a creative edge in photography by robert watcher
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PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBIT
from April 1'st to May 31'st, 2009
TravelVirgins 2009
Costa Rica Adventures of Rob and Anne Watcher
On Display at Starbucks, located in the
North London CHAPTERS Bookstore
Richmond Centre,
86 Fanshawe Road,
London, Ontario
Hours: 6:00AM to 11:00PM
  
A few of the images on display
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A LITTLE BACKGROUND
Over the past 2 years, my wife Anne and I have travelled to the Central American country of Costa Rica. We developed an online project called Travel Virgins, where Anne would be updating her daily Journal with her stories and experiences - and I would be making available online my photography.
Our online website received praise from many who checked in regularly to see what we were up to, what we had discovered, and how we were coping as travellers determined to travel on buses and walk with the locals and deal with our inability to speak their language and communicate through words.
It turns out that we fared well and being Travel Virgins has been the thrill and experience of our lives. Anne now has 2 years of Journals which she will be putting to book. As well, I have around 4000 images of Costa Rica life that are available for stock and publication purposes. A highlight right now though, is that I am able to exhibit a selection of my "Street Photography". Viewers can enjoy these elegantly mounted prints first hand.
Please do visit our Travel Virgins website at:
www.asifweknow.com
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Photo Tips
Get Down
We all love taking pictures of our children or the children of friends and relatives. It is just so easy to put our camera to our eye, and fire off the shutter from where we are standing.
However with children, the results will always be better if we move down to their level instead of shooting down on them as we normally would. This probably will require sitting down on the floor or even laying down on it if photographing a small toddler. It is worth the effort and forethought though as the child will probably be more comfortable and the resulting images should be more appealing.
While you're at it - have some fun with the kids. You can find all kinds of interesting areas of your home to capture images with real personality. Let the children hop up on the bed by themsleves or with a spouse - and fire away capturing them naturally enjoying themselves. We all have pictures that we love of ourselves - and it is almost certain that they are ones where we aren't trying to impress the camera or the person behind the camera.
No more AUTO
More and more photo enthusiasts are purchasing DSLR style digital cameras with their interchangable lenses. These are fantastic tools for taking pictures and even the cheapest ones produce results that few people could have achieved previously with their compact point and shoot digital cameras or possibly even with their film cameras without a top notch lab to process the film and prints.
It however is quite common to see people with these verstaile cameras, maintain the default setting of AUTO - as it will look after all of their concerns in determining exposure, when the flash should pop up, and what not. Because AUTO takes over all of these features is precisely why it may be best to "turn the dial" and choose a different setting. The most used setting by professional photographers, are Program and Aperture Priority auto exposure modes.
Program mode is an excellent way to have the camera determine all that's necessary for proper exposure - basically turning your camera into a point and shoot. Aperture Priority (A) is just as effective, but allows you to make the choice of which aperture setting you wish to use for creative reasons - and then let the cameras brains select the matching shutter speed.
One of the things that you can count on with either of these modes, is that the flash will not automatically pop up whether you want it to or not. That is a "good thing" as many potentially good shots are ruined in AUTO mode, from the camera determining that a flash that only projects light about 10 feet away at most, must be raised when the light gets a little dim and blasts out a bright light that blows out detail with objects or people close to you and underexposes anything much farther away - creating dark to black backgrounds.
The difference between all of these modes on your camera dial, are subtleties - but moving off of the default AUTO setting, is a big step forward to improving your photography in anything other than ideal lighting conditons that AUTO handles just fine.
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A Case for Custom Mats
With prints that require framing that includes a mat, I have always found wide mat borders to be more appealing than narrow ones. Widths of 5 to 6 inches or more, add to the image and if sensible colours are used - draw the eyes to the print. Even very small prints can benefit from extremely wide borders.
Make sure the bottom border of the mat is around 1/3 wider than the top border. There is an optical illusion that takes place when all sides of the mat are the same measurements - the bottom of the mat will always look narrower.
Rag or Archival Mat materials are superior to standard mats, primarily because they will not discolour the print that they are laying against, to the same degree. Also, they maintain a nice white bevel - whereas the Standard mat materials turn yellow on the bevel cut.
While custom matting is expensive, and it may appear that premade standard sized mats are a better buy - the above concerns can only be addressed with a custom mat.
How's Your View
Something that a lot of people struggle with when hanging frames on a wall, is the placement - particularly how high they should be. A good rule of thumb, is to mount frames so that they can be looked at comfortably at about eye level. Rooms and wall heights of course will dictate what looks best in the scheme of a room - however keep in mind that pictures are for viewing and that can best be done when the main content of the frame (the artwork) is directly in front or only slightly higher.
Just so you don't think that it is just my opinion to keep frames lower than most people put them - - - take a trip some day to a major Art Museum, and you will immediately recognize that the wall hangings have been thoughtfully placed at a comfortable level for viewing.
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A Creative Edge in Photography by Robert Watcher
Website : www.robertwatcher.com
Email : info@robertwatcher.com
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