2010 Spring Shanghai Workshop

I am happy to announce 2010 Spring Shanghai Workshop is open for sign up.

Location: Shanghai, China.
Dates: Mar 30th -- Apr 4th, 2010
Cost : USD988 (Instruction fees, local transportation and lodging included)
Workshop Limit: 6 people
More information and sign up at: http://www.chinaphotoworkshop.com

William Yu

Shooting Bird's Nest - Make The Best of Any Situation

On a recent trip to China, I got a chance to pay a visit to the National Stadium-"Bird's Nest", where 2008 Olympic Opening ceremony was held.

It's a cold week day afternoon in the winter, I arrives at the stadium around 5:00pm, the air is hazy and heavy. To my disappointment, all adjacent areas around the Bird's Nest are closed to public due to a Formula-One car racing event at the stadium that evening. Well, I just lost a great amount of point of views to shoot Bird's Nest as planned. Only one venue is open-the promenade in front of the stadium where tourists gather. I have no choice but going there and make the best of the situation.

As I am walking down the promenade, trying to find a good shooting position, the Bird's Nest went alive-the beautiful red and yellow lights lit up the whole stadium. I am filled with joy at the moment! What a roller coast ride-from disappointment to excitement. Usually, Bird's Nest is not fully lit every evening. Thanks to the car racing event, it's fully lit and I am here with my workhorse Canon 5D II, my 24-70mm and 70-200mm lens. Time to shoot.

I make a couple of wide angle shots, as shown above. To me, the images are just plain snaps, weak on energy and expression. What really caught my eyes is the lines, the curves and of course, the colorfulness of the stadium against the deep blue evening sky. Wide angle lens is definitely the wrong tool of choice to express these design elements in the photo, wide angle image includes too many distractions in the foreground like people, fences, trees, etc.

With the pre-visualized image in mind, I switch to 70-200mm lens and walk as close to the stadium as possible(leaning on the fences). At 200mm, I turn my camera and shoot the above images. You can clearly see the colors, curves, lines and textures. No distraction at all. By twisting the camera, I compose the image in which, the lines and curves run diagonally, making the image more dynamic and energetic. As rule of thumb, never forget to shoot both horizontal and vertical. It's a good habit and practice, particularly if you shoot stock images.

Tip: Although most of our images are shot in color these days, it's a good idea to think about the good old black and white from time to time. Especially, when you shoot a lot of night scenes or high contrast images, these are perfect candidates for black and white conversion. An excellent tool that does black and white conversion easily and gracefully, is Silver Efex Pro from Niksoftware, a plug-in for both photoshop and lightroom. The above images are the result of black white conversion using Silver Efex Pro.

Overall, Although I lost chances to shoot from different point of views of the Bird's Nest, I managed to make the best efforts within the limits of the situation, and got some decent images. As photographers, we have to adapt and adjust to whatever the situation are throwing at us, and make the best of it.

William Yu
www.chinaphotoworkshop.com

Making Portraits

Last week, I got opportunity to shoot portraits of different people in different settings at Paso Robles, California. Here are some tidbits:

1. The Couple:

As my friend and I were walking in a park at dusk, we come across a young couple cuddling on the chair. They gracefully accept our offer to take couple of pictures of them. I set up a westcott 43" umbrella(in shoot-through mode) and my Canon 580ex II on a light stand, about 5 feet away from the couple, at about 8 o'clcok position to the camera left. I used 70-200mm IS canon telephoto lens to isolate their faces. Both the camera and the flash are in manual mode, and the flash is triggered by pocketwizard transceiver. As my friends are chatting with them, I quickly tested the flash exposure, and made some adjustment. Suddenly, the couple is laughing hard, I seized the moment by clicking away a dozen shots. The above image is one of my favorite.

2. Sophia in the shower room:

This time, my assignment is to shoot a beautiful model Sophia, at the bathroom in a gorgeous Victorian House.  After some brainstorm, got an idea. I have her put a towel around the head, standing in the bathtub, pretending just finishing the shower. (Thank God, she didn't mind to mess up her hair with the towel). There is no room for light stand, but fortunately, I have my friend Martin as VAL (voice activated light stand), and he is over 7 feet tall. I put a Canon 580ex II and 43" shoot-through umbrella on a small Bogen Nano light stand, and Martin held it high to the right of Sophia, I took couple shots, the light wrapped around her nicely.

3. Abducted by UFO:

Sean, Steve and I were wandering around in a park at sunset, we found couple of big electrical boxes, and decided to use them as interesting background. After some test shots, an idea came to me, I like to make some cold vs warm contrasty shots. First, I set my camera white balance to tungsten(it makes daylight blue), then I put one canon flash on top of the electrical box with head facing down.  The key light comes from a flash(with a full CTO gel attached to the head) on 43" shoot-through umbrella to my right.  I also had steve hand-held a snooted flash pointing to Sean's right ear. All 3 flashes are triggered by pocketwizard. Lastly, It's Sean's turn to make some faces and poses, and he was really good at it, you can clearly see the result here.

William

The Village in the Painting

Do you remember the beautiful sceneries in the movie "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". I have recently visited the village where some of those impressive scenes of the movie were shot.

The village name is "Hong", it's about 6-hour-drive away from Shanghai. The ancient architectures in the village are well preserved, and it has been designated by United Nations as World Cultural Heritage Site. The entire village forms the shape of a bull and has unique ancient irrigation systems, providing waters to entire village. It's so gorgeous and peaceful that it is called "The Village In the Painting".

Frankly, this village is photographer's paradise. For portrait photographers, it's perfect place for environmental portraits, shooting local people in their living environment. For architectural photographers, the culturally distinctive "Hui" style houses and interior designs are presenting limitless opportunities. For landscape photographers, the village skyline, the lake at the front and the pound in the middle of the village are a few highlights among endless picture perfect spots. Spring and Fall are the best time for photography here, In late March, the canola plant(shiny yellow) and peach trees(pinky red) are in full blossom all around the village, and in late September, fall colors are surrounding the village. Well, I missed both seasons this time, but to me, no matter what time I come, this village is always beautiful.

I only have 2 lenses with me this time, Canon 24-70mm and Sigma 8mm fisheye. The fisheye is the new member of my camera bag, and I have fun with it. To use this lens properly, I have to focus really, really close to the subject, only few inches away. Another interesting observation of the image taken by this lens on a full frame camera: you will see the barrel wall of the lens in your image!

I will definitely come back to village again. This short trip is just the beginning, I would like see it through my camera in drizzle, in a cloudy day, in the fog, in the spring, in the fall, etc...


This image was shot at early morning with Sigma 8mm fisheye, a lady brought out these baskets of vegetables, prepared for farmers' market. You can see clearly the screw lines on the barrel of the lens.


Early in the morning, someone is drying a basket of freshly made tofu on the side the pound in the middle of the village.


This is the typical courtyard of a "Hui" style house. I took a couple exposures with Sigma 8mm fisheye and created this HDR image.


A early morning shot of withering lotuses, at the lake in the front of the village.


A fisheye shot at the entrance bridge to the village.

Click here for more Hong Village images of this trip.

The HDR image of Good Old Town of Xitang

What a View!, originally uploaded by Chinaphotoworkshop.

China is developing fast by means of modernization and urbanization. However, I saw enough evidence of those, and really hope to find the traditional cultural side of China. During a short trip to China in late November, I visited couple of well preserved ancient towns, Xitang is one of them.

I brought my Canon 5D, and 3 lenses: Canon 24-70mm, 70-200mm, and Sigma 8mm fisheye. It's a day-time visit to Xitang, The Sun is strong and shadow is harsh, the actual dynamic range is beyond the camera sensor's capability for a single well exposed image. You have to either sacrifice the highlight detail or shadow detail (The structures on the left bank would have been very dark if the structures on the right bank are exposed correctly). But this is the perfect opportunity to try out High Dynamic Range image, standing on a bridge, with camera on the tripod and focal length of 24mm, I made total of 7 exposures at with 1 stop difference on each. The darkest exposure shows the shadow detail and the lightest exposure shows the highlight detail of the sky.

At home, I imported all 7 exposures into Photomatix Pro, created a HDR image, then processed it through detail enhancer, and brought it back to photoshop and made some curves tweak, here you go. This is the final image.

Here are more HDR images of beautiful Xitang: