shot I did in day light so it was a bit of a challenge for me. The lighting is all natural. Along with getting models half naked while people are doing their washing is pretty funny, it definitely drew attention to us. I don’t tend to be that inspired by artists but this image by one of my favorite photographers kind of got me thinking about newspapers. To recreate this you will need willing models, a location, and good sunlight.

I remember seeing this photo and instantly fell in love with it! So much going on, character, stories everywhere. The wonder if these girls are friends or what’s going on. Very nice Eleni, thank you for share and I hope you did well on your exam.

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