Adi Putras Bilder, die seiner Liebe zu Kino und Musik entspringen, sind oft von einem jenseitigen und filmischen Unterton geprägt. Seine visuellen Ausdrücke sind ein Versuch, ein Reich zu schaffen, das gleichzeitig in der Vorstellung und in der Realität existiert. Er spielt dabei mit dem Gefühl, das sich aus seiner eigenen Intuition ergibt, wenn es darum geht, eine ursprünglich nur flüchtige Vision zu verwirklichen.

Derzeit lebt und arbeitet Adi Putra in Tokio als freiberuflicher Fotograf und macht Videos. Seine Fotografien entstehen normalerweise ziemlich spontan, sofern nicht ein Projekt für Kund*innen etwas anderes verlangt. Er folgt gern einer gewissen nostalgischen Sehnsucht und tastet sich dabei intuitiv vorwärts.

Wenn Du nur in Deiner Vergangenheit lebst, kann es sein, dass Du die Realität vergisst. Manche werden meinen: „Blicke doch nicht zurück. Lass die Vergangenheit sein.“ Doch vielleicht ist es Deine Freude und Inspiration, Dich an die Dinge zu erinnern, die für immer vergangen scheinen. Vielleicht ist es Dein nostalgischer Traum.

Adi Putra wurde 1989 in Indonesien geboren. Das Filmemachen war seine Leidenschaft, weshalb er im Alter von 19 Jahren nach Amerika zog, um an der University of Southern California Film- und Fernsehproduktion zu studieren. Einen anständigen Film zu drehen ist allerdings teuer und mit viel Planungsarbeit verbunden.

Zumindest galt das für seine filmischen Visionen, sodass es für ihn schwer war, sein Studium und die Arbeit mit der knappen Zeit für persönliche Projekte in Einklang zu bringen. So versuchte er zunächst, seinen kreativen Ideen in Einzelbildern Ausdruck zu verleihen.

Seine Beziehung zur Fotografie entwickelte sich autodidaktisch, er suchte sich alte Kameras auf Flohmärkten. Zuerst nutzte er die Fotografie nur als ein Werkzeug der Selbsterkundung, um zu lernen und seine eigene künstlerische Ausdrucksweise zu verfeinern. Er verliebte sich dabei in das Medium und so wurde die Fotografie zu einer obsessiven Leidenschaft, der er seitdem folgt. Adi Putras Arbeiten findet Ihr auf seiner Webseite oder auf Instagram.

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Das Bild des Tages von: Gabi

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Bei den Aufnahmen, die man aus Google Earth kennt, denkt man nicht unbedingt sofort an künstlerische Fotografie, doch die kuratierten Satellitenaufnahmen des Projekts Google Earthview ändern das. Bevor ich näher darauf eingehe, wage ich aber erst einmal einen Blick zurück.

Google hatte mit seinem Projekt Google Earth im Jahr 2001 eine Software veröffentlicht, die es uns normalen Endanwender*innen möglich gemacht hat, Satellitenaufnahmen von fast allen Orten der Erde anzusehen.

Damals hatte ich noch überhaupt nichts mit der Fotografie am Hut, weiß aber noch sehr genau, wie das Programm meinen Computer in die Knie zwang und sich die Bilder nur sehr langsam auf meinem Bildschirm aufbauten – wenn sie es überhaupt taten.

Trotzdem habe ich nicht wenig Zeit in Google Earth verbracht und war sehr fasziniert von dieser neuen Perspektive. Die Welt sah von oben irgendwie ganz anders aus, als ich sie mir immer vorgestellt hatte.

Sogar die Sicht auf meine unmittelbare Nachbarschaft hat sich durch das Programm verändert und wenn man dann mal ein bisschen hin- und her gescrollt hat, fand man Ästhetik an Stellen, an denen man sie nicht erwartet hätte.

Ein Autobahnkreuz offenbarte erst von oben die Schönheit dieser eigentlich funktional durchgeplanten Symmetrie. Die klaren Linien von landwirtschaftlichen Feldern stechen aus der umliegenden Natur heraus wie ein bunter Hund.

Der Ort, an dem das Meer auf die Küste trifft, stellt den wunderbaren Kontrast der Elemente eindrucksvoll dar. Irgendwie scheinen alle Größenverhältnisse aus dieser Perspektive verzerrt zu sein und alles Menschengemachte ordnet sich der natürlichen Umgebung unter.

Heute, fast 20 Jahre später, gehören Satellitenbilder zu unserem Alltag. Wir sehen sie nicht nur in Navigations-Apps sondern auch in unzähligen anderen Anwendungen und Webseiten. Durch die in den letzten Jahren immer zugänglicher gewordene Drohnenfotografie hat sich unser Konsum von Luftaufnahmen noch einmal verändert und die Vogelperspektive noch näher an uns herangebracht.

Auch für eben diese Drohnenpiloten spielen Satellitenaufnahmen eine große Rolle, weil sie eine fantastische Möglichkeit bieten, um Orte zu finden, die aus dieser Perspektive fotogen sind.

Vermutlich inspiriert von beidem – Drohnenaufnahmen und Satellitenbildern – startete Gopal Shah, seines Zeichens Produktmanager bei Google, vor einigen Jahren das Freizeitprojekt Earthview, indem er gezielt Luftaufnahmen kuratierte, sie einer Bildbearbeitung unterzog und in einer Sammlung zusammenfasste.

Er selbst bezeichnet sich als Fotograf, der seine Arbeit nicht in der echten, sondern der virtuellen Welt mit der Hilfe von Google Earth vollbringt. Aus dem Ein-Mann-Projekt wurde bald ein größeres Team, es gab eine Erweiterung für den Chrome Browser, um durch die Galerie zu scrollen und die entstandenen Fotos wurden unter anderem als Hintergrundbilder für Android-Telefone verwendet.

Mittlerweile umfasst die Sammlung mehrere tausend Fotos aus allen Kontinenten der Erde und die Webseite wurde um einige Funktionen erweitert: So könnt Ihr zum Beispiel zu allen Bildern die genauen Geodaten einsehen, Euch auf einem Globus gezielt Orte aussuchen oder die Fotos nach Farben filtern.

Das Team um Earthview sagt selbst: „Es ist Kunst, aber wir sind nicht die Künstler. – Die Natur ist der Künstler.“ Laut ihnen zeichnet sich ein gutes Bild des Projekts Earthview dadurch aus, dass nicht unmittelbar klar ist, was man gerade sieht. Man soll sich näher mit dem Bildinhalt beschäftigen müssen, um zu begreifen, ob es sich um ein Gewässer, einen Berg oder etwas ganz anderes handelt.

Das trifft tatsächlich auf einen großen Teil der Aufnahmen zu. Manchmal scheinen sie noch nicht einmal von der Erde zu stammen, was zum Teil auch an der gelungenen Bildbearbeitung liegt.

Es sind aber nicht nur diese abstrakten Aufnahmen, die einen in ihren Bann ziehen. Ein Bild vom Hafen von Palma De Mallorca konnte mich zum Beispiel genauso fesseln. Die vielen kleinen Straßen und die Muster, die sich durch die Dächer der Gebäude ergeben, wirken fast wie ein sehr feines und durchdachtes Gemälde. Ich musste sogar mehrfach in der Earthview-Slideshow zurückspringen und mir das Bild noch einmal anschauen, weil es mich nicht losgelassen hat.

Die Abwechslung in den Aufnahmen ist überwältigend und man springt vom Abstellgleis eines Bahnhofs zu einer einsamen Insel im Meer zu einer Bergkette, zu einer Wüste zu einem See, zu einer Autobahn und so weiter. Und jedes dieser Motive hat auf seine ganz eigene Art und Weise seinen Charme und die Berechtigung, Teil dieser Galerie zu sein.

Als ich die Slideshow startete, ging ich davon aus, dass mich die immer gleiche Perspektive schnell langweilen und nichts auf Dauer Faszinierendes mehr mitbringen würde, aber die ganz große Mehrheit der Bilder entlockte mir tatsächlich ein „Wow!“ sowie ehrfürchtiges Kopfschütteln.

Google Earthview gehört für mich zu einem dieser Projekte, die etwas anders machen als alle anderen, dabei aber ganz unaufgeregt und einfach zu konsumieren sind, gerade dadurch aber glänzen.

Was haltet Ihr von Google Earthview? Seid Ihr durch die vielen Drohnenfotos der letzten Jahre schon übersättigt oder kann Euch diese noch weiter erhöhte Perspektive genauso faszinieren wie mich?

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You enjoy photographing in the field, whether its landscapes or events.  When it comes to viewing your captured images, polishing them up and showing to people, you need a laptop to make this possible, especially when you are far from home or office.  But you are not a techie and Cores make your head spin!

How do you decide on a laptop for photography?  You have come to the right place…

While a laptop is not the main piece of equipment for a photographer, due to the conversion to digital photography from film, it has become more and more important in photography.  This is a good thing, desktop PCs are large and not portable.

What will the laptop be used for?

When we say “laptop for photography” we can mean several things, such as viewing photographs and displaying them, editing photographs in software such as Photoshop or Lightroom, and using the laptop as a monitor in a photo shoot. Luckily all these require similar specs.

What should you look for in a laptop for photography?

A laptop for photography is not the same as a laptop for gaming, video editing or a laptop for 3d animation.  It has its own requirements.  Below are the important ones:

• A fast processor
• A good size display
• A fast hard disk
• A decent video card (GPU)
• Adequate RAM
• Good color reproduction

Processor

Software such as Photoshop can take advantage of multiple cores, focus on this.  Another words, Intel Core i5 will not be as good as Intel Core i7.  Also, the first number after the number of cores in a processor name is the generation of the CPU, for example an Intel Core i7-6700 is a sixth generation CPU. It is best to look for an 8th generation processor or newer.  Clock speed will not make much of a difference.

Since were on the topic of numbers, there are some designations usually at the end of a model name, such as U or H. The former is a designation for ultra low power ultra portable notebook.   The latter is a designation for high performance graphics and is the optimal.

Processing power is especially important if you shoot in the RAW format.  These photos are 50mb in size or more and that is a lot of data to throw around.

Display

Laptop screens are all liquid crystal displays (LCD).  LED light sources (light emitting diodes) can be placed at intervals around the screen which allows displays to be thin and light.  CCFL (cold cathode fluorescent lamp) displays project light from a bulb in the back of the screen.

When you are looking at a laptops display, you have several things to take note of.  One is the color reproduction capability.  Another is the brightness of the display. Yet another is the resolution (number of pixels they are able to display).

Don’t focus solely on size.   Keep in mind that the largest screens need higher resolutions to look the same (sharpness-wise) as smaller screens.  Larger screens also use more battery power.  But do not go too small, 13-15″ is ok.  Laptops are usually 12-17 inches in diagonal size.

OLED  (organic light emitting diode) displays are very vivid, provide ultrawide viewing angles, great color saturation and deep blacks.

AMOLED (active matrix organic light emitting diode) displays add a layer of semiconducting film behind the OLED panel to more quickly activate pixels increasing speed, which is helpful in larger displays with lots of pixels.

Screen resolution means how many actual pixels are in your screen and is given by two values, the width and height.  If you have a 4k screen (3840 x 2160) that equals over 8 million pixels!

There is another techie item with screen technology, but don’t worry too  much about it.  Its the type of screen panel.  These include IPS (in-plane switching), VA (vertical alignment) and TN (twisting nematic).  IPS is the best and most expensive.

Since we are into techie territory, you want the display to show as much of the sRGB color gamut as possible, often shown in percentages.  It is the range of colors a monitor can display.

Ports

Video out ports on a laptop allow you to connect a second display to a laptop which can be useful depending on your application. For example, if you are showing photos to a client or using the laptop during a photo shoot, having two screens facing in different directions can make things easier for everyone involved.

Hard Disk

SSD (solid state) drives are better than old fashioned (rotating disk) drives for several reasons.  They speed up the workflow, especially when importing files and working directly from the disk.  They are also longer lasting.  Think about it- no moving parts unlike a traditional hard disk.

Eventually, those disks would crash and unless you backed all your photos up they would be gone. There is a reason why they are less expensive.  Hard drives are also more important for performance than a video card in this case.

SSD drives can also decrease your startup (bootup) time.  It should be used for your operating system as well as Lightroom or Photoshop.  If you want you can get a second SSD drive for the photos themselves or for backups.

SSD drives are still costly to make and have limited capacities, but they are worth the money.  Choose a 256GB or larger SSD.

RAM

Your laptop will need to move large chunks of data when you photo edit.  Adequate RAM (Random Access Memory) as well as a fast hard drive will help here.  RAM is the memory that gets erased when you turn off your computer, unlike your SSD.  RAM should be at least 8 GB.

It also depends what you will be editing.  For 50 foot photos to go on the side of a building or graphics at 600 dpi consisting of 50 layers you will need more.  You want to be able to run background processes and Photoshop at the same time.  Other software such as web browsers (especially Internet Explorer) can also be memory intensive, more so when you have many tabs open.

Video card/Graphics card/GPU

For photo editing, you do not need the power of a graphics card you would need for CAD, 3d animation or VR gaming lets say.  Photoshop and Lightroom benefit little from an expensive GPU.  While a GPU may slow things down a bit, it is nothing like in a memory intensive game where you would literally hate your gameplay experience.  GPUs currently come with 2 to 8 GB of RAM.

One note of caution, GPUs come either integrated/built in or separate/discrete.  You can tell if its separate when it has its own brand such as Nvidia, and that is what you should look for.

Size

This is totally up to you, your uses, how you will be carrying your laptop, and where you will be using it.  If you need it to fit into a small bag to work from when having coffee somewhere, don’t go for a 6 pound 17 inch brick.

What can you expect in this list of the best 9 laptops for photography?

I am going to list down the laptop names, a brief introductions, and relevant technical specifications.

Let’s start.

1. Apple MacBook Pro 15” with Touchbar

You can’t expect any better laptop for your photos than MacBook Pro 15”. I use it and also millions of photographers in this world.

The retina display on the Macbook Pro makes all the difference, as its able to show more accurate and true to life colors thanks to being able to display a wide gamut.

With up to a 2TB SSD drive you will have all the storage space for your images you will need.

The Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports provide ultrafast transfer speeds.  Your laptop can even drive two 5k displays if you choose to carry it home where your monitors are.

For a smaller size, take a look at the Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch Retina.

If you are really looking for top performance (or you do more intensive work than photos), try the new 16″ MacBook Pro, with even more RAM and storage space.

Display	2880 x 1800 native resolution
Processor	quad-core Intel Core i7
RAM	16GB
Graphics	AMD Radeon Pro GDDR5

To get more specs, reviews and latest prices for this laptop click the link to Amazon or B&H.

2. Dell XPS 15

Looking for a large and  powerful laptop, this is the one. The top variant has 4K infinity display which means that the screen extends right to the edge of the laptop.  The XPS15 has never had an OLED display until now.  It is made of Gorilla Glass so you know it will be tough.

This laptop is slim in design, and made of aluminum and carbon fiber.  It weighs only 4.5 pounds.  It has an SD card reader, USB ports, Thunderbolt 3 port and HDMI.

The Dell XPS15 has great graphics performance thanks to the Nvidia Geforce GTX 1650 GPU with 4GB of VRAM.

Display	Up to 15.6-inch Ultra HD (3840 x 2160) InfinityEdge touchscreen
Processor	Intel Core i9-9980HK
RAM	Up to 32GB
Graphics	NVIDIA® GeForce GTX 1650 with 4GB

To get more specs, reviews and latest prices for this laptop click the link to Amazon .

3. HP Spectre x360 15 Laptop

HP’s Spectre is a nice premium laptop with an extraordinary display.

The Spectre weighs in at 4.5 pounds and has an elegant aluminum body.  It has a more than adequate Core i7 8th generation CPU, two Tunderbolt 3 ports, a micro SD card reader, and an HDMI port.

It comes with a programmable HP Active Pen with 2048 pressure sensitivity levels.

Display	15.6″ 4K OLED
Processor	Core i7-8565U CPU
RAM	16GB
Graphics	MX150

To get more specs, reviews and latest prices for this laptop click the link to Amazon or B&H.

4. Lenovo ThinkPad P1

The Lenovo ThinkPad P1 rivals the Macbook Pro.  Lenovo ThinkPads are popular business laptops but this one is more than that.  It’s a real powerhouse, with graphics and processor performance that can go head-to-head against any desktop computer. This is a workstation class laptop.

While the display is not the brightest it is very vibrant.

It is only 4 pounds in weight.  It has two Thunderbolt 3, two USB and an HDMI port for connectivity.  Its made of multiple layers of reinforced carbon fiber and can withstand mechanical shock among other things.

The Thinkpad P1 is not cheap, but may be well worth it.  If you are also looking to use it for gaming, opt for the Quadro 2000 GPU.

Display	15.6” 3840 x 2160
Processor	Intel Core i5, Core i7 or Core i9
RAM	16GB-64GB
Graphics	Nvidia Quadro P1000 / P2000

To get more specs, reviews and latest prices for this laptop click the link to Amazon or B&H.

5. Huawei Matebook X Pro

The combination of a brilliant screen, good  components, and somewhat affordable price make this one of the ultimate laptops for budget conscious photographers.

The screen is smaller but so is the weight, coming in at less than 3 pounds.  It is slim, the same thickness as a MacBook Pro and made of aluminum.

The Matebook comes with or without a discrete GPU and the prices reflect the difference.  It has adequate RAM for photo editing.  The 512GB SSD hard disk has plenty of space.

Display	13.9-inch 3K (3,000 x 2,080)
Processor	8th generation Intel Core i5 – i7
RAM	8GB – 16GB
Graphics	Nvidia GeForce MX150 2GB

To get more specs, reviews and latest prices for this laptop click the link to Amazon .

6. Microsoft Surface Book 2

These come in 13″ and 15″.  The detachable screen is useful if you ever want to walk around and show your photos without carrying the entire thing.  It basically becomes a VERY large tablet which is helpful in showing any type of visuals when you are standing etc.

You can choose between a 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB  solid-state drive for fast access to images.  Also included is a full-size SDXC card reader.

It comes with upgraded components, and a beautiful screen. It has a superior 3,000 x 2,000 resolution (3240 x 2160 for the 15″) and an ideal aspect ratio for viewing APS-C and full-frame images.

You can choose from either integrated graphics or the dedicated Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 (2GB GDDR5 VRAM) for the 13″ model or the impressive NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 discrete GPU w/6GB GDDR5 for the 15″ model.  Some users have reported that in Adobe applications to be able to fully use the power of the dedicated GPUs you need to use the Nvidia dashboard to assign the app to the better GPU.

Considering its size you will be surprised to know that people have successfully used these to work with huge photography files including medium format ones over 100 mb each.

Display	3,000 x 2,000 (267 ppi) PixelSense display, 3:2 aspect ratio (for 13″)
Processor	Intel Core i5-7300U – Intel Core i7-8650U 1.9GHz
RAM	8GB – 16GB
Graphics	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 (2GB GDDR5 VRAM) (for 13″)

To get more specs, reviews and latest prices for this laptop click the link to Amazon or B&H.

7. Dell XPS 13

The XPS 13 has a touch sensitive screen, and it has a  similar resolution and pixel density to the MacBook and Surface Book.  It weighs only 2.68 lbs.  It is thin and light.

It has no issues with editing RAW format images.  The machine  has the first ever quad core processor in a Dell laptop this size.

The display is very bright, and has almost no bezel around the screen thanks to “Infinity Edge”, allowing the size of the entire machine to be pretty much the size of the screen.  As we mentioned earlier, the specs to look out for here include an IPS display with wide viewing angles as well as high coverage  of the sRGB color space.

The XPS 13 includes a micro SD card slot, USB Type C  port also for charging and two USB C/Thunderbolt 3 ports.  The hdmi port can be hooked up to a 4k display to show your photos or films in a much larger version.

Display	13.3-inch – 4k (3840 x 2160)
Processor	8th generation Intel Core i5 – i7
RAM	8GB – 16GB
Graphics	Intel UHD Graphics 620

To get more specs, reviews and latest prices for this laptop click the link to Amazon or B&H.

8. Acer Swift 3

With a quad-core Intel processor and 8GB of memory as standard, even the mid-range model comes in at less than half the price of Apple’s MacBook Pros but can deliver roughly the same processing power.  If you are not too concerned with the brand, consider this as an option.  Not the best specs in the group but if you are budget conscious its worth a look.  Swift 3’s performance is excellent relative to its competition.

It has an IPS display, up to 1 Terabyte of storage, plenty of ports, 3.53 pounds of weight and a 0.71-inch frame.  There is a full size SD card slot. Keep in mind that you will not have a 4k capability for this price but you can get a dedicated GPU.

The Acer has an all-aluminium chassis and a range of colors.

Display	14-inch display with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels
Processor	4 -core Intel Core i5 or Core i7
RAM	8GB – 16GB
Graphics	NVIDIA GeForce MX150

To get more specs, reviews and latest prices for this laptop click the link to Amazon or B&H.

9 . ASUS VivoBook Pro

The ASUS VivoBook Pro is a looker, thanks in part to its reflective aluminum body.  It is also a powerhouse.  This premium 15.6-inch laptop comes with a Full HD or ultra HD 4K (3840×2160) touchscreen display that’s  sharp and offers excellent viewing angles.

You can get up to a 1 terabyte hard disk giving you plenty of storage. You get a microSD card reader built right in, along with USB Type-A and Type-C ports, and an HDMI port.

The display bezel is only 5.5mm thick so you get maximum screen size.  Reviewers have said that the speed of this laptop is outstanding.

Display	15.6” Full HD or Ultra HD (4K) Touchscreen Display
Processor	Intel Core i7-7700HQ or i7-8750H Processor
RAM	8GB – 16GB
Graphics	NVIDIA GeForce MX250

To get more specs, reviews and latest prices for this laptop click the link to Amazon or BH .

I hope this review of the best current laptops for photography and photographers has been a useful resource for you and made it easier to make a decision.  Let me know if you have any comments.

To learn more about the basics of landscape photography click the link.

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Sony is now joining the ranks of the other companies in our niche that have address the COVID-19 pandemic.

And they’ve done so in a press release.

Here’s the press release in part: “Sony extends its condolences to the families of those who have passed away as a result of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) (“COVID-19”), and extends its sympathies to all those who have been infected. The Sony Group is primarily focused on ensuring the safety of its employees and their families, as well as its customers and other stakeholders, in addition to preventing the further spread of the virus. Sony is also striving to answer the needs of society and its customers to the best of its ability, and to minimize the impact of the virus on its business. To accomplish these objectives, Sony is working to gather information and swiftly carry out the necessary actions.”

Regarding the imaging division in particular, Sony said the following: “At this time, there has been no material impact on the production of CMOS image sensors, including any impact on the procurement of materials. However, Sony's primary customers in this segment are smartphone makers who rely on supply chains in China, and although recovery in these supply chains has led to sales gradually returning to normal levels, there is a risk that going forward sales could be impacted by a slowdown in the smartphone market.”

As you will recall, activist investor Daniel Loeb finally convinced Sony to spin off this division into its new company. You can read up on that story by clicking here.

What do you think of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the photography industry? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below if you like.

Also, please don’t forget to check out some of our other photography news articles here on Light Stalking by clicking this link.

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Today We'll Look At Context In Photography And How Crucial It Is To Your Skills

You've ALL heard this one: “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

But, when it is put out of context it can be a thousand wrong words. Context is important in photography – it is connected to the position and purpose of the photo – you need to be able to convey these things without having to explain yourself to the viewer too.

A Context Example

Ok, if you were to use a picture of a human skull on a website which is about medicine and human anatomy, and the same picture used on some sketchy website promoting violence, the very same picture can have completely different meanings and pose a different message.

More On Context In Your Photographs

The subject, surroundings and background all play an equally important role here – and don't forget, the light plays a role too. You must understand that the background isn’t there just to fill in the blank, but it is a part of the visual story as well.

The background in combination with the light can say a lot with the image.

Context In Photography – Portraits

For example, you can have a regular portrait of a girl smiling, and if you have the background filled with vivid colors e.g. a green tint, you would presume this girl is photographed in nature and feels the joy of the surroundings.

Do the same portrait on a pitch black background, and you get a completely different feeling when you see the image, now you are filled with the mystery of the expression and the question “Why is this girl so happy?” might pop into the mind of the viewer.

While this doesn’t always apply to portraits, it is equally important on each photo you take.

Context In Photography – Landscapes

Now, let's take landscapes. I’ll take an example which I personally consider somewhat of a cliché nowadays: a boat in a pier with smooth water. I definitely can’t say that there is something wrong with a scene like that.

It evokes the emotions it needs to and gives a sense of mystery and peace. However, take the same shot, but this time remove the water, for example, an abandoned boat tied to a pier on a dried lake.

Even if you took the picture with exactly the same light conditions and everything, the absence of water will make everything look different. I know, it's a major part of the image, but if I go to extremes I can get to the point much clearly?

Context In Photography – Light & Color

Add color grading and quality of light to the equation. Light can give and take away attention, so having the attention drawn with light on the wrong part of the image will achieve the same effect as any of the points I made earlier.

Same goes with wrong or improper color grading. Imagine a snow scene, and your white balance shifts towards the oranges and a little bit of sun (or some stray light) causes a slight flare on the lens.

That picture won’t make any sense then, you have orange tint with sun flare and snow down on the ground. It contradicts the usual scenario in which the brain is used to perceiving snow, of course, that's with a blue tint.

Out Of Picture Context

This might not be always in your control, and that is understandable since photos get sold and can also end up somewhere where you didn’t intend or allow them to.

But, whenever you can, control the context around the picture, do it as well as possible. Whether it is an article, e-book, photo exhibition, contest, whatever you can think of, control the context to achieve the best possible visual message the photo can carry.

It doesn’t have to mean that the context depends only on the text or the surrounding pictures. The wall color (for exhibitions), the framing (for exhibitions and other uses), lighting (for exhibitions, or background color).

You see, photography isn’t just about taking the picture and making sure it is the best it can be by having a sharply-focussed subject. The way you present it, in what context and the timing are equally important.

Think about this scenario: you are at an interview for Vogue (congratulations on getting that), you present your portfolio which has 5 portraits, 3 landscapes, a shot of a coffee cup, and a panorama.

Now, although this is a varied portfolio to show off different skills, it would essentially be a bit of a mess (meaning you probably won’t get the job), especially if it isn’t on one medium.

On the other hand, if your portfolio contains (only) portraits which look good one next to another, and they fit the context of the magazine, along with one well-organized medium to present the portfolio, and everything is in the same style (your style), then you have the perfect combination: the right content with the right context at the right time.

Summary

To summarize, keep an open eye for context and make sure everything is nice and neat.

The context in your photographs and the context in which they appear can make or break them. Luckily, with these tips, you'll be able to avoid any potential mistakes which could cost you, valuable clients!

Context In Photography – Top Takeaways

• Always try to remember that your background plays an important role in the context or the “story” you're trying to tell – yes, you can use a shallow depth of field to blur it out of focus, but the color tones may just provide the final piece to the image to make it “great”!
• Consider where the light is most prominent. You really don't want to distract your viewer from your main subject, so ensure you're taking control of the light within the photo.
• Ensure that those “unwanted” light sources/effects are actually unwanted e.g. Sun Flare, sometimes a client may insist this really creates the right energy for the picture.

Further Resources:

1. Use Photography As A Storytelling Exercise
2. 15 Easy Tricks For Getting Better Photographs
3. These 3 Simple Facts Show You How to Take Control of Your Camera

Further Learning

So, we've covered some crucial aspects of using context in your photography and how to always be aware of it – particularly if submitting your work for a job or to a potential client.

However, If you’re stuck for some ideas or inspiration for your portfolio, take a peek at this Guide The Creativity Catalogue.

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Sourced by Time Trap Photography sharing the best photography tips, news and tricks throughout the industry. Time Trap Photography is dedicated to freezing those special moments in life that can be revisited and admired for generations to come. - Shannon Bourque
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