Photojournalism From A Student’s Eye

Recently I began the task of scanning in all of my family’s old photographs. Digitizing decades worth of photographs is a daunting task for anyone, but then what does one do with all of these digital images once they have been ingested? Do you scan them in only to have them sit in a folder on a hard drive, just as inaccessible as when they were in a box in the closet?

For my purposes, I decided to used Flickr to create and manage my family’s photo archive. Now, as you know, one downside of Flickr is that users are only allowed to display the 200 most recent images/videos if they have a free account (which I do).

However, I was able to get around this, and actually make my archive much, much more functional, by creating a Flickr group as well. As you can see, the group currently has 400+ images in its pool, well over the 200 image limit of a free account.

Another major plus to using a Flickr group for your photo archive is the About/Group Description area. This area lets you write a description of your group with the option to include some html. It is the html that makes this so useful, as I can include links to tags for dates, locations, people, etc. Sure you could just search for tags with the search bar at the top, but that assumes you know which tags are in use. It also assumes that you know how to use the search bar (and will search for photos/tags within the group and not, say, in all of Flickr or in your own photostream) which is not a given when you are trying to share the archive with some less computer savvy relatives.

Lastly, you can’t tell, but I did not change the names of my images. They have been set to be numbered sequentially as they are scanned in. I then write the range of numbers on the envelop of the physical once they photos have been scanned and placed back in the envelop for storage. That way, if ever someone wants a print of a particular image, or for some reason needs a high-resolution scan, I can simply view the image number and find the proper envelop (they are being stored sequentially as I finish each one) to access the correct photograph.

Another foray into the world of DIY photography, this time the tutorial comes from the Digital Photography School web site and involves using items that you can find around the house to set up a make-shift product photography studio. In emulating the set-up, I used two white cutting boards, a silver reflective surface (in my case, aluminum foil), clear soda for bubbles, and a cd jewel case as for the small reflection under the product.

More examples:

Back when I was attending San Jose State, one of my favorite workshops was the lighting workshop that alum Glenn Matsumura would hold once a year. In the journalism department, and without any photographic background, I was never exposed to any lighting specific classes (my own fault for not taking one through the art department). When the lighting workshop rolled around, it gave me a chance to play around with toys that were unfamiliar; grids, ring flashes, dynalite kits that weren’t broken…

One of my favorite tools to play with was the grid spot. Unfortunately, now that I am out of school, I no longer have the access to the kits there, and I can’t afford my own kit. Luckily, there are some great DIY photoblogs out there, and more than a few ways to build your own grid for your strobe.

I ended up following a post on DIYPhotography.net which utilized corrugated plastic for the grid.

I ended up making two versions, one that was 3cm in length, and another that was 6cm in length. Though the light that was coming out of the grid was definitely more controlled, for some reason I could not achieve the nice circle shape seen in a test using a grid made from black straws. Instead, when shot against a wall, there was a definite rectangular pattern with half-circles coming out of each side. Below are the photos from both the 3 inch and 6 inch versions.

Other DIY grid tutorials:

cardboard
black straws
honeycomb grid

The honeycomb grid is actually an air straightener from a company called saxonpc. They have since realized that there is a market in the photo world for their product and sell grid kits.

I’ve been playing around in Photoshop and Lightroom recently, in an attempt to better know the programs, color, etc. One of my favorite tutorials so far has been Scott Kelby’s tutorial on “Getting That Cool Gritty Look.” Yep, the one all the cool kids are doing, and without having to purchase some overpriced plug-in like LucasArt ($279 – $359).

Kelby lays out the steps to achieve the look as follows:

* Recovery = 100
* Fill Light = 100
* Blacks = Drag this slider to the right until photo looks balanced again, because setting the Fill Light at 100 will wash the photo out big time. In our example, I dragged it to 24
* Contrast = 100
* Clarity = 100
* Vibrance = 100
* Saturation = -81 (basically what I do here is drag the saturation all the way to the left, to -100 (which removes all color, making it a black and white image), and then I slowly drag back to the right until some of the color starts to return to the image.

This can be done in either Adobe Camera Raw, or in the develop section of Lightroom. He also recommends adding a vignette, under the lens correction settings, and softening the skin on the face with a Gaussian Blur and layer mask.

Here are a few that I did: